Female characters in Runequest

[atgxtg]

I'm not a fan of doing these types of adjustments for PCs. For NPCs, I just make up the stats anyway, so I'd make up any female STR and SIZ stats just like male ones: as I perceive the character, so the females will be smaller and less strong on average.

The real issue with this for me though is that it's an attempt to be "realistic" and then in the name of fairness you add a bunch of unrealistic changes in to other stats. If you're goal is realism, then lower STR and SIZ for females and don't adjust anything else. That's the way it is in the real world: men are significantly bigger, faster, and stronger than women. There's no fairness about it. It's just the way it is. There is no compensation on the other end, unless you include increased lifespans for women. (Even that is a very modern thing. Historically, men outlive women by a significant number of years. However, magical healing might be a good equalizer there.).

I beg to differ. Women with smaller fingers tend to be better at fine manipulation skills. THey also tend to be more agile and flexible. It is one reason why in certain athletic endeavers such as gymastics and figure skating there are things that women can do that men generally can't.

The whole sqaure cube law means that while men are larger and stronger, thier size increaes faster than thier STR, so women actually have a higher muscle to weight ratio. Hence the reason why most gymnasts are small.

There are even other differences regarding how the two generders think that could have game ramifications. THe real world US Army has done tests that indicate that women respond faster in ambush situations. Men tend to take a few more seconds to grasp the situation and react.

So a realistic game could easy justify adjustments for gender.

BTW, the big reason for the shoter lifespan of women, historically, was childbirth. Until relatively recently, it was the number one cause of death among women. Even today it is still number 2 or 3.

 

[RMS]

I'm debating whether I should get into this any more, but I'll do it for a bit.

I beg to differ. Women with smaller fingers tend to be better at fine manipulation skills. THey also tend to be more agile and flexible. It is one reason why in certain athletic endeavers such as gymastics and figure skating there are things that women can do that men generally can't.

There's some truth in this, but it's well below the granularity in a 3-18 stat range, while differences in STR and SIZ are much larger. However, the main thing DEX does in RQ is determines speed in combat...something men have a decided advantage (speed in general, not just combat) over women. I'd also disagree with the fine manipulation skills part. I can't see any justification for that point of view.

The whole sqaure cube law means that while men are larger and stronger, thier size increaes faster than thier STR, so women actually have a higher muscle to weight ratio. Hence the reason why most gymnasts are small.

This isn't even close to correct. Women have far less lean body mass as a percentage of body weight than men. Men are significantly stronger per pound than women. Testosterone is your friend if you want strength!

I've always assumed most gymnasts are small because everyone who's a good athlete and large is playing basketball or football!

There are even other differences regarding how the two generders think that could have game ramifications. THe real world US Army has done tests that indicate that women respond faster in ambush situations. Men tend to take a few more seconds to grasp the situation and react.

There are real differences in the way that men and women think, but again all of them (that I'm aware of) are well below the granularity of an RPG. There are differences in measured IQ, differences in thinking patterns, differences in concentration levels, etc. that all date back to differences in gender roles in hunter-gatherer societies, but none of them IMO are big enough to justify tweaking things in a game to be "realistic".

So a realistic game could easy justify adjustments for gender.

Outside of STR/SIZ, none of them are big enough to justify for a 3-18 or 8-18 range, which is why I'd argue that it's not a good idea to have them at all.

BTW, the big reason for the shoter lifespan of women, historically, was childbirth. Until relatively recently, it was the number one cause of death among women. Even today it is still number 2 or 3.

Correct. Women pay a big price for the ability to give birth to mammals with such large brains. Think about how tough births are for humans compared to any other mammal. The difference in human males and females is exaggerated compared to most other mammals, and most of it is due simply to this fact.

 

[atgxtg]

Correct. Women pay a big price for the ability to give birth to mammals with such large brains. Think about how tough births are for humans compared to any other mammal. The difference in human males and females is exaggerated compared to most other mammals, and most of it is due simply to this fact. [/qoute]

There is a bit more to it, but it all along similar lines. The larger head is a major factor, but childbirth is a significant cause of death for every species of mammal. Giving birth to live young, especially when they are fairly large in comparison to the mother is dangerous.

Glad I don't have to go through that.

 

[atgxtg]

The whole sqaure cube law means that while men are larger and stronger, thier size increaes faster than thier STR, so women actually have a higher muscle to weight ratio. Hence the reason why most gymnasts are small.

This isn't even close to correct. Women have far less lean body mass as a percentage of body weight than men. Men are significantly stronger per pound than women. Testosterone is your friend if you want strength!

Compare the measured stranth ratings to weight. You missing out on the sqaure cube law. While men might have more muscle the differences in muscle power (detrermined by the sqaure of the area) cannot increase at the same rate that the mass increases (cubed). In effect the muscles are more effeicient on a woman.


This is why ants can lift many time thier body weight while humans cannot. If a human was shrunk down to ant size, he'd be stronger than the ant.


Basically if you double the size, you cube the mass but only square your effective strength, if effect becoming weaker. This also applies to bone structre. Get big enough and your legs snap.

THis tranlates into more flexiblity and better ability to absord impact from motion, as there will be less energy in reation to structual strength.


