Should females be represented differently than males in RPGs?

[rusty_shackleford]

The problem with 'women are less intelligent' is that it assumes there's only one kind of intelligence.

Arguably men and women have the same average intelligence — if we assume some sort of academic intelligence, but that is a meaningless statistic for RPGs. Men tend to fall further from the mean than women do in nearly all areas, intelligence is no exception. So, yes, when averaging it out they may be close. But RPGs are not about the averages — we must assume that adventurers are in the top .1% or .01%. It's simply a fact that women rarely show up at this level of academic pursuits. Yes, there's a few, but they're the overwhelming minority.

However, women tend to excel at, for lack of a better term, emotional intelligence. This is a very important trait for adventuring, as it should be a factor in nearly any social interaction hostile or not. Being able to read people, empathy, manipulation, and so forth.
D&D was not designed with this in mind obviously, but it's something worth exploring for sure.

[MadPreacher]

Looking at AD&D 2E this is what it says about Intelligence:

Intelligence (Int) represents a character’s memory, reasoning, and learning ability, including areas outside those measured by the written word.

This ability gives only a general indication of a character’s mental acuity. A semi-intelligent character (Int 3 or 4) can speak (with difficulty) and is apt to react instinctively and impulsively. He is not hopeless as a player character (PC), but playing such a character correctly is not easy. A character with low Intelligence (Int 5–7) could also be called dull-witted or slow. A very intelligent person (Int 11 or 12) picks up new ideas quickly and learns easily. A highly intelligent character (Int 13 or 14) is one who can solve most problems without even trying very hard. One with exceptional intelligence (Int 15 or 16) is noticeably above the norm. A genius character is brilliant (Int 17 or 18). A character beyond genius is potentially more clever and more brilliant than can possibly be imagined.

Based off of this metric women are equal to men when it comes memory, reasoning, and learning ability.

Let's look at Wisdom then.

Wisdom (Wis) describes a composite of the character's enlightenment, judgment, guile, willpower, common sense, and intuition.

You'll find no better emotional manipulators than women.

The final stat that would apply to your reasoning would be Charisma.

The Charisma (Cha) score measures a character’s persuasiveness, personal magnetism, and ability to lead.

Can women be persuasive? Oh yeah and that's your emotional intelligence. Charisma grants a bonus or penalty to NPC reactions.

So I don't see a need why women would get a penalty in any of the stats except for Strength. That's a biological hard limit.

[Ratcatcher]

for lack of a better term, emotional intelligence.

There's actually an unified theory about what you're writing. Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences. There's no emotional intelligence per se but it could be relevant so I'll list them:

Logical/Mathematical
Interpersonal <---- diz is what you refer to.
Intrapersonal
Spatial
Linguistic <--- also diz
Musical
Bodily-Kinestetic
Natural (Organic)

[WhiteShark]

The problem with 'women are less intelligent' is that it assumes there's only one kind of intelligence.

Arguably men and women have the same average intelligence — if we assume some sort of academic intelligence, but that is a meaningless statistic for RPGs. Men tend to fall further from the mean than women do in nearly all areas, intelligence is no exception. So, yes, when averaging it out they may be close. But RPGs are not about the averages — we must assume that adventurers are in the top .1% or .01%. It's simply a fact that women rarely show up at this level of academic pursuits. Yes, there's a few, but they're the overwhelming minority.

However, women tend to excel at, for lack of a better term, emotional intelligence. This is a very important trait for adventuring, as it should be a factor in nearly any social interaction hostile or not. Being able to read people, empathy, manipulation, and so forth.
D&D was not designed with this in mind obviously, but it's something worth exploring for sure.

I don't know about emotional intelligence, but it's not true that men and women have the same average intelligence. Men average 4+ IQ points higher than women.

So there's a gap in physical ability and a gap in mental ability, but perhaps most importantly, there's a gap in decisiveness. Even if women were just as intelligent and physically capable as men, the fact that they can't come to big decisions quickly is killer in a high-stakes situation. So again, even if we relegate female adventurers to roles they could theoretically fill, it is as GhostCow said in a now-separate thread:

Do you think women should be in the military? I don't. You've probably heard all the arguments so I won't bother explaining why. I don't think they should be in adventuring parties either for the same reason, as adventuring parties are basically small combat units. Sure, they could technically do those things, but is it a good idea? Probably not. Would women have been doing any of those things in the eras that most fantasy worlds are based on? Almost certainly not.

