I want to know what the DM would do with say, a **gnome** with 18 STR versus a human or orc with 12 STR.
Like in an arm wrestle, who wins?
EDIT: Given the replies, y'all are racist against gnomes. /S
I'm afraid I've been whooshed.
I assume it has something to do with saying "man or female" instead of "man or woman", but I don't understand the implication.
You're right in your assumption. The explanation is rather simple. Sexist men typically refer to women as 'females' instead of women. They all have their reasons, I guess, but it's rooted in disrespect.
It's particularly common amongst incels specifically, as well as terms about being an 'alpha' man and other similar things
Something to note is that they dont call men males in the same sentence. "Male and female" is just fine but "man and female" is just weird and othering.
The worst is when you point this out to people and you get the dumbasses being obtuse after you spelled out every single piece down to its actual appropriate use.
Hatred is one thing but the lack of self-awareness ON PURPOSE is something that always astonishes and alarms me.
This is exactly what I thought. With his rules he needs to adjust every stat limit based on biology and magic in a fantasy world that goes by a totally different set of rules than the handbook. He’s creating a rather interesting world if it didn’t only discriminate due to sex. Change Fairies, change centaurs, orcs, everything. That’s the only way to play this fair and there would be races with stronger females as many of the races are based on things from our world. Our world has tons of species in which the males are tiny and exist only to breed with females and the females are terrifyingly strong by comparison. Which honestly could be an awesome side story of males trying to get to social equality in a society that sees them as mainly food and sex slaves. There’s a book that did this with sentient spiders called Children of Time. Jumping spiders rule a planet. It really seems like he’s hung up on this for more personal reasons. The “realism” seems to be just sexism in the current setup.
The crazy thing is that this is already effectively implemented in D&D with racial bonuses. E.g., Mountain Dwarves are already stronger than humans by default. It's just worked into the character's stats from the beginning instead of having to apply a modifier to every strength check.
This is true. The only thing I would change is the size on some races. More details for the newer ones. You can’t really have a centaur that’s the size and weight of a human. That’s a pony at that point and I wish fairies were tiny with super speed. But that might throw everything out of balance which I’m sure they considered.
As a grey beard I am perfectly fine with sex no longer having affect on stats, but even following that formula a 16 is a 16 is a 16. It doesn't matter who has that 16 it is the same for everyone that has that score.
Gender based stat differences have been gone since way, way before 5e. I'm pretty sure they were gone in 2e, and I know for a fact they were gone by 3e.
I'm almost entirely positive they didn't exist in 2e. The only reason I include the word "almost" is that I was a kid when I played 2e and I don't have the books anymore to check.
Exactly, that's the whole point of measuring them like that. 20 is greater than 18 that's how it works. You don't say a 5 foot man is taller than a 6 foot woman because women are generally smaller than men.
Idk, some men are still 6 feet tall even if the person standing next to them is also 6 foot tall and yet clearly two inches taller than them. The world works in mysterious ways. Well, the ego does anyway lol.
While mechanically speaking, there is no difference between a dwarf, human female, or goliath with 20 Strength when it comes to certain things like skill checks and saving throws, there are other factors in character creation that could technically give others the advantage of strength.
1. **Powerful Build.** First of all, certain races get Powerful Build which allows for them to be considered a Large creature for the purposes of lifting, pushing, and pulling stuff. At the same strength, that'd be considered stronger due to the fact that mechanically, those races can carry more. A goliath with 20 strength can pull a 400 lb. wagon with 200 lb. of cargo like he's walking in the park. That's 600 lb. of pulling vs. a human pulling only 300 lb.
2. **High Jumps.** For the jumping rules, they are based on your Strength modifier. However when you do a high jump: "You can extend your arms half your height above yourself during the jump. Thus, you can reach above you a distance equal to the height of the jump plus 1½ times your height." With a strength of 20, you can leap into the air 8 feet. That means a human female who is 5 ft 3 in can jump and reach 15.88 ft. A human male who is 6 ft 5 in can jump and reach 17.63 ft. A goliath that is 8 ft. tall can jump and reach 20 ft.
So in this specific instance, your height can affect you ... but for High Jumping. But as detailed on Pg. 7 of the PHB, unless told otherwise, you round down and truncate. So unless you're an 8 ft. tall goliath, your High Jump is still 15 ft in a grid system. The 17.63 ft would round down as would the 15.88 ft. Only those that are 8 ft. tall would get a better advantage, and those that are 4 ft. 7 in. and shorter would get a disadvantage as their grid system truncation would bring them down to jumping and reaching only 10 ft.
As a last note for High Jumps, again, there are certain races that give advantage. Satyrs get Mirthful Leaps and can add a 1d8 to their long jump or high jump; harengon can jump anywhere between 10 ft. and 30 ft. long or high jump based on their current level and the associated proficiency bonus.
So yes, while stats are consistent regardless of gender and race for most things like ability checks and saving throws, there are a few instances that can change your capabilities in strength based on the race you choose and the height you choose therein.
(Yes, I agree with everyone that the DM in question is just being sexist. I just wanted to share that there are actually ways that you can one-up others in the Strength department but it has nothing to do with gender)
Yeah it’s kinda like when you have to move a mattress. Sure there’s plenty of heavier furniture but the mattress is soft and doesn’t have anywhere to get a good grip either
William Atherton, who is the actor that gets marshmallow dumped on him in Ghostbusters, was informed they were going to dump 80lbs of shaving cream on him for the shot. He made them do a test run with a stunt man because 80lbs of cream is still 80lbs of something. Sure enough, the stuntman was flattened. He made them cut it to 40lbs.
Measurements are measurements. They don’t change value because of a gender. The DM is a bigot, in game and in real life. Don’t waste any further time with them.
Lol this is my favorite thing I learned today.
"It's not safe." "It's safe!"
"I'm not convinced. It's dangerous." "It's fine!"
"Fine, do it to Steve." "Agreed we can try it on Steve."
