As far as I can tell, nobody has brought up Saving Throw advantages/disadvantages.
I heard somewhere that vaginas are magic so maybe they provide a bonus to saves against magic.

Just channel the late great Norm Macdonald,

"You have 18 Strength. For a woman."

The problem isn't 'Jane has a female PC with 18 Strength', per se.

The problem is that certain people want the bell curves to match, when they don't. There will never be as many women with 18 Str as there will be men.

Again, realism should not have primacy over 'having fun'. That's always been my take on it.

But if you're intensely curious about how 'realistic' things can get, a while back there was a full bore attempt to push a number of female candidates through Ranger training. It... didn't go great, to put it mildly. There's a solid series of posts on the issues involved by the late SFC Kevin O'Brien (Weaponsman) at weaponsman.looserounds.com/?cat=34.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on September 27, 2021, 09:32:14 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on September 27, 2021, 01:47:10 PM
As I've noted before, realism is not the be-all and end-all of a game.

They are completely indifferent to realism, except when it comes to this one thing.

It always amuses me when a bunch of nerds who have never lifted anything heavier than a box of unpainted minis babble on about men being stronger than women.

"None of the rest matters, but this - oof! - one thing is very important!"

It wouldn't be, if everyone would accept that different games can have different goals. Not every game is about everyone kicking ass all the time. Some games might actually include (ghasp) men being men and women being women.

The amount of denial around this topic is just mind boggling. It's as if people can't tell the difference between a silly slogan and reality, but then they kinda know it anyway (sss wink wink). Example: Women are STRONG and everyone has to agree but god forbid that women experience violence towards them. Well, are they or aren't they strong? The answer is, of course, not particularly. I'm on Gad Saad's side when it comes to truth be feelings, if there's a clash then f**k your feelings.

If you don't want this in your games or books or whatever, then fine, that's not the issue. The issue is that this is one thing you cannot openly state in your games or books. Or rather, we all have to pretend that we hate it while at the same time books about Victorian ladies and handsome soldiers continue to sell like pure gold. Looks to me like we actually LIKE women being women and men being men (sssh don't tell anyone).

Quote from: Trond on September 28, 2021, 11:47:54 AM

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on September 27, 2021, 09:32:14 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on September 27, 2021, 01:47:10 PM
As I've noted before, realism is not the be-all and end-all of a game.

They are completely indifferent to realism, except when it comes to this one thing.

It always amuses me when a bunch of nerds who have never lifted anything heavier than a box of unpainted minis babble on about men being stronger than women.

"None of the rest matters, but this - oof! - one thing is very important!"

It wouldn't be, if everyone would accept that different games can have different goals. Not every game is about everyone kicking ass all the time. Some games might actually include (ghasp) men being men and women being women.

The amount of denial around this topic is just mind boggling. It's as if people can't tell the difference between a silly slogan and reality, but then they kinda know it anyway (sss wink wink). Example: Women are STRONG and everyone has to agree but god forbid that women experience violence towards them. Well, are they or aren't they strong? The answer is, of course, not particularly. I'm on Gad Saad's side when it comes to truth be feelings, if there's a clash then f**k your feelings.

If you don't want this in your games or books or whatever, then fine, that's not the issue. The issue is that this is one thing you cannot openly state in your games or books. Or rather, we all have to pretend that we hate it while at the same time books about Victorian ladies and handsome soldiers continue to sell like pure gold. Looks to me like we actually LIKE women being women and men being men (sssh don't tell anyone).

The zeitgeist went from 'men and women should be treated equally, in the eyes of the law' to 'men and women are equal at everything and if you don't agree you're an evil shitlord misogynist'.

Quote from: FingerRod on September 28, 2021, 10:06:53 AM
Just channel the late great Norm Macdonald,

"You have 18 Strength. For a woman."

That brings up an interesting idea.  Just let everybody have stats 3-18. Then the Judge/GM/DM/Whatever adjusts the bonus behind the screen based on height/weight/sex/species.     18 strength for a 4'10" woman would be different than 18 strength for a 6'4" man.

Quote from: Banjo Destructo on September 28, 2021, 12:24:29 PMThat brings up an interesting idea.  Just let everybody have stats 3-18. Then the Judge/GM/DM/Whatever adjusts the bonus behind the screen based on height/weight/sex/species.     18 strength for a 4'10" woman would be different than 18 strength for a 6'4" man.