All in all, it works out as a fair tradeoff for the loss in STR and SIZ.

I've always assumed most gymnasts are small because everyone who's a good athlete and large is playing basketball or football!

Except the large basketball payers lack the agility of the smaller ones. SIZE does matter.

There are real differences in the way that men and women think, but again all of them (that I'm aware of) are well below the granularity of an RPG. There are differences in measured IQ, differences in thinking patterns, differences in concentration levels, etc. that all date back to differences in gender roles in hunter-gatherer societies, but none of them IMO are big enough to justify tweaking things in a game to be "realistic".

Yes the differences in thinking is part of what I was referring to in the Army study. In general woman respond much more quickly then men in am ambush situation, but then start to drop off in effectiveness. Men are the opposite, they take longer to react, but get better after the intial shock. Apparently, it is some sort of difference in the fight or flight reflex. With the men tradionally having the more agressive hunter role, they are uncertain what to do (attack or flee), while the women, who were traditoninally caregivers kick right into "flight" mode. There is even some evidence that suggests that the reason why the women start to drop off in their performace after thier intially high performace is due to the the men taking over the situation.

I covered this stuff in pysch class. Really wierd stuff. There was all sorts of strange little facts about the differences in thinking. In some ways itis like two different species.

 

[RMS]

Compare the measured stranth ratings to weight. You missing out on the sqaure cube law. While men might have more muscle the differences in muscle power (detrermined by the sqaure of the area) cannot increase at the same rate that the mass increases (cubed). In effect the muscles are more effeicient on a woman.

I didn't miss it. I ignored it because it's really not relevant at the differences we're talking about. Keep in mind that it's only true "when all else is equal", which it never is in real life. You can't use this universally. A big cat that outweighs us, also has a higher muscle to body weight ratio than we do, thus being stronger for it's size.

Basically if you double the size, you cube the mass but only square your effective strength, if effect becoming weaker. This also applies to bone structre. Get big enough and your legs snap.

You realize that your logic in the first sentence has a large hole in it. You aren't becoming weaker in any way. Your strength does not increase in the same manner as mass, but you are still getting stronger as your mass increases. If your legs snapped, I'd probably blame gravity and the strength/structure of bones, which provide support, not strength.

All in all, it works out as a fair tradeoff for the loss in STR and SIZ.

Except the large basketball payers lack the agility of the smaller ones. SIZE does matter.

In RQ3, these were covered quite well under the Agility (and similar) skill modifiers. The deal to remember though is that those big basketball players do lack agility compared to the smaller players, but even the smaller ones are bigger than the average man and are more agile than the average man. There is a trade-off, but it's not absolute. Plus, neither of these addresses differences in men and woman, but differences in men of difference SIZ and women of different SIZ.

Yes the differences in thinking is part of what I was referring to in the Army study. In general woman respond much more quickly then men in am ambush situation, but then start to drop off in effectiveness. Men are the opposite, they take longer to react, but get better after the intial shock. Apparently, it is some sort of difference in the fight or flight reflex. With the men tradionally having the more agressive hunter role, they are uncertain what to do (attack or flee), while the women, who were traditoninally caregivers kick right into "flight" mode. There is even some evidence that suggests that the reason why the women start to drop off in their performace after thier intially high performace is due to the the men taking over the situation.

I covered this stuff in pysch class. Really wierd stuff. There was all sorts of strange little facts about the differences in thinking. In some ways itis like two different species.

Just be careful. There are a lot of badly executed psych experiments out there, and even many of the good ones are presented in text books (and media) as showing something completely different from what was actually demonstrated in the experiment. Sorry about the professional tangent... I teach experiment design, amongst other things, and am probably a bit too cynical about any experiment that I haven't read in detail.

 

[atgxtg]

I didn't miss it. I ignored it because it's really not relevant at the differences we're talking about. Keep in mind that it's only true "when all else is equal", which it never is in real life. You can't use this universally. A big cat that outweighs us, also has a higher muscle to body weight ratio than we do, thus being stronger for it's size.

Well the all else being equal argument sort of holds for everything. And generally everything else is never equal. It really boilds down to a question of determining the importance of one factor as comparted to the others. I suspect in this case we are probably differening over how we rate each factor in importance.

Technically, I suppose we should tie STR to within a few points of SIZ. At least for humans. THe STR 3 SIZ 18 human probably doesn't make much sense.

Another thing about the big cat is that the mucles and sketlal structue are arranged differently, so they might be more or less efficient at transfering that strength in certains ways. Birds are an excellent example: lots of muscle but all optimized for flight.

Basically if you double the size, you cube the mass but only square your effective strength, if effect becoming weaker. This also applies to bone structre. Get big enough and your legs snap.

You realize that your logic in the first sentence has a large hole in it. You aren't becoming weaker in any way. Your strength does not increase in the same manner as mass, but you are still getting stronger as your mass increases. If your legs snapped, I'd probably blame gravity and the strength/structure of bones, which provide support, not strength. [/qoute]

Yes I do. I didn't start out that way. It was supposed be something like, weaker in terms of STR/mass ratio, but somehow that's not there.

Hmm, maybe I should read that "Mongoose is editing my posts" thread again.