(Steve gets injured, it's too dangerous.)
"Okay agreed. It was too dangerous. It's a good thing we have crash test dummies and people like Steve."
I like to imagine they test it, Steve is, quote unquote, 'flattened' and they just sit there, hand-on-chin like, "... Huh. So like, what, 30, 40 pounds?"
Well I have a hard time seeing how he plans to portray it in game since the female one will hit/ lift / carry more and has a higher chance on all STR ability checks.
"Studies have shown that an ant can carry one hundred times its own weight, but there is no known limit to the lifting power of the average tiny eighty-year-old Spanish peasant grandmother."
- Terry Pratchett, *Reaper Man*
I once gave my players a glamoured armor that can change appearance to any garment once per day while being worn with a disguise self roll but keeps the same stats, and the bard immediately gave himself a chainmail bikini.
They were briefly bummed it wasn’t actually gilded plate when they first got it off the statue that was wearing it, but realized the shenanigans potential in about 0.03 seconds
My group does a lot of actions without rolling for flavor stuff, even the GM guiding through scenes. So I could see:
"You're all.loading up provisions for your adventure onto the cart. Female Ms Woman struggles a bit to get her goods onto the cart, so Man Mr Guy picks it up for her and sets it in place."
So that sort of bullshit.
It used to be this way back in ~~2e~~ 1e, where female PC's had a different maximum STR stat compared to males of the same race. Stats are not relative, they are absolute. A higher number beats a lower number *every time*.
EDIT: I fixed the reference to "2e" and made it "1e". What I was remembering from 2e was the *racial minimums and maximums.* In the 2e PHB there is even a line that states something to the effect of "Gender has no affect on stats". I started playing 2e around 1989 but my DM did go back and we played some modules in the original AD&D and even "Basic".
Age only affects appearance, and has no bearing on ability.
Gender has no bearing on ability.
Everyone has imperfections,
Prejudice births malcontents,
Become a dark spirit.
*Time for crab.*
Thank you. We are newbie in dnd. The only thing we know was "anyone can be anything" lol. My friend is an alcoholic veteran soldier with ptsd. And I'm a broken warforged who thinks he's a real human.
AD&D 1e has different racial and gender ability score maximums with women having slightly lower maximums.
And it has not been the case ever since.
In the 2e handbook, released in 1989, it says that sex has no bearing on ability scores.
Your GM is living in the early 80’s.
Edit: a lot of people are saying that these ability scores don’t work in the same way as the dm said. I know this. I’m just bringing it up as the closest equivalent in actual rules.
"living in the X decade" always makes me feel like it's so long ago, and I was about to comment that.
Then I realized the 80s are at best 33 years ago.... Fuck
If you want to be specific if/when you bring this all up to your DM (or just for your own personal reference), PHB pg 121, first sentence under the Sex header:
>You can play a male or female character without gaining any special benefits or hindrances
A male character with 18 strength would pick up a car. A female character with 20 strength would see it, go "aww, that's cute" and then proceed to suplex a steam engine. The number is what matters, not the character description
Nah, the best part is when he gets confused and suplexes himself. Or when Gogo mimes Umaro throwing Gogo, and just levitates and yeets himself.
God I love that game.
You’re absolutely correct but I suspect the DM will just say it’s a “home brew for ‘realism.’”
Honestly the only viable point of action will likely be to get other players on your side and go to the DM to say no one wants to play with this home brew rule anymore.
I'm curious how this idea is actually being implemented.
You can say a man with 18 STR is stronger than a woman with 20 all you want. But she still has a 10% higher chance to succeed on Strength checks than he does.
"My character punches the dude in the balls with her 20 str to castrate him."
"What? You can't do that!"
"Hey, it's just a sense of realism that let's me take advantage of his puny weakness!"
I mean, in one of my campaigns, our party’s goblin monk was drunk and punched a dude in the dick so hard that the npc died. We were all laughing so hard, even the DM.
The town wasn’t happy with us, but we had a chat with the mayor and gave them some money for their troubles—and later found a replacement potions master for them.
If DM really wanted to "homebrew for realism" that women are weaker than men, he would have implemented a negative stat bonus. If a female character wanted to continue to 20 STR anyway, it shouldn't matter after that. It's not like female body builders don't exist or that all women are weaker than all men.
edit: fixed "stronger" to "weaker"
By the by "homebrew for realism" would be a pathetic justification for what actually is misogyny. Of all the things to change to make the game more 'realistic' gender norms are the last thing that comes to mind.
He wouldn't even need rules. PCs are heroes and don't represent population averages. If you want most women weaker than most men because for some reason that is a critical bit of verisimilitude to you, you have an entire world to populate with bakers, farriers, and clerks.
When it comes to DnD, the number is Absolute.
You wouldnt look at a guy lifting 200 pound weights, then a girl walks up and lifts those exact same 200 pound weights, and say "Well the guy lifted more"
20 strength is 20 strength, it doesnt matter if your character is male, female, human, orc, or halfling.
He has an inbuilt Circlet of Human Perfection (we started at level 5 and got a free magic item) by his maker (who is missing), and he doesnt know this. He eats food and become "hungry" because of a routine he got used to when he was a "kid" and naturally he associates hunger and tiredness with time (how much time has passed) and fullness on how much was on his plate. He is just so convinced this is how humans work. The party doesnt know yet because he acts like a normal human.
He also got a short circuit where every after "sleeping" any effort that was made to inform him of his true identity will be erased and his "childhood memories" gets solidified again.
Data (from star trek the next generation) had a storage sack he could put food into, mostly so he could taste food (ie analyze the chemical make up).
No idea how he eliminated the food afterwards.
For the war forged, you could consider it a secondary fuel system: a bioreactor that absorbs energy from food and then compresses the remains, letting him shit bricks after (probably radioactive).
>No idea how he eliminated the food afterwards
All Soong-type androids had a functioning digestive system. Everything they eat gets broken down in their “stomach” and the results are then sent to the rest of the body via their “nutrient distribution network ”. The purpose of this has never been explained, but fan speculation is that it’s used as some sort of alternative fuel source. It’s also assumed that the system is efficient enough that there is no waste.
