[Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defenders?

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Jason
The game is written by modern people, you know. The modern attitudes towards gender roles in all versions of D&D are perhaps the most obvious anachronisms, but modern morality probably runs a close second.

Can you explain your uses of "modern" in this context?

[Jason]

Can you explain your uses of "modern" in this context?

All of them? Okay.

The game is written by modern people, you know.

"Modern" here means "people who started writing games and fiction in the 1970s or later.

The modern attitudes towards gender roles in all versions of D&D are perhaps the most obvious anachronisms,

D&D has never had any restrictions based on gender roles as to what character class a particular gender can play. That is a very modern idea, because there are round about zero real or fictional medieval renaissance female adventurers before the '60s, certainly very few mortal women who could fight with a sword as well as a man. There were a few powerful noblewomen or enchantresses, but that's about it. Tolkien has Eowyn, but she is seen as exceptional (Luthien and Galadriel are of the "immortal enchantress" type).
D&D has always treated the existence of female warriors, priests, etc. as unremarkable.

but modern morality probably runs a close second.

An obvious starting point would be slavery and torture being viewed as evil in D&D, when they were commonplace and unmarked upon in real medieval society. The stocks, public executions being seen as an acceptable form of entertainment, bear baitings, public bath houses, and debtors prison would also be common features of medieval life that have rarely if ever appeared in D&D.

[NigelWalmsley]

D&D has never had any restrictions based on gender roles as to what character class a particular gender can play.

This is not, technically, correct. The Beloved of Valarian is a PrC from the 3e Book of Exalted Deeds that is available only to women. I believe there are other gendered things scattered around in various sources. That said, these things are pretty rare, so your claim is broadly accurate.

[LibraryOgre]

D&D has never had any restrictions based on gender roles as to what character class a particular gender can play. That is a very modern idea, because there are round about zero real or fictional medieval renaissance female adventurers before the '60s, certainly very few mortal women who could fight with a sword as well as a man. There were a few powerful noblewomen or enchantresses, but that's about it. Tolkien has Eowyn, but she is seen as exceptional (Luthien and Galadriel are of the "immortal enchantress" type).
D&D has always treated the existence of female warriors, priests, etc. as unremarkable.

AD&D 1e made the maximum strength for women something like 3-5 lower than men, across races. While women could be fighters, 1e made them decidedly worse. And a lot of the earlier material did not have women warriors... they did a lot of women priests and some women wizards, but women warriors like Tika, Laurana, and Kitiara were presented as being exceptions... whereas Goldmoon was a shaman and healer. Outside of the Forgotten Realms (Ed was terribly progressive for the times), you don't see a ton of women warriors in early worlds like Dragonlance and Greyhawk. There are Heroes, but seldom ranker soldiers. This goes back to the source material... while people like to point to Tolkien, the early D&D players were far more influenced by Leiber and Howard of dungeon-delving rapscallions, rather than world-changing adventures.

While AD&D, and later D&D editions, were made by "modern people", it's important to remember that they were made by people, over the course of almost 50 years. During that time, attitudes have changed, science has advanced, and cultural interests have changed. I like to mention that D&D isn't really a medieval fantasy... it is a Western with medieval trappings. And the types of stories we've seen in Westerns have changed, from the old ones where Indians were universally evil (or rare exceptions, like Tonto) and nationality was personality, to later ones where with more nuanced portrayals of race, ethnicity, and women.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley
The Beloved of Valarian is a PrC from the 3e Book of Exalted Deeds that is available only to women.

Along with the Swanmay, a few pages later. Another that’s rarely mentioned is the Battle Maiden from Oriental Adventures; and then there’s the highly exclusive Sword Dancer from Faiths and Pantheons, restricted to female elves and half-elves.

Faiths and Pantheons also has the Arachne, with a drow-spidery theme; and other FR sourcebooks have the Hathran, Yathrinshee, etc. The Realms seem to have the lion’s share of the female-exclusive PrCs.

