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 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
So, I need to learn more about those very meaningful differences. Please enlighten me, because I would not want to interact with women as if they were mentally the same as men, that would likely be a very bad idea.

Don't worry, they are so slight that it hardly matters.
Also, I never said meaningful either.

Then, and I hope you'll understand my blunt nature in asking it this way, perhaps you can shut the hell up about them already?

We have plenty of people in this thread that use them as excuses to say women shouldn't have any say in how games are made, even if we're willing to buy or make the games ourselves....

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
I agree in social interaction and in normal (work) life the sexes need to be treated equally, but male and females are physically and mentally not the same

Yep, totally mentally different. There is a huge mental difference between men and women. Sure thing.

Yes, yes there is

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Don't worry, they are so slight that it hardly matters.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Also, that was in response to Hybrid's claim that Men and Women are mentally identical. Studies have shown that is false.

merriam-webster.com wrote:ped·ant noun \ˈpe-dənt\
a person who annoys other people by correcting small errors and giving too much attention to minor details

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Oh how cute, painting me as a pedantic nerd.

 LordofHats wrote:


Yeah, but why? Is it because of a biological reason or a conditioning one?

As with many things: both. Women and men are different from a biological and neurological point of view - what then happens during socialization etc. influences what base there is to work on and with. Example: muscle growth. Your average man will be stronger than your average woman merely because of biology. Average. A trained woman will kick an untrained man's ass.

What is important, however, is that the differences between men and women aren't seen as deficits, but as strengths or rather: chances. Denying the difference is just as stupid as seeing it as a weakness. I don't understand why being (slightly) different is a problem to so many. Ashiraya said a very wise sentence: We are not identical, but we are equal.

...now, wasn't this about video games? ;D

Hybrid was being sarcastic when responding to Jehan. He's really saying "there are no differences between men and women."
Note how Jehan didn't say huge.

Nice taking what I typed out of context though.


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 Melissia wrote:
Then, and I hope you'll understand my blunt nature in asking it this way, perhaps you can shut the hell up about them already?

We have plenty of people in this thread that use them as excuses to say women shouldn't have any say in how games are made, even if we're willing to buy or make the games ourselves....

Yes, that is the wrong thing to do. There are differences, but using them as grounds for discrimination is wrong. So is denying that they exist.


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 Sigvatr wrote:


What is important, however, is that the differences between men and women aren't seen as deficits, but as strengths or rather: chances. Denying the difference is just as stupid as seeing it as a weakness. I don't understand why being (slightly) different is a problem to so many. Ashiraya said a very wise sentence: We are not identical, but we are equal.

...now, wasn't this about video games? ;D

Yes. This was what I was getting at.
But of course, I had to be attacked for it.

Ok. But if the differences are so slight (thank you CthulusSpy), doesn't that mean that it would not be noticeable in most game mechanical systems?

A +1 strength is pretty noticeable. And if you make a character inherently weaker at a specific role, you are basically incentivizing that the players not play that role. But why? Is not the nature of games fantasy?

 AdeptSister wrote:
Ok. But if the differences are so slight (thank you CthulusSpy), doesn't that mean that it would not be noticeable in most game mechanical systems?

A +1 strength is pretty noticeable. And if you make a character inherently weaker at a specific role, you are basically incentivizing that they not play that role. But why? Is not the nature of games fantasy?

Indeed. Which is why stat penalties or buffs based on gender are stupid.
The only way I could consider it plausible is if the stats relate to a race of creatures that exhibit extreme forms of sexual dimorphism. But even then, that seems to be an odd sort of thing to have in a game.
Or if the game system is ridiculously precise. Like, all stats are rounded off to the one hundredth decimal. Not sure I would want to play a game like that.

There was an example I saw that kind of put things into perspective. Back when D&D was playing with gender modifiers. (-2 +2) Someone pointed out that giving women a -2 to str would make them as strong as halflings.

nomotog wrote:
There was an example I saw that kind of put things into perspective. Back when D&D was playing with gender modifiers. (-2 +2) Someone pointed out that giving women a -2 to str would make them as strong as halflings.

That's...terrible. Aren't Halflings the weakest race in the game? That doesn't seem right.

Yes! I thought we were on the same page. Some people on this thread have been promoting different mechanical characteristics. I mean, IMO, it keeps sounding like the following to me: "Men and Women are different and thus, in they as characters should have specific roles that each should conform to." I see no reason to build limitations like that into the system. It's like the designer saying "Sorry player, I know that you wanted to make an super social butterfly guy, but according to my beliefs no man can reach the maximum charisma of a woman because...'reasons.'" Why is such a design a good thing?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

nomotog wrote:
There was an example I saw that kind of put things into perspective. Back when D&D was playing with gender modifiers. (-2 +2) Someone pointed out that giving women a -2 to str would make them as strong as halflings.