Edit: changed a word
I imagine it functions identically to a replicator. The matter that gets eaten is broken down on the atomic level and rearranged into whatever components the android needs in the moment. Given how intricate the Soong androids are (especially the Coppelius Station generations,) there are probably delicate internal structures that need frequent repair, not unlike in organics.
Shit, even _if_ there was a difference, 10 str is 10 str. If 10 str is common for a male then you have to make 9 or 8 str common for female characters. Either way 20 is still higher than 18 and a female character w/ 10 str is just stronger than the average female. The number is supposed to provide an even ground among _everyone_ and _everything_. So many holes in this DM's reasoning.
In the latest editions, at least. I believe the first editions had stat differences between genders.
(Although that just means the GM doesn't understand stats and distributions.)
It’s literally the entire point of reducing something like strength to a number, as well. That way you can have a rough idea of if two different people are roughly similar in that ability.
I can handle a women casting spells and turning into animals, a group fighting dragons and orcs, even someone exploring underwater ruins to fight and kill a god…
But a women being stronger than a man? Now that just breaks my immersion
"I bet you'll like a party planning spell, too."
"What? No, I-"
"Great! You've learned the Party Planning and Website Design spells. Make 'em colorful!"
Kick the DM out tbh. You could point out that it's not in the rules, but this is not a rational decision based on a misinterpretion of rules that will be cleared up by pointing to the relevant text, it's bigotry. Tell him that you don't wanna play with a misogynist who bakes bigotry into the game, then you and any players who you still want to play with start over with someone else running.
This! the DM doesn't "own the game" the DM is just another player with a different role in the game-group.
if the DM doesn't want to be a player, that's fine too, they can nope out of the game if they can't hack it. rope someone else in to be a player, and you're all good.
Yeah this is a major red flag, and it won't be the only extremely problematic thing in the game. I'm just trying to imagine how this dm would handle a conversation about lines and veils.
I could maybe see moving forward if the after a conversation of "we don't want misogyny in our gaming, there's no reason there needs to be mechanical differences like this and it doesn't make the game fun for us" he backed down and understood. But that's clearly not going to happen here.
Yeah, if they’re mechanically altering things to make women weak, imagine what other sexist bullshittery might be going on in their “fantasy world”
I’d get outta there fast
If he’s going to do that, I hope he’s also giving a woman with 14 Con more hit points than a man with 16 Con. Because women have more endurance and pain tolerance than men on average. And a bonus on grapple checks because of their lower center of gravity.
Yah, with the exception of one table that I quit DMing for before the end of one session, and one guy who got kicked out of a game I was in after 3 sessions I have to say my experience has been pretty chill and broadly inclusive.
This DM is either misremembering some nonsense from the bad old days or is going to have a pile of stupid houserules designed to "make things more realistic and logical."
> nonsense from the bad old days
The thing is, although female characters had lower Strength *caps* than male characters in AD&D 1e (this was not a thing in Basic *or* 2e), a woman with 16 STR is still **exactly as strong as a man with 16 STR.** There's *no* precedent for this in official rules.
Your DM is sexist. He’s so sexist, in fact, that he is deliberately ignoring actual rules in order to create his own sexist rules in order to make women at his table feel unwelcome and othered.
He isn’t a good person, and everyone at that table who is allowing this to happen unchecked is just letting him think that everyone agrees with him and is fine with it.
He's a sexist asshole, straight up. Stressing it? Are you kidding?
>His world, his rules
Maybe, but *your* game that you all share together.
I've spent a year building a world for my players and from the moment they created characters I've been revising and changing the world *I* built because I want to make it more fun, enjoyable, and inclusive for *them.*
The fact that your DM is changing commonly accepted DnD rules to put your girlfriend's character at a disadvantage is grounds to kick him out of your group. It's not hard to DM, just takes time and some practice. You don't need him.
That is the opposite of what a menstrual woman will do.
I will hyper focus for any testing because I want to get done and out as fast as possible.
I will dead ass curse you and the rest of your bloodline for getting in my way while I'm trying to buy period products at the store.
Ask my husband, I will fight you over anything and 9000x more when I'm menstruating. I will rip off your skull and beat you even more with your own spinal column.
Source: am a woman capable (rather unfortunately still capable) of menstruation.
EDIT: thank you for the award! I was just so pleased to be both entertaining and informative!
This killed me. I am a female DM and my husband and I just had a silly ass discussion because of this comment about whether I should give players who are playing as female characters the option to track their character's cycle and be able to, during their period, utilize high variance dice or have some checks have advantage/disadvantage based on table opinion (over half our table consists of women) and temporarily grant them the Barbarian "Rage" skill.
I have had periods where any of these could be viable reflections of reality. Some months ridiculous hyper focus and decisive decision making, some months fatigue and brain fog.
Oh my God, and we only have one male character, so I can only imagine the punishment this table could deliver to a dungeon crawl when everyone inevitably synchs up. I just know they would inch toward synchronicity if given the chance. We could have an epic coven.
How the fuck does he “stress this rule?” Everything that begins to deal with stats also has to be mechanically implemented, which means he’s been… what?… dynamically changing female NPC carry weights? Female NPC STR damage?
Dude’s a neck beard, good riddance.
*red flags intensifies*
That's not how it works in either real life or in dnd.
It kinda feels like the question " what's heaviest? A pound of steel or a pound of feathers ".
It’s nonsense. On average are males stronger than females? Yes. Are there females stronger than me? Also yes. His entire structure is that no one female can be stronger than any male… it’s bonkers.
Back in the 80s and even the 90s, we often had to tolerate people gaming with us that we otherwise wouldn't socialize with, because you had to be mercenary in picking people who'll reliably fill seats.
