Males & Females with different stats?

[CharonsHelper]

It came up in a conversation I was having, and apparently in the original D&D, female characters' STR had a lower max than their male equivalents. Now - while it makes sense from a simulation standpoint (and please no - it was not sexist) it's rather annoying from a game perspective, even if with the original 3d6 roll it was unlikely to come up back then since you would have had to roll at least (if I remember) a 16 for it to matter.

Then it got me thinking about Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers - it's a pretty decent show - but besides the whodunnit aspect, I thought the world-building was interesting. One of the major points was that the world's magic-users, or 'saints', were all female. So - the show's chosen warriors of destiny were either male badass warriors, or female saints with magic powers.

It got me thinking - how would people feel about an RPG where men & women had inherently different stats? It would of course need to be designed with that in mind from the ground up. From a D&D perspective (since it's the most common reference) it'd be giving females a minus to STR & CON, but bonuses to casting stats. Possibly even making it so that the magic use is female only as it is in Rokka. (It wouldn't be hard to come up with fluff reasons.)

So - that's my question. Do you guys think that such a system could work, one in which males were inherently better warriors in a straight brawl, but females had the magic powers? Do you think that people would call it out as being sexist? Do you think that it would actually BE sexist? Would it make for interesting role-playing as people might be forced to play characters which they normally wouldn't, or would it just be annoying to force people to play cross-gender for the class that they want?

[The Glyphstone]

Don't mess with innate stat modifiers - as you accurately predicted, it's a gigantic can of worms that has been argued over into pulp again and again and again, including here in old threads.

If you want male warriors and female mages, restrict the classes/abilities by gender instead of giving stat penalties. Otherwise you end up with either A) men who can do magic, but worse than women (small stat penalty), or B) men who are so crippled by their innate stat penalties that they're unable to do magic even at the top of the curve in mental stats, which means the average male is going to be a drooling moron (large stat penalty). Reverse these situations for female casters, into A) slightly substandard female warriors, or B) mages who explode when you breathe on them too hard.

Restricting the classes by gender via fluff, on the other hand, is simple and easy. Make it a core defined part of the world, or even part of the metaphysics, and anyone who doesn't like it isn't suited to the setting/game.

[kraftcheese]

I guess it would be interesting...but it certainly feels like it's playing into sexist tropes.

Tbh it wouldn't even necessarily be very stimulation-ey, as body shape/mass, musculature, fitness level, practice, etc that effect real-world "strength" and "constitution" have a huge amount of variation across individuals, regardless of whether they're male or female.

Men might have more of a tendency to put on muscle mass, but that doesn't necessarily mean that all men will be physically stronger than women, and I guess the same goes for things that we traditionally think women are better at than men.

I suppose you could always go with certain classes being traditionally relegated to certain sexes; like with your idea about casting. That way you could still for example play a male caster, or a female paladin, both with the same potential to do whatever that class does, but you might experience different reactions in-world, have different expectations of how you will use your skills (perhaps male/female clerics are expected to use their powers for healing, and a war Cleric of the "healer gender" would be frowned upon by other clerics and practitioners of their faith).

Just an alternate suggestion.

[CharonsHelper]

If you want male warriors and female mages, restrict the classes/abilities by gender instead of giving stat penalties. Otherwise you end up with either A) men who can do magic, but worse than women (small stat penalty), or B) men who are so crippled by their innate stat penalties that they're unable to do magic even at the top of the curve in mental stats, which means the average male is going to be a drooling moron (large stat penalty). Reverse these situations for female casters, into A) slightly substandard female warriors, or B) mages who explode when you breathe on them too hard.

Restricting the classes by gender via fluff, on the other hand, is simple and easy. Make it a core defined part of the world, or even part of the metaphysics, and anyone who doesn't like it isn't suited to the setting/game.

I figured it'd either be your A answers (though the magic stats wouldn't be Int/Wis - they'd need to be something else) potentially combined with the class restrictions.

Possibly a point-buy system where males can upgrade physical stats more cheaply but cannot purchase magic powers at all.