No, really, the whole point was to show how smaller creatures are stronger for their SIZ than larger creatures and that it does have an effect over the human SIZ range. It was going to cover neat stuff like how the lower mass can smaller people an advantage during falls due to greater stuctral strength in realtion to the energy generated and all, but I flubbed it.

Just be careful. There are a lot of badly executed psych experiments out there, and even many of the good ones are presented in text books (and media) as showing something completely different from what was actually demonstrated in the experiment. Sorry about the professional tangent... I teach experiment design, amongst other things, and am probably a bit too cynical about any experiment that I haven't read in detail.

I am careful. I remeber this one because it didn't claim very much. It didn't really have much effect on anything either.

I sort of run into a lot of questionable data and results when looking up so called "Statistics". Often the problem isn't in the data butin the conclusions. I love the one about "most accidents occur in the home". Like that means anything. If we prevented people from going home would that mean we cut down on the number of accidents or that "all accidents occur out of the home".

Hmm, over 99% of Canadians die in Cananda. If we evacuated them, think of the lives we'd save.

 

[RMS]

Well the all else being equal argument sort of holds for everything. And generally everything else is never equal. It really boilds down to a question of determining the importance of one factor as comparted to the others. I suspect in this case we are probably differening over how we rate each factor in importance.

That's the way most of these discussion go, isn't it.

Technically, I suppose we should tie STR to within a few points of SIZ. At least for humans. THe STR 3 SIZ 18 human probably doesn't make much sense.

I'd think so, if we're going to have both. Since SIZ is one of those unique things to BRP games, I like that it's still around. However, objectively I really can't argue for why we have both SIZ and STR in the game. I'd probably equate the two if I designed a game. They're close enough.

Another thing about the big cat is that the mucles and sketlal structue are arranged differently, so they might be more or less efficient at transfering that strength in certains ways. Birds are an excellent example: lots of muscle but all optimized for flight.

Definitely true. That big cat doesn't "waste" a bunch of weight with extra brain and doesn't "waste" traction and killing power on a couple of hands with opposible thumbs!

It was supposed be something like, weaker in terms of STR/mass ratio, but somehow that's not there.

No problem. That makes sense.

Hmm, maybe I should read that "Mongoose is editing my posts" thread again.

It's like my posts. This is casual conversation for me. I don't proof read, spell check, etc. It's not a big deal when something slips through...

No, really, the whole point was to show how smaller creatures are stronger for their SIZ than larger creatures and that it does have an effect over the human SIZ range. It was going to cover neat stuff like how the lower mass can smaller people an advantage during falls due to greater stuctral strength in realtion to the energy generated and all, but I flubbed it.

I understand what you're saying, but I still have a hard time believing that over the range of (adult) human size that it'll make that big of difference. Even if it does, it wouldn't change my intial stance on changing stats. It'd just point out more reason for why a small SIZ isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Yeah RQ3 covered this very well, inclduing the category modfiers applying to improvemnt rolls. In effect not only did a good DEX give a character a better starting score with Agility skills, but it made it easier for the character to get better. One thing about all the streamlining is that it removed stuff like that. A lot of RQ ideas fed off of each other or did double duty. THere were check & balances, but they hid all the plumbing.

Agreed. I'll miss attribute bonuses. The new system appears to have the same things with beginning skills, and I'm fine with that, but I think it's a shame that it doesn't help with skill improvement still. I thought one of the great things about RQ was that attribute bonuses felt right to me. Good stats would give an edge to otherwise equal opponents, but they weren't enough to give a talented newbie any real chance against an average veteran...like GURPS does with it's very strong relationship between DEX and everything physical skill.

Part of the argument for the female stat differences was also based upon the idea that the higher DEX is sort of a byproduct of the smaller SIZ. Essentially since being smaller makes those things easier, there is a greater chance of prusing such activies leading to improved DEX.

Sort of a enviromental conditioning thing.

I can see that. I still don't like it as a general bonus though.

I am careful. I remeber this one because it didn't claim very much. It didn't really have much effect on anything either.

Hopefully that didn't come off the wrong way. It sounds like it didn't.

I sort of run into a lot of questionable data and results when looking up so called "Statistics". Often the problem isn't in the data butin the conclusions. I love the one about "most accidents occur in the home". Like that means anything. If we prevented people from going home would that mean we cut down on the number of accidents or that "all accidents occur out of the home".

For a continuing ed. business stats course I've taught before, I make the students go find bad or questionable statistics. I see them in the paper on such a regular basis that I know I'm not asking for anything too difficult.

Hmm, over 99% of Canadians die in Cananda. If we evacuated them, think of the lives we'd save.

The ones I love are the ones that offer two different statistics and compare them as if they're the same, or the real tricky ones that treat conditional probabilities as if they're reverese: P(A|B) = P(B|A). I see that consantly in the paper and just grimace at it.

 

[kintire]

While there is a difference between males and females, arguments rage on about how significant it is, and how much is due to early training and cultural assumptions and how much is actually inherent in the biology. It is just not worth it. The differences between males and females are a minor niggle that require far more effort to handle than any possible benefit. This is especially true since even if there is an average difference, RPG characters are individuals and may fall far away from the averages.

