Greetings!
I have long considered the merits of creating specific attribute caps and modifiers for female characters in the game, especially Human women.
Human Female Attribute Table
Strength: Capped at 14.
Dexterity: +2
Constitution: Capped at 16
Intelligence: --
Wisdom: +1
Charisma: +2
Attribute Caps refer to the female character's ability being capped. No penalties are actually applied to specific attribute dice rolls--they are just resized to the cap if they roll higher, for example. If the female character rolls lower for the particular attribute, the score remains, as there is no actively applied penalty.
Strength: I've read that contrary to current popular culture and brainwashing--even the best, most uber female athletes are only generally as strong as an average fit man. Some studies suggest about a 60% achievement in strength. Even in the highest brackets of competition and achievement--the best and strongest women absolutely pale in comparison to the elite men. There really is no comparison. At best, a strong woman can aspire to be as strong as or moderately stronger than an average, fit adult man.
Constitution: Aside from women's ability to endure childbirth, and resist long-term, lethal illnesses, it seems that they are distinctly and consistently weaker than men throughout life in a plethora of ways, dealing with Constitution. Women have huge rates of chronic injuries compared ro men. Throughout life, women also become plagued by debilitating non-lethal illnesses and diseases at a significantly higher rate than men. Women routinely experience muscle, joint, and bone problems, again, at a significantly higher rate than men.
Dexterity: I think on average, even typical women can often display superior characteristics of coordination and flexibility than men. Higher professional levels, well, women can move their bodies in truly impossible ways compared to men. I've seen Chinese gymnasts bend their bodies in half, and put their ass on top of their head. Jaw-dropping feats of dexterity. ;D
Wisdom: I think while there are many common examples of plentiful stupidity and poor judgment--on balance, women's historical collectivistic tendencies, attraction to herd mentality, deference to authority and being obedient, aversion to risk-taking, lower rates of criminal behavior, combined with hyper-concerns for security, safety, provisions, and resource management, provides women with a general advantage in wisdom compared to men. Then, there is also the hstorical testimony and widespread beliefs in women having different spiritual abilities and enhanced mystical awareness compared to men, across widely different cultures. For thousands of years, everyone seems to agree that women have some kind of special mystical consciousness.
Charisma: Research shows as well as numerous examples of everyday observation, even ordinary women possess significant social advantages compared to men. They talk and express themselves easier, pick up on social cues and non-verbal communication with far greater skill and accuracy than average men. Really beautiful and smooth women can be stellar, and absolutely amazing and mind-bogglingly dangerous as well. Perhaps the funny thing is, so many women can engage in higher socialization while making it look supremely easy, and effortless to do. They engage in such communication and socialization like breathing air.
What do you all think, friends? I have heretofore mostly just gone by the book, and handwaved it all as fantasy. Keeping things simple and straightforward has its attractions, after all. I think though that having some discussion and consideration of such topics has some merit.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
I don't think limiting attributes by sex is useful or needed. These are fantasy games. IF a player wants to choose particular attributes OR when rolling randomly, decides they are a certain sex, then all power to them.
These sort of "stereotypes and scientific stats" are good for someone studying anthropology (biological anthropology is a thing!). But in a fantasy game? Why try to enforce it? There are too many exceptions in reality to determine that "the common person" has different stats based on sex.
I believe that prevailing attitudes clearly demonstrate people are over sex-based and race-based attribute standards. It gives fuel to people spewing bigoted anti-trans and anti-gender ideology. It enforces stereotypes. It's a fantasy game. We don't need to be stereotypical. Let that be in the purview of player choice as an element of the character vs. something "baked in" to the rules.
This is super controversial......
I love it :D
Being a bit more serious, I think it makes sense in "realistic" settings, and even more so if you're playing e.g. Medieval or Renaissance periods, where women were supposed to do completely different things from men.
I agree that STR is a no-brainer, it's not even close on average. I can see the CHA argument, particularly in Western Society, though in some cultures women are not taken seriously in certain contexts. The CON thing is tricky though; women are generally more resistant to some diseases and live longer than men (though part of this has to do with men's risk-taking). On the other hand, a man would be able to take more physical damage than a woman (men's bones are literally thicker for instance). So if CON is only used for purposes of violence and such it makes sense for men to be higher in that regard, but not in every other sense.
Quote from: Trond on August 03, 2021, 06:38:34 PM
This is super controversial......
I love it :D
Greetings!
I thought you would love it, Trond! ;D
Good stuff! It is definitely fun to consider. Especially all of the "inconvenient truths" that emerge from research that contradicts the established ideology and dogma.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: SHARK on August 03, 2021, 05:13:59 PM
Constitution: Aside from women's ability to endure childbirth, and resist long-term, lethal illnesses, it seems that they are distinctly and consistently weaker than men throughout life in a plethora of ways, dealing with Constitution. Women have huge rates of chronic injuries compared ro men. Throughout life, women also become plagued by debilitating non-lethal illnesses and diseases at a significantly higher rate than men. Women routinely experience muscle, joint, and bone problems, again, at a significantly higher rate than men.
Except for all these ways that woman have better Constitution then men, I am going to give them lower constitution?
???
As I said in the other thread, don't cap and don't add on the upper end. Instead, boost the low stats differently for males and females, after the stats are otherwise set. Of course, you have to keep the stats somewhat reasonable for that to work. It really helps when not many people period are getting into the 16-18 range.
Using your categories, a male character with a lousy Str or Con boost whichever is lowest. (I'd expand that list a little to Dex or Cha for a character that already had Str and Con in the positives but Dex or Cha in the negatives, but you could also see this as a way of giving the male a lot better shot at a 16+ in both of them.) Meanwhile, a female character with lousy Wis, Dex, or Cha gets a boost to whichever is lowest.
No caps, but how about Modifiers instead?
Strength -3
Dexterity +1
Constitution +1
Intelligence -1
Wisdom +1
Charisma +2
Yeah, that feels about right.
(Yeah, that's what she said....)
Quote from: Jam The MF on August 03, 2021, 07:05:16 PM
No caps, but how about Modifiers instead?
Strength -3
Dexterity +1
Constitution +1
Intelligence -1
Wisdom +1
Charisma +2
Yeah, that feels about right.
(Yeah, that's what she said....)
Greetings!
Hey Jam The MF! ;D Yeah, I like the attribute arrangement you have here too! It seems quite reasonable to me.
Interestingly, when I have discussed these things with *normal* women--not SJW Feminists--the normal women all tend to solidly agree with such assessments.
Having such attribute modifiers definitely appeals to my sense of verisimilitude.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
My acid test for gender modifiers to stats is that there is a character generation option that is completely random, such that any player could end up with anything, include either gender. If the gender modifiers survive that, then the players can tolerate them. They rarely do. For some bizarre reason, people are a lot more indulgent of Elves with a Str penalty than the human female with one, even if it leads to similar class choices.
BTW, in games where I use picked stats, point buy, etc., or even Fantasy Hero or GURPS, and I want some degree of realism--then my only rule is that your stats have to be reflected in your personality, appearance, and play. I kid you not, I had one campaign where three different ladies lowered their Str score because they didn't want to look "that muscle bound". I had to talk one of them out of lowering a very modest score for that reason by finding a picture of an athletic but not body building female to give them an idea of what that Str looked like. :D
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on August 03, 2021, 07:34:38 PM
My acid test for gender modifiers to stats is that there is a character generation option that is completely random, such that any player could end up with anything, include either gender. If the gender modifiers survive that, then the players can tolerate them. They rarely do. For some bizarre reason, people are a lot more indulgent of Elves with a Str penalty than the human female with one, even if it leads to similar class choices.
BTW, in games where I use picked stats, point buy, etc., or even Fantasy Hero or GURPS, and I want some degree of realism--then my only rule is that your stats have to be reflected in your personality, appearance, and play. I kid you not, I had one campaign where three different ladies lowered their Str score because they didn't want to look "that muscle bound". I had to talk one of them out of lowering a very modest score for that reason by finding a picture of an athletic but not body building female to give them an idea of what that Str looked like. :D
Greetings!
Very interesting, Steven! Yeah, for many women, having sex appeal and an overall satisfying feminine appearance is absolutely priority NUMBER 1! *laughing* Everything else be damned! "What? My girl has bulging muscles? Ewww! Lets reduce her strength, please!" I can totally see that as a reaction! ;D
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: SHARK on August 03, 2021, 07:42:20 PM
Greetings!
Very interesting, Steven! Yeah, for many women, having sex appeal and an overall satisfying feminine appearance is absolutely priority NUMBER 1! *laughing* Everything else be damned! "What? My girl has bulging muscles? Ewww! Lets reduce her strength, please!" I can totally see that as a reaction! ;D
Another way to get a similar dynamic is to add a Size attribute, similar to Runequest. Then tie some of the traditional Str things to Size. Alternately, just let them specify their size and adjudicate appropriately as the GM, since big and small have pros and cons by situation. In that style of play, your Str has an implied "for your size" modifier.
In my system that I'm play testing, I've got a cat race that is about halfling size. One of the players got a random 18 Str on one. So the strongest character in the part is a female, 50 pound cat. She's very strong for such a cat. But when she had to pull the 7 foot muscle bound barbarian wolfman out of a trap, I gave her a big penalty on the roll and only let her attempt it at all because there was a stone ledge that she could use to brace herself. No one had any problem with that, and it created a cool moment where the whole party had to determine how to help from there, at some risks to themselves. On the other hand, if she falls and needs to grab the edge of a pit to pull herself up, I'm giving her a bonus.
Stupid idea. If you want to talk about realism, cool, bring me your PHB, DMG and MM, I'll tear out all the spells, magic items and monsters other than men and animals.
Just roll 3d6 in order and you get what you get.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on August 03, 2021, 07:52:28 PM
Quote from: SHARK on August 03, 2021, 07:42:20 PM
Greetings!
Very interesting, Steven! Yeah, for many women, having sex appeal and an overall satisfying feminine appearance is absolutely priority NUMBER 1! *laughing* Everything else be damned! "What? My girl has bulging muscles? Ewww! Lets reduce her strength, please!" I can totally see that as a reaction! ;D
Another way to get a similar dynamic is to add a Size attribute, similar to Runequest. Then tie some of the traditional Str things to Size. Alternately, just let them specify their size and adjudicate appropriately as the GM, since big and small have pros and cons by situation. In that style of play, your Str has an implied "for your size" modifier.
In my system that I'm play testing, I've got a cat race that is about halfling size. One of the players got a random 18 Str on one. So the strongest character in the part is a female, 50 pound cat. She's very strong for such a cat. But when she had to pull the 7 foot muscle bound barbarian wolfman out of a trap, I gave her a big penalty on the roll and only let her attempt it at all because there was a stone ledge that she could use to brace herself. No one had any problem with that, and it created a cool moment where the whole party had to determine how to help from there, at some risks to themselves. On the other hand, if she falls and needs to grab the edge of a pit to pull herself up, I'm giving her a bonus.
Greetings!
Having a SIZE stat. That's interesting, Steven Mitchell. I like that. It seems to allow for an easy process of modifiers for other considerations.
Did the wolf man survive? I have wolf-humanoids in my campaign as well!
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: SHARK on August 03, 2021, 07:42:20 PM
Greetings!
Very interesting, Steven! Yeah, for many women, having sex appeal and an overall satisfying feminine appearance is absolutely priority NUMBER 1! *laughing* Everything else be damned! "What? My girl has bulging muscles? Ewww! Lets reduce her strength, please!" I can totally see that as a reaction! ;D
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Can confirm. I had a girl player whose character had a massive strength, and I asked "oh, cool, so maybe she looks like one of those Russian weightlifter women?", and she went "noooo!" as if it was the end of the world :D
Since my games usually have a number of species, usually anthro but others with humanish characters, one must base each set of stats on the particular race or species. There are too many to list here.
Typically females are smaller, have less strength, lower constitution, but generally, all else the same, somewhat higher charisma- since they are usually non-combatants if fighting has not yet started they have a better chance of talking another group out of combat. Intelligence is lower in some respects, somewhat higher in others. Combat morale is lower, unless young are threatened. The chaotic evil shadow elves, the Ayundellian equivalent of the drow, are a notable exception. Likewise the grey hags of The Gloomlands.
Ayundellian fauns are much more likely to communicate with a group of adventurers if an attractive female (esp. elf or vulpinish) approaches peacefully.
Female Ayundellian dragons have somewhat weaker and shorter-ranged breath weapons as these are not supernatural.
For obvious reasons females tend to be more aware of their surroundings. All else the same they get a small adjustment against being surprised.
Auramancy is the closest thing Ayundell has to magic. Female auramancers tend to specialize in healing and diagnosis.
Due to smaller size a female can, all else the same, have a better chance of, say, edging along the ledge of an old ruin without it breaking. Hiding and slipping through smaller openings is another advantage.
Some females, like azuralupins and leofolk, are just naturally effective in a fight. Female greater orcs, half-orcs, and muscler-goons are naturally strong, as are the draconfolk. They are not sent into battle, though; at best they may be in defensive positions, e.g. female azuralupins may be in an infirmary both to help tend the wounded and defend against any enemies that may get through (because they are azuralupins).
I'm not especially politically correct.
I generate ordinary (0th level) NPCs per the 1E DMG guidance. 3d6, counting 1's as 3's and 6's as 4's, then modifying the attributes according to profession (or class)--laborers getting +1 to +3 on STR, mercenaries getting +1 to STR and +3 to CON with a minimum of 4 hp, and merchants/traders having a minimum INT and CHR of 12.
If 90% of males are laborers and only 10% of females are laborers, then indeed you're going to find males on average will have higher STR. So that takes care of that. And if someone wants to just say, "It's fantasy" and do away with the disparities, when the occupation disparity vanishes, so does the strength disparity.
Quote from: SHARK on August 03, 2021, 09:20:14 PM
Did the wolf man survive? I have wolf-humanoids in my campaign as well!
He did. At one point, one of his rescuers was barely suspended over an 80 foot drop with nothing but hard rocks below, held up only by 3 ropes anchored by the cat and two other characters on ledges. Then the party got lucky.
I've always liked the idea of mechanically representing differences between men & women, but I've never seen a very compelling way to do this in the D&D attribute set. I think realistically what you should be looking at isn't flat modifiers but a different numerical distribution of stats. But in general I think Str/Dex/Con/Wis/Int/Cha is just too crude to really represent male/female differences. For example, I think it's really hard to argue that women are more charismatic than men in the abstract, given that men overwhelmingly are leaders, entertainers, generals where actual charisma matters.
That being said, if a man (or woman) sits down at my table and they want to play a character and aren't happy with male/female character creation rules? My players having fun is a lot more important to me than 100% fidelity to some arbitrary ruleset.
The few times I did DM at a "normal" game was long ago, with 1977 rules. Female characters were weaker, but that was the only difference. To even things up a bit I gave female characters a bonus on Charisma- remember this was decades ago so things were different. Today with human characters in a regular AD&D game I wouldn't bother.
In a fantasy game where wizards are casting fireballs left and right, I could care less about verisimilitude. This brings nothing but trouble. No need to pigeonhole female players or characters.
Obviously sexual dimorphism is very real IRL. Generally speaking it doesn't work well in D&D style fantasy. For one thing the stats system very much assumes a male default, and the kind of adventuring PCs do would IRL be a nearly entirely male activity. Female NPCs are a different matter of course, eg I tend to have the average mundane female NPC STR 7 where a male is STR 11.
I think in a game like Pendragon or Game of Thrones though different PC stats works well, where the male knights go questing & warring while the women generally stay home. If the women are PCs too then they need 'home' stuff to do. Game of Thrones style courtly politics and other social interaction is an obvious place for the females to shine.
Quote from: Shasarak on August 03, 2021, 06:57:02 PM
Except for all these ways that woman have better Constitution then men, I am going to give them lower constitution?
I remember doing army training, women got injured a lot more easily - because they had less muscle mass. Hit Points should really key off STR, if you want to be realistic.
Quote from: S'mon on August 04, 2021, 02:58:54 AM
I think in a game like Pendragon or Game of Thrones though different PC stats works well, where the male knights go questing & warring while the women generally stay home. If the women are PCs too then they need 'home' stuff to do. Game of Thrones style courtly politics and other social interaction is an obvious place for the females to shine.
That would generally work better if you ran the men at war and the women at home as separate games, or in Pendragon had each player alternate running their knight and then their wife. There just isn't enough overlap between those roles to have a mixed game. Could even use completely different stats. It would be a good way to incorporate manor-level play.
Quote from: Pat on August 04, 2021, 04:06:24 AM
Quote from: S'mon on August 04, 2021, 02:58:54 AM
I think in a game like Pendragon or Game of Thrones though different PC stats works well, where the male knights go questing & warring while the women generally stay home. If the women are PCs too then they need 'home' stuff to do. Game of Thrones style courtly politics and other social interaction is an obvious place for the females to shine.
That would generally work better if you ran the men at war and the women at home as separate games, or in Pendragon had each player alternate running their knight and then their wife. There just isn't enough overlap between those roles to have a mixed game. Could even use completely different stats. It would be a good way to incorporate manor-level play.
Yes, for Pendragon you'd want a male PC & a female PC for each player. GoT is mostly politics and would work ok with mixed group.
Quote from: S'mon on August 04, 2021, 03:03:15 AM
Quote from: Shasarak on August 03, 2021, 06:57:02 PM
Except for all these ways that woman have better Constitution then men, I am going to give them lower constitution?
I remember doing army training, women got injured a lot more easily - because they had less muscle mass. Hit Points should really key off STR, if you want to be realistic.
Which is another example of why if doing this for world simulation, a Size stat makes more sense than tying it to Str. If I'm a player in the game, if we are going to be that fine-grained about human male/female differences, I want to know where are the relative differences represented in, for example, halfling mass, a war horses mass, a dragon, and so forth?
Of course, D&D isn't the best system for that either. One of the things that makes it work so well for RQ is that Size is essentially a neutral stat. High Size makes you tougher and hit harder. Low Size makes you more nimble (all else being equal). It is what it is, and your character makes the most of it.
It also matters whether you track encumbrance or not. When I'm paying attention to size (if only as GM adjudication as it comes up), then I absolutely warn the players it will be a factor when hauling unconscious party members around, whether a tactical retreat or overland back to civilization. If you have a lot of magic options (items or spells) to handle encumbrance to make it a null issue, then there is no point in focusing on relative size that much either. If you don't, then a big character is more likely to be left for dead because the party has no choice.
Quote from: S'mon on August 04, 2021, 03:03:15 AM
Quote from: Shasarak on August 03, 2021, 06:57:02 PM
Except for all these ways that woman have better Constitution then men, I am going to give them lower constitution?
I remember doing army training, women got injured a lot more easily - because they had less muscle mass. Hit Points should really key off STR, if you want to be realistic.
What part of hit points demands realism?
Personally, I find myself leaning more towards no attributes, instead basing everything on what you are good (or bad) at.
I recently had a brain storm for a western style RPG that is basically a dice pull, but uses cards. No attributes. Instead it's a series of broad skills, such as Shootn', Fightn', Gambln' and so on. (About 10 in total) So, a female character is a great fighter? OK, great. She doesn't have to get there by being strong. Maybe her combination of small size, reflexes and intelligence allows her to be more effective than the man she's fighting.
In this case, get rid of the attributes, and allow the narrative to work. This avoids any of this unnecessary debate of can a woman be as strong as a man? In the narrative of the game, it really doesn't matter.
Quote from: HappyDaze on August 04, 2021, 08:53:07 AM
I remember doing army training, women got injured a lot more easily - because they had less muscle mass. Hit Points should really key off STR, if you want to be realistic.
What part of hit points demands realism?
[/quote]
The CON bonus?
Quote from: Zelen on August 03, 2021, 10:46:05 PM
I've always liked the idea of mechanically representing differences between men & women, but I've never seen a very compelling way to do this in the D&D attribute set. I think realistically what you should be looking at isn't flat modifiers but a different numerical distribution of stats.
One possibility is to use the normal 3d6 range but have the effects of ability scores vary by race or sex. So a man, a woman, and a hobbit each with an 18 Strength will all be able to lift different amounts and have different damage bonuses.
Quote from: S'mon on August 04, 2021, 10:36:12 AM
Quote from: HappyDaze on August 04, 2021, 08:53:07 AM
What part of hit points demands realism?
The CON bonus?
If hp primarily represents the heroic je ne sais quoi that separates a swashbuckling hero able to accomplish astounding feats of derring do from the mundane man-at-arms troubled by earthly woes, why not use Cha instead?
Quote from: hedgehobbit on August 04, 2021, 11:15:45 AM
Quote from: Zelen on August 03, 2021, 10:46:05 PM
I've always liked the idea of mechanically representing differences between men & women, but I've never seen a very compelling way to do this in the D&D attribute set. I think realistically what you should be looking at isn't flat modifiers but a different numerical distribution of stats.
One possibility is to use the normal 3d6 range but have the effects of ability scores vary by race or sex. So a man, a woman, and a hobbit each with an 18 Strength will all be able to lift different amounts and have different damage bonuses.
This seems like it defeats the purpose of using numbers at all if you have to interpret the numbers through a subjective lens first.
Quote from: Zelen on August 04, 2021, 12:55:10 PM
Quote from: hedgehobbit on August 04, 2021, 11:15:45 AM
Quote from: Zelen on August 03, 2021, 10:46:05 PM
I've always liked the idea of mechanically representing differences between men & women, but I've never seen a very compelling way to do this in the D&D attribute set. I think realistically what you should be looking at isn't flat modifiers but a different numerical distribution of stats.
One possibility is to use the normal 3d6 range but have the effects of ability scores vary by race or sex. So a man, a woman, and a hobbit each with an 18 Strength will all be able to lift different amounts and have different damage bonuses.
This seems like it defeats the purpose of using numbers at all if you have to interpret the numbers through a subjective lens first.
I'm pretty sure this is the inverse of the way the attribute tables were used in 1ed AD&D, where your scores forced a limit on your character choices -- so, STR below 9? You can't be a fighter. STR above 16? you can't play a Halfling (or a human female) Int below 5? you can only be a Fighter. STR8, Int 4? Roll a new character.
QuoteWhat do you all think, friends? I have heretofore mostly just gone by the book, and handwaved it all as fantasy. Keeping things simple and straightforward has its attractions, after all. I think though that having some discussion and consideration of such topics has some merit.
I think D&D have not nearly enough of basic attributes to count it.
I mean I could agree with Strenght clearly, not sure about Constitution - women lives longer, seems to endure long-term afflictions and pregnancies, and more injury seems to came with bit stronger weakening of joints and bones with age - often due pregnancies who weakens skeletal system generally, and because women are less fit generally, society put lesser pressure here - as long as you're not obese and clean you're fine. So this links to lower Fitness. But as we talk about adventurers I'm not sure it would apply.
Dexterity - this is another kitchen sink thing - while young girls (and children generally - those Chinese gymnasts are frequently underaged) are way more Agile - that does not necessarily links to higher Precision, Hand-Eye Coordination, Manual Dexterity overall. If you had separate Agility I'd give women +1.
Inteligence - simmilar average but very different distribution, unless you wanna change dice profoundly I think leaving it as it, is fine.
Wisdom - I would go with equal. There are different pros and cons. If you divide it into Perception/Intuition/Spirituality I'd give stronger Intuition I think. And generally speaking Wisdom will probably be least NATURAL and most culturaly/nurture inflicted attribute.
Charisma - well women are more charming and can be persuasive - though it often depends on how society regulates gender relations. But in terms of leadership charisma, being funny comics, and so on, they are generally weaker. If you'd apply Charisma and Charm as separate attributes I'd give them -2 Charisma /+2 Charm. But then even in Charm while femme fatale is more famous archetype in reality it seems male fatale is way more common - suave tricksters, gigolos, psychopaths using women with premeditation and malice.
So it's all very very complex.
QuoteI have long considered the merits of creating specific attribute caps and modifiers for female characters in the game, especially Human women.
The merit is - you want game that realisticaly mirrors society of real men. Or game with gender dymorphism but no real - so +2 to 3 random attributes for each gender and -2 for other 3 - you get strong shift - I for instance rolled for women Dex, Con and Cha - so you've go now males with av: Str 12, Dex 8, Con 8, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 8, and women with Str 8, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 8, Wis 8, Cha 12... now deal with it ;)
QuoteBut in a fantasy game? Why try to enforce it?
Because we enjoy dark realism flavour in our games and limitations put on PC due to it.,
QuoteIf you want to talk about realism, cool, bring me your PHB, DMG and MM, I'll tear out all the spells, magic items and monsters other than men and animals.
Just roll 3d6 in order and you get what you get.
Adding fantasy elements does not mean changin human biology unless stated otherwise.
QuoteI think it's really hard to argue that women are more charismatic than men in the abstract, given that men overwhelmingly are leaders, entertainers, generals where actual charisma matters.
Charisma in D&D is kitchen sink stuff for all social graces so it's not as simple. Indeed if we use real world term then it's very male indeed.
While I obviously find the subject interesting from an intellectual design perspective, I admit that the main reason I don't include such rules anymore is that I don't find them to be a good use of time or space in the game rules relative to what they bring to the game. They are a little like having involved rules for shopping.
Note that you can get such rules down to a small word count, but they can still cause handling time issues. For example, I sometimes do pregen characters with all the mechanics but no name or gender, leaving that for the player to supply as part of the personality that will emerge in play. If the gender causes a changes to mechanics, then you need to pick it fairly early in the process.
First observation; the ladies in my gaming circle who want to be physically strong badasses these days reference Gina Carano as how beefy they want to look.
Second observation; the 18/50 Strength limit in 1e for human females is pretty close to what champion female weightlifters can achieve. So a flat -X to Strength in the OSR will actually produce inaccurate results since even a -1 that would drop their top end to just a fraction of what real women have achieved.
Because, and this is actually really important, the attributes in D&D aren't a linear value, but exponential. 18/00 was twice as strong as 18/75, which was twice that of a straight 18, which was twice a 16.
That 18/50 Strength is about a third of the maximum male human strength in 1e. A -2 Strength mod means the best possible strength for the strongest woman in the world is 1/16 that of a man.
Similarly, in 3e, a 20 Strength was not twice as strong as a 10 Strength; it was FOUR times stronger (the formula in 3e was that carry capacity doubled for every +5 Strength... so 25 Strength is 8x stronger than a 10).
Heck, in 3e an 18 Strength isn't even what a real world champion male weightlifter could pull off (it's lift and hold 600 lb. above your head); the current male record holder would have around a Strength score of 23 (about 1100 lb.; which a PC who started with an 18 and put every stat bump into Strength could reach around level 16) and the world record female weightlifter would have about a 19 Strength (about 750 lb.) using 3e's metrics.
So, a -X Strength isn't really going to cut it.
There's also an issue of distributions. For example, in terms of mathematical ability, women tend to cluster a bit above average while men have far more absolute geniuses and utter dunces. Basically, if Math ability were a stat and the man's roll was 3d6, then a woman's should be 1d6+8 on average, slightly better than men, but the men who are best at math blow them out of the water.
Basically, the default stats are generally too broad, the numbers not granular enough on extremes (Str 15 is 200 lb., 18 is 300 lb., 20 is 400 lb.) and PCs in general tend to be exceptional rather than Joe or Jane Average that it's probably better to just "wing it" in terms of adjustments for sex (i.e. I mostly use systems with point buy or arrays and if I'm building a female NPC or pregen I probably won't put the maximum score into Strength and I'd be far more likely to make a female adventurer a spellcaster of some kind vs. a warrior).
One thing to consider with systems with rolled stats, but the ability to trade points from one stat to another (ex. Drop a stat by 2 to add 1 to another), is have a better ratio for trading those scores based on sex. So females could get a straight 1:1 trade for points cut from Strength if they're adding them to say, Wisdom or Charisma, while males could get a 1:1 trade if they're pulling from a mental stat and adding it to Strength (perhaps with a limit of, say, 3 points). Other scores (and those beyond the 3 points) would still be the usual 2:1 trade.
If you Really wanted to push it, it could even be a positive ratio (say the first two points yield 2 for one... so female PCs could get a +4 split between Wis and Cha for a -2 to Strength or a male could get +4 Strength for just -1 to Int and Wis.
Basically, a carrot rather than a stick.
QuoteSecond observation; the 18/50 Strength limit in 1e for human females is pretty close to what champion female weightlifters can achieve. So a flat -X to Strength in the OSR will actually produce inaccurate results since even a -1 that would drop their top end to just a fraction of what real women have achieved.
Because, and this is actually really important, the attributes in D&D aren't a linear value, but exponential. 18/00 was twice as strong as 18/75, which was twice that of a straight 18, which was twice a 16.
That 18/50 Strength is about a third of the maximum male human strength in 1e. A -2 Strength mod means the best possible strength for the strongest woman in the world is 1/16 that of a man.
Similarly, in 3e, a 20 Strength was not twice as strong as a 10 Strength; it was FOUR times stronger (the formula in 3e was that carry capacity doubled for every +5 Strength... so 25 Strength is 8x stronger than a 10).
Heck, in 3e an 18 Strength isn't even what a real world champion male weightlifter could pull off (it's lift and hold 600 lb. above your head); the current male record holder would have around a Strength score of 23 (about 1100 lb.; which a PC who started with an 18 and put every stat bump into Strength could reach around level 16) and the world record female weightlifter would have about a 19 Strength (about 750 lb.) using 3e's metrics.
So, a -X Strength isn't really going to cut it.
If you take carrying weights then yes (though I'd say using actual lifting records as equivalent of lbs in D&D is flawed - D&D encumberance is way lower, it's what you can carry on more regular way - not your total max. And Strenght it's not just lifting also other elements. Like punching where men are wayyyyy stronger.
Quote from: Wrath of God on August 04, 2021, 04:09:06 PM
If you take carrying weights then yes (though I'd say using actual lifting records as equivalent of lbs in D&D is flawed - D&D encumberance is way lower, it's what you can carry on more regular way - not your total max. And Strength it's not just lifting also other elements. Like punching where men are wayyyyy stronger.
Not to mention that "stronger" in that punch is a function of mass, leverage, and ... speed. Speed due to muscle development. Muscle development that peaks about age 25 for males and then declines, inevitably and then rapidly. So again full circle to way outside of what is being even attempted to be rolled up into one of six abilities as a single number.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on August 04, 2021, 02:02:03 PM
While I obviously find the subject interesting from an intellectual design perspective, I admit that the main reason I don't include such rules anymore is that I don't find them to be a good use of time or space in the game rules relative to what they bring to the game. They are a little like having involved rules for shopping.
