Every so often you get a strong reminder that the way other people think about things can be fundamentally different to yourself. It's always surprising when it happens, though.
I hadn't seen that. I think I agree that (dis)advantage should be remembered and I, when GMing, am often hesitant to dole it out. (There are so many ways in the rules to get/give it that it seems to me that one runs the danger of mooting things people worked for if one gives it out too freely.) But on the other hand, I'm totally with you in the sense of they already built a strength disparity into the race; anything more would be sacrificing gameplay for simulationism.
Whenever people want to make racial or (help us) gender disparities more a part of the game, I just a want to suggest they play a few years' 1e.
I mean, there were very gentle and (I assume) not-maliciously-intended attempts, things like a slightly different height range and weight range for the genders. As much as they jibe with any simulationist urges I might have, I'm fine with them dying a vestigial death for having not really served much of a purpose.
(I mean, I like tracking encumbrance closely enough that whether I'm trying to carry a 100# or a 150# teammate would matter, but I have yet to meet anyone else who feels that way =)
@nitsua60 there are physical differences between men and women, at least vague-ish general ones, not counting ones that wouldn't directly effect stats specifically
but there are far greater differences between individuals regardless of gender too
so imposing a straight up law in your mechanics that all men have more str, and women have more wis,..... ignores that there are also women who literally dwarf most men they ever meet in stature and could be better warriors if that had turned out to be their proffession, as a generalized example
what strikes me most about it is literally the preferance to pick out a generalized thing that may or may not be mostly true if you only count like, averages or something similar, but the complete lack of ability or willingness to acknowledge that there is plenty of possibility for any given person to subvert that general variance
and it isn't like strength is ONLY an inborn thing
most people who are stronger than you most likely worked for that strength, excercising to some degree more than you have, maybe having grown up with a different diet even
That podcast describes how we acquired the idea that it's good to design items for individuals based on statistical averages, and why it's actually not good.
a lot of factors at any rate, most of which, either in numbers or in sheer singular power, could easily outweigh gender itself as a factor
I don't think anyone is necessarily being intentionally sexist if they want to change stats based off of gender (a judgement for a case by case basis that I don't want to make) but I would say that only using that one thing as a factor is at least a pretty ignorant thing to be doing
it ignores individuality, and other variables (as I mentioned before)
Right, which is why something like (forgive my wild guess at numbers) 80+20d6 pounds for men and 75+15d6+5d4 pounds wouldn't seem terribly offensive of an idea. (If I eyeballed means and deviations right.) But we're playing a bit of fantasy-escape; I have enough trouble setting my weight IRL. I'll just go ahead and declare my weight to be whatever I damn well please in my hobby.
Good morning! Today I had a dream about some rpg system. I can't remember what it was. I can remember that it was something flexible and I think there was something like moves from DW. That was odd.
@trogdor Yeah, but a mod or a cap to a stat feels like suuuuch a blunt tool...(in the D&D-verse). If we had percentile stat maybe I'd be on board with differentiating by a few points, as long as my training choices could create variances in the dozens of points.
@nitsua60 "I'll just go ahead and declare my weight" and here I remember my height/weight roll for my halforc. I wanted him to be big and menacing, but instead he was pretty short for orc and also pretty heavy. Funny, but our rogue rolled the same appereance for his human.
I guess I'm saying that in D&D a difference of 1 or 2 in a stat is such a big deal that I think having gender have that much of an effect would be sexism in the disparate-impact realm, if not in the disparate-intent-'cause-you-should-realize-what-a-big-hit-a-point-or-two-is.
@nitsua60 From memory, AD&D did have different limits for male & female. My memory doesn't go as far as to tell me if that was only percentile strength, or if other stats were also affected.
@trogdor Yeah--I'm pretty sure we're on the same page. Gender feeding into base stats would be acceptable in a system where (a) lots of other things--many of which are direct results of player choices--also factor in, and (b) the variations that arise from other factors are much larger than the variations that arise from gender.
