Female characters in Runequest

[atgxtg]

Actually, it's been stated time and time again in the D&D rules and discussion of the rules that only the last dozen hit points or so represent actual damage. The rest represent the heroic ability to dodge at the last moment so that a potentially killing blow only becomes a glancing blow; but eventually even the mightiest of warriors will get tired and finally a well-aimed blow can do him in.

Yes, it has been stated many times. Clintion also stated many times that he hadn't had seuxual relations with Monica Lewinski. Both statesment are about equally true.Way back in AD&D Gygax mentioned that only the hit that drives you below 1 HP is the none that counts. However the game rules do not support either of these claims.

If these claims were ture, then it wouldn't day days/week/months to "heal up" those 50 or 60 "non damaging" hits. One cure light wounds should do it. The entire game system is built around wounds of attrition, becaase that way the easy way to convertt a wargame into an RPG, despite all the bogus claims.

About the only D20 game that lives up to the claim is Star Wars D20 with it's separation ofVitality Points and Wound Points.

 

[atgxtg]

If somebody wants to play an 18 strength, 18 size female in my Tales of the Association game, I'd find a way to do it. The easiest way is to drop the Con bonus and give those points back to Strength.

I'm not sure how to handle rolling the Size attribute. Should I make players live with their role, or should I allow them to pick the Size they wish? My thought is to have players roll for Size, but while they may swap Int with another characteristic, they may not swap Size. This is to prevent Size from becoming a dump stat.

Maybe have players roll for Size, but then allow them to reroll if one of them does not like the Size value that he rolled.

Well, if you are going to let them swap INT, let them swap SIZ. If they use it as a dump stat, well, they will pay the peanlties in hit points and damage bonus.

With MRQ the peanlties for a largel SIZ are rather minor, at most a difference of 10% for humans for the starting abilities for Dodge and Stealth. That is the shift from a 8 to an 18. Hardly that bad considering that everyone has 100 free points to spend.

Generally, in MRQ a high SIZ is better.

 

[kintire]

The "Hero's Joureny" concept is pretty well supported.

And too vague to say anything interesting.

If they were to go around telling stories about thier characters who were hit 30 times with no imapirement and then went on to fight a few orgres with no harm, the sotires would not be believable and doesn't seem right to anyone other than a D&D player.

But they do exactly that. And movies have unbelievable endurance, and ridiculously volatile cars, etc etc. If it comes to that, the RQ parry mechanism bugs me as unrealistic. You just have to judge what's worth the time, and gender differences aren't.

 

[zanshin]

I agree that it is not worth making a change.

If you really want to give an adjustment to SIZ and/or STR for women I would suggest DEX and/or POW as the counterpart bonuses reflecting their (on average) better coordination, rhythm and fine manipulation skills and their 'natural' connection with things mystical. Folklore has many wise women and 'witches' who have a natural intuitive understanding of the spiritual.

Charisma is more arguable as it can reflect different things in men and women. A women who could seduce you might not be able to reassure you to carry on in the midst of a raging battle and vice versa. Also in some cultures (in Glorantha , and unfortunately this world) womens status does not give them the opportunity to exhibit their charisma.

CON in RQ reflects at least in part the ability to take a battering - its debateable that women can better than men.

INT? Don't go there

 

[kintire]

(on average) better coordination, rhythm and fine manipulation skills

I feel there are many male musicians that would disagree.

Folklore has many wise women and 'witches' who have a natural intuitive understanding of the spiritual.

And many cunning men, prophets and wizards... like Merlin... who have as well.

Charisma is more arguable as it can reflect different things in men and women. A women who could seduce you might not be able to reassure you to carry on in the midst of a raging battle and vice versa

Anyone who is under the impression that women seduce and men don't is talking through his hat. Hey, if you want a mythic example just look at James Bond. As for encouraging people in battle, are you suggesting that a woman is incapable of inspiring an army that has been repeatedly beaten in battles where it held a numerical advantage, has lost its capital and most of its country and has seen its king surrender into one of the greatest military comebacks in history? What was St Joan of Arc, chopped liver?

 

[zanshin]

Yup , its all debateable, so dont bother adjusting stats at all

 

[Utgardloki]

Yup , its all debateable, so dont bother adjusting stats at all

I agree that it is all debateable. But one of the perks of being a GM is automatically winning all debates. 8)

The important thing is not to unbalance the game and allow the PCs to play the type of characters that they want. So I'll allow a large, strong amazon-type if that's what somebody wants to play. But otherwise, the adjustments seem fair and balanced, with perhaps a slight advantage to the females since a negative Size modifier is not really a penalty.

 

[SmegmaLord]

I keep having to remind myself we're playing a fantasy game with Dragons and Goblins (okay trollkin).

Why do women and men have to be different. Surely a weak ineffectual woman would settle down raise pigs and have millions of children while she whistles happily over a cooking pot.

Meanshile bring on the Red Sonya and the Ripleys of this world and kick ass as the men do or in some cases better!!!!

I like playing female characters (i'm not that wierd by the way) but I want her to be an equal statistically wise and let my roleplaying do the difference thing.

CHRIS

 

[Utgardloki]

I wouldn't say that a character who has +2 to Con, +2 to Cha, and a +4% chance of Dodge and Stealth rolls is "weak and ineffectual". And even with a -2 Str adjustment, that still allows a Strength of 16. Not much different than playing a different race.

For a character with an Amazon background, those adjustments wouldn't apply.

What I'm looking for is female characters who are female characters, and not just male characters in drag.