[CharonsHelper]

Men might have more of a tendency to put on muscle mass, but that doesn't necessarily mean that all men will be physically stronger than women

Certainly not - but at the high end of the bell curve (as adventurers are) the difference is significant.

Again - I'm not saying that all systems should do it. I'm just throwing it out as a question of what people would think of a system which did due to curiosity.

[Raphite1]

This idea has occurred to everyone, and it always ends up being a Bad Idea.

[ImNotTrevor]

Biologically, it has support on a lot of levels.
(What, you thought several millions years of evolution and specialization would go away once feminism was invented?)

However, it would cause a lot of butthurt. Better to avoid the ragemonster that would come after you. If someplace like Tumblr found out....
Yeah. Not good.

Not because its a bad idea, or because it wouldn't be an interesting game.
But because rage you don't wanna deal with.

[YossarianLives]

It came up in a conversation I was having, and apparently in the original D&D, female characters' STR had a lower max than their male equivalents.

Objection!

The stats of female characters were never limited in OD&D, that didn't become a thing until AD&D rolled around, almost a decade after the initial release of D&D.

*ahem*


I don't think it's a terrible idea, and I don't think you should avoid it because some people would get angry, their concerns wouldn't be baseless but I think that all ideas deserve a chance. Contempt prior to investigation is a heinous crime.

But you would have to handle the whole thing judiciously and even then, it might turn out poorly. I think incorporating mechanics that limit the number of viable character concepts should be avoided at all costs, and effectively limiting characters of certain genders from choosing classes definitely does that.

[Rusvul]

There's an RPG called Sagas of the Icelanders, centered around Norse settlers in Iceland. Society at that place and time in history had strong gender roles, (though men and women were seen as equals overall, they were expected to do different things) and the game reflects that. Your 'class' is based on your gender, and you have abilities because of it.

It works in a history-based game like that, but bring that into a fantasy game (and actually manifest it mechanically) and it becomes risky quickly.

[goto124]

People want to play characters of whatever gender they like for any reason (playing their own gender, playing a gender they find attractive, why is a reason even needed).


In-universe sexism would have to be accepted as part of the premise of the game. Not everyone likes the "you're a helpless person whose sanity is literally torn down by supernatural creatures you can't touch" premise of CoC. That means those who don't like that premise can choose not to play CoC. Only those who want the premise would enjoy CoC.

Similarly, if you don't like the premise of "gender actually matters a lot in this world", find another group or setting to play. Lots of gender-equal settings out there. This setting will make sex and gender matter as much as race, or even more than race.

We've already covered "don't force mechanical restrictions by sex", it's much more boring and doesn't really allow to explore ramifications of gender roles in society. Presumably if you're playing in this sort of fictional society, you want to explore such ramifications.

Gender-based differences would have to be baked into the setting, history built up to explain everything, and made rather clear from the very start (who would expect gender to matter that much in an RPG? It's a dead practice). Sounds like something for serious roleplayers. When it's baked into the setting, it's easier to think of it as within unique in-universe culture, as opposed to seeing it as the DM's (setting creator's) weird sexism.

Make sure to do your research, so that the in-universe sexism is actually realistic. DnD had a drow matriarchy where every female drow wears a spidersilk bikini. Uhh... Oh, and realize that sexism goes both ways (we're sexist to both females and males, just in different ways, again research), sexism ties in with many other forms of discrimination such as racism, ableism, and classism, and sexism differs from society to society, era to era.


A thought: We have no problems giving elves, dwarves, and humans different stat modifiers. Would we be so indifferent if we gave different stat modifiers to insert RL races here?

It's because elves and dwarves don't exist IRL. (Also, they're more like different species.)

So we want a hypothetical sexist society* made of nonhumans (nonhumans means we can have sexes other than the standard 'female & male', but let's keep things simple). One could do the fantasy counterpart culture thing and base the society's ideas of gender roles on a RL society. I'll stop here for now, I'm blabbering.

*The entire setting won't be exactly sexist in the same way right? Sexism changes across the borders, and even in the same general area there can be subgroups that have different beliefs on sex and gender. We haven't even gotten started on the individuals.

