Character weight problems
DSX
has a character [human female, 6' tall, 18 strength] that weighs
somewhere in the neighborhood of 130 pounds. True, it is his character
and he can describe it any way he wants, but isn't it just a bit
ridiculous?
The funny thing is, he actually did have a more realistic figure for a
female fighter in Chivalry & Sorcery, but that was because weight
affects lifting capacity in that game. (He did end up switching to male
because he didn't like the thought of a woman that big.)
My question is: How realistically do you try to match a character's
weight with height and strength? (I use the old Rolemaster Companion 1
formula [IIRC: Height cubed x 0.0005029*] as a baseline, and modify for
strength, dexterity, etc. - I tend to lowball it a little, but not as
bad as the above example.)
DSX
* This is the bottom line formula, it was actually a lot larger as
presented in the book.
--
"No problem is so big or so complicated that it can't be run away from."
- Linus van Pelt
Terry Austin
>My friend and I have a "debate" going on about character weights. He
>has a character [human female, 6' tall, 18 strength] that weighs
>somewhere in the neighborhood of 130 pounds. True, it is his character
>and he can describe it any way he wants, but isn't it just a bit
>ridiculous?
>
>The funny thing is, he actually did have a more realistic figure for a
>female fighter in Chivalry & Sorcery, but that was because weight
>affects lifting capacity in that game. (He did end up switching to male
>because he didn't like the thought of a woman that big.)
Sounds like you both need to get a life.
--
Terry Austin <tau...@hyperbooks.com>
http://www.hyperbooks.com/
Metacreator character software now available
Douglas Berry
Terry Austin <tau...@hyperbooks.com> warmed at our fire and told
this tale:
>Sounds like you both need to get a life.
What's the matter Terry, realized that you lack one as well?
--
Douglas E. Berry grid...@mindspring.com
http://gridlore.home.mindspring.com/
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as
when they do it from religious conviction."
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pense'es, #894.
Douglas Berry
DSX <D...@mach.ina> warmed at our fire and told this tale:
>My friend and I have a "debate" going on about character weights. He
>has a character [human female, 6' tall, 18 strength] that weighs
>somewhere in the neighborhood of 130 pounds. True, it is his character
>and he can describe it any way he wants, but isn't it just a bit
>ridiculous?
Depends on the system you are using. Assuming you are on a 3-18
scale, she might weigh more, but then again, she might be light, but
have muscles like iron. I see serious weightlifters who don't look
it.
Now the height is another matter. Someone hitting 72" with that kind
of strength is going to weigh more. According to MetLife's tables,
she shoul'd weigh somewhere in the range of 148-162 if a medium frame,
158-179 for a heavy frame, which is more likely with her stats.
This isn;t necessarily unattractive!
>My question is: How realistically do you try to match a character's
>weight with height and strength? (I use the old Rolemaster Companion 1
>formula [IIRC: Height cubed x 0.0005029*] as a baseline, and modify for
>strength, dexterity, etc. - I tend to lowball it a little, but not as
>bad as the above example.)
Try this table and wing it:
http://www.metlife.com/Lifeadvice/Tools/Heightnweight/Docs/women.html
Lepidus
>a bit ridiculous?
Yes, it is. Strength is a function of number and thickness of muscle
cells. To go that high without them (and their weight), you'd need an
exoskeleton. Do you have any insect races?
Assuming you don't, if a slim profile were that important to me, I'd lower
my PC's strength. Maybe a kind DM would let me spend the points on speed
to compensate.
--
o
___ aleph . colin . spiro . he-who-rolls-no-twos
|\/ (o\-o---------------------------------------------
|/\___/ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lankhmar_pbem/
http://www.io.com/~lepidus/wept/adndhome.html
___ ~dolor qui dolorem necat medicina est~
------o-/o) \/|---------------------------------------
\___/\| first ed. hack n' slash Dungeon Master
TheSaint
ST
"Terry Austin" <tau...@hyperbooks.com> wrote in message
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Bill Seurer
> My question is: How realistically do you try to match a character's
> weight with height and strength?
Does it matter in game terms? If not, what's the problem?