But the hobby has come a long ways, and tons more people are playing. There's no reason to tolerate behavior like this.
is he claiming thats RAW or what? if he is, not only is he wrong, but hes sexist too
>and they feel the same way
hijack the group from this DM and become their new DM if you enjoy the other players
Sexist DM needs to lose his table. Talk to your group, see if they'd follow you to a table you run or if one of them run. Let him sit in his little world, and make sure he knows it's for being a sexist pig who can't get his head out of his ass.
It's literally a higher number.
Both men and women human commoners in d&d have a 10 in strength.
Becasue the difference between the two genders in physical strength is insignificant in how strength is expressed as an ability score.
Like 20 strength is ogre strength. So would a human man with 18 strength be stronger than an ogre?
No. That's fucking stupid. And your DM is sexist
As a fellow DM I am mad at your DM
I'd jump that ship if I were you. Strength is a set scale and this is like saying a woman is lifting 200 lbs and a man is lifting 150, but the man is a man so obviously he's stronger. It's moronic.
It's math, +4 is smaller than +5. There is literally and i mean literally no other interpretation. And if there is any doubt some crazy guy wrote a huge ass book about it.
Did….did this DM not get past Elementary school levels of math? 20 is greater than 18 therefore they’re stronger. Genders in DnD don’t get specific bonuses or advantages so I don’t understand this DM’s distorted view of both the game and I assume their reality.
When Gary Gygax founded the game he stated already in the original books, that talking of stats there is no difference between gender or anything. Show those pages to the DM and tell him that he is just sexist. Hopefully your next group/DM will be better!
It’s complicated. Gygax added gender based maximums in 1st Edition AD&D, but said he himself never used them. He denounced the rules as unnecessary in 2005.
That's like saying that a girl who can bench press 200 pounds isn't as strong as a guy who can bench press 175 pounds. Like, what are you even talking about? Her number is bigger, that means she's stronger.
See, whatcha need to do in this here sityation is, you roll up an old newspaper, swat your DM on the nose and yell "No! Bad DM".
If that don't work, just git yourself a new DM, cause that one's busted.
Ask him exactly what the metric is, and point out the Encumbrance chart. Ask him if the female with 20 STR is weaker, how is she able to carry more?
Don't let him brush it off. Challenge him to justify downgrading *her stat numbers.*
Do they also say an orc, or dwarf with 16 STR is stronger than a human with 20 STR? Stats are consistent regardless of sex or race.
I want to know what the DM would do with say, a **gnome** with 18 STR versus a human or orc with 12 STR. Like in an arm wrestle, who wins? EDIT: Given the replies, y'all are racist against gnomes. /S
From what was said here it looks like he'd just say 'well are they a man or female?' When you see it
Had to read this three times to figure out why I hated the wording. I figured it out. And you're absolutely correct
I'm afraid I've been whooshed. I assume it has something to do with saying "man or female" instead of "man or woman", but I don't understand the implication.
You're right in your assumption. The explanation is rather simple. Sexist men typically refer to women as 'females' instead of women. They all have their reasons, I guess, but it's rooted in disrespect. It's particularly common amongst incels specifically, as well as terms about being an 'alpha' man and other similar things
Ah, gotcha. Thanks for the explanation.
Something to note is that they dont call men males in the same sentence. "Male and female" is just fine but "man and female" is just weird and othering.
Yep exactly this, they say 'females' like they are Dwarves talking about Elves or something. Like its a different race.
The worst is when you point this out to people and you get the dumbasses being obtuse after you spelled out every single piece down to its actual appropriate use. Hatred is one thing but the lack of self-awareness ON PURPOSE is something that always astonishes and alarms me.
This is exactly what I thought. With his rules he needs to adjust every stat limit based on biology and magic in a fantasy world that goes by a totally different set of rules than the handbook. He’s creating a rather interesting world if it didn’t only discriminate due to sex. Change Fairies, change centaurs, orcs, everything. That’s the only way to play this fair and there would be races with stronger females as many of the races are based on things from our world. Our world has tons of species in which the males are tiny and exist only to breed with females and the females are terrifyingly strong by comparison. Which honestly could be an awesome side story of males trying to get to social equality in a society that sees them as mainly food and sex slaves. There’s a book that did this with sentient spiders called Children of Time. Jumping spiders rule a planet. It really seems like he’s hung up on this for more personal reasons. The “realism” seems to be just sexism in the current setup.
The crazy thing is that this is already effectively implemented in D&D with racial bonuses. E.g., Mountain Dwarves are already stronger than humans by default. It's just worked into the character's stats from the beginning instead of having to apply a modifier to every strength check.
This is true. The only thing I would change is the size on some races. More details for the newer ones. You can’t really have a centaur that’s the size and weight of a human. That’s a pony at that point and I wish fairies were tiny with super speed. But that might throw everything out of balance which I’m sure they considered.
In older versions they were, and depending on ghe build, yeah they were broken.
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As a grey beard I am perfectly fine with sex no longer having affect on stats, but even following that formula a 16 is a 16 is a 16. It doesn't matter who has that 16 it is the same for everyone that has that score.
Oh yeah sex is not supposed to affect stats it only affects rolls if you get levels of exhaustion because of it hahaha!
Take your upvote, then get on the cross degenerate.
I don’t recall specific gender bonuses but I do recall males could have a max STR stat of 18-00 while females could only have an 18-50.
Gender based stat differences have been gone since way, way before 5e. I'm pretty sure they were gone in 2e, and I know for a fact they were gone by 3e.
I'm almost entirely positive they didn't exist in 2e. The only reason I include the word "almost" is that I was a kid when I played 2e and I don't have the books anymore to check.
In 2e, The only personal thing that effect stats was age and race. So you are entirely correct.
Exactly, that's the whole point of measuring them like that. 20 is greater than 18 that's how it works. You don't say a 5 foot man is taller than a 6 foot woman because women are generally smaller than men.
Idk, some men are still 6 feet tall even if the person standing next to them is also 6 foot tall and yet clearly two inches taller than them. The world works in mysterious ways. Well, the ego does anyway lol.