That's...terrible. Aren't Halflings the weakest race in the game? That doesn't seem right.

Yep. They are literally half as big. This was back in 3e/3.5 D&D.

 AdeptSister wrote:
Yes! I thought we were on the same page. Some people on this thread have been promoting different mechanical characteristics. I mean, IMO, it keeps sounding like the following to me: "Men and Women are different and thus, in they as characters should have specific roles that each should conform to." I see no reason to build limitations like that into the system. It's like the designer saying "Sorry player, I know that you wanted to make an super social butterfly guy, but according to my beliefs no man can reach the maximum charisma of a woman because...'reasons.'" Why is such a design a good thing?

Clearly, that designer never heard of Clark Gable or Casanova

 AdeptSister wrote:
Yes! I thought we were on the same page. Some people on this thread have been promoting different mechanical characteristics. I mean, IMO, it keeps sounding like the following to me: "Men and Women are different and thus, in they as characters should have specific roles that each should conform to." I see no reason to build limitations like that into the system. It's like the designer saying "Sorry player, I know that you wanted to make an super social butterfly guy, but according to my beliefs no man can reach the maximum charisma of a woman because...'reasons.'" Why is such a design a good thing?

What a bonus modifier is somehow a bad thing? I think a personality modifier would be awesome. Like you get to choose you personality type at the beginning of the game and you get different modifiers or negatives for the personality types.

 AdeptSister wrote:
Yes! I thought we were on the same page. Some people on this thread have been promoting different mechanical characteristics. I mean, IMO, it keeps sounding like the following to me: "Men and Women are different and thus, in they as characters should have specific roles that each should conform to." I see no reason to build limitations like that into the system. It's like the designer saying "Sorry player, I know that you wanted to make an super social butterfly guy, but according to my beliefs no man can reach the maximum charisma of a woman because...'reasons.'" Why is such a design a good thing?

It's basically forcing archetypes or gender rolls on the player. It's hard to think of a reason for that to be needed. (The funny thing is that often players will conform to these roles naturally without any prodding.)

Edit: Modifiers at character creation could be used to help paint the norms of the setting. Like how elfs get bonus dex because by the norms of the setting elves are more agile. If your setting was particularly sexist, then including sexist modifiers at character creation could be a way to inform your players of that.

I have no problem with modifiers, but when you tie them to gender in becomes problematic. Nomotog captured it perfectly.

Now you want to create a sexist setting (which is not my cup of tea) that supports different roles, MAKE IT CLEAR TO THE PLAYER. It can be annoying if the designer is not communicating with the player. Especially after the player dropped money on the game.

Modifiers could actually get more interesting. When you make a modifier to a game mechanic, your basically state a universal law of your setting. Like if you give one group a - 2 to int then that group is literally dumber according to the rules of the setting. Think about that message.

Now where you can get fancy is if you took all the stereotypes (Elves are agile, dawarfs are strong and hardy.) kept them, but then didn't but in mechanics modifiers. Think about what kind of message that sends.

This is kind of were we get to my current idea of how to handle sexist settings. You let the setting be sexist, but then you use the mechanics to inform the player that all this sexism isn't the law of the universe. It's just a thing that the people believe.

Or you could be a good, intelligent, creative writer build a sexist society that isn't a mirror image of the real world.

But I guess being creative is too hard for most writers.

 Melissia wrote:
Or you could be a good, intelligent, creative writer build a sexist society that isn't a mirror image of the real world.

But I guess being creative is too hard for most writers.

What do you mean?

 AdeptSister wrote:
Ok. But if the differences are so slight (thank you CthulusSpy), doesn't that mean that it would not be noticeable in most game mechanical systems?

A +1 strength is pretty noticeable. And if you make a character inherently weaker at a specific role, you are basically incentivizing that the players not play that role. But why? Is not the nature of games fantasy?

It depends. In a medieval-ish world, for example, it would sense for men to have a higher S value given that they were mostly doing physical work, e.g. farmer / fighter. On the other hand, in the very same world, an Amazonian woman would be a better fighter and have a higher S than a male farmer. That's exactly what many people pointed out: there are differences. There's a base and then you work with what you were given to develop your very own potential. That's what makes mankind so interesting - variety.

Women frequently worked on their husbads/family's farms doing the same things men would do. The idea they didn't is modern, based on mid-western farming practices.

