The non-politically correct stats of men vs women Options

[Rooks]

Men +1 str +1 body/bone density but still does stun damage
Women +1 agility +1 charisma

both could be gender stat maxiums as well

questions comments concerns?

[hobgoblin]

thats one nasty make troll!

[Gretik]

Female and male bodies are not much less durable than one another.

Women are not that much more agile naturally either - the only difference is that on average men have more upper body strength.

[Ravor]

Although I'm hesitant to go down this road, not because of political correctness, but simply because I'm not sure that on a 1-6 Scale there really is enough of an average difference to warrant any modifers, if I were going to do such a thing I think I'd use one of these two systems.

System (1)

Men:
(Strength +1)

Women
(Body +1)

System (2)

Men:
(Strength +1 Body -1 Logic +1 Intuition -1)

Women:
(Body +1 Strength -1 Intuition +1 Logic -1)

Either way, the important thing is to keep the 'value' of the Stat Mods more or less balanced, which you haven't done, because contrary to the various trolls on the internet, despite the differences between the two sexes, they are equal.

[Gretik]

Um... Where the heck are those figures coming from?

I think it is overall a bad idea to try this.

[hobgoblin]

[Gretik]

Averagely i do not think it makes much of a difference, not enough to unbalance what is already a simplistic system. (Kind of anyway.)

[Cray74]

I'm not sure if the game actually has enough "resolution" in its attributes to catch the difference between men and women.

[Rooks]

and now time to open up pandoras box
so its just a coincidense that olympics are still gender segregated most world records are held by men their bones weigh more and are tougher

meanwhile women on average speak lot more words a day than males and have an easier time socially with members of both genders and a generally more flexable

[Guest_MK Ultra_*]

There are some gender differences in both physical and mental performance, which are well researched and statistically significant.
Still, while these differences are not insignificant, they are in most properties probably not big enough, to warrent a modifire on a 1-6 scale.
Another problem is to locat these advantages in the gamemechanics. I.e. women are superior in manual dexterity (agil), have a better memory for real objects (logic) and can speak more fluently (charisma, logic, language skills?), among other things, while men are stronger, faster, have better reaction and endurence, allso, they are better with complex math, among other things.

I mostly handel it by "soft" rp-ing modifires, insted of hard mechanical effects. I.e. while a St 5 or 6 male is allready big and uncommon, a woman with St 6 will be verry rare and an obvious hulking chunk of muscles compared to other females, which is probably often mistaken as a man in dim light, from far away and sometimes on plain sight. Same goes for a man with St 1. I probably won´t allow a female character with exceptional St without a very special storry. Bod is a similar storry. There won´t be many females with Ch 1 either.
The other stats incorporate to many things, that are not as easily quantifiable and allso often adress traits that are more prevelent in one gender, as well as traits, where the other gender is superior (i.e. Logic, see above, or agility (see above but men are better with throwing and shooting)).

So I think SR simply has too little resolution in stats, to have many gender based hard mechanics.

[hyzmarca]

Males STR and BOD maximums +1

Females gain a power called "flash" which costs a simple action and forces any male character to to spend his next combat turn gawking if he fails a threshold 12 willpower test.

[Guest_MK Ultra_*]

*FLASHHHHHHH* :eek:

:rotfl:

[Guest_MK Ultra_*]

:rotfl:

"dumdumdumdumdumdumdumdum FLASHHHH, UHUUUUU, saivioroftheunivers dumdumdumdumdumdumdumdum He saved everyoneofus ..."

:spin:

EDIT: OMG, I better get some sleap..

BTW: every female character gets one smugling compartment/skin pocket extra

OMGOMGOMG, I really better go to bed now, I´m sorry, g´n8.

[Ravor]

Gretik

[Glyph]

I think gender differences are too subtle to convey in a system like SR4, which is designed to be abstract and relatively simple.

Plus, Rook's proposed modifications would definitely favor females - an Agility and Charisma bonus, versus a Strength bonus and an extra damage resistance die? Even for a sammie, being a woman would be more effective (since Agility is the uber-stat for combat), not to mention a face or shaman. And combining the bonuses for female with the bonuses for elf... yikes! :love:

[Guest_MK Ultra_*]

probably the only hard rules mod I would consider (but don´t really, because it´s a minor mechanical diference anyway), is giving male characters a small discount on the exceptional strength quality and let femal pc/npc pay the same amount less on the exceptional charisma quality. No more then 5 bp discount, though. Or better (as not to lower the everage bp spent in chargen), make it a mod for one gender (doesn´t metter which, but I´d chose women, since female characters are less frequent in my gaming group then male ones) give the proposed discount and make the other quality 5 bp more costly, i.e. for females pay -5 for ex.ch and +5 for ex.st, for males use the standard rules.
This way, the mod would only effect extrem characters, were the statistical diferences are biger, and it would not be a totally unbalancing automatic bonus. Allso, I would not adress other attributes then st & ch, see my previous post.

[Apathy]

This topic's already been beaten to death.

Ultimately, I would suggest that it's counter-productive to do this, because:

• it'll encourage even more power-gaming.
• it's likely to offend somebody out there (and therefore fails the 'fun' rule).
• it could just as easily be covered with good roleplaying.
• The stats are not granular enough to cover the specific items that show an appreciable difference between genders. (A bonus to Charisma would apply equally to intimidation skills as to negotiation.)
• There's no universal agreement on how much of the difference between male and female stats is influenced by biological differences and how much is just cultural/social influences.

[hyzmarca]

The only rules mod I'd consider is the one MK Ultra suggested. Men get one free smuggling compartment. Women get two free smuggling compartments.

[Kyoto Kid]

...oops, er... wrong room.

[sound of door closing]

[Shrike30]

You know, people... you could always just set your character's stats to reflect the character... not just gender, but size, strength, level of physical activity, how well they deal with people, how smart they are, etc, without thinking "Boy, it'd be so much easier for my character to think straight if they were female." You know... just have the stats reflect your image of the character.

Or is that too simple a solution?

[Guest_MK Ultra_*]

Exactly what I meant to propose in my first post IIRC. But since this is a rules thread, I tried to serve the topic.

hyzmarca
All your bad influence you female, lesbian, elven, surge-cat player :P

EDIT: "FLASH UAAAAHH dumdumdumdum ..."

[hobgoblin]

elven? night one damn it!

[Guest_MK Ultra_*]

Oh, did I mixe up something? If so, I´m sorry. Nightones are much more munchkinese in any way, so if it was a regular elf, it should better be converted (allso consider making her an albino on top of it).

[Johnnycache]

Why is this needed? You get the stats you pay for in points, and if you want them to be somehow consistent with a roleplaying weakness of your character, don't max them out.

[hobgoblin]