Quote from: Wrath of God on March 30, 2024, 11:40:00 AM
Should they? I mean Strenght attribute is not the same thing as Strength as real thing I would say.
For instance in terms of D&D it usually influences precision of melee attacks.

Which in some cases - let's say axes have a lot of sense, but let's say with spear... bit less. (That's why spear is traditionally weapon for women - if they need to have one).
So while not as much as other attributes, if we look at what Strength influences in actual game, even it, simplest of attributes can be bitof hodgepodge.

Honestly, while I know why it was set up for Strength to improve melee attacks; I think overall making the to-hit modifier for weapon attacks exclusive to class and level would both reduce complexity and improve both balance and realism.

Give weapons Strength minimums and let Strength affect damage dealt and that should be sufficient to make it desirable for warriors to have a good strength, but not much so that a female warrior concept employing a polearm would be ridiculously underpowered.

Quote from: Wtrmute on March 20, 2023, 02:47:30 PM
Yes, when talking about IQ, women are on average ever-so-slightly more intelligent (although I don't think the difference could be captured on a 3d6 roll) than men, but also have a smaller standard deviation (that one definitely can't be captured with a 3d6 roll).

Sure it can. If we ignore the 'reeeeee' and take male humans as the 'default adventurer':

Male Strength: 3d6 - min 3, median 10.5, max 18
Female Strength: - 2d4+1d6 - min 3, median 8.5, max 14

Male Dexterity: 3d6 - min 3, median 10.5, max 18
Female Dexterity: 2d6+1d4+2 - min 5, median 11.5, max 18

Male Constitution: 3d6 - min 3, median 10.5, max 18
Female Constitution: 2d6+1d4+2 - min 5, median 11.5, max 18

Male Intelligence: 3d6 - min 3, median 10.5, max 18
Female Intelligence: 3d4+4 - min 7, median 11.5, max 16

Male Charisma: 3d6 - min 3, median 10.5, max 18
Female Charisma: 1d6+2d4+3 - min 6, median 11.5, max 17

Male Wisdom: 3d6 - min 3, median 10.5, max 18
Female Wisdom: 1d6+2d4+3 - min 6, median 11.5, max 17


As ppl said, "testosterone is a hell of a drug".

I wouldn't do this myself unless I wanted to make some kind of political point about human biodiversity, but I've got better hills to die on.

I've given the players the option of +1 to any one stat and -1 to any one stat to represent WHATEVER they want to represent for their character. AKA, they can represent age issues, injuries, training, biological differences, etc.

Thus the player who wants to give -1 STR and +1 CHA to their Elf Chick PC can do so without anyone else feeling that all women of the world have been offended by the game.

I'm not sure I'd put lower limits to female Cha and Wis, while giving them full scope of Dex and Con.

Oh what a slippery terrain...
Actually, the current D&D system is a bit weird (has always been ?)
A girl with 18 Strength and 18 Charisma ?
and what about younger selves ?

Chainmale and Chainfemale, duh

... oh, mechanics.

heh, someone had to.

I use no mods to stats based on gender.
The players handle it in role-play.
Commonsense rules.

Quote from: Dinopaw on March 17, 2023, 11:36:08 AMI think these two trends are related, and it creates a less authentic and less compelling vision for game worlds. This is also a big limitation in what types of "fantasy" is modeled by the game rules. Modern D&D where all sexes & races are basically interchangeable doesn't represent either the real world nor fantasy literature & film. Non-human characters can and should be taken to be distinctive, and works where alien races are not given unique traits are rightfully derided as non-authentic (Star Trek's human-with-rubber-prothesis). A book series like Wheel of Time is unthinkable unless there are real differences between men & women. Similarly, it makes no sense to have characters like Eowyn if men & women are simply interchangeable. Plotlines of fantasy films like Labyrinth or Legend emphasize different roles men & women have to play, rather than trying to map female roles directly onto men or vice-versa.

I love the Wheel of Time. When the Amazon series came out I was greatly disappointed. I still watched it, twice. But it also made me go back and re-read the first several books. Robert Jordan has a great sense of humor and places men and women in really funny situations against each other.

If you take the One Power as example, it is an imaginary construct so anything can be valid. Still, there are some classic thropes, like men excelling in Fire & Earth, women in Air & Water. Take Heroes of Might and Magic - those four elements are present, and neither is "stronger". So having a tiny +1 or +2 bonus to one or another school of magic, divine power etc. is a pretty easy thing to do.