[Millstone85]

Pretty sure you're misreading that: "[I] trust your justice before any god who demands flattery and offerings" is saying that he trusts that Kelemvor's justice would give him a fair shot at a reward, instead of other gods who reward whoever flatters and sacrifices to them the most.

Yes? How did you think I was reading it?

It's not that he's Faithless because he doesn't bow and scrape before the gods (Kelemvor doesn't go in for all that pageantry so he could avoid that simply by being a Kelemvorite), it's that he's refusing to pick a patron and is just trusting that being good in general is enough for a reward.

But how is this man, who holds such trust in Kelemvor's judgment of his soul, and subsequent reward on the cosy side of the Fugue Plane, that he no longer fears death, not considered to be a hardcore Kelemvorite?

That's why I am envisioning some absurd Ao-made check list. To qualify as a follower of the deity with the Judge-of-the-Dead portfolio, a mortal must satisfies this and that.

I'm not going to be too upset about a world where one can't just up and change/declare their patron deity postmortem.

I didn't take it as a postmortem conversion. Not when the scene seems to be about the mindset that led this man to his death, in the wake of Kelemvor's changes to the Fugue Plane.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

The stocks, public executions being seen as an acceptable form of entertainment, bear baitings, public bath houses, and debtors prison would also be common features of medieval life that have rarely if ever appeared in D&D.

This doesn't necessarily say much about the setting of D&D so much as it does the kinds of material published settings and adventures focus on, because the needs of adventure modules and setting splatbooks are focused on the player experience when describing the world.

Public executions and bear baiting kinda fit with the "PCs are sentenced to fight as gladiators for the public's/ruler's amusement" trope, especially in Dark Sun, because if someone's fighting for their life on-screen it makes more sense for it to involve the PCs than to have them just be spactators. Public bath houses haven't featured in any adventures most likely because the moral crackdown in the 2e era made designers leery of including anything "scandalous" in a published product (see: Ed Greenwood having to rename brothels as "festhalls" on FR maps to get them past the censors). Stocks and prisons and such are unlikely to show up as scenery because the PCs are either unlikely to care about the trials and tribulations of background commoners or are going to derail the adventure to help them out, and they're unlikely to happen to the PCs because "you're all arrested and thrown in jail" reeks of a railroady DM so published adventures rarely (but not never) include that sort of thing.

It's entirely possible that those sorts of things would fit into a given setting (probably not any of the big published ones, except again Dark Sun or perhaps Ravenloft, but definitely a homebrew setting in the "generic D&D setting" range), they just don't get much attention for the same reason you rarely see bathrooms marked on maps or know anything more about the legal system in a given town than "Look, the magistrate is a cultist!" or "Look, the baron's a vampire!"

I like to mention that D&D isn't really a medieval fantasy... it is a Western with medieval trappings. And the types of stories we've seen in Westerns have changed, from the old ones where Indians were universally evil (or rare exceptions, like Tonto) and nationality was personality, to later ones where with more nuanced portrayals of race, ethnicity, and women.

I'd phrase it rather that D&D can be done as a full-on Western in Medieval clothing, but by default it's sorta one part post-apocalypse (a sense of longing for an earlier Golden Age, lots of ancient ruins, schizo tech and magic, etc.) plus one part Western (scattered settlements, distinct "borderlands" vs. "wilderness" division, adventurers as frontier justice, etc.) plus one part late Iron Age myth ("heroes" are deemed such for power rather than morality, anywhere too far outside of civilization is scary and full of monsters, mortals are subject to lots of divine meddling, etc.), mixed with a pseudo-Medieval aesthetic and social roles and overlaid with pseudo-Renaissance technology and social mores. D&D doesn't really fit into any single genre or time period box, whether that's Medieval fantasy or Western, which is why most attempts to do "Medieval Europe, but D&D" or "Ancient Greece, but D&D" and so forth don't really work without overhauling a lot of the mechanics and flavor.

Yes? How did you think I was reading it?

It looked like you were reading it as Zale being a devout Kelemvorite and simply not being counted as one on a technicality because he didn't go through the motions, when it was more about his belief (or lack thereof) than his actions.