Note that you can get such rules down to a small word count, but they can still cause handling time issues. For example, I sometimes do pregen characters with all the mechanics but no name or gender, leaving that for the player to supply as part of the personality that will emerge in play. If the gender causes a changes to mechanics, then you need to pick it fairly early in the process.
Greetings!
*Laughing* Yep, Steven! ;D That's the same kind of internal argument I have with myself! Intellectually, I think there is some strong merit to such considerations--but then I think about time, character generation, all of that--for embracing such rules adjustment does or assuredly would add an additional layer of complication to the game. Then I think, "Well, is that extra dimension of verisimilitude worth the extra effort?" Admittedly, oftentimes it is just easier and more convenient to just go by the rules laid out in the book. Less time, less explanations involved, less hassles with whatever.
I still like to chew on it though as a possible rules adjustment. ;D
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
I'm generally against attribute modifications based on gender. Not because it's unrealistic, it certainly could be, but since RPGs are games, I see playability and fun as a more desirable goal than enforcing realism. If someone wants to play a female character that is stereotypically female, then they are free (well, at least in systems where there is some ability to deliberately determine attributes) put lower values into Strength and higher values into what ever attributes they think are more appropriately feminine.
If, on the other hand, somebody wants to play an unrealistically strong woman, why rain on that person's parade? Why not let them play a female with an 18 Strength regardless of realism? Player characters are rare heroic individuals, maybe one of her ancestors was a great champion of legend and she can be stronger than what her appearance would suggest.
I don't have any ideological feminism based objections to such modifications though, just pragmatic objections based on fun.
These particular set of gender based attribute modifications are particularly problematic. I'm assuming that male attributes are unmodified.
Quote from: SHARK on August 03, 2021, 05:13:59 PM
Human Female Attribute Table
Strength: Capped at 14.
Dexterity: +2
Constitution: Capped at 16
Intelligence: --
Wisdom: +1
Charisma: +2
Strength and Constitution are capped, meaning that if those attributes are already below 15 or 17 respectively, that there is no penalty. This makes female characters a min-maxer's dream for just about any character that doesn't rely on high strength. If we're player in 3.X D&D then you can play a female bard or sorceress with +2 Dex and Cha and no attribute penalty since you're unlikely to have unusually high Str or Con. Females would be better for almost any class except maybe fighters or barbarians. If you're okay with a 14 Str, then the +2 to Dex and Cha might be worth it since there would be no attribute penalties.
Also, in the pursuit of realism, caps aren't that realistic. A 14 Strength cap means that men and women have the same strength except that there are some unusually strong men that don't exist among women. That isn't realistic at all. Take two average inactive couch potatoes, a male and a female, and the male will almost certainly be much stronger than the female. Take an old man and an old lady, the man will likely be far stronger. Strength falls along a bell curve and the male curve is shifted to the right of the female one. A far more realistic way to represent this would be to give men a Strength bonus, give women a Strength penalty, or both. This would not only be more realistic but a Strength modifier would be far more balanced if you are giving females bonuses to other attributes.
Don't combine modifier benefits with cap drawbacks, use either one or the other for the sake of game balance if nothing else.
Big bonuses to female Dex and Cha are also pretty questionable from a realism perspective. Men are better at many activities which involve dexterity, speed, and agility including fencing, tennis, running, and certain forms of acrobatic or gymnastics. Of course, because of physiology, females are better at certain kinds of gymnastics and worse at others, but I don't see any solid basis for a female Dex bonus. Charisma is also questionable. One could argue that girls are hotter, they also are more talkative on average, but alternatively more men are great leaders, con men, politicians, and so on. I would probably say that male and female Dex and Cha are more or less the same or that the differences can't adequately represent the subtle differences between male and female ways of interacting socially to be able to say that one has a higher Charisma than the other.
Maybe an argument can be made for females having a higher Wisdom value, but that may only because Wisdom is a rather nebulous concept as are the abilities that females excel at which might be grouped in under Wisdom.
Really, the only attribute that we can confidently say are different between the genders is Strength. The others are questionable. Maybe just give men +2 Strength and have no other attribute modifiers. It's unbalanced in the favor of men, but it's actually more balanced than the above attribute modifiers and also more realistic. Or, maybe give men a penalty to resist seduction or women a bonus to resist seduction. That's kind of questionable too but maybe better than an across the board Charisma modifier.
I honestly just don't see the worth of making such distinctions for player characters, especially when you factor in the complexities of realism, balance, and game play fun.
Quote from: ShieldWife on August 06, 2021, 05:48:50 AM
Big bonuses to female Dex and Cha are also pretty questionable from a realism perspective. Men are better at many activities which involve dexterity, speed, and agility including fencing, tennis, running, and certain forms of acrobatic or gymnastics. Of course, because of physiology, females are better at certain kinds of gymnastics and worse at others, but I don't see any solid basis for a female Dex bonus.
There is some evidence that women may skew higher on the curve for "manual dexterity" than men in real life. I haven't the foggiest idea how reliable that evidence is, but that's the thought behind a female Dex bonus. For all I know, it might be another one of those things where women skew to a higher average with men having many more outliers.
Of course, in D&D that completely ignores that Dexterity isn't just "manual dexterity", but also agility, hand eye coordination, etc. It also ignores how the things tied to "speed" in D&D are all fudged across Dex and Str when you start mapping them. (Most of the speed in fencing is Str in D&D, not Dex, though WotC D&D confuses this even more. "Speed" in fencing is primarily a case of muscle twitch allowing the strike to happen faster once it is initiated, not the reflexes to kick it off. )
Not that any of that changes your larger point. Just the pedantic explanation of where the idea arises. :D
I find it weird that people take this stance based on realism when it is widely known that females in magic-rich environments develop strength disproportionate to their build and--purely by coincidence--fall into the same range of strength as males. This is irrefutable.
I think that in the real world there is a measurable difference between the average physical attributes of males and females. That said, I see no benefit in trying to model this in the game, so I don't. I think those kind of limits are an annoyance to many players, and not worthwhile in a fantasy game. And I like to place more emphasis on class + level and less emphasis on stats, anyway.
Quote from: HappyDaze on August 06, 2021, 08:40:17 AM
I find it weird that people take this stance based on realism when it is widely known that females in magic-rich environments develop strength disproportionate to their build and--purely by coincidence--fall into the same range of strength as males. This is irrefutable.
That's just not true. Women in magic-rich settings gain strength in
inverse proportion to their size. That's why tiny little girls can wield boat anchors, and giant hulking women can only handle spears or broadswords.
Quote from: Pat on August 06, 2021, 09:19:51 AM
Quote from: HappyDaze on August 06, 2021, 08:40:17 AM
I find it weird that people take this stance based on realism when it is widely known that females in magic-rich environments develop strength disproportionate to their build and--purely by coincidence--fall into the same range of strength as males. This is irrefutable.
That's just not true. Women in magic-rich settings gain strength in inverse proportion to their size. That's why tiny little girls can wield boat anchors, and giant hulking women can only handle spears or broadswords.
That depends almost entirely on the quirkium content of their diet, particularly during their formative years.
Quote from: HappyDaze on August 06, 2021, 09:22:16 AM
Quote from: Pat on August 06, 2021, 09:19:51 AM
Quote from: HappyDaze on August 06, 2021, 08:40:17 AM
I find it weird that people take this stance based on realism when it is widely known that females in magic-rich environments develop strength disproportionate to their build and--purely by coincidence--fall into the same range of strength as males. This is irrefutable.
That's just not true. Women in magic-rich settings gain strength in inverse proportion to their size. That's why tiny little girls can wield boat anchors, and giant hulking women can only handle spears or broadswords.
That depends almost entirely on the quirkium content of their diet, particularly during their formative years.
Aka Magic Pixie Dreamium.
We're playing games where people can turn into dragons, throw fireballs, and wield swords that instantly decapitate enemies.
Female strength is so far down on the list of 'hey this isn't realistic' it's not even funny.
Quote from: Ghostmaker on August 06, 2021, 09:39:27 AM
We're playing games where people can turn into dragons, throw fireballs, and wield swords that instantly decapitate enemies.
Female strength is so far down on the list of 'hey this isn't realistic' it's not even funny.
I'm waiting for the Woke Twatteritti to find this thread and use it to show how misogynistic we are over here.
Im in the camp that doesnt GAF if a female character has an 18 STR or not. Im also in the camp that doesnt care if your game puts limits on it.
Quote from: Godsmonkey on August 06, 2021, 10:40:23 AM
I'm waiting for the Woke Twatteritti to find this thread and use it to show how misogynistic we are over here.
Im in the camp that doesnt GAF if a female character has an 18 STR or not. Im also in the camp that doesnt care if your game puts limits on it.
Those kind of people will think it sexist that multiple females in my campaigns don't want to play characters with bulging muscles. It might even be "problematic". They'll have an involved explanation and a bunch of erroneous assumption and finally distractions for who and what and why that tries really hard to skate around that it is an inconvenient fact.
What the ladies in our group would have to say about such nonsense is a lot less reserved than you would get from me.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on August 06, 2021, 10:55:04 AM
Quote from: Godsmonkey on August 06, 2021, 10:40:23 AM
I'm waiting for the Woke Twatteritti to find this thread and use it to show how misogynistic we are over here.
Im in the camp that doesnt GAF if a female character has an 18 STR or not. Im also in the camp that doesnt care if your game puts limits on it.
Those kind of people will think it sexist that multiple females in my campaigns don't want to play characters with bulging muscles. It might even be "problematic". They'll have an involved explanation and a bunch of erroneous assumption and finally distractions for who and what and why that tries really hard to skate around that it is an inconvenient fact.
What the ladies in our group would have to say about such nonsense is a lot less reserved than you would get from me.
Come to think of it, The only time I had a female player with a super high strength character was in my last Shadowrun (Savage Worlds) Campaign. But she was a Troll. Most times my female players have characters with average to maybe just above average STR. So yes, your point about women not wanting to play super strong characters probably extends beyond your group.
So seems there is little need to encode it into the rules.
Quote from: Ghostmaker on August 06, 2021, 09:39:27 AM
We're playing games where people can turn into dragons, throw fireballs, and wield swords that instantly decapitate enemies.
Female strength is so far down on the list of 'hey this isn't realistic' it's not even funny.
Well, "we" is a fluid concept. Right now, "we" probably are playing a truly fantastical game where realism is consigned to small niches. But that's because the game has evolved a lot in the last 40+ years. The wargamers who thought it would be cool to add a dragon to their medieval wargame were certainly not the same "we." The earliest iterations of the game started off from the basis of "what if a real medieval force ran up against a fantasy creature like a dragon, all other things being like our present world." So the earliest players
were more interested in realism than "we" might be. That's one reason why gender-based stat modifiers showed up early. But, as the purpose of the game changed, so did the rules, and the gender-based stat modifiers fell by the wayside quickly. It's also the reason why early D&D focused way more on logistics than the modern iterations. But different groups play for different reasons, and realism is no worse a consideration than any other...
What bothers me are people who go looking for trouble- something RPGPundit brings up in his videos.
I never try to hide anything about anything I do, be it artwork or whatever. If looking for people interested in playing an Ayundellian adventure then the way that world works and male/female stats exist are presented openly (except for when something is not common knowledge- everyone on Ayundell knows attacking Riverlords or azuralupins is suicide (azuralupins get 16 attacks/round all special; Riverlords 18), that leofolk are very strong in battle, picayunafolk are weak but clever, but the stats of shadow elves, the king of the Red Pirate Empire, or red draconfolk are not common knowledge).
All right, it's all there- no problem, right? You would think.
Sure as anything there will be somebody whom will start whining and giving me a hard time about "sexism," only bringing it up then. Only because I am an obscure artist and my game isn't off the ground yet has this not happened.
But a feminist with a game where women are superpowered and men are worthless idiots will be praised.
How does one delete an accidental reply here?
I may have mentioned this before, but I think we should make a game called DiD: Damsels in Distress. ;D
Women wouldn't have much need for strength in this one. They would be scream queen NPCs by default. Players would be knights in shining armor in the basic rules, but an expansion would include cowboys saving hapless squaws.
On a more serious note, this genre is almost extinct in movies and comics etc. although I suspect it still exists as a kink in women's pulp literature. I kinda miss it, maybe I'm a hopeless romantic 😀 (as well as incorrigible troll)
Quote from: Trond on August 07, 2021, 08:08:52 AM
I may have mentioned this before, but I think we should make a game called DiD: Damsels in Distress. ;D
Women wouldn't have much need for strength in this one. They would be scream queen NPCs by default. Players would be knights in shining armor in the basic rules, but an expansion would include cowboys saving hapless squaws.
On a more serious note, this genre is almost extinct in movies and comics etc. although I suspect it still exists as a kink in women's pulp literature. I kinda miss it, maybe I'm a hopeless romantic 😀 (as well as incorrigible troll)
This is what's called 'unintended consequences'. I think the damsel-in-distress trope got kind of pushed to the wayside by what was called the 'final girl' trope in 80's horror (where the survivor of the movie was one of the female protagonists).
There was nothing inherently wrong with the 'final girl' trope, and it kinda led to the development of fem characters as full protagonists (example: Ellen Ripley). But then it mutated, cancerously, into the 'stronk independent womyn' bullshit we all know and loathe.
At least, that's my take on it.
Quote from: Godsmonkey on August 06, 2021, 10:40:23 AM
Quote from: Ghostmaker on August 06, 2021, 09:39:27 AM
We're playing games where people can turn into dragons, throw fireballs, and wield swords that instantly decapitate enemies.
Female strength is so far down on the list of 'hey this isn't realistic' it's not even funny.
I'm waiting for the Woke Twatteritti to find this thread and use it to show how misogynistic we are over here.
Im in the camp that doesnt GAF if a female character has an 18 STR or not. Im also in the camp that doesnt care if your game puts limits on it.
Just saw it, actually. Fox is saying it's a reason to avoid the forum.
My input: the entire exercise of limiting female PCs in that manner is counterintuitive, and ultimately masturbatory. If they showed up to play an adventuring game and want to be a human female fighter and they roll an 18 strength, what does it really translate to? A little extra damage, hitting more frequently, bending bars, lifting gates, busting open stuck doors, grappling. Hardly world shattering. There's verisimilitude, then there's unnecessary complications that cause issues in play. This falls in the latter for me.
Hell, even Pundit made avenues for female Clerics in Dark Albion and avoids using that stuff on stat generation.
Quote from: AaronThePedantic on August 07, 2021, 03:39:07 PM
Quote from: Godsmonkey on August 06, 2021, 10:40:23 AM
Quote from: Ghostmaker on August 06, 2021, 09:39:27 AM
We're playing games where people can turn into dragons, throw fireballs, and wield swords that instantly decapitate enemies.
Female strength is so far down on the list of 'hey this isn't realistic' it's not even funny.
I'm waiting for the Woke Twatteritti to find this thread and use it to show how misogynistic we are over here.
Im in the camp that doesnt GAF if a female character has an 18 STR or not. Im also in the camp that doesnt care if your game puts limits on it.
Just saw it, actually. Fox is saying it's a reason to avoid the forum.
My input: the entire exercise of limiting female PCs in that manner is counterintuitive, and ultimately masturbatory. If they showed up to play an adventuring game and want to be a human female fighter and they roll an 18 strength, what does it really translate to? A little extra damage, hitting more frequently, bending bars, lifting gates, busting open stuck doors, grappling. Hardly world shattering. There's verisimilitude, then there's unnecessary complications that cause issues in play. This falls in the latter for me.
Hell, even Pundit made avenues for female Clerics in Dark Albion and avoids using that stuff on stat generation.
Greetings!
Indeed, AaronThePedantic, I have typically embraced such a position that you take on this, as I have alluded to earlier in the thread. However, seeing that the idea of different attributes for men and women have clearly been a part of the game from the earliest days, to me it seems like a fun and interesting topic to consider. Through the years, the topic of attribute modifiers for men and women have also continued to emerge. Regardless of intellectual interest and nods to verisimilitude, I tend to go with the fantasy and convenience.
Fox though can gargle on razor blades.
Intellectual slugs and whiny-bitch crybabies can all circle-jerk themselves to their stuffed animals while groveling in their "safe-spaces".
The thread is for semi-serious but fun discussion of the concepts, attributes, modifiers, and so on, for both the purposes of fun and verisimilitude. I think it is interesting that contrary to Fox's malicious assessment--that members here on this board have engaged the topic entirely in good faith, and humour--which personally, was my intention all along in sponsoring the thread.
Good to see you here, AaronThePedantic!
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Thanks for the welcome!
I know Lekofka is now notorious for his article on women PCs back yonder times. Nothing wrong with intellectual exercise for its own sake, just adding my two cents on implementation
I'm reluctant to put those kinds of boundaries on women who play at the table with me. I enjoy oracular character creation imposing those limits, or race-as-class, or background/social class restrictions, but that's one of my few lines.
I'm even considering letting my players in my upcoming Mutant Crawl Classics just go ahead and choose what their blood strain is, as I know they won't get the option to play MCC that much probably. May as well let them play the class they're interested in most. Not quite the purist I once was on such things.
My perspective is as a newer gamer. Only been in it for about four years now.
Edit: I forgot to add that I don't do the whole "grr woke/grr reactionary" type discourse. The forum is supposed to be about gaming, not signaling tribes. At least if I read things correctly. Not exactly a fan of Fox, but no ill will either.
Quote from: Trond on August 07, 2021, 08:08:52 AM
I may have mentioned this before, but I think we should make a game called DiD: Damsels in Distress. ;D
Women wouldn't have much need for strength in this one. They would be scream queen NPCs by default. Players would be knights in shining armor in the basic rules, but an expansion would include cowboys saving hapless squaws.
Nothing wrong with that IMO as long as female players can play male PCs!
There's a huge amount of female-oriented fiction where the female protagonist stands around not doing much while heroic males compete for her favour. You could make a good interactive fiction style video game like that, but I don't know if it could ever make a viable RPG. Much easier is something like
The Hunger Games where the female protagonist does heroic stuff, while at the same time heroic males compete for her favour.
Another possibility would be each player having both a knight & damsel character, maybe siblings so they (hopefully!) have to court & be courted by the PCs of other players. I think that could work great as a board game, but I think it might work well in a Pendragon or Game of Thrones type setup too.
Quote from: S'mon on August 08, 2021, 05:29:58 AM
Quote from: Trond on August 07, 2021, 08:08:52 AM
I may have mentioned this before, but I think we should make a game called DiD: Damsels in Distress. ;D
Women wouldn't have much need for strength in this one. They would be scream queen NPCs by default. Players would be knights in shining armor in the basic rules, but an expansion would include cowboys saving hapless squaws.
Nothing wrong with that IMO as long as female players can play male PCs!
There's a huge amount of female-oriented fiction where the female protagonist stands around not doing much while heroic males compete for her favour. You could make a good interactive fiction style video game like that, but I don't know if it could ever make a viable RPG. Much easier is something like The Hunger Games where the female protagonist does heroic stuff, while at the same time heroic males compete for her favour.
Why not? Troupe-style play where a single player runs a central charismatic figure and their followers could be very effective. The competence of the central figure in traditional adventuring tasks is basically irrelevant, because what matters is the skill set in the group, not where it's concentrated. The central figure could either be hypercompetent, or completely useless, in that regard.
This could work for mean girl queen bees and their assorted hangers-on, but even old school D&D could accommodate this, with a few tweaks. After all, charisma, hirelings, and henchmen/retainers are a big part of the game.
Why strive for verisimilitude at all? My answer is that it helps to ground the game and adds contrast to the fantasy elements. A dragon is not so terrifying if everyone is as strong as a giant, can fly, and breathe fire.
You can see the problem play out in movies and comic books. They are full of contradictions where character A is demonstrated as unambiguously stronger than character B, and character B stronger than character C. And yet character C defeats character A in a straight up test of strength. A better approach in my view would be for character C to use some clever device to achieve victory. But modern writers appear too lazy for that. Plot armour / plot strength is the soup du jour.
Quote from: Ghostmaker on August 07, 2021, 12:44:18 PM
Quote from: Trond on August 07, 2021, 08:08:52 AM
I may have mentioned this before, but I think we should make a game called DiD: Damsels in Distress. ;D
Women wouldn't have much need for strength in this one. They would be scream queen NPCs by default. Players would be knights in shining armor in the basic rules, but an expansion would include cowboys saving hapless squaws.
On a more serious note, this genre is almost extinct in movies and comics etc. although I suspect it still exists as a kink in women's pulp literature. I kinda miss it, maybe I'm a hopeless romantic 😀 (as well as incorrigible troll)
This is what's called 'unintended consequences'. I think the damsel-in-distress trope got kind of pushed to the wayside by what was called the 'final girl' trope in 80's horror (where the survivor of the movie was one of the female protagonists).
There was nothing inherently wrong with the 'final girl' trope, and it kinda led to the development of fem characters as full protagonists (example: Ellen Ripley). But then it mutated, cancerously, into the 'stronk independent womyn' bullshit we all know and loathe.
At least, that's my take on it.
I think the damsel in distress actually made a come-back in the 80s. I may be wrong here but i think she's a bit more common in the 80s than 70s. Then she almost disappears in the early 90s. I have fewer gaming examples from the 70s to compare with though, so that may be part of it.
Here's an RPG image I remember growing up in Norway in the 80s
Quote from: mightybrain on August 08, 2021, 09:32:23 AM
Why strive for verisimilitude at all? My answer is that it helps to ground the game and adds contrast to the fantasy elements. A dragon is not so terrifying if everyone is as strong as a giant, can fly, and breathe fire.
You can see the problem play out in movies and comic books. They are full of contradictions where character A is demonstrated as unambiguously stronger than character B, and character B stronger than character C. And yet character C defeats character A in a straight up test of strength. A better approach in my view would be for character C to use some clever device to achieve victory. But modern writers appear too lazy for that. Plot armour / plot strength is the soup du jour.
I don't think anyone was arguing the merits of verisimilitude and keeping things grounded, only that there are exchange rates involved that don't always pan out. Case in point: weapon type vs armor class. While it's a feature I tend to enjoy, few OSR games include it and most OSR referees who are otherwise concerned with verisimilitude decry it. The question is always this: do the pros outweigh the cons? In the case of limiting women PC's attribute scores, for me, it's definitely a no. Not from a referee perspective, and not from a design perspective. Everyone gets the 3d6 straight down, unless we have some other arrangement in mind. If you end up with some Brienne of Tarth type character, so be it.
It all depends on what you're playing. If your game is literally about knights in shining armor, like Pendragon (at least some editions with different stats for women) then it makes perfect sense. It makes sense, although it might be of less importance, if your game is strictly realistic too.
What D&D strength would you give Brienne of Tarth in a world that also includes Gregor Clegane and Khal Drogo?
Quote from: AaronThePedantic on August 08, 2021, 10:40:02 AM
Quote from: mightybrain on August 08, 2021, 09:32:23 AM
Why strive for verisimilitude at all? My answer is that it helps to ground the game and adds contrast to the fantasy elements. A dragon is not so terrifying if everyone is as strong as a giant, can fly, and breathe fire.
You can see the problem play out in movies and comic books. They are full of contradictions where character A is demonstrated as unambiguously stronger than character B, and character B stronger than character C. And yet character C defeats character A in a straight up test of strength. A better approach in my view would be for character C to use some clever device to achieve victory. But modern writers appear too lazy for that. Plot armour / plot strength is the soup du jour.
I don't think anyone was arguing the merits of verisimilitude and keeping things grounded, only that there are exchange rates involved that don't always pan out. Case in point: weapon type vs armor class. While it's a feature I tend to enjoy, few OSR games include it and most OSR referees who are otherwise concerned with verisimilitude decry it. The question is always this: do the pros outweigh the cons? In the case of limiting women PC's attribute scores, for me, it's definitely a no. Not from a referee perspective, and not from a design perspective. Everyone gets the 3d6 straight down, unless we have some other arrangement in mind. If you end up with some Brienne of Tarth type character, so be it.
I don't think anyone is arguing that you should like games with specific amounts of verisimilitude or that apportion different stats based on sex. You should play whatever you and your players find most fun. I think the issue is some people are saying that
no one should play a game that does apportion stats that way, nor should ay game do so. Your opinion as to the best ratio of verisimilitude and fun is something you are entitled to. Is it not something others are also entitled to?
Quote from: SHARK on August 03, 2021, 05:13:59 PM
Greetings!
I have long considered the merits of creating specific attribute caps and modifiers for female characters in the game, especially Human women.
Human Female Attribute Table
Strength: Capped at 14.
Dexterity: +2
Constitution: Capped at 16
Intelligence: --
Wisdom: +1
Charisma: +2
Attribute Caps refer to the female character's ability being capped. No penalties are actually applied to specific attribute dice rolls--they are just resized to the cap if they roll higher, for example. If the female character rolls lower for the particular attribute, the score remains, as there is no actively applied penalty.
Strength: I've read that contrary to current popular culture and brainwashing--even the best, most uber female athletes are only generally as strong as an average fit man. Some studies suggest about a 60% achievement in strength. Even in the highest brackets of competition and achievement--the best and strongest women absolutely pale in comparison to the elite men. There really is no comparison. At best, a strong woman can aspire to be as strong as or moderately stronger than an average, fit adult man.
Constitution: Aside from women's ability to endure childbirth, and resist long-term, lethal illnesses, it seems that they are distinctly and consistently weaker than men throughout life in a plethora of ways, dealing with Constitution. Women have huge rates of chronic injuries compared ro men. Throughout life, women also become plagued by debilitating non-lethal illnesses and diseases at a significantly higher rate than men. Women routinely experience muscle, joint, and bone problems, again, at a significantly higher rate than men.
Dexterity: I think on average, even typical women can often display superior characteristics of coordination and flexibility than men. Higher professional levels, well, women can move their bodies in truly impossible ways compared to men. I've seen Chinese gymnasts bend their bodies in half, and put their ass on top of their head. Jaw-dropping feats of dexterity. ;D
Wisdom: I think while there are many common examples of plentiful stupidity and poor judgment--on balance, women's historical collectivistic tendencies, attraction to herd mentality, deference to authority and being obedient, aversion to risk-taking, lower rates of criminal behavior, combined with hyper-concerns for security, safety, provisions, and resource management, provides women with a general advantage in wisdom compared to men. Then, there is also the hstorical testimony and widespread beliefs in women having different spiritual abilities and enhanced mystical awareness compared to men, across widely different cultures. For thousands of years, everyone seems to agree that women have some kind of special mystical consciousness.
Charisma: Research shows as well as numerous examples of everyday observation, even ordinary women possess significant social advantages compared to men. They talk and express themselves easier, pick up on social cues and non-verbal communication with far greater skill and accuracy than average men. Really beautiful and smooth women can be stellar, and absolutely amazing and mind-bogglingly dangerous as well. Perhaps the funny thing is, so many women can engage in higher socialization while making it look supremely easy, and effortless to do. They engage in such communication and socialization like breathing air.
What do you all think, friends? I have heretofore mostly just gone by the book, and handwaved it all as fantasy. Keeping things simple and straightforward has its attractions, after all. I think though that having some discussion and consideration of such topics has some merit.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Really good stuff. And it is something that is taboo to talk about in games these days, it seems.
People often say it is not necessary because it's a fantasy game. But . . . is it necessary to distinguish an elf from a human, even, then? Or distinguish anything really? You can't handwave everything away because it is a fantasy game.
I'll throw in my two cents.
Strength: advantage male, without a doubt
Dexterity: I'd disagree here and give the advantage to men, here, as well. Men are always faster and stronger. I see what you're saying about flexibility, though. I would label that a sort of edge case, though. Dexterity (like other attributes) can be broken down into different types of dexterity. In fact, there was a book that did this in AD&D2e -- Skills and Powers, I think it was. I'm thinking about boxing, tennis, etc.
Constitution: advantage men
Intelligence: I'd give an advantage to men here, as well. Again, different types of intelligence. Chess (male vs female leauges). Inventors. It is said that men reach the extremes of bell curve (both ends) while women cluster more to the middle. So, I could see men being able to reach the highest levels of magic in a fantasy game, whereas women might be capped like some demihumans.
Wisdom: I'd give the advantage to men, here, for sure. Men are more rational decision-makers, less emotional decision-makers. Men have the disposition to do philosophy and deal with other abstract thought. Plato. Socrates. etc. Also #selfiedeaths. I think women are leading there.
Charisma: I would give the advantage to women here overall, but . . . when it comes to leading men . . . as Charisma affects (# of followers), I'd give the advantage to men for sure. Men follow men, not women.
Quote from: 1989 on August 08, 2021, 01:08:19 PM
Really good stuff. And it is something that is taboo to talk about in games these days, it seems.
People often say it is not necessary because it's a fantasy game. But . . . is it necessary to distinguish an elf from a human, even, then? Or distinguish anything really? You can't handwave everything away because it is a fantasy game.
This is absolutely the direction 5e is headed. Arguably, they are already there.
Quote from: Eirikrautha on August 08, 2021, 12:54:52 PM
Quote from: AaronThePedantic on August 08, 2021, 10:40:02 AM
Quote from: mightybrain on August 08, 2021, 09:32:23 AM
Why strive for verisimilitude at all? My answer is that it helps to ground the game and adds contrast to the fantasy elements. A dragon is not so terrifying if everyone is as strong as a giant, can fly, and breathe fire.
You can see the problem play out in movies and comic books. They are full of contradictions where character A is demonstrated as unambiguously stronger than character B, and character B stronger than character C. And yet character C defeats character A in a straight up test of strength. A better approach in my view would be for character C to use some clever device to achieve victory. But modern writers appear too lazy for that. Plot armour / plot strength is the soup du jour.
I don't think anyone was arguing the merits of verisimilitude and keeping things grounded, only that there are exchange rates involved that don't always pan out. Case in point: weapon type vs armor class. While it's a feature I tend to enjoy, few OSR games include it and most OSR referees who are otherwise concerned with verisimilitude decry it. The question is always this: do the pros outweigh the cons? In the case of limiting women PC's attribute scores, for me, it's definitely a no. Not from a referee perspective, and not from a design perspective. Everyone gets the 3d6 straight down, unless we have some other arrangement in mind. If you end up with some Brienne of Tarth type character, so be it.