[NothingButCake]

I am not sure what you would gain from doing this. I do not even think it is conceptually interesting because it is already completely rote; it would just feel Old. I suppose it may work from the perspective of calling back to something like pulp fantasy.

There is also a weird element where you are balancing out a 'real' advantage of men (physical strength) with a fake advantage of women (can cast spells).

I know there will be people who disagree with me here, but if I saw a game system that in-built these kinds of gendered differences, I would just think the creator(s) had that understanding of gender as being static, that what they saw as what gender means in X country on Earth in the 2010s as being forever the what gender means in the past and future, across worlds. To me, that implies the rest of the background writing for the system would be similarly limited, especially since there is already such wide diversity of genders throughout our mundane human history. To me, it implies the creator(s) did not really think about transgenderism or intersexuality or third(/fourth/fifth) gender to produce cultures that are at least as interesting as our world.

I think fantasy writing already has this problem where cultures are very static and the sun god religion believes X and Y and it has always believed X and Y in the same way for centuries, or since we're talking about fantasy, for hundreds of centuries.

Thinking about it a little bit, I think I feel the most comfortable with gendered differences in character building if the character building system were one where you build the equivalent of a 5e background, a package of social advantages and technical skills, by purchasing them with Background Points and the BP costs of different advantages are culturally gendered. For example, Night Elf women are trained to be warriors while Night Elf men are trained to be druids, so an extra weapon proficiency costs a woman 2 BP but it costs a man 3 BP but a man can get Druid Circle Standing at a lower rate than a woman.

[goto124]

There is also a weird element where you are balancing out a 'real' advantage of men (physical strength) with a fake advantage of women (can cast spells).

For example, Night Elf women are trained to be warriors while Night Elf men are trained to be druids, so an extra weapon proficiency costs a woman 2 BP but it costs a man 3 BP but a man can get Druid Circle Standing at a lower rate than a woman.

Both of these make sex/gender an optimization choice, like how people have choose Goliath for nice stat modifiers that benefit a Barbarian. Is this what you want, creating another optimization point where gender helps 'shore up' builds?

If you want realism, combine the above with letting NPCs react to the characters. A night elf man saying he's learning warrior skills could get a reaction of "Tis unnatural!"

Again, why do you want gender-based differences?

[Satinavian]

So - that's my question. Do you guys think that such a system could work, one in which males were inherently better warriors in a straight brawl, but females had the magic powers? Do you think that people would call it out as being sexist? Do you think that it would actually BE sexist? Would it make for interesting role-playing as people might be forced to play characters which they normally wouldn't, or would it just be annoying to force people to play cross-gender for the class that they want?

Has been done before. Lots of times. It's a bad idea. There are a couple of reasons :

- While people can often agree that men are on average stonger, it is difficult to translate that into game terms without linking the strength stat to realistic athlete benchmarks. Otherwise you can't be sure about the thin line between a realistic model and a overblown sexist clichee. Also women tend to be smaller and lighter so you also run into issues of absolute strength for lifting and stuff and strength relative to body mass for climbing and stuff

- Strength ist easy. But there is no consensus about Constitution (pain tolerance, poison tolarance, sickness tolerance, hit points and equivalent) or Dexterity. Should men be better ? schould women be better ? And if, how much ?

- Messing with mental stats will always be a problem and can't be done without producing sexist clichees. Doesn't matter of Intelligence (hey, one gender is dumber), Wisdom (hey, one gender has no common sense/ one gender is intuitive) or Charisma (hey, one gender is eye candy/ is responsible for social stuff/ is made of born leaders)

- Casting : Giving women casting for the physical stat bonus of men implies that women are an inferior choise and need a supernatural buff to be competitive to men. Which they obviouslydon't have in real life where only the inferiority is left. This can't be done at all without being sexist.


Don't do it. Cultural differences are pretty safe. Having different supernatural powers availible to both genders is also pretty safe. But there is a reason nearly every contemporary RPG does not do stats per gender anymore except maybe hight and weight.