[Landers78]

There is also the point that in games everyone can max out their stats quite easily. I'll use D&D as the example here;

Original D&D (and most other old C/RPG's) had your rolled stats, and that was it. Sure, you might find a magic tome, or something like that to get a permanent boost, but an 18(00) strength (that women couldn't get) was like a 1 percent dice roll. Exceedingly rare. So a fighter for example would be lucky to get a 16/17 and especially an 18 for strength. Same for other stats. Many gamers today don't except that you can't get high scores, so yesterdays rare rolls are just treated as the norm.

How many of guys would be happy with heading out with a 15 or 16 strength for your fighter class character, when you look at the possibility of 18(00)? Some probably, but I bet plenty of them would just keep on rollin' till they got that Conan the Barbarian number.

Realistically, women in D&D should be on par with Halflings (15 max), but it should take into account that a 16 strength male was a pretty strong guy, and was a decent strength roll back in the old days.

Even then, if a female found gauntlets of Ogre strength, instant 18(00), no problems. Or one of the girdles of Giant Strength, straight into the 20's. So there are ways, however rare, to get to insane levels for them.

But, gamers gonna game.

[Tweed]

I think I've played like one RPG in the entire existence of my life that actually gave women higher endurance than men because women have a greater tolerance for pain, but I can't remember which one.

In KotC 2 females kobolds are stronger while the males are smarter, so my gladiators were womyn and my casters were male.

[Acrux]

It shouldn't be surprising that Gygax did some research on different levels of strength across men and women to determine max STR for each. It usually turns out to be the case when there's something controversial.

https://www.failsquadgames.com/blog/strength/

In AD&D (1E) E Gary Gygax abbreviates the numbers to physical upper body strength. A person with a 3 is assumed to Military press 30 lbs over their head. Those of 18 – 180 lbs. A military press is lifting the weight from the shoulders, then over the head.

What’s interesting is the following charts from Cody Blog.

Military Press: Women
BODYWEIGHT UN-TRAINED 6-9 MO. TRAINING
114 36 49
123 38 52
132 40 55
148 44 60
165 48 65
181 51 70
Military Press: Men
BODYWEIGHT UN-TRAINED 6-9 MO. TRAINING
132 61 84
148 69 94
165 75 102
181 81 110
198 85 116
220 89 122
It would appear that (No surprise) Gary did his homework again. Over-all the average runs into about 9-11. The variant from women to men is a bit surprising, although I know a number of ladies who laugh at these numbers. These numbers are, however, meant to be averages of average folks. In real world terms, I think this assumes more weight to mean muscle weight.

[Acrux]

I think I've played like one RPG in the entire existence of my life that actually gave women higher endurance than men because women have a greater tolerance for pain, but I can't remember which one.

Arcanum

[gerey]

In general I'm against giving players the choice of making a female PC, mostly because it's a waste of resources and just attracts weirdos to the community (women, ******, coomers et al). Devs are also forced to make equal amounts of content for both sexes despite the fact a tiny minority of the playerbase actually picks a female PC. If the protagonist is fully voiced then that adds even more costs.

I recall BioWare doing a survey on how many people picked male vs female Shepard, and it turns out that even among the most woke playerbase, playing games made by one of the most woke developers (at the time) that were heavily marketing and pandering to the female demographic, the number of people that picked female Shepard was less than 20%.

If you must include a choice of sex, then do something akin to Arcanum, but instead of a penalty to their constitution women get a bonus to their charisma, but also suffer a penalty to their strength or constitution or both. If the players wants to play an amazon then he can pick the appropriate trait that would nullify the strength/constitution penalty.

[Ratcatcher]

because women have a greater tolerance for pain

...if only this was even remotely true. As far as I can tell, it stems from mechanisms that increase thei levels of endorphin, enkefaline and dinorphin during childbirth. When talking bodily harm, grievous injuries and so on, the ability of the male body to be subject to harm and keep functioning is much higher. Even in childbirth, studies shows those increased levels are mainly a thing when a woman has multile children. That is, it's not some sort of organic adaptation, it's their brain that becomes more apt at preparing and fighting that specific kind of pain.

