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Old 12-12-2014, 09:56 AM   #11
simply Nathan
formerly known as 'Kenneth Latrans'
 
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Default Re: Detailed athletics rules, and male vs female muscle, basic speed, performance.

I would say not to adjust the base levels partly because my personal experience is that women tend to be a bit faster on their feet at the low-end "not really trained and not trying particularly hard" level; was actually quite surprised to hear that in the high end of sports performance men tended to be better runners, then shrugged and got on with my life. Giving them different caps and leaving the baseline alone is better.
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Old 12-12-2014, 10:38 AM   #12
cosmicfish
 
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Default 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.
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Old 12-12-2014, 03:16 PM   #13
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Default Re: Detailed athletics rules, and male vs female muscle, basic speed, performance.

You've got a point, after all, maximums are made to be broken, particularly these kinds. Just two days ago I found a video of somebody exceeding what the human limit I would have set was, and by a large margin. It's not like the upper limit is a hard and fast cap, things people wouldn't have thought was possible 10-20 years ago in this field are common now. Who's to say that what the characters will be doing won't happen someday, especially considering the whole "cream of the crop of a group actually having been selectively bred and raised for doing this type of thing" backstory for these characters.

Heck, considering what I consider to be the theoretical upper limit on DX, (the Newton, de Vinci or Einstein of it, or slightly better) and the (not nearly as rare or high) limit on HT is, plus the rulebook's limit on buying up Basic Speed, then the theoretical limit on Basic Speed is about 1.75 higher than these characters anyway. I'll go ahead a let them use full Basic Speed.
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Old 12-12-2014, 04:24 PM   #14
Xplo
 
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Default Re: Detailed athletics rules, and male vs female muscle, basic speed, performance.

Here's what generally happens with this sort of plan.

P: "I'm making a woman."
GM: "Women have a 9 ST on average. You should reduce your ST by 1."
P: "Do I get the points back from that?"
GM: "Of course."
P: "Okay, then I spend the 10 points to buy my ST back up."
GM: "Your character's going to be stronger than average if you do that."
P: "Whatever, fine by me."

You can set different maximums, and you can encourage people to adopt your view of what a woman's stats might look like, but in general people are going to make the characters they want to make regardless of your suggested tweaks, and pushing hard to make them conform is just going to make you look like a domineering control freak.

Granted, you're tweaking Speed, not ST, but the same thing happens regardless.

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Then again, these girls have quite literately been bred for this, born and raised too, and it's been going on for a few centuries or more. The template they're going for is extremely demanding, and out of every 2000 people born into it, only 3 meet it without something else disqualifying them. That 3 meet it at all is a minor miracle, only a result of being bred for it in the first place, the general public just wouldn't have the stats needed.
Whatever. It doesn't matter. Here's what you do: you write up a little background, like you did here, and then at the end you tack on something like "any character who could have been one of these should have stats X, Y, Z at minimum". Check to make sure their character meets those minimums and you're done (with that part).

Last edited by Xplo; 12-12-2014 at 04:29 PM.
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Old 12-12-2014, 04:54 PM   #15
Anthony
 
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Default Re: Detailed athletics rules, and male vs female muscle, basic speed, performance.

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Originally Posted by DouglasCole View Post
The muscle cells themselves aren't male/female.
It is worth noting that this goes both ways. The limb thickness required for a given strength does not vary with gender. Since our standards of 'feminine' appearance include thinner arms than our standards of 'masculine' appearance, a character who looks feminine is simply going to have limits to how strong she (or he, for bishonen/etc) can be...
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Originally Posted by Kenneth Latrans View Post
I would say not to adjust the base levels partly because my personal experience is that women tend to be a bit faster on their feet at the low-end.
This has to do with differences between basic speed and basic move, and is another reason the proposed rules are flawed. Someone who is small will typically be quicker to perform actions, but will have a lower max speed. A 6' stride that takes 0.25s is 16.4 mph. A 5' stride that takes 0.22s is 15.5 mph. However, a 0.22s stride is still quicker than a 0.25s stride. This is part of why track and field athletes are tall, while gymnasts are short.
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Old 12-13-2014, 11:00 AM   #16
Flyndaran
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Default Re: Detailed athletics rules, and male vs female muscle, basic speed, performance.

I'm okay with any female character up to Strength 16, but she damn well better be massive. I may throw a fit if someone wants a 125 pound waif with football lineman power.
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Old 12-13-2014, 02:24 PM   #17
Xplo
 
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Default Re: Detailed athletics rules, and male vs female muscle, basic speed, performance.

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
I'm okay with any female character up to Strength 16, but she damn well better be massive. I may throw a fit if someone wants a 125 pound waif with football lineman power.
In a realistic game, you mean?

Cinematic women always seem to be however strong they need to be; consider Buffy (who has superpowers as an excuse) or Agent May from Agents of SHIELD (who doesn't) or any female ninja (who, no matter how cute and dainty, never seems to have any trouble hurting the enemy) or a zillion other examples.
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Old 12-13-2014, 09:58 PM   #18
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Default Re: Detailed athletics rules, and male vs female muscle, basic speed, performance.

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Originally Posted by Xplo View Post
In a realistic game, you mean?

Cinematic women always seem to be however strong they need to be; consider Buffy (who has superpowers as an excuse) or Agent May from Agents of SHIELD (who doesn't) or any female ninja (who, no matter how cute and dainty, never seems to have any trouble hurting the enemy) or a zillion other examples.
Such characters usually don't have ST 16. For Agent May and other cinematic female martial artists, the fighting ability is rationalized as skill and experience - they usually don't flat out strong arm anyone. The closest GURPS model for May's hand to hand skills would be the Fast Guy from GURPS Action 3, which only has a ST of 11. That's plausible for a 5'6", 130 lb and very fit woman.

Of course the tendency to cast skinny model types as action girls doesn't help with the willing suspension of disbelief.
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Old 12-13-2014, 10:16 PM   #19
Xplo
 
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Default Re: Detailed athletics rules, and male vs female muscle, basic speed, performance.

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Originally Posted by Infornific View Post
Such characters usually don't have ST 16. For Agent May and other cinematic female martial artists, the fighting ability is rationalized as skill and experience - they usually don't flat out strong arm anyone. The closest GURPS model for May's hand to hand skills would be the Fast Guy from GURPS Action 3, which only has a ST of 11. That's plausible for a 5'6", 130 lb and very fit woman.
Are we watching the same May? She does have skill and experience, which is why she fights like a (cinematic) martial artist and not like a big dumb ogre trapped in a woman, but she doesn't seem to have much difficulty knocking people around.
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Old 12-14-2014, 11:51 AM   #20
Captain Joy
 
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Default Re: Detailed athletics rules, and male vs female muscle, basic speed, performance.

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Originally Posted by Xplo View Post
In a realistic game, you mean?
As far as male vs women strength is conserved, I consider the Default Women and Strength: The Definitive Study. thread to be, indeed, definitive.

And while it's true a female PC will just purchase the ST they want, I think a "female lens" can still be worthwhile in that it gives players an idea what to expect from female NPCs.
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