[goto124]

Other option: go the full hog. Have a society where everyone is part of a created species, where the sexes are so different they're literally unable to cover the other sex's roles. Here, all males have lots of muscles and can fight, while all females are too weak to even carry a sword the normal way. However, all magic is fueled by womb power, which for obvious reasons means only females can cast magic.

Disclaimer: May work best in a comedic campaign.

[Ashtagon]

Objection!

The stats of female characters were never limited in OD&D, that didn't become a thing until AD&D rolled around, almost a decade after the initial release of D&D.

By "almost a decade", you mean four years and five months, right?

1e PHB was published in June 1978.

OD&D was published in January 1974.

[Cazero]

How about traditional gender roles (and the different stats that come with them) and not restraining the PCs to them? PCs already have exceptional stats (being stuck to kitchen duty because of your stat array is not heroic), so why not have their awesomeness crush that stupid gender-based stat difference into oblivion?

[HammeredWharf]

Giving males more strength and females more [magicstat] wouldn't work well even in the setting you used as an example.

Adlet is a monk with some alchemist skills, basically a fantasy Batman. If I were making an Adlet in D&D, I'd definitely make him dex-based, with a good dose of int.
Hans is an assassin. Extremely dexterous, insightful and cunning, but not particularly strong.
Mora has some earth-related magical powers, but she usually just punches things to death.

So, both male characters have high dex and mental stats, while the "party member" with the highest str and con is female. As far as I know, nothing even implies males have better physical abilities. They just can't do magic, which is why Adlet focuses on alchemy and gadgets.

[PersonMan]

By "almost a decade", you mean four years and five months, right?

1e PHB was published in June 1978.

OD&D was published in January 1974.

It was written during the Year Famine of 1975 - 1975, where the Year Crops failed for so long that the year had almost 38 of them.

---

I agree with the idea of gender roles being an in-universe thing. It's more fun, in my opinion, to play in a world where a male X or female Y is considered unusual but isn't at a strict disadvantage as far as rules are concerned, rather than just having to fight an uphill battle against stat penalties or point cost increases.

[ImNotTrevor]

If I had to do stats for SEXES (not genders. Genders aren't biological, nor involve differing brain chemistry or anything of the sort) then I would likely do this:

Males have more Str. Duh. Like a +1.

Females have more Cha. Also like a +1.

BUT MUH EYE CANDY

No. Put down the pitchfork.

In history (verifiably, even) women have been not just Home-makers, but SOCIETY-makers. No, really. You know that joke "The man is the head of the household, but the woman is the neck. Amd she can move him any was she wants." It's surprisingly true at the family level, and even more true in ancient societies.

Go read Beowulf. I'll wait.

Ok. Now that you're back, did you notice who was always demaning that the rules of society be followed? (The paying of blood prices, etc)

Women. Women in tandem form the basis of societies.

Women have a strong tendency towards having very high social IQs, and focus outwardly. (When women get together, they chat and catch up and exchange socially relevant information.)

Men don't tend towards this behavior. Most men talk about what they're currently doing and talk about more personal issues with 1 or maybe 2 very close friends.

The biological imperstives for these kinds of behaviors no longer exist. And in fact society increasingly frowns upon anyone mentioning these differences.

But they persist anyways.

Even SJW morality (guided mostly by biologically female individuals) is based on SOCIETY. "That offends people, which makes society scary and unsafe. Society needs to accommodate this kind of person."

I have more, but my phone is dying. Anyways, Cha isn't attractiveness. It's Social ability.

[Heian]

I use the following House Rules in my Setting:

- The difference between STR and COS scores for an humanoid is, before racial and other adjustments, maximum 2.
- Female Humans, Gnomes and Elves cannot have STR as their single highest stat at character generation, before racial and other adjustments.
- Level advancement (3.P) confers either +1 to two different physical stats or +1 to a single mental stat.

What do you think about the HRs above?

[Steampunkette]

So... here's a thing.

