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.

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.

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.

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.

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! 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.

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! 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.