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For the longest time a mmorpg I used to play used to have gender-based bonuses an maluses. So a woman would make a shitty warrior and a man an under-powered mag

For the longest time a mmorpg I used to play used to have gender-based bonuses an maluses. So a woman would make a shitty warrior and a man an under-powered mage. On the game's boards this was argued about forever because many girls wanted to play warriors. The guardians of the game were not relenting. Females as strong as males were "unrealistic"... In a game where you can shoot fireballs, travel through dimensions, go back in time, and resurrect the dead.... Eventually, as more and more players quit the game the gender differences were dropped. Before that I used to play some female characters to get access to the op mage bonuses. But damn, there were so many creeps who thought i was a "real" girl.

pessimizer 2y ago
Women are generally weaker than men, and even in the situation that you're explaining, women with a strength penalty could still end up stronger than men within the game. The insistence that acknowledging that women are weaker than men is some sort of bigotry is deeply misogynistic. If fantasy women are just as strong as men, then real women just need to work harder to live up to the standards of men. If women in fantasy are as strong as men, then women in reality aren't being allowed to see themselves in fantasy. The repeated justification that women in a fantasy world shouldn't resemble women, or "...in a game where you can shoot fireballs, travel through dimensions, go back in time, and resurrect the dead..." is silly. Women in a game can also get magic powers that make them stronger. Erasing female physicality is erasing women, and replacing them with men playing women.
- gamblor956 2y ago
  In real life, the kind of women who are warriors are generally stronger than most men, including the kind of men who want to be warriors.. Gwendolyn Christie (of GOT fame) is 6'3" and can bench press you without breaking a sweat. Gina Carano (of UFC fame) can squat 530 pounds and deadlift 450 pounds. Preventing someone from playing as a strong warrior woman based on incorrect assumptions about female physicality would erase women who actually exist.
  - LunaSea 2y ago
    And how many standard deviations to the right from the average is Gwendolyn Christie?
    - gamblor956 2y ago
      Irrelevant. She exists. The parent I was replying to suggested that someone wanting to play a character modeled after her would somehow be erasing women. But denying people the right to play a character modeled after a real, live woman would erase the real, live woman who actually exists in the world we live in, and all the other women like her.
      - bloqs 2y ago
        You are missing the point entirely, Gwendoline Christie almost certainly can't bench that person (i'll humour the absurd "who can bench more" frat bro thing for the discussion). If Gwendoline Christie was male, she would be 3 standard deviations larger than the average. Her testosterone levels are "nerfed" due to being female. Gina, and any female bodybuilder for that matter, are of course stronger than your average man, but they are again, "nerfed" by biology, if they had the testosterone production of a man due to being male, they would be considerably stronger, maintain better muscle mass relative to the hours they have put in bodybuilding. In the in game implementation, a high strength female charcter would be an impressive rarity, demonstrating great strength, despite biological hinderances. This correctly acknowledges their uniqueness, and brings their other traits to the table (considerably higher in int or "smarter" than other strong characters)
        gamblor956 2y ago
        No, it appears that you are missing the point. The OP was suggesting that a role-playing fantasy game should not allow strong warrior women characters because that would somehow not allow women to fantasize about being the character because women are weaker at the very extremes of strength so a strong female character is really somehow just a man. But as demonstrated, strong females actually exist in the real world, and the sex-based strength differences are irrelevant unless the GM deliberately creates a scenario in which those differences matter, which would mean a scenario requiring a character to bench more than 450 pounds, squat more than 600 pounds, or deadlift more than 700 pounds (all of which are under the women's world records). The argument about protecting "female physicality" is just a MRA argument that was soundly rejected by D&D because it has no basis in the real world, and thus no basis in a fantasy world filled with dragons and magic.
Mawr 2y ago
> Females as strong as males were "unrealistic"... In a game where you can shoot fireballs, travel through dimensions, go back in time, and resurrect the dead.... A tired argument in gaming and fiction in general. Whatever your fictional world, it needs to have an internally consistent ruleset. Typically these worlds are modelled after our own and only the differences are highlighted, so the assumption is that unless explicitly mentioned, the rules are the same as on Earth. For example, you can't use the existence of magic in a fictional world to argue there may as well be aircraft flying around too. The strength of women vs men is no different, it's not like some Earth deity has arbitrarily decided that females are to be weaker. There are a lot of biological reasons why that is so. If these are not changed in the fictional world to be able to support the existence of equally strong females, then your world becomes less internally consistent.
- nhinck3 2y ago
  What biological changes have happened has made it so a human can jump 7.5 meters forward (or 2 meters upwards) decked out in full plate mail?
- bjourne 2y ago
  I have never played a fantasy game where characters regularly had to take a dump (maybe Dwarf Fortress has defecation but it's more of a simulator game than an rpg). Yet the lack of shitting in fantasy games has not caused hordes of nerds to scream about how it is internally inconsistent that players can eat, but not shit. And yes there are actual aircraft flying around in many fantasy worlds.