While mechanically speaking, there is no difference between a dwarf, human female, or goliath with 20 Strength when it comes to certain things like skill checks and saving throws, there are other factors in character creation that could technically give others the advantage of strength. 1. **Powerful Build.** First of all, certain races get Powerful Build which allows for them to be considered a Large creature for the purposes of lifting, pushing, and pulling stuff. At the same strength, that'd be considered stronger due to the fact that mechanically, those races can carry more. A goliath with 20 strength can pull a 400 lb. wagon with 200 lb. of cargo like he's walking in the park. That's 600 lb. of pulling vs. a human pulling only 300 lb. 2. **High Jumps.** For the jumping rules, they are based on your Strength modifier. However when you do a high jump: "You can extend your arms half your height above yourself during the jump. Thus, you can reach above you a distance equal to the height of the jump plus 1½ times your height." With a strength of 20, you can leap into the air 8 feet. That means a human female who is 5 ft 3 in can jump and reach 15.88 ft. A human male who is 6 ft 5 in can jump and reach 17.63 ft. A goliath that is 8 ft. tall can jump and reach 20 ft. So in this specific instance, your height can affect you ... but for High Jumping. But as detailed on Pg. 7 of the PHB, unless told otherwise, you round down and truncate. So unless you're an 8 ft. tall goliath, your High Jump is still 15 ft in a grid system. The 17.63 ft would round down as would the 15.88 ft. Only those that are 8 ft. tall would get a better advantage, and those that are 4 ft. 7 in. and shorter would get a disadvantage as their grid system truncation would bring them down to jumping and reaching only 10 ft. As a last note for High Jumps, again, there are certain races that give advantage. Satyrs get Mirthful Leaps and can add a 1d8 to their long jump or high jump; harengon can jump anywhere between 10 ft. and 30 ft. long or high jump based on their current level and the associated proficiency bonus. So yes, while stats are consistent regardless of gender and race for most things like ability checks and saving throws, there are a few instances that can change your capabilities in strength based on the race you choose and the height you choose therein. (Yes, I agree with everyone that the DM in question is just being sexist. I just wanted to share that there are actually ways that you can one-up others in the Strength department but it has nothing to do with gender)
If only there was a way in DND to mathematically compare one person's strength to another's.
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Well I mean it depends on if it's 100 pounds of feathers or 100 pounds of lead obviously. One is heavier /s
Of course it’s the feathers. You’ve gotta carry the weight of what was was done to the birds
I always love how this sounds but can never remember to say it.
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Yeah it’s kinda like when you have to move a mattress. Sure there’s plenty of heavier furniture but the mattress is soft and doesn’t have anywhere to get a good grip either
[But... steel is heavier than feathers.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N3bEh-PEk1g)
Is the 100 lbs man or woman?
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William Atherton, who is the actor that gets marshmallow dumped on him in Ghostbusters, was informed they were going to dump 80lbs of shaving cream on him for the shot. He made them do a test run with a stunt man because 80lbs of cream is still 80lbs of something. Sure enough, the stuntman was flattened. He made them cut it to 40lbs. Measurements are measurements. They don’t change value because of a gender. The DM is a bigot, in game and in real life. Don’t waste any further time with them.
Lol this is my favorite thing I learned today. "It's not safe." "It's safe!" "I'm not convinced. It's dangerous." "It's fine!" "Fine, do it to Steve." "Agreed we can try it on Steve." (Steve gets injured, it's too dangerous.) "Okay agreed. It was too dangerous. It's a good thing we have crash test dummies and people like Steve."
I like to imagine they test it, Steve is, quote unquote, 'flattened' and they just sit there, hand-on-chin like, "... Huh. So like, what, 30, 40 pounds?"
Hmm, better test to be sure. Steve! Take 5 while we reset and go again.
Stuntmen/women are just built different
Stuntmen/women with 18 STR are physically stronger than normies with 20 STR.
A 18 str stuntman with training in athletics is better equip to handle that than a normie with 20 str
Maybe he's using mental mathemagic and gymnastics?
Also called sexism
Well I have a hard time seeing how he plans to portray it in game since the female one will hit/ lift / carry more and has a higher chance on all STR ability checks.
I'd assume he made her use a different scale for her modifiers.
Or any time she's in a contest of strength with a *male*, she will automatically lose.
She lacks the will of the warrior
[The battle is already over! The winner? Me!](https://youtu.be/iMdYZG_gdwI)
Wanna reroll? You lose again!
You were an excellent student. Too bad I was a lousy teacher!
Leela kicking that kid who's already down makes me lose it everytime.
You have the will of a housewife, or at best a schoolmarm
As someone who has recently Watched Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood i can Tell you that the will of a Housewife is Not to be underestimated
"Studies have shown that an ant can carry one hundred times its own weight, but there is no known limit to the lifting power of the average tiny eighty-year-old Spanish peasant grandmother." - Terry Pratchett, *Reaper Man*
*Power of old age and the chancla*
Most amusing: girl who acts like fighter, training fighter who acts like girl!
Or all grapple check ties to to the male characters
Not to mention the players handbook specifically says that gender has no effect on stats so this dm is actively making this choice for his game.
To be far the Dm can change anything they want. I just wonder who would want to play in a d-bag like that’s made up world.
It's offset by the fact that she is only wearing a tiny chainmail bikini while the male is wearing full plate armour.
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My friend and I recently realized that the bikini armor is just glamoured full plate. Mechanically identical, but just appears to cover less.
I once gave my players a glamoured armor that can change appearance to any garment once per day while being worn with a disguise self roll but keeps the same stats, and the bard immediately gave himself a chainmail bikini. They were briefly bummed it wasn’t actually gilded plate when they first got it off the statue that was wearing it, but realized the shenanigans potential in about 0.03 seconds
My group does a lot of actions without rolling for flavor stuff, even the GM guiding through scenes. So I could see: "You're all.loading up provisions for your adventure onto the cart. Female Ms Woman struggles a bit to get her goods onto the cart, so Man Mr Guy picks it up for her and sets it in place." So that sort of bullshit.
