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STR values are almost always objective measurements of physical capability anyway: a STR score of x corresponds to a weightlifting capacity of y. Therefore, it doesn't make sense to penalize a woman's statistics so much as implement an upper cap. That is, roll 3d6, but an 18 goes down to a 17, instead of roll 3d6 and -1 to whatever you got. That is of course, if you're already buying into the idea that biotruths is a thing that needs to exist in a fantasy game in the first place. gently caress, somewhere out there there's a grog defending their position with "it's a fantasy game, and in MY fantasy, women are weaker", right?
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Jan 1, 2015 16:42
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YF19pilot posted:I guess that's the crux of it, this is a fantasy game, but women should be weaker because it's "realistic". Also, yeah, it's always bonuses to Charisma because Charisma means personality if you're a man; bust size if you're a woman. I once compared some tables of lifting capacity among Navy recruits, 17 to 19 years old or something. Based on those numbers, women 'should' receive a penalty of about 1.5 to strength relative to men, using the perfect simulation of all things that is D&D 3.5, and that would limit women to merely a max strength of 20. Thus we have the inescapable conclusion that adventurers are all 98 pound weaklings that need to hit the gym more.
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Jan 1, 2015 17:08
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YF19pilot posted:I guess that's the crux of it, this is a fantasy game, but women should be weaker because it's "realistic". Also, yeah, it's always bonuses to Charisma because Charisma means personality if you're a man; bust size if you're a woman. Not even that; "women are skilled at feelings, men are good at [far more valued quality, like martial skill or intelligence]" is pretty grating too. Though, yes, the ability of women to influence other (heterosexual) women with their bust-sizes is not uncommon in grogland. YF19pilot posted:Do you have links to those studies? Generally top 1 to 5% of the population will show people who weight train on a regular basis, and it would be interesting to see how the top female weight lifters compare to male weight lifters. Then again, in top 5% you get into professional level stuff (probably more male pro-lifters than female) and steroids (at which point you could just throw the whole study out the window because it's that useless). Meta-analysis of adult deadlift distribution, amateur, with the data separated by gender on the author's website here and here. A table of findings from a different study can be found here (Skip to the last page[1]) You may notice that it uses "fitness categories" rather than percentiles; Excellent is the 95th percentile, Good the 80th, Average the 60th, Good the 40th and Poor the 10th. Here's a USAF study from 1982 that probably has the advantage of the largest possible sample size; every single female USAF recruit in 1982 except those disqualified from the study for medical reasons, and an equivalent amount of male USAF recruits from the same year. Some numbers given as proportions of body weight can also be found on this website. Doing some analysis of the numbers will reveal that physical strength tends to follow a lognormal distribution. For example, the weight a person can lift from the floor to elbow-height in the USAF study is given by: Male: w = 126.82*exp(0.1892*Z) Female: w = 66.487*exp(0.1932*Z) Where w is the weight in pounds and Z is a normally distributed variable with mean 0 and variance 1. To put this into context, Z=(STR-10)/3, with STR created by rolling 3d6, would approximately allow you to have a scale that covers everyone except the weakest 1% and the strongest 1%. As you can see, male USAF recruits can lift about twice as much as female USAF recruits on average. However, since men and women tend to be of different sizes, we can divide these values by the average weight of a man and a woman to get the lifting-capacity as a multiple of their body weight. Looking at Wikipedia and naively assuming that the US population at large is representative of USAF recruits, this gives: Male: w = m*0.6513*exp(0.1892*Z) Female: w = m*0.4037*exp(0.1932*Z) Average: w = m*0.5275*exp(0.1907*Z) Where m is the weight of the person in question. From this, we see that the female USAF recruit can lift about 60% of what her male counterpart can relative to their body weights. The discrepancy in male and female USAF recruits is actually pretty large. Z=(3d6-10)/3 will cover roughly the 0.01st to 95th percentile of male USAF recruits, and the 16th to 99.996th percentile of female USAF recruits. [1] Don't use the table on the next-to-last page; analysis of the numbers will reveal they're calculated from the mean and standard deviation, rather than the other way around. LatwPIAT fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Jan 1, 2015 |
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Jan 1, 2015 18:09