A group of scientists grabbed some babies and their parents and a treadmill capable of inclining. Then they put the infants on the treadmill and had the parents watch as they inclined the treadmill. The babies, regardless of gender, we're able to climb the same grade of incline before they had difficulty, and had around the same maximum incline before they fell off, within the same size range at least. http://tinyurl.com/Babyramps

However, mothers universally said their daughters wouldn't be able to handle the inclines that other boys could. They underestimated them, completely. The babies were basically capable of handling the same slope regardless of sex.

From infancy, girls are kept from achieving their physical potential by parents who try to stop them from getting hurt, while cheering on the boys as they go to their limit.

The idea of humans being evolved with big sex based dimorphism is an inherently untestable hypothesis because you cannot reasonably control for social factors applied to children from birth. To actually test the hypothesis that men are, inherently, stronger than women you would need a sample size of several hundred thousand infants raised in a completely impartial environment to adulthood with the same physical training regimen through their lives for testing to commenced after 18 years.

The ethical considerations of such an act are, of course, unthinkable. But it would be the only way to objectively learn the truth. Until such a study has been performed I highly suggest keeping that fact in mind.

[nyjastul69]

Different stats for different genders? FATAL probably has you covered. Or, maybe, just don't do it.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

So... here's a thing.

A group of scientists grabbed some babies and their parents and a treadmill capable of inclining. Then they put the infants on the treadmill and had the parents watch as they inclined the treadmill. The babies, regardless of gender, we're able to climb the same grade of incline before they had difficulty, and had around the same maximum incline before they fell off, within the same size range at least. http://tinyurl.com/Babyramps

However, mothers universally said their daughters wouldn't be able to handle the inclines that other boys could. They underestimated them, completely. The babies were basically capable of handling the same slope regardless of sex.

From infancy, girls are kept from achieving their physical potential by parents who try to stop them from getting hurt, while cheering on the boys as they go to their limit.

The idea of humans being evolved with big sex based dimorphism is an inherently untestable hypothesis because you cannot reasonably control for social factors applied to children from birth. To actually test the hypothesis that men are, inherently, stronger than women you would need a sample size of several hundred thousand infants raised in a completely impartial environment to adulthood with the same physical training regimen through their lives for testing to commenced after 18 years.

The ethical considerations of such an act are, of course, unthinkable. But it would be the only way to objectively learn the truth. Until such a study has been performed I highly suggest keeping that fact in mind.

While you definitely have a big point here, I'd say you are taking it a little too far. After puberty men (the standard binary gender type males with "normal" testosterone levels in all parts of their body during all times of development, for simplicity's sake) are on average physically stronger than women, and would still be stronger if they had had exactly the same youth. Before puberty I'd agree that there is probably no difference at all or a very small one. You can see that by how children are build. Boys and girls are about as wide at the shoulders and their hands are about the same sizes. Post puberty that's not the case. Hormone regulation can be influenced by behavior, food etc, and there's a lot of individual variation, but on average men have more testosterone than women. This means that on average men will be able to grow a longer beard than women, that they will on average go bald much earlier and that they on average make more muscle mass. Mostly in puberty it also influences growth.

If a person had male hormones through puberty they will on average have bigger, sturdier hands than a person who had female hormones, more suited for getting a strong grip on something and for punching people with a fist, but less suited for delicate work. I love how I can get away with semi-unreadable handwriting because I'm a guy, and I would totally agree that the fact that's accepted from boys is sociological in nature, rather than biological. This means that yes, girls will be pushed harder to write cleaner, enhancing the difference. But that doesn't mean that there isn't a biological difference to begin with. Men are, on average, bigger and stronger than women. They're also more directly-aggressive (I don't really know how to call it, but you know what I mean) in their behavior, they like to brag more, they are bigger thrill seekers etc etc.

You could probably create an civilization (theoretically, as you said these things are kind of hard to test) where the gender roles are reversed. I mean, the differences are definitely there, but they're not that big. If the women are all trained as warriors, if certain types of behavior are en- or discouraged in both genders etc you could have women fulfill the roles men often fulfill in other societies and vice versa, and nobody would think that this is "wrong" or "unnatural" or anything like that. But even there the women would barely if at all be stronger than the men, because of biology.