I don't think anyone is arguing that you should like games with specific amounts of verisimilitude or that apportion different stats based on sex. You should play whatever you and your players find most fun. I think the issue is some people are saying that no one should play a game that does apportion stats that way, nor should ay game do so. Your opinion as to the best ratio of verisimilitude and fun is something you are entitled to. Is it not something others are also entitled to?
Anything people do at their table is the business of the DM and the players, not me or anyone else. A lot of the arguments stem from moral imperatives, but I'm not into the Jack Thompson school of the "harmful effects of games." MYFAROG is full of repugnant design IMO, but IDGAF if people buy it or play it. Consenting adults can do what they like at the table, no harm done.
Quote from: 1989 on August 08, 2021, 01:08:19 PM
Quote from: SHARK on August 03, 2021, 05:13:59 PM
Greetings!
I have long considered the merits of creating specific attribute caps and modifiers for female characters in the game, especially Human women.
Human Female Attribute Table
Strength: Capped at 14.
Dexterity: +2
Constitution: Capped at 16
Intelligence: --
Wisdom: +1
Charisma: +2
Attribute Caps refer to the female character's ability being capped. No penalties are actually applied to specific attribute dice rolls--they are just resized to the cap if they roll higher, for example. If the female character rolls lower for the particular attribute, the score remains, as there is no actively applied penalty.
Strength: I've read that contrary to current popular culture and brainwashing--even the best, most uber female athletes are only generally as strong as an average fit man. Some studies suggest about a 60% achievement in strength. Even in the highest brackets of competition and achievement--the best and strongest women absolutely pale in comparison to the elite men. There really is no comparison. At best, a strong woman can aspire to be as strong as or moderately stronger than an average, fit adult man.
Constitution: Aside from women's ability to endure childbirth, and resist long-term, lethal illnesses, it seems that they are distinctly and consistently weaker than men throughout life in a plethora of ways, dealing with Constitution. Women have huge rates of chronic injuries compared ro men. Throughout life, women also become plagued by debilitating non-lethal illnesses and diseases at a significantly higher rate than men. Women routinely experience muscle, joint, and bone problems, again, at a significantly higher rate than men.
Dexterity: I think on average, even typical women can often display superior characteristics of coordination and flexibility than men. Higher professional levels, well, women can move their bodies in truly impossible ways compared to men. I've seen Chinese gymnasts bend their bodies in half, and put their ass on top of their head. Jaw-dropping feats of dexterity. ;D
Wisdom: I think while there are many common examples of plentiful stupidity and poor judgment--on balance, women's historical collectivistic tendencies, attraction to herd mentality, deference to authority and being obedient, aversion to risk-taking, lower rates of criminal behavior, combined with hyper-concerns for security, safety, provisions, and resource management, provides women with a general advantage in wisdom compared to men. Then, there is also the hstorical testimony and widespread beliefs in women having different spiritual abilities and enhanced mystical awareness compared to men, across widely different cultures. For thousands of years, everyone seems to agree that women have some kind of special mystical consciousness.
Charisma: Research shows as well as numerous examples of everyday observation, even ordinary women possess significant social advantages compared to men. They talk and express themselves easier, pick up on social cues and non-verbal communication with far greater skill and accuracy than average men. Really beautiful and smooth women can be stellar, and absolutely amazing and mind-bogglingly dangerous as well. Perhaps the funny thing is, so many women can engage in higher socialization while making it look supremely easy, and effortless to do. They engage in such communication and socialization like breathing air.
What do you all think, friends? I have heretofore mostly just gone by the book, and handwaved it all as fantasy. Keeping things simple and straightforward has its attractions, after all. I think though that having some discussion and consideration of such topics has some merit.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Really good stuff. And it is something that is taboo to talk about in games these days, it seems.
People often say it is not necessary because it's a fantasy game. But . . . is it necessary to distinguish an elf from a human, even, then? Or distinguish anything really? You can't handwave everything away because it is a fantasy game.
I'll throw in my two cents.
Strength: advantage male, without a doubt
Dexterity: I'd disagree here and give the advantage to men, here, as well. Men are always faster and stronger. I see what you're saying about flexibility, though. I would label that a sort of edge case, though. Dexterity (like other attributes) can be broken down into different types of dexterity. In fact, there was a book that did this in AD&D2e -- Skills and Powers, I think it was. I'm thinking about boxing, tennis, etc.
Constitution: advantage men
Intelligence: I'd give an advantage to men here, as well. Again, different types of intelligence. Chess (male vs female leauges). Inventors. It is said that men reach the extremes of bell curve (both ends) while women cluster more to the middle. So, I could see men being able to reach the highest levels of magic in a fantasy game, whereas women might be capped like some demihumans.
Wisdom: I'd give the advantage to men, here, for sure. Men are more rational decision-makers, less emotional decision-makers. Men have the disposition to do philosophy and deal with other abstract thought. Plato. Socrates. etc. Also #selfiedeaths. I think women are leading there.
Charisma: I would give the advantage to women here overall, but . . . when it comes to leading men . . . as Charisma affects (# of followers), I'd give the advantage to men for sure. Men follow men, not women.
Essentially, make women PCs suck for realism's sake. Why stop there? Why not add modifiers to your real world games based on ethnic groups based on research? Or, are male/female the only dividing lines you're interested in among humans?
The reason we differentiate between humans, elves, dwarves, etc is for archetypal accentuation. Maybe you want to do the same between male/female, but from a design perspective, you'd want to make it so that there is some kind of incentive. Something GOOD about being women PCs. And for those of us who don't have any interest in using sex appeal or damsel in distress stuff, you ain't really got shit to offer with what's being thrown down.
The thing Human always had to offer was higher levels, quicker levels, class options, etc. The others had more up front benefits, but slower growth, class restrictions, and level caps. See what I mean? You have to make the choice appealing and meaningful.
Well, who said we need women PCs? Are we playing fantastic medieval wargames, here? Killing things with swords in plate armour? This is not where women excel.
Vampire: The Masquerade is that way >>
Quote from: 1989 on August 08, 2021, 02:27:53 PM
Well, who said we need women PCs? Are we playing fantastic medieval wargames, here? Killing things with swords in plate armour? This is not where women excel.
Vampire: The Masquerade is that way >>
Because women tend to like playing as women characters. Not always, but often. I've had many women play at my table and very, very rarely have they had interest in playing men. Come to think of it, I can only think of men, trans men, and nonbinary people playing men at my table. I know OF women who have played as men though.
Imagine always having to play a woman because men are either off limits, socially prohibited from enjoyable activities, or mechanically penalized to be sub par. I'd imagine that would get annoying.
Your solution is "switch genres?" Fuck off with that. (Not you as a person, the idea).
Your table might not need female PCs, but mine often do.
Quote from: SHARK on August 03, 2021, 05:13:59 PM
Constitution: Aside from women's ability to endure childbirth, and resist long-term, lethal illnesses, it seems that they are distinctly and consistently weaker than men throughout life in a plethora of ways, dealing with Constitution. Women have huge rates of chronic injuries compared ro men. Throughout life, women also become plagued by debilitating non-lethal illnesses and diseases at a significantly higher rate than men. Women routinely experience muscle, joint, and bone problems, again, at a significantly higher rate than men.
I would disagree with this assessment. Women outlive men statistically. I think what you're looking at here is survivorship bias. Woman are plagued with illnesses and diseases as they age where men simply die. Just look at Covid, your survival rate was almost 20% higher as a woman.
Quote from: AaronThePedantic on August 08, 2021, 02:46:30 PM
Quote from: 1989 on August 08, 2021, 02:27:53 PM
Well, who said we need women PCs? Are we playing fantastic medieval wargames, here? Killing things with swords in plate armour? This is not where women excel.
Vampire: The Masquerade is that way >>
Because women tend to like playing as women characters. Not always, but often. I've had many women play at my table and very, very rarely have they had interest in playing men. Come to think of it, I can only think of men, trans men, and nonbinary people playing men at my table. I know OF women who have played as men though.
Imagine always having to play a woman because men are either off limits, socially prohibited from enjoyable activities, or mechanically penalized to be sub par. I'd imagine that would get annoying.
Your solution is "switch genres?" Fuck off with that.
Pretty much. There are few of what I call "One True Wayist" assholes here on the forums, but you learn to ignore them.
My game has PC dragons, giants and pixies, so the difference between human levels of strength is barely a blip on the scale you need to measure those differences. While there's zero mechanical enforcement, I tend to design NPCs along the lines that men are better at physical combat and women are better at magic, particularly magic that requires intuition or spiritual connection (a not uncommon belief in the ancient world).
One issue too is that the attribute definitions of many systems are skewed towards things men are traditionally stronger at. Ex. If Dexterity measured mostly flexibility and fine motor control instead of reaction time then women might have a slight edge. If Constitution measured ability to endure high-G flight manuvers and ability to function on minimal sleep instead of capacity to absorb blunt physical trauma then women might have an edge there too. If there was a stat that measured one's ability to multitask in a chaotic environment women would have a definitive edge.
Basically, a lot of the "men should have better stats" comes down to which parts of a rather broad category they're focused on (trying to define a human being by just six stats is ludicrous without each being a broad average of numerous subtraits).
It also really seems to overlook a fundamental precept of the genre; the PC's aren't Joe and Jane Average working on a farm in the back country. They are exceptional larger than life people (just having 1 level of fighter means you're a veteran warrior, not some wet behind the ears farmboy) and that includes adventurers who are women.
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 08, 2021, 03:33:25 PM
Quote from: AaronThePedantic on August 08, 2021, 02:46:30 PM
Quote from: 1989 on August 08, 2021, 02:27:53 PM
Well, who said we need women PCs? Are we playing fantastic medieval wargames, here? Killing things with swords in plate armour? This is not where women excel.
Vampire: The Masquerade is that way >>
Because women tend to like playing as women characters. Not always, but often. I've had many women play at my table and very, very rarely have they had interest in playing men. Come to think of it, I can only think of men, trans men, and nonbinary people playing men at my table. I know OF women who have played as men though.
Imagine always having to play a woman because men are either off limits, socially prohibited from enjoyable activities, or mechanically penalized to be sub par. I'd imagine that would get annoying.
Your solution is "switch genres?" Fuck off with that.
Pretty much. There are few of what I call "One True Wayist" assholes here on the forums, but you learn to ignore them.
My game has PC dragons, giants and pixies, so the difference between human levels of strength is barely a blip on the scale you need to measure those differences. While there's zero mechanical enforcement, I tend to design NPCs along the lines that men are better at physical combat and women are better at magic, particularly magic that requires intuition or spiritual connection (a not uncommon belief in the ancient world).
One issue too is that the attribute definitions of many systems are skewed towards things men are traditionally stronger at. Ex. If Dexterity measured mostly flexibility and fine motor control instead of reaction time then women might have a slight edge. If Constitution measured ability to endure high-G flight manuvers and ability to function on minimal sleep instead of capacity to absorb blunt physical trauma then women might have an edge there too. If there was a stat that measured one's ability to multitask in a chaotic environment women would have a definitive edge.
Basically, a lot of the "men should have better stats" comes down to which parts of a rather broad category they're focused on (trying to define a human being by just six stats is ludicrous without each being a broad average of numerous subtraits).
It also really seems to overlook a fundamental precept of the genre; the PC's aren't Joe and Jane Average working on a farm in the back country. They are exceptional larger than life people (just having 1 level of fighter means you're a veteran warrior, not some wet behind the ears farmboy) and that includes adventurers who are women.
Level 1
Fighting Man. Not Level 1
Fighter. Gygax went woke sometime around 1977. ;D
Quote from: SHARK on August 03, 2021, 05:13:59 PM
Constitution: Capped at 16
Constitution: Aside from women's ability to endure childbirth, and resist long-term, lethal illnesses, it seems that they are distinctly and consistently weaker than men throughout life in a plethora of ways, dealing with Constitution. Women have huge rates of chronic injuries compared ro men. Throughout life, women also become plagued by debilitating non-lethal illnesses and diseases at a significantly higher rate than men. Women routinely experience muscle, joint, and bone problems, again, at a significantly higher rate than men.
I'd quibble with this analysis a little, SHARK. If CON is a measurement of the ability to withstand/resist acute health events, then your argument suggests that human females should not be capped - they endure longer, though they accumulate CON penalties over time. Human males, on the other hand, are statistically more likely to succumb to acute events like heart attacks. Men die younger than women, on average: another sign of "shorter runway" on CON. If I remember right, this even holds down to the science of muscular and skeletal differences - women in general can endure for longer durations but can't burst perform the way men can. I think the strongest argument for higher CON in human men is the ability to burst through extraordinary physical feats - Hell Week for SEALs, for example. But that might be better modeled/covered by STR in the STR/DEX/CON/WIS/INT/CHA model?
Not sure how, or what lift a person's strength determines assuming dungeons and dragons. What lift, and how much, can a 20 strength person lift?
Quote from: oggsmash on August 08, 2021, 04:18:24 PM
Not sure how, or what lift a person's strength determines assuming dungeons and dragons. What lift, and how much, can a 20 strength person lift?
I don't recall the lift value, but a 20 Strength has a carrying capacity of 300 lbs. before any Encumbrance penalty kicks in.
Quote from: HappyDaze on August 08, 2021, 06:07:36 PM
Quote from: oggsmash on August 08, 2021, 04:18:24 PM
Not sure how, or what lift a person's strength determines assuming dungeons and dragons. What lift, and how much, can a 20 strength person lift?
I don't recall the lift value, but a 20 Strength has a carrying capacity of 300 lbs. before any Encumbrance penalty kicks in.
That seems really an odd way to give some sort of yard stick to strength as compared to the real world I think. Honestly, I think that kind of breaks with reality more than men and women being the same strength. At least with some sort of one time lift, we can get an idea that maybe translates over a bit better to "combat" strength. I do chuckle at the sight of a person running around carrying 300 pounds as if they are in a t shirt and shorts though.
Edited to add: I saw something online where you can lift double your carry capacity...that also seems odd, as it does not say how you are lifting the load (I remember gygax referenced the military press), and it seems odd the most you could lift would be double what you could run about carrying that does not hinder you at all.
Quote from: oggsmash on August 08, 2021, 06:11:00 PM
Quote from: HappyDaze on August 08, 2021, 06:07:36 PM
Quote from: oggsmash on August 08, 2021, 04:18:24 PM
Not sure how, or what lift a person's strength determines assuming dungeons and dragons. What lift, and how much, can a 20 strength person lift?
I don't recall the lift value, but a 20 Strength has a carrying capacity of 300 lbs. before any Encumbrance penalty kicks in.
That seems really an odd way to give some sort of yard stick to strength as compared to the real world I think. Honestly, I think that kind of breaks with reality more than men and women being the same strength. At least with some sort of one time lift, we can get an idea that maybe translates over a bit better to "combat" strength. I do chuckle at the sight of a person running around carrying 300 pounds as if they are in a t shirt and shorts though.
Edited to add: I saw something online where you can lift double your carry capacity...that also seems odd, as it does not say how you are lifting the load (I remember gygax referenced the military press), and it seems odd the most you could lift would be double what you could run about carrying that does not hinder you at all.
What can I say,? I think the 5e Encumbrance rules are crap too.
I would not cap nor modify based on either gender for human PCs. Why?
1) Even "realistic" RPGs are cinematic fantasies. Seriously, we play games where people are stabbed for max damage by swords and shrug it off.
2) PCs are personal fantasies and everyone has their view on the pros/cons of gendered traits. AKA, "women are dextrous" or "women are wise" isn't a universal view, but it might be a personal view.
3) Gender caps/mods are a political shithole that adds nothing to my game table except arguments that invoke my boot up somebody's ass.
However, I most certainly cap AND modify non-human races as I use humans as the baseline. For me, its incredibly important for non-humans to be...non-human.
But would I make gendered mods for non-humans?
Perhaps, but only if there was significant gender differences in that setting - let's say elves in the setting only have goddesses so only females can be clerics, or let's say male orcs are oversized brutes whereas female orcs are slight and cunning.
Quote from: oggsmash on August 08, 2021, 04:18:24 PM
Not sure how, or what lift a person's strength determines assuming dungeons and dragons. What lift, and how much, can a 20 strength person lift?
5e defines it as Strength x 30, so 600 lbs, which is quite close to the world record (~580 lbs) for the clean and jerk.
1st edition defined strength in terms of a military press but I don't remember it being defined above 18/00. With the percentile amount, the total you could lift was related to your character's weight.
In the rules, Dex for the most part, is the archery stat. We have just had the Olympics so we have up to date data on the differences between the best male and female human archers. The difference is that there is no measurable difference. Although the men's and women's events are separated, if you take the final scores of Mete Gazoz and San An, and put them head to head, it would have been a draw.
Quote from: mightybrain on August 08, 2021, 06:17:16 PM
Quote from: oggsmash on August 08, 2021, 04:18:24 PM
Not sure how, or what lift a person's strength determines assuming dungeons and dragons. What lift, and how much, can a 20 strength person lift?
5e defines it as Strength x 30, so 600 lbs, which is quite close to the world record (~580 lbs) for the clean and jerk.
1st edition defined strength in terms of a military press but I don't remember it being defined above 18/00. With the percentile amount, the total you could lift was related to your character's weight.
clean and jerk is not a great measure of strength though, as compared to power executed through technique (this was why GG used the military press I think). The percentile (apologies I am trying to remember this from memory) had a funky formula where I want to say was 1 pound per point 1-50, 4 pounds per point 51-90, and 8 pounds per point 91-00. Add in the 180 for 18 strength and you have the character's military press. I think the weight rule was no humanoid could lift 2x their bodyweight over head. I guess if the new rules mean clean and jerk, it is sort of consistent with real world numbers, but they do not specify at all, and saying most lifted, does not imply overhead lifting and seems to point more to a deadlift. So I guess they are vague in a way that only matters if I go looking for silly things like a max military press.
Quote from: oggsmash on August 08, 2021, 06:30:46 PM
I guess if the new rules mean clean and jerk, it is sort of consistent with real world numbers, but they do not specify at all, and saying most lifted, does not imply overhead lifting and seems to point more to a deadlift.
Earlier editions explicitly stated lifting above the head. I think it was only in 5th edition that this language changed. But it makes sense, because while you can deadlift a lot more weight than you can lift above your head, you are not so able to move around while doing so.
The military press got dropped as an Olympic event because competitors found a way to "press" more weight by arching their back and bouncing. It was too hard to adjudicate so they switched to the clean and jerk. But as it turned out, there wasn't that much difference in the weights lifted between those two events, so they are roughly comparable.
Quote from: mightybrain on August 08, 2021, 06:58:48 PM
Quote from: oggsmash on August 08, 2021, 06:30:46 PM
I guess if the new rules mean clean and jerk, it is sort of consistent with real world numbers, but they do not specify at all, and saying most lifted, does not imply overhead lifting and seems to point more to a deadlift.
Earlier editions explicitly stated lifting above the head. I think it was only in 5th edition that this language changed. But it makes sense, because while you can deadlift a lot more weight than you can lift above your head, you are not so able to move around while doing so.
The military press got dropped as an Olympic event because competitors found a way to "press" more weight by arching their back and bouncing. It was too hard to adjudicate so they switched to the clean and jerk. But as it turned out, there wasn't that much difference in the weights lifted between those two events, so they are roughly comparable.
I thought they just dropped the press, and the clean and jerk was always there. In any event, a strict standing press is not so comparable to a clean and jerk, and in the lighter weight classes it is more exaggerated. But for now I can just go with the clean and jerk. The problem is, a 10 strength is a 300 pound clean and jerk (or press, for this example matters little), which is WAAAY beyond what an average human can manage. A 300 pound deadlift though....an average person can do that (assuming an active life with a little physical labor and exercise), but a clean and jerk or standing press? No fucking way.
Quote from: oggsmash on August 08, 2021, 07:08:09 PM
I thought they just dropped the press, and the clean and jerk was always there.
You're probably right. I remember looking at the lifting records and the numbers seemed similar but maybe it was the snatch event I was comparing.
The average D&D human is a lot stronger than the average man in the real world.
Quote from: mightybrain on August 08, 2021, 07:21:42 PM
Quote from: oggsmash on August 08, 2021, 07:08:09 PM
I thought they just dropped the press, and the clean and jerk was always there.
You're probably right. I remember looking at the lifting records and the numbers seemed similar but maybe it was the snatch event I was comparing.
The average D&D human is a lot stronger than the average man in the real world.
Well, this is the only edition where that is the case, regarding average man strength. I think the people who wrote the 5th edition just handwaved all the strength stuff around lifting and encumbrance and had absolutely zero real life experience with lifting, carrying shit, or actually knowing any strong people.
Quote from: oggsmash on August 08, 2021, 07:08:09 PM
Quote from: mightybrain on August 08, 2021, 06:58:48 PM
Quote from: oggsmash on August 08, 2021, 06:30:46 PM
I guess if the new rules mean clean and jerk, it is sort of consistent with real world numbers, but they do not specify at all, and saying most lifted, does not imply overhead lifting and seems to point more to a deadlift.
Earlier editions explicitly stated lifting above the head. I think it was only in 5th edition that this language changed. But it makes sense, because while you can deadlift a lot more weight than you can lift above your head, you are not so able to move around while doing so.
The military press got dropped as an Olympic event because competitors found a way to "press" more weight by arching their back and bouncing. It was too hard to adjudicate so they switched to the clean and jerk. But as it turned out, there wasn't that much difference in the weights lifted between those two events, so they are roughly comparable.
I thought they just dropped the press, and the clean and jerk was always there. In any event, a strict standing press is not so comparable to a clean and jerk, and in the lighter weight classes it is more exaggerated. But for now I can just go with the clean and jerk. The problem is, a 10 strength is a 300 pound clean and jerk (or press, for this example matters little), which is WAAAY beyond what an average human can manage. A 300 pound deadlift though....an average person can do that (assuming an active life with a little physical labor and exercise), but a clean and jerk or standing press? No fucking way.
Muscular strength is different in a magic-rich environment. However, females gain comparatively more (the female body just channels the magic a bit better) and it ends up putting them exactly equal to males despite a difference in body size...
Everyone knows this.
Only 4th edition specified the deadlift and that creates problems the other way. Here is some research I did a while back:
In 1st edition, you did not get to roll for exceptional strength unless you were playing a fighter. The only female fighters that could roll for exceptional strength were humans and half-orcs, with female human fighters limited to 18/50 and female half-orc fighters limited to 18/75. The only fighters not limited were male humans, who could potentially get the fabled 18/00. I don't remember ever getting it or even playing with anyone who did. The chances are 1 in 1,072 characters rolled using Method I.
One thing to note about the 18/50 limit was that 18/01 to 18/50 was all one range for the purposes of the game bonuses. In terms of how much better this was than a non-fighter 18 strength, you got: 1 extra point of damage, the ability to carry 250 additional coins, and a 4% increase in your chance to bend bars or lift gates. As you went up, the bonuses were non-linear so 18/00 was significantly better in terms of bonuses even than 18/99. 18/00 was a lot better than 18/50, by comparison you got: another +2 on your chance to hit, another 3 points of damage, the ability to carry 2,000 additional coins, an increased chance to open doors by 2 in 6 and a 2 in 6 chance to force open locked, barred, or magically held doors, and double the chance to bend bars or lift gates.
The strength ability and exceptional strength did also figure into lifting ability. A humanoid character weighing less than 90 lbs and with 18 strength could lift up to double their own weight above their head. Heavier characters could lift the greater of 180 lbs or their own weight above their head. Characters with 18/50 could lift an additional 50 lbs, whereas characters with 18/00 could lift an additional 290 lbs. This was calculated by a formula: 1 lb per point from 1-50, 4 lbs per point from 51-90, and 8 lbs per point from 91-00.
Your weight played a significant part in the weight you could lift and that too was (and still is) based on your character's sex. For male human characters, your weight in pounds was an average of 175 with a range from 139 up to 375. For female humans, your weight in pounds was an average of 130 with a range from 100 to 250.
The type of lift was described in the 1st edition Player's Handbook as a military press. With this lift, you hold the weight at your shoulders and push straight up. It was an Olympic event until 1972 after which it was discontinued due to techniques that allowed lifters to lift more weight without actually being stronger. Fast forward to today and the military press is no longer an event. But we get a pretty good correlation across all the weight categories in the men's clean and jerk event.
Men's world clean and jerk record holders
Name | weight (lbs) | lift (lbs) | 1e AD&D STR
-----------------------------------------------------------
Om Yun-chol | 121* | 366 | 18/95
Eko Yuli Irawan | 134* | 383 | 18/95
Pak Jong-ju | 148 | 414 | 18/97
Shi Zhiyong | 161 | 437 | 18/98
Lü Xiaojun | 178 | 456 | 18/99
Tian Tao | 211 | 509 | 18/00+
Simon Martirosyan | 240 | 529 | 18/00
Lasha Talakhadze | 372 | 582 | 18/90
* too lightweight to create with 1st edition AD&D rules.
+ you would need greater than 18/00 strength to achieve this lift
Lasha Talakhadze is 6' 6, taller than the tallest in 5e
The women's event correlates close to 18/90 as the peak female human strength. It shouldn't be too surprising that the women's numbers are not as accurately modelled since women's weightlifting didn't take off until long after the publication of 1st edition.
Women's world clean and jerk record holders
Name | weight (lbs) | lift (lbs) | 1e AD&D STR
-----------------------------------------------------------
Jiang Huihua | 108 | 260 | 18/75
Liao Qiuyun | 121 | 284 | 18/79
Kuo Hsing-chun | 129 | 309 | 18/83
Deng Wei | 140 | 320 | 18/83
Zhang Wangli | 163 | 335 | 18/81
Li Wenwen | 326* | 410 | 18/59
* too heavyweight to create using 1st edition AD&D rules.
2nd edition got rid of the limits on male and female abilities, although there were still race based limits. For strength, the character's weight no longer factored into lifting ability except for a note that only characters with exceptional strength rolls could lift more than twice their own weight. The real world reference for lifting ability now switched to the snatch, with the example being Antonio Krastev's 1987 World Championship 476 lb lift. A strength table listed the maximum weight you could lift for each score.
The default method for rolling abilities, Method I in 2nd edition, was a straight in order roll of 3d6. This made getting the fabled 18/00 much harder with only 1 in 21,600 characters likely to get it.
Men's world snatch record holders
Name | weight (lbs) | lift (lbs) | 2e AD&D STR
-----------------------------------------------------------
Om Yun-chol | 121* | 298 | 18/51-75
Li Fabin | 134* | 320 | 18/76-90
Huang Minhao | 147 | 342 | 18/91-99
Shi Zhiyong | 161 | 370 | 18/91-99
Mohamed Ihab | 178 | 381 | 18/00
Sohrab Moradi | 212* | 410 | 18/00
Simon Martirosyan | 240* | 439 | 18/00
Lasha Talakhadze | 372* | 485 | 19
* too light or heavy to generate randomly using 2nd edition AD&D rules
Women's world snatch record holders
Name | weight (lbs) | lift (lbs) | 2e AD&D STR
-----------------------------------------------------------
Hou Zhihui | 108 | 209 | 17
Li Yajun | 121 | 225 | 18
Choe Hyo-sim | 130 | 236 | 18
Deng Wei | 140 | 258 | 18/01-50
Rim Jong-sim | 167 | 273 | 18/01-50
Li Wenwen | 326* | 324 | 18/76-90
* too heavyweight to generate randomly using 2nd edition AD&D rules
3e doesn't reference any record or lifting technique but the lift it describes is similar to the snatch lift. It has a table for the maximum load you can lift. Weight now is unrelated to lifting ability for humans. For halflings and gnomes, their lifting ability is reduced to 75% of the table due to their small size.
Men's world snatch record holders
Name | lift (lbs) | 3e STR
---------------------------------------
Om Yun-chol | 298 | 18
Li Fabin | 320 | 19
Huang Minhao | 342 | 19
Shi Zhiyong | 370 | 20
Mohamed Ihab | 381 | 20
Sohrab Moradi | 410 | 21
Simon Martirosyan | 439 | 21
Lasha Talakhadze | 485 | 22
Women's world snatch record holders
Name | lift (lbs) | 3e STR
---------------------------------------
Hou Zhihui | 209 | 16
Li Yajun | 225 | 16
Choe Hyo-sim | 236 | 17
Deng Wei | 258 | 17
Rim Jong-sim | 273 | 18
Li Wenwen | 324 | 19
4e changes the definition again. This time your strength x 20 represents the maximum weight you can lift off the ground. This action describes a deadlift. However, deadlift amounts are usually much greater than other types of lift and would result in ridiculously high equivalent STR scores for modern human lifting records. Equally the description is the amount you can lift and still move at a slowed rate. This might match something like the Atlas stones. Continuing with the snatch as a benchmark we get the following results.
Men's world snatch record holders
Name | lift (lbs) | 4e STR
---------------------------------------
Om Yun-chol | 298 | 15
Li Fabin | 320 | 16
Huang Minhao | 342 | 18
Shi Zhiyong | 370 | 19
Mohamed Ihab | 381 | 20
Sohrab Moradi | 410 | 21
Simon Martirosyan | 439 | 22
Lasha Talakhadze | 485 | 25
Women's world snatch record holders
Name | lift (lbs) | 4e STR
---------------------------------------
Hou Zhihui | 209 | 11
Li Yajun | 225 | 12
Choe Hyo-sim | 236 | 12
Deng Wei | 258 | 13
Rim Jong-sim | 273 | 14
Li Wenwen | 324 | 17
5th edition doesn't specify any type of lift.
Men's world clean and jerk record holders
Name | lift (lbs) | 5e STR
---------------------------------------
Om Yun-chol | 366 | 13
Eko Yuli Irawan | 383 | 13
Pak Jong-ju | 414 | 14
Shi Zhiyong | 437 | 15
Lü Xiaojun | 456 | 16
Tian Tao | 509 | 17
Simon Martirosyan | 529 | 18
Lasha Talakhadze | 582 | 20
Women's world clean and jerk record holders
Name | lift (lbs) | 5e STR
---------------------------------------
Jiang Huihua | 260 | 9
Liao Qiuyun | 284 | 10
Kuo Hsing-chun | 309 | 11
Deng Wei | 320 | 11
Zhang Wangli | 335 | 12
Li Wenwen | 410 | 14
Quote from: Godsmonkey on August 06, 2021, 11:09:34 AMSo yes, your point about women not wanting to play super strong characters probably extends beyond your group.