But this being Runequest, maybe instead of +2 to two stats, I should have +4 to one stat, either Con or Cha. In that case, it seems that Cha is the more likely beneficiary. I'll have to consider this.

 

[atgxtg]

I

What I'm looking for is female characters who are female characters, and not just male characters in drag..

Sounds like a few of my old gaming groups.

 

[SmegmaLord]

This all sounds like a lot or RULE-playing when good ROLE-playing is the answer!

CHRIS

 

[kintire]

In that case, it seems that Cha is the more likely beneficiary. I'll have to consider this.

Why?

What I'm looking for is female characters who are female characters, and not just male characters in drag.

well, fine. But how will stat adjustment help? Surely the key to your desire is in personality, not doubtfully supported stat changes?

This all sounds like a lot or RULE-playing when good ROLE-playing is the answer!

I would like to be associated with the sentiments of the last speaker

 

[SmegmaLord]

I would like to be associated with the sentiments of the last speaker

I thank you.

Change the stats as much as you like but will it make your character feel like a female as you roll the dice to pummel the face of a Walktapus with you 2H warhammer?

CHRIS

 

[zanshin]

Yup

'Get away from her you BITCH!'

 

[Adept]

IN my olf RQ3 campaigns (RQ3 gives females 2d6+2 for STR and 2d6+3 for SIZ) I used to give women a bonus to DEX and CON.

Here's a version from a feminist (male) biology major.

The statistics above look quite good, for STR and SIZ. As for the others, a NASA study found that on average women have better coordination, and better endurance than men (think of all those african women hauling water / working the fields all day long). Women are better at long, sustained periods of physical labour especially.

The NASA study also noted better g-tolerance, but that propably won't come up in fantasy RPG too often (a lunar wyvern-rider parhaps...).

So on the RQ scale I give a +1 to DEX and CON, and sometimes to POW (in some settings women are more magical, often a cultural thing since men are the worriors).

As for Siz and Strength The above stats make it possible to play a STR 14, SIZ 15 woman. That is pretty damn big and strong. Nobody would call a male character built like that small or weak!

The appearance bonus is a horrible sexism, and propably as offensive to girl gamers as it is to me. Blech

 

[atgxtg]

So on the RQ scale I give a +1 to DEX and CON, and sometimes to POW (in some settings women are more magical, often a cultural thing since men are the worriors).

Now that is an aspect of this that we haven't considered, and probably should have. In most ancient cultures there is the whole femininity/creation/life giver/aspect to this. Sort of adivine mystery. A higher POW to females would probably make a lot of sense for a Cletic based camapign.

Likewise many other stat mods mike make sense from the point of view of a particular setting. Even if some things, like an APP bonus to women, might seem sexist to us-they could seem quite natual and appropriate to characters in a game setting.

 

[Adept]

I keep having to remind myself we're playing a fantasy game with Dragons and Goblins (okay trollkin).

Why do women and men have to be different. Surely a weak ineffectual woman would settle down raise pigs and have millions of children while she whistles happily over a cooking pot.

Meanshile bring on the Red Sonya and the Ripleys of this world and kick ass as the men do or in some cases better!!!!

I like playing female characters (i'm not that wierd by the way) but I want her to be an equal statistically wise and let my roleplaying do the difference thing.

CHRIS

As a counterpoint, our gaming circles are almost 50:50 split gendervise (parhaps 60:40 with a slight male bias). I've never seen the girls/women want to play a musclebound bruiser when they play a female character. The strongest one I remember outright is female Vanir (a tolkienesque warrior elf, Silmarillion style). This female character was the most skilled warrior in the group (almost rediculous skill with a bastard-sword and longbow, with good skills in brawling and dagger as well).

Where the male characters (a viking style fighter and a dwarf priest of Mithra) vere really strong and beefy types, the Elf woman had a Str and Con of that would translate to 12. Her Dex would have been 18+ in RQ, and appearance something like 12 as well.

That's the strongest female character I remember anybody wanting to play, and this one fought in Plate&Chain (no helmet) with a 2h sword! When the lassies (or lads) I know want to play a strong and capable female character, they think of a physique like Sigourney Weaver... they don't think Xena, the Warrior Princess.

 

[Adept]

Likewise many other stat mods mike make sense from the point of view of a particular setting. Even if some things, like an APP bonus to women, might seem sexist to us-they could seem quite natual and appropriate to characters in a game setting.

Granted. If only women are concidered beautiful/handsome and pay attention to things like personal grooming...

For a fairly abstracts system like RQ the APP bonus could be the way to go. I'd propably just give a penalty to the men myself

 

[atgxtg]

Likewise many other stat mods mike make sense from the point of view of a particular setting. Even if some things, like an APP bonus to women, might seem sexist to us-they could seem quite natual and appropriate to characters in a game setting.

Granted. If only women are concidered beautiful/handsome and pay attention to things like personal grooming...

For a fairly abstracts system like RQ the APP bonus could be the way to go. I'd propably just give a penalty to the men myself

I know that when I ran RQ in a Mythic Erupe setting, I gave Greek characters an INT bonus not so much becuase I considered them smarter than everone else, but because they had a better education, greater knoweldge, and a more cosmopolitan upbringer than most of the other cultures.

 

[Utgardloki]

The appearance bonus is a horrible sexism, and propably as offensive to girl gamers as it is to me. Blech

I'm not giving female characters an appearance bonus. As described earlier, I related the proposed Charisma bonus to be due to empathy, intuition, and awareness of subtle cues that the less sensative characters might miss. This is nothing to do with appearance, and has more to do with getting people to think that what they want to do is what she wants them to want to do.