You can then move to the mechanical side of magic. In WoT, men would get bonus to power, +1 or +2 on a scale of 10 perhaps, *however* they can't link, and linking (thaumaturgical circles) are the only way to greatly increase one's power. In game terms, a circle of 13 Aes Sedai can shield any one man, so if the smallest bonus is +1 a circle of 13 will have at least power 13. Which puts the maximum power of a single individual at 12.

Let's put this in numbers.
For the One Power, women roll 1d10. While this gives a stable linear progression, only women with certain power can become Aes Sedai so power of 1 can't make it to the Tower, and women with power of 2 rarely make it past Novice, meaning the weakest Aes Sedai will be 3 or more.

Men roll 3d6 and drop the highest number. That gives them a score of 2 - 12, with an average of 5.54, only slightly beating the average of 5.5 for women. However, they are far fewer in number plus only 1 in 216 will have a power of 12. Different sites suggest there were near 1000 Ashamen, so maybe 3-4 can rival the Dragon, if they ever reach their full potential.

For linking mechanics, a second person only adds half their power to the circle, then a third, then a quarter, until they reach a flat +1 regardless of strength. Obviously you would prefer the strongest one to lead the circle.

If you want to skew the mechanics even more, add one more die to each pool and remove the highest again.
Lowest 2 of 4d6 averages 4.66 and lower die of 2d10 averages 3.85 while keeping the min/max ranges the same and making the Dragon truly unique (1 in 1296).

I ran the numbers again, and I like the results.

Regarding Wheel of Time and the One Power, the formula is the following.

Women roll 2d10, drop the higher. This gives an average of 3.85. However, a result of 1 or 2 is not suitable for Aes Sedai, so if you are rolling a PC, you may discard such results and roll again.  This means PC Aes Sedai has an average of 5.1875 in the One Power.

Men roll 4d6, drop the highest two. This gives an average of 4.66. However, a result of 2 is not suitable for Ashaman, you may discard it. This means Pc Ashaman has an average of 5.0642 in the One Power.

You can then distribute talents. Men have 50% chance to have +1 in Fire and 50% chance to have +1 in Earth. Roll once for each talent.
Women have 50% chance to have +1 in Air and 50% chance to have +1 in Water. Roll once for each talent.

This gives you a very nice curve, average power of 5 for all playable characters, guarantees they are stronger than the average opposite sex in the typical talents and is conformant to the narrative of the book. NPC don't have minumum, so if you meet Wilders they can have lower scores.

Quote from: Skalme on December 20, 2024, 07:19:06 AMStill, there are some classic thropes, like men excelling in Fire & Earth, women in Air & Water. Take Heroes of Might and Magic - those four elements are present, and neither is "stronger". So having a tiny +1 or +2 bonus to one or another school of magic, divine power etc. is a pretty easy thing to do.

You can then move to the mechanical side of magic. In WoT, men would get bonus to power, +1 or +2 on a scale of 10 perhaps, *however* they can't link, and linking (thaumaturgical circles) are the only way to greatly increase one's power. In game terms, a circle of 13 Aes Sedai can shield any one man, so if the smallest bonus is +1 a circle of 13 will have at least power 13. Which puts the maximum power of a single individual at 12.

Let's put this in numbers.
For the One Power, women roll 1d10. While this gives a stable linear progression, only women with certain power can become Aes Sedai so power of 1 can't make it to the Tower, and women with power of 2 rarely make it past Novice, meaning the weakest Aes Sedai will be 3 or more.

Men roll 3d6 and drop the highest number. That gives them a score of 2 - 12, with an average of 5.54, only slightly beating the average of 5.5 for women. However, they are far fewer in number plus only 1 in 216 will have a power of 12. Different sites suggest there were near 1000 Ashamen, so maybe 3-4 can rival the Dragon, if they ever reach their full potential.

For linking mechanics, a second person only adds half their power to the circle, then a third, then a quarter, until they reach a flat +1 regardless of strength. Obviously you would prefer the strongest one to lead the circle.

If you want to skew the mechanics even more, add one more die to each pool and remove the highest again.
Lowest 2 of 4d6 averages 4.66 and lower die of 2d10 averages 3.85 while keeping the min/max ranges the same and making the Dragon truly unique (1 in 1296).