This has been my experience as well.
So, it seems that the most compelling reason to put stat modifiers on female characters is not realism but the fact that it would discourage male players from playing female PCs. As this is almost always a dumpster fire.
Quote from: mightybrain on August 08, 2021, 07:52:03 PM
Only 4th edition specified the deadlift and that creates problems the other way. Here is some research I did a while back:
In 1st edition, you did not get to roll for exceptional strength unless you were playing a fighter. The only female fighters that could roll for exceptional strength were humans and half-orcs, with female human fighters limited to 18/50 and female half-orc fighters limited to 18/75. The only fighters not limited were male humans, who could potentially get the fabled 18/00. I don't remember ever getting it or even playing with anyone who did. The chances are 1 in 1,072 characters rolled using Method I.
One thing to note about the 18/50 limit was that 18/01 to 18/50 was all one range for the purposes of the game bonuses. In terms of how much better this was than a non-fighter 18 strength, you got: 1 extra point of damage, the ability to carry 250 additional coins, and a 4% increase in your chance to bend bars or lift gates. As you went up, the bonuses were non-linear so 18/00 was significantly better in terms of bonuses even than 18/99. 18/00 was a lot better than 18/50, by comparison you got: another +2 on your chance to hit, another 3 points of damage, the ability to carry 2,000 additional coins, an increased chance to open doors by 2 in 6 and a 2 in 6 chance to force open locked, barred, or magically held doors, and double the chance to bend bars or lift gates.
The strength ability and exceptional strength did also figure into lifting ability. A humanoid character weighing less than 90 lbs and with 18 strength could lift up to double their own weight above their head. Heavier characters could lift the greater of 180 lbs or their own weight above their head. Characters with 18/50 could lift an additional 50 lbs, whereas characters with 18/00 could lift an additional 290 lbs. This was calculated by a formula: 1 lb per point from 1-50, 4 lbs per point from 51-90, and 8 lbs per point from 91-00.
Your weight played a significant part in the weight you could lift and that too was (and still is) based on your character's sex. For male human characters, your weight in pounds was an average of 175 with a range from 139 up to 375. For female humans, your weight in pounds was an average of 130 with a range from 100 to 250.
The type of lift was described in the 1st edition Player's Handbook as a military press. With this lift, you hold the weight at your shoulders and push straight up. It was an Olympic event until 1972 after which it was discontinued due to techniques that allowed lifters to lift more weight without actually being stronger. Fast forward to today and the military press is no longer an event. But we get a pretty good correlation across all the weight categories in the men's clean and jerk event.
Men's world clean and jerk record holders
Name | weight (lbs) | lift (lbs) | 1e AD&D STR
-----------------------------------------------------------
Om Yun-chol | 121* | 366 | 18/95
Eko Yuli Irawan | 134* | 383 | 18/95
Pak Jong-ju | 148 | 414 | 18/97
Shi Zhiyong | 161 | 437 | 18/98
Lü Xiaojun | 178 | 456 | 18/99
Tian Tao | 211 | 509 | 18/00+
Simon Martirosyan | 240 | 529 | 18/00
Lasha Talakhadze | 372 | 582 | 18/90
* too lightweight to create with 1st edition AD&D rules.
+ you would need greater than 18/00 strength to achieve this lift
Lasha Talakhadze is 6' 6, taller than the tallest in 5e
The women's event correlates close to 18/90 as the peak female human strength. It shouldn't be too surprising that the women's numbers are not as accurately modelled since women's weightlifting didn't take off until long after the publication of 1st edition.
Women's world clean and jerk record holders
Name | weight (lbs) | lift (lbs) | 1e AD&D STR
-----------------------------------------------------------
Jiang Huihua | 108 | 260 | 18/75
Liao Qiuyun | 121 | 284 | 18/79
Kuo Hsing-chun | 129 | 309 | 18/83
Deng Wei | 140 | 320 | 18/83
Zhang Wangli | 163 | 335 | 18/81
Li Wenwen | 326* | 410 | 18/59
* too heavyweight to create using 1st edition AD&D rules.
2nd edition got rid of the limits on male and female abilities, although there were still race based limits. For strength, the character's weight no longer factored into lifting ability except for a note that only characters with exceptional strength rolls could lift more than twice their own weight. The real world reference for lifting ability now switched to the snatch, with the example being Antonio Krastev's 1987 World Championship 476 lb lift. A strength table listed the maximum weight you could lift for each score.
The default method for rolling abilities, Method I in 2nd edition, was a straight in order roll of 3d6. This made getting the fabled 18/00 much harder with only 1 in 21,600 characters likely to get it.
Men's world snatch record holders
Name | weight (lbs) | lift (lbs) | 2e AD&D STR
-----------------------------------------------------------
Om Yun-chol | 121* | 298 | 18/51-75
Li Fabin | 134* | 320 | 18/76-90
Huang Minhao | 147 | 342 | 18/91-99
Shi Zhiyong | 161 | 370 | 18/91-99
Mohamed Ihab | 178 | 381 | 18/00
Sohrab Moradi | 212* | 410 | 18/00
Simon Martirosyan | 240* | 439 | 18/00
Lasha Talakhadze | 372* | 485 | 19
* too light or heavy to generate randomly using 2nd edition AD&D rules
Women's world snatch record holders
Name | weight (lbs) | lift (lbs) | 2e AD&D STR
-----------------------------------------------------------
Hou Zhihui | 108 | 209 | 17
Li Yajun | 121 | 225 | 18
Choe Hyo-sim | 130 | 236 | 18
Deng Wei | 140 | 258 | 18/01-50
Rim Jong-sim | 167 | 273 | 18/01-50
Li Wenwen | 326* | 324 | 18/76-90
* too heavyweight to generate randomly using 2nd edition AD&D rules
3e doesn't reference any record or lifting technique but the lift it describes is similar to the snatch lift. It has a table for the maximum load you can lift. Weight now is unrelated to lifting ability for humans. For halflings and gnomes, their lifting ability is reduced to 75% of the table due to their small size.
Men's world snatch record holders
Name | lift (lbs) | 3e STR
---------------------------------------
Om Yun-chol | 298 | 18
Li Fabin | 320 | 19
Huang Minhao | 342 | 19
Shi Zhiyong | 370 | 20
Mohamed Ihab | 381 | 20
Sohrab Moradi | 410 | 21
Simon Martirosyan | 439 | 21
Lasha Talakhadze | 485 | 22
Women's world snatch record holders
Name | lift (lbs) | 3e STR
---------------------------------------
Hou Zhihui | 209 | 16
Li Yajun | 225 | 16
Choe Hyo-sim | 236 | 17
Deng Wei | 258 | 17
Rim Jong-sim | 273 | 18
Li Wenwen | 324 | 19
4e changes the definition again. This time your strength x 20 represents the maximum weight you can lift off the ground. This action describes a deadlift. However, deadlift amounts are usually much greater than other types of lift and would result in ridiculously high equivalent STR scores for modern human lifting records. Equally the description is the amount you can lift and still move at a slowed rate. This might match something like the Atlas stones. Continuing with the snatch as a benchmark we get the following results.
Men's world snatch record holders
Name | lift (lbs) | 4e STR
---------------------------------------
Om Yun-chol | 298 | 15
Li Fabin | 320 | 16
Huang Minhao | 342 | 18
Shi Zhiyong | 370 | 19
Mohamed Ihab | 381 | 20
Sohrab Moradi | 410 | 21
Simon Martirosyan | 439 | 22
Lasha Talakhadze | 485 | 25
Women's world snatch record holders
Name | lift (lbs) | 4e STR
---------------------------------------
Hou Zhihui | 209 | 11
Li Yajun | 225 | 12
Choe Hyo-sim | 236 | 12
Deng Wei | 258 | 13
Rim Jong-sim | 273 | 14
Li Wenwen | 324 | 17
5th edition doesn't specify any type of lift.
Men's world clean and jerk record holders
Name | lift (lbs) | 5e STR
---------------------------------------
Om Yun-chol | 366 | 13
Eko Yuli Irawan | 383 | 13
Pak Jong-ju | 414 | 14
Shi Zhiyong | 437 | 15
Lü Xiaojun | 456 | 16
Tian Tao | 509 | 17
Simon Martirosyan | 529 | 18
Lasha Talakhadze | 582 | 20
Women's world clean and jerk record holders
Name | lift (lbs) | 5e STR
---------------------------------------
Jiang Huihua | 260 | 9
Liao Qiuyun | 284 | 10
Kuo Hsing-chun | 309 | 11
Deng Wei | 320 | 11
Zhang Wangli | 335 | 12
Li Wenwen | 410 | 14
military press is not really an analog for a clean and jerk. if executed properly, and there is a clear cut proper for both, the C&J is a considerably bigger number for everyone than they can press. That said, it seems the people who want a metric for what a specific strength can lift and who write D&D have never set foot in a gym in their lives. Ah well, somehow later editions have messed up what was a fairly solid metric to determine strength with regard to lifting IMO.
In all honesty, men are biologically better at most of the things that D&D adventuring parties get up to. Men are far stronger than women, tougher, faster, better fighters, and though more susceptible to certain illnesses and ailments than women, generally more resistant to the harsh conditions that adventurers frequently encounter. So if we really accurately modeled the differences between men and women in D&D rules, it would probably be unbalanced in the favor of men.
Should we just have male characters be more powerful than female ones. I guess we could, but I don't know if that would add fun to the game. Since magic isn't real, we could do anything we want with that and give females a benefit to magical ability, that fits with certain myths. But do we want combat camaraderie to be all male and magic characters to be all female? That sounds less fun than giving the players more flexibility and choice. We could also say that sexual dimorphism is different with other races/species, in fact at various points they've done that with the Drow. That might be interesting, but once again it seems like encouraging pigeonholing.
Of course, in real life women have a lot of advantages that won't matter in a D&D game. Women can get pregnant, give birth, and lactate to feed babies. That is necessary for a civilization but not an advantage if you're fighting orcs in a dungeon. Women live longer, which is a huge advantage in life, but seldom in a game. We could go on like that for a while discussing how the sexes are different but it would be tedious and probably useless to try to model such differences in the rules.
What is my point here? Basically that trying to model these sorts of differences, realistic as they may be, probably won't add to the fun of the game. It would probably hurt balance and undermine player choices. I'd say let players decide what their characters are like. If they want a female barbarian with a Strength of 20, it would be unrealistic but no more so than playing a wizard or an elf, and it isn't representative of females that exist within the game world. I get it's kinda fun (especially since it's forbidden and politically incorrect) to come up with different attributes for men and women, but when the rubber hits the road and a game actually starts, it seems like it might reduce fun.
It's fine and good to have damsels in distress, but that is an NPC role, if someone wants to play a female character, they probably don't want to be that except in very rare cases.
I often get this weird impression that people simply aren't very honest about what they actually like. Have you guys noticed the tendency for many people to advocate for "women are strong too! everything is the same between the sexes" one minute, and then go starry-eyed when they see the latest historical drama about that handsome pirate with his cutlass and the vulnerable but resourceful woman in her baroque dress. 😆
I also think that the more we move into the "gender is a spectrum" trend, the more people will long for a time when men were men and women were women.
"In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri."
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Quote from: oggsmash on August 08, 2021, 08:44:28 PM
military press is not really an analog for a clean and jerk. if executed properly, and there is a clear cut proper for both, the C&J is a considerably bigger number for everyone than they can press.
These were the records back when it was still an Olympic event:
Press 236.5 kg Vasily Alekseyev 15 April 1972
Snatch 180.0 kg Vasily Alekseyev 24 July 1971
Clean & Jerk 237.5 kg Vasily Alekseyev 15 April 1972
Quote from: ShieldWife on August 08, 2021, 09:54:48 PM
In all honesty, men are biologically better at most of the things that D&D adventuring parties get up to. Men are far stronger than women, tougher, faster, better fighters, and though more susceptible to certain illnesses and ailments than women, generally more resistant to the harsh conditions that adventurers frequently encounter. So if we really accurately modeled the differences between men and women in D&D rules, it would probably be unbalanced in the favor of men.
Should we just have male characters be more powerful than female ones. I guess we could, but I don't know if that would add fun to the game. Since magic isn't real, we could do anything we want with that and give females a benefit to magical ability, that fits with certain myths. But do we want combat camaraderie to be all male and magic characters to be all female? That sounds less fun than giving the players more flexibility and choice. We could also say that sexual dimorphism is different with other races/species, in fact at various points they've done that with the Drow. That might be interesting, but once again it seems like encouraging pigeonholing.
Of course, in real life women have a lot of advantages that won't matter in a D&D game. Women can get pregnant, give birth, and lactate to feed babies. That is necessary for a civilization but not an advantage if you're fighting orcs in a dungeon. Women live longer, which is a huge advantage in life, but seldom in a game. We could go on like that for a while discussing how the sexes are different but it would be tedious and probably useless to try to model such differences in the rules.
What is my point here? Basically that trying to model these sorts of differences, realistic as they may be, probably won't add to the fun of the game. It would probably hurt balance and undermine player choices. I'd say let players decide what their characters are like. If they want a female barbarian with a Strength of 20, it would be unrealistic but no more so than playing a wizard or an elf, and it isn't representative of females that exist within the game world. I get it's kinda fun (especially since it's forbidden and politically incorrect) to come up with different attributes for men and women, but when the rubber hits the road and a game actually starts, it seems like it might reduce fun.
It's fine and good to have damsels in distress, but that is an NPC role, if someone wants to play a female character, they probably don't want to be that except in very rare cases.
Great post, fits my view exactly. Realistically, women are worse at physical activity, especially combat. Some women can match the average man, a few exceptional women can match the average male soldier; no women come close to the most exceptional male warriors. But this does not mean female PCs in a fantasy adventure game like D&D should be inferior to male PCs. All PCs should be competent at the core game activities.
Well, for your game you can reconcile however you want, as far as how the rules match the reality of that setting. In D&D, this is even easier than some games, because once you allow for magic in the setting such that some male humans get extraordinary strength, it is an easy side step, hardly worth mentioning as movement, to female humans can do the same thing.
That is, it is easier to rationalize why there aren't difference in the upper range of the stats than it is to provide such rules, work through the handling time issues, work through the player issues, and rationalize your new rules. As with any game rules, a rationalization that you can live with that lets you get on with the "realistic" flaws in the model, is usually good enough.
Which brings me back to my original point that if some of the players want a rationalization that is a little closer to reality, the best way is to adjust the bottom end of the range, not the upper. If you do that, on average, male humans are stronger than female humans in your world. Barely touches PCs at all, and when it does, no one cares. No one cares that female wizards are likely to be a little less strong than male wizards. They are both weak compared to everyone else.
Given that such a rule so barely touches PC generation that it would be better to just ignore it entirely (for simplicity), you could still use it for NPCs if you want. Yet another example of how the fetish for making NPCs/Monsters generated the exact same way as PCs is a bad design decision.
Quote from: mightybrain on August 09, 2021, 03:31:03 AM
Quote from: oggsmash on August 08, 2021, 08:44:28 PM
military press is not really an analog for a clean and jerk. if executed properly, and there is a clear cut proper for both, the C&J is a considerably bigger number for everyone than they can press.
These were the records back when it was still an Olympic event:
Press 236.5 kg Vasily Alekseyev 15 April 1972
Snatch 180.0 kg Vasily Alekseyev 24 July 1971
Clean & Jerk 237.5 kg Vasily Alekseyev 15 April 1972
You are not understanding me when I say there is a proper form for each. The reason military press was removed was because guys would lean so far back wards, they were essentially doing a standing bench press, which is pretty dangerous and is NOT a military press. If you feel the two are close, I suggest giving them both a try (after getting some quality coaching on the clean and the jerk, as technique and timing are paramount, and you will quickly understand what I am saying about proper press form) for yourself, and see how close they are after a bit of training. What a fat dude could pull off in the 70's loaded to the gills on steroids is not going to be the likely results for many people. Edited to add: I mention fat dude because the bigger guys were able to tolerate the insane leaning that went on back then. Point being, the baseline person who invests a lot of time in those lifts, and who is pressing with proper form, is not going to be all that close to their clean and jerk maximum. The Jerk is essentially a press with a "cheat" if you are doing the press properly (upright throughout, zero bounce). Guess what...when you "cheat" at something, you do more weight. further edit: I would say you can test this without the clean in a power rack (because if the clean is the limiting factor, well clean and then press, but as the clean is a complex maneuver under load, it is simple to get into a power rack, press your max, and then do a jerk starting at chest after taking from the rack).
Sorry about all that rambling on the lifting. Again though, it originated with people who had little to no exposure to both lifts (the rules in D&D) and we have weird numbers now like a 300 pound clean and jerk (which is more than many D1 football players could do) for an average peasant.
Basically, it's too much minutia to get bogged down in, so I'm happy for them to be equal.
Adventurers are exceptional people too. So while men are 'technically' bigger and are generally a bit stronger in 'real life'. One could say that these adventurers who are women are pretty exceptional to begin with anyway.
Plus, it seems needlessly divisive over such a minor detail in a game of make believe imo.
Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on August 09, 2021, 09:45:46 AM
Adventurers are exceptional people too. So while men are 'technically' bigger and are generally a bit stronger in 'real life'.
Men who've gone through basic training are about twice as strong in the upper body as women who've gone through basic training. For sedentary males and females it's less, about 60% stronger. Still it's a big difference, apparently the biggest among the great apes. And of course this affects how society looks, including medieval type societies that most fantasy games base off. There are good world-building reasons for not declaring that male & female human NPCs have the same or similar average strength. But I don't think they apply to PCs in D&D type games. Maybe in very simulationist games.
I'm a simulationist at heart. Not only in RPGs, but simulations are also a large part of my professional skills. As such I like my games to reflect reality except where's there's a specific reason to not do so. I have never had a complaint from one of my players about a sex or race based stat modifier or limitation, so I'm inclined to think of this as one of the issues sjw nutjobs get bent out of shape over but that does not ever come up in actual play. If it did come up because a player wants to be Xena or Wonder Woman, I would not have a problem making an exception to the rule.
In my current game I sidestepped the issues. The "talents" are attack, defense, magic, athletics, perception, and guile. There really isn't a fundamental need for strength as an ability score.
I'm not sure how character generation can be simulationist. Would that mean that the same percentage of PC are wizards who are wizards in the general population? If only 1 out of 1000 medieval peasants can lift a certain rock, then only 1 out of 1000 PCs can lift that rock? It seems rather odd.
I would think that character creation is the time when you are deciding what to simulate, once that is done, then the rules could be used to simulate the fictional people within the shared fictional reality of the setting. Hopefully not with D&D rules because they are highly unrealistic in numerous regards.
I guess "simulation" is a sliding scale. It starts with not really simulating anything at all, e.g. you're a teenager wrestling a grizzly bear, roll d6 : 1-3 you lose 4-6 you win. But wait a second, some might say, the bear is much much stronger! And so you go from there, and there is no upper limit to how much you can simulate, really, but it tends to bog down the game if you go overboard. I agree that you have to focus on what's important to the specific game, and ignore (or handwave) the rest.
Remember, folks, Phoenix Command was extremely simulationist and realistic.
How well did it sell, again?
I like some level of simulation, and I like "reality" within the boundaries of the world the PCs are playing in. I have no issue with the women being as strong as the men for PCs, all the games I play in are Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery, or Science fiction. Not papers and paychecks. I can see a game setting where maybe the players might want to model some version of our reality (men being the warriors and considerably stronger and more durable) but I would also swing several other things towards women. A poster mentioned men tend to follow men, this is true in organized settings or large numbers of people...BUT there are all sorts of dudes who have been "charmed" throughout history to do crazy or illegal stuff to impress a woman. This can be magnified in a game setting with things beyond simple charisma bonuses I think.
For me, I do not bother, if someone wants to be a barbarian warlord and female, I do not care. As an aside, GURPS scales MUCH better from an average (ST 10) person to an extremely strong (ST 20) person in matters of both doing damage and lifting ability. It also has a means to have a disproportionate lifting ability (those sweet gym muscles) to functional strength, as well as disproportionately strong striking power (that Joe Frazier left hook/Tommy Hearns power) relative to physical strength/power in other aspects of life/performance.
Quote from: Ghostmaker on August 09, 2021, 03:01:41 PM
Remember, folks, Phoenix Command was extremely simulationist and realistic.
How well did it sell, again?
I bought Living Steel. Never found anyone else that wanted to give it a spin.
For physical abilities as both a DM and a player I need to know how much a character can lift, how fast they can run, how high / far they can jump, and so on. I need to know this as a DM to come up with some estimate of success when a character attempts these things. I need to know this as a player to have some idea of what I might try. My character's life might depend on the answer and it would certainly be advantageous for player and DM assessments to be in the same ball park. If the ability rules provide good guidelines I can make an informed choice. If they don't I can't. For female players of female characters the problem is doubled, not only do you have to work out what your character can do relative to your own experience, you then have to translate it to the equivalent male ability.
No, I don't need to know how exactly much a character could lift using Olympic military press rules. But I need some kind of guide. D&D 5e does a pretty good job at the top end of human strength but not so well at the middle or bottom. 1st edition did a much better job, not because it used a particular standard, but because firstly it tied strength to body weight, and secondly it extended the strength score for exceptional ability.
Quote from: ShieldWife on August 09, 2021, 01:08:16 PM
I'm not sure how character generation can be simulationist. Would that mean that the same percentage of PC are wizards who are wizards in the general population? If only 1 out of 1000 medieval peasants can lift a certain rock, then only 1 out of 1000 PCs can lift that rock? It seems rather odd.
I would think that character creation is the time when you are deciding what to simulate, once that is done, then the rules could be used to simulate the fictional people within the shared fictional reality of the setting. Hopefully not with D&D rules because they are highly unrealistic in numerous regards.
That's an easy one. Assuming I'm making a human and ability scores are randomly generated, I'd like the str, dex, etc to match up with their real life distribution as much as possible.
Quote from: Mishihari on August 09, 2021, 05:03:14 PM
Quote from: ShieldWife on August 09, 2021, 01:08:16 PM
I'm not sure how character generation can be simulationist. Would that mean that the same percentage of PC are wizards who are wizards in the general population? If only 1 out of 1000 medieval peasants can lift a certain rock, then only 1 out of 1000 PCs can lift that rock? It seems rather odd.
I would think that character creation is the time when you are deciding what to simulate, once that is done, then the rules could be used to simulate the fictional people within the shared fictional reality of the setting. Hopefully not with D&D rules because they are highly unrealistic in numerous regards.
That's an easy one. Assuming I'm making a human and ability scores are randomly generated, I'd like the str, dex, etc to match up with their real life distribution as much as possible.
Okay, but the real life distribution of what exactly? The total population of Earth? The armed forces in general? Only the Military Special Forces?
Because the distributions of those are going to be quite different, and I'll keep making this point, adventurers are NOT John and Jane Average. They are exceptional people who are choosing to risk life and limb doing what they do.
The distributions for women who are going to choose to don armor and wield a blade aren't going to look at all like the distributions of women who choose to stay at home and raise a family (the distributions for military and non-military men will similarly be different).
Unless you're going to require the person rolling up a female PC to either play Jane Average the Housewife or keep rolling until they achieve a result that allows them to actually be an adventurer.
Saying "I want a realistic distribution" without qualifying the population is just word salad.
ETA: As an example of what I mean, in my game system the assumption is that any PC adventurer is either in the top 10% of several attributes or in the top 1% of at least one attribute.
That is the realistic distribution for anyone who's even thinking about trekking into the monster-haunted wilds in search of fame and fortune. If you can't hit that benchmark good luck finding anyone to actually train you in the skills you'd need to have an adventuring class.
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 09, 2021, 06:54:20 PM
Because the distributions of those are going to be quite different, and I'll keep making this point, adventurers are NOT John and Jane Average. They are exceptional people who are choosing to risk life and limb doing what they do.
I prefer 3d6 over the best 3 of 4d6 so in my mind adventurers come from the same stock as the common man or woman. For me, it's their choice to risk life and limb that makes them exceptional, not their stats. Starting grounded makes for a more challenging game with greater risks and a greater sense of achievement if you make it through.
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 09, 2021, 06:54:20 PM
Quote from: Mishihari on August 09, 2021, 05:03:14 PM
Quote from: ShieldWife on August 09, 2021, 01:08:16 PM
I'm not sure how character generation can be simulationist. Would that mean that the same percentage of PC are wizards who are wizards in the general population? If only 1 out of 1000 medieval peasants can lift a certain rock, then only 1 out of 1000 PCs can lift that rock? It seems rather odd.
I would think that character creation is the time when you are deciding what to simulate, once that is done, then the rules could be used to simulate the fictional people within the shared fictional reality of the setting. Hopefully not with D&D rules because they are highly unrealistic in numerous regards.
That's an easy one. Assuming I'm making a human and ability scores are randomly generated, I'd like the str, dex, etc to match up with their real life distribution as much as possible.
Okay, but the real life distribution of what exactly? The total population of Earth? The armed forces in general? Only the Military Special Forces?
Because the distributions of those are going to be quite different, and I'll keep making this point, adventurers are NOT John and Jane Average. They are exceptional people who are choosing to risk life and limb doing what they do.
The distributions for women who are going to choose to don armor and wield a blade aren't going to look at all like the distributions of women who choose to stay at home and raise a family (the distributions for military and non-military men will similarly be different).
Unless you're going to require the person rolling up a female PC to either play Jane Average the Housewife or keep rolling until they achieve a result that allows them to actually be an adventurer.
Saying "I want a realistic distribution" without qualifying the population is just word salad.
ETA: As an example of what I mean, in my game system the assumption is that any PC adventurer is either in the top 10% of several attributes or in the top 1% of at least one attribute.
That is the realistic distribution for anyone who's even thinking about trekking into the monster-haunted wilds in search of fame and fortune. If you can't hit that benchmark good luck finding anyone to actually train you in the skills you'd need to have an adventuring class.
Greetings!
Good points, Chris!
On the one hand--I hate the whole "Superhero" mentality.
On the other hand, there's this strong base of support for having player characters be ordinary, mud-covered farmers.
I can perhaps be criticized for expecting player characters to be genuinely *exceptional*. My own Marine Corps bias, no doubt! In the Marines, *everyone in the squad* was exceptional. Each and every member had less than 6% body-fat, could run and hike for miles and miles, and were all trained killers and beasts. All were highly skilled in hand-to-hand combat, and well-versed in many weapons. All were hardened, rugged professionals that could perform lethally and with great skill in any climate, any terrain, against any opponent. THEN, even amongst that group, you had standouts--the amazing sniper; the Marine from Louisiana who was an expert with knife-fighting; The Marine from California who was an expert in two kinds of Martial Arts; A guy from Florida that was fluent in 5 different languages. A very diverse bunch, with sometimes surprising specialties--but all though were ruthlessly trained to excel as Marine Infantry.
I sometimes think that all of these average, mud-covered farmers wouldn't last long in an adventuring environment. ;D
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: Trond on August 09, 2021, 01:56:49 PM
I guess "simulation" is a sliding scale. It starts with not really simulating anything at all, e.g. you're a teenager wrestling a grizzly bear, roll d6 : 1-3 you lose 4-6 you win. But wait a second, some might say, the bear is much much stronger! And so you go from there, and there is no upper limit to how much you can simulate, really, but it tends to bog down the game if you go overboard. I agree that you have to focus on what's important to the specific game, and ignore (or handwave) the rest.
So let's assume we have a 100 pound 5'5" teenager who has never been in a fight and can't do a push-up. That person wresting a healthy adult grizzly bear doesn't stand much of a chance - simulating that fight should cause the grizzly bear to win. But what if I don't want to play that teenager, what if I want to play a legendary warrior of nearly superhuman strength who might be able to wrestle a bear? What if I want to play a superhero who could toss the bear aside like a stuffed teddy bear?
Wanting to simulate something doesn't really limit what you simulate. You could simulate any kind of fictional, fantasy, or science fiction idea.
Quote from: Mishihari on August 09, 2021, 05:03:14 PMThat's an easy one. Assuming I'm making a human and ability scores are randomly generated, I'd like the str, dex, etc to match up with their real life distribution as much as possible.
Of course, different people have different tastes and it's subjective, but it this strikes me as very strange. I see role playing as emulating genres about heroic characters doing great things: Arthurian knights or Merlin, Gilgamesh, Robin Hood, the Scarlet Pimpernel, vampires, superheroes, James Bond or associated femme fatale, and the list goes on.
I don't really see as much appeal playing a game where not only do I have minimal choice in what my character is like, but where I'm statistically likely to be Jane average peasant, and actually just as likely to be a handicapped imbecile as one of the heroic figures from legend and fiction I mentioned above.
I'm not criticizing that taste in games, but it seems like a more unusual choice than giving males and females different attributes.
And also, what Chris said.
Quote from: SHARK on August 09, 2021, 07:27:19 PM
I sometimes think that all of these average, mud-covered farmers wouldn't last long in an adventuring environment. ;D
Yeah, it seems very strange if we were going to role play marines (just to go with your example) for the characters to have average attributes. Some of the guys may have unique skills but if you rolled up a character with 10's or less across all attributes, then that person wouldn't be a marine and probably not a knight or wizard either.
Quote from: SHARK on August 09, 2021, 07:27:19 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 09, 2021, 06:54:20 PM
Quote from: Mishihari on August 09, 2021, 05:03:14 PM
Quote from: ShieldWife on August 09, 2021, 01:08:16 PM
I'm not sure how character generation can be simulationist. Would that mean that the same percentage of PC are wizards who are wizards in the general population? If only 1 out of 1000 medieval peasants can lift a certain rock, then only 1 out of 1000 PCs can lift that rock? It seems rather odd.
I would think that character creation is the time when you are deciding what to simulate, once that is done, then the rules could be used to simulate the fictional people within the shared fictional reality of the setting. Hopefully not with D&D rules because they are highly unrealistic in numerous regards.
That's an easy one. Assuming I'm making a human and ability scores are randomly generated, I'd like the str, dex, etc to match up with their real life distribution as much as possible.
Okay, but the real life distribution of what exactly? The total population of Earth? The armed forces in general? Only the Military Special Forces?
Because the distributions of those are going to be quite different, and I'll keep making this point, adventurers are NOT John and Jane Average. They are exceptional people who are choosing to risk life and limb doing what they do.
