GURPS sex/class/race templates

[lunar]

Originally Posted by Jim Bob

And again we focus on strength, and how boyz r t3h strongerssst.

And we ignore agility, and health, and endurance, and pain tolerance, and friends, and longevity, and.... and all the other stuff.

It must be a rule or something. Just as geek boys will all claim to have genius-level IQ, they'll all claim that strength is super-dooper important, and nothing else is worth discussing.

Once again you can't back it up. In the past (while gaming) I've been slightly concerned about the difference in ST between guys and girls but not very much so. The reason is because its a proven difference. However, reading this thread has shown me that what I really should be concerned about is difference in ST between variations in lean body mass.
Show me where you are getting your data that girls have better health and agility and all the other stuff you mention. Its proven that men die quicker but this doesn't necessarily justify a higher HT stat. Also, there are very fiew geriatric campaigns.

[Kyle Aaron]

Originally Posted by lunar

Show me where you are getting your data that girls have better health and agility and all the other stuff you mention. Its proven that men die quicker but this doesn't necessarily justify a higher HT stat. Also, there are very fiew geriatric campaigns.

Health (Females +1HT):
Women put up with pain longer: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/342/14/1016
Men are sicker than women at all ages: http://www.aarp.org/bulletin/yourhea...-17-8diff.html
Here's a paper on women's health. Conclusion? Women are sick more often than men, but they survive it; when the men get sick they die: http://www.pwhce.ca/womenGenderHealth.htm

Agility (either Female +1 DX or males -1DX or Ham-fisted, etc):
Women have a lower rate of injury in basketball, an agility-based sport, suggesting higher agility: 4.88 injuries per women's team, as against 7.75 injuries per men's team. http://www.arthroscopy.com/sp05042.htm. When the women are injured, they're more likely to injure their lower limbs, however. But the overall injury rate for women is 63% of that for men.

Types of intelligence (Females Linguistic Talent, Males Mathematical Talent): http://www.ausport.gov.au/fulltext/1...1n1/tbush1.htm This is a review of several studies demonstrating that men perform better on spatial and mathematical tests, while women perform better on linguistic tests.
http://www.ceu.it/relaz1002.htm This paper talks about unifunctional vs multifunctional minds, the former being more typically what males have, the latter more typically what females have.

Types of relationships (in GURPS terms, Allies)
http://clearinghouse.mwsc.edu/manuscripts/397.asp
This paper says that while both men and women in their relationships feel equally close to their same-sex friends, they express it differently (men bond by activities, women by conversation and self-disclosure), and men trust their friends less than women do.

You can't have an Ally if you don't trust them - that's why the templates gave women an ally, but not men.

Do I have to go on?

[CharlesGriswold]

I don't mean to be rude, but who cares? GURPS racial templates (including the non-template for Humans) are meant to reflect the in-born traits of the average individual of the species. Do we really need to further break things down into ethnicity, gender, etc.? I don't think so. It just opens up a flaming can of worms that really should be left alone.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Jim Bob

Health (Females +1HT):

Agility (either Female +1 DX or males -1DX or Ham-fisted, etc):
Women have a lower rate of injury in basketball[...]

Actually, if you do +1 HT, that would also explain the lower rate of injury, as explained by making HT roll to avoid 'crippling' injury. On the other hand, nimble-fingers vs ham-fingers might be justified.

[banditangel]

Women have a lower rate of injury in basketball, an agility-based sport

Playing devil's advocate for a bit, but if they have lower ST and body mass, there's going to be less force involved, and thus less potential for injury, neh? One could also argue that female players of basketball just tend to be less aggressive (or that females, on the whole, are less agressive)

The problem with 90% of this is that it's just stereotypes: There's plenty of strong women, weak males, social males, isolated females, and so forth. In short, the rate at which these things are bought off just doesn't justify a template :)

[Luther]

Originally Posted by banditangel

The problem with 90% of this is that it's just stereotypes: There's plenty of strong women, weak males, social males, isolated females, and so forth. In short, the rate at which these things are bought off just doesn't justify a template :)

If you look at real world I disagree.
Differences in strength between genders are considerable.
It is questionable (strongly questionable) if women are worth +1 HT or even
+1 DX, because even if there was some evidence (and I've yet to see some
clear evidence) the GURPS scale would be too coarse grained to reflect this.

On the other hand GURPS ST has a higher standard deviation, and difference
between genders is remarkable. All this justify -2 ST (-1 ST if same weight).

[banditangel]

Originally Posted by Luther

If you look at real world I disagree.
(snipsnip)
GURPS ST has a higher standard deviation, and difference
between genders is remarkable. All this justify -2 ST (-1 ST if same weight).

Like I said, 90% of it is stereotypes. The other 10% does happen to have a decent basis in fact :)

[jSarek]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Who lives longer is a matter of statistical fact; that should be as easily settled as strength should be, with proper data.

Except the statistics don't reflect strictly health concerns. In a society where men are more likely than women to be put into danger and/or physically demanding work than women (i.e. still just about everywhere), men will die of unnatural causes far more often, skewing the data.

[Fear]

Originally Posted by banditangel

Playing devil's advocate for a bit, but if they have lower ST and body mass, there's going to be less force involved, and thus less potential for injury, neh? One could also argue that female players of basketball just tend to be less aggressive (or that females, on the whole, are less agressive)

I was thinking the same thing, just because women are less injured at agile sports doesn't mean they have more agility, they might play it saver, less agressive, have less strength. To much variables.

Why bother anyway, PC's are by rule the exception to nearly every rule. And if a GM wants all female NPC's to have ST-1 or -2 he can do that without a template.

When I play a female I tend to get ST 10 or lower it somewhat for more DX/weapskill.

My current Assamite Vampire in a G3 VTM game is female and has ST10 naturaly, but DX 16. Without magical modifiers :D. Sure it might not be a realistic or typical woman, but which Vampire is :D

[Kyle Aaron]

Originally Posted by CharlesGriswold

I don't mean to be rude, but who cares? GURPS racial templates (including the non-template for Humans) are meant to reflect the in-born traits of the average individual of the species. Do we really need to further break things down into ethnicity, gender, etc.? I don't think so. It just opens up a flaming can of worms that really should be left alone.

I agree, pretty much.

It's just that every now and then, some scrawny or overweight geek boy with his own natural ST8 and DX8 says, "boyz 4r3 t3h strongerzzzst" and pops up on a message board saying that female characters should get a strength penalty.

Now, my view is, "**** that. Averages don't affect individuals." However, that message never seems to get through. What does get through is this: "okay, you want to take account of gender differences? How about all this, then? Hey, look, ain't so good to be a male character now, is it? Doesn't look so good to have the ST bonus, eh? And if we have gender differences, why not class and racial differences, too?"

The idea is to scare 'em off, Charles;) They just want to pull out one little worm from the can. I dump the whole damned can on their head. Then maybe they'll learn to keep the can closed.