Terry Austin
>On Sat, 16 Feb 2002 09:10:55 -0800, a wanderer, known to us only as
>Terry Austin <tau...@hyperbooks.com> warmed at our fire and told
>this tale:
>
>>Sounds like you both need to get a life.
>
>What's the matter Terry, realized that you lack one as well?
I don't get worked up over a character's weight, since, in most games, it's
a matter of player choice, and in the rest, it's not.
Robert Scott Clark
Are you asking if the weight matters or if whether they match up or
not matters? Very different questions, although I can see both
mattering quite a bit or not at all in different situations.
Peter Knutsen
Terry Austin wrote:
>
> Douglas Berry <grid...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> >On Sat, 16 Feb 2002 09:10:55 -0800, a wanderer, known to us only as
> >Terry Austin <tau...@hyperbooks.com> warmed at our fire and told
> >this tale:
> >
> >>Sounds like you both need to get a life.
> >
> >What's the matter Terry, realized that you lack one as well?
>
> I don't get worked up over a character's weight, since, in most games, it's
> a matter of player choice, and in the rest, it's not.
Characters *should* be able to gauge the maximum possible strength of
an encountered NPC, based on the size (=mass) of the NPC.
But this won't work if a 6' 130 lbs chick can have STR 18, or if a
100 lbs Halfling can have STR 20, meaning that there are some
really nasty surprises for players who take their realworld
assumptions with them to the game.
I have more to say in my reply to DSX, which I'll post tomorrow.
> --
> Terry Austin <tau...@hyperbooks.com>
--
Peter Knutsen
Brett Evill
>My question is: How realistically do you try to match a character's
>weight with height and strength? (I use the old Rolemaster Companion 1
>formula [IIRC: Height cubed x 0.0005029*] as a baseline, and modify for
>strength, dexterity, etc. - I tend to lowball it a little, but not as
>bad as the above example.)
Not a good idea, since in fact tall people tend to be slim-proportioned,
with the result that weight actually tends more like height *squared*,
not height *cubed*. The square-cube law only applies, strictly speaking,
to things with the same proportions, ie. similar things in the
geometrical sense.
Note that the medical guidelines for weight suggest that your body mass
index should be between 16 and 25, where
mass (in kg)
BMI = _____________________
height (in m) squared
Lifting capacity is in practice related to the cross-sectional area of
muscles (modified for quality of muscle), which is roughly speaking
proportional height times a 'lean mass index' (eg. like BMI but based
only on lean mass).
--
Regards,
Brett Evill
<ev...@NO.webone.JUNK.com.MAIL.au>
Alexander Williams
<grid...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>of strength is going to weigh more. According to MetLife's tables,
>she shoul'd weigh somewhere in the range of 148-162 if a medium frame,
>158-179 for a heavy frame, which is more likely with her stats.
>
>This isn;t necessarily unattractive!
Let me "weigh in" on the debate by noting that /some/ of us /like/
women with the Amazonian physique ... but they never seem to go for
the guy with INT 18 and STR 8, sadly. You'd think that /occasionally/
the hot Barbarian Queen would find the nebbishy Necromancer attractive
enough to stay with long term, but oh no --
Uh, I'm projecting, aren't I? Sorry, sorry.
--
Alexander Williams (tha...@telocity.com) | In the End,
"I think sex is better than logic, | Oblivion
but I can't prove it." | Always
http://www.chancel.org | Wins
Bill Seurer
> Characters *should* be able to gauge the maximum possible strength of
> an encountered NPC, based on the size (=mass) of the NPC.
When you have halflings and dragons and such your "real world"
assumptions are likely to get you into trouble. Given that a dragon can
fly (impossible given their size) and breath fire (also impossible) why
is it impossible that someone who is 6' tall and 130 pounds is extremely
strong?
Brent & Dianne
strength due to some boon granted by a supernatural entity. After all, one
nice thing about these sorts of things is that it can be any way you want.
IN a SF environment, you could say the person is the product of genetic
engineering, or cross-breeding with some alien or animal that has better
muscle cells. Who knows.
Basically, everyone here needs to relax, and not worry about "getting a
life" or not.
Lepidus
>After all, one nice thing about these sorts of things is that
>it can be any way you want.