But how is this man, who holds such trust in Kelemvor's judgment of his soul, and subsequent reward on the cosy side of the Fugue Plane, that he no longer fears death, not considered to be a hardcore Kelemvorite?

That's why I am envisioning some absurd Ao-made check list. To qualify as a follower of the deity with the Judge-of-the-Dead portfolio, a mortal must satisfies this and that.

If you discovered right now, with 100% certainty, that the afterlife exists and is run by Hades (the actual mythological version, not Disney's scheming sleazeball Hades or other re- or misinterpretations), you might say "Huh, that Hades guy from mythology is pretty chill, not a jerk like Zeus or Poseidon or the rest of them. I bet when everyone dies and goes to get judged they get a pretty fair shake." But if you then continued to go about your life as normal without praying to him or reading up on his myths or trying to align yourself with the values he represents because you figure Hades is a cool guy and would totally understand, you wouldn't expect to be considered a devout Hadean if that came up during your afterlife judgment, would you?

That's basically the situation Zale is in. He didn't say "Someone who trusts in Kelemvor's judgment is sure to receive reward in death," or anything indicating he was paying any mind to Kelemvor personally, he said "A brave man in life is sure to receive reward in death," which is sort of an "I'll do whatever I think is praiseworthy and I bet Kelemvor will have my back" sort of stance--a stance, mind you, that would fit Torm or Tempus or other "patron of righteous warriors who love fighting evil" gods much better than Kelemvor. By sort of splitting things down the middle and neither going all-in on trusting Kelemvor nor trusting to Torm/Tyr/whoever and not needing to rely on Kelemvor being a nice guy at all, he ends up Faithless.

[Millstone85]

It looked like you were reading it as Zale being a devout Kelemvorite and simply not being counted as one on a technicality because he didn't go through the motions, when it was more about his belief (or lack thereof) than his actions.

Yes, that too.

But if you then continued to go about your life as normal without praying to him or reading up on his myths or trying to align yourself with the values he represents because you figure Hades is a cool guy and would totally understand, you wouldn't expect to be considered a devout Hadean if that came up during your afterlife judgment, would you?

If it were Hades' own policy to reward or punish souls based on their moral deeds, rather than on whether they can recite his or any other god's gospel, and I embraced that decision, then yes, I would make the case that I was Hadean. Maybe not a devout one, unless my faith motivated a heroic sacrifice like that of Zale here.

I guess I just can't figure out how patron gods are supposed to work in the Realms. It could be that Zale didn't have that elusive personal relationship with a god. Or maybe it was all about pledges and rituals as a sort of divine covenant (likely codified by Ao) which Zale refused to sign.

[Keltest]

Yes, that too.

If it were Hades' own policy to reward or punish souls based on their moral deeds, rather than on whether they can recite his or any other god's gospel, and I embraced that decision, then yes, I would make the case that I was Hadean. Maybe not a devout one, unless my faith motivated a heroic sacrifice like that of Zale here.

I guess I just can't figure out how patron gods are supposed to work in the Realms. It could be that Zale didn't have that elusive personal relationship with a god. Or maybe it was all about pledges and rituals as a sort of divine covenant (likely codified by Ao) which Zale refused to sign.

I think the distinction here is that Kelemvor's job as judge of the dead isnt something that mortals follow while alive. Its just his job. His actual dogma for mortals involves comforting people at time of death, making death in general less of a terrifying unknown and more of "the next great adventure" so to speak, and opposing the undead in all their forms. Zale didnt do any of that, but he apparently also didnt give any stock to any of the actual "live gloriously until you stop" gods because he figured that Kelemvor would do right by him anyway.

[LibraryOgre]

A side thought: What should Kelemvor do with the souls of the dead who no one claims? Just leave them to wander until they're snatched up by fiends? A work study program? Reincarnation if no one claims them in a certain amount of time? Claiming them himself if they're unclaimed?

"These guys are definitely mine, but if no one picks up Bob in the next 10 years, he's mine, too."

[Quertus]

No one in the Abyss gets used as fuel for an infernal device, that's Baator.