It has always puzzled me that a person who is quite happy for a female character to fly, call energy into existence from nothing and so on balks at the fact that they can have Str 18...

 

[atgxtg]

That's the way most of these discussion go, isn't it.

THe ones where people are dscussing the same things. SOmetimes it's an apples & onages sort of thing, or two people cannot agree one how something works. Luckily for us, we seem to be agreeing on the factors, just not on the "mix". JUst different recipes. Still, it is a nice way to disagree-since I can see your viewpoint.

I'd think so, if we're going to have both. Since SIZ is one of those unique things to BRP games, I like that it's still around. However, objectively I really can't argue for why we have both SIZ and STR in the game. I'd probably equate the two if I designed a game. They're close enough. [/qoute]

I am thinking on another RPG that does something like that. You get a SIZ score and then factor in conditioning (big and flabby or lean & mean) to get a STR score. IN RQ terms somethling like STR=SIZ-3+1d6. THat is just a formula to illustate the point, not a suggested rule change. I could see restricted STR to within 3 points of SIZ (either cap it off or raise it up)-for humans. In a similar fashion the game compared the STR to SIZ ratio as a case for CON/HLH. THe idea was that if you had a large SIZ but a low STR you probably were not in good shape and your CON went down. RQ2 sortof linked STR CON & SIZ too.

Definitely true. That big cat doesn't "waste" a bunch of weight with extra brain and doesn't "waste" traction and killing power on a couple of hands with opposible thumbs!

Yeah, but he can't write an opera or play a stratocaster.

I understand what you're saying, but I still have a hard time believing that over the range of (adult) human size that it'll make that big of difference. Even if it does, it wouldn't change my intial stance on changing stats. It'd just point out more reason for why a small SIZ isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Well the whole adult range for stats in RQ is pretty large. BAsed on the old STR to SIZ relationships, A 18 STR is nearly four times as strong as a 3 STR, with each point of STR reprenseing about a 9% improvement in ability. SO a point or two in the context seems reasonable to me.

Agreed. I'll miss attribute bonuses. The new system appears to have the same things with beginning skills, and I'm fine with that, but I think it's a shame that it doesn't help with skill improvement still. I thought one of the great things about RQ was that attribute bonuses felt right to me. Good stats would give an edge to otherwise equal opponents, but they weren't enough to give a talented newbie any real chance against an average veteran...like GURPS does with it's very strong relationship between DEX and everything physical skill.

I am with you here. In one GRUPS campaign I spent most of my points on DEX to get an 18 DEX. About half way through the campaign my character picked up a bow, and I decided to put a 1/2 point into it. TO the rest of the group's surprise, my character caught up with (and possibly passed) the best archer in the group. IF I had decided to purse it I could have left him behid by only spending a handful of points.

It is one reason why you never see a clusmy warrior in GURPS.

THe reall benefit of high STATS in RQ3 wasn't the handful of percentage points (probably a bit on the low side, if anything), but the imrpvement roll bonuses. I Had a elf once with a +20 attack bonus. He got good with a bow really fast.

I can see that. I still don't like it as a general bonus though.

How about as a cultural bonus?

For a continuing ed. business stats course I've taught before, I make the students go find bad or questionable statistics. I see them in the paper on such a regular basis that I know I'm not asking for anything too difficult.

It usually isn't the statistic that is bad, just how it is being (mis)intepreted. Any two (or more) numbers have a relation to each other than can be compared, even if the factors that the numbers represent have nothing to do with each other. I used to see that sort of thing all the time. Someone would crunch the mibers, get an absurd result, and believe it becuase "numbers don't like". Then I'd point of something (like their probablies add up to 130%) and watch the go into a stun/shock.

Usually this was really funny as the answers were things that anyone who just looed at the problem would know the answer wasn't correct. IN one instance I had someone who "proved" that 1`00% of people are right handed, despite the fact that bothof us are left-handed.

The ones I love are the ones that offer two different statistics and compare them as if they're the same, or the real tricky ones that treat conditional probabilities as if they're reverese: P(A|B) = P(B|A). I see that consantly in the paper and just grimace at it.

THey are funny into you see how many millions of dollars are being tossed away on some dumb project becuase someone can't do the math.

 

[Utgardloki]

I was hoping for a discussion on balance issues. Especially whether a +2 adjustment to another stat was needed or was sufficient to balance a reduced size, since reducing size both reduces damage and hit points, and it improves dodging and stealth.

I had been working on another system where a -4 size adjustment for women made sense, based on the tables I generated. My concept was that a very small character, like a halfling, could have a negative size. A cat, for example, could be a size -32. Since the system was logarythmic, it could handle creatures down to microscopic size or up to planetary size.

A person who only weighs about 80 pounds would be about Size 3 in my system.

For Runequest, it may make more sense to make it a -2 Size adjustment. The problem I had with the old Runequest and with Call of Cthulhu was imagining what a "Size 13" human would be like. It may make sense to use my size and weight tables, or use ones based on Runequest. I'm thinking mechanically, it wouldn't much matter as long as I'm consistent.

As for bonuses a female character would get, from various sources I've read, heard about, and seen on TV, female characters could justify a bonus to the following:

Constitution: Females live longer and have higher reserves of energy that they can call on. While a male character can outdistance a female in a sprint, the female can catch up in a marathon. The fact that male and female athletes compete together in marathons suggest that this is a large enough difference to justify an RPG bonus.