Why ask at all, then? Presumably, the poster "didn't want". Thus the
mostly-reasonable discussion.
>IN a SF environment, you could say the person is the product of genetic
>engineering, or cross-breeding with some alien or animal that has better
>muscle cells. Who knows.
Zero argument! But the implications were that those possibilites are not
on the table - that the DM is concerned with humbler human proportions and
the general range of strength they allow. So that's what some are talking
about.
>Basically, everyone here needs to relax, and not worry about
>"getting a life" or not.
I think the thread's productive, but the original poster should finish it
off before it descends into ego and sweeping solutions/dismissals.
Robert Scott Clark
It isn't impossible, as long as there is an explanation for it. But
there is a difference between saying "it's magic" and saying "that's
just how big she is, nothing special", if for no other reason than the
fact that NPCs should react oddly to someone who functions in an
extremely abnormal manner. I think the general idea here was that the
player considered it a reasonable weight for the character to have
without any extenuating circumstances.
Terry Austin
>
>
>Terry Austin wrote:
>>
>> Douglas Berry <grid...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>
>> >On Sat, 16 Feb 2002 09:10:55 -0800, a wanderer, known to us only as
>> >Terry Austin <tau...@hyperbooks.com> warmed at our fire and told
>> >this tale:
>> >
>> >>Sounds like you both need to get a life.
>> >
>> >What's the matter Terry, realized that you lack one as well?
>>
>> I don't get worked up over a character's weight, since, in most games, it's
>> a matter of player choice, and in the rest, it's not.
>
>Characters *should* be able to gauge the maximum possible strength of
>an encountered NPC, based on the size (=mass) of the NPC.
Same as in real life. Where it's not always reliable.
>
>But this won't work if a 6' 130 lbs chick can have STR 18, or if a
>100 lbs Halfling can have STR 20, meaning that there are some
>really nasty surprises for players who take their realworld
>assumptions with them to the game.
It is a fantasy game, after all.
>
>I have more to say in my reply to DSX, which I'll post tomorrow.
I'm happy for you. My point isn't game play, it's players who give a fuck
about a character's self image.
Peter Knutsen
Brett Evill wrote:
> Note that the medical guidelines for weight suggest that your body mass
> index should be between 16 and 25, where
Between *20* and 25. I think it might be fair to shift the range
a bit according to gender, as in between 20 and 26 for males and
between 18 and 24 for females. But 16 is quite skinny. Even (and
this surprised me when I found out) a girl with a BMI of 20 looks
somewhat slim.
> mass (in kg)
> BMI = _____________________
> height (in m) squared
Yup, this is the same formula I use. But note that it doesn't work
well for people who are extremely short, extremely tall, or extremely
muscled. People who are large-boned or small-boned are alse tricked
by the formula, although not to a large extent.
> Brett Evill
--
Peter Knutsen
Peter Knutsen
Brent & Dianne wrote:
>
> If it is a fantasy game, you might think the person has supernatural
> strength due to some boon granted by a supernatural entity. After all, one
> nice thing about these sorts of things is that it can be any way you want.
Then the player should have said that. The player should have written
on his character sheet that "Jenny is a lot stronger than she looks,
because her strength is augmented by a permanent magic that she
inherited from her mother". And since it is beneficial to be stronger
than one looks, the GM should by all that is right have charged the
player something for it.
> IN a SF environment, you could say the person is the product of genetic
> engineering, or cross-breeding with some alien or animal that has better
> muscle cells. Who knows.
Yes, but again, the character is Human. If one is genetically engineered
then one is no longer a Human. And the character sheet did say "Species:
Human".
> Basically, everyone here needs to relax, and not worry about "getting a
> life" or not.
Nope, the problem is that many people take the "fantasy license"
and abuse it by using it as an excuse for abandoning *all* reason.
And that tendency needs to be spoken against, because it is harmful.
The game world should behave like the world we live in, except for
those cases which are pointed out in the rules. For instance, the
rules says that magic exists, and tells how one can learn magic and
use magic, what the limits and dangers and benefits of magic are.