The original Villains and Vigilantes worked this way. Your Strength score was based on how fit you were and your size was a factor in translating that strength to things like damage and lifting capacity. Runequest was similar with a dedicated Size stat that affected damage. The main advantage of a system like this is that it can be extended down to include other small people like elves, hobbits, goblins, and pixies as well as extending up to include ogres and bugbears. Plus a small size isn't always bad (like a low value of every other ability score) in that smaller people would have advantages for stealth as well as squeezing through small openings.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on September 27, 2021, 09:32:14 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on September 27, 2021, 01:47:10 PM
As I've noted before, realism is not the be-all and end-all of a game.

They are completely indifferent to realism, except when it comes to this one thing.

It always amuses me when a bunch of nerds who have never lifted anything heavier than a box of unpainted minis babble on about men being stronger than women.

"None of the rest matters, but this - oof! - one thing is very important!"

That sounds like something that someone who thinks a Katana can not cut through a Tank would say.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on September 28, 2021, 11:11:09 AM
The problem isn't 'Jane has a female PC with 18 Strength', per se.

The problem is that certain people want the bell curves to match, when they don't. There will never be as many women with 18 Str as there will be men.

In the general population, no.

But we don't care about the distribution of the general population, we care about the distribution in the population of adventurers. THAT might be a bit closer, at least in terms of classes that require Strength in order to be effective. Its worth pointing out that not even all men qualify for adventurer classes, that's why there are zero-level warriors.

A lot depends on how rare fighters are in your world... if they're rare exceptions (the ones who become heroes and superheroes) then the ratio of males to females with 18 Strength among their number might be much closer than if you're simply counting every warrior in the realm as a fighter (where one would expect ratios of 99:1 or similar).

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 28, 2021, 05:08:02 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on September 28, 2021, 11:11:09 AM
The problem isn't 'Jane has a female PC with 18 Strength', per se.

The problem is that certain people want the bell curves to match, when they don't. There will never be as many women with 18 Str as there will be men.

In the general population, no.

But we don't care about the distribution of the general population, we care about the distribution in the population of adventurers. THAT might be a bit closer, at least in terms of classes that require Strength in order to be effective. Its worth pointing out that not even all men qualify for adventurer classes, that's why there are zero-level warriors.

A lot depends on how rare fighters are in your world... if they're rare exceptions (the ones who become heroes and superheroes) then the ratio of males to females with 18 Strength among their number might be much closer than if you're simply counting every warrior in the realm as a fighter (where one would expect ratios of 99:1 or similar).

Yeah, but unless you're running some kind of large scale adventuring game -- something akin to a MUD or MMORPG -- it usually doesn't matter. This is very similar to the issues we had with 'good drow' becoming so damned common after Salvatore's books. It's not that big a deal if you have a few PCs (or even NPCs) at the far end of the bell curve.

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 28, 2021, 05:08:02 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on September 28, 2021, 11:11:09 AM
The problem isn't 'Jane has a female PC with 18 Strength', per se.

The problem is that certain people want the bell curves to match, when they don't. There will never be as many women with 18 Str as there will be men.

In the general population, no.

But we don't care about the distribution of the general population, we care about the distribution in the population of adventurers. THAT might be a bit closer, at least in terms of classes that require Strength in order to be effective. Its worth pointing out that not even all men qualify for adventurer classes, that's why there are zero-level warriors.

A lot depends on how rare fighters are in your world... if they're rare exceptions (the ones who become heroes and superheroes) then the ratio of males to females with 18 Strength among their number might be much closer than if you're simply counting every warrior in the realm as a fighter (where one would expect ratios of 99:1 or similar).

Well, reality works the opposite of that. Disparities are greater at the tale end of the bell curve than near the middle. But it's fine to have it as an in-game/in-world conceit. Maybe some women are magic, like the Slayers in Buffy.

Quote from: S'mon on September 28, 2021, 05:29:44 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 28, 2021, 05:08:02 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on September 28, 2021, 11:11:09 AM
The problem isn't 'Jane has a female PC with 18 Strength', per se.