But you're right. The pull of Outer Planes on souls is often described in D&D novels as a sort of "spiritual gravity" drawing them to where the best belong. It's not a deliberate choice, it's a natural attraction.

So, I've been pondering this one.

One of the reasons for my hatred of the wall is that there is absolutely no reason for it, as, as you said, souls naturally are drawn to the destination matching their alignment (which, of course, I *also* hate, as alignment is dumb inconsistent pigeonholes).

However, supposing you were to take that "natural physics of the universe" background, and attempt to superimpose a "gods take souls to their individual divine realms" motif instead of a general "souls to go a plane" physics.

OK, sure, you might still have a few unclaimed souls. What do you do with them?

Well, why not just let them go to the plane that is drawing them? Wouldn't that be better than creating the "wall of atheism"?

We’ve got everyone’s least favorite Omelas to consider.

Least favorite?

I want to reiterate that I at the same time do not consider the Wall a big hangup for roleplay, but as far as moral navel-gazing goes I consider it cruel and either pointless (if it's removal would not change the setting significantly - it seems that that is at lest somewhat close enough to your position) or unfair (if gods get noticeable portion of current worshipers because of the Wall's threat).

That pretty well sums up my position as well.

For that, my favourite Headcanon is from the Fanfic "The Open Door" https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4320933/1/The-Open-Door

Ao is actually a medium/low Level Clerc of the Gods that created most of the Universe.
He simply has admin access in the PPocket that is the Realms, and has been kicking back and relaxing since noone of his former Superiors knows there he actually went. ^^

Fits his actions and reactions to a T and is funny, cause the fic makes the original Gods those of Oh My Goddess, for additional Realm Bashing read it. I laughes the whole ca. 15 chapters dealing with them.^^

An interesting read, I had a few laughs. Pity it so abruptly ended.

My take on it, based on some lore inconsistencies in the Avatar Trilogy, is that he's a god of divinity itself pulling one over on the other gods. Spoilered for space:

That... makes a surprising amount of sense.

[Keltest]

A side thought: What should Kelemvor do with the souls of the dead who no one claims? Just leave them to wander until they're snatched up by fiends? A work study program? Reincarnation if no one claims them in a certain amount of time? Claiming them himself if they're unclaimed?

"These guys are definitely mine, but if no one picks up Bob in the next 10 years, he's mine, too."

Theoretically sure, but why would no god claim a soul? Pre-5e, theyre literally empowered by it, so its in their interests to go and grab as many as they can, and even after that the Time of Troubles is still pretty fresh in their minds, so they arent going to go around neglecting their godly duties to mortals for a while yet.

[GrayDeath]

An interesting read, I had a few laughs. Pity it so abruptly ended.


.

Indeed, I still bemoan it.

It seems the author caught a lot of flak in forums for "making his theoretically kinda Good Chaos Guys" only fight the other Settings GOOD guys, and it made him do a terrible rewrite.

Sadly he seemed to be unable or willing to return to the original.

And while I can see a lot of bashing there, most of it was pretty much "how I would ahve done it were I Chaos and kinda invading", so ^^



But BTT:

Since the actual bad, everyone agrees, wall only makes ANY form of sense in 3rd Edition, why not simply ignore its existence later on, or reqrite it to the Wall of Mirrors or similar?
As its rather obvious its return wasnt part of a great new planar concept, but msotly laziness/bad research? ^^

[Anymage]

A side thought: What should Kelemvor do with the souls of the dead who no one claims? Just leave them to wander until they're snatched up by fiends? A work study program? Reincarnation if no one claims them in a certain amount of time? Claiming them himself if they're unclaimed?

"These guys are definitely mine, but if no one picks up Bob in the next 10 years, he's mine, too."

If I've read things right, the false are already the dead that nobody else would claim. Offering the faithless a similar chance at a meh afterlife in Kelemvor's realm with at most the wall of mirrors against them doesn't feel like as an over-the-top punishment.