Fine, we then read the rules and we accept that the game world
differs from the real world in that magic exists and can do specified
things. But the rules has not said anything about 130 lbs chicks
being able to be as strong as weight lifters, and therefore we
carry the realworld assumption to the game table that strength
and mass are somewhat correlated, and that mass puts an upper
bound on how strong a human-shaped creature can be (and a different
but also upper bound on how strong a centauroid or four-legged
creature can be).
--
Peter Knutsen
Peter Knutsen
DSX wrote:
>
> My friend and I have a "debate" going on about character weights. He
> has a character [human female, 6' tall, 18 strength] that weighs
> somewhere in the neighborhood of 130 pounds. True, it is his character
> and he can describe it any way he wants, but isn't it just a bit
> ridiculous?
>
> The funny thing is, he actually did have a more realistic figure for a
> female fighter in Chivalry & Sorcery, but that was because weight
> affects lifting capacity in that game. (He did end up switching to male
> because he didn't like the thought of a woman that big.)
>
> My question is: How realistically do you try to match a character's
> weight with height and strength? (I use the old Rolemaster Companion 1
When I'm a player under some other rules system, I just use the BMI
formula (explained below) and try to get a height and weight that
matches the character concept. But this isn't always easy. One
D&D3 PBeM I was in had a major problem, in that the DM hadn't
decided whether the Humans in his world were sized as medieval
people or as modern-day people. That means a height difference of
about 15 centimeters (if not 22!) and a weight difference a bit
less than that (but 10-15 kg is still significant). When I pressed
him, he settled for "modern day equivalent", but it was problematic
just seeing that he had not given thought to the subject before I
prompted him.
> formula [IIRC: Height cubed x 0.0005029*] as a baseline, and modify for
> strength, dexterity, etc. - I tend to lowball it a little, but not as
> bad as the above example.)
I've taken some effort to render these things reasonable in FFRE
(Free Fudgelight Roleplaying gaming Engine), the homebrew system
that I'm creating.
Attributes are on a 0-8 scale, with 3 being average, except
Strength which can be as high as 9 (average is still 3). For
men, anyway. Women are limited to Strength 8 and Size 6.
One thing I really like about FFRE is the concept of Fleetness,
which is that you calculate the Strength-to-Size ratio of your
character, and if this is high (above 1.3) you get a bonus to
Agility rolls and to Agility-based skills (to some skills, you
get a big bonus, to others a smaller bonus). If it is low, you
get a penalty to Agility rolls and skill rolls. You also get
a Pace Multiplier based on Fleetness, which means that you can
walk and run faster or slower than otherwise. Plus you get a
sort of "Armour Class" bonus, in tht you're harder to hit if
your Fleetness is high and you're active (not standing still).
On the other hand, if your Fleetness is low, you get a small
bonus to "Not Be Hit", or even no bonus at all, and thus
you're no better off moving than standing still. There is also
a Fatigue Increment "handle" that I haven't really done a lot
with yet, but again it is derived from Fleetness, and is
meant to be taken away fro your Stamina pool every time
increment. For instance, if you are Sprinting (moving at
5 x Pace), you might loose this value every second (a Round is
6 seconds). If your Fleetness is average, the amount you loose
might be 10, if it's low, you might loose 14 or 20 Stamina per
second, but if your Fleetness is high, you loose only 8, 6
or even 4 Stamina per second. This reflects the fact that
people with stronger legs get less fatigued if running or
walking. Also, if you merely Jog (as opposed to Sprint), you
might loose the Increment only every 6 minutes, instead of
every second (and move at 2 x Pace).
Oh and by the way, the ratio you take is really that between
Lower Body strength and Size. Characters in FFRE can have
different Lower and Upper Body strengths. All in all, the
Fleetness subsystem reflects the fact that one does not
automatically become slow because one is muscled, but that
it is rather the *other* way around.
Armour, shields, heavy weapons and general encumbrance lowers
your Fleetness.
Okay, back to the Size stuff. Strength is not only capped at
9/8 depending on gender, it is also capped at 2 x Size. Thus
an average-sized character is Size 3 and can have a Strength
no higher than 6. So if you want to make a Strength 9
character, you must buy Size up to 5, making your character
rather big. (okay, not that big after all. Present day
Scandinavians are Size 4, and I guess USAns and other Euro-
peans aren't far behind, the Size 3 figure is the average
for *medieval* men).