The distributions for women who are going to choose to don armor and wield a blade aren't going to look at all like the distributions of women who choose to stay at home and raise a family (the distributions for military and non-military men will similarly be different).
Unless you're going to require the person rolling up a female PC to either play Jane Average the Housewife or keep rolling until they achieve a result that allows them to actually be an adventurer.
Saying "I want a realistic distribution" without qualifying the population is just word salad.
ETA: As an example of what I mean, in my game system the assumption is that any PC adventurer is either in the top 10% of several attributes or in the top 1% of at least one attribute.
That is the realistic distribution for anyone who's even thinking about trekking into the monster-haunted wilds in search of fame and fortune. If you can't hit that benchmark good luck finding anyone to actually train you in the skills you'd need to have an adventuring class.
Greetings!
Good points, Chris!
On the one hand--I hate the whole "Superhero" mentality.
On the other hand, there's this strong base of support for having player characters be ordinary, mud-covered farmers.
I can perhaps be criticized for expecting player characters to be genuinely *exceptional*. My own Marine Corps bias, no doubt! In the Marines, *everyone in the squad* was exceptional. Each and every member had less than 6% body-fat, could run and hike for miles and miles, and were all trained killers and beasts. All were highly skilled in hand-to-hand combat, and well-versed in many weapons. All were hardened, rugged professionals that could perform lethally and with great skill in any climate, any terrain, against any opponent. THEN, even amongst that group, you had standouts--the amazing sniper; the Marine from Louisiana who was an expert with knife-fighting; The Marine from California who was an expert in two kinds of Martial Arts; A guy from Florida that was fluent in 5 different languages. A very diverse bunch, with sometimes surprising specialties--but all though were ruthlessly trained to excel as Marine Infantry.
I sometimes think that all of these average, mud-covered farmers wouldn't last long in an adventuring environment. ;D
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Not only wouldn't they last long, they wouldn't even have a character class. The first level Fighter has the title of Veteran, not Mud Farmer.
When you consider that the general distribution of trained warriors to laborers has always been about 1:100 and 1e also had zero-level warriors, just being a 1st level Fighter probably makes you at least 1:1000 in the general population.
How picky can a wizard be when searching for an apprentice when the opportunity to learn the secrets of magic is the potential for wealth beyond most commoners' imaginings? Why would they EVER pick a candidate of less than stellar intelligence?
MAYBE the Thief might be a Joe Average; no one asks for your credentials if you want to start picking pockets or robbing homes; but even then, the 1st level Thief possesses several skills including an entire secret language that set them apart and above the typical 0-level thug and whoever taught them that language and other superior abilities probably didn't just pick you at random (if anything I'd suspect the Thief is more akin to a "Made Man" who's proved himself to his superiors and been initiated into The Family).
Well, you've also got games like mine with a foot in multiple genres. Specifically, I have PCs that are "Main", "Companions", and "Associates". Mains are your heroic, better than everyone else characters (though more in the sense of BEMCI/RC characters than, say, 5E). When a player is making one, they have almost complete choice on everything, and even the parts that are random are skewed to help them a little. They also start with enough XP to be 1st level.
Companions are almost as good in raw ability but the player has less choice. You have to roll for not only your stats but your race, culture, etc. Pretty much all you get to pick is your class and a few related abilities (e.g. weapon proficiencies). They start with zero XP, which allows them to be 1st level in their class but not get any of the bells and whistles that the mains get. They tend to be so poor they can't afford more than weak armor and a weapon. They get 1/2 XP.
Associates are your dirt farmers, usually. They roll 3d6 down the line, no adjustments, everything is random, and they have no money or equipment and no special abilities until they have adventured some. They are also not fully owned by the player that rolls them up and have lousy morale. They get no more than 1/4 XP, and usually less than that.
Some companions and even a few associates may grow into a greater stature as they adventure. Or they might be red shirt #1 10 minutes into the session. Occasionally, someone will get so lucky they'd rather play a lesser character as their main, which is fine. If a main dies, they are playing their companion for the rest of the adventure, or if that doesn't work out, whatever associate they can grab from the pool. Who knows, the associate might make it out and become a good character. The usual trajectory of an associate that lives is that they get a stake and retire as an NPC. This allows some turnover mixed with continuity. Not incidentally, it also has the players providing me with interesting NPCs that have been developed in play.
Now, as it happens I'm not doing gender adjustments in this, because that didn't fit into my "complexity budget" with everything else I've got going on. But it is definitely making distinctions between the likely heroes and the dirt farmers.
Quote from: ShieldWife on August 09, 2021, 07:46:57 PM
Quote from: Trond on August 09, 2021, 01:56:49 PM
I guess "simulation" is a sliding scale. It starts with not really simulating anything at all, e.g. you're a teenager wrestling a grizzly bear, roll d6 : 1-3 you lose 4-6 you win. But wait a second, some might say, the bear is much much stronger! And so you go from there, and there is no upper limit to how much you can simulate, really, but it tends to bog down the game if you go overboard. I agree that you have to focus on what's important to the specific game, and ignore (or handwave) the rest.
So let's assume we have a 100 pound 5'5" teenager who has never been in a fight and can't do a push-up. That person wresting a healthy adult grizzly bear doesn't stand much of a chance - simulating that fight should cause the grizzly bear to win. But what if I don't want to play that teenager, what if I want to play a legendary warrior of nearly superhuman strength who might be able to wrestle a bear? What if I want to play a superhero who could toss the bear aside like a stuffed teddy bear?
Wanting to simulate something doesn't really limit what you simulate. You could simulate any kind of fictional, fantasy, or science fiction idea.
Quote from: Mishihari on August 09, 2021, 05:03:14 PMThat's an easy one. Assuming I'm making a human and ability scores are randomly generated, I'd like the str, dex, etc to match up with their real life distribution as much as possible.
Of course, different people have different tastes and it's subjective, but it this strikes me as very strange. I see role playing as emulating genres about heroic characters doing great things: Arthurian knights or Merlin, Gilgamesh, Robin Hood, the Scarlet Pimpernel, vampires, superheroes, James Bond or associated femme fatale, and the list goes on.
I don't really see as much appeal playing a game where not only do I have minimal choice in what my character is like, but where I'm statistically likely to be Jane average peasant, and actually just as likely to be a handicapped imbecile as one of the heroic figures from legend and fiction I mentioned above.
I'm not criticizing that taste in games, but it seems like a more unusual choice than giving males and females different attributes.
And also, what Chris said.
Quote from: SHARK on August 09, 2021, 07:27:19 PM
I sometimes think that all of these average, mud-covered farmers wouldn't last long in an adventuring environment. ;D
Yeah, it seems very strange if we were going to role play marines (just to go with your example) for the characters to have average attributes. Some of the guys may have unique skills but if you rolled up a character with 10's or less across all attributes, then that person wouldn't be a marine and probably not a knight or wizard either.
Greetings!
Excellent, Shieldwife! ;D I certainly appreciate your enthusiasm, articulation, and persuasiveness. Women players are certainly expected to want to play exceptional characters just as much as men are--and why would women be eager to play a mud-covered, average farmer?
Indeed, most of the so-called average mud-covered farmers wouldn't qualify or be worthwhile as Marines, or Fighters, or Knights or Wizards. Very true! Without embracing "superheroes"--why do you think so many gamers seem to love everyone playing average, mud-covered farmers? Regardless of whether such characters are men or women?
This obsession with mediocrity seems misplaced. A Wizard for example, in 5E, with a 10 Strength--can really carry very little. They can't even carry sufficient supplies and gear for themselves--let alone have any capacity for carrying treasure. I forgot the precise math, but I figured that a Wizard needed at least a Strength of 12 just to get by. More to the point, anyone, of any class, needs to have a minimum of a 12 Strength, to merely be somewhat self-sufficient. Any strength score less than that and the character is too weak and pathetic to be worthwhile.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Marta Skowrońska was born a mud covered peasant but that didn't stop her making it to the top.
Quote from: SHARK on August 09, 2021, 08:44:08 PM
Quote from: ShieldWife on August 09, 2021, 07:46:57 PM
Quote from: Trond on August 09, 2021, 01:56:49 PM
I guess "simulation" is a sliding scale. It starts with not really simulating anything at all, e.g. you're a teenager wrestling a grizzly bear, roll d6 : 1-3 you lose 4-6 you win. But wait a second, some might say, the bear is much much stronger! And so you go from there, and there is no upper limit to how much you can simulate, really, but it tends to bog down the game if you go overboard. I agree that you have to focus on what's important to the specific game, and ignore (or handwave) the rest.
So let's assume we have a 100 pound 5'5" teenager who has never been in a fight and can't do a push-up. That person wresting a healthy adult grizzly bear doesn't stand much of a chance - simulating that fight should cause the grizzly bear to win. But what if I don't want to play that teenager, what if I want to play a legendary warrior of nearly superhuman strength who might be able to wrestle a bear? What if I want to play a superhero who could toss the bear aside like a stuffed teddy bear?
Wanting to simulate something doesn't really limit what you simulate. You could simulate any kind of fictional, fantasy, or science fiction idea.
Quote from: Mishihari on August 09, 2021, 05:03:14 PMThat's an easy one. Assuming I'm making a human and ability scores are randomly generated, I'd like the str, dex, etc to match up with their real life distribution as much as possible.
Of course, different people have different tastes and it's subjective, but it this strikes me as very strange. I see role playing as emulating genres about heroic characters doing great things: Arthurian knights or Merlin, Gilgamesh, Robin Hood, the Scarlet Pimpernel, vampires, superheroes, James Bond or associated femme fatale, and the list goes on.
I don't really see as much appeal playing a game where not only do I have minimal choice in what my character is like, but where I'm statistically likely to be Jane average peasant, and actually just as likely to be a handicapped imbecile as one of the heroic figures from legend and fiction I mentioned above.
I'm not criticizing that taste in games, but it seems like a more unusual choice than giving males and females different attributes.
And also, what Chris said.
Quote from: SHARK on August 09, 2021, 07:27:19 PM
I sometimes think that all of these average, mud-covered farmers wouldn't last long in an adventuring environment. ;D
Yeah, it seems very strange if we were going to role play marines (just to go with your example) for the characters to have average attributes. Some of the guys may have unique skills but if you rolled up a character with 10's or less across all attributes, then that person wouldn't be a marine and probably not a knight or wizard either.
Greetings!
Excellent, Shieldwife! ;D I certainly appreciate your enthusiasm, articulation, and persuasiveness. Women players are certainly expected to want to play exceptional characters just as much as men are--and why would women be eager to play a mud-covered, average farmer?
Indeed, most of the so-called average mud-covered farmers wouldn't qualify or be worthwhile as Marines, or Fighters, or Knights or Wizards. Very true! Without embracing "superheroes"--why do you think so many gamers seem to love everyone playing average, mud-covered farmers? Regardless of whether such characters are men or women?
This obsession with mediocrity seems misplaced. A Wizard for example, in 5E, with a 10 Strength--can really carry very little. They can't even carry sufficient supplies and gear for themselves--let alone have any capacity for carrying treasure. I forgot the precise math, but I figured that a Wizard needed at least a Strength of 12 just to get by. More to the point, anyone, of any class, needs to have a minimum of a 12 Strength, to merely be somewhat self-sufficient. Any strength score less than that and the character is too weak and pathetic to be worthwhile.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
I don't think there's tons of people yearning to be a mud farmer; maybe in the OSR, but not among 5e players anyway. But as for why you'd want to, from the perspective of achievement, it's a bigger challenge and bigger test of your skill and wits to take someone who's a nobody and climb to the top than somebody who's already born on third base.
Also, a more grounded character is easier to relate to and has more mundane, relatable concerns.
It was generally assumed that adventurers were above average to others of their kind.
Quote from: ShieldWife on August 09, 2021, 07:46:57 PM
Quote from: Mishihari on August 09, 2021, 05:03:14 PMThat's an easy one. Assuming I'm making a human and ability scores are randomly generated, I'd like the str, dex, etc to match up with their real life distribution as much as possible.
Of course, different people have different tastes and it's subjective, but it this strikes me as very strange. I see role playing as emulating genres about heroic characters doing great things: Arthurian knights or Merlin, Gilgamesh, Robin Hood, the Scarlet Pimpernel, vampires, superheroes, James Bond or associated femme fatale, and the list goes on.
I don't really see as much appeal playing a game where not only do I have minimal choice in what my character is like, but where I'm statistically likely to be Jane average peasant, and actually just as likely to be a handicapped imbecile as one of the heroic figures from legend and fiction I mentioned above.
I'm not criticizing that taste in games, but it seems like a more unusual choice than giving males and females different attributes.
This isn't anything unusual, it's just baseline D&D. I'll use 2E as an example since I happen to have the PHB on my desk atm. A character who rolls a 3 strength has a maximum press of 10 pounds. That's not Conan and prolly not even Merlin. Using the full range of humanity as possible characters has been baked into the game right from the beginning. If you want to play a great big action hero all the time, that's fine, but I think it's also interesting (and more heroic) to start with an average guy who's brave enough to go out adventuring.
True, but such a weakling, if he had a good intelligence, would be a magic-user. The old rules did allow one to re-roll if he ended up with a hopeless character.
As far as my own game goes, males and females have different attributes. That will not change.
Quote from: Mishihari on August 09, 2021, 10:29:02 PM
Quote from: ShieldWife on August 09, 2021, 07:46:57 PM
Quote from: Mishihari on August 09, 2021, 05:03:14 PMThat's an easy one. Assuming I'm making a human and ability scores are randomly generated, I'd like the str, dex, etc to match up with their real life distribution as much as possible.
Of course, different people have different tastes and it's subjective, but it this strikes me as very strange. I see role playing as emulating genres about heroic characters doing great things: Arthurian knights or Merlin, Gilgamesh, Robin Hood, the Scarlet Pimpernel, vampires, superheroes, James Bond or associated femme fatale, and the list goes on.
I don't really see as much appeal playing a game where not only do I have minimal choice in what my character is like, but where I'm statistically likely to be Jane average peasant, and actually just as likely to be a handicapped imbecile as one of the heroic figures from legend and fiction I mentioned above.
I'm not criticizing that taste in games, but it seems like a more unusual choice than giving males and females different attributes.
This isn't anything unusual, it's just baseline D&D. I'll use 2E as an example since I happen to have the PHB on my desk atm. A character who rolls a 3 strength has a maximum press of 10 pounds. That's not Conan and prolly not even Merlin. Using the full range of humanity as possible characters has been baked into the game right from the beginning. If you want to play a great big action hero all the time, that's fine, but I think it's also interesting (and more heroic) to start with an average guy who's brave enough to go out adventuring.
Just another sign of how RPGs (especially D&D) have changed over the years. As stats have become more important (conferring more bonuses to more activities, compared to the slight xp bonus many stats gave back then), the super-hero character has become more necessary. This is even more true as the logistical nature of the game has receded into the background. Explaining to a player who has never played anything other than 5e why every adventurer should carry a 10' pole gets a reaction equivalent to trying to explain calculus to a puppy. Just numerically, if you constantly fight battles where you have a 50% of losing, you will lose sooner rather than later. So the mechanics have changed so that the PCs have a tremendous advantage over the monsters (CR and encounter budgets, anyone?). There's nothing wrong with this style of play, if you enjoy it. But it hasn't always been the most common or the most mechanically supported style, either. The game has changed.
Quote from: Mishihari on August 09, 2021, 10:29:02 PM
A character who rolls a 3 strength has a maximum press of 10 pounds. That's not Conan and prolly not even Merlin.
But maybe Captain America.
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 09, 2021, 06:54:20 PM
The distributions for women who are going to choose to don armor and wield a blade aren't going to look at all like the distributions of women who choose to stay at home and raise a family (the distributions for military and non-military men will similarly be different).
The woman is typically going to be much more different from the average woman than the man is from the average man. She'll be much more exceptional compared to the average woman. She probably resembles more the average male warrior.
I think the thing people have trouble getting their heads around is that ability is on a bell curve. The male and female physical bell curves overlap; the female right tail crosses the male average (the centre of the bell). But no female reaches the male right tail. IRL practically no woman matches one of SHARK's marine buddies, and no woman at all matches the best of them, or a Navy SEAL, SAS etc. But in an heroic RPG it's not much fun playing a female PC doomed to mediocrity when the male PCs can be much stronger. So let the Red Sonja/Xena type be blessed by the goddess, have divine ancestry or whatever.
Quote from: S'mon on August 10, 2021, 03:31:46 AM
But in an heroic RPG it's not much fun playing a female PC doomed to mediocrity when the male PCs can be much stronger. So let the Red Sonja/Xena type be blessed by the goddess, have divine ancestry or whatever.
Does a 9th level fighter need divine ancestry or the blessing of a goddess to have more hp than an elephant?
Simplest is to just ignore it. A lot of things work better if you don't overthink it.
Luke Skywalker was a peasant dirt farmer. I'm sure the story of his adventures wouldn't interest anyone.
Quote from: mightybrain on August 10, 2021, 06:56:04 AM
Luke Skywalker was a peasant dirt farmer. I'm sure the story of his adventures wouldn't interest anyone.
Certainly not Rian J...
Quote from: Pat on August 10, 2021, 06:52:39 AM
Does a 9th level fighter need divine ancestry or the blessing of a goddess to have more hp than an elephant?
These are the kind of explanations Gygax posits, yes. Or you can just say "It's the genre" - like Black Widow having a couple hundred hp in her film.
Quote from: Eirikrautha on August 09, 2021, 11:09:43 PM
So the mechanics have changed so that the PCs have a tremendous advantage over the monsters (CR and encounter budgets, anyone?).
I think you misunderstand the purpose of CR and encounter budgets. They aren't walls the GM slams into, they're speed limit signs so the GM knows "yeah, your party can handle this" or "you are probably going to have a TPK if the party fights that."
What it really takes away is the ability for the newbie GM accidentally or the killer GM deliberately to throw a killer encounter at the party and afterwards say "Wow, I thought you guys could handle that."
Incidentally, this is one of my gripes with 5e; it's CR system isn't that great at measuring threats so the GM can evaluate them.
Heck, even the original editions had a CR system even if it wasn't called that; it's why you had one or more *'s after a monster's HD to denote special abilities that made them tougher than their HD indicated. Because while the GM had to figure out the ratios for his particular party, HD + *'s was a reasonable guage of a fight's difficulty and a typical party could handle threats whose total of HD+*'s equaled the total of all their levels.
What's different now is the systems take the time to discuss these matters instead of just leaving it to new GMs to figure out on their own.
As to the scale up in attributes; I think the point about elements of ability being shifted more to attributes than to raw HD means they don't mean the same things they used to.
A Fighter in 5e still hits things with weapons a LOT better than a wizard; but instead of HD compared to a table telling us that, it's because the Fighter's STR is probably 12 points higher (8 vs. 20) and that translates to +6 to hit and damage relative to the wizard.
Basically, your Strength and the ability to improve it as you level up (plus the scaling proficiency bonus) BECOMES the Base Attack Bonus/THAC0 calculation.
Basically, the 10 is still human average, but when's the last time you saw a soldier with average strength relative to the human population. They're always going to be in upper brackets for strength because they train to be so.
Which is why skewed rolls or just arrays/point-buy have become the norm. Because those higher stats represent not just an xp boost, but baseline capability in the class.
And you see it in the monster design as well. Orcs don't just have a Str 11 (10 w. a +1 racial modifier) they have 16's because they are strong warrior types.
This leaks over into my system in that the default array for any random NPC that actually needs stats is 2, 2, 1, 0, 0, -1. The laborers probably have those 2's in STR and END and the -1 in one of the mental stats (most likely INT as most checks related to it are essentially book learning sorts of knowledge). The alchemist probably has his 2's in Intellect and Reflexes with the -1 in Wits (because he keeps mixing dangerous chemicals) or Endurance (because he's breathed in too many caustic fumes).
Because while there IS an average, very few people are average at everything. Most are above average at something. One has to remember that averages are only useful in context.
Extremely Silly Example of why averages don't mean much... if you throw one laborer (2 STR) and two weaklings (-1 STR) into a room and used the average, you'd think a door that needs a STR 1 or better to break down would hold them because the average of 2, -1, -1 is 0. Only when you return you find the door was easily forced open because one person in the group had STR 2.
I think way too much weight is given to the mythical average when almost no one pursues any path they're only average at.
Quote from: mightybrain on August 10, 2021, 06:56:04 AM
Luke Skywalker was a peasant dirt farmer. I'm sure the story of his adventures wouldn't interest anyone.
And Luke was a 0 level with amazing stats in the first film (key among them being that 18 Force Ability and above average Dex in a setting that favored piloting and ranged combat).
Luke would have died in his first combat encounter if a high level multiclass fighter/wizard hadn't shown up to save him. He also was totally outmatched in a bar fight with a couple of toughs and again needed the fighter/wizard to save him.
Then he spends the middle chunk of the movie sneaking around in stolen armor after the high level fighter/thief and his barbarian companion kill the guards. He gets pwned by a sewer monster until it retreats because someone turned on the wall trap and only quick thinking by the high level golem thief disables it.
Then he runs around some more and hits a few Stormtroopers (who have been ordered to let them escape so they'll lead them to the Rebel base) on the way out. He tags one TIE Fighter in the escape while the fighter/thief nails the rest.
Having finally earned enough xp to gain a PC class he goes fighter for the mission to destroy the Death Star, gets given the best starfighter in the game as starting equipment and still manages to get it hit repeatedly and has two wingman blown away covering him and the golem thief gets ganked by the bad guy too (fortunately his race is easy to use raise dead on).
Luke is absolutely going to die until the fighter/thief and barbarian come riding to the rescue and the ghost of the fighter/wizard tells him how to actually leverage that 18 in Force Ability to boost his crappy 1st level THAC0.
Then he earns millions of XP by blowing up a moon sized station full of mooks and can basically level up for the rest of the films as quickly as he can find trainers for the levels he wants.
As you can see... my point stands. Luke was a zero-level with insanely high stats until after he completed his first dungeon crawl.
Quote from: Pat on August 10, 2021, 06:52:39 AM
Quote from: S'mon on August 10, 2021, 03:31:46 AM
But in an heroic RPG it's not much fun playing a female PC doomed to mediocrity when the male PCs can be much stronger. So let the Red Sonja/Xena type be blessed by the goddess, have divine ancestry or whatever.
Does a 9th level fighter need divine ancestry or the blessing of a goddess to have more hp than an elephant?
Simplest is to just ignore it. A lot of things work better if you don't overthink it.
No kidding. It bothers me a lot more, for example, that the game often devolves into characters fighting with a backpack on. Sure, you can fantasize a quick release option and just assume that the characters use that every time. Then what happens if they run? Because I'm visualizing the packs coming off in a hurry then being left while the players retreat, but they are visualizing their characters where the pack pops in and out of the frame as needed. Meanwhile, I'm just getting some slightly closer to realistic (i.e. not really realistic) load times for crossbows and weapon switching and getting them to go with that and actually think about it.
This whole thing has made me really appreciate the nuances of the 1 minute combat round. That might be a little too much, the 6 second, 10 second options have their own problem. I'm wondering if 15 or 20 seconds is a good compromise, run with some of the same abstraction as the 1 minute round. Maybe I need to start a new topic ...
Compared to that, overly strong females is way down the list. It's on the list, but its in the region where I know that I'm never going to get to it, like cleaning that dirty attic that you never use.
Quote from: S'mon on August 10, 2021, 07:47:23 AM
Quote from: Pat on August 10, 2021, 06:52:39 AM
Does a 9th level fighter need divine ancestry or the blessing of a goddess to have more hp than an elephant?
These are the kind of explanations Gygax posits, yes. Or you can just say "It's the genre" - like Black Widow having a couple hundred hp in her film.
Buried deep in the DMG, which players weren't supposed to read, and which was published half a dozen after years D&D was first published.
It's like midi-chlorians. Some things are better without an explanation.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on August 10, 2021, 08:18:53 AM
Quote from: Pat on August 10, 2021, 06:52:39 AM
Quote from: S'mon on August 10, 2021, 03:31:46 AM
But in an heroic RPG it's not much fun playing a female PC doomed to mediocrity when the male PCs can be much stronger. So let the Red Sonja/Xena type be blessed by the goddess, have divine ancestry or whatever.
Does a 9th level fighter need divine ancestry or the blessing of a goddess to have more hp than an elephant?
Simplest is to just ignore it. A lot of things work better if you don't overthink it.
No kidding. It bothers me a lot more, for example, that the game often devolves into characters fighting with a backpack on. Sure, you can fantasize a quick release option and just assume that the characters use that every time. Then what happens if they run? Because I'm visualizing the packs coming off in a hurry then being left while the players retreat, but they are visualizing their characters where the pack pops in and out of the frame as needed. Meanwhile, I'm just getting some slightly closer to realistic (i.e. not really realistic) load times for crossbows and weapon switching and getting them to go with that and actually think about it.
This whole thing has made me really appreciate the nuances of the 1 minute combat round. That might be a little too much, the 6 second, 10 second options have their own problem. I'm wondering if 15 or 20 seconds is a good compromise, run with some of the same abstraction as the 1 minute round. Maybe I need to start a new topic ...
Compared to that, overly strong females is way down the list. It's on the list, but its in the region where I know that I'm never going to get to it, like cleaning that dirty attic that you never use.
Great point about fighting with packs on, especially in 5e where even the weakest PC (Str 8 types) is totally unenencumbered so long as carrying < 120 lbs.
Quote from: SHARK on August 09, 2021, 07:27:19 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 09, 2021, 06:54:20 PM
Quote from: Mishihari on August 09, 2021, 05:03:14 PM
Quote from: ShieldWife on August 09, 2021, 01:08:16 PM
I'm not sure how character generation can be simulationist. Would that mean that the same percentage of PC are wizards who are wizards in the general population? If only 1 out of 1000 medieval peasants can lift a certain rock, then only 1 out of 1000 PCs can lift that rock? It seems rather odd.
I would think that character creation is the time when you are deciding what to simulate, once that is done, then the rules could be used to simulate the fictional people within the shared fictional reality of the setting. Hopefully not with D&D rules because they are highly unrealistic in numerous regards.
That's an easy one. Assuming I'm making a human and ability scores are randomly generated, I'd like the str, dex, etc to match up with their real life distribution as much as possible.
Okay, but the real life distribution of what exactly? The total population of Earth? The armed forces in general? Only the Military Special Forces?
Because the distributions of those are going to be quite different, and I'll keep making this point, adventurers are NOT John and Jane Average. They are exceptional people who are choosing to risk life and limb doing what they do.
The distributions for women who are going to choose to don armor and wield a blade aren't going to look at all like the distributions of women who choose to stay at home and raise a family (the distributions for military and non-military men will similarly be different).
Unless you're going to require the person rolling up a female PC to either play Jane Average the Housewife or keep rolling until they achieve a result that allows them to actually be an adventurer.
Saying "I want a realistic distribution" without qualifying the population is just word salad.
ETA: As an example of what I mean, in my game system the assumption is that any PC adventurer is either in the top 10% of several attributes or in the top 1% of at least one attribute.
That is the realistic distribution for anyone who's even thinking about trekking into the monster-haunted wilds in search of fame and fortune. If you can't hit that benchmark good luck finding anyone to actually train you in the skills you'd need to have an adventuring class.
Greetings!
Good points, Chris!
On the one hand--I hate the whole "Superhero" mentality.
On the other hand, there's this strong base of support for having player characters be ordinary, mud-covered farmers.
I can perhaps be criticized for expecting player characters to be genuinely *exceptional*. My own Marine Corps bias, no doubt! In the Marines, *everyone in the squad* was exceptional. Each and every member had less than 6% body-fat, could run and hike for miles and miles, and were all trained killers and beasts. All were highly skilled in hand-to-hand combat, and well-versed in many weapons. All were hardened, rugged professionals that could perform lethally and with great skill in any climate, any terrain, against any opponent. THEN, even amongst that group, you had standouts--the amazing sniper; the Marine from Louisiana who was an expert with knife-fighting; The Marine from California who was an expert in two kinds of Martial Arts; A guy from Florida that was fluent in 5 different languages. A very diverse bunch, with sometimes surprising specialties--but all though were ruthlessly trained to excel as Marine Infantry.
I sometimes think that all of these average, mud-covered farmers wouldn't last long in an adventuring environment. ;D
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
I would say the marines are a product of training, and less of some genetic outliers. Largely infantry marines are recruited from high school tier athletes and many who fall below that tier on natural physical ability. I would also say the enlisted marines are EXACTLY the same tier of people in society who in a fantasy world would be the peasants/mud farmers. They just got trained to operate at a level closer to maximizing their potential. Most everything marines do, any healthy male 18-25 is completely capable of being trained to that standard. So I would say comparing people who receive specialized training to people with zero training is not exactly a fair comparison. As mentioned, the first level fighter is NOT a mud farmer. Maybe he grew up on a farm (to which I would say EVERY dude I know who grew up on a farm is NOT average at all with regard to physical standing, they were all above to exceptional physically) but now he has received a good bit of specialized training to do a job.
Marines are exceptional with regards to fitness and hand to hand combat only when compared to people with zero training. I do think as a baseline they have the highest fitness standards, and do more to maintain them (especially compared to the air force and Navy of my day, where casual exercise on your own was enough to do well on the PRT), but are not exceptional compared to other people to devote time and effort to fitness or hand to hand combat (and to be fair, a marine has a lot more to work on being proficient at than just hand to hand combat). My point being, the difference between a mud farmer and the corporal in the marines ending a 4 year tour is about the difference between the fantasy mud farmer and the 1st level fighter.
This is not to run down marines (no idea about modern day standards, in my day they were the leaders in fitness and combat readiness in the military for their baseline members), it is just to sort of point out exceptional is relative to the crowd around them. Attributes in rpgs often reflect genetic potential as much as training (since in D&D they can be increased over time in modern iterations, before they were almost 100 percent genetic potential), and marines are not typically cut from super exceptional genetic cloth. They are molded and trained to the upper tier of whatever potential they may have, but the baseline of training and expectations is not that of genetic freak, but of a typical healthy, active, young male.
I think people are getting carried away with the muddy farmer analogy. It's not that people aren't interested in heroes with poor or humble backgrounds, they are quite popular, it's rather that a hero usually has some kind of exceptional abilities that allow them to rise above their humble beginnings. Luke was a young moisture farmer, but he also had the force and was an excellent pilot. Luke also had great ancestry despite his upbringing: like Harry Potter, King Arthur, John Snow, Perseus, and many other noteworthy heroes.