pessimizer 2y ago

Women are generally weaker than men, and even in the situation that you're explaining, women with a strength penalty could still end up stronger than men within the game. The insistence that acknowledging that women are weaker than men is some sort of bigotry is deeply misogynistic. If fantasy women are just as strong as men, then real women just need to work harder to live up to the standards of men. If women in fantasy are as strong as men, then women in reality aren't being allowed to see themselves in fantasy. The repeated justification that women in a fantasy world shouldn't resemble women, or "...in a game where you can shoot fireballs, travel through dimensions, go back in time, and resurrect the dead..." is silly. Women in a game can also get magic powers that make them stronger. Erasing female physicality is erasing women, and replacing them with men playing women.

gamblor956 2y ago
In real life, the kind of women who are warriors are generally stronger than most men, including the kind of men who want to be warriors.. Gwendolyn Christie (of GOT fame) is 6'3" and can bench press you without breaking a sweat. Gina Carano (of UFC fame) can squat 530 pounds and deadlift 450 pounds. Preventing someone from playing as a strong warrior woman based on incorrect assumptions about female physicality would erase women who actually exist.
- LunaSea 2y ago
  And how many standard deviations to the right from the average is Gwendolyn Christie?
  - gamblor956 2y ago
    Irrelevant. She exists. The parent I was replying to suggested that someone wanting to play a character modeled after her would somehow be erasing women. But denying people the right to play a character modeled after a real, live woman would erase the real, live woman who actually exists in the world we live in, and all the other women like her.
    - bloqs 2y ago
      You are missing the point entirely, Gwendoline Christie almost certainly can't bench that person (i'll humour the absurd "who can bench more" frat bro thing for the discussion). If Gwendoline Christie was male, she would be 3 standard deviations larger than the average. Her testosterone levels are "nerfed" due to being female. Gina, and any female bodybuilder for that matter, are of course stronger than your average man, but they are again, "nerfed" by biology, if they had the testosterone production of a man due to being male, they would be considerably stronger, maintain better muscle mass relative to the hours they have put in bodybuilding. In the in game implementation, a high strength female charcter would be an impressive rarity, demonstrating great strength, despite biological hinderances. This correctly acknowledges their uniqueness, and brings their other traits to the table (considerably higher in int or "smarter" than other strong characters)
      - gamblor956 2y ago
        No, it appears that you are missing the point. The OP was suggesting that a role-playing fantasy game should not allow strong warrior women characters because that would somehow not allow women to fantasize about being the character because women are weaker at the very extremes of strength so a strong female character is really somehow just a man. But as demonstrated, strong females actually exist in the real world, and the sex-based strength differences are irrelevant unless the GM deliberately creates a scenario in which those differences matter, which would mean a scenario requiring a character to bench more than 450 pounds, squat more than 600 pounds, or deadlift more than 700 pounds (all of which are under the women's world records). The argument about protecting "female physicality" is just a MRA argument that was soundly rejected by D&D because it has no basis in the real world, and thus no basis in a fantasy world filled with dragons and magic.

Mawr 2y ago

> Females as strong as males were "unrealistic"... In a game where you can shoot fireballs, travel through dimensions, go back in time, and resurrect the dead.... A tired argument in gaming and fiction in general. Whatever your fictional world, it needs to have an internally consistent ruleset. Typically these worlds are modelled after our own and only the differences are highlighted, so the assumption is that unless explicitly mentioned, the rules are the same as on Earth. For example, you can't use the existence of magic in a fictional world to argue there may as well be aircraft flying around too. The strength of women vs men is no different, it's not like some Earth deity has arbitrarily decided that females are to be weaker. There are a lot of biological reasons why that is so. If these are not changed in the fictional world to be able to support the existence of equally strong females, then your world becomes less internally consistent.

nhinck3 2y ago
What biological changes have happened has made it so a human can jump 7.5 meters forward (or 2 meters upwards) decked out in full plate mail?
bjourne 2y ago
I have never played a fantasy game where characters regularly had to take a dump (maybe Dwarf Fortress has defecation but it's more of a simulator game than an rpg). Yet the lack of shitting in fantasy games has not caused hordes of nerds to scream about how it is internally inconsistent that players can eat, but not shit. And yes there are actual aircraft flying around in many fantasy worlds.