Attributes from Real Life (Simulationist Thought)
I just recently heard about the 'gender differences' in Age of Conan, an MMO that's come out not too long ago. Women, apparently, are slower with weapons in combat, and thus do less damage in the same time frame as men. Personally, I don't think this is a good thing unless they gave female characters something to balance it (I think if I had to do this, I'd have lowered the weight capacity, but upped the speed, so female characters can't use the heaviest weapons, but they can whip off a higher damage over time).
Anyway, this had me wondering -- how accurate are 'attributes' for sexes in RPGs? I know way back when, women in AD&D were capped at 17 Strength without enhancements, but how accurate was it? I decided to wiki a bunch of world records, and see what I got:
Javelin Throw
Men: 98.48 m
Women: 71.7 m
Weight Lifting
Men: 266 kg (586 lbs) -- approx Strength 18 in D&D
Women: 186 kg (410 lbs) -- approx Strength 16 in D&D
This would mean that a 'maximum strength' man throws a javelin at 5.46 metres per point of Strength, and a 'maximum strength' woman throws a javelin at 4.48 metres per point of strength. The difference in capability there stands out, but I noticed when it comes to running, men and women are significantly closer in capability. Over longer distances the numbers diverge more, but overall, I'd say we stand pretty close.
100 m Sprinting
Men: 9.69 sec
Women: 10.49 sec
10 km Running
Men: 26:17.53 min
Women: 29:31.78 min
100 km Running (Ultra-Marathon)
Men: 6:25:07 hours
Women: 6:33:11 hours
Obviously, this doesn't show other things, such as agility, coordination, and other such capabilities (since things such as gymnastics and such don't give raw numbers like speed and power). A shame, really, because it would be interesting to see the values which would come from that. How much faster is hand-eye coordination from men to women? How about flexibility? (Hmm. I should look at world records for jumping distances...)
So, that's the numbers. Now comes the question - should an RPG that is trying to reflect 'real world' statistics keep these kinds of thing in mind with character creation? Is it 'better' to just hit the laws of averages and say people are the same? Personally, I'm fine with just hitting the 'law of averages', because the game systems I use tend to use a 1 to 10 or 1 to 5 scale to get anything done, thus you've got more degrees of difference in a low dice range. (If 2 is human average, and 5 is human maximum, you've got a wider range fitting in than if 25 was human average and 100 was human maximum, for example).
This also makes me wonder, for those games that do show a 'human maximum', I wonder how close the numbers they use reflect real life values...
Anyway, this had me wondering -- how accurate are 'attributes' for sexes in RPGs? I know way back when, women in AD&D were capped at 17 Strength without enhancements, but how accurate was it? I decided to wiki a bunch of world records, and see what I got:
Javelin Throw
Men: 98.48 m
Women: 71.7 m
Weight Lifting
Men: 266 kg (586 lbs) -- approx Strength 18 in D&D
Women: 186 kg (410 lbs) -- approx Strength 16 in D&D
This would mean that a 'maximum strength' man throws a javelin at 5.46 metres per point of Strength, and a 'maximum strength' woman throws a javelin at 4.48 metres per point of strength. The difference in capability there stands out, but I noticed when it comes to running, men and women are significantly closer in capability. Over longer distances the numbers diverge more, but overall, I'd say we stand pretty close.
100 m Sprinting
Men: 9.69 sec
Women: 10.49 sec
10 km Running
Men: 26:17.53 min
Women: 29:31.78 min
100 km Running (Ultra-Marathon)
Men: 6:25:07 hours
Women: 6:33:11 hours
Obviously, this doesn't show other things, such as agility, coordination, and other such capabilities (since things such as gymnastics and such don't give raw numbers like speed and power). A shame, really, because it would be interesting to see the values which would come from that. How much faster is hand-eye coordination from men to women? How about flexibility? (Hmm. I should look at world records for jumping distances...)
So, that's the numbers. Now comes the question - should an RPG that is trying to reflect 'real world' statistics keep these kinds of thing in mind with character creation? Is it 'better' to just hit the laws of averages and say people are the same? Personally, I'm fine with just hitting the 'law of averages', because the game systems I use tend to use a 1 to 10 or 1 to 5 scale to get anything done, thus you've got more degrees of difference in a low dice range. (If 2 is human average, and 5 is human maximum, you've got a wider range fitting in than if 25 was human average and 100 was human maximum, for example).
This also makes me wonder, for those games that do show a 'human maximum', I wonder how close the numbers they use reflect real life values...