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gradenko_2000 posted:gently caress, somewhere out there there's a grog defending their position with "it's a fantasy game, and in MY fantasy, women are weaker", right? lizard posted:As a side note, there seems to be a common assumption in this thread that female players play female characters, and thus, anything which affects women in the setting is inflicted on the players themselves, by constraining their PCs actions. A DM who insisted that players limit themselves to their own gender is probably not one I'd choose to game with. Assuming there is a freedom to choose your character's gender in the game, what is the difference between "This nation is strongly patriarchal; female PCs will probably get some grief from NPCs" and "This nation is run by dwarves; elf PCs will probably get some grief from NPCs"? If you're told, going in, "This character type faces some form of discrimination", and you are free to play something else, but decide not to, that's your choice. (Before someone says, "Well, prejudice against women is real, and prejudice against elves is not.", I shall point you to umpty-zillion and two threads on why classic fantasy depictions of orcs, etc, are questionable because the same concepts applied to fictional entities in games have also been applied to real entities in history.) It's always telling where the dividing point between "geez its a fantasy game lighten up" and "my versimilitude!!1!" lays. How does this isolated city in the mountains feed itself? Why are all the traps in this ancient tomb perfectly functional after being buried for 2000 years? If the graveyard outside of town is full of ghouls why haven't they overrun the town's level 1 guards and eaten everyone already? Eh, shut up, it's just fantasy, don't worry too much abou - wait, does your amazon PC have an 18 strength?
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Jan 1, 2015 18:10
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You have to wonder how these people rationalize Monks and their implications for the human body. A female monk can become immune to all poisons and disease, move faster than humanly possible, fall an infinite distance if there's a wall nearby, and become immortal by training hard enough. But god forbid she get an extra point of strength over a male monk. That violates the bell curves!
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Jan 1, 2015 20:19
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LatwPIAT posted:Oh, and it's also pretty dickish to say to every woman entering the hobby that they're not allowed to play physically strong female characters. We're all going to sit around and engage in escapist fantasies, but your escapist fantasy of playing an amazon is simply not acceptable. Instead, you can compensate for your lack of raw skills with these bonuses for non-combat attributes and the ability to bend men to your will with your physical appearance. gradenko_2000 posted:gently caress, somewhere out there there's a grog defending their position with "it's a fantasy game, and in MY fantasy, women are weaker", right? Actually this is a depressingly common thing; it's just that the folk in question try to couch it as something more noble-sounding. For example, back when Pathfinder dropped a heroic non-stereotypical trans woman NPC in Wrath of the Righteous, there was this one dude complaining about forced inclusion and Paizo caving into public pressure (despite the fact that Paizo personnel have been rather liberal politically and pro-LGBT for quite some time now). Eventually when arguing with him the subject came up where he out and out admitted that he doesn't like LGBT people in real life and he doesn't want people he's sick of getting including in his escapist fantasy. So it wasn't about artistic censorship or anything like that, he's just homophobic and transphobic is what it boils down to. He's wrong, but this makes a weird sort of sense. If you're the type of fellow who feels assaulted by feminists complaining about sexism, or view trans people as angry deluded freaks or whatever, you probably don't want to start playing an RPG and start seeing people you hate pop up in heroic and non-stereotypical roles. Or hearing your favorite RPG's art department state that they're moving away from nubile chainmail bikini girls. Libertad! fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Jan 1, 2015 |
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Jan 1, 2015 21:15
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Also, women are not influenced by the sexual attractiveness of a guy the way men might be by a women, because they have no sexual impulses or something. My the 21st century is remarkable! Queen Victoria would be astounded by your "television" devices!
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Jan 1, 2015 21:58
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Bendigeidfran posted:You have to wonder how these people rationalize Monks and their implications for the human body. A female monk can become immune to all poisons and disease, move faster than humanly possible, fall an infinite distance if there's a wall nearby, and become immortal by training hard enough. But god forbid she get an extra point of strength over a male monk. That violates the bell curves! Not just the monk either. The entire world is demonstrably overflowing with magic, spirits, and some alien definition of life. Human beings were quite literally and demonstrably created by gods. They have souls which have power and which can be detected and manipulated - they also go to an afterlife. All of this is not a matter of religious belief, it's verifiable fact. You can observe all of these things to be real. So why the gently caress would anybody think D&D-humans would work anything like real-humans? These are the same kind of morons who think they speak English in Greyhawk. (Because really, think about that for a second.)
