Sexually Dimorphic Races [Fantasy]

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Plane

I think it's ideal if we balance out a template to work out to 0 point sum, and also to have male/female humans still average out at ST10/HT10, which is why I figured to use a penalty to offset.

If you're being realistic, there's no reason that should be true, and if you're ignoring realism, there's no reason to use different templates (the same character template will generally be legal for both male and female, just probably more standard deviations away from average in one case).

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Varyon

The templates haven’t been built yet - largely because I still need to decide if each race will have some sort of unique ability - but I’m playing around a bit with sexual dimorphism in my Oubliette setting. The nornu (giants) and malofae (catfolk) have roughly-Terran levels of sexual dimorphism (so both genders use the same template, but males are more likely to have above-average ST). Pixies have a slightly greater degree of sexual dimorphism (albeit probably not enough to result in separate templates), but halflings have a strong degree of it (males are brawny with ST 7, females are shapely and have ST 5, and the Extreme Sexual Dimorphism trait isn’t off the table). Dwarves are somewhat androgynous, leaning toward masculine (dwarf women can grow beards, although following contact with the other races they typically opt not to), while elves are highly androgynous, leaning toward feminine.

"A “sub-race” is a sizeable portion of a race that differs significantly from the racial norm. Examples include extreme sexual dimorphism, true biological subspecies, half-breeds, and radical mutations (or even upgrades, in the case of robots). Sub-races should share most of the parent racial template, but with a few important differences (and a matching adjustment to racial cost). Write up sub-races exactly as you would “lenses” for a character template – see Lenses (p. 449)." (Basic Set 454)

One such example (and how I got there) can be found at D&D Lich in GURPS

So you stat the race normally (ignoring the differences) and then do the male and female as Lenses.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by maximara

So you stat the race normally (ignoring the differences) and then do the male and female as Lenses.

I'm not fond of a template that requires a lens to be usable, so I'd be more inclined to determine which gender the PC's are more likely to be, have that as a template, then have the other gender as a lens. As male adventurers outnumber females - and particularly as this disparity is even more pronounced for halflings (due to males being much more suited for adventuring, as well as sociological reasons why female halflings would be less inclined to become adventurers than females of other races) - I'll likely have the default halfling template be for males, with a lens for females.

[AlexanderHowl]

Lenses are generally supposed to add to templates, not subtract and add massive numbers of traits, so that does not really work unless female halflings are more capable than male halflings. Anyway, my players are just as likely to play female PCs as male PCs, and they are more likely to interact meaningfully with female NPCs than male NPCs, so it is usually better for me to have female templates more filled out than male templates. Of course, gender is a social expression while sex is a physical expression, so gender can have its own template.

For example, women possessed Social Stigma (Valuable Property) [-10] throughout the majority of human written history, meaning that the base gender template for women was worth -10 CP. In some societies, women possessed Social Stigma (Subjugated) [-20], though societies that nasty to their women usually did not last that long. In any case, it was only during the 20th century that biases against women went from Social Stigmas possessed by the afflicted women to Intolerances possessed by other people.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Lenses are generally supposed to add to templates, not subtract and add massive numbers of traits, so that does not really work unless female halflings are more capable than male halflings. Anyway, my players are just as likely to play female PCs as male PCs, and they are more likely to interact meaningfully with female NPCs than male NPCs, so it is usually better for me to have female templates more filled out than male templates. Of course, gender is a social expression while sex is a physical expression, so gender can have its own template.

For example, women possessed Social Stigma (Valuable Property) [-10] throughout the majority of human written history, meaning that the base gender template for women was worth -10 CP. In some societies, women possessed Social Stigma (Subjugated) [-20], though societies that nasty to their women usually did not last that long. In any case, it was only during the 20th century that biases against women went from Social Stigmas possessed by the afflicted women to Intolerances possessed by other people.

While the basic set does talk about lens "adding" to the base template it also states "A lens is a package of advantages, disadvantages, and skills..."

In fact the example of Warrior has two lenses: Heroic (-9 points) and Knight (+3 points) with both adding disadvantages.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Lenses are generally supposed to add to templates, not subtract and add massive numbers of traits, so that does not really work unless female halflings are more capable than male halflings. Anyway, my players are just as likely to play female PCs as male PCs, and they are more likely to interact meaningfully with female NPCs than male NPCs, so it is usually better for me to have female templates more filled out than male templates.

I see no reason why a lens can't be subtractive. Indeed, the Helot (BT67) has two sub-races, the Helot II and the Helot Bioroid, that are both net-negative lenses. That said, a couple pages later (BT69), the Avatar template is one of those "unusable without a lens" templates. Actually, that's a pretty good one for me to look at when I fully design my halflings, since it's pretty much how I envision them.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

For example, women possessed Social Stigma (Valuable Property) [-10] throughout the majority of human written history, meaning that the base gender template for women was worth -10 CP. In some societies, women possessed Social Stigma (Subjugated) [-20], though societies that nasty to their women usually did not last that long. In any case, it was only during the 20th century that biases against women went from Social Stigmas possessed by the afflicted women to Intolerances possessed by other people.

In Oubliette, most women have Social Stigma (Valuable Property), but so long as they stay within halfling-controlled areas and the like, halfling women enjoy an upgrade to Social Stigma (Second Class Citizen). Female adventurers lack such Social Stigmas, which is a driving force for women to become adventurers in the first place. This is why I think I'd rather have the male halfling be the primary template - PC's are far more likely to encounter male halflings in any meaningful way (as allies, enemies, etc) because female halflings usually stay in halfling villages.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

women possessed Social Stigma (Valuable Property) [-10] throughout the majority of human written history,
meaning that the base gender template for women was worth -10 CP.

Wouldn't that only be if you ignored Patron (Father/Husband) [10]?

[AlexanderHowl]

Patrons have to have a minimum of 50% higher point value, which most of them would not be that much more capable than their daughters/wives (a serf was a serf, whether a man or a woman). And that assumes that their husbands/father felt obligations beyond what an owner felt to their property (otherwise, every slave has a Patron in their owner).

[Rupert]

Calling women Valuable Property overstates their disadvantage in much of medieval Europe, and also some times in the Roman Empire, and in many other times and places. Second-Class Citizen fits better better, IMO.

[AlexanderHowl]

But that is not the majority of written history, just the part that most people in America and Europe are interested in.