Author Topic: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?  (Read 27030 times)

Offline Agrippa

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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?

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #1 on: September 07, 2013, 07:18:22 PM »
Get the hell out.

Offline Agrippa

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #2 on: September 07, 2013, 07:20:34 PM »
My sentiments precisely. So I take it I wouldn't exactly be alone here. Anybody else have anything to say about this crazy and stupid idea?

Offline X-Codes

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #3 on: September 07, 2013, 07:27:01 PM »
It's at least as feasible for any given woman to be stronger than any given man as it is for said man or woman to have an 18 Strength in the first place.  Your DM isn't just casually sexist, but he's got no understanding of statistics whatsoever.

Offline zook1shoe

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #4 on: September 07, 2013, 07:34:11 PM »
Agree with the above ^^^
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Offline wotmaniac

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #5 on: September 07, 2013, 07:39:23 PM »
Had a DM once that gave female characters -2 STR, +2 WIS.
I didn't care, and his game was interesting enough to stick around for a while.
YMMV.

Offline Jackinthegreen

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #6 on: September 07, 2013, 07:41:52 PM »
I'd GTFO.  So what if there are some perceived differences in real life?  Let awesome fantasy characters be awesome.

Offline Agrippa

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #7 on: September 07, 2013, 07:45:43 PM »
If you're wondering what made me ask this question I point you to this thread.

Offline littha

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #8 on: September 07, 2013, 07:46:39 PM »
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
« Last Edit: September 07, 2013, 07:49:46 PM by littha »

Offline X-Codes

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #9 on: September 07, 2013, 08:03:08 PM »
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
You know, with someone that stupid I probably wouldn't have been able to help myself other than to actually sit and play this one out, assuming I could get a couple of other players in on a little conspiratorial action.  We'd all roll females of various types of Charisma-based campaign crashers (or not, a true campaign crasher could probably circumvent those penalties), and then proceed to just piss all over his game.

Offline littha

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #10 on: September 07, 2013, 08:07:45 PM »
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
You know, with someone that stupid I probably wouldn't have been able to help myself other than to actually sit and play this one out, assuming I could get a couple of other players in on a little conspiratorial action.  We'd all roll females of various types of Charisma-based campaign crashers (or not, a true campaign crasher could probably circumvent those penalties), and then proceed to just piss all over his game.

He had loads of additional rules about what classes females could have because apparently his campaign world was based off the middle ages and that ment that women couldn't be anything that actually required training or martial competence. You were basically limited to Bard Rogue or Sorcerer

Offline veekie

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #11 on: September 07, 2013, 08:11:29 PM »
It's at least as feasible for any given woman to be stronger than any given man as it is for said man or woman to have an 18 Strength in the first place.  Your DM isn't just casually sexist, but he's got no understanding of statistics whatsoever.
Actually, wouldn't gender based strength differences largely just affect baseline strength, but not peak? Men find it easier to acquire muscle mass, but the maximum amount of muscle that can actually be packed onto a human frame isn't all that different between genders, given similar heights and weights.
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Offline littha

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #12 on: September 07, 2013, 08:14:31 PM »
It's at least as feasible for any given woman to be stronger than any given man as it is for said man or woman to have an 18 Strength in the first place.  Your DM isn't just casually sexist, but he's got no understanding of statistics whatsoever.
Actually, wouldn't gender based strength differences largely just affect baseline strength, but not peak? Men find it easier to acquire muscle mass, but the maximum amount of muscle that can actually be packed onto a human frame isn't all that different between genders, given similar heights and weights.

It affects maximum too, quite significantly actually. If you look at olympic weight records at least.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_records_in_Olympic_weightlifting

That being said, despite it being that way in real life I don't feel the need to impose it on my roleplaying games
« Last Edit: September 07, 2013, 08:19:58 PM by littha »

Offline Amechra

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #13 on: September 07, 2013, 08:20:10 PM »
But then again, we're talking adventurers here.

Who lift mountains and doesn't afraid of anything.

(I will hurt anyone who doesn't allow me to make a female Hulking Hurler/Cancer Mage).
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Offline X-Codes

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #14 on: September 07, 2013, 08:43:03 PM »
It's at least as feasible for any given woman to be stronger than any given man as it is for said man or woman to have an 18 Strength in the first place.  Your DM isn't just casually sexist, but he's got no understanding of statistics whatsoever.
Actually, wouldn't gender based strength differences largely just affect baseline strength, but not peak? Men find it easier to acquire muscle mass, but the maximum amount of muscle that can actually be packed onto a human frame isn't all that different between genders, given similar heights and weights.
This is basically it.  Women are generally shorter, lighter, and not quite as strong as men, but there's no physical or biological necessity for the tallest, largest, and strongest person in the world to be male. (Actually, I believe the tallest person in the world is, in fact, female.)

That said, even if we were going to talk about a medieval world that didn't simply perceive women as weak because reasons, women are going to be pushed towards certain roles while men are pushed towards others because the medieval adventuring life has a nasty habit of amplifying otherwise small differences.  Someone who is 2 inches taller and 20 lbs. heavier than someone else has a distinct advantage in a fight.  Not much of one, but we're talking about combat here, and when you're betting your life on something, you're going to want as many points in your favor as is possible.

Offline ImperatorK

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #15 on: September 07, 2013, 10:01:59 PM »
Give me something balanced and fair for that -2 Str and I'm okay with it.
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Offline altpersona

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #16 on: September 07, 2013, 10:08:27 PM »
didnt 2e have a gender strength limitation?
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Offline jameswilliamogle

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #17 on: September 08, 2013, 12:09:04 AM »
didnt 2e have a gender strength limitation?
1e had severe gender limits similar to above.

Well women deal with pain better in some studies... more Hp? Also lower center of gravity... inherent balance bonuses? More graceful performing. Less likely to be colorblind. Longer lived. Put all that in game stats and id happily give up 2 std.

Offline Libertad

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #18 on: September 08, 2013, 01:25:01 AM »
If I could definitely conclude that the DM is not joking, I'd probably excuse myself from the table if I can't convince him that it's an outdated and inaccurate rule which even Gary Gygax disavowed.  I'd then invoke the name of Xena, Warrior Princess, to strengthen my point.

Chances are he's got some fucked-up views on women which might show up in game.
« Last Edit: September 08, 2013, 01:33:06 AM by Libertad »

Offline Agrippa

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Re: Would you tolerate a DM who places Strength caps on female characters?
« Reply #19 on: September 08, 2013, 02:05:00 AM »
If I could definitely conclude that the DM is not joking, I'd probably excuse myself from the table if I can't convince him that it's an outdated and inaccurate rule which even Gary Gygax disavowed.  I'd then invoke the name of Xena, Warrior Princess, to strengthen my point.

Chances are he's got some fucked-up views on women which might show up in game.

Just look at all of Mjollnir's posts in this thread. He's the kind of DM I'm talking about.