Militant athar-level faithless would be free to decide that gods suck so much that they don't even want to spend time in a godly realm. At which point they're told that the alternative is to wander the fugue plane until they either fade away or fall victim to fiends in one way or another. They're allowed entry, but not forced to stay. Occasionally a small band of faithless might meet up and band together for mutual defense, but it's still a harsh wilderness life.

You basically keep the incentive for people in-universe to pick a god, while downplaying the feel of swordpoint conversion. (Being thrown into an inescapable prison until you fade away isn't technically the same as being killed on the spot, but we're still talking similar levels of nasty.)

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I guess I just can't figure out how patron gods are supposed to work in the Realms. It could be that Zale didn't have that elusive personal relationship with a god. Or maybe it was all about pledges and rituals as a sort of divine covenant (likely codified by Ao) which Zale refused to sign.

Basically, the Realms situation is "cleric lite" for everyone. Every person in the Realms worships every god at some point or another, as is standard for polytheism: take in a good harvest this year, offer thanks to Chauntea; manage to get a new job, offer thanks to Lathander; get promoted over a jerkish boss, offer thanks to Bane; survived a stormy sea voyage, offer thanks to Umberlee; and so on. But just like how clerics have a special relationship with their patron gods, everyone also offers extra devotion to a particular god with which they resonate the most, for reasons spiritual (Sune's values appeal to them the most) or practical (they're a merchant so having Waukeen's favor is a good thing) or regional (their village was saved from a massive storm a generation ago so now everyone of a certain age worships Talos) or otherwise.

What that means is that a relationship with a patron god isn't one-size-fits-all. We've seen clerics with close personal relationships with their patrons (early Elminster with Mystra), clerics with a sort of "chosen one" position who get more attention but not necessarily more communication (Cadderly with Deneir), and clerics who view it as a mostly transactional relationship (Variance Amatick with Shar); we've seen clerics who love their patron (Adon with Sune), clerics who fear their patron (Malik with Cyric), and clerics who merely put up with their patron (Erevis Cale with Mask). So it doesn't matter what specifically a given person does with respect to their patron or how they feel or whatever, whether they want to keep their patron in their thoughts at all times or mostly leave that to the temple services on weekends, what matters is that they choose a patron and follow through with whatever they think a patron-worshiper relationship looks like.

However, supposing you were to take that "natural physics of the universe" background, and attempt to superimpose a "gods take souls to their individual divine realms" motif instead of a general "souls to go a plane" physics.

OK, sure, you might still have a few unclaimed souls. What do you do with them?

Well, why not just let them go to the plane that is drawing them? Wouldn't that be better than creating the "wall of atheism"?

Paradoxically, it's worse for the Good gods if they just let things take their natural course, as Kelemvor kinda sorta realized. Good souls ending up in the Upper Planes and Evil souls ending up in the Lower Planes outside of any god's realm become petitioners with basically no memory of their previous lives, which sucks for everyone regardless of alignment, but the baseline suckitude of a Good soul's afterlife is much less than that of an Evil soul's afterlife. So a Faithless free-for-all policy is likely to lead to more Good Faithless than Evil ones, weakening the Good gods and making conditions incrementally worse on Toril, making Good people not trust in the Good gods to have their backs, leading to more Good faithless, weakening the Good gods....

The Evil gods, of course, presumably like having the Wall as an alternative to point to. "Bane or eternal torment in the Wall" is a much more palatable choice than "Bane or a chance to work your way up the Baatorian hierarchy without him" to any Banite who joined out of duress/ignorance/foolishness/etc. and is starting to have second thoughts. And if any mortal thinks that's an unconscionable thing the Good gods shouldn't put up with and they're hardly Good if they don't tear it down? Welp, that's one fewer soul for the side of Good!

Of course, none of this is a problem without Ao's "thou shalt live and die based on worship base" decree, but given that that's in place, one can see why the Good gods might hold their noses and put up with it and why the Evil ones are in no hurry to get rid of it.

Theoretically sure, but why would no god claim a soul? Pre-5e, theyre literally empowered by it, so its in their interests to go and grab as many as they can, and even after that the Time of Troubles is still pretty fresh in their minds, so they arent going to go around neglecting their godly duties to mortals for a while yet.