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Jan 1, 2015 22:18
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One might even mention that in a considerable amount of fantasy/adventure literature of all sorts the hero or heroine stands firmly outside the norms of their society, often to their detriment. Professor Challenger wasn't a well-regarded academic, he was a crank. Sherlock Holmes is a drug using layabout. Strider starts out basically as a saddle-tramp. Conan is a class-A shitheel that nobody wants around. Despite this, people get upset if you suggest that maybe women characters should be afforded the same freedom from the mores of the society being portrayed. I wonder why. I loving wonder.
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Jan 1, 2015 22:24
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Whenever anyone gets into that stupid loving argument, I think of this picture and remember that their failure to find women outside of the petite-bourgeoisie princesses to which they are accustomed is only that, their failure. JDCorley posted:One might even mention that in a considerable amount of fantasy/adventure literature of all sorts the hero or heroine stands firmly outside the norms of their society, often to their detriment. Professor Challenger wasn't a well-regarded academic, he was a crank. Sherlock Holmes is a drug using layabout. Strider starts out basically as a saddle-tramp. Conan is a class-A shitheel that nobody wants around. Despite this, people get upset if you suggest that maybe women characters should be afforded the same freedom from the mores of the society being portrayed. I wonder why. I loving wonder. As someone who has had some significant real-life adventures, and is also firmly outside the norms of our society, that is pretty much how it works. You can not even see the edge if you are firmly planted in the middle. Thanks for this whole thread. It makes me even more grateful for the many awesome gamers with whom I have diced over the years. edit: grammar! Cyberpunkey Monkey fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Jan 2, 2015 |
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Jan 1, 2015 23:04
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osirisisdead posted:Whenever anyone gets into that stupid loving argument, I think of this picture and remember that their failure to find women outside of the petite-bourgeoisie princesses to which they are accustomed is only that, their failure. This is amazing! Where's it from? (Google Image Search is mostly turning up Heroes of Newerth pages and I'm reasonably certain she's not a MoBA character.)
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Jan 1, 2015 23:41
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The first time I saw it, the surrounding text suggested that the photo was taken at a Rainbow Gathering.
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Jan 1, 2015 23:44
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Bendigeidfran posted:You have to wonder how these people rationalize Monks and their implications for the human body. A female monk can become immune to all poisons and disease, move faster than humanly possible, fall an infinite distance if there's a wall nearby, and become immortal by training hard enough. But god forbid she get an extra point of strength over a male monk. That violates the bell curves! Seems pretty simple to me. The world might have magic and monsters and mind-bending superpowers that aren't magic, but obviously it's still true that men are stronger than women. A man with super-strength might be able to throw around five or six tons, but it seriously breaks immersion to imagine a woman throwing more than four.
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Jan 2, 2015 03:58
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I've decided the most reliable tic that signals that you're about to read some bullshit from an old school grognard is when they make a point to mention (brag, really) when and with what version they started playing D&D. You just know that as soon as someone tells you about how they cut their teeth on Moldvay B/X or Holmes Basic back in 1981 or whenever that you're about to get hit with a tsunami of whiny grog nonsense. Case in point: quote:Where did *my* D&D go? Seriously, it's like a perfect tell. It reminds me of old viking or ancient greek warriors who made a point of boasting their heritage and feats every time they were formally recognized at a meeting or before engaging in single combat.
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Jan 2, 2015 20:28
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FMguru posted:It reminds me of old viking or ancient greek warriors who made a point of boasting their heritage and feats every time they were formally recognized at a meeting or before engaging in single combat. Exept old warriors own and these guys are idiots.
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Jan 2, 2015 21:24
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The old grogs with nasty beards with a family history tracing back to the Norse probably imagine themselves belonging to that group, So it makes sense.
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Jan 2, 2015 21:40
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Chill la Chill posted:nasty beards with a family history tracing back to the Norse probably imagine themselves belonging to that group Me. That's me.