Currently, I'm also toying with the idea of having a small
penalty if your Strength equals 2 x Size. If only Lower
or Upper Body strength equals 2 x Size, you must pay for an
Advantage worth 2 (or 3?) Advantage Points, to represent the
unusuality of a character who has "maxed out" his physiological
potential. But if your full Strength (both upper and lower)
is equal to 2 x Size, then you must pay double value, i.e.
4 APs (or 6 - I haven't decided yet).
There's a minor exception to the Strength cap. There exists a
species-level Advantage (it can't be taken by individual
characters, only given to species as a whole) which lets
you exceed the limit one step (i.e. if Size is 2, Strength
may be 5). Dwarves have his Advantage. It is possible for a
species to have two levels of this Advantage (Size 3
Strength 8 or Size 1 Strength 4 or...) but the way FFRE
works is that deviations from the nrom gets expensive very
rapidly. Thus it is unlikely that we will ever see a species
with two levels of this Advantage.
You can also buy disadvantages that represents Underweight or
Overweight (both are disads and thus have "negative cost").
Underweight comes in 4 levels: Thin, Skinny, Anorexic and
Lethally Anorexic (the fifth level is "dead" and is not
available during character creation). Overweight comes in
multiple levels, starting with Chubby, Overweight, Fat,
Very Fat, Grossly Fat and going on from there until cardiac
arrest at some undetermined level.
You derive the weight of a character from Strength (both from
Upper Body and Lower Body Strength), and from Size, and then
you add Overweight (which may be negative).
There is a formula for deriving Muscle Mass (derived from
Strength, obviously) and Frame or General Mass (derived
from Size) which represents skeleton and organs. I spent
weeks trying out all sorts of numbers until I found some-
thing that was at least halfway reasonable.
As for Overweight (+/-), you derive a Fat Unit from your
Size (IIRC it's simply 1/10 or 1/8 your General Mass).
Then each level of Underweight subtracts one Fat Unit
from your final weight, whereas the first level of
Overweight adds 1 Fat Unit, and each subsquent level
doubles that (thus Very Fat equals +8 Fat Units added to
the base value).
I spent some time concerned about the fact that women are more
resistant to starvation than men, and my first idea for a
solution was to simply recommend players of female Human
characters to take one level of Overweight (i.e. Chubby).
On second thought, I found it unlikely that players would do
that :-)
Players of female characters, whether male or female, will
often have a desire to make attractive characters (even
if no more so than with players of male characters, the
tendency is still there) and current standards of preference
says that overweight is unattractive.
My second solution was to propose a 0-point Trait (i.e. one that
is neither an advantage or disadvantage) which was similar to
Chubby in that it adds 1 Fat Unit (but now regardless of the
state of Overweight(+/-) of the character) but which is called
something else, preferably something that does not at all
suggest overweight. I settled for FFDs, short for "Feminine
Fat Deposits". At first glance it looks like an euphemism
for breasts, but in fact most of the fat is deposited beneath
the skin all over the body. A bit of it *does* go to those two
uncommonly fascinating bumps on the chest, but the fact is
that even in a very large-chested woman, each breast weighs
no more than 400 to 600 grams, and FFDs tends to add 3-5
kilograms of weight (also, my impression is that average-
sized breasts accounts for no more than 150-250 grams each).
There's also more fat on the hips than on the chest. In
order to encourage players to give FFDs to female characters,
those that lack it (and are at least a couple of years into
puberty) are docked 2 Appearance levels.
If a character can't get food, he or she begins to live off
bodily fat, and this is the original reason for FFDs, that
I wanted females to be able to survive longer than males.
Actually, players making female characters are slightly more
likely to opt for 1 or 2 levels fo Underweight than players
making male characters, and this cancels out the effect, but
I don't see that as a problem, because realism is still
achieved. "That chick would have lasted longer if she hadn't
been so damn skinny!".
Two more things: One can't have FFDs is one is Skinny or worse,
except with Futuristic medical technology (advanced dieting
and excercise regimens). I don't even think current plastic
surgery can do it. Also, characters have a Metabolism stat
which determines how much food they need per day. Females
will generally have a lower Metabolism than males, so this
also helps them survive longer (except that players will
often raise Metabolism, thinking it's "free points". Which
it is, as long as one plays carefully...).