It's less that no god would want to claim a soul and more that there have to be strict rules about when one's allowed to claim a given soul or you run into all sorts of problems, with gods claiming jurisdiction based on tenuous reasons or gods with more power and bigger portfolios hogging more souls because they can throw their weight around or the like. "Faithless souls cannot be claimed by any god, period" is the least objectionable compromise position.

Since the actual bad, everyone agrees, wall only makes ANY form of sense in 3rd Edition, why not simply ignore its existence later on, or reqrite it to the Wall of Mirrors or similar?
As its rather obvious its return wasnt part of a great new planar concept, but msotly laziness/bad research? ^^

I do precisely that. All of the Realms campaigns I've ever run have occurred in the same "timeline," with previous parties' achievements and legacies being occasionally referenced and bits of canon being changed based on prior events. While running my first 3e Realms campaign the party was pissed when they found out that the Wall had been brought back, so the next campaign was set in the late 1360s DR (shortly before the canonical 3e switchover in 1372 DR that would technically be the point at which the Wall would have come back) and consisted of a party of PCs who were disillusioned with the gods for various reason and made it their mission to prevent the Wall's return when they got to be powerful enough to do so. That party succeeded in their goal, so in my Realms there has never been a Wall post-Time of Troubles, Kelemvor took a different approach with the Faithless and False, and the whole afterlife system has been altered accordingly.

[Jason]

AD&D 1e made the maximum strength for women something like 3-5 lower than men, across races. While women could be fighters, 1e made them decidedly worse.

Not exactly. AD&D did cap strength at character generation for some races and genders. Female halflings maxed out at 14 strength, for instance. But there were also minimum scores - all dwarves had to have at least 8 strength, for instance. Strength wasn't the only stat with caps by race either. Max intelligence for a half-orc was 17, for instance, and max Charisma for a dwarf was 16. Your stats were modified by your race, but you also had to roll stats that reached the minimums for the race you wanted to play in order to play that race.

A female human of any class other than fighter had the same maximum strength as a male human: 18.
Fighters (and Rangers and Paladins, which are considered subclasses of Fighters) were the exception. Fighters who rolled an 18 strength got to roll for "exceptional strength" as a class feature, rolling a percentile die. Max strength for a human was 18/00 strength. Female human fighters were capped at 18/50. In game terms that meant the very rare (but never as rare as he statistically should have been) 18/00 human male fighter had a +3 to-hit and +6 damage bonus, while the somewhat more common 18/50 fighter, male or female, had +1 to-hit and +3 damage.
Strength was the only attribute where females had a lower cap than males for any race. The caps were equal between the sexes for all other attributes. It was explained as an attempt at realism, not sexism.

2nd edition dropped any strength limits by sex, but kept the racial minimum attributes and some of the caps. Halfling fighters still couldn't roll for exceptional strength. They were limited to 18 strength.

EDIT: Note that later editions still have attribute caps based on race, they are just less overt. Starting humans for instance max out at 19 Strength in 5th edition, while a dragonborn or half-orc can start at 20 strength.

[Quertus]

Theoretically sure, but why would no god claim a soul? Pre-5e, theyre literally empowered by it, so its in their interests to go and grab as many as they can, and even after that the Time of Troubles is still pretty fresh in their minds, so they arent going to go around neglecting their godly duties to mortals for a while yet.

No, we Illithids have a superior deity, who proved that assertion to be incorrect: gods are *not* empowered by petitioners, but by *living* followers. As demonstrated by all they followers' souls being eaten by elder brains.

Indeed, I still bemoan it.

It seems the author caught a lot of flak in forums for "making his theoretically kinda Good Chaos Guys" only fight the other Settings GOOD guys, and it made him do a terrible rewrite.

Sadly he seemed to be unable or willing to return to the original.

And while I can see a lot of bashing there, most of it was pretty much "how I would ahve done it were I Chaos and kinda invading", so ^^



But BTT:

Since the actual bad, everyone agrees, wall only makes ANY form of sense in 3rd Edition, why not simply ignore its existence later on, or reqrite it to the Wall of Mirrors or similar?
As its rather obvious its return wasnt part of a great new planar concept, but msotly laziness/bad research? ^^

There's… an alternate version? Have I must! (You can help with this, yes yes?)

