Veterinari said:
Wrong on two counts, I'm afraid. The outcry wouldn't happen in, say, a fully randomized system in generating npcs in an rpg or characters in The Sims or whatever. Y'know, doing things on the scale where statistics would actually have a point. The problem would arise when saying that women can only reach Strenth 17/18 and can't go below Charisma 2/18. Because it works against the entire purpose of having a character creation option.
The second misassumption is that the outcry would come from women alone. I know I'd see it as a load of bollocks intent on forcing me to play a game shaped by stupid gender conservative ideas.
The purpose of character creation in games does allow for people of exceptional physical and mental power to be created but when we step back and look at this from a developer's point of view we also need to remember to have a base stat line or average for NPC citizens who walk the streets of a game world, just because your Amazonion superwoman can juggle planets and solve the unsolveable with years of training doesn't mean that Mrs. Miggins from the local pie shop can. Whenever we deal with character creation in a game for a player it is almost always dealing with somebody who is an exceptional individual (even the ones who are supposed to be regular people have something extraordinary about them).
Character creation has always had limitations on what can be taken for what character type in the past, the Baldur's Gate series had limits on what you stats could be based on your race and class (hell, in Oblivion it pretty much outright says that the Redguard, AKA the black dudes, are mostly only ever good at hitting stuff really hard and aren't capable of being powerful mages).
You're still playing a game shaped by 'stupid ideas' but you're not complaining because you can have your elf (-1 strength and constituion, +1 dexterity and intelligence)
look however you want and still play the same.
I like how you defend implementing one statistic into gameplay while discounting the other. Girls have better grades than boys in school, for one thing. There are few facts as satistically proven as that one. And this is true pretty much everywhere where women are allowed to educate themselves. Now, I'm not the one defending implementing statistics as attributes in a game, but if you are going to do that then you need to own up to all statistics, not just the ones that wouldn't be insulting to you.
Now, I'm not saying that because you're a guy (I assume) you did bad in school. But that's exactly the same kind of assumtion you're making in the rest of your post. Because most men are stronger than most women you assume that every female character should be penalized. That's like saying that just because males statistically have a higher level of criminal behaviour every male character in a game should have +1 Crime Points, or whatever. Now re-read that last sentance and add the word "black" in front of where it says "male" and I think you ought to begin to see where the problem is.
What is it about men being physically stronger on average that you find so unbelieveable?
Have you seen female body builders? They're scary and aren't too far away from looking like men with long hair and make up (if you don't believe me then do a google image search of 'female body builders', you'll probably wish you hadn't afterwards).
I actually did alright in school (for the most part) but I do still have to question why it is you so staunchly defend the notion of women being smarter than men because they do better at school (a statistic which actually reverses itself when we start looking at higher education such as college and university), something you fail to acknowledge is that schooling and academics doesn't actually reflect a person's intelligence (don't get me wrong, it can help but it isn't the be all and end all), it's rare that I will say this but in this instance
you are wrong.
Intelligence is a very hard thing to measure because it's definition is so wide, there are
different kinds of intelligence, not all of which are focused around the school model of remembering and regurgitating facts for the examiners to mark.
A doctor and an artist both are argueably intelligent people but the thing is that they would posess different forms of intelligence and express it in different ways, unless you're trying to tell me that women are smarter in every way possible in every field and understanding than men are universally then I think my statement of them being fairly equal and it being based more on individual differences is a closer representation of reality (sorry, but muscle mass is something that is reliably measureable, mental capacity is largely intangible).
As for the idea of giving men/black people a +1 to crime, last time I checked one is rarely required to have a crime stat in a game and I'm also fairly certain that criminality isn't a physical attribute so much as a lifestyle choice, are you suggesting that next I raise the point of what if someone impliments a sexism stat? All men have to take a +1 then I would assume (whilst women would have a permament and incorruptable 0 there)?
If you're trying to make a point of stats being based on stereotypes (to be fair to come up with the average or base statline you'll have to resort to a few stereotypes, there is a reason we have them) then that's why it's important to get the
right stereotypes to represent a given group rather than just trying to pretend that stereotypes don't exist and are the work of the devil (you earlier made an implication that as a man I probably had a bad time at school and thus would probably be lacking in intelligence and mental acuity, that's a bit of a sexist stereotype, isn't it?).
Uhm. So women have an easier time to persuade people to listen to them? I think you'll find that this assumption flies in the face of pretty much every workplace investigation, ever. One of the most commonly cited complains of women in workplaces is the fact that they have such a hard time being heard compared to their male counterparts.
And that piece of evidence flies in the face of a lot of psychological studies and investigations which have shown that women are more approachable and open, they tend to share and discuss their problems with others (groups of friends who are referred to as 'social networks, and not as in Facebook for clarity), women are also noted as on average posessing a greater command of language and speech than men (due to how they utilise the different halves of the brain differently to men).
Let me put it to you like this, if you were stopped by a woman in the street and asked for directions, would you help?
Now what if you were stopped by a man who asked for directions? (I had to do a study on this, in most cases I found that people were more friendly and open to the women asking for help).
Jesus, women don't get the smartness thing because "this one is more down to individual differences and upbringing in my experience than gender" and you still let this fly?
Seeing as I already debunked your issues with the difference in intelligence then yes, I'm still going to let my previous statment fly about men being more proactive in dangerous situations. Historically (don't believe me then look up incidents like the Titanic), in a disaster involving people the top priority was to evacuate women and children first, men were also expected to sign up en mass for both World Wars (and not doing so was percieved as a sign of cowardice and weakness, in other words, you weren't a 'real man', in some ways this expectation for men to be brave and steadfast is still in place today).
For a long time bravery has been held as a very manly virtue and this probably goes to explain why the majority of protaganists and heroic individuals within games are men, it's a standard that our culture has held for a very long time, of course you get exceptions but women are under less impetus to posess this characteristic, it's ok for women to stand back and let the man go first and men have to accept this as just being the way things are.
I've said more or less the same thing, but meant it as a positive. As Yatzee said "She's a lady, just deal with it, yo!"
I can't say I ever recall Yahtzee saying the word 'yo' but while it's good there are people who don't oppose this it doesn't change the fact that there are people who do when their arguement rarely involves other characters who do the same thing.
