Author Topic: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?  (Read 27031 times)

Offline veekie

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #40 on: September 08, 2013, 02:26:10 PM »
Yeah, I wouldn't mind as much if the 'realists' actually did do their research to create something with an authentic theme and feel. Usually it's just to enforce some personal concept.

Game designers aren't(usually) anthropologists and historians, and thus shouldn't be acting like they are.
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Offline Kasz

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #41 on: September 08, 2013, 02:27:04 PM »
What happens in this campaign if the male human barbarian/fighter who started with a base 18 strength because he rolled high or bought it with point buy... puts on a cursed belt of gender swapping...does he lose 2 points of strength? Now he's in his identical yet female body? (No change to con, dex etc.)

It's just a dick move on the DM's part to even have it as a consideration.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/humanoids/lashunta

I actually don't mind this, mainly because of how it was executed.

Quote
Male and female lashunta have very different body and personality types, more so than most humanoid species.

Quote
Male lashunta are muscular (+2 Strength) and often brash and unobservant (–2 Wisdom). Female lashunta, though beautiful and commanding (+2 Charisma), lack the males' rugged builds (–2 Constitution).

The key here is that it's not +2 charisma because boobs. They're commanding, authoritative... also beauty never hurts charisma, but at least it's not just beauty.

The more so than most humanoids is important, it stresses that whilst most races bodies are basically equal, theirs will never be truely equal. Which isn't sexist... it's just a fantasy race.

If a DM said to me: In my world humans evolved very differently and their bodies and personalities are totally different due to their roles and responsibilities, then fine, different racial abilities makes sense.
It's the issue that the DM does it for realism but is actually just being sexist.

I've heard of horror story DMs who told players their alignment was chaotic evil for his character being gay. Chaotic because it went against the natural order of things and evil because his character was a sodomite.

D&D is supposed to be a fun game, can we leave politics and sexism at the door.

Offline Ananse

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #42 on: September 08, 2013, 02:41:22 PM »
Yeah, this isn't realism, it's simple bigotry. "Realism" stops the moment it inconveniences the bigot.

This is true times infinity with d20, where most stats are semi-disassociative, anyway. The Cha 22 Paladin is an asshole that everyone hates, including his so-called friends, but he gets his way because he has Magic Brain Powerz, not because he's attractive.

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #43 on: September 08, 2013, 03:52:23 PM »


... One of them is that no female character may have more than a 16 to Strength before racial bonuses. The rationale is that in real life on human female can every reach the brute strength of men in the top 75% ...

(pretending to take the dude DMs "argument" seriously for a moment)

1E used a nearly linear STR scale of 10*# = weight you can lift over your head.
So an 18 STR can lift 180 pounds over his(her!) head.
And who did the ancient Greeks call Amazons anyway.
I go google just a little.

2013 Junior Pan Am  (hey tough guy it's "Juniors")
Ellen Kercher put 68kg on the more difficult lift, and 81kg on the 2 step move.
81kg * 2.2convert = 178.2 pounds
Now her performing class weight is available to google too, but hey look at her
... she's tiny, like smaller than that tough guy DM.
I'd bet she hasn't listened to Olivia Newton-John's "Magic" lately ; as in:
You have to believe we are magic
Nothing can stand in our way

I don't think she's wearing a Real Life +2 Magic Girdle of Giant Strength, eh?

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Offline Keldar

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #44 on: September 08, 2013, 05:11:48 PM »
Someone should tell Mr. Realism that wealth would have more impact on strength than gender.  Medieval present gals were strong like circle, farm living tends to do that do a body.  While any noble that didn't wear plate all day was liable to be as delicate as a flower.  +2 Str for being poor and -2 for being nobility sounds more "realistic" to me.   :P  Heck, slap on a -2 Con for all that high falutin' inbreeding.

Offline veekie

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #45 on: September 08, 2013, 05:30:41 PM »
Well the big determiners of physical capability were food quality and physical development.
Poor food + Lots of work = Wiry strength, tough as hell, but you won't be getting big muscles.
Good food + no work = Flabby merchant
Good food + training regime = Muscular hulk.

Gender lets you get more payout for a given amount of work.
Everything is edible. Just that there are things only edible once per lifetime.
It's a god-eat-god world.

Procrastination is the thief of time; Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves; The vast concerns of an eternal scene.

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #46 on: September 08, 2013, 05:36:48 PM »
Poor food + Lots of work = Wiry strength, tough as hell, but you won't be getting big muscles.