@trogdor I guess I'm on the fence about a hypothetical person who would, say, give a 1-pt STR gender bonus at creation to men, then claim they were just trying to be simulationist, not sexist. Because 1 point in a stat at creation is such a big thing, that you should realize how disparately it's impacting a suspect class.
@nitsua60 yeah, one of my other problems is quantifying exactly what being a different gender would mean for what stats,.... it isn't like we reallllly understand the exact differences between genders in every single way,... yes we do know differences, but not necessarily a lot of ones that would effect an RPG characters relavent stats in any way we can definitively prove isn't the result of some other variable
@nitsua60 yeah, I feel the same way about that, to be sure
but also like, the claim of being "simulationist" falls over on it's face when you realize we don't exactly have literal scientific proof that the reason a given female is physically weaker than a given male is in fact due just, or even at all, to their difference in gender
I mean, my example of before stands, there are women living in the world today who are taller than the average man, or stronger (likely at least a few who are both)
@nitsua60 the problem is that person need to think it over and realize, that 1 point in stats will be much bigger difference than real biology. First thought: "hey, males and females are different". Second thought: "differences can be shown with stats!" and that's where thought train runs out of fuel.
For every other race there's a table of race vs. ability, with max and min indicated for each race-ability cell. And there're two scores listed in each cell, with a slash: first score is M, second is F. And for all this trouble, the only place there's a difference between M/F scores is on STR max.
Driving around in the rain this morning I got the seed of an idea for a playstyle/game goal paradigm that I don't think I've seen before, something to work in tandem with whatever GNS/Big Theory/etc one prefers.
I know it defies suspension of disbelief, but what official rule can I show a rules lawyer player that "proves" a horse can't start a grapple?
If the answer needs to distinguish between animal companions, paladin's warhorses, polymorphed player characters, etc then please cover all the cases.
A...
@BESW This is why I like the Metagame Rewards model so much — focuses on what value people see in and get out of playing RPGs. More theoretical models like that would be awesome.
Thanks. I'm not really into Angry, but he's got some good ideas and when I disagree with him it often helps me figure out what I really think about a thing.
The way these models urge refocusing on what works for the specific group and not judging taste also resonates nicely with where I've gotten to in recent years.
Actually... hrm. @doppelgreener Re-read Old Man Henderson with an eye toward identifying what each participant values in the game and at the table, what tools they use to acquire or protect those things, and what they do when those things are denied them.
@nitsua60 and seconded there -- grappling is just as much about technique as it is about raw brute force, and a properly trained gnome could definitely cause a goliath absolute nightmares in a grapple, as joint manipulation is extremely effective at incapacitating
@Adeptus perhaps
@RollingFeles I just don't jive with his writing style
@Adeptus Much much much. As in, it almost doesn't matter. I might go so far to say that it matters not at all, except that I hesitate to speak in absolutes.
@nitsua60 I did up a printable survey for it once…
@RollingFeles Oh, I don't think it was offensive (unless I'm horribly out of touch), but I think the dubious humor-worth of it didn't outweigh the reinforcement--even if only through parody--of an ugly part of internet misogyny.
Also (coming full circle on latent misogyny), for those of you who were part of the "I remember when gender factored into D&D stats" conversation: I missed remembering the part where human females are capped at 18/50, H-O females are capped at 18/75, and only males of various races can hit the stratospheric strengths.
@RollingFeles teacher at a boarding school. Thursdays are just a day where, like, six extra things line up for me. OTOH, I've got this Saturday completely free, which happens only about twice a year.
@RollingFeles I suspect it depends on edition somewhat -- DEX helps an awful lot as well for some folks, but not so much for others (due to armor capping off DEX bonuses in some editions)
Metagame Rewards: The Different Kinds of Fun
The most useful classification scheme I've found is about the different ways that people find roleplaying games satisfying and rewarding to play. It's best expressed† in the article "Metagame Rewards, or the Different Kinds of Fun":
[M]etagame rew...