Intuition: Runequest does not have an Intuition characteristic. The system I was developing did, and I judged Charisma to be the closest, although I considered Power. "Women's Intuition" is legendary, and that army study backs up what I've heard from other sources about women being in general more aware of their surroundings. They are more sensitive to color, cleanliness, and social interactions. An evolutionary theory posits that while men evolved to focus on their prey, women evolved to be more aware of potential dangers and predators.

Charisma: Women not only seem to be more sensitive to social interactions, but they also seem to be more empathetic, exhibit a higher verbal intelligence, talk more, and put a higher emphasis on social interactions than men do.

Power: People may ask why a character would have a higher Power just for being female, and the only reason would be if Power related to Intuition, as noted above.

Dexterity: The theory is that being smaller, women have an advantage of being more agile; it's easier to throw their smaller weight around, so a woman could more easily dodge out of the way or stop on a dime. This is already covered in RQ by giving smaller characters a Dodge advantage.

So it seems that if I want to give two stat bonuses to offset two stat penalties, then Constitution and Charisma are the stats to choose. But a negative adjustment is not really a penalty to Size, so I'm not sure.

The campaign I am working on is one that includes Wonder Woman as an NPC, so if a player wants a female character with a high strength, I'll provide a way to do it.

 

[RMS]

I am thinking on another RPG that does something like that. You get a SIZ score and then factor in conditioning (big and flabby or lean & mean) to get a STR score.

I wouldn't even do that. I consider SIZ in RQ to be your characters ideal SIZ if in good condition, and assume that all "adventurers" are in relatively good condition. Also, the ability to be overweight by a significant amount is much, much rarer in any preindustrialized society.

Definitely true. That big cat doesn't "waste" a bunch of weight with extra brain and doesn't "waste" traction and killing power on a couple of hands with opposible thumbs!

Yeah, but he can't write an opera or play a stratocaster.

Right. He really only does a couple of things well: kills things and reproduces.

Well the whole adult range for stats in RQ is pretty large. BAsed on the old STR to SIZ relationships, A 18 STR is nearly four times as strong as a 3 STR, with each point of STR reprenseing about a 9% improvement in ability. SO a point or two in the context seems reasonable to me.

Some of this is interpretation too. To me, anyone with a 3-6 STR is someone with a physical handicap or is a child. Anyone who survives day-to-day by doing physical labor (like most people in a RQ world) are going to be close to average or above it. Some of this is the fact that STR really shouldn't be modeled as Normal, but should be more like a Raleigh distribution (ie. a square of a Normal with a much bigger tail on the upper end than at the bottom), so I adjust my thinking of attributes based on 3d6. I'd actually like to see all the RQ/BRP stats moved to 8-18 range (or similar) so that the low end can be reserved for animals, children, the afore mentioned disabled, etc.

Sorry, if that's getting too geeky there...

I am with you here. In one GRUPS campaign I spent most of my points on DEX to get an 18 DEX. About half way through the campaign my character picked up a bow, and I decided to put a 1/2 point into it. TO the rest of the group's surprise, my character caught up with (and possibly passed) the best archer in the group. IF I had decided to purse it I could have left him behid by only spending a handful of points.

All of my players in college were in math-related majors, so they broke GURPS the first time around. I ended up assigning X points to stats, Y points to skills, and Z points to advantages to keep them somewhat in check. I actually like how GURPS runs, but I hate character generation, the stat/skill dependencies, etc. (I hate fiddling with the point system too, ironically.) Apparently, much of this has been fixed in 4th edition, but it still hasn't enticed me to really look closely at it.

I snipped the part about benefits of high attribute bonuses. Which is true, but didn't come into play for me. I kept around the RQ2 idea of always allowing at least INT chance of improving skills, so it only came into play when someone had an extremely large bonuses.

I can see that. I still don't like it as a general bonus though.

How about as a cultural bonus?

I'm not a big fan of cultural bonuses for stats. I prefer to resistrict those to skills, unless there's a really good inworld reason for a culture to have superior stats. This is actually where I'd like to see the feat-like abilities in RQ. Give Praxian nomads the Born in the Saddle feat to show a special inborn (or early taught) ability they have over other people.

 

[RMS]

I was hoping for a discussion on balance issues. Especially whether a +2 adjustment to another stat was needed or was sufficient to balance a reduced size, since reducing size both reduces damage and hit points, and it improves dodging and stealth.

Sorry if we hijacked your thread. It was atgxtg's fault! Personally, I don't think you need to balance for SIZ at all. I'd leave it alone. I've had as many players want small SIZ for their concepts as large SIZ over the years, and it balances fairly well IMO.

I had been working on another system where a -4 size adjustment for women made sense, based on the tables I generated. My concept was that a very small character, like a halfling, could have a negative size. A cat, for example, could be a size -32. Since the system was logarythmic, it could handle creatures down to microscopic size or up to planetary size.