When you have to do everything by hand, you need everyone to pitch in.

 LordofHats wrote:
Women frequently worked on their husbads/family's farms doing the same things men would do. The idea they didn't is modern, based on mid-western farming practices.

When you have to do everything by hand, you need everyone to pitch in.

Yes. This is something people tend to overlook. There were peasant women on the fields. Only assigning men to harvest food is a recipe for disaster, especially when winter is coming.

Also, maids in the Victorian era - very strong due to having to carry big pots around.
I recall seeing a photograph of an old maid from the 19th century / 20th century holding a huge metal pot. I remember thinking "damn, if I tried holding that my arms will fall off"

nomotog wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Or you could be a good, intelligent, creative writer build a sexist society that isn't a mirror image of the real world.

But I guess being creative is too hard for most writers.

What do you mean?

One example from my memory was a writer who proposed a story with a society where women were societally expected to be politicians, workers, soldiers, etc, and men were relegated to philosophers, scientists/engineers, academia, etc. A man who wanted to be a soldier was thought of as un-manly, because that honor belonged to women; a woman whom wanted to be an engineer was thought of as unfeminine, since that was clearly a manly thing, not something a woman should dirty her hands with. That's the more extreme end of the spectrum, showing how different a society can be from ours, but other smaller bits could be things like "a society where men were expected to stay home to raise any children they fathered and women expected to work", or "men are legally denied the right to carry swords in public, while women are socially obligated to do so".

Compare that to the lazy writing of many people, including people in this thread, whom suggest we take a fantasy world and lazily slap modern sexism on it and call it a day.

nomotog wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

nomotog wrote:
There was an example I saw that kind of put things into perspective. Back when D&D was playing with gender modifiers. (-2 +2) Someone pointed out that giving women a -2 to str would make them as strong as halflings.

That's...terrible. Aren't Halflings the weakest race in the game? That doesn't seem right.

Yep. They are literally half as big. This was back in 3e/3.5 D&D.

There were no gender stat differences in 3/3.5 D&D.

 Psienesis wrote:

nomotog wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

nomotog wrote:
There was an example I saw that kind of put things into perspective. Back when D&D was playing with gender modifiers. (-2 +2) Someone pointed out that giving women a -2 to str would make them as strong as halflings.

That's...terrible. Aren't Halflings the weakest race in the game? That doesn't seem right.

Yep. They are literally half as big. This was back in 3e/3.5 D&D.

There were no gender stat differences in 3/3.5 D&D.

Indeed. 3.5 was the generation of the Mages vs Everything else

Joking aside, the only way 3/3.5 had it in was if a player implemented it or there was some monster species (kinda like ants I suppose) that had very distinct differences.


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 Melissia wrote:

nomotog wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Or you could be a good, intelligent, creative writer build a sexist society that isn't a mirror image of the real world.

But I guess being creative is too hard for most writers.

What do you mean?

One example from my memory was a writer who proposed a story with a society where women were societally expected to be politicians, workers, soldiers, etc, and men were relegated to philosophers, scientists/engineers, academia, etc. A man who wanted to be a soldier was thought of as un-manly, because that honor belonged to women; a woman whom wanted to be an engineer was thought of as unfeminine, since that was clearly a manly thing, not something a woman should dirty her hands with. That's the more extreme end of the spectrum, showing how different a society can be from ours, but other smaller bits could be things like "a society where men were expected to stay home to raise any children they fathered and women expected to work", or "men are legally denied the right to carry swords in public, while women are socially obligated to do so".

Compare that to the lazy writing of many people, including people in this thread, whom suggest we take a fantasy world and lazily slap modern sexism on it and call it a day.

"a society where men were expected to stay home to raise any children they fathered and women expected to work", or "men are legally denied the right to carry swords in public, while women are socially obligated to do so".

I'll just have to interject by saying that the former is just as lazy as standard style. The only difference is they go hey look we basically inverted the expectations of the standard view of the sexes! We are so intellectual indeed. The men legally denied sword part is a bit more interesting just because it actually has a social obligation that wasn't really a thing in our world. Just tossing that in. The one about professions was also interesting.

 StarTrotter wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

nomotog wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

nomotog wrote:
There was an example I saw that kind of put things into perspective. Back when D&D was playing with gender modifiers. (-2 +2) Someone pointed out that giving women a -2 to str would make them as strong as halflings.

That's...terrible. Aren't Halflings the weakest race in the game? That doesn't seem right.

Yep. They are literally half as big. This was back in 3e/3.5 D&D.