It's a pity his fans lacked the ability to handle the moral "ambiguity" of good vs good (or "good" vs "good"). Makes the comments by Lars about discussing morality with demons, and their simplistic views, sound like it was actually directed at his fans. (Apropos to this thread, I thoroughly agree with his assertion that evil is a saint doing what he believes that he must - sounds like Good's misguided defense of the Wall to me.)

As to the wall, it's just one more reason for most of my characters to want to overthrow the gods and fix the world.

[LibraryOgre]

Not exactly.

...

Absolutely none of that contradicted what I said... women had lower strength caps in absolutely every case, making them worse fighters. And they may have called it "realism", but the result was sexism.

[Quertus]

Absolutely none of that contradicted what I said... women had lower strength caps in absolutely every case, making them worse fighters. And they may have called it "realism", but the result was sexism.

As a moderator, I would love your input I would love to hear your input as a moderator on just how hard I can push back on statements like this. That said…

How are you defining being ____ist? Dwarves have lower Strength caps than Minotaurs - is that racist (speciesist)? Humans move slower than horses - is that ____ist?

Most records, sports, and Olympic events are separated by (biological?) gender, are they not? With men presumably still holding higher records for pure strength-based challenges.

Where does something stop being (or become more than) Science or Realism?

(Mind you, I say all this as someone who was happy when they removed gender differences to stats - my concern is with the accusation of sexism)

[Jason]

Absolutely none of that contradicted what I said... women had lower strength caps in absolutely every case, making them worse fighters. And they may have called it "realism", but the result was sexism.

No, im not contradicting you, just correcting the details. You said "3-5 points". That was inaccurate. It also wasn't the full context, since caps were present on other attributes for other races regardless of gender or racial adjustments as well.
In fact, only male human fighters could have 18/00 strength. Even male half-orc and dwarf fighters were limited to 18/99. And half-orcs had a +1 racial adjustment and therefore could theoretically at least roll a 19 for their starting strength (unfortunately for someone who rolled an 18 with a +1 racial adjustment none of the attribute tables in the 1st edition PHB go above 18. The 2nd edition tables went up to 25).

It's realistic because the very strongest human males do actually have a biological advantage over the very strongest females when it comes to raw lifting strength. Look at Olympic weight-lifting records - something Gygax cited when speaking about strength and why he set things up as he did.

[Vahnavoi]

See, Jason, details of the system don't matter if the fundamental argument your up against is equivalent to "any acknowledgement of physical differences between sexes in game rules is sexist".

[GloatingSwine]

See, Jason, details of the system don't matter if the fundamental argument your up against is equivalent to "any acknowledgement of physical differences between sexes in game rules is sexist".

Yes. Because games exist to let people play outside of the context where that is true.

There is no argument from "realism", because the game does not exist to simulate reality, it exists to facilitate heroic roleplay for everyone, no matter how they choose to incarnate themselves in the game world.

(See also: Why the Wall of the Faithless must be torn down).

[Vahnavoi]

The tragedy of that kind of argumentation is that the rules don't actually fail at facilitating heroic roleplay for female fighters - the rules are just a casualty to a specific reading of a point the game itself (and Gygax himself) doesn't even disagree with it.

[Theoboldi]

The tragedy of that kind of argumentation is that the rules don't actually fail at facilitating heroic roleplay for female fighters - the rules are just a casualty to a specific reading of a point the game itself (and Gygax himself) doesn't even disagree with it.

I think it's not so much an issue of facilitating roleplaying, but rather that it is an extremely arbitrary inclusion of real life simulation in a game that otherwise is not so concerned with realism or granular, and then only serves to disadvantage female characters. Even though it only applies in edge cases, it's a very pointless and ultimately just hurtful rule.

Not quite sure what this all has to do with the Wall of Faith, though, nor how that setting element discourages heroic roleplaying? As someone who's been idly observing this thread, I hope GloatingSwine can elaborate on that.

