[POLL] WOULD IT BE SEXIST TO HAVE DIFFERENT STARTING STATS BASED ON YOUR CHARACTER'S SELECTED GENDER?

author=bulmabriefs144

author=Drakov
Basically my idea for character creation in the dungeon crawler I'm making is to have all of your stats begin at 5, but depending on which race, class, religion, and possibly sex you choose for your character you will either recieve bonuses or penalties ro your starting attribute scores.

My thought would be for male characters to recieve a +3 to strength and a +3 to
endurance, while female characters would recieve a +3 to dexterity and a +3 to
intelligence. All characters would be able to max these stats to 100 regardless of
their gender as long as their race and class allow it, obviously I wouldnt want to allow an orc barbarian to have 100 INT...

I just want to get people's opinion on this. I don't want to spend a year or 2 working on this game just to release it and have people get mad about something I came up with before I even created the new project file.

If you want that, make it an optional rule. As in, you can play it that way under the expanded rules, but for the normal game, gender does not affect gameplay. Then, it's less a matter of sexism, and more about playing the game with partial vs full rules.

I'm not sure how I feel about that. Or rather, the principle; "Here's the game I really wanted to make, but just in case YA'LLS GET MAD, here's an alternative version." It seems like kinda a cop out. For better or worse, make the game you want to make.

Either make the game you want to make or give the player these options:
A) STR+3 AGI-3
B) AGI+3 STR-3
C) No changes
or something like that.
No gender involved.

author=turkeyDawg

author=kentona
I want a game where I can pick the gender of my weapon.

Well, if they make a Soul Eater RPG...

Oh, god...

I'd honestly play the hell out of that. The anime seems like it would mesh very well with role-playing gameplay imo.

Hmm, I feel as I should lay down my thoughts to the topic as presented;

I don't think it's sexist per se to weigh stats by gender; after all, the physiological differences in potential strength/size between males and females isn't vague or unprovable; it's pretty god damn massive (HOWEVER, this does not apply to skill; there is no gender barrier to how good and competent you can be at fighting as a technique, only size and strength!), so at least that design would be based on some real world stuff.

But I do think it wouldn't be as fun. It's true, people play video games to escape their expectations, and the expecation that a lady wouldn't be as good as a warrior as a dude in gameplay just feels limiting and not very fun. Same the other way around with a guy being a mage.

People sort of expect at a 'race selection' for certain play styles to be restricted, because it's so intertwined with the lore; in Dragon Age dwarves are barred from the metaphysical aspect that allows magic, so no dwarven mages. Alright, cool, got it. In the Elder Scrolls Argonians are lizard people and so they can breathe underwater. Gotcha. That's fine.

But arbitrary gender restrictions on gameplay feel rather trite. Not to say that I think it's impossible to implement smoothly, after all, it could be a lore thing that everyone can use magic, but only certain spirits commune with certain genders, and so on. But I don't think too many people would appreciate aspirations of being a warrior heavily crippled due to that player being a woman. I don't think it's flat out wrong, but it can be contentious. Tread carefully with gender and gameplay.


Storyline wise, I think you have much more freedom with gender differences. Simply due to the fact that your gender is a huge measure of how you see yourself and how the world interacts with you; my previous example with Fallout and a female player working for the Caesar's Legion; they're a bunch of ultra misyogynist bastards, there's just some things you're just not going to be able to do while working for them (surprising that a female character would want to work for them at all). Same for male characters, if you can't romance a girl because she's not into dudes, there's nothing wrong with that either.

Gender is a big part of how people interact and I think it's pretty safe reflecting that in your worlds instead of taking the safe route and making your character a genderless blob, unless you want to do that, but if you're going to do that, do it well!