I also find it kinda funny that people want to gender-split STR still, it seems like a useless hassle, especially from someone who has a few outsized ladies among his character collection
@nitsua60 The kind of way I'd joke (with the same underpinnings) among in-person friends, including the exaggeration of all-caps. :) But for same reasons also totally get that it's not necessarily the same when for public consumption.
Today in BESW Doesn't Know Computers: I have a choice between 3.1 GHz with 4k Retina (super-high-definition monitor), and 2.8 GHz without Retina. Retina will effectively cut my RAM in half, but I can upgrade RAM later while I'm stuck with the computer's processor until I get a new computer.
I really don't need or even want Retina, but that 3.1 GHz is taunting me.
@BESW Personally, I'd be inclined to say that the difference between 2.8 GHz and 3.1 is not all that high, whereas 8GB of RAM plus having your computer working harder for everything it does is a pretty big deal.
On the other hand, as you say, RAM can be upgraded pretty freely.
@Masakan We have a great answer on the site about optimizing a Bard for combat, I'll see if I can find it. It's not whip - specific, but it should be useful for you.
@Miniman This is pretty much the comparison I was looking for. (and the conclusion I was hoping for; it's enough cheaper that I can double my SSD size and still save $50)
And they've tied Retina to all of their high-end hardware under the hood.
Chances are my next computer won't be a Mac. By then I'll have had to abandon my current Mac-specific design suite because it's no longer updated to support the newer OS editions, and it's very likely whatever suite I move to will be transferable to Windows or some other OS.
@Adeptus I can verify that DW level differentials don't seem to matter. I ran a one-shot once where, as part of character generation, each player rolled a d8 and leveled that many times. Turned out great. There was a brief discussion on anime tropes of a bad guy with his second in command and their powerful-but-wildcard henchman
@BESW which computer system you want, like which RP system you want, depends a lot on what you want to get out of it
my gut reaction then is you'd want all the pixels, but you seem hesitant about that. I don't have much mac or graphic design experience at all, so I decline to comment.
Yeah, well, the thing is, resolution is a measure of how many pixels are being crammed into a given inch by whatever is displaying the picture--a monitor, a billboard-printing machine, whatever. It's independent of the picture, which just has however many pixels it has and isn't very picky about how many of them you put in a given inch when you look at it.
Updating the Timely RPGery, please excuse the markdown.
**[Timely RPGery](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nKltjD1HJ954pS3QZZL-E_ckNaKEeedxMKn7XwdFiio/edit?usp=sharing "Click for full source doc; please suggest items to pin!"):** [BoH](https://bundleofholding.com "Buy RPGs cheap in bulk, support charities & indie designers!"); [Standing Rock](http://flamesrising.rpgnow.com/product/193183 "You can support the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in its fight to protect its waters and sacred places by purchasing this massive RPG bundle."); [AW 2e](http://apocalypse-world.com/ "Apocalypse World's second edition is now available.");
I am an RPG guy who is also active in my religious community. Recently I was asked to conduct a class at my local mosque (my religion's equivalent of a church) for kids ages 7-12. To make it interesting for them, I was toying with the idea of DMing a D&D campaign during the class.
But in order t...
@JoelHarmon i pinged SevenSidedDie who is one of our three moderators (the people marked with that diamond symbol) and pointed him at your message via direct reply.
Disregarding Apocalypse World's savage setting, I think the engine might be a good fit for issue games. Like BESW has said, the engine is tuned to expect certain tropes, which would work there.
When you're trying to help others against your own interests, roll+conscience.
@JoelHarmon I don't really see the point of alignments, most of the time. I guess here they could perhaps be even weaker: a central part of Abrahamic faiths is that people are somehow flawed, prone to temptation and sin - and likewise that they can overcome this weakness or at very least be forgiven and absolved through Divine grace.
the original point of alignment in D&D at least was making the players feel justified in diving into a dungeon, slaying everything inside it, and leaving with their possessions -- 'cause the player characters are good and the monsters in there are evil, duh
I wonder if difficulty rolls are a good way to convey the difficulty of making ethical choices, though. While it's fitting in a certain way to represent the fact that we aren't saints and we make bad calls, it might also convey a rather unpleasing idea to the students that they don't have the power to shirk away from unethical choices.
the point is to provide guidelines on behavior, IMO. You run into issues when the universe has unambiguous Good and Evil, but the players arent forced to act in certain ways.