Very nice. There are some excellent abstractions here that could be applied to separating niches in game design in general, notably:

* Using qualitative differences.
* Using cooperative differences.
* Using mathematical differences. Particularly interesting is the way these examples leverage curve differences while maintaining close to the same overall range.

I wouldn't. Males on average are stronger than females, for example. But PCs (and NPCs) aren't representative of the average. They are unique. So you can have an insanely strong female. Maybe even at the max strength possible. There are so many richer problems to tackle.

I would not, no good can come of this

Quote from: MrTheFalcon on December 22, 2024, 07:31:09 PMI wouldn't. Males on average are stronger than females, for example. But PCs (and NPCs) aren't representative of the average. They are unique. So you can have an insanely strong female. Maybe even at the max strength possible. There are so many richer problems to tackle.

The problem is that sex-based differences in things like strength or IQ are larger at the extremes, not smaller.  The average man and average woman differ less than the strongest man and strongest woman.  So, at least if verisimilitude is an important concept in your RPG, having better than average characters would make the differences even greater.

Quote from: StoneDev on December 23, 2024, 07:57:33 AMI would not, no good can come of this

You lack imagination.  If you don't want it in your game, don't include it.  There's nothing objectively wrong with it, however...

Quote from: Dinopaw on March 17, 2023, 11:36:08 AMTo get the typical objections out of the way: Assume that your goal is to represent sex differences in D&D mechanics. What is it like to represent a Human Male in D&D terms compared to a Human Female? What makes playing a Male character unique from a Female character, and vice-versa?
...
How would you go about approaching this task?

Attribute averages on the 3-18 scale,

Men have
Strength 10, Leadership 10, Empathy 10, Size 10 (5'8", 150 lbs), and Charisma 10.

Women have
Strength 8 (-1 skill mod, and maximum 16), Leadership 8 (-1), Empathy/Intuition 12 (+1), Size 6 (5'4", 120 lbs), and Charisma 12 (+1).

Women are weaker, shorter, and more sheepish than men, but they're also more compassionate, intuitive, and prettier.

Intelligence (logic, wit, memory), Willpower, Health/Fitness, Agility, Motivation, and Teaching ability are all the same.

Different cultures will develop or retard some attributes.

A Victorian high-born lady might have cultivated low Health/Fitness 6 (-2, fainting with the vapours) and Agility 6 (-2, not used to running/athletics), for example, while increasing Charisma to 14 (+2).

A Victorian construction worker might have Strength 14 (+2), Health/Fitness 15 (+3), and Agility 12 (+1).

Women have psychotropic periods every month that alter their consciousness to a nontrivial degree, but this is more a roleplaying consideration than a mechanical one, unless we're quantifying Irritableness.

Men suffer Shock Points when hit in the testicles.

In terms of skills, men and women tend to bifurcate into stereotyped careers that similarly enhance or retard their attributes.

A man soldier might develop Strength 12, Health/Fitness 13, Willpower 12, Agility 12, and Leadership 12 (if he has any ambition), not to mention skills like Unarmed Combat.

Similarly, a woman schoolteacher might develop Leadership 10, Empathy/Intuition 13, and  Teaching 12.

The strength advantage men typically have over women is, in my experience, always glossed over in RPG rules. Having 30 lbs of muscle and 4 inches up on somebody is nontrivial. Mechanically this would mean mean a man used to moderate physical labour (STR 12) has a +3 skill advantage over a woman in a sedentary job like secretary (STR 6). Add in a competent Unarmed Combat skill level 4, and he is a monster to her in a fight, with a +7 advantage on a contested 3d6 roll.

Women must be terrified of violent men, which encourages them to develop their empathy, intuition, charisma, and skills that allow them to counteract this physical advantage with more subtle and "innocent" influence.

We're just brainwashed by films and comic books showing us 5'3 Strong Women demolishing 200 lb violence-hardened henchmen and thugs using their superpowered martial arts, and are inhibited from getting the correct impression that normal women have good reasons for having a friendly, protective man in their life: the world is salted for them with predators who outmatch them physically.

Beyond this there are sundry cultural differences, men tend to interested in systems and objects and good at logic and object manipulation. Women tend to be interested in people and relationships and language, already reflected in attribute differences, but there can be mechanical effects to having to wear high heels and other impractical clothing when in a typical RPG action scenario.

Attribute & Skill modifier
3 -4
4 -3
5-6 -2
7-8 -1
9-11 +0
12-13 +1
14 +2
15-16 +3
17 +4
18 +5