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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.