If Luke only had low to average attributes and no Force potential, if moisture farming was the extent of his abilities, then Star Wars would be a very different kind of story.
One thing that throws off our consideration of attributes in D&D is the fact that traditionally, it's been harder to raise a character's attributes than to increase a real human's attributes. Back in early editions, it could take multiple wishes to raise an attribute. In real life, lifting weights for a few days a week for a year can substantially increase your strength. A person who goes through basic training in the military is going to end up having higher physical attributes than when he started. Just becoming a 1st level fighter increases your attributes above what they were before. 5th edition D&D corrects this to a degree, since attribute increases are easier to come by.
Quote from: ShieldWife on August 10, 2021, 10:02:23 AM
I think people are getting carried away with the muddy farmer analogy. It's not that people aren't interested in heroes with poor or humble backgrounds, they are quite popular, it's rather that a hero usually has some kind of exceptional abilities that allow them to rise above their humble beginnings. Luke was a young moisture farmer, but he also had the force and was an excellent pilot. Luke also had great ancestry despite his upbringing: like Harry Potter, King Arthur, John Snow, Perseus, and many other noteworthy heroes.
If Luke only had low to average attributes and no Force potential, if moisture farming was the extent of his abilities, then Star Wars would be a very different kind of story.
One thing that throws off our consideration of attributes in D&D is the fact that traditionally, it's been harder to raise a character's attributes than to increase a real human's attributes. Back in early editions, it could take multiple wishes to raise an attribute. In real life, lifting weights for a few days a week for a year can substantially increase your strength. A person who goes through basic training in the military is going to end up having higher physical attributes than when he started. Just becoming a 1st level fighter increases your attributes above what they were before. 5th edition D&D corrects this to a degree, since attribute increases are easier to come by.
One of the often unappreciated things about the Palladium system (other than 1e Fantasy) was the way you could select physical skills that improved your physical stats. A lot of people found it cheesy, but it makes a hell of a lot more realistic that a guy who starts with a Strength of 11 who takes up body building, boxing, general athletics and wrestling (all of which are core elements of MMA-style fighting) can come out of that training with a Strength of 18, better ability to take a hit and improved Endurance and running speed.
What might be more interesting and realistic would be if each class had its own set of dice rolls to reflect the way that training for an occupation hones your abilities and then race adds its modifiers to those.
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 10, 2021, 08:12:20 AM
I think you misunderstand the purpose of CR and encounter budgets. They aren't walls the GM slams into, they're speed limit signs so the GM knows "yeah, your party can handle this" or "you are probably going to have a TPK if the party fights that."
What it really takes away is the ability for the newbie GM accidentally or the killer GM deliberately to throw a killer encounter at the party and afterwards say "Wow, I thought you guys could handle that."
Incidentally, this is one of my gripes with 5e; it's CR system isn't that great at measuring threats so the GM can evaluate them.
Heck, even the original editions had a CR system even if it wasn't called that; it's why you had one or more *'s after a monster's HD to denote special abilities that made them tougher than their HD indicated. Because while the GM had to figure out the ratios for his particular party, HD + *'s was a reasonable guage of a fight's difficulty and a typical party could handle threats whose total of HD+*'s equaled the total of all their levels.
What's different now is the systems take the time to discuss these matters instead of just leaving it to new GMs to figure out on their own.
No, I don't misunderstand. Systems like CR show a completely different mentality about how the game is to be run. Early D&D was often about exactly what was in the name: "dungeons." No one gave a damn about whether the party "could handle" each encounter, because the encounters were segregated on levels of the dungeon. This is why HD helped DMs; it gave them an idea as to how deep in the dungeon the monster should appear. The party chose to go down a level, and were therefore in control of the threat they faced. In fact, many of the "epic" stories of tournament modules concerned treasure extracted from levels beyond the offensive capabilities of the party. Even non-dungeon adventures frequently placed dangers that were beyond a party of the recommended level's capabilities in TSR modules. Threats that couldn't be beaten in combat were intended to be circumvented (bargaining, tricking, going around, etc.). The idea that most encounters should be winnable via combat is a much more modern assumption. While no one stops you from playing 5e the old way (which I frequently do), the tools are not designed for that assumption. Modern gamers expect combat encounters to be
designed for them to win. That's not what "design" meant in earlier contexts...
Quote from: ShieldWife on August 10, 2021, 10:02:23 AMIf Luke only had low to average attributes and no Force potential, if moisture farming was the extent of his abilities, then Star Wars would be a very different kind of story.
Only in detail I think. The force was just a way to get space magic into the mix. Luke barely uses it in Star Wars. It plays a bigger role as the series progresses and the result is a steady decline of my interest in the story. It's great as a mysterious background to the world. But the more we know about it the more boring it becomes. 'Farm boy defeats the empire' is a story you can get behind. 'Chosen one fulfils destiny'... meh.
And then there's Lord of the Rings. Frodo might not be a farmer but he's not exactly Conan either. Him and his mate the gardener's son take on a quest to overthrow the dark lord...
It's popular starting point because it's baked into the genre fiction that inspired RPG's in the first place.
The modern sensibility seems to be to want to skip the journey and create a character whose adventures have already happened. Where's the fun in that?
Quote from: mightybrain on August 10, 2021, 03:27:39 PM
The modern sensibility seems to be to want to skip the journey and create a character whose adventures have already happened. Where's the fun in that?
Serial fiction like Conan, James Bond, Batman. It's fun too.
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 10, 2021, 08:12:20 AM
And Luke was a 0 level with amazing stats in the first film (key among them being that 18 Force Ability and above average Dex in a setting that favored piloting and ranged combat).
Luke would have died in his first combat encounter if a high level multiclass fighter/wizard hadn't shown up to save him. He also was totally outmatched in a bar fight with a couple of toughs and again needed the fighter/wizard to save him.
Then he spends the middle chunk of the movie sneaking around in stolen armor after the high level fighter/thief and his barbarian companion kill the guards. He gets pwned by a sewer monster until it retreats because someone turned on the wall trap and only quick thinking by the high level golem thief disables it.
Then he runs around some more and hits a few Stormtroopers (who have been ordered to let them escape so they'll lead them to the Rebel base) on the way out. He tags one TIE Fighter in the escape while the fighter/thief nails the rest.
Having finally earned enough xp to gain a PC class he goes fighter for the mission to destroy the Death Star, gets given the best starfighter in the game as starting equipment and still manages to get it hit repeatedly and has two wingman blown away covering him and the golem thief gets ganked by the bad guy too (fortunately his race is easy to use raise dead on).
Luke is absolutely going to die until the fighter/thief and barbarian come riding to the rescue and the ghost of the fighter/wizard tells him how to actually leverage that 18 in Force Ability to boost his crappy 1st level THAC0.
Then he earns millions of XP by blowing up a moon sized station full of mooks and can basically level up for the rest of the films as quickly as he can find trainers for the levels he wants.
As you can see... my point stands. Luke was a zero-level with insanely high stats until after he completed his first dungeon crawl.
I would seriously watch a YouTube series where you did move reviews like this
Quote from: ShieldWife on August 09, 2021, 07:46:57 PM
So let's assume we have a 100 pound 5'5" teenager who has never been in a fight and can't do a push-up. That person wresting a healthy adult grizzly bear doesn't stand much of a chance - simulating that fight should cause the grizzly bear to win. But what if I don't want to play that teenager, what if I want to play a legendary warrior of nearly superhuman strength who might be able to wrestle a bear? What if I want to play a superhero who could toss the bear aside like a stuffed teddy bear?
Wanting to simulate something doesn't really limit what you simulate. You could simulate any kind of fictional, fantasy, or science fiction idea.
Correct.........are we disagreeing on anything here? I wasn't really talking about that, only how much fiddly detail vs how simplified (or oversimplified) you want it. For instance, if you play Godzilla the 50-50 toss up is still poor simulation, right? Or if you simplify slightly less you could just roll D1000 megadamage dice. Or in the converse case, you could go overboard, including various damage and armor modifiers for burns, crushing, cutting, damage locations etc. For most people there is a sweet spot somewhere in the middle.
Quote from: S'mon on August 04, 2021, 03:03:15 AM
Quote from: Shasarak on August 03, 2021, 06:57:02 PM
Except for all these ways that woman have better Constitution then men, I am going to give them lower constitution?
I remember doing army training, women got injured a lot more easily - because they had less muscle mass. Hit Points should really key off STR, if you want to be realistic.
Would you? I see the constitutional bonus to HP being an endurance modifier to the pool. It's reflecting how winded you're becoming as the combat rounds tick by until resolution.
Quote from: AaronThePedantic on August 07, 2021, 05:10:21 PM
I know Lekofka is now notorious for his article on women PCs back yonder times. <snip>
That article was pure genre emulation, at a time that the old genre was being abandoned with all haste.
Quote from: Palleon on August 14, 2021, 06:36:20 PM
Would you? I see the constitutional bonus to HP being an endurance modifier to the pool. It's reflecting how winded you're becoming as the combat rounds tick by until resolution.
Fair enough, but we naturally tend to see hp as meat, and women have a lot less useful meat. Even athletic and strong-looking women were injured in training much more than the average-James (it's England) guys they were training alongside. I think stuff like heatstroke did probably hit the men worse though.
Being injured is not a sign of constitution.
Sounds more like a low Dexterity to me
Quote from: Shasarak on August 15, 2021, 03:52:24 AM
Being injured is not a sign of constitution.
Sounds more like a low Dexterity to me
Everyone gets bashed. The trainers commented on how men get bruises, women get broken bones.
Quote from: S'mon on August 15, 2021, 03:30:40 AMFair enough, but we naturally tend to see hp as meat, and women have a lot less useful meat.
I don't think that was meant to be the case, although hit points are one of the worst thought out concepts in the game. In D&D you can be on 1 hit point and still be 100% effective. There are various house rules / variations to allow for injury and there is system shock, but that's about it. You might roleplay a character that has had his hit points reduced as injured, but this can only ever be superficial in a mechanical sense because it doesn't reduce your abilities. Hit points are meant to combine many things, including mental resilience and luck. Constitution is meant to represent overall health. A good constitution is not going to stop you from getting hit, but it might reduce the debilitating effects of injury, or lower your recovery time.
Quote from: mightybrain on August 15, 2021, 09:21:06 AM
Quote from: S'mon on August 15, 2021, 03:30:40 AMFair enough, but we naturally tend to see hp as meat, and women have a lot less useful meat.
I don't think that was meant to be the case, although hit points are one of the worst thought out concepts in the game. In D&D you can be on 1 hit point and still be 100% effective. There are various house rules / variations to allow for injury and there is system shock, but that's about it. You might roleplay a character that has had his hit points reduced as injured, but this can only ever be superficial in a mechanical sense because it doesn't reduce your abilities. Hit points are meant to combine many things, including mental resilience and luck. Constitution is meant to represent overall health. A good constitution is not going to stop you from getting hit, but it might reduce the debilitating effects of injury, or lower your recovery time.
Hit points are an extremely well thought out concept, from a gamist standpoint. They serve a clear purpose in the game, and provide a unique experience other mechanics struggle to replicate. What they don't do is clearly map to real world injuries. But this is not a weakness, it's a design strength. Games that use escalating hp aren't trying to replicate shock and trauma. They're not even trying to emulate the genre of high fantasy that has knights of pounding away at each other for hours, at least not precisely. Instead, they're focused on the game effects.
From a conceptual standpoint, In find it best to think of hit point as an abstract degree of heroism. It involves will, persistence, skill, and other concrete qualities. But it's not something that's defined by or limited by that list of qualities, or any of the other ones you mentioned. It's primarily composed of that ineffable quality that distinguishes the protagonist from the mooks, or major heroes and villains from the sidekicks and supporting characters. Palleon's point that the Con bonus represents endurance more than systemic resilience is also a good one.
One thing that's worth noting is no matter what happens, hit points do always represent some degree of physical injury. This is usually just a scratch of some kind, but a hero down to their last hp is going to be a bit beat-up, whether it's bruises, lacerations, or singes. This won't amount to a lot, because it's nothing that impairs their functioning, but it has to involve some injury, or things like poison make no sense. A logical corollary is there is always some kind of visual indication that someone has taken a beating, so while PCs won't know a monster's hp, a DM should give them some general indication whether the monster is at full health or barely hanging in there.
What Pat says. Also some games add Constitution as a form of Health points which DO represent actual injuries.
Quote from: Pat on August 15, 2021, 11:12:14 AM
Quote from: mightybrain on August 15, 2021, 09:21:06 AM
Quote from: S'mon on August 15, 2021, 03:30:40 AMFair enough, but we naturally tend to see hp as meat, and women have a lot less useful meat.
I don't think that was meant to be the case, although hit points are one of the worst thought out concepts in the game. In D&D you can be on 1 hit point and still be 100% effective. There are various house rules / variations to allow for injury and there is system shock, but that's about it. You might roleplay a character that has had his hit points reduced as injured, but this can only ever be superficial in a mechanical sense because it doesn't reduce your abilities. Hit points are meant to combine many things, including mental resilience and luck. Constitution is meant to represent overall health. A good constitution is not going to stop you from getting hit, but it might reduce the debilitating effects of injury, or lower your recovery time.
Hit points are an extremely well thought out concept, from a gamist standpoint. They serve a clear purpose in the game, and provide a unique experience other mechanics struggle to replicate. What they don't do is clearly map to real world injuries. But this is not a weakness, it's a design strength. Games that use escalating hp aren't trying to replicate shock and trauma. They're not even trying to emulate the genre of high fantasy that has knights of pounding away at each other for hours, at least not precisely. Instead, they're focused on the game effects.
From a conceptual standpoint, In find it best to think of hit point as an abstract degree of heroism. It involves will, persistence, skill, and other concrete qualities. But it's not something that's defined by or limited by that list of qualities, or any of the other ones you mentioned. It's primarily composed of that ineffable quality that distinguishes the protagonist from the mooks, or major heroes and villains from the sidekicks and supporting characters. Palleon's point that the Con bonus represents endurance more than systemic resilience is also a good one.
One thing that's worth noting is no matter what happens, hit points do always represent some degree of physical injury. This is usually just a scratch of some kind, but a hero down to their last hp is going to be a bit beat-up, whether it's bruises, lacerations, or singes. This won't amount to a lot, because it's nothing that impairs their functioning, but it has to involve some injury, or things like poison make no sense. A logical corollary is there is always some kind of visual indication that someone has taken a beating, so while PCs won't know a monster's hp, a DM should give them some general indication whether the monster is at full health or barely hanging in there.
There is an unfortunate connotation of hit points = meat. It was so prevalent that I had to change the name of it and a few associated mechanics (ex. how falling works) just to get around that association.
In my own system I call it Edge and its resource you SPEND to turn hits into near misses, minor cuts and bruises. Thus you spend Edge to avoid falling and instead of plunging to the bottom you are clinging from the ledge above the depths (with damage not being based on depth of fall, but how hard it would be to catch yourself) and only fall down if you run out of Edge to spend (in which case the fall is probably fatal or at least puts you at dying) or choose to drop (which may require spending more Edge to not be killed by the fall).
Likewise, weapon damage is based mostly on how hard it would be to avoid a blow that would take you out of the fight (not necessarily dead, just too clobbered to get back up and keep fighting) rather than just kinetic impact alone.
The presumption is that you're not taking anything more than trivial cosmetic damage as long as you're spending Edge, but anything you don't have enough Edge to avoid is going to put you out for at least the rest of the fight without outside intervention (and puts a big dent in your deeper reserves of endurance whenever you're dropped to 0 Edge... so it's a bit like the Vitality/Wounds system used by certain d20 systems except you can spend the "wounds" for other purposes like big rituals, taking extra actions or rallying to recover Edge).
Short version; HP=meat actually is really ingrained to the point that I literally had to rename hit points to stop various complaints about regaining them without magic being unrealistic.
One thing that one should not forget- years have gone by. We are now seeing the results of girls and women playing sports and doing activities that they did not traditionally do before we were well into second wave feminism, actually almost at third wave. This at the latest would have been the 1990's. I'm not talking exceptions here.
The injuries and long-term physical problems are showing up in much greater numbers than ever before. This is not a coincidence. If girls play rough tackle football (American, call it American Rugby if you prefer) then they will end up physically worse off than boys. In my day if a boy was unusually small for his age he was either excused or put in a much less dangerous position. This was done for the obvious reason.
So a lower Constitution for female characters is more realistic.
I guess if we want to be realistic about Constitution then the fact that women have a longer life expectancy then men indicates that they should have a bonus to their constitution to more realistically reflect their greater physical endurance.
Quote from: Shasarak on August 16, 2021, 07:15:29 PM
I guess if we want to be realistic about Constitution then the fact that women have a longer life expectancy then men indicates that they should have a bonus to their constitution to more realistically reflect their greater physical endurance.
Actually, that is based on averages. Since men work more dangerous jobs, are murdered more often, and are the ones going to war on the whole, the average life expectancy is lower. Even the death penalty is not equally applied.
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 15, 2021, 12:50:00 PMShort version; HP=meat actually is really ingrained to the point that I literally had to rename hit points to stop various complaints about regaining them without magic being unrealistic.
Mileage varies. I come from the perspective of, hit points ARE meat. And a bunch of gamers just WAAAAAAYYYY over-stated the case to the contrary. And the case that hit points are not meat is what's too ingrained when this topic comes up.
Gary includes a discussion of hit points in both the 1E PHB and 1E DMG. And although he himself seems to emphasize the non-meat aspect of hit points, this is presumably because he's defending the hit point mechanic in his game from the criticism that high level characters are unrealistic. If you read his words carefully, he does note some key things.
That hit points do also represent meat. That the bulk of them represent other-than-meat mainly in high level characters. When he points out that the 10th level fighter with 85 hit points he uses as an example in the PHB would be 4 times as tough as a horse if hit points were only physical, in so using the horse as a measuring stick, it is clear that the horse's hit points are all meat. This would presumably be true for all animals and the vast majority of monsters. And 0th level humans surely do not have their hit points buttressed by magical protections, skill, uncanny luck, and favors from the gods. Those are 100% meat, too.
So when I really stop to break it down, I get something that looks like this:
Animals. Hit Points = Meat.
99% of monsters. Hit Points = Meat.
Normal humans. Hit Points = Meat.
1st level characters. Hit Points = Meat.
Low level adventurers. Hit Points = Mostly Meat.
Higher level adventurers. The one case where hit points are substantially other-than-meat.
The hit point system most certainly is a meat point system. Like most of the systems in old school D&D, it has its exceptions. In this case, the exceptions are very rare. It just so happens that PCs often inhabit those exceptions. I'm sure this can't be the first time you've been told PCs in AD&D are assumed to be "exceptional." But just because there are exceptional PCs does not mean it's accurate to characterize the hit point system in general as an abstract, other-than-meat system.
Quote from: Shasarak on August 16, 2021, 07:15:29 PM
I guess if we want to be realistic about Constitution then the fact that women have a longer life expectancy then men indicates that they should have a bonus to their constitution to more realistically reflect their greater physical endurance.
Elves should have HUUUUUGE Con bonuses. The biggest of all Con bonuses.
Quote from: Pat on August 16, 2021, 08:17:48 PM
Quote from: Shasarak on August 16, 2021, 07:15:29 PM
I guess if we want to be realistic about Constitution then the fact that women have a longer life expectancy then men indicates that they should have a bonus to their constitution to more realistically reflect their greater physical endurance.
Elves should have HUUUUUGE Con bonuses. The biggest of all Con bonuses.
If we were going to base attributes on reality.
Quote from: Lunamancer on August 16, 2021, 08:10:08 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 15, 2021, 12:50:00 PMShort version; HP=meat actually is really ingrained to the point that I literally had to rename hit points to stop various complaints about regaining them without magic being unrealistic.
Mileage varies. I come from the perspective of, hit points ARE meat. And a bunch of gamers just WAAAAAAYYYY over-stated the case to the contrary. And the case that hit points are not meat is what's too ingrained when this topic comes up.
Gary includes a discussion of hit points in both the 1E PHB and 1E DMG. And although he himself seems to emphasize the non-meat aspect of hit points, this is presumably because he's defending the hit point mechanic in his game from the criticism that high level characters are unrealistic. If you read his words carefully, he does note some key things.
That hit points do also represent meat. That the bulk of them represent other-than-meat mainly in high level characters. When he points out that the 10th level fighter with 85 hit points he uses as an example in the PHB would be 4 times as tough as a horse if hit points were only physical, in so using the horse as a measuring stick, it is clear that the horse's hit points are all meat. This would presumably be true for all animals and the vast majority of monsters. And 0th level humans surely do not have their hit points buttressed by magical protections, skill, uncanny luck, and favors from the gods. Those are 100% meat, too.
So when I really stop to break it down, I get something that looks like this:
Animals. Hit Points = Meat.
99% of monsters. Hit Points = Meat.
Normal humans. Hit Points = Meat.
1st level characters. Hit Points = Meat.
Low level adventurers. Hit Points = Mostly Meat.
Higher level adventurers. The one case where hit points are substantially other-than-meat.
The hit point system most certainly is a meat point system. Like most of the systems in old school D&D, it has its exceptions. In this case, the exceptions are very rare. It just so happens that PCs often inhabit those exceptions. I'm sure this can't be the first time you've been told PCs in AD&D are assumed to be "exceptional." But just because there are exceptional PCs does not mean it's accurate to characterize the hit point system in general as an abstract, other-than-meat system.
All well and good, but for my system I needed them to specifically NOT EQUAL meat (as in zero % meat) so trying to still call them hit points that are non-physical just didn't work... so the name was changed and the process described changed from "losing hit points" to "spending Edge" precisely to make the description as different as possible and so that non-magical abilities could allow you to regain Edge without people like Mike Mearls going "how is the warlord shouting your hand back on?" (never mind that 4E defined hit points as far more non-physical with 1/2 hit points being the first time you take even minor injury and gain the keyword "bloodied" and there weren't even rules for limb loss in that edition so the warlord would never actually BE shouting a hand back on... just restoring your morale and fighting spirit).
Well, in fairness to the critical side on the hit point issue, one of the problems with 4E is that it is a culmination of changing the underlying meaning of the terms but hanging onto the terms as if they were still the same thing. The use of "hit dice" in 4E is an even worse example. However, in this 4E is merely being more blatant about a change that had been happening for some time.
I'm not one of those people that think it is a good idea for a game to rename every concept just to be different. However, if the game really is different in some way, finding the correct term for what it is doing is the best thing, and a close second is having its own jargon that is carefully explained.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on August 16, 2021, 09:40:37 PMWell, in fairness to the critical side on the hit point issue, one of the problems with 4E is that it is a culmination of changing the underlying meaning of the terms but hanging onto the terms as if they were still the same thing. The use of "hit dice" in 4E is an even worse example. However, in this 4E is merely being more blatant about a change that had been happening for some time.
Right. And that's a far more generous view of it than I hold. I mean I've seen how gamers on message boards cite things like abstract hit points or the abstract melee round where dozens of things are happening but we just sum it up with one single attack roll. And I've seen how gamers run with them. And a lot of the rules changes I've seen come up in WotC versions of D&D, I can completely understand where those came from in the context of the strained interpretations I've observed that become ingrained in the community.
What I'm getting at is, I'm not so much imagining D&D designers twisting their mustaches with a villainous laugh as they plot to foist their vanity-fueled rules changes onto us rubes. I think they just don't know any better. I think they're genuinely trying to improve the rules to better express what they believe authentic D&D is, because they've bought into the strained interpretations. It's like D&D designers don't know the first thing about D&D anymore. That's the less generous way I'd put it.
And it's not even necessarily that they got the interpretations wrong. The problem is that they took something that was open to interpretation, locked into one specific interpretation, and tried to make it as clean, clear, and even blatant as possible.
Getting back to hit points specifically, above all else hit points are intended to be a convenient mechanic. They are exactly what you need them to be when you need them to be it. To even try to criticize hit points as a mechanic, to hold up an example that you can point at as absurd, requires locking in an interpretation contrary to what is convenient.
For instance, if I'm running a low magic setting, I might interpret hit points as being 100% abstract. I still have clerics. They still cast cure light wounds. But what they're doing is healing you spiritually, melting away post-traumatic stress from some of those close calls you've had. They're not even physically healing anyone.
But what I actually do in 1E? I recognize that there is a limit on how many daily spells can be restored. That no matter how high a level a cleric is, they top out at about 80 points of healing per day on average, and divided by a 5-person party, each member is only going to get about 16 points of healing daily.
So it doesn't matter how high a level your fighter is or how many hit points you have. On a longer, epic, prolonged, high-level adventure, if you're losing more than 16 hit points per day, it's not sustainable. The extra hit points are a good for a reserve. And they're good for a buffer against some crazy improbable dice rolls. But at the end of the day, 16 hit points is your daily budget. And 16 is not a crazy high, suspension of disbelief breaking, ignoring a bunch of stabbing, doing a header off a cliff as a short-cut kind of number. I don't think the OP would be complaining if everyone topped out at 16 hit points. But in a way they sort of do.
Two completely opposite solutions to the problem, both fitting within the D&D framework. There are a lot of ways to get hit points right. The main way you get them wrong is to lock them in to being something that doesn't work for you.
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 16, 2021, 09:33:13 PM
... and there weren't even rules for limb loss in that edition so the warlord would never actually BE shouting a hand back on... just restoring your morale and fighting spirit).
What edition of D&D have you been playing where losing hp leads to limb loss?
In regards to HP as early as my original exposure to Basic in '83, I never saw them as representing the physical punishment a PC could soak. It's nonsensical that a 9th level human can take as much punishment as an adult red dragon. That leaves the revelation that it's a mechanic to represent what's being left out of the game: rolling to parry, dodge or shield block, tracking fatigue as the rounds of blows are exchanged, etc...
It's the first level HD that's the meat. Everything adding to it is an abstraction around gaining skills for avoiding the damage.
The funny thing is I have seen this exact conversation before from some of my players who happen to be female, they were fine with it.
The guys however had a fit when they got limited by the penalties for being male.
Quote from: Pat on August 17, 2021, 05:43:43 AM
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 16, 2021, 09:33:13 PM
... and there weren't even rules for limb loss in that edition so the warlord would never actually BE shouting a hand back on... just restoring your morale and fighting spirit).
What edition of D&D have you been playing where losing hp leads to limb loss?
Talk to Mike Mearls. He's the one who made the claim in one of the D&DNext podcasts/interviews that warlords restoring hit points in 4E was "shouting people's hands back on" which is why warlords were badwrongfun and had to be excluded from 5e.
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 17, 2021, 09:20:56 AM
Quote from: Pat on August 17, 2021, 05:43:43 AM
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 16, 2021, 09:33:13 PM
... and there weren't even rules for limb loss in that edition so the warlord would never actually BE shouting a hand back on... just restoring your morale and fighting spirit).
What edition of D&D have you been playing where losing hp leads to limb loss?
Talk to Mike Mearls. He's the one who made the claim in one of the D&DNext podcasts/interviews that warlords restoring hit points in 4E was "shouting people's hands back on" which is why warlords were badwrongfun and had to be excluded from 5e.
No goofier than the Exalted medicine charm combos which let you literally slap the injuries right off a person's body :)
Quote from: Lunamancer on August 17, 2021, 12:08:35 AM
Right. And that's a far more generous view of it than I hold.
Not really all that generous. I'm saying that the designers pay lip service to tradition, but that is all it is--a style over substance thing. I'd rather that when making a change, that they either really work hard to maintain the tradition in fact, or they own the change and then name whatever their real change is in such a way that it is obvious that it is a change.
Granted, I agree that it is not malicious. It is, however, lazy, indulgent, and just a bit of a con game thrown in to aid sales more than play at the table. Which are generally not attributes that I respect in design. That most of the designers believe their own bullshit and thus aren't malicious is really a low bar for a charitable view of their behavior. :D
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on August 16, 2021, 09:40:37 PM
The use of "hit dice" in 4E is an even worse example. However, in this 4E is merely being more blatant about a change that had been happening for some time.
Just as a point of pedantic clarification; 4E never used the term Hit Dice for anything.
You're either thinking of how 5e used Hit Dice to have a bastardized version of 4E's healing surge mechanics (bastardized because it actually did the opposite of what surges did in 4E; adding an extra bit of healing where surges limited total healing) or how 4E used Saving Throws more as a duration mechanic (i.e. save ends effects) than outright resistance (which was handled by ststic defense scores).
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 17, 2021, 11:03:38 AM
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on August 16, 2021, 09:40:37 PM
The use of "hit dice" in 4E is an even worse example. However, in this 4E is merely being more blatant about a change that had been happening for some time.
Just as a point of pedantic clarification; 4E never used the term Hit Dice for anything.
You're either thinking of how 5e used Hit Dice to have a bastardized version of 4E's healing surge mechanics (bastardized because it actually did the opposite of what surges did in 4E; adding an extra bit of healing where surges limited total healing) or how 4E used Saving Throws more as a duration mechanic (i.e. save ends effects) than outright resistance (which was handled by ststic defense scores).
Doh! You are correct. That's what happens when the 4E books are boxed up, and I try to go off of memory.
You'd think that 3E, 4E, and 5E would be distinct enough that they would stick in my mind better than that, but for some reason much of the details of WotC D&D are starting to blur into a memory sludge. :D
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on August 17, 2021, 11:14:33 AM
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 17, 2021, 11:03:38 AM
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on August 16, 2021, 09:40:37 PM
The use of "hit dice" in 4E is an even worse example. However, in this 4E is merely being more blatant about a change that had been happening for some time.
Just as a point of pedantic clarification; 4E never used the term Hit Dice for anything.
You're either thinking of how 5e used Hit Dice to have a bastardized version of 4E's healing surge mechanics (bastardized because it actually did the opposite of what surges did in 4E; adding an extra bit of healing where surges limited total healing) or how 4E used Saving Throws more as a duration mechanic (i.e. save ends effects) than outright resistance (which was handled by ststic defense scores).
Doh! You are correct. That's what happens when the 4E books are boxed up, and I try to go off of memory.