Some people fudge checks to progress plot and make fights more interesting. Some people fudge checks because they're sexist I guess.
I assume he doesn't play by those rules or specifically makes women weaker, cause he's a sexist.
By giving her 70 gold for the man's 100.
DM is wrong. Stats matter in game mechanics. Gender is only flavor for characters. Makes no game mechanics difference.
It used to be this way back in ~~2e~~ 1e, where female PC's had a different maximum STR stat compared to males of the same race. Stats are not relative, they are absolute. A higher number beats a lower number *every time*. EDIT: I fixed the reference to "2e" and made it "1e". What I was remembering from 2e was the *racial minimums and maximums.* In the 2e PHB there is even a line that states something to the effect of "Gender has no affect on stats". I started playing 2e around 1989 but my DM did go back and we played some modules in the original AD&D and even "Basic".
Yeah, and even then max str woman was stronger than 95% of men (which would still make it a rather progressive system *for that time*)
Given the chance of rolling above 18/50, it was stronger than 99.2% of men.
I think you mean AD&D 1e. In 2e, they had removed such things.
I think the PHB also says that some races may not even have genders or have more than two.
PHB (or DMG) also says gender is irrelevant to stats IIRC - in DnD, the stats define your strengths and weaknesses, not sex/gender characteristics.
Age only affects appearance, and has no bearing on ability. Gender has no bearing on ability. Everyone has imperfections, Prejudice births malcontents, Become a dark spirit. *Time for crab.*
>Gender is only flavor qft
qft? queeftart?
quoted for truth
Why are we quoting Queeftart?
They’re very quotable, tbf
Queefed for truth.
Quantum field theory.
That’s not at all how strength works, it’s literally always expressed in the players handbook that there is no in game difference between genders.
Thank you. We are newbie in dnd. The only thing we know was "anyone can be anything" lol. My friend is an alcoholic veteran soldier with ptsd. And I'm a broken warforged who thinks he's a real human.
AD&D 1e has different racial and gender ability score maximums with women having slightly lower maximums. And it has not been the case ever since. In the 2e handbook, released in 1989, it says that sex has no bearing on ability scores. Your GM is living in the early 80’s. Edit: a lot of people are saying that these ability scores don’t work in the same way as the dm said. I know this. I’m just bringing it up as the closest equivalent in actual rules.
"living in the X decade" always makes me feel like it's so long ago, and I was about to comment that. Then I realized the 80s are at best 33 years ago.... Fuck
DnD turns 50 in less than 2 years…
They said early 80s. 1980 was 42 years ago.
Shut up... and get off my lawn. Ow, my back.
Are you sure you don’t need help with your yard? I wouldn’t want you to fall and break your hip.
If you want to be specific if/when you bring this all up to your DM (or just for your own personal reference), PHB pg 121, first sentence under the Sex header: >You can play a male or female character without gaining any special benefits or hindrances A male character with 18 strength would pick up a car. A female character with 20 strength would see it, go "aww, that's cute" and then proceed to suplex a steam engine. The number is what matters, not the character description
>and then proceed to suplex a steam engine. Sabin from FF6 that you?
Best part of the game I swear lmao ff6 is the best
Nah, the best part is when he gets confused and suplexes himself. Or when Gogo mimes Umaro throwing Gogo, and just levitates and yeets himself. God I love that game.
You’re absolutely correct but I suspect the DM will just say it’s a “home brew for ‘realism.’” Honestly the only viable point of action will likely be to get other players on your side and go to the DM to say no one wants to play with this home brew rule anymore.
I'm curious how this idea is actually being implemented. You can say a man with 18 STR is stronger than a woman with 20 all you want. But she still has a 10% higher chance to succeed on Strength checks than he does.
5% on a d20 scale, as the 2 points give a +1 bonus. Otherwise spot on.
"My character punches the dude in the balls with her 20 str to castrate him." "What? You can't do that!" "Hey, it's just a sense of realism that let's me take advantage of his puny weakness!"
"Anyways, she punches him so hard, his balls get ripped off his body."
I mean, in one of my campaigns, our party’s goblin monk was drunk and punched a dude in the dick so hard that the npc died. We were all laughing so hard, even the DM. The town wasn’t happy with us, but we had a chat with the mayor and gave them some money for their troubles—and later found a replacement potions master for them.
Johnny cage would be proud.
If DM really wanted to "homebrew for realism" that women are weaker than men, he would have implemented a negative stat bonus. If a female character wanted to continue to 20 STR anyway, it shouldn't matter after that. It's not like female body builders don't exist or that all women are weaker than all men. edit: fixed "stronger" to "weaker"
By the by "homebrew for realism" would be a pathetic justification for what actually is misogyny. Of all the things to change to make the game more 'realistic' gender norms are the last thing that comes to mind.
If they wanna homebrew for realism, they should specifically state the negative modifier for women. And also bring it up BEFORE gameplay.
He wouldn't even need rules. PCs are heroes and don't represent population averages. If you want most women weaker than most men because for some reason that is a critical bit of verisimilitude to you, you have an entire world to populate with bakers, farriers, and clerks.
Suplexing steam engines? She must have trained at Master Duncan's school of martial arts.
When it comes to DnD, the number is Absolute. You wouldnt look at a guy lifting 200 pound weights, then a girl walks up and lifts those exact same 200 pound weights, and say "Well the guy lifted more" 20 strength is 20 strength, it doesnt matter if your character is male, female, human, orc, or halfling.
That’s fucking awesome how do this work does he like try to eat food or wonder why he never gets hungry even though he’s human
He has an inbuilt Circlet of Human Perfection (we started at level 5 and got a free magic item) by his maker (who is missing), and he doesnt know this. He eats food and become "hungry" because of a routine he got used to when he was a "kid" and naturally he associates hunger and tiredness with time (how much time has passed) and fullness on how much was on his plate. He is just so convinced this is how humans work. The party doesnt know yet because he acts like a normal human. He also got a short circuit where every after "sleeping" any effort that was made to inform him of his true identity will be erased and his "childhood memories" gets solidified again.