So unless your women are having babies in combat, no, women shouldn't have an higher CON stat than men simply because the amount of damage needed to render their bodies unresponsives is much lower

[Tweed]

So unless your women are having babies in combat

They do in Dwarf Fortress.

[Ratcatcher]

They do in Dwarf Fortress.

Sure. Soon male dwarves will too, so the point is moot anyway.

[Fargus]

In general I'm against giving players the choice of making a female PC, mostly because it's a waste of resources and just attracts weirdos to the community (women, ******, coomers et al). Devs are also forced to make equal amounts of content for both sexes despite the fact a tiny minority of the playerbase actually picks a female PC. If the protagonist is fully voiced then that adds even more costs.

Great post and i agree with you and feel even stronger against the inclusion of female characters and treating them the same as male. And voiced protagonist should be outlawed as one of the worst offenses against rpg.

I recall BioWare doing a survey on how many people picked male vs female Shepard, and it turns out that even among the most woke playerbase, playing games made by one of the most woke developers (at the time) that were heavily marketing and pandering to the female demographic, the number of people that picked female Shepard was less than 20%.

Most of the female shepard players couldn't stfu about Jennifer Hale and how her VA was the best thing since sliced bread or how they like to **** Garrus. That was about the only thing they brough to the community. Femshep was indeed a mistake.

If you must include a choice of sex, then do something akin to Arcanum, but instead of a penalty to their constitution women get a bonus to their charisma, but also suffer a penalty to their strength or constitution or both. If the players wants to play an amazon then he can pick the appropriate trait that would nullify the strength/constitution penalty.

One important detail about Arcanum. It wasn't just stat difference. Female characters also faced discrimination, don't know how much but i know they were forbidden to enter gentlemans club and they also had exclusive ***** questline. I personally never played arcanum as femoid and can't tell to what extent the dialogue changes when you do play as one, but the fact itself was hilarious. I think the only other game that did it in my memory was Fallout 2 where you can play as dumb cocksleeve and npcs will treat you diffirently if you are a female with high charisma. Not to mention different quest solutions.

Stuff like female warriors wasn't also a normal thing for the arcanum setting. I remember very few of them to be honest.

[Konjad]

In party based RPGs both women and men should suffer penalties (in case of D&D especially to WIS and CHA) if they are too long lonely.

Party based RPGs should reward the player for having equal amount of women and men in the party, and have stat boosts (for CHA and WIS).

Women and men could have different stats in general, i.e. STR for men, CHA for women, but in general computer RPGs (and later P&P) screwed it with "assign anything you like" instead of die rolls, and before it was too easy to roll-scum. Why even have such stats, force not much difference from average and change it during gameplay (but where boosting one stat a lot means lowering other)

[Acrux]

Another reason differrent female stats worked in Arcanum is that the premise of the game is built on 19th century pseudoscience. There are many things like that in the game, such a suggestion that elves and orcs have a common descent from humans.

[Roguey]

Should? No. This is the power fantasy business.

[gerey]

Should? No. This is the power fantasy business.

I disagree. Sure, you can have female guards and soldiers, and women joining parties to go on adventures, and you can even ignore any differences between the sexes, but the more you deviate from the way things work in our reality, the more you deviate from how our history developed, the more worldbuilding and explaining you have to do.

Because if women are the equals of men, not just in terms of status, but also physiologically and psychologically, then this changes the whole course of human development. Women weren't treated differently from men because of some shadowy, nefarious Patriarchy that got their kicks from oppressing women and denying them the same rights as men, but because there were very valid reasons to treat them differently, which in turn didn't mean they were brutalized or abused.

You can't just say "it's fantasy" and call it a day. Tolkien certainly didn't think creating a fantasy world was justification enough to handwave customs and history, so why should other fantasy authors not be held to the same standards?