There were no gender stat differences in 3/3.5 D&D.

Indeed. 3.5 was the generation of the Mages vs Everything else

Joking aside, the only way 3/3.5 had it in was if a player implemented it or there was some monster species (kinda like ants I suppose) that had very distinct differences.

And there was a time were it seemed like every week or every other week someone would put out something that added them. It may not have been in the core rules, but it was still something that was toyed with a lot by DMs.

nomotog wrote:

 StarTrotter wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

nomotog wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

nomotog wrote:
There was an example I saw that kind of put things into perspective. Back when D&D was playing with gender modifiers. (-2 +2) Someone pointed out that giving women a -2 to str would make them as strong as halflings.

That's...terrible. Aren't Halflings the weakest race in the game? That doesn't seem right.

Yep. They are literally half as big. This was back in 3e/3.5 D&D.

There were no gender stat differences in 3/3.5 D&D.

Indeed. 3.5 was the generation of the Mages vs Everything else

Joking aside, the only way 3/3.5 had it in was if a player implemented it or there was some monster species (kinda like ants I suppose) that had very distinct differences.

And there was a time were it seemed like every week or every other week someone would put out something that added them. It may not have been in the core rules, but it was still something that was toyed with a lot by DMs.

Probably because of how open 3rd edition (to be precise, 3.5) was. It was so open that Pathfinder is basically just 3.5 with a few minor edits (sorry for ot but feel it's somewhat valid considering mention of DMs spamming it. The biggest fault was an old DnD game doing it and people continuing it. Then again, this is the same world where elves can pull back hardcore bows because dexterity whilst being exceedingly slinder.

 StarTrotter wrote:
I'll just have to interject by saying that the former is just as lazy as standard style. The only difference is they go hey look we basically inverted the expectations of the standard view of the sexes!

Inverting expectations is much less lazy than simply working with societal norms, and, especially for male writers, requires them to think about how the social norms chafe and feel restrictive-- or whether or not they'd actually like it, or if opinions on the matter would be split, what kind of events might have led the culture to believe in these things, etc., as opposed to simply accepting the lazy "common sense" approach whereupon they choose NOT to think about it, and invariably leads to sexist representations of both women AND men.

Indeed, there were so many d20 products at the time because of the Open License that it would take a sizable research grant and five years to properly categorize them all.

I'm speaking only of the core rules from WotC, and in those there were racial modifiers to stats (Dwarves tougher than Humans, Elves faster but less-tough than Humans, and so on), but none of them were gender-based within the racial modifiers,

 Psienesis wrote:
Indeed, there were so many d20 products at the time because of the Open License that it would take a sizable research grant and five years to properly categorize them all.

I'm speaking only of the core rules from WotC, and in those there were racial modifiers to stats (Dwarves tougher than Humans, Elves faster but less-tough than Humans, and so on), but none of them were gender-based within the racial modifiers,

And it was glorious! I loved the era were you practically had a source book for every conceivable idea. (Wallmart d20 for the win!)

 Melissia wrote:

 StarTrotter wrote:
I'll just have to interject by saying that the former is just as lazy as standard style. The only difference is they go hey look we basically inverted the expectations of the standard view of the sexes!

Inverting expectations is much less lazy than simply working with societal norms, and, especially for male writers, requires them to think about how the social norms chafe and feel restrictive-- or whether or not they'd actually like it, or if opinions on the matter would be split, what kind of events might have led the culture to believe in these things, etc., as opposed to simply accepting the lazy "common sense" approach whereupon they choose NOT to think about it, and invariably leads to sexist representations of both women AND men.

Eh, I feel it's dependent upon how literal the switch is. If it's just the sexual organs/stuff that gets swapped up, it really does feel just as lazy if not more so (due to the fact that conventional historics actually is more varied than modern expectations i.e. Victorian women were capable of carrying heavy weights my hands would fall off for as another poster mentioned). Now if you really start mixing the brew, keeping some faults and the sorts then it can feel more unique but it's more of multiple steps at that point whilst just flipping the sexes wouldn't do much.


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nomotog wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Indeed, there were so many d20 products at the time because of the Open License that it would take a sizable research grant and five years to properly categorize them all.

I'm speaking only of the core rules from WotC, and in those there were racial modifiers to stats (Dwarves tougher than Humans, Elves faster but less-tough than Humans, and so on), but none of them were gender-based within the racial modifiers,

And it was glorious! I loved the era were you practically had a source book for every conceivable idea. (Wallmart d20 for the win!)

I personally prefer the GURPS system for that now. Granted I always thought that the d20 system was horrid