Nitpick, but not geting enough nutrients while wearing yourself down will result in health problems, not geting tougher, as your immune system will simply be unable to work properly.

There's reasons why nobles usually outlived farmers when it came to natural death causes.

Offline veekie

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #47 on: September 08, 2013, 05:46:15 PM »
Presuming they aren't actually starving. A farmer would have sufficient food(more than sufficient really, unless they're subsistence level), but lacking in variety and protein sources. So while they can fuel their body they can't afford to actually build bulk.
Everything is edible. Just that there are things only edible once per lifetime.
It's a god-eat-god world.

Procrastination is the thief of time; Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves; The vast concerns of an eternal scene.

Offline Ananse

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #48 on: September 08, 2013, 08:20:00 PM »
Let's not forget that Mr. Realism also needs to narrow down his tiemframe. While some French peasants barely had enough calories to get by at a given time period, peasants during the "dark ages" of England had enough disposable income to buy household luxuries. You most certainly can have entire villages of peasants in one area that are healthier and more robust than nobles in another area.

Offline littha

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #49 on: September 08, 2013, 08:34:43 PM »
While some French peasants barely had enough calories to get by at a given time period, peasants during the "dark ages" of England had enough disposable income to buy household luxuries.

An entertainingly positive aspect of the black death killing like 60% of the labour force in England. Living conditions were massively improved compared to beforehand and in comparison with continental Europe. It's actually a really interesting series of events that led to the collapse of serfdom and a distancing from France and the rest of Europe in English culture.
[/history]
« Last Edit: September 08, 2013, 08:39:33 PM by littha »

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #50 on: September 08, 2013, 08:56:43 PM »
@Topic, yes. If my boobies grant me other bonuses. Like who needs armor?
Because obviously we're playing a realistic game and dammit I want my chainmail bikini!

Offline Argent Fatalis

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #51 on: September 08, 2013, 09:00:02 PM »
Well, ironically enough official D&D Drow fluff states that their females are all around superior to their male counterparts, but crunch-wise they have pretty much the same stats, just with drow females having cleric as favored class while male drows have wizard as favored class.

And then we have Drizzit, a drow male that is taller, stronger and faster than basically every other drow out there, when the fluff had been pointing for drow males to be overall smaller and weaker than their female counterparts, leading to their infamous matriarch society.

But you're right that for most D&D races out there, there's no diference in either fluff or crunch showcasing any gender diference (neither official pregnancy rules, plus people in this forum have staunchly supported that humanoids actually reproduce asexually).

EDIT: There's also the Hathran Forgotten Realms prc that can be taken only by females.

I see little problem with fictional species having some form sexual dimorphism in their species based on the fact animals in reality do, so it isn't a long shot to see some species like;

Quote
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/humanoids/lashunta

As Kasz stated and even in the creature's description "...more so than most humanoid species."

Its a fictional race with relatively equal stat adjustments; the males may be stronger, physically, but the females have a more authoritative and commanding presence. There is no outright inferiority present based on gender alone where the female's racial adjustments are just bad in comparison to the male's or vice versa.

As for the Drow, it just seems to be all fluff and not a penalty to numbers, which I am entirely fine with - there's not a statistic penalty that can't be avoided or circumvented. A good roleplayer can handle dealing with the fact a being a male Drow sucks, which if they are playing one they are most likely already playing a Drow for some pretty dedicated reasons and are well aware being a male (or female) of that species has some set expectations and hurdles to hop from lore alone.

But in a "realistic medieval" campaign I don't see how any such gender specific penalty can be found reasonable for humans at least, and other well defined fantasy races like elves, dwarves, etc. The more unusual ones (like the Lashunta example) don't even exclusively penalize a gender to make one better than the other is my point.

Offline littha

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #52 on: September 08, 2013, 09:42:33 PM »
I find it to the game's credit that you have to go out of your way and homebrew a race with extreme sexual dimorphism. Even the animals lack it, which is rather odd but understandable. (and yes, I do view pathfinder as homebrew/house rules)

That said, when I wanted a race with strong dimorphism it did mean I had to go out of my way to make one. Which was a bit of a pain.

Offline ImperatorK

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #53 on: September 09, 2013, 04:44:17 AM »
FYI, the "...more so than most humanoid species." doesn't mean that other humanoids aren't dimorphic, because they are (most races have females shorter and lighter than males), it's just not enough to necessitate ability score modifiers.