If your medieval army consists of 50% women you better have a very good explanation how such a state of affairs came to be, how fraternization is handled and how they deal with the risk of pregnancies before the advent of cheap and affordable birth control, how the nation can replenish their numbers if they suffer massive loses in the army and all the adult women of birthing age are dead.

[Roguey]

Should? No. This is the power fantasy business.

I disagree. Sure, you can have female guards and soldiers, and women joining parties to go on adventures, and you can even ignore any differences between the sexes, but the more you deviate from the way things work in our reality, the more you deviate from how our history developed, the more worldbuilding and explaining you have to do.

Because if women are the equals of men, not just in terms of status, but also physiologically and psychologically, then this changes the whole course of human development. Women weren't treated differently from men because of some shadowy, nefarious Patriarchy that got their kicks from oppressing women and denying them the same rights as men, but because there were very valid reasons to treat them differently, which in turn didn't mean they were brutalized or abused.

You can't just say "it's fantasy" and call it a day. Tolkien certainly didn't think creating a fantasy world was justification enough to handwave customs and history, so why should other fantasy authors not be held to the same standards?

If your medieval army consists of 50% women you better have a very good explanation how such a state of affairs came to be, how fraternization is handled and how they deal with the risk of pregnancies before the advent of cheap and affordable birth control, how the nation can replenish their numbers if they suffer massive loses in the army and all the adult women of birthing age are dead.

No one has to explain anything since most people don't care. This is how most RPGs have worked for several decades and how they'll continue to work.

[rusty_shackleford]

Should? No. This is the power fantasy business.

I disagree. Sure, you can have female guards and soldiers, and women joining parties to go on adventures, and you can even ignore any differences between the sexes, but the more you deviate from the way things work in our reality, the more you deviate from how our history developed, the more worldbuilding and explaining you have to do.

Because if women are the equals of men, not just in terms of status, but also physiologically and psychologically, then this changes the whole course of human development. Women weren't treated differently from men because of some shadowy, nefarious Patriarchy that got their kicks from oppressing women and denying them the same rights as men, but because there were very valid reasons to treat them differently, which in turn didn't mean they were brutalized or abused.

You can't just say "it's fantasy" and call it a day. Tolkien certainly didn't think creating a fantasy world was justification enough to handwave customs and history, so why should other fantasy authors not be held to the same standards?

If your medieval army consists of 50% women you better have a very good explanation how such a state of affairs came to be, how fraternization is handled and how they deal with the risk of pregnancies before the advent of cheap and affordable birth control, how the nation can replenish their numbers if they suffer massive loses in the army and all the adult women of birthing age are dead.

No one has to explain anything since most people don't care. This is how most RPGs have worked for several decades and how they'll continue to work.

It's also a good part of the reason why they're crap now.

[MadPreacher]

No one has to explain anything since most people don't care. This is how most RPGs have worked for several decades and how they'll continue to work.

It all depends on if you are talking about pen and paper or computer. If it's the former then it matters. If it's the latter then it's lazy developers.

[Segata]

Women should be able to beat the game by sleeping with all the key NPCs

[cpmartins]

Even Todd thinks so, just listen to how passionate he is about females in his games:

[Ravenloft]

"Should females be represented in RPGs?"

No.

[Roguey]

It's also a good part of the reason why they're crap now.

The number of RPGs you'd consider not-crap would be very small then.

It all depends on if you are talking about pen and paper or computer. If it's the former then it matters. If it's the latter then it's lazy developers.

Most people didn't care when D&D, the most popular pen and paper RPG by far, dropped the strength differences.

[rusty_shackleford]

Most people didn't care when D&D, the most popular pen and paper RPG by far, dropped the strength differences.

Define: "Most people"
TSR's D&D was making more under Gary Gygax than it is right now. We know this because of all the various lawsuits documenting the income from that era.

[MadPreacher]

Most people didn't care when D&D, the most popular pen and paper RPG by far, dropped the strength differences.

Real D&D™ never dropped the strength differences. In fact, there were plenty of tables back in the 1990s that still used the cap on strength for female characters. AD&D 2E still has the caps for races like Halflings can't have exceptional strength.

DANDINO™ doesn't count since it's not D&D in the slightest mechanically. It's a lifestyle brand now. The sooner you come to grips with that reality the better.