I mean, just look at pro athletes. People who have spent their whole lives becoming strong. I'm a big guy, and I kayak, but I'm not by any means a "jock" or a bodybuilder or anything. I'd definitely lose an arm wrestling match against any male Olympic swimmer you can name, quickly and badly. (Also Olympic kayakkers, rowers, tennis players, you get the gist.) I'd probably stand a fair chance against most women in the same disciplines.

(Holy lettery goodness batman, a wall of text!)

[HammeredWharf]

So... here's a thing.

A group of scientists grabbed some babies and their parents and a treadmill capable of inclining. Then they put the infants on the treadmill and had the parents watch as they inclined the treadmill. The babies, regardless of gender, we're able to climb the same grade of incline before they had difficulty, and had around the same maximum incline before they fell off, within the same size range at least. http://tinyurl.com/Babyramps

However, mothers universally said their daughters wouldn't be able to handle the inclines that other boys could. They underestimated them, completely. The babies were basically capable of handling the same slope regardless of sex.

From infancy, girls are kept from achieving their physical potential by parents who try to stop them from getting hurt, while cheering on the boys as they go to their limit.

The idea of humans being evolved with big sex based dimorphism is an inherently untestable hypothesis because you cannot reasonably control for social factors applied to children from birth. To actually test the hypothesis that men are, inherently, stronger than women you would need a sample size of several hundred thousand infants raised in a completely impartial environment to adulthood with the same physical training regimen through their lives for testing to commenced after 18 years.

The ethical considerations of such an act are, of course, unthinkable. But it would be the only way to objectively learn the truth. Until such a study has been performed I highly suggest keeping that fact in mind.

Babies don't have well-defined sexual characteristics. They develop mostly during puberty, generally speaking due to hormones. Testosterone is a big deal and we know how it affects the human body and that males produce more of it. That's proven medically, therefore social experiments aren't required to reach a fairly accurate conclusion. Before you grab onto the "fairly accurate" part, that's science. There's always a possibility of being wrong, but the studies are still valid until proven otherwise.

Societal pressures affect people in many ways, of course, and they do make women less athletic in some ways. However, women are also less muscular inherently. Frankly, I don't understand why so many seem hell-bent on proving otherwise, because being strong is one of the least significant advantages in first-world countries, unless you really want that ditch-digging job. If anything, current societal pressures seem to encourage women to be fit and men to be muscular, so in this regard women get the better deal.

Ninja'd by a wall of text!

[Don nadie]

Well, lots of well argued points here! I definitely would go for making sex an issue in what skills you develop, rather than what physical abilities you have.

I also agree it is very difficult to differentiate between what is biological and what is social. It would easily fall into cliché sexism. Furthermore, stat differences tend to be about races with considerably differing bodies and metabolism (an elf or dwarf live hundreds of years!). If we don't see changes in stats between ethnic groups of humans (because even if there's some variation between humans, it is a tiny one that only emerges in large groups), I don't see that sex should be any different.

And, most important, I really don't see the point of having these differences at all: one more stat to consider? Why? D&D is already Fantasy Accounting!)

But if I had to do it, I may actually give men bonus Str and women bonus Con. It seems more reasonable than giving them magical powers or mental stats.* This is of course based on several asumptions that are very, very questionable (among other reasons because I am a man and because I am no doctor). But I'd give them Con because:

-Women deal with menstruation, which as far as I know from my friends and family, is a monthly exercice on resiliance. It may be ok-ish, it may be terrible, but it is there kind of every month. Men do not have a monthly set of days being uncomfortable. And 99% of women do not stop their work because of it - they just buckle up and go on. If that's not showing some awesome Fort saves, I dunno what is.
-Women give birth. And then they continue on living. I mean, if that's not a body made of sheer freaking endurance, I dunno what is, because human reproduction is probably the most botched thing ever. Again, Fort saves.
-Women who survive giving birth tend to live longer. It may be because they weren't allowed to risk their lives, but hey, still.