I wonder if -4 isn't a bit extreme there. Like I mentioned in the last post, the problem is that SIZ and STR aren't Normally distributed. There's only a ~30 lb difference in the weight of an average man and an average women. That would only be a difference in a point or maybe two in RQ3. The issues come at the top end of the scale. Men trail out much farther than women do. Women top out at around 180 lbs for being in shape, whereas men can get up close to 300 lbs (120 lb difference) in shape. Anyone outside of those is probably overweight or is too far outside the norm to fit any RPG distribution.

A person who only weighs about 80 pounds would be about Size 3 in my system.

If you know that and the scale then go from there. Like I said above, the averages really aren't that far apart. It's just the trail in the higher end that really is different.

For Runequest, it may make more sense to make it a -2 Size adjustment. The problem I had with the old Runequest and with Call of Cthulhu was imagining what a "Size 13" human would be like. It may make sense to use my size and weight tables, or use ones based on Runequest. I'm thinking mechanically, it wouldn't much matter as long as I'm consistent.

I never had a problem with SIZ13 since RQ had size tables written in it. I agree that it doesn't really matter, so long as you're consistent.

Constitution: Females live longer and have higher reserves of energy that they can call on. While a male character can outdistance a female in a sprint, the female can catch up in a marathon. The fact that male and female athletes compete together in marathons suggest that this is a large enough difference to justify an RPG bonus.

Males and females run at the same time. In the Boston Marathon, top men's times are still a 1/4 of an hour faster than top womens times. This supports that endurance is similar, but wouldn't support giving women a boost. Also, constitution typically is used for hit points, poison resistance, and disease resistance. I can't see any of those favoring female over male, or the other way.

Intuition: Runequest does not have an Intuition characteristic. The system I was developing did, and I judged Charisma to be the closest, although I considered Power. "Women's Intuition" is legendary, and that army study backs up what I've heard from other sources about women being in general more aware of their surroundings. They are more sensitive to color, cleanliness, and social interactions. An evolutionary theory posits that while men evolved to focus on their prey, women evolved to be more aware of potential dangers and predators.

I wouldn't say it's legendary. I'd say it's fabled, myself. (It's an old fashioned way of dealing with the fact that women and men do reason differently, on average.) However, if you're going to keep it, I'd actually argue for POW over CHA myself.

Charisma: Women not only seem to be more sensitive to social interactions, but they also seem to be more empathetic, exhibit a higher verbal intelligence, talk more, and put a higher emphasis on social interactions than men do.

This part is definitely true. I have two issues with raising CHA for women. First is the traditional teenage boy RPGer deal of raising female CHA to represent good looks, only. Be careful about this because I can see some people reading that into it. Second, CHA generally indicates leadership in RPGs, so if you raise all women's CHA, do you have women in many (most?) leadership positions in you world? If not, why not then? I'd actually suggest giving the bonus, but making the cap the same for both men and women: roll 3d6 for CHA, add 1 (or 2) for a women, but do not exceed 18...or maybe even cap the bonus below that at 14 (or similar), so that women are less disfunctional (like real life), but the upper end is pretty even.

Power: People may ask why a character would have a higher Power just for being female, and the only reason would be if Power related to Intuition, as noted above.

I'd put it here myself. Intuition is frequently considered part of how magic works and part of how luck works. If you're using intuition as a reason for a bonus for female characters, then give them a boost in POW. Plus, since it's fantasy, who's to say that women don't make better magic users out of the box?

Dexterity: The theory is that being smaller, women have an advantage of being more agile; it's easier to throw their smaller weight around, so a woman could more easily dodge out of the way or stop on a dime. This is already covered in RQ by giving smaller characters a Dodge advantage.

I like the way RQ does it now. I wouldn't agree with a general bonus to DEX. I already discussed how speed is tied into this (if you don't have a separate stat for it), and that's something men clearly have an advantage in. They actually have an advantage in pretty much any agility ability that can tie into speed too. If you play sports, the changing directions part is something that women don't do very well when competing with men. I'm not trying to be a pain here, but this won't hold up if realism is the goal for the baseline. If you broke DEX out to a bunch of component stats, then you could do it.

So it seems that if I want to give two stat bonuses to offset two stat penalties, then Constitution and Charisma are the stats to choose. But a negative adjustment is not really a penalty to Size, so I'm not sure.

I think CON is a poor choice myself, as I mentioned above. CHA is fine, but definitely put some thought into how you present it to your players. I'd argue for POW over CON if you're trying to level things out.

The campaign I am working on is one that includes Wonder Woman as an NPC, so if a player wants a female character with a high strength, I'll provide a way to do it.

I'd still argue not to bother. For NPCs, make them up as you see fit and skip all of this...which you probably do anyway. For PCs, let them make up what they want and just use common sense to describe how far they are from the norm. An 18 STR man is remarkable, but everyone has probably met one (or more) in life. An 18 STR woman is vying for strongest woman in the world. I'd allow either for a PC though, if that's what my players really wanted to run.

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

Charisma: Women not only seem to be more sensitive to social interactions, but they also seem to be more empathetic, exhibit a higher verbal intelligence, talk more, and put a higher emphasis on social interactions than men do.

This part is definitely true. I have two issues with raising CHA for women. First is the traditional teenage boy RPGer deal of raising female CHA to represent good looks, only. Be careful about this because I can see some people reading that into it. Second, CHA generally indicates leadership in RPGs, so if you raise all women's CHA, do you have women in many (most?) leadership positions in you world? If not, why not then?