You'd think that 3E, 4E, and 5E would be distinct enough that they would stick in my mind better than that, but for some reason much of the details of WotC D&D are starting to blur into a memory sludge. :D
You think that's bad; I've been running and playing in my own system (that started as a 4E spiritual successor and then morphed a LOT) for so long that I have to crosscheck that I'm not using terms and rules from own system when trying to describe things from any of the WotC-era materials.
Also, to be fair, a LOT of the core mechanics in 3-5e actually ARE quite similar. They all use the same ability score modifiers and resolve most tasks using a d20+ability mod+mod that represents training vs. DC to determine outcomes. All of them use ascending AC that is Base 10 + Ability Mod + Armor as the DC for hit checks. All of them use a 5' square for measurement with unencumbered humans moving six 5' squares. All of them had a standard action + movement + swift/minor/bonus action economies. They all had essentially Fort/Reflex/Will saves based on Con, Dex and Wisdom (even if 4E made them static defenses and let other stats apply and 5e just called them Con/Dex/Wis saves and had a few saves using the other attributes)
There is A LOT of overlap in the core mechanics of the WotC editions despite all the changes it also made between the editions.
Quote from: Gameogre on August 17, 2021, 07:11:39 AM
The funny thing is I have seen this exact conversation before from some of my players who happen to be female, they were fine with it.
The guys however had a fit when they got limited by the penalties for being male.
Sounds like you're saying that those men can't stand having limitations imposed by what they are. Is this what some call a privilege thing?
Quote from: Ghostmaker on August 17, 2021, 09:37:22 AM
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 17, 2021, 09:20:56 AM
Quote from: Pat on August 17, 2021, 05:43:43 AM
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 16, 2021, 09:33:13 PM
... and there weren't even rules for limb loss in that edition so the warlord would never actually BE shouting a hand back on... just restoring your morale and fighting spirit).
What edition of D&D have you been playing where losing hp leads to limb loss?
Talk to Mike Mearls. He's the one who made the claim in one of the D&DNext podcasts/interviews that warlords restoring hit points in 4E was "shouting people's hands back on" which is why warlords were badwrongfun and had to be excluded from 5e.
No goofier than the Exalted medicine charm combos which let you literally slap the injuries right off a person's body :)
If Warlords were divinely powered like Exalts, it probably wouldn't have clashed so hard with most people's perceptions. What they didn't like is a supposedly non-magical/divine individual shouting people's wounds away.
Quote from: HappyDaze on August 17, 2021, 11:45:01 AM
Quote from: Ghostmaker on August 17, 2021, 09:37:22 AM
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 17, 2021, 09:20:56 AM
Quote from: Pat on August 17, 2021, 05:43:43 AM
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 16, 2021, 09:33:13 PM
... and there weren't even rules for limb loss in that edition so the warlord would never actually BE shouting a hand back on... just restoring your morale and fighting spirit).
What edition of D&D have you been playing where losing hp leads to limb loss?
Talk to Mike Mearls. He's the one who made the claim in one of the D&DNext podcasts/interviews that warlords restoring hit points in 4E was "shouting people's hands back on" which is why warlords were badwrongfun and had to be excluded from 5e.
No goofier than the Exalted medicine charm combos which let you literally slap the injuries right off a person's body :)
If Warlords were divinely powered like Exalts, it probably wouldn't have clashed so hard with most people's perceptions. What they didn't like is a supposedly non-magical/divine individual shouting people's sounds away.
It makes sense if you can shout loud enough then you should be able to drown out other peoples sounds.
Quote from: Shasarak on August 17, 2021, 03:29:15 PM
Quote from: HappyDaze on August 17, 2021, 11:45:01 AM
Quote from: Ghostmaker on August 17, 2021, 09:37:22 AM
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 17, 2021, 09:20:56 AM
Quote from: Pat on August 17, 2021, 05:43:43 AM
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 16, 2021, 09:33:13 PM
... and there weren't even rules for limb loss in that edition so the warlord would never actually BE shouting a hand back on... just restoring your morale and fighting spirit).
What edition of D&D have you been playing where losing hp leads to limb loss?
Talk to Mike Mearls. He's the one who made the claim in one of the D&DNext podcasts/interviews that warlords restoring hit points in 4E was "shouting people's hands back on" which is why warlords were badwrongfun and had to be excluded from 5e.
No goofier than the Exalted medicine charm combos which let you literally slap the injuries right off a person's body :)
If Warlords were divinely powered like Exalts, it probably wouldn't have clashed so hard with most people's perceptions. What they didn't like is a supposedly non-magical/divine individual shouting people's sounds away.
It makes sense if you can shout loud enough then you should be able to drown out other peoples sounds.
Thats actually pretty funny. Damn autocorrect. Obviously should have been "wounds" not "sounds" In my post.
Quote from: HappyDaze on August 17, 2021, 03:31:00 PM
Quote from: Shasarak on August 17, 2021, 03:29:15 PM
Quote from: HappyDaze on August 17, 2021, 11:45:01 AM
Quote from: Ghostmaker on August 17, 2021, 09:37:22 AM
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 17, 2021, 09:20:56 AM
Quote from: Pat on August 17, 2021, 05:43:43 AM
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 16, 2021, 09:33:13 PM
... and there weren't even rules for limb loss in that edition so the warlord would never actually BE shouting a hand back on... just restoring your morale and fighting spirit).
What edition of D&D have you been playing where losing hp leads to limb loss?
Talk to Mike Mearls. He's the one who made the claim in one of the D&DNext podcasts/interviews that warlords restoring hit points in 4E was "shouting people's hands back on" which is why warlords were badwrongfun and had to be excluded from 5e.
No goofier than the Exalted medicine charm combos which let you literally slap the injuries right off a person's body :)
If Warlords were divinely powered like Exalts, it probably wouldn't have clashed so hard with most people's perceptions. What they didn't like is a supposedly non-magical/divine individual shouting people's sounds away.
It makes sense if you can shout loud enough then you should be able to drown out other peoples sounds.
Thats actually pretty funny. Damn autocorrect. Obviously should have been "wounds" not "sounds" In my post.
Who is talking about wounds though? In for E University take the slightest bit of damage until you're at least down half your hit points. That's what the bloodied condition means in 4E; the other side has drawn first blood.
4E also clarifies that until you've lost your last hit point you've probably only picked up a few minor cuts, scuffs and bruises. This is further reinforced by minions, who have 1 hp regardless of level.
So, in that paradigm, what is so crazy about some really charismatic warrior encouraging someone who's only a bit bruised and scraped up to get up and keep fighting and restoring their morale? The warlord's encouragement doesn't even do a thing if the target doesn't spend one of their own limited healing surges in the process; if they're out then they're utterly spent and all the encouragement in the world won't get them back up again (and only divine magic could do surgeless healing).
Honestly, the only problem I see in that scenario is tying the number of times it can be done in a battle to the warlord and not to the ones being urged to get up and keep fighting despite the bumps and scrapes (which is why I flipped it in my own system... warlord style restoration of Edge is an at-will ability, but the target can only do it a few times in a fight and each one costs them progressively more of their own resources to do (for a starting PC they'll run out of resources after rallying just twice).
The only thing that made it unrealistic in 4E is that association of hit points with meat. Which, again, was strong enough that calling them something other than hit points was the only way to get people to make the connection I wanted in my system of those "points until dropped" being entirely non-physical fatigue/morale/luck without having to fight their natural assumptions.
Words mean things and "hit points" has come to mean almost exclusively "meat points" in common vernacular.
Quote from: mightybrain on August 08, 2021, 06:27:26 PM
In the rules, Dex for the most part, is the archery stat. We have just had the Olympics so we have up to date data on the differences between the best male and female human archers. The difference is that there is no measurable difference. Although the men's and women's events are separated, if you take the final scores of Mete Gazoz and San An, and put them head to head, it would have been a draw.
There is a measurable difference. I think the average draw weight of the bow for men is around 48 pounds, and for women 33 pounds. That is a 50 percent difference, and having a casual interest in archery, that is a big fucking difference. I have a 50 pound recurve bow, and none of the women I know can even attempt at shooting it (both my wife and sister in law are strong, fit women, and no dice). 50 pounds is the bottom tier for a how used for war/killing man sized targets. I also have an 85 pound draw longbow...do I need to go into how hard that is to draw and shoot?
I have zero doubts a woman can be as accurate in archery (at least olympic archery where every bow is LOADED with gizmos, I have no idea what happens in natural shooting, for all I know Women might be better), but the caveat is that it will be with a significantly lower powered bow. If olympic caliber athletes are using bows 50 percent weaker than the bows the men use, I think that says a lot as to where reality lines up.
All that said, again I would not put statistical limitations on women or men for an rpg.
Quote from: HappyDaze on August 17, 2021, 11:43:02 AM
Quote from: Gameogre on August 17, 2021, 07:11:39 AM
The funny thing is I have seen this exact conversation before from some of my players who happen to be female, they were fine with it.
The guys however had a fit when they got limited by the penalties for being male.
Sounds like you're saying that those men can't stand having limitations imposed by what they are. Is this what some call a privilege thing?
Personally I see it as a people being Silly, like my buddy and I arguing over what rpg game to take with us to a deserted island forever. Obviously it's Rules Cyclopedia!
If there a difference stat wise between males and females? Sure, that's pretty obvious. Does it need to be something codified into a rpg? No more than the differences between left and right handed people, people who are 6'1 verse 6'2. People with different skin colors, hair colors and maybe even eye colors.
Also it's important to note that Player Characters are just not average even for fantasy world characters. They are often far outside of normal limitations.
Like ok I can imagine that Giant Creatures can fly through the sky and breath flame and cast spells but a Girl as strong as a dude? Can't do it.
but I mean to debate about with friends? Sure it's fine....I mean it isn't like they are defending red headed left handed people or anything.
Quote from: oggsmash on August 19, 2021, 09:11:31 AM
Quote from: mightybrain on August 08, 2021, 06:27:26 PM
In the rules, Dex for the most part, is the archery stat. We have just had the Olympics so we have up to date data on the differences between the best male and female human archers. The difference is that there is no measurable difference. Although the men's and women's events are separated, if you take the final scores of Mete Gazoz and San An, and put them head to head, it would have been a draw.
There is a measurable difference. I think the average draw weight of the bow for men is around 48 pounds, and for women 33 pounds. That is a 50 percent difference, and having a casual interest in archery, that is a big fucking difference. I have a 50 pound recurve bow, and none of the women I know can even attempt at shooting it (both my wife and sister in law are strong, fit women, and no dice). 50 pounds is the bottom tier for a how used for war/killing man sized targets. I also have an 85 pound draw longbow...do I need to go into how hard that is to draw and shoot?
I have zero doubts a woman can be as accurate in archery (at least olympic archery where every bow is LOADED with gizmos, I have no idea what happens in natural shooting, for all I know Women might be better), but the caveat is that it will be with a significantly lower powered bow. If olympic caliber athletes are using bows 50 percent weaker than the bows the men use, I think that says a lot as to where reality lines up.
All that said, again I would not put statistical limitations on women or men for an rpg.
The YouTube channel Shadiversity had an episode as part of its "Fantasy Rearmed" series that looks at what weapons would realistically be most effective for various races/peoples. On what weapons would be best for women to use... noting that common fantasy tropes were for them to be archers or do some sort of two-weapon fighting style using short swords or daggers).
His conclusions though were that the ideal melee weapon for a female warrior would be the longsword (the real two-handed version not the D&D one) since it has excellent reach (a 3-3.5' in the blade alone vs. the maybe 2' blade of a short sword or maybe a foot if you're lucky with a dagger), allows the full strength from both arms to be employed and isn't significantly heavier than one of the two much shorter blades they'd be using with the two-weapon style (a real longsword is just 2-3 lb. while a short sword like a gladius is 1.5-2 lb. or 3-4 lb. for a pair).
His conclusion for the ideal ranged weapon noted precisely the same issues of strength you did and concluded that the best weapon for women at range would be the crossbow as the mechanical assistance makes raw strength less important. It would take them longer to load but, once loaded, the crossbow does the work of holding it drawn and the energy released would be the same as if a man fired it.
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 19, 2021, 11:14:23 AM
His conclusions though were that the ideal melee weapon for a female warrior would be the longsword (the real two-handed version not the D&D one) since it has excellent reach (a 3-3.5' in the blade alone vs. the maybe 2' blade of a short sword or maybe a foot if you're lucky with a dagger), allows the full strength from both arms to be employed and isn't significantly heavier than one of the two much shorter blades they'd be using with the two-weapon style (a real longsword is just 2-3 lb. while a short sword like a gladius is 1.5-2 lb. or 3-4 lb. for a pair).
A naginata or glaive would be even better, for the same reasons - probably why the naginata was the standard female home defence weapon of the Japanese samurai (also great for poking guys coming through doorways).
It's against all fantasy tropes that a 2hw (longsword, polearm) needs less strength than 2wf or 1h+shield; reality is funny like that. :)
Quote from: S'mon on August 19, 2021, 12:37:08 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 19, 2021, 11:14:23 AM
His conclusions though were that the ideal melee weapon for a female warrior would be the longsword (the real two-handed version not the D&D one) since it has excellent reach (a 3-3.5' in the blade alone vs. the maybe 2' blade of a short sword or maybe a foot if you're lucky with a dagger), allows the full strength from both arms to be employed and isn't significantly heavier than one of the two much shorter blades they'd be using with the two-weapon style (a real longsword is just 2-3 lb. while a short sword like a gladius is 1.5-2 lb. or 3-4 lb. for a pair).
A naginata or glaive would be even better, for the same reasons - probably why the naginata was the standard female home defence weapon of the Japanese samurai (also great for poking guys coming through doorways).
It's against all fantasy tropes that a 2hw (longsword, polearm) needs less strength than 2wf or 1h+shield; reality is funny like that. :)
To be fair, he did specify "Adventurer" in his assessment and the huge advantage of swords for adventurers in general is they're massively easier to carry without getting in the way than a polearm and are often "good enough" for the sort of fights adventurers get into.
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 19, 2021, 11:14:23 AM
Quote from: oggsmash on August 19, 2021, 09:11:31 AM
Quote from: mightybrain on August 08, 2021, 06:27:26 PM
In the rules, Dex for the most part, is the archery stat. We have just had the Olympics so we have up to date data on the differences between the best male and female human archers. The difference is that there is no measurable difference. Although the men's and women's events are separated, if you take the final scores of Mete Gazoz and San An, and put them head to head, it would have been a draw.
There is a measurable difference. I think the average draw weight of the bow for men is around 48 pounds, and for women 33 pounds. That is a 50 percent difference, and having a casual interest in archery, that is a big fucking difference. I have a 50 pound recurve bow, and none of the women I know can even attempt at shooting it (both my wife and sister in law are strong, fit women, and no dice). 50 pounds is the bottom tier for a how used for war/killing man sized targets. I also have an 85 pound draw longbow...do I need to go into how hard that is to draw and shoot?
I have zero doubts a woman can be as accurate in archery (at least olympic archery where every bow is LOADED with gizmos, I have no idea what happens in natural shooting, for all I know Women might be better), but the caveat is that it will be with a significantly lower powered bow. If olympic caliber athletes are using bows 50 percent weaker than the bows the men use, I think that says a lot as to where reality lines up.
All that said, again I would not put statistical limitations on women or men for an rpg.
The YouTube channel Shadiversity had an episode as part of its "Fantasy Rearmed" series that looks at what weapons would realistically be most effective for various races/peoples. On what weapons would be best for women to use... noting that common fantasy tropes were for them to be archers or do some sort of two-weapon fighting style using short swords or daggers).
His conclusions though were that the ideal melee weapon for a female warrior would be the longsword (the real two-handed version not the D&D one) since it has excellent reach (a 3-3.5' in the blade alone vs. the maybe 2' blade of a short sword or maybe a foot if you're lucky with a dagger), allows the full strength from both arms to be employed and isn't significantly heavier than one of the two much shorter blades they'd be using with the two-weapon style (a real longsword is just 2-3 lb. while a short sword like a gladius is 1.5-2 lb. or 3-4 lb. for a pair).
His conclusion for the ideal ranged weapon noted precisely the same issues of strength you did and concluded that the best weapon for women at range would be the crossbow as the mechanical assistance makes raw strength less important. It would take them longer to load but, once loaded, the crossbow does the work of holding it drawn and the energy released would be the same as if a man fired it.
Yeah that whole smaller/less strong person is the archer trope was cooked up by people who have done about zero archery in their entire life.
Quote from: S'mon on August 19, 2021, 12:37:08 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 19, 2021, 11:14:23 AM
His conclusions though were that the ideal melee weapon for a female warrior would be the longsword (the real two-handed version not the D&D one) since it has excellent reach (a 3-3.5' in the blade alone vs. the maybe 2' blade of a short sword or maybe a foot if you're lucky with a dagger), allows the full strength from both arms to be employed and isn't significantly heavier than one of the two much shorter blades they'd be using with the two-weapon style (a real longsword is just 2-3 lb. while a short sword like a gladius is 1.5-2 lb. or 3-4 lb. for a pair).
A naginata or glaive would be even better, for the same reasons - probably why the naginata was the standard female home defence weapon of the Japanese samurai (also great for poking guys coming through doorways).
It's against all fantasy tropes that a 2hw (longsword, polearm) needs less strength than 2wf or 1h+shield; reality is funny like that. :)
Greetings!
Very cool, S'mon! I always love the old expression--"Truth is stranger than fiction".
Your commentary reminds me of some of the things I have read concerning ancient Chinese history. The Qin, the Tang,Warlords, across thousands of years. The Chinese are historically well known as a very patriarchal society, and certainly not favourable to women in combat, "gender equality", "representation" or any of the modern insanity and nonsense.
However, I do appreciate the intriguing bits of historical honesty, and integrity provided in various Chinese reports, stories and so on. The Chinese talk about on more than one occasion, noble wives serving as rulers over a city--(their husbands were off leading armies elsewhere)--put armour on, picked up weapons, and lead their troops into combat defending the city. Such noble women were depicted as being shrewd, valiant, humble, courageous, and inspiring. In addition, there are historical commentaries where thousands of women warriors were deployed in defending fortified cities, often fighting house-to-house. The women warriors were interestingly armed with swords, spears, or bows. Lots of mass ranks of women archers firing arrows into charging invaders. Likewise with groups of women holding bristling spears, defending market squares and temples. From the sources I've read, the historians and commentators never champion sending mass units of women out into the field on campaign, nor do they embrace any kind of "Institutionalized" changes in policy, nothing like that. They clearly maintain that women soldiers are generally quite inferior and undesirable for the serious general.
However, they do note, that in defending their homes, specifically, such as a city, or fortified town, that having large groups of well-equipped, well-motivated women soldiers is better than nothing--and on such occasions, the women were fierce, passionate, and devoted, and often successfully helped in the defense of such towns and cities. Within such a context, even though the women often suffered extensive casualties as well as the brutalities of torture and rape from invaders, the women successfully fought and killed many enemy invaders, and helped to make any process of conquering a town or city bloody and difficult for the foreigner. The honest assessment seems to have been under the defensive environment, with strong motivation and decent equipment, women soldiers were in fact helpful in resisting or achieving victory, and also often proved inspiring to the men soldiers--whether the women were nobles or even simple peasant women. Having a peasant girl charge the enemy and see her fight and be hacked down by the enemy seems to have been a distinct motivator for hardened, desperate male soldiers. Or a young noble woman standing on the battlements, speaking to her soldiers, and lifting up a sword as she matches with them into the enemy at the gates. Under such contexts, women soldiers could be effective, helpful, fierce, and inspiring. The women soldiers were also noted for being especially selfless, loyal, and ruthless, even if they were not always as strong or as skilled and trained as the male soldiers. Some of the things I have read suggest that the women can be surprisingly bloodthirsty and remorseless, eager to torture, kill, and execute every enemy warrior that falls into their hands. Definitely some eye-opening stuff! ;D
I have also read that the Mongols also ensured that women were often trained in basic weapon skills--and especially using the bow, from a young age. Stronger women were apparently unusual, but also acceptable as warriors on occasion throughout the Mongol Empire. Some of the Mongol princesses and queens were famous for wearing armour and fighting in battle, and leading warriors.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
What bothers me the most about all of this is the hypocrisy.
Say male characters are better at ANYTHING and you will be in the crosshairs for sure. Say women are better at EVERYTHING (the latest "Star Wars" movies and the abomination called modern "He-Man") and that's just fine.
Now, in all of my writings one thing remains consistent: if female characters want "equality" and to be fierce warriors then they forfeit any and all special privileges:
Finally they had to part again, but there was no sadness for one day Tywilla's father and brother would willingly reincarnate among those of an ancient and heroic Dragonoid race who would, clad in gleaming armor forged from both magic and the fires of the brightest azure stars, soar through the gulfs of space and time far more swiftly than laggard light or any supership the invaders possessed to utterly annihilate the conquerer race- absolutely no mercy whatsoever would be shown to any of them for they deserved none- and so free that sad planet and prevent any others from suffering the same fate. In time her former world would be restored and her race could once again live in peace. It would take many years but it would be done with the eager work of the former slaves, all traces of the hated conquerers forever gone except for a holiday honoring the alien liberators and the memory of those murdered during that nightmare era.
I've caught some flack for this.
@SHARK your description of city defence reminds of the heroic defence of Kobani by Kurdish forces that were apparently majority-female (YPJ). The Finns also found women made good snipers in the Winter War. Defensive warfare definitely supports female relative strengths.
Quote from: S'mon on August 19, 2021, 07:16:40 PM
@SHARK your description of city defence reminds of the heroic defence of Kobani by Kurdish forces that were apparently majority-female (YPJ). The Finns also found women made good snipers in the Winter War. Defensive warfare definitely supports female relative strengths.
Greetings!
Yes, S'mon! I also saw some videos about the YPJ! They were impressive! Their simple courage, loyalty, and determination to resist the enemy! They weren't just bluffing, either! These girls were armed to the teeth! The video I saw showed these young girls fighting, too. Snipers, setting up machine guns, firing RPG's, these girls were not just going to lay the fuck down and cry, you know?
And yes, the Finns and Russians alike seemed to be very skilled in deploying women that were eager snipers!
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: oggsmash on August 19, 2021, 09:11:31 AM
Quote from: mightybrain on August 08, 2021, 06:27:26 PM
In the rules, Dex for the most part, is the archery stat. We have just had the Olympics so we have up to date data on the differences between the best male and female human archers. The difference is that there is no measurable difference. Although the men's and women's events are separated, if you take the final scores of Mete Gazoz and San An, and put them head to head, it would have been a draw.
There is a measurable difference. I think the average draw weight of the bow for men is around 48 pounds, and for women 33 pounds.
That would be a difference in Str not in Dex, and that has not been disputed.
Quote from: mightybrain on August 20, 2021, 03:30:05 AM
There is a measurable difference. I think the average draw weight of the bow for men is around 48 pounds, and for women 33 pounds.
That would be a difference in Str not in Dex, and that has not been disputed.
[/quote]
Yes, if men (or women) have any better hand-eye coordination etc, it doesn't seem to show up much in competition stats for archery & shooting.
There are legends of Scythian female archers, probably the source of the Amazon myths. Early bows were not capable of great draw weight (
pace Odysseus) which is where the trope of archery as feminine or effeminate comes from - see eg Paris in the
Iliad. Archery as a DEX-based stat is quite plausible if your game is set in the Ancient World, not so much if it's the more typical high-to-late Medieval setting.
Quote from: S'mon on August 20, 2021, 05:05:20 AM
Yes, if men (or women) have any better hand-eye coordination etc, it doesn't seem to show up much in competition stats for archery & shooting.
There are legends of Scythian female archers, probably the source of the Amazon myths. Early bows were not capable of great draw weight (pace Odysseus) which is where the trope of archery as feminine or effeminate comes from - see eg Paris in the Iliad. Archery as a DEX-based stat is quite plausible if your game is set in the Ancient World, not so much if it's the more typical high-to-late Medieval setting.
One of the things 3e did right was making bow damage a function of Strength and allow
Bows to be "built" with different draw strengths.
That said, in a system where hitting an armored target is as much a factor of hitting around their armor* as punching through it I can see the rationale of Dex adding to damage by more deftly striking those vulnerable points.
In my own system I just allow warriors to use Strength in place of Reflexes for attacks with a bow on the rationale that a stronger warrior can hold the bow drawn a bit longer and so make last moment adjustments to his aim and the heavier draw will add to the damage dealt, just in a different way than the pinpoint precision adds to damage dealt (which is why they don't stack).
* a longsword is NOT going to actually pierce or cave in a plate breastplate... all the period fighting manuals instead have techniques for piercing attacks vs. weak points and the occasional inverted sword using the crossguard as a hammer to the helmet. Today we think of armor almost entirely as stopping power because weapons have far outstripped armor in the arms race, but in medieval times the disparity was much closer or even reversed (especially at the high end like full plate harness with its sloped surfaces designed to cause attacks to lose energy transfer by glancing off the surface) so the idea of basing your armor off how likely it is to deflect a blow is actually not that odd.
I've watched a ton of Tod's Workshop videos where he tests extremely-accurate medieval bows against similarly accurate plate and mail armours. Nothing gets through a good breastplate, as you might expect, though those exploding 150 lb-draw longbow shafts do make for a lot of nasty shrapnel...
Conversely, mail & wooden shields do not do at all well vs English/Welsh war bows. At best, the two in conjunction might turn a lethal injury into a painful wound.
When building a system from the ground up, you can approach the question of who is effective with bows from different angles, and that will have indirect effects on the main topic. Which is itself a circular way of saying that D&D as it has evolved has become a lousy place (or even lousier place) to put male/female stat adjustments, because the design is after something that doesn't support them. It was arguably as close as it was ever going to be when it was chainmail rules in a pseudo-medieval setting where most males and females in the setting are 1 hit away from live to dead.
What I did instead for archery (and ranged weapons in general to a lesser extent) was let "Strength" add to melee and thrown damage, while ranged weapons get no corresponding boost (in part to hearken back to early D&D). However, I also built the math of the system to support ranged weapons having a generally larger die range. This makes ranged weapons more unpredictable--but more attractive to those with relatively low "Strength". I haven't yet, but if I wanted to turn around and add high draw strength bows to the system (with corresponding damage and range improvements), I could do so without messing up the math of the game. I've also set up the weapon proficiency options and class customization options such that the vast majority of characters who will manage to get really good with a longbow or a composite bow are either fighters or have used some of their customization options to pursue archery. And thus the increased damage of those bows is already somewhat factored in with average or better strength. So I'm getting 80%+ of the result I want in the setting with a simpler model, which is usually good enough for me.
In terms of the main topic then, women archers are generally stronger than the average women because to be an archer the woman has pursued activities that will make her stronger--no male/female adjustments necessary. However, if a large group of average women (or anyone generally "weaker") who aren't all that great with a bow pick them up and shoot at you, it's probably going bad for you simply on the fact that some of them are going to hit and some of those are going to roll high on that variable damage die. Which means that a player in that position will think twice before charging in, especially if they might be very accurate for all you know. Some of the steps to get from A to Z aren't very "realistic" or even consistent with the intent of the setting, but the end result certainly fits.
QuoteI have also read that the Mongols also ensured that women were often trained in basic weapon skills--and especially using the bow, from a young age. Stronger women were apparently unusual, but also acceptable as warriors on occasion throughout the Mongol Empire. Some of the Mongol princesses and queens were famous for wearing armour and fighting in battle, and leading warriors.
Manchu people were simmilar, their noblewomen obliged to train horseride and basic warfare. After Manchu conquered China (as their last imperial dynasty) there was some social controversy as their women started to abandon those ways for ways of Chinese women, all home, dressed, and even bound feet and it prevailed despite Manchu men opposition, and it ended with Manchu becoming almost utterly sinified to point, when only a handful of them can even speak Manchu nowadays.
Quote from: Chris24601 on August 20, 2021, 08:37:06 AM
One of the things 3e did right was making bow damage a function of Strength and allow
Bows to be "built" with different draw strengths.
Strength bows go all the way back to AD&D. The fact that later editions (4+) don't have them is somewhat strange, considering that they have added Dex for damage...
So this article that I came across today https://norwaytoday.info/culture/jegertroppen-norways-all-fighting-all-female-special-forces-unit/ (https://norwaytoday.info/culture/jegertroppen-norways-all-fighting-all-female-special-forces-unit/) made me think maybe there is something to those tales about viking shieldmaidens.
An all-female Special operations unit in Norway.
Granted, as the article mentions, most women can't do exactly the same things as their male counterparts can do, so they can't pass the same training for special forces that the guys do. Thus they created an "all female version" that doesn't have the same exact standards as the male version and less competition with guys.. (less sexual harassment too)
But as the article points out, they didnt create this unit because of some gender equality reason, but because there was a actual practical need for women SOF, particularly in Afghanistan where the women weren't allowed to speak to strange men (but strange women are fine, I guess)
Quote from: Wntrlnd on September 26, 2021, 07:55:00 PM
So this article that I came across today https://norwaytoday.info/culture/jegertroppen-norways-all-fighting-all-female-special-forces-unit/ (https://norwaytoday.info/culture/jegertroppen-norways-all-fighting-all-female-special-forces-unit/) made me think maybe there is something to those tales about viking shieldmaidens.
An all-female Special operations unit in Norway.
I remember reading that Scandinavian average female hand grip strength is the highest in the world, higher than the lowest male average hand grip strength numbers, which were from India (I'm guessing southern India). They got some big girls up there!
Separately, I recall reading that sexual dimorphism varies by latitude, peaking around the Mediterranean latitudes, so lower in northern Europe than southern Europe. So indeed you would be more likely to see warrior women in the north.
Re this story in particular, from everything I've seen, with a sex segregated unit they are taking exactly the right approach to creating combat effective female soldiers. The phrasing of the story may be Politically Correct, but the intentions seem very practical.
The way people talk about shieldmaidens makes me think of Athena in classical Athens; if you took just that one myth you'd jump to the conclusion that women wore arms and armor and were of higher status than actually was the case. But we actually know too much about their everyday society to draw such a conclusion.
Norse women were pretty much as you'd expect from a traditional, hard living and practical people. Women are sometimes forced by circumstances to pick up an axe and whack someone in the head, but they aren't "supposed to". In Gisli Sirsson Saga several murders are triggered by women's gossip, but the women aren't killed nor are they involved in the killing; because women aren't considered fighters. This is a theme you see again and again when it comes to blood feuds and wars; women were not considered to be responsible for any of that, even if they actually were involved indirectly. Besides, according to Jackson Crawford, the worst thing you could have called a male Norse was "sissy" and the worst thing you could have called a Norse woman was a "whore". Sounds familiar?