*As a side-note on mental stats: while the trope is that women make society in history, it is not rare for societies to keep women out of socialization altogether. Most of medieval girls would be carefully kept away from socializing and/or learning leadership skills. Of course, this only applies to rich people (poor people couldn't afford this particular brand of sexism). I think thus that charisma makes no sense as a "womanly" stat... And that without even considering how ridiculous "charisma" is as a stat!

[Satinavian]

So... here's a thing.

A group of scientists grabbed some babies and their parents and a treadmill capable of inclining. Then they put the infants on the treadmill and had the parents watch as they inclined the treadmill. The babies, regardless of gender, we're able to climb the same grade of incline before they had difficulty, and had around the same maximum incline before they fell off, within the same size range at least. http://tinyurl.com/Babyramps

However, mothers universally said their daughters wouldn't be able to handle the inclines that other boys could. They underestimated them, completely. The babies were basically capable of handling the same slope regardless of sex.

From infancy, girls are kept from achieving their physical potential by parents who try to stop them from getting hurt, while cheering on the boys as they go to their limit.

The idea of humans being evolved with big sex based dimorphism is an inherently untestable hypothesis because you cannot reasonably control for social factors applied to children from birth. To actually test the hypothesis that men are, inherently, stronger than women you would need a sample size of several hundred thousand infants raised in a completely impartial environment to adulthood with the same physical training regimen through their lives for testing to commenced after 18 years.

The ethical considerations of such an act are, of course, unthinkable. But it would be the only way to objectively learn the truth. Until such a study has been performed I highly suggest keeping that fact in mind.

I strongly disagree.

I grew up in a city where under communist dictatorship every couple of years every single child in every school was measured for body development and performence in various physical tasks and all those information was evaluated by the local university and used to improve athletes performances and design professional training tracks from the age of seven. Having later actually seen some of the data, i am certain, you are wrong.

In fact, boys and girls are nearly equally strong until puperty starts. There was a small difference and girls are actually slightly stronger before the age of 10. But that is utterly minor to what happens between 10 and 20.
The real difference are hormones, not parental behavior. Or gender roles. While those certainly can make a difference, it should show already at an early age not only for teens and older. Either that, or the communist society was extremely equal (disclaimer : it was not.)

[nedz]

Whilst it may seem more simulationist to do this: adventurers are meant to be outliers to the general population and so it's a better simulation of that idiom to allow for more options. If a player wants to create a low strength female then the rules allow for them to do that. There is no need for the system to enforce this.

[Steampunkette]

Estrogen actually improves the tensile strength of muscles while testosterone encourages increased mass during muscle scarring from damage. Both hormones actually improve muscle strength in different ways. Where one results in a larger mass of muscle tossue, the other allows a smaller mass of tissue to perform more efficiently.

That's not to say that women with estrogen can't build big darn muscles, it's just less rapid and severe.

As to the teens and post puberty proposed evidence it does not control for societal factors which rather clearly play some role or another. Within a discussion on accounting for those factors such evidence proves nothing.

[Spiryt]

Women are generally significantly less physically able than males in humans, not just in 'strength'.

See about every athletic competition.

http://www.newschoolers.com/forum/th...gh-school-boys


And reflecting it in something in D&D sounds mainly like great way to spoil the fun, honestly.

Where one results in a larger mass of muscle tossue, the other allows a smaller mass of tissue to perform more efficiently.

I would love to read something about it, since it doesn't seem to make much sense...

Testosterone and it's derivatives are taken by both men and women as PEDs.

Haven't even really heard about estrogen being taken as such. It's taken only to mask excess testosterone, although likely not today, since it's rather primitive method.

And if it was allowing muscle to operate more efficiently, it surely would have been, because it's sounds GREAT for hundreds of different reasons.

[gtwucla]

When you can become as strong as a dragon, how can you argue there should be a statistical difference between male and female characters? I realize its just a discussion at the moment, but adventurers on the high end of the bellcurve are so beyond what a human is capable of doing, including a measure for the real-world difference between the average male and female is nonsensical.