That actually brings a very interesting point to mind. Maybe bonusses and penalties based on a combination of culture and gender? In a matriarchy like Esrolia, for example, it would be natural for females to be better leaders, so their CHA would be increased accordingly. This would even hold true in a foreign culture, on account of increased self-confidence. Orlanthi would be another example, where men are hot-headed and impulsive, whereas women are cool and calculating. Surely that's an INT modification?

 

[atgxtg]

I am thinking on another RPG that does something like that. You get a SIZ score and then factor in conditioning (big and flabby or lean & mean) to get a STR score.

I wouldn't even do that. I consider SIZ in RQ to be your characters ideal SIZ if in good condition, and assume that all "adventurers" are in relatively good condition. Also, the ability to be overweight by a significant amount is much, much rarer in any preindustrialized society.
Yeah, it is a trade off between being condition due to the physical hardships, vs. the drawbacks of poor hygene, diet, and medicine.

One of the intesting negatives of our advanced indurtialized soctiety is that people surivive illnesses and afflections that would have taken them out of the gene pool in the past. In a way our superior medical skills are spreading allergies and other genetic conditions. Wemight one day reach the point where everone is an asthematic, diabetic with a peanut allergy.

Definitely true. That big cat doesn't "waste" a bunch of weight with extra brain and doesn't "waste" traction and killing power on a couple of hands with opposible thumbs!

Yeah, but he can't write an opera or play a stratocaster.

Right. He really only does a couple of things well: kills things and reproduces.

From an evolutionary standpoint-those are the two that count!

Some of this is interpretation too. To me, anyone with a 3-6 STR is someone with a physical handicap or is a child. Anyone who survives day-to-day by doing physical labor (like most people in a RQ world) are going to be close to average or above it. Some of this is the fact that STR really shouldn't be modeled as Normal, but should be more like a Raleigh distribution (ie. a square of a Normal with a much bigger tail on the upper end than at the bottom), so I adjust my thinking of attributes based on 3d6. I'd actually like to see all the RQ/BRP stats moved to 8-18 range (or similar) so that the low end can be reserved for animals, children, the afore mentioned disabled, etc.

Sorry, if that's getting too geeky there...

I agree. I think in one of the other threads I mentioned a RQ variant I worked up with a 5-15 range for pretty much the same reasons. 5-15 just to give humans a basline 10 for everything. NAtch that would mean downshifting the bonuses a few points to make a 15=and old 18 and so forth. While I'm all for character's overcoming obstacles, having a starting PC bedridden is probably a bit too much. Most GM's don't stick a player with characters below a certain point anyway. The old 80 point rule comes to mind.

I am with you here. In one GRUPS campaign I spent most of my points on DEX to get an 18 DEX. About half way through the campaign my character picked up a bow, and I decided to put a 1/2 point into it. TO the rest of the group's surprise, my character caught up with (and possibly passed) the best archer in the group. IF I had decided to purse it I could have left him behid by only spending a handful of points.

All of my players in college were in math-related majors, so they broke GURPS the first time around. I ended up assigning X points to stats, Y points to skills, and Z points to advantages to keep them somewhat in check. I actually like how GURPS runs, but I hate character generation, the stat/skill dependencies, etc. (I hate fiddling with the point system too, ironically.) Apparently, much of this has been fixed in 4th edition, but it still hasn't enticed me to really look closely at it.

I snipped the part about benefits of high attribute bonuses. Which is true, but didn't come into play for me. I kept around the RQ2 idea of always allowing at least INT chance of improving skills, so it only came into play when someone had an extremely large bonuses.

I was thinking of just halving the attriubte portion of the skill calculation, and then halfing the cost of skills. Bascially 30 points of stat (DX or IQ) shouldn't get you more skill than 30 points in the skill.

I'm not a big fan of cultural bonuses for stats. I prefer to resistrict those to skills, unless there's a really good inworld reason for a culture to have superior stats. This is actually where I'd like to see the feat-like abilities in RQ. Give Praxian nomads the Born in the Saddle feat to show a special inborn (or early taught) ability they have over other people.

I am a fan of cultural bonuses to stats. I'm not fond of the SIZ 18 pygmies. THe rpoblem is when applieying them to stats other than SIZ. At least not without it coming off as sort of racist.

To be honest, I'd rather not see feat like abilities, but simly raise nomad base rideing skill to reflect the extra ten years or so of experience they have riding over the average starting character. I also wouldn't mind seeing special abilties tied to skills./ Like if you have a skill above X you get a benefit. I also wouldlike to see specialties/subskills too.

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

I am a fan of cultural bonuses to stats. I'm not fond of the SIZ 18 pygmies. THe rpoblem is when applieying them to stats other than SIZ. At least not without it coming off as sort of racist.

See above.

 

[atgxtg]

Charisma: Women not only seem to be more sensitive to social interactions, but they also seem to be more empathetic, exhibit a higher verbal intelligence, talk more, and put a higher emphasis on social interactions than men do.