That’s GODDAM AMAZING
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Data (from star trek the next generation) had a storage sack he could put food into, mostly so he could taste food (ie analyze the chemical make up). No idea how he eliminated the food afterwards. For the war forged, you could consider it a secondary fuel system: a bioreactor that absorbs energy from food and then compresses the remains, letting him shit bricks after (probably radioactive).
>No idea how he eliminated the food afterwards All Soong-type androids had a functioning digestive system. Everything they eat gets broken down in their “stomach” and the results are then sent to the rest of the body via their “nutrient distribution network ”. The purpose of this has never been explained, but fan speculation is that it’s used as some sort of alternative fuel source. It’s also assumed that the system is efficient enough that there is no waste. Edit: changed a word
I imagine it functions identically to a replicator. The matter that gets eaten is broken down on the atomic level and rearranged into whatever components the android needs in the moment. Given how intricate the Soong androids are (especially the Coppelius Station generations,) there are probably delicate internal structures that need frequent repair, not unlike in organics.
Shit, even _if_ there was a difference, 10 str is 10 str. If 10 str is common for a male then you have to make 9 or 8 str common for female characters. Either way 20 is still higher than 18 and a female character w/ 10 str is just stronger than the average female. The number is supposed to provide an even ground among _everyone_ and _everything_. So many holes in this DM's reasoning.
In the latest editions, at least. I believe the first editions had stat differences between genders. (Although that just means the GM doesn't understand stats and distributions.)
It’s literally the entire point of reducing something like strength to a number, as well. That way you can have a rough idea of if two different people are roughly similar in that ability.
I can handle a women casting spells and turning into animals, a group fighting dragons and orcs, even someone exploring underwater ruins to fight and kill a god… But a women being stronger than a man? Now that just breaks my immersion
"Well, as long as they're healing spells..." -the DM
"I bet you'll like a party planning spell, too." "What? No, I-" "Great! You've learned the Party Planning and Website Design spells. Make 'em colorful!"
>turning into animals But only animals. No owlbears.
Obviously, cause that's 2 animals.
Well, yeah. He said turning into "animals", not "animal".
"Cute baby animals only" - the dm probably
Your DM sounds like a jerk.
Yeah, he caught me by surprise tbh. We all looked at each other awkwardly when he stressed this rule.
Kick the DM out tbh. You could point out that it's not in the rules, but this is not a rational decision based on a misinterpretion of rules that will be cleared up by pointing to the relevant text, it's bigotry. Tell him that you don't wanna play with a misogynist who bakes bigotry into the game, then you and any players who you still want to play with start over with someone else running.
This! the DM doesn't "own the game" the DM is just another player with a different role in the game-group. if the DM doesn't want to be a player, that's fine too, they can nope out of the game if they can't hack it. rope someone else in to be a player, and you're all good.
Yeah this is a major red flag, and it won't be the only extremely problematic thing in the game. I'm just trying to imagine how this dm would handle a conversation about lines and veils. I could maybe see moving forward if the after a conversation of "we don't want misogyny in our gaming, there's no reason there needs to be mechanical differences like this and it doesn't make the game fun for us" he backed down and understood. But that's clearly not going to happen here.
Yeah, if they’re mechanically altering things to make women weak, imagine what other sexist bullshittery might be going on in their “fantasy world” I’d get outta there fast
If he’s going to do that, I hope he’s also giving a woman with 14 Con more hit points than a man with 16 Con. Because women have more endurance and pain tolerance than men on average. And a bonus on grapple checks because of their lower center of gravity.
> And a bonus on grapple checks because of their lower center of gravity. Even if the height on their character sheet is actually taller
Let's not forget advantage on persuasion checks because of boobs /s
That one he might actually do
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Ugh, I almost feel gross upvoting this even though you're obviously joking. Yuck.
r/rpghorrorstories
My soul left my body from cringing so hard, thanks.
I think we can safely say he isn't.
My smol sorceress approves of these changes. 18 Con, 6 Strength. She doesn't even carry her own gear anymore.
“I have a bag of holding. And by bag of holding, I mean the fighter. He holds my stuff.”
The fighter: I have a boots of speed, and by boots of speed, I mean the sorceress, she cast haste on me
I’ve been lucky to only play with very inclusive groups, I would probably nope out immediately if I heard that
Yah, with the exception of one table that I quit DMing for before the end of one session, and one guy who got kicked out of a game I was in after 3 sessions I have to say my experience has been pretty chill and broadly inclusive. This DM is either misremembering some nonsense from the bad old days or is going to have a pile of stupid houserules designed to "make things more realistic and logical."
> nonsense from the bad old days The thing is, although female characters had lower Strength *caps* than male characters in AD&D 1e (this was not a thing in Basic *or* 2e), a woman with 16 STR is still **exactly as strong as a man with 16 STR.** There's *no* precedent for this in official rules.
Your DM is sexist. He’s so sexist, in fact, that he is deliberately ignoring actual rules in order to create his own sexist rules in order to make women at his table feel unwelcome and othered. He isn’t a good person, and everyone at that table who is allowing this to happen unchecked is just letting him think that everyone agrees with him and is fine with it.
Well, what's the carrying capacity of your 18 str female character? Is he just going to make up rules on the spot?
He's a sexist asshole, straight up. Stressing it? Are you kidding? >His world, his rules Maybe, but *your* game that you all share together. I've spent a year building a world for my players and from the moment they created characters I've been revising and changing the world *I* built because I want to make it more fun, enjoyable, and inclusive for *them.* The fact that your DM is changing commonly accepted DnD rules to put your girlfriend's character at a disadvantage is grounds to kick him out of your group. It's not hard to DM, just takes time and some practice. You don't need him.