So come Roguey tell me again that Real D&D™ didn't have strength differences. I need a good ******* laugh today.

[Acrux]

The number of RPGs you'd consider not-crap would be very small then.

Yes.

[Roguey]

Define: "Most people"
TSR's D&D was making more under Gary Gygax than it is right now. We know this because of all the various lawsuits documenting the income from that era.

If there was a bigger market for "D&D the way it used to be" it would have been filled.

Real D&D™ never dropped the strength differences. In fact, there were plenty of tables back in the 1990s that still used the cap on strength for female characters. AD&D 2E still has the caps for races like Halflings can't have exceptional strength.

DANDINO™ doesn't count since it's not D&D in the slightest mechanically. It's a lifestyle brand now. The sooner you come to grips with that reality the better.

So come Roguey tell me again that Real D&D™ didn't have strength differences. I need a good ******* laugh today.

Gary himself never enforced the rule and dropped the limitations in a post-D&D ruleset https://www.enworld.org/threads/q-a-wit ... st-1449350 https://www.enworld.org/threads/q-a-wit ... st-2054939

[MadPreacher]

Gary himself never enforced the rule and dropped the limitations in a post-D&D ruleset https://www.enworld.org/threads/q-a-wit ... st-1449350 https://www.enworld.org/threads/q-a-wit ... st-2054939

He exercised rule 0 that he wrote on page 9 of the original AD&D 1E DMG.

Know the game systems, and you will know how and when to take upon yourself the ultimate power. To become the final arbiter, rather than the interpreter of the rules, can be a difficult and demanding task, and it cannot be undertaken lightly, for your players expect to play this game, not one made up on the spot. By the same token, they are playing the game the way you, their DM, imagines and creates it. Remembering that the game is greater than its parts, and knowing all of the parts, you will have overcome the greater part of the challenge of being a referee. Being a true DM requires cleverness and imagination which no set of rules books can bestow. Seeing that you were clever enough to buy this volume, and you have enough imagination to desire to become the maker of a fantasy world, you are almost there already! Read and become familiar with the contents of this work and the one written for players, learn your monsters, and spice things up with some pantheons of super-powerful beings. Then put your judging and refereeing ability into the creation of your own personal milieu, and you have donned the mantle of Dungeon Master. Welcome to the exalted ranks of the overworked and harassed, whose cleverness and imagination are all too often unappreciated by cloddish characters whose only thought in life is to loot, pillage, slay, and who fail to appreciate the hours of preparation which went into the creation of what they aim to destroy as cheaply and quickly as possible. As a DM you must live by the immortal words of the sage who said: “Never give a sucker an even break.” Also, don’t be a sucker for your players, for you’d better be sure they follow sage advice too. As the DM, you have to prove in every game that you are still the best. This book is dedicated to helping to assure that you are.

Do you understand why the AD&D rules existed? Of course not, because you are a child and you weren't alive then. I was. The AD&D rules were there to provide a set of tournament rules to use at GenCon. Thus, any sanctioned GenCon event with the RPGA you had to use these rules as a whole. That's the tournament scene.

In the privacy of your own table you are free to choose what rules you wanted to use or not. Citing Gary for his peculiar way of running D&D as a way of disproving the very writing he did is dishonest.

Many a table I played at we used the capped strength. In others, we didn't. It was up to the DM to decide what rules he wanted to use and we could ask politely to use certain rules that he didn't use. Most of the time the DM said no thanks.

Oh citing Lejendary Adventure is laughable as reason why capped Strength was removed by him. Do you want to know why he didn't use it? Because Lorraine Williams took him to court to stop him from publishing Dangerous Journeys by claiming it was an illegal derivative of his work for D&D/AD&D. That's right. He was sued for any similarity to the rules he wrote that built TSR. That's why he didn't have them in Lejendary Adventure. He didn't want to spend another $100,000 in legal fees defending against a frivolous lawsuit.

When you can actually present a valid argument against AD&D's original rules on sexual dimorphism I'll listen. I may laugh at your idiocy, but I'll listen.

[JarlFrank]

If there was a bigger market for "D&D the way it used to be" it would have been filled.

There is one right now and it's actually doing pretty well.