This part is definitely true. I have two issues with raising CHA for women. First is the traditional teenage boy RPGer deal of raising female CHA to represent good looks, only. Be careful about this because I can see some people reading that into it. Second, CHA generally indicates leadership in RPGs, so if you raise all women's CHA, do you have women in many (most?) leadership positions in you world? If not, why not then?

I think the problem is that most games don't handle CHA or APP well at all. In most RPGs CHA is the weakest attribute, whereas in life, good looks and bad morals can get you far. :twisted: :mrgreen:

Actual Charisma is devetating in social situations. People like Hitler don't rise to power for nothing.

Sadly, CHA is usually just a place to ditch a bad roll, as it has little game benefits and almost no penalties. Especially since we roleplay much of the CHA stuff anyway. If someone acts like a jerk but has an 18 CHA on the sheet, we still take him as a jerk.

About the only games that do a reasonably good job on this are GURPS 9the reaction bonus for APP) and JAMES BOND (Dead on. If you got good looks and Charm in that game you can get away with a lot more than you can with a Aston Matrin and a PPK).

 

[atgxtg]

That actually brings a very interesting point to mind. Maybe bonusses and penalties based on a combination of culture and gender? In a matriarchy like Esrolia, for example, it would be natural for females to be better leaders, so their CHA would be increased accordingly. This would even hold true in a foreign culture, on account of increased self-confidence. Orlanthi would be another example, where men are hot-headed and impulsive, whereas women are cool and calculating. Surely that's an INT modification?

RQ has done stuff like this in the past. THe Stormbringer/Hawmoon stuff, the RQ3 Fantasy Earth stuff. Pwendragon used to do it too.

I could see even writing up each culture like it is it's own species. Tosome extenet it fits the beliefs of most ancient cultures.


I'm not sure how well a lot of that will translate into the new rule-lite world of MRQ,

 

[Utgardloki]

I'm beginning to think that in the materials I'm preparing for my players, that I take Size out of the "list of characteristics" and have that treated as separate from the other characteristics. What drives me in this direction is that while with all the other characteristics, you want a high score, with Size, you might not.

I am working out "Pseudo-Characteristics" such as Wealth, which I'll have the players roll along with the Characteristics on the theory that they can swap scores around (give up an attribute to start with a wealthy character or one with more prior experience or heroic advantages, or vice versa).

In my "Audor" campaign, the culture does have a lot of women with positions of authority. Since people (at least guys) tend to treat a female character with high Charisma as a babe, I ended up making a Beauty stat to indicate that not all female priestesses were drop-dead gorgeous.

Personally, I like to see a good spread among abilities. A score of 3-18 works well, in my opinion, and I've seen PCs with scores of 4 in some ability. Granted, this raises the question of how to represent those who don't even make minimal standards for adventuring; like Size, I could go into negative numbers. This makes a bit of sense, as then it is immediately apparent where "normal" human scale begins.

For Audor, I also had optional cultural adjustments to stats. I wasn't worried about offending any Toranians or Dora-Tachuks. Cultural adjustments were not allowed to raise a stat above a racial max or lower it below a racial min. I don't think I'll apply this to Earth.

I've also decided not to apply background adjustments in Runequest, either. My theory is that the player would use his points and decisions to create a character appropriate for his given background. For D&D, I had cultural class skills and virtual skill points because D&D characters don't get enough skill points to adequately represent their background. For Runequest, I think 100 points is plenty to define a profession, culture, and social status.

 

[King Amenjar]

It has always puzzled me that a person who is quite happy for a female character to fly, call energy into existence from nothing and so on balks at the fact that they can have Str 18...

I read an excellent article once about suspension of disbelief in fiction (including rpgs) and why this argument doesn't hold. The author said that when fiction deviates from actuality, it does so in a defined way for a defined purpose. Outside of these defined areas, the deviation does not occur. Therefore, simply because a female character can fly does not mean she can have 18 Strength (given women in the real world can't) anymore than it means she can be a man.

 

[RMS]

That actually brings a very interesting point to mind. Maybe bonusses and penalties based on a combination of culture and gender? In a matriarchy like Esrolia, for example, it would be natural for females to be better leaders, so their CHA would be increased accordingly. This would even hold true in a foreign culture, on account of increased self-confidence. Orlanthi would be another example, where men are hot-headed and impulsive, whereas women are cool and calculating. Surely that's an INT modification?

RQ has done stuff like this in the past. THe Stormbringer/Hawmoon stuff, the RQ3 Fantasy Earth stuff. Pwendragon used to do it too.

In RQ2, CHA was very important. It basically determined how powerful you were at the beginning, and hence your survival rate. You could borrow so much money as a function of CHA to do initial skill training with the Guilds and to buy starting equipment. Also, once you started play, CHA was very important to your character's ability to advance in the cult. It went up and down like POW, but with successes and failures determining advancement. Didn't CHA also determine something about POW crystals or spirits, like in early Stormbringer with bound demons?

I never liked APP. It was a throw away stat IMO. Sure, good APP helps at times, but it definitely isn't important like a useful CHA stat, or the other 6 stats.

Btw, I don't know that I'd adjust INT in the 2nd example Gbaji has. The difference there is in personality, rather than in actual intellectual ability. Someone can be hotheaded and smart at the same time.