DW simply incentivizes certain behaviors; help someone, learn something, etc.
D&D gets weird because spells can interact with creatures differently based on their personal moral viewpoints
I think it's more interesting when most of the things in the universe aren't obviously Good or Evil. "Thou shalt not kill", but what if it's in self-defense? Fighting to defend your homeland, or protect an innocent? Euthanasia? Abortion?
@kviiri The issue games I know of don't do this, because they're interested in having the players directly consider ethical decisions themselves -- the dice rolls are just to see whether they can do what they eventually decide to do.
(the example of "Thou shalt not kill" is a bit bad because it only prohibits killing because of bad translation - the people in the Bible are depicted partaking in war and violence and being righteous in doing so)
@doppelgreener Yeah. I think you've got a good point.
@doppelgreener It came to me because of the preceding conversation, but it's in response to your earlier request for suggested reading on the topic of meta goals.
The links to kinds of gaming fun and such are some of the concepts I guess I've kinda absorbed over time; I'd read both those articles, but forgotten them as such.
@BESW I glanced over the discussion while I was still only half-awake. I shall take some more thorough time reading through it later -- I am building up a small reading list for this project, looks like. :)
@BESW This is why I like the Metagame Rewards model so much — focuses on what value people see in and get out of playing RPGs. More theoretical models like that would be awesome.
Metagame Rewards: The Different Kinds of Fun
The most useful classification scheme I've found is about the different ways that people find roleplaying games satisfying and rewarding to play. It's best expressed† in the article "Metagame Rewards, or the Different Kinds of Fun":
[M]etagame rew...
@doppelgreener That's right--how's England surviving the greener invasion?
@BESW The nice thing is, if you plotted those players on the metagame-rewards radar plot I suggested yesterday/this morning, all of them would have a huge spike at "social." Thirteen at a table totally works with them, 'cause every other metagame reward is just toppings on the sundae.
...It's the only side-scrolling platform game with multiple characters you switch between to use their unique abilities that I've played since The Lost Vikings 2?
@besw man I just read all those meta posts where you tried to be helpful but got all sorts of pushback. Thank you in general for you continued perseverance to help newer site users understand how SE in general works and how our particular SE functions.
I'm torn between the will to go to bed and hope this "get your character done or we'll penalize you" thing was just a bad dream and the fear that it's real and I will just make the worst last second decision ever and take toughness, 4 times.
@JoshuaAslanSmith Thanks. I had to work very hard to get what understanding I have, and if I see a way to help others avoid floundering like I did, that makes me happy. I'm even happier when I see other users doing the same thing, because that's a major element in turning the site into a community.
**[Timely RPGery](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nKltjD1HJ954pS3QZZL-E_ckNaKEeedxMKn7XwdFiio/edit?usp=sharing "Click for full source doc; please suggest items to pin!"):** [BoH](https://bundleofholding.com "Buy RPGs cheap in bulk, support charities & indie designers!"); [Standing Rock](http://flamesrising.rpgnow.com/product/193183 "You can support the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in its fight to protect its waters and sacred places by purchasing this massive RPG bundle."); [AW 2e](http://apocalypse-world.com/ "Apocalypse World's second edition is now available.");
I guess I rank pretty high on naches as a motivation.
@nitsua60 If you do run a radar plot, here's what's probably the average of mine:
Metagame Rewards: The Different Kinds of Fun
The most useful classification scheme I've found is about the different ways that people find roleplaying games satisfying and rewarding to play. It's best expressed† in the article "Metagame Rewards, or the Different Kinds of Fun":
[M]etagame rew...
