Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - Detailed athletics rules, and male vs female muscle, basic speed, performance.

cosmicfish · 12-12-2014, 10:38 AM

I looked at something like a long time ago... and then abruptly stopped. The problem was that figuring out a good system for placing characters amongst world record holders (and such) would take a large amount of work and would be used... approximately never. The athletic feats rules in GURPS are a convenient abstraction for non-competitive actions, building a rule set that meshes with GURPS but allows you to accurately portray an Olympic high jumper (for example) is just not worth it.

As to the gender difference, I would not put it into the rules. The only place it matters is at the very top end, and if you want to prevent someone from going past demonstrated or predicted human limits (gender based or not) then just cap that character by GM fiat. Just be aware that telling a player "no you can't because your character is a woman" will (a) not be well received and (b) hard to justify unless you are secretly a world-renowned physiologist.

12-12-2014, 10:38 AM	#12
cosmicfish Join Date: Mar 2010	Re: Detailed athletics rules, and male vs female muscle, basic speed, performance. I looked at something like a long time ago... and then abruptly stopped. The problem was that figuring out a good system for placing characters amongst world record holders (and such) would take a large amount of work and would be used... approximately never. The athletic feats rules in GURPS are a convenient abstraction for non-competitive actions, building a rule set that meshes with GURPS but allows you to accurately portray an Olympic high jumper (for example) is just not worth it. As to the gender difference, I would not put it into the rules. The only place it matters is at the very top end, and if you want to prevent someone from going past demonstrated or predicted human limits (gender based or not) then just cap that character by GM fiat. Just be aware that telling a player "no you can't because your character is a woman" will (a) not be well received and (b) hard to justify unless you are secretly a world-renowned physiologist.