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Jan 2, 2015 22:34
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FMguru posted:I've decided the most reliable tic that signals that you're about to read some bullshit from an old school grognard is when they make a point to mention (brag, really) when and with what version they started playing D&D. You just know that as soon as someone tells you about how they cut their teeth on Moldvay B/X or Holmes Basic back in 1981 or whenever that you're about to get hit with a tsunami of whiny grog nonsense.  (True story, though, I'm running some Moldvay Basic this weekend. Should be a great time.)
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Jan 3, 2015 02:32
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dwarf74 posted:I love talking about how I started with Moldvay Basic back around 1982 and then about how 4e is my favorite edition. Pfff! If you didn't start gaming in the 70's you're just a greenhorn who don't know no better! (... said the guy who was born in 1982.)
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Jan 3, 2015 03:30
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Wasn't the threshold for old school the 70's like 15 years ago? Will it stay there until the last person who played in the 70's dies?
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Jan 3, 2015 03:32
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At least in the mind of that guy, yes.
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Jan 3, 2015 03:42
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Can't wait for the moment "old-school gaming" implies story games like Fate 6th Edition or Dungeon World (7e of course) instead of those new alternate realities RPG that aren't TRUE RPGs BECAUSE
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Jan 3, 2015 03:44
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I unironically love that we're rapidly reaching a point where 3rd ed is becoming the 'classic D&D I saw as a kid'.
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Jan 3, 2015 03:47
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Tatum Girlparts posted:I unironically love that we're rapidly reaching a point where 3rd ed is becoming the 'classic D&D I saw as a kid'. I kind of think of it that way and I actually started with 2nd.
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Jan 3, 2015 07:31
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I am a new DM and my group is also all new. Ever since game one all they want to do is sodomize or have sex with NPCs. I try and advise them against it because their actions have consequences. They don't care and just want to rape NPCs. What can I do to stop this?quote:Create serious consequences for their actions e.g. the town/city that they are based in soon becomes befouled by crippling STD's and the ones closest to them end up terribly sick/dead. Maybe eventually one of them contracts the disease and the group must go on a quest to find the cure and hopefully along the way realise the gravity of their actions. quote:You know who doesn't usually take kindly to that? Paladins and local law enforcement. quote:Break out FATAL, have one of them lose their roll to bed a tavern girl and find out that she actually has a penis with the circumference of a dinner plate and the length of your average bastard sword. quote:Smurphsyphilis quote:Succubi.
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Jan 3, 2015 07:57
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The real answer, of course, is 'Jesus Christ get a new group.'
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Jan 3, 2015 08:08
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Tatum Girlparts posted:I unironically love that we're rapidly reaching a point where 3rd ed is becoming the 'classic D&D I saw as a kid'.
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Jan 3, 2015 08:12
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A short one I stumbled over today. It's not particularly objectionable, but the ignorance is somewhat amusing:just some guy posted:Twilight: 2000 is what happens when wargamers design a RPG
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Jan 3, 2015 10:27
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Gygaxgrog, because it blew me away:Wikipedia's Mordenkainen entry posted:He was to become Gygax's most famous character, and also his favourite to play.[4] Over several years of gameplay, mainly from 1973 to 1985, Gygax developed the character traits and adventures with which Mordenkainen would become associated, as well as raising the wizard to "twenty-something levels".[5] During this period, Gygax united Mordenkainen with eight of his other characters to form the Circle of Eight.[6][7][8] During his lifetime, Gygax never disclosed any of Mordenkainen's original game statistics.[9] 2003 interview posted:Can you see Mordie’s stats? No! I won’t even show you those for my most recent PC, Louhi Sharpnose, a gnome illusionist and treasure finder who I created only about four years back. What does this mean? It means Gary Gygax took Mordenkainen with him to his grave.
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Jan 3, 2015 11:45
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MalcolmSheppard posted:What does this mean? It means Gary Gygax took Mordenkainen with him to his grave.
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Jan 3, 2015 12:00
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It also included this fun bit of Gygaxgrogquote:Second, these personalities allow the DM (and player, if the DM shows these to the player) to see the wide variety that different campaigns allow. Many things are non-standard, such as a lizard man and a centaur, and some new magic items are detailed. Although this does not mean that these things are recommended for AD&D, they do show the variety of individual campaigns.