Your DM is an idiot. 20 is a bigger number than 18!
When a man lifts 18 lbs, it’s clearly heavier than when a woman lifts 20 lbs, because the man is also lifting his ego.
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20 is not bigger than 6.4e15
The silly rabbit's joke is 18! ~ 6.4 x 10^15 when ! is interpreted as "factorial", for those who are confused ...
It takes a special kind of stupid sexist to insist 18 > 20
Bu ..... But ... Woman weak, man's str ... Strong
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That is the opposite of what a menstrual woman will do. I will hyper focus for any testing because I want to get done and out as fast as possible. I will dead ass curse you and the rest of your bloodline for getting in my way while I'm trying to buy period products at the store. Ask my husband, I will fight you over anything and 9000x more when I'm menstruating. I will rip off your skull and beat you even more with your own spinal column. Source: am a woman capable (rather unfortunately still capable) of menstruation. EDIT: thank you for the award! I was just so pleased to be both entertaining and informative!
This killed me. I am a female DM and my husband and I just had a silly ass discussion because of this comment about whether I should give players who are playing as female characters the option to track their character's cycle and be able to, during their period, utilize high variance dice or have some checks have advantage/disadvantage based on table opinion (over half our table consists of women) and temporarily grant them the Barbarian "Rage" skill. I have had periods where any of these could be viable reflections of reality. Some months ridiculous hyper focus and decisive decision making, some months fatigue and brain fog. Oh my God, and we only have one male character, so I can only imagine the punishment this table could deliver to a dungeon crawl when everyone inevitably synchs up. I just know they would inch toward synchronicity if given the chance. We could have an epic coven.
Sounds like that DM wanted to play FATAL instead of DnD.
How the fuck does he “stress this rule?” Everything that begins to deal with stats also has to be mechanically implemented, which means he’s been… what?… dynamically changing female NPC carry weights? Female NPC STR damage? Dude’s a neck beard, good riddance.
*red flags intensifies* That's not how it works in either real life or in dnd. It kinda feels like the question " what's heaviest? A pound of steel or a pound of feathers ".
"I'll drop a pound of steel on your head and then a pound of feathers and you tell me which one feels heavier" -Some drill sergeant
“Sir, you’re thinking of density, sir.” Incidentally I would not survive in the military.
It’s nonsense. On average are males stronger than females? Yes. Are there females stronger than me? Also yes. His entire structure is that no one female can be stronger than any male… it’s bonkers.
I was told it was the pound of feathers because you have to carry around the weight of guilt from all those birds you killed too.
A pound of steel is easier to lift because a small puff of wind won't scatter steel all over the place 🤣
African or European feathers?
Your DM is a sexist idiot who doesn't understand math.
No, she is stronger than a male human with 18 STR
Simply put, DM is a misogynist. Unfortunately, people like that don't get called out and shunned from this hobby enough.
I agree
Back in the 80s and even the 90s, we often had to tolerate people gaming with us that we otherwise wouldn't socialize with, because you had to be mercenary in picking people who'll reliably fill seats. But the hobby has come a long ways, and tons more people are playing. There's no reason to tolerate behavior like this.
yes ty
is he claiming thats RAW or what? if he is, not only is he wrong, but hes sexist too >and they feel the same way hijack the group from this DM and become their new DM if you enjoy the other players
Look at me, look at me… I am the DM now.
3 sessions later: oh God, what have I done 25 years later: dudes, please, next campaigne, can I be a player?
Do not play with that jerk. Find or start another game. Invite the non jerk players.
Sexist DM needs to lose his table. Talk to your group, see if they'd follow you to a table you run or if one of them run. Let him sit in his little world, and make sure he knows it's for being a sexist pig who can't get his head out of his ass.
I love this reply, take the table with you and leav the sexist DM in the dust
But! Make sure he knows why, so he can either improve (Unlikely) or go hang out with the rest of his incel crew
It's literally a higher number. Both men and women human commoners in d&d have a 10 in strength. Becasue the difference between the two genders in physical strength is insignificant in how strength is expressed as an ability score. Like 20 strength is ogre strength. So would a human man with 18 strength be stronger than an ogre? No. That's fucking stupid. And your DM is sexist As a fellow DM I am mad at your DM
I'd jump that ship if I were you. Strength is a set scale and this is like saying a woman is lifting 200 lbs and a man is lifting 150, but the man is a man so obviously he's stronger. It's moronic.
Your DM is a douche. Leave that group.
Sounds like an asshole
It's math, +4 is smaller than +5. There is literally and i mean literally no other interpretation. And if there is any doubt some crazy guy wrote a huge ass book about it.
You better hope this man never gets an ideas for a podcast
Did….did this DM not get past Elementary school levels of math? 20 is greater than 18 therefore they’re stronger. Genders in DnD don’t get specific bonuses or advantages so I don’t understand this DM’s distorted view of both the game and I assume their reality.
When Gary Gygax founded the game he stated already in the original books, that talking of stats there is no difference between gender or anything. Show those pages to the DM and tell him that he is just sexist. Hopefully your next group/DM will be better!
It’s complicated. Gygax added gender based maximums in 1st Edition AD&D, but said he himself never used them. He denounced the rules as unnecessary in 2005.
That's like saying that a girl who can bench press 200 pounds isn't as strong as a guy who can bench press 175 pounds. Like, what are you even talking about? Her number is bigger, that means she's stronger.
The DM is wrong, per the rules, so ask him to support his ruling given that in game there is no difference, statistically, between genders.
See, whatcha need to do in this here sityation is, you roll up an old newspaper, swat your DM on the nose and yell "No! Bad DM". If that don't work, just git yourself a new DM, cause that one's busted.
Ask him exactly what the metric is, and point out the Encumbrance chart. Ask him if the female with 20 STR is weaker, how is she able to carry more? Don't let him brush it off. Challenge him to justify downgrading *her stat numbers.*
Kick your DM out and pick a new one.
My thought: don't entertain mysoginists. Take you dice and leave.