[Vahnavoi]

@Theoboldi: mobile version of this site doesn't allow me to easily link to individual posts, but you might as well browse to Page 2 of this thread, to an exchange between me and NorthernPhoenix.

An argument was made that the Wall of the Faithless exists to discourage players from making Faithless characters. This is analogous to the idea that AD&D has Strength caps to discourage players from making female fighters.

[GloatingSwine]

The tragedy of that kind of argumentation is that the rules don't actually fail at facilitating heroic roleplay for female fighters - the rules are just a casualty to a specific reading of a point the game itself (and Gygax himself) doesn't even disagree with it.

It constrains the choices for a female character in a way that it does not for a male character. The game is, in this instance, having an opinion on what it means to be female in its setting which is to the detriment of anyone who wants to be a fighter and female. They will, simply be worse because the game was of the opinion that women were worse. (it had many other opinions in the olden days, especially about what classes different races were allowed to be).

Not quite sure what this all has to do with the Wall of Faith, though, nor how that setting element discourages heroic roleplaying? As someone who's been idly observing this thread, I hope GloatingSwine can elaborate on that.

The setting is, again, having an opinion about the relationship its characters should have with the gods of the setting (by making it metaphysically necessary for mortals to worship parasitic gods, to the extent that those not sufficiently obsequious must be undone, and this is not presented as a cosmic injustice by an evil god but a necessary metaphysical concept of the universe).

Again, there's a mechanical detriment to players who disagree, souls in the wall of the faithless can't be resurrected.

[Theoboldi]

@Theoboldi: mobile version of this site doesn't allow me to easily link to individual posts, but you might as well browse to Page 2 of this thread, to an exchange between me and NorthernPhoenix.

An argument was made that the Wall of the Faithless exists to discourage players from making Faithless characters. This is analogous to the idea that AD&D has Strength caps to discourage players from making female fighters.

Ah, thanks for pointing that out. The argument was made, though I am not sure if it's the same point Gloating is getting at. I'm not quite sure I buy that something like that was the reason, given how some official stories within the Realms revolve around characters opposing the gods and the wall. (Then again, D&D has introduced dumber elements to preserve the genres of certain settings.) Even if I were to take it as a granted, though, I'm not sure if it's comparable to gender-based strength caps.

Anyways, I'm gonna return to lurking now and see if Gloating confirms that.

Edit: Hrm, ninja'd.

[Jason]

Yes. Because games exist to let people play outside of the context where that is true.

There is no argument from "realism", because the game does not exist to simulate reality, it exists to facilitate heroic roleplay for everyone, no matter how they choose to incarnate themselves in the game world.

(See also: Why the Wall of the Faithless must be torn down).

Basically the designers agreed with you that this was a part of reality that did not have to be simulated in D&D, and the caps on Strength by gender disappeared in 2nd Edition.

They did still have different height/weight tables by gender, until 5th edition apparently decided that part of reality didn't have to be simulated either. They did it not by creating new tables, but by eliminating the female rows of the existing table. So, effectively, the height/weight table assumes that characters will be male, since it no longer provides an option for female adventurers and it's the same numbers that were used by males in earlier editions.

[GloatingSwine]

So, effectively, the height/weight table assumes that characters will be male, since it no longer provides an option for female adventurers and it's the same numbers that were used by males in earlier editions.

Or just that there aren't mechanically meaningful differences between adventurers because of gender or physical sex. Which is what best supports the game being open and attractive to the most number of people.

[Jason]

Or just that there aren't mechanically meaningful differences between adventurers because of gender or physical sex. Which is what best supports the game being open and attractive to the most number of people.

In the case of the height/weight tables the game has effectively said there are no cosmetic differences between the genders any longer. Those tables were always optional and had no real game effect (unless weight came up during play, and in most such instances, such as setting off traps or having an unconscious adventurer be carried out of danger by someone who was still active, being lighter would be an advantage), so there was no mechanical advantage or disadvantage to eliminating the female entries on the table.