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Jan 3, 2015 12:03
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FMguru posted:The 1980 AD&D product "Rogues Gallery" (a mostly-useless collection of pre-made characters, almost certainly generated by a BASIC program on someone's Apple ][) had stats and writeups of the key characters from Gyagx's house campaign in the back, including Mordenkainen and Tenser and Bigby. According to Wiki these were not based on the actual stats, which Gary did not share.
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Jan 3, 2015 12:35
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FMguru posted:It also included this fun bit of Gygaxgrog I think the idea was more that DMs can include whatever they want, but his campaigns don't define AD&D and those are examples are outside of the design parameters of the published game. Like the dude would have probably let you play a robot if you came up with a cool explanation of why a robot is adventuring with Elves, but that doesn't mean AD&D needs stats for robots. (Modrons on the other hand...!)
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Jan 3, 2015 14:04
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As long as we're talking Gygaxgrog (the purest grog of all?) I have a nifty little book passed down from my rad nerd dad called Role-Playing Mastery. It's mostly pretty decent advice, although it has a weird father-knows-best tone. Also he uses the word 'milieu' like every other page, which perhaps is where all these dorks get it from. But this little tidbit jumped out at me:The Master GM posted:In both the D&D and AD&D games, the spell-using power of PCs is controlled through the use of a system that requires study and memorization of magic spells before they can be cast. Then, once a spell is used, the ability to cast it is erased from the character's mind until that character again takes time to study and memorize the particular spell. Well, some years back, there arose a line of thinking that asserted that magic in a fantasy game was best expressed in terms of spell points - characters should simply be able to cast a certain spell often and repeatedly, with each usage simply costing the caster a specified number of "points" from his magical ability. The D&D and AD&D games were criticized harshly by advocated of this approach for being behind the times. The fad lasted for a time, with spell-casters spewing forth streams of sorcerous stuff as though they were magical Gatling guns. Everyone wanted to be a magic-user of that sort - but what could stand before such a character? How much fun is a game in which any challenge or problem can be overcome by calling up yet another spell from a seemingly limitless storehouse of energy? Good-bye, spell point magic system. Mana, you say? Preposterous.
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Jan 3, 2015 18:23
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quote:The fad lasted for a time  The only reason spell points is so out of place in D&D in the first place is because it's a grab bag of tools. If spell casters really were just "magical gatling guns" that just blew up monsters in progressively more interesting ways you wouldn't need to have the trade-offs inherent in making a Wizard choose between Knock and Fireball.
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Jan 3, 2015 18:32
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Gygax let one of his group play a balrog, so long as he started at 1 HD. They had him bluff his way into a wizard's tower by saying he was a reporter for the Balrog Times.
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Jan 3, 2015 19:18
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Maxwell Lord posted:Gygax let one of his group play a balrog, so long as he started at 1 HD. If I'm remembering right the Cleric was invented because Gygax had a guy who kept bringing his Vampire PC around and he wanted to screw with the guy by inventing a Van Helsing class.
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Jan 3, 2015 19:31
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Ixjuvin posted:As long as we're talking Gygaxgrog (the purest grog of all?) I have a nifty little book passed down from my rad nerd dad called Role-Playing Mastery. It's mostly pretty decent advice, although it has a weird father-knows-best tone. Also he uses the word 'milieu' like every other page, which perhaps is where all these dorks get it from. But this little tidbit jumped out at me: Was final fantasy ever decried as being for babies or that DND was too close to FF? Like the way grogs compare DND4 to WOW? Or was it never used cuz those dirty Asians don't know anything about real role playing anyway
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Jan 3, 2015 21:14
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It's more because magic in Final Fantasy can't literally do everything there is to do.
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Jan 3, 2015 21:23
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Maxwell Lord posted:Gygax let one of his group play a balrog, so long as he started at 1 HD. Which segues into the best play story I've heard relating to playing monsters in OD&D. It doesn't even belong here but I'm posting it anyway. quote:UP IN THE AIR, JUNIOR BIRDMEN!
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Jan 3, 2015 21:39
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