The problem is that certain people want the bell curves to match, when they don't. There will never be as many women with 18 Str as there will be men.

In the general population, no.

But we don't care about the distribution of the general population, we care about the distribution in the population of adventurers. THAT might be a bit closer, at least in terms of classes that require Strength in order to be effective. Its worth pointing out that not even all men qualify for adventurer classes, that's why there are zero-level warriors.

A lot depends on how rare fighters are in your world... if they're rare exceptions (the ones who become heroes and superheroes) then the ratio of males to females with 18 Strength among their number might be much closer than if you're simply counting every warrior in the realm as a fighter (where one would expect ratios of 99:1 or similar).

Well, reality works the opposite of that. Disparities are greater at the tale end of the bell curve than near the middle. But it's fine to have it as an in-game/in-world conceit. Maybe some women are magic, like the Slayers in Buffy.

Not my point... my point is all about the disparity in the numbers choosing adventuring over other occupations.

As a practical example, In my setting there are 10,000 humans for every dragon, but only only 1 in 10,000 humans has what it takes to gain a PC class while EVERY dragon has a PC class... so, among those with PC classes, dragons are as common as humans.

Similarly, the occupation of fighter could attract a much greater percentage of women with 18 Strength than men with 18 Strength. There are many traditionally male occupations where great strength is an asset that may pluck up men with 18 Strength and bar women entirely for cultural reasons. By contrast, no one asks for your resume if you wanna use that great strength of yours to go beat up goblins in the ruins outside of town.

Basically, you're dealing with a self-selected category so overall demographics have differing representations... i.e. if you tried to use basketball players as an example of the overall population you'd conclude the entire population was at least 6'+ tall and many are 7'+ tall. The needs of the profession completely skew the demographics of its membership relative to the general population.

People get too hung up on numerical attributes. Some people even call them stats, which is silly. Stats is short for statistics. You can't have statistics unless you have a significant population, such as at least 100 or so individuals.

Out of 100 real life women, you might find 1-2 with 16+ STR. Then, out of 100 men, you might get 5-8 who have 16+ STR. Chance of rolling 16+ on 3d6? Ten in 216. You will have to encounter 400+ characters before a bias towards overly strong females characters registers statistically. In a party of five schmucks, there's no such thing as statistics. In a campaign that sees a couple dozen PCs and NPCs come and go, again nothing will register as statistically significant. If the chick fighter happens to have 18 STR, then I guess we got that one chick fighter with 18 STR. Lucky us.

Enforcing some kind of statistical limits on attributes only makes sense when you have a population -- not a party and not even 10 parties. There has to be a better way, one that makes more sense for regular games were we are not normally simulating 100+ PCs and NPCs.

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 28, 2021, 05:08:02 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on September 28, 2021, 11:11:09 AM
The problem isn't 'Jane has a female PC with 18 Strength', per se.

The problem is that certain people want the bell curves to match, when they don't. There will never be as many women with 18 Str as there will be men.

In the general population, no.

But we don't care about the distribution of the general population, we care about the distribution in the population of adventurers.

Actually, no, at least when you say "we."  I've always considered the 3-18 spread to represent the entire population.  Strength is the only ability score with a solid realistic metric, and it seems to be a not-too-awful representation of the real human population.  Yes, there's problems, whatever, it's been discussed to death, but the approximate range and distribution is not awful.  If I was to consider the reasonable range of strength for an adventurer, I'd think the minimum would be significantly above the actual human average: it's kind of dumb to step into a dungeon without being strong enough to defend yourself.

And I really like the idea that you don't have to be special to become a (N/)PC.  My preferred approach is that the difference between a classed character and an unclassed one is just that the classed one had the bravery and gumption to step up and do something heroic.  With this approach it makes a lot of sense to use a realistic distribution rather than assume that classed characters have special stats.

Part of it is that's the way I do things, part of it is my age.

The people who wanted women in combat were usually aging Baby Boomer women (feminists) who seem to have forgotten their behavior during the Vietnam War. Suddenly all of that peacenik talk went down the sewers; it was obvious they wanted to prove some stupid theories (urged by the people behind it all) but not at their own expense.

If someone doesn't like the different characteristics between males and females in my probably-never-will-happen game too bad- but if it ever does get off the ground everyone here knows the firestorm of protest I will get.