The only think that slightly irked me when I was still hung up on "realism" (but I got over it) is that often very strong males were depicted with big muscles like Arnie's Conan, but females with equal (or greater) strength were thin and sexy like a supermodel and the only things they had bigger were their boobs. And it's not even just fantasy. Look up superhero comics. Most superhumanly strong males are riped while females range from athletically built at best to thin models at worst.
« Last Edit: September 09, 2013, 04:56:58 AM by ImperatorK »
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Offline littha

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #54 on: September 09, 2013, 06:02:51 AM »
FYI, the "...more so than most humanoid species." doesn't mean that other humanoids aren't dimorphic, because they are (most races have females shorter and lighter than males), it's just not enough to necessitate ability score modifiers.

Well obviously, however when I refer to extreme dimorphism I refer to things more along the lines of gorillas. Where one gender is potentially more than twice the weight of the other. Some birds, insects and fish also have rather extreme dimorphism.

Humans are actually rather unusual because most of the other large primates have kinda extreme size and weight differences between male and female.
« Last Edit: September 09, 2013, 06:07:27 AM by littha »

Offline ImperatorK

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #55 on: September 09, 2013, 07:22:35 AM »
Yeah, I know.
Magic is for weaklings.

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Offline oslecamo

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #56 on: September 09, 2013, 07:31:13 AM »
On the contrary, the primate that is closer to humans in genetic terms is the chimp (we share around 99% of the same DNA), that doesn't have that much size difference between males and females. We just look "large" because we walk upstraight, but a gorilla/orangotang has much larger body mass than us.

The only think that slightly irked me when I was still hung up on "realism" (but I got over it) is that often very strong males were depicted with big muscles like Arnie's Conan, but females with equal (or greater) strength were thin and sexy like a supermodel and the only things they had bigger were their boobs. And it's not even just fantasy. Look up superhero comics. Most superhumanly strong males are riped while females range from athletically built at best to thin models at worst.

Exhibit A: Kenichi's masters. The only one that isn't taller and more muscled than the woman is the old pervert chinese kenpo specialist. All troughout the series male martial artists are all riped up, while female martial artists just seem to develop their breasts.

Rule of fanservice basically. Heavily muscled women just aren't considered that atractive by most society's standards.



Offline RobbyPants

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #57 on: September 09, 2013, 08:26:00 AM »
Let's say, hypothetically you enter into a game in which the DM, GM or what ever he, most likely he in this case, has a few house rules. One of them is that no female character may have more than a 16 to Strength before racial bonuses. The rationale is that in real life on human female can every reach the brute strength of men in the top 75%. Would you tolerate this house rule, or just get the hell out?
Pragmatically, I could tolerate such a game, that that rule right there sets up a really big red flag. Chances are, enough of the other house rules in aggregate would make me want to leave.

Assuming I weren't desperate for a game, and I knew about this rule before I showed up for char gen, I simply wouldn't join the group.


I had a DM once who had female characters take:
-2 Str -2 Int -2 Wis +4 Cha and -5ft move speed.
He was of the CHA = Bewbs mindset too.

One of the players actually punched him after that. Game didn't even get past character generation
Big bewbed sorcerer it is! While everything about that DM seems like he'd constantly piss me off, and the game would probably suck due to many other rulings, I would have this sick urge to roll a sorcerer just because of the mostly free +4 bonus to my primary casting stat. Of course, he strikes me as the type of DM that would constantly RP my PC getting hit on, and possibly go even further.
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Offline Chrononaut

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #58 on: September 09, 2013, 09:28:24 AM »
Don't forget that with +4 CHA you're getting +2 to checks to disguise checks, so you can much more easily pass for a man with disguise self. :P

If memory serves in this debate the gulf between sexes in terms of net physical strength is actually tiny, something like 5% on average between men and women. Those who have studied statistics will know that even a pretty small difference means the tail end of the normal distribution can go a fair bit further, so the summit of limits between genders for those at the peak of physical ability is considerably wider.

The other thing to remember is that men are humanity's gamblin' gender. Men are riskier (i.e. have more diverse traits) then women too, which does also lend extra swing weight to the summit of men being higher still. The flip side is that a fair bit more men are well UNDER the average woman in one way or another, which is the flip side of taking genetic risks, but these sorts of guys don't seem to be the sort who would use a Fudge Die on a male character's ability scores to more accurately represent the swingy nature of heterozygosity.

Offline Unbeliever

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #59 on: September 09, 2013, 10:00:26 AM »
I think it's funny that the thread idea is premised on different sexes of the same species having stat modifiers when the differences in stats between different species are extremely minor.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say that human male and human female have more in common physiologically than human male and dwarf female. 

But, yeah, it's a stupid idea.