Sigh.
If you wanted to run a simulationist game with stats based on dimorphism then:
women get.
max str 15 roll 3d6
max dex 16, roll 3d6
max con 15, roll 3d6
max int 16 roll 4d6, drop lowest
max wis 18, roll 4d6 drop lowest
max cha 18, roll 3d6
dex isn't just about flexibility, its also reflexes and reaction speed which men have a clear advantage compared to woman in addition to over all strength (no matter what you might find about individual aspects such as grip strength, so unless you want to have different stats for grip strength, press strength, squat strength, etc, generic overall strength is what you should do), and of course woman have a higher average IQ compared to men, but there are more men geniuses than there are women geniuses, I would say women are wiser on average than men but are as equally capable of being maximized in wisdom as men. And I wouldn't give women any advantage or disadvantage in cha compared to men, that trope needs to die IMO, especially when you witness some modern women you'd wonder why anyone would think women have more cha than men.
men get.
max str 18, roll 4d6 drop lowest
max dex 18, roll 4d6 drop lowest
max con 18, roll 4d6 drop lowest
max int 18, roll 3d6
max wis 18, roll 3d6
max cha 18, roll 3d6
But if you're playing a fantasy game why would you want to bog people down with this and offend people who might otherwise play your game? people don't regularly climb 100 foot walls, cast spells, fight goblins, or anything else, so I don't really see why sex based max stats makes sense, but species based max stats does make sense, like you could say humans are smarter than dwarfs, or elfs have more dex than humans, etc.
>> and of course woman have a higher average IQ compared to men<<
No they don't. Per Erwing & Lynn, it's about 3 points lower.
Women are much better at the modern education system though. ;D
Quote from: Banjo Destructo on September 27, 2021, 09:03:49 AM
But if you're playing a fantasy game why would you want to bog people down with this and offend people who might otherwise play your game?
It's actually a useful screen. If someone is going to be offended about realistic stats because it offends their political sensibilities, then we're going to have more problems down the road. Best to lose them right at the start and get a player who's a better fit.
That said, I don't care enough to add dimorphism to a game where it's not there, but if it is there I won't bother to change it either.
As I've noted before, realism is not the be-all and end-all of a game.
This is escapism.
Good grief, my Savage Worlds Rifts cyborg has gotten hit with anti-armor missiles repeatedly in two different sessions. Out of like three hits he's only taken one wound.
Heck, Red Sonja is WAY down on the list of 'unbelievable things' compared to that. :)
Quote from: Mishihari on September 27, 2021, 01:40:19 PM
It's actually a useful screen. If someone is going to be offended about realistic stats because it offends their political sensibilities, then we're going to have more problems down the road. Best to lose them right at the start and get a player who's a better fit.
That said, I don't care enough to add dimorphism to a game where it's not there, but if it is there I won't bother to change it either.
So a positive use of the bait & switch? You tell everyone in the pitch that there's going to be realistic stats. Then when the ones that didn't throw a fit show up, you say, just kidding.
That's one of the simplest, most effective house rules ever. Takes all of 10 seconds to write it, and no chance it breaks anything. :D
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.
This is escapism.
Good grief, my Savage Worlds Rifts cyborg has gotten hit with anti-armor missiles repeatedly in two different sessions. Out of like three hits he's only taken one wound.
Heck, Red Sonja is WAY down on the list of 'unbelievable things' compared to that. :)
I strongly prefer a game to be realistic, except where unrealism is needed to fulfill the premise of the game or make the game more playable (quicker to run, etc) This allows one to use his real world intuition to make decisions in the game and adds verisimilitude. I had assumed that most gamers had the same preference, but was kind of shocked when a poll that I put up on this board showed that that was not the case. If female barbarian warriors are important to the premise/setting/character concept/whatever then giving them the same stat distribution as the men makes sense. If not, then I'd prefer it be realistic. And the same goes for any other element of the game.
Quote from: Mishihari on September 27, 2021, 02:16:34 PM
I strongly prefer a game to be realistic, except where unrealism is needed to fulfill the premise of the game or make the game more playable (quicker to run, etc) This allows one to use his real world intuition to make decisions in the game and adds verisimilitude. I had assumed that most gamers had the same preference, but was kind of shocked when a poll that I put up on this board showed that that was not the case. If female barbarian warriors are important to the premise/setting/character concept/whatever then giving them the same stat distribution as the men makes sense. If not, then I'd prefer it be realistic. And the same goes for any other element of the game.
I'm more or less the same way, except that I tend to include a fair amount of fantastical elements almost by reflex, and I want where the level of realism settles to be somewhat consistent across the whole game. Both those exceptions tend to drag it further off the realism side in the areas where most people want realism.
I made a smaller race for the current game. Not halfings, but can think that way for this topic. I made them bigger than D&D halflings are usually portrayed, because I didn't want their stats to be completely off the charts (not all that playable) or too unrealistic. So I compromised and made them on the upper end of "small" compared to humans. This makes them more comparable to 10-12 year old humans instead of 5 to 8. Still not realistic, but just enough closer to realistic that I can live with it without being tempted to push modifiers too far into unplayable in the style of game intended. It helps that for me most characters start with semi-sucky stats but their career choices tend to bump the stats important to them.
With that decision made, there is thus a kind of coarse grain for modest attribute changes for races, and there isn't any room left for fine distinctions for male/female in the model. Yeah, technically human females should average something like 10 Str while human males will be 10.2 Str in that scale, but it is literally a rounding error. D&D has even less room for such distinctions in its model than I do in mine. Having decided I wanted a viable, smaller race under those conditions, I want to extend that level of realism throughout other aspects of strength and size for other creatures. Ergo, there are things elsewhere that I could make a touch more realistic without violating the criteria you established, but would violate my consistency approach.
I contrast that to Dragon Quest, a game I love, where average male human adventurer Str is 15, with females having a slight adjustment. However, since the player sets their scores from a pool, all that really means is that the very strongest males are ahead of females and the most dexterous females are ahead of males. And very few characters can hit those limits anyway. It's effectively a world-building complexity that has no measurable impact on the game. In contrast with the poor DQ halfling, that gets a -6 Str--with race determined semi-randomly after scores are locked. So if you are going to take a shot at being a halfing, better be willing to live with that modifier! Much more realistic. However, DQ is very much a sim-oriented model, where a halfling is going to be shunted into certain routes both by size and abilities. You don't play one unless OK with that.
Problem is, my game would take place in Ayundell. There is no magic in Ayundell, it cannot exist there.
When any wizard, male or female, tosses a lightning bolt or fireball in an AD&D game the magic essentially does all of the work. If a female magic user of the same level does the same exact things- gestures, words, material components- as a male magic user she is going to get the same exact results assuming the dice rolls are the same (and that's random chance).
But this is NOT the case on Ayundell. The equivalent of a fireball spell there is tossing a fireglobe which bursts in a fiery blast on impact. Therefore strength will determine how far it will go, especially in a dungeon corridor where arching is not possible- it must then be thrown in a straight line. "Lightning bolt" is a sort of extending javelin with what amounts to a taser tip using a simple Tesla ("Slayer") coil and clockwork to produce the needed AC current- again, greater physical strength yields greater range and in this case penetrating power.
In other words, the Ayundellian equivalents of magic users will be much stronger than their AD&D counterparts. Since males are stronger than females they will get better range. This is a factor with long-range attacks. Likewise getting through Ayundellian equivalents of web spells, resin walls that block passages, etc. Carrying gear is another factor: the stronger you are the more you can carry, and this includes the alchemic weaponry used there. Stronger characters can carry more alchemic weaponry.
Since females are non-combatants as a rule (even Azuralupin females, 20+ strength and able to have 12 attacks/round (all special), usually do not fight unless they must), they are much more likely to be able to talk an opposing party out of fighting assuming that's possible. Their smaller size also makes them better able to perform spying and sneaking abilities (crumbling ledges are less likely to give under less weight). Their cleric domains are usually healing and growth, their auramancer talents specialize in this (e.g. red pandas).
Obviously race and species count too. A human male is rarely as strong as a half-orc female, let alone an Azuralupin female. None of this applies to Riverlords since there are no female Riverlords, and female shadow elves (the equivalent of Drow) are superior to male shadow elves.
This also means male dragons, especially lesser dragons, have greater range with their breath weapons.
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!"
Or those of us who work on farms, in warehouses, etc. as I do.
It always disgusts me when someone says "why worry about differences between sexes IT'S JUST A FANTASY GAME blah blah..."
But in a game like mine with dragons who are living hydrogen blimps, talking red pandas, anthro-fox vulpinish, killer trees, azuralupins, auramancers, aquadreels, blood drinkers, giant mutated two-headed apes ("Demogorgon") with flesh-rotting whips, pirate empires, picayunafolk, etc. etc. that does not want to play by SJW rules...suddenly fantasy games do matter.
I've been on this world for over half a century. That hypocrisy is really getting tedious.
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!"
I'm always amused by someone whose version of the dick comparing contest is to accuse others of the same thing ever chance he gets. No wait, it was only amusing the first couple of hundred times it happened ...
Must be compensating for something.
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!"
IME it's the "nerds who have never lifted anything heavier than a box of unpainted minis" types who are inclined to buy into their University lecturers' belief that reality is a social construct & saying men are stronger than women is sexist. Actual warrior women (bodyguard, police ex-military) I've known IRL have no trouble with that fact, and the need to work around it. It was also pretty obvious when I was doing army training in a mixed sex unit.
As for RPGs, I love my Amazonian warrior women (and have a somewhat moth-to-flame attraction to fierce women IRL), but whether that's appropriate to support in an RPG depends on the genre. I don't want my D&D PCs touched by reality, but I want the mundane NPCs to mostly reflect reality to give a relatable baseline. In a different genre it may be better for even the PCs to be somewhat constrained; if it's Game of Thrones then Brienne of Tarth can be strong and skilled, but not as strong as The Mountain or even The Hound.
Can we please put stat limits on stupid gimmick posters instead.
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!"
LOL. Stereotype much?
Actually your post makes me wonder how much truth there is to that stereotype. SHARK is a retired marine; Ogg's an MMA professional; I'm not in the same class as either of those two, but I'm pretty seriously into weight training and martial arts. Are theses examples typical, or the exceptions to the rule? A poll would be nice but I don't think I could trust the result.
No, you couldn't trust the result. Back in the day SJGames had the infamous Overland Hiking thread (http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=2265). Every obese or scrawny nerd and his dog claimed to be able to walk 50 miles a day every day - hell, twice that.
Once again: nobody really wants realism, or Conflict would sell better than D&D. They just want to tweak things in a way to match their taste and ego, and then claim it's realism.
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.
Quote from: Mishihari on September 28, 2021, 09:18:55 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.
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.
Greetings!
Good points, Mishihari! I acknowledge the mythical heritage and roots of much of the foundations of the D&D game--there is some merit to such an angle, after all--however, I'm always reminded of so many examples through *history* of extraordinary characters arising from nowhere, from entirely obscure, humble, and ordinary backgrounds. Such ordinary characters--farmers and blacksmiths, common soldiers, down-and-out scholars and monks--even impoverished bandits!--emerge to do great deeds, and forge genuinely epic destinies.
Off the top of my head, from recent reading, I think his name was Huang-Jo. He came from a poor peasant background, and became a Buddhist monk, wandering the land, begging and poor--for a good number of years. Then he became an outlaw, bandit, and adventurer. For years he fought and struggled against the ruling Yuan Empire--and became a feared Bandit Warlord. Eventually, great city councils in rebellion to the Yuan Empire (The Mongol Dominion)--appointed Huang-Jo to be their leading General, and Commander of great armies. Huang-Jo led the armies of the rebel forces, and defeated the Yuan Emperor, and liberated China from Mongolian rule. Huang-Jo was elected to be the new Emperor of China. During these momentous weeks of victory, it had been dark and raining constantly. On the morning that Huang-Jo agreed to sit upon the throne as the Emperor, fortuitously, the dark clouds swiftly cleared, and bright, dazzling sunlight shown down, immediately uplifting everyone's spirits and morale. Huang-Jo became the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, which endured for centuries. Huang-Jo was heralded with a new magnificent title--"The Bringer of Light".
Emperor Huang-Jo went on to rule the empire for many years, led massive armies into battle, and built enormous fortresses everywhere. The great palace fortress in Beijing today was built by the first Ming Emperor. Huang-Jo proceeded to strengthen the Chinese Empire immensely, and transformed all of China forever.
Quite a life for a poor peasant raised in a mud hut, eating bowls of rice. ;D
I think it is good and appropriate that D&D abilities are a regular spread amongst normal human potential. I tend to like the long traditions of heroes being made, not born. Furthermore, D&D characters generally are best suited representing *heroes*--rather than *superheroes*. The idea of special stats just for Player Characters and a different set for all the unwashed masses, ehh. I'm nt in favour of that. The Player Characters get blessed plenty by being able to rise continuously in class level, while most NPC's remain relatively modest in level, hit points, and other abilities. I still like Player Characters to maintain a foundation linked to the mundane world and somewhat ordinary, regular people.
Official Court scholars wrote of the mighty emperor Huang-Jo that he remained coarse, suspicious, absolutely ruthless and brutal, and always remembered his peasant upbringing. Huang-Jo, they said, always fiercely championed whatever was good for *all* of the people--but had a fondness for ordinary, common people.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: rytrasmi on September 28, 2021, 07:32:16 PM
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.
IRL it's hundreds to one at least. IRL you don't need STR 16+ to be an effective warrior or an adventurer, though.
I rather miss GMing 1e AD&D or OSRIC with the Weapon Spec rules, where a Fighter just needs STR 9+ and can get +3 to hit & damage (& ATT 3/2) with their chosen double-spec'd weapon; Red Sonja doesn't need Conan's STR to be an effective warrior.
Quote from: Shasarak on September 28, 2021, 05:06:01 PM
That sounds like something that someone who thinks a Katana can not cut through a Tank would say.
"Chainguns always win!"
Quote from: S'monIRL you don't need STR 16+ to be an effective warrior or an adventurer, though.
Nor in a properly-run game of AD&D1e.
Quote from: rytrasmi on September 28, 2021, 07:32:16 PM
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.
Some of you children don't seem to realize that some of us have played or run for literally hundreds of PCs...
Quote from: Eirikrautha on September 29, 2021, 06:52:59 AM
Quote from: rytrasmi on September 28, 2021, 07:32:16 PM
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.
Some of you children don't seem to realize that some of us have played or run for literally hundreds of PCs...
And have the paper graveyard to prove it!
Quote from: Eirikrautha on September 29, 2021, 06:52:59 AM
Quote from: rytrasmi on September 28, 2021, 07:32:16 PM
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.
Some of you children don't seem to realize that some of us have played or run for literally hundreds of PCs...
I know this, and being a semi-old fart myself I've run a large number of PCs, too. Curious though, given the number of PCs you've run, did you notice a trend of attribute imbalance from what you might expect (like overly strong female characters)? I have not. I think that's because 1) there's too much noise in the data, which is what I was originally getting at, and 2) the time involved is rather long.
I know a lot of people get attached to numbers and attributes, and a lot of people also treat numbers in these games like a sort of voodoo. (Not saying anyone here specifically.) A 16 is objectively better than a 15, yes, but does that actually matter in play? Well, the modifier might be 1 higher. But how many rolls do you need to make before an extra +1 on a modifier means something? My view is a +1 means almost nothing and most likely gets lost in the noise of your d20 being poorly balanced. A +2 will break through die noise at around 50-70 rolls. That's a lot and I would ask if the typical character lives long enough to make that number of rolls against one attribute? That's like 10 combat encounters.
Quote from: S'mon on September 29, 2021, 02:19:03 AM
Quote from: rytrasmi on September 28, 2021, 07:32:16 PM
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.
IRL it's hundreds to one at least. IRL you don't need STR 16+ to be an effective warrior or an adventurer, though.
I rather miss GMing 1e AD&D or OSRIC with the Weapon Spec rules, where a Fighter just needs STR 9+ and can get +3 to hit & damage (& ATT 3/2) with their chosen double-spec'd weapon; Red Sonja doesn't need Conan's STR to be an effective warrior.
I totally agree.
Quote from: S'mon on September 29, 2021, 02:19:03 AM
Quote from: rytrasmi on September 28, 2021, 07:32:16 PM
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.
IRL it's hundreds to one at least. IRL you don't need STR 16+ to be an effective warrior or an adventurer, though.
I rather miss GMing 1e AD&D or OSRIC with the Weapon Spec rules, where a Fighter just needs STR 9+ and can get +3 to hit & damage (& ATT 3/2) with their chosen double-spec'd weapon; Red Sonja doesn't need Conan's STR to be an effective warrior.
Quite true. 3E kinda messed things up on that score (among other things).
So someone who understands martial combat better than me, would you be so kind as to explain something I've been thinking about?
This strays slightly from the topic of attributes for female characters but hear me out.
The sjdubs want to have the wheelchair/disabled characters. But from what little I understand, how would a fighter in a wheelchair be able to generate the power necessary in a sword or axe blow? Isn't a lot of power generated from stance and hips? Or for that matter, the fluid nature of combat. From a certain position in the wheelchair it wouldn't matter what your strength was right, if you could never generate the momentum?
Is my thinking off?
Quote from: S'mon on September 29, 2021, 02:19:03 AM
IRL it's hundreds to one at least. IRL you don't need STR 16+ to be an effective warrior or an adventurer, though.
I rather miss GMing 1e AD&D or OSRIC with the Weapon Spec rules, where a Fighter just needs STR 9+ and can get +3 to hit & damage (& ATT 3/2) with their chosen double-spec'd weapon; Red Sonja doesn't need Conan's STR to be an effective warrior.
I agree that the men/women strength difference is very significant as you say - and that in real life one doesn't need to be peak strength to be an effective warrior.
On the other hand, I'm not fond of weapon specialization on simulationist grounds. One of my big problems with individual skill-based systems like BRP or GURPS is that it leads to warrior PCs who (for example) are deadly with a longsword but useless with a short sword or club. That doesn't match up to my reading of history. From accounts, it seems like the key skills for a warrior are broad things like keeping one's head in battle, being able to size up an opponent, and being able to take a wound without collapsing.
Quote from: Thorn Drumheller on September 29, 2021, 11:11:23 AM
Is my thinking off?
Probably.
Can a 6-year-old with a knife kill an aware adult? If the answer is yes, then size, leverage, and strength aren't the only factors involved in hacking someone apart.
Here's a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeqpmrAk2hY) of someone in a wheelchair chopping wood. While I don't think he's going to set a world record, if he can do it, I'm confident that someone in a wheelchair could cleave an orc, too, especially if they had significantly more upper-body strength.
Outlier thinking... and bad reasoning. But I'll throw you a bone...
A six-year old capable of killing an adult human with knife? Sure. In a FIGHT? 99% of the time - no.
Just because a person in a wheelchair can chop wood - doesn't mean all people in wheelchairs can chop wood.
But let me steel-man you.
I've always held the D&D foundational assumption that PC's are "special people". They're special in the way peak-performers in their various skills and crafts are. Fighters are not just men-at-arms, they're Medieval Spec-Ops, they've been trained to use weapons writ-large. Same is true of the other classes in their respective roles.
I'm into cinematic combat. I'm not particularly interested in HEMA-style combat in most of my games. I'm more into 300. I want YOUR PC to be able to do the Spartan Test (https://youtu.be/G1a3QpvFLN0) and feel awesome. I don't particularly care if you're a female, or a halfling, or gnome - we can narrate around that, as long as we make in contextual.
But that means the system has to also be flexible. In the case of being a paraplegic, contextually, I play Savage Worlds - that's an actual Hindrance you can have. If you purchased the Fighting Skill, and have the capacity to get into combat, yes, you most certainly would be able to cut someone down. But contextually, in the Spartan Test, there are narrative hurdles that matter for me to justify you being out there in a Combat Wheelchair in my games - because they don't exist. Could one be built? Sure. Or some other options - magical healing, a magical Tensers Disc you float around on (which might be more feasible) whatever.
The idea is that IF you wanted to play those things, a good GM will contextualize it for the game they're running - and that could and SHOULD come with the baggage that goes with it. You might spend a whole lot of time in another PC's backpack being lugged around (Fortunately the Savage World's game comes with Edges that would let you do exactly that). Or if you're a female - and you want that 18-strength, you're going to look like a woman with 18 strength. I don't personally care if it's *impossible* for a woman to have that much muscle-mass, if you tell me that you wanna play a woman, and your strength happens to be 18, sure. And you'll pay/gain whatever social rewards that come with it.
I actually had this happen with one of my female players who rolled an 18 strength (18(87) to be exact) - and showed her a picture of Dorian Yates and said - HE does not have an 18(87) strength strictly speaking by military press. She was so grossed out by it she asked to lower her strength to 17. I was perfectly fine with her looking like a hulked-out woman. SHE wasn't.
Again - it's up to you as a GM and what you're aiming for. I'm not into total "realism" - I'm into "what feels right" for the current game I'm running. As long as we can agree on the narrative style and parameters of what these numbers MEAN. If you wanna play looser and say "it's cinematic like Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and your 18 Str. female looks like a twiggy chick that happens to be unnaturally strong... okay.
That's closer to superheroes than what I want in my fantasy. But hey - it's your game.
Quote from: jhkim on September 29, 2021, 11:48:59 AM
On the other hand, I'm not fond of weapon specialization on simulationist grounds. One of my big problems with individual skill-based systems like BRP or GURPS is that it leads to warrior PCs who (for example) are deadly with a longsword but useless with a short sword or club. That doesn't match up to my reading of history. From accounts, it seems like the key skills for a warrior are broad things like keeping one's head in battle, being able to size up an opponent, and being able to take a wound without collapsing.
From my reading and limited understanding gleaned from sports, I'd say a little of column A and a little of column B. All you say is important. General
footwork is incredibly important. There are also specific techniques to the weapons, though. There's a best, or at least better way, to grip each weapon, an angle to hold it, etc. Heck, you even have different fighting styles with their own placements.
It's not merely about what would work in real combat too. It's also about doing it the same way every time so that you know where your weapon is and how it works. For example, consider sport fencing differences between foil and epee. Foil is much more regimented and only counts targets on the torso. Epee accepts targets everywhere. Epee isn't real combat, but it is closer to real combat than foil. (To what degree will always be an argument, but it is undeniably closer by some amount.) The grip and default stance for Italian-style foil takes advantage of the limited target area to give you other options. You hold an epee like that against a decent opponent with a couple of years of solid training, you lose. No question. Your hand is hit, touches happen, you lose. Meanwhile, French-style foil and epee are making slight adjustments with their own pros and cons. And of course all of them have changed over the years as they've become more about sports and less about dueling or personal defense.
Extrapolate that to real weapons, trying to kill or wound without having the same thing done to you, multiple opponents on each side, yada, yada, yada. Everything you said starts to matter more, but there are also additional considerations on targeting and placement and options that also multiply.
Even with foil, that practiced technique and placement still matters so much that someone who has gotten a good handle on it routinely beats people more fit, bigger, faster, with longer reach--if that opponents has neglected that one aspect of weapon technique. In more expressive terms, this is about "making the weapon an extension of your arm". You know where it is, and you can make it go where you want like it is pointing your finger. This is also a thing that does degrade quickly if not maintained, which of course is another thing that doesn't model to games very well.
Quote from: Thorn Drumheller on September 29, 2021, 11:11:23 AM
So someone who understands martial combat better than me, would you be so kind as to explain something I've been thinking about?
This strays slightly from the topic of attributes for female characters but hear me out.
The sjdubs want to have the wheelchair/disabled characters. But from what little I understand, how would a fighter in a wheelchair be able to generate the power necessary in a sword or axe blow? Isn't a lot of power generated from stance and hips? Or for that matter, the fluid nature of combat. From a certain position in the wheelchair it wouldn't matter what your strength was right, if you could never generate the momentum?
Is my thinking off?
We're talking about a game where carrying up to 120 lbs. of gear has zero impact on your ability to fight or perform acrobatic moves. With that in mind, I'd say footwork/wheelwork is nothing but fluff.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 29, 2021, 02:39:17 PM
Quote from: jhkim on September 29, 2021, 11:48:59 AM
On the other hand, I'm not fond of weapon specialization on simulationist grounds. One of my big problems with individual skill-based systems like BRP or GURPS is that it leads to warrior PCs who (for example) are deadly with a longsword but useless with a short sword or club. That doesn't match up to my reading of history. From accounts, it seems like the key skills for a warrior are broad things like keeping one's head in battle, being able to size up an opponent, and being able to take a wound without collapsing.
From my reading and limited understanding gleaned from sports, I'd say a little of column A and a little of column B. All you say is important. General footwork is incredibly important. There are also specific techniques to the weapons, though. There's a best, or at least better way, to grip each weapon, an angle to hold it, etc. Heck, you even have different fighting styles with their own placements.
Obviously, there are specific weapon skills that do make some difference - but the question is how important are they? In some games, weapon specialization is clearly optimal mechanically, and players will generally use it. But my reading of history is that most warriors - even the best / most famous - weren't particularly specialized in a single weapon.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 29, 2021, 02:39:17 PM
It's not merely about what would work in real combat too. It's also about doing it the same way every time so that you know where your weapon is and how it works. For example, consider sport fencing differences between foil and epee.
I think sports isn't a great model for real combat. A sport tests a much more narrow set of skills than real combat, so it makes sense that it will reward specialization more.
Quote from: jhkim on September 29, 2021, 11:48:59 AM
Quote from: S'mon on September 29, 2021, 02:19:03 AM
IRL it's hundreds to one at least. IRL you don't need STR 16+ to be an effective warrior or an adventurer, though.
I rather miss GMing 1e AD&D or OSRIC with the Weapon Spec rules, where a Fighter just needs STR 9+ and can get +3 to hit & damage (& ATT 3/2) with their chosen double-spec'd weapon; Red Sonja doesn't need Conan's STR to be an effective warrior.
I agree that the men/women strength difference is very significant as you say - and that in real life one doesn't need to be peak strength to be an effective warrior.
On the other hand, I'm not fond of weapon specialization on simulationist grounds. One of my big problems with individual skill-based systems like BRP or GURPS is that it leads to warrior PCs who (for example) are deadly with a longsword but useless with a short sword or club. That doesn't match up to my reading of history. From accounts, it seems like the key skills for a warrior are broad things like keeping one's head in battle, being able to size up an opponent, and being able to take a wound without collapsing.
You wouldn't want it in simulation. Martial arts going beyond base skill is a fiction trope. In reality boxing is a martial art like fencing or doing a powerful but economical cut and thrust in formation. Fiction tends to showcase a martial art as some esoteric thing or secret knowledge that extends beyond training fitness and experience to make a weapon do things it won't. It's magic by other means. It is pushing physics and psychology aside to get into more mythical legendary stuff. It's not realistic but it's not meant to be. It's for pulpy or cinematic stuff.
Quote from: jhkim on September 29, 2021, 04:52:38 PM
Obviously, there are specific weapon skills that do make some difference - but the question is how important are they? In some games, weapon specialization is clearly optimal mechanically, and players will generally use it. But my reading of history is that most warriors - even the best / most famous - weren't particularly specialized in a single weapon.
I would say that they have general skills. Then they have specialists skills. If they are serious warriors, they develop several specialties (depending on the time, place, and culture). In the course of developing several specialties, they also pick some skills that overlap some weapons but not all.
This is pretty much how non-weapon skills work too, which is why there is a lot of middle ground between, say, a person that can barely boil water versus a trained chef. And notable distinctions between skills levels in narrow bands, and by specialties. I'm a better cook than the average person. I'm not as good as my sister. Neither of us are professionals. Both of us can put meals on the table that are better than many things you can buy. We have specialties that stand out. There are several different general and specialized and middling "skills" that go into doing that, some of which come easy to anyone that bothers to learn and others that take some work.
How detailed a game wants to get in that is another question. However, any system that wants to claim it is modeling human skills to some degree has to take those kind of tensions into account. It might barely take them into account, and it might not model them very well compared to real life, but it has to at least nod in that general direction.
All specialties is bad, even if the game allows adequate specialties to make reasonable characters. It's a lot of accounting for too little payoff. All general skills is also bad, because then you get this broad, anyone can do anything, at which point you shouldn't even bother. If the game is going to do that, the designer should just admit that it isn't trying to model skills at all, and thus leave them out entirely. Nothing wrong with that choice, either.
I'm not so much against any particular design as I'm against a design that has pretense to something it is not.
Quote from: HappyDaze on September 29, 2021, 03:35:03 PM
We're talking about a game where carrying up to 120 lbs. of gear has zero impact on your ability to fight or perform acrobatic moves. With that in mind, I'd say footwork/wheelwork is nothing but fluff.
Thanks for responding HappyDaze. I won't derail this thread farther on this subject but I will respectfully disagree. Have a good day.
Quote from: tenbones on September 29, 2021, 12:54:57 PMI actually had this happen with one of my female players who rolled an 18 strength (18(87) to be exact) - and showed her a picture of Dorian Yates and said - HE does not have an 18(87) strength strictly speaking by military press. She was so grossed out by it she asked to lower her strength to 17. I was perfectly fine with her looking like a hulked-out woman. SHE wasn't.
That's somewhat misleading since he's a body builder not a weightlifter. 1e takes your character's weight into account so would make it more difficult for someone like that to have a high exceptional strength. I wonder if her decision would have been different if you had instead showed her Liao Qiuyun (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Gsb1ndQH0M). She's close to 18(80) in 1e terms but not outlandishly bulky.
Quote from: HappyDaze on September 29, 2021, 03:35:03 PMWe're talking about a game where carrying up to 120 lbs. of gear has zero impact on your ability to fight or perform acrobatic moves.
In 1e you would be encumbered with 120 lbs of gear - your movement rate quartered, and your reaction and initiative slowed greatly.
Quote from: mightybrain on September 29, 2021, 07:49:43 PM
Quote from: HappyDaze on September 29, 2021, 03:35:03 PMWe're talking about a game where carrying up to 120 lbs. of gear has zero impact on your ability to fight or perform acrobatic moves.
In 1e you would be encumbered with 120 lbs of gear - your movement rate quartered, and your reaction and initiative slowed greatly.
The wheelchair is a 5e thing, so that's the game in talking about.