Some RPG systems messes around with "relative strength",
such as Age of Heroes (freeware system by Brian Gleichman),
in which you first rolr for your Strength, and then you
roll for Size, and then you derive Effective Strength by
modifying basic Strength according to Size. I didn't do
that in FFRE, because I wanted the system to be intuitive
to play. A Hobbit with Strength 2 is as strong as an
Ogre who has magically had its Strength reduced to 2.
I still achieve realism in that Strength is capped by Size,
and that Strength adds to mass, so that a stronger character
or creature looks heavier. Thus players can try to gauge the
combat potential of a creature by asking the GM how large
(massy) it is. Unlike in D&D3 where a Halfling can be
Strength 20.
Realism is also achieved due to the Fleetness subsystem,
which means that the above-mentioned Ogre who has had its
strength reduced to 2 (from about 9 or 10 - I can't remember
the Strength of an Ogre) is going to be in *real* trouble,
due to its muscles not being able to support its weight. It
can still move, but only barely.
To recap: Character mass is derived from three (four) factors.
Strength (Upper Body strength and Lower Body strength), Size
and degree-of-Overweight(+/-).
FFRE is somewhat coarsegrained, especially when it comes to
attribute values, and players will often want to tweak the
final mass of a character to fit some ideal (this is common
if you try to make yourself as an FFRE character, which
naturally I have done - in fact much of the complexity of
FFRE comes from attempts to try to correctly simulate the
ways in which I differ from normal people), and there is a
way to do that. You may "tell the game" that for the purpose
of deriving your mass (and only that!), your Strength and
Size is up to +/- 0.5 points different from the actual value.
So for instance, you've made a character who is Size 3
and Strength 5. And you then get the derived mass which
you feel is a bit too low. You can then "tell the game"
to assume that your Size is not 3 but 3.3, and that
your Strength is not 5 but 5.3. This yields a slightly
higher mass. You may employ different tweaks for Size
and Strength if you want to, as long as they are no
lower than -0.5 and no higher than +0.5. It is not
legal to tweak the value of the Fat Unit, because that
would actually affect game balance (which the other
tweaks won't).
Players are free to determine the Height of their characters,
but the game does give advice, by calculating the Body Mass
Index (BMI) of the character, using metric values.
To find your BMI, take your height in meters, then square
it (1.8 meters becomes 3.24). Then take your weight in
kilograms and divide it by this number.
Medical statistics suggests that the lowest probability of
health problems comes with a BMI between 20 and 25. That's
a good rule of thumb (although it is pointed out again
and again that it doesn't apply to body builders and
top athletes), but I think that it is lacking when it
comes to gender differentiation. Obviously, the ideal
weight for a 180 cm tall female is lower than the
ideal weight for a 180 cm tall male.
FFRE gives you a Build Descriptor, based on the derived Mass
and the Height that you have specified. For a male character,
a BMI between 22 and 24 is Normal, between 24 and 26 is Normal+,
between 26 and 28 is Heavy, between 28 and 30 is Heavy+,
between 20 and 22 is Normal-, between 18 and 20 is Light.
For females, the bracked is shifted down one step, thus Normal
is 20-22, Normal- is 18 to 20, Normal+ is 22 to 24, Light is
16-18.
(I think perhaps this "bracket shift" is too strong, and that
it should be shifted only 1 BMI point rather than 2...).
There is even a rule for default height. If a player neglects
to define a Height for his or her character, it automatically
becomes (IIRC) 160 cm regardless of Size :-)
Again, BMI does not work for all characters. Those who have
very high or very low Strength will be tricked. But it is a
guideline to help players select reasonable heights for
their characters.
> DSX
Let's see. The 6' tall female character that your friend made
would have a BMi of 17.74 which I would normally find quite
reasonable. My guess is that 2-3% of Danish females between
the age of 15 and 35 has a BMI of around 17.7, so that is
acceptable to me (as it does not ruin my SoD).
BUT. But. But...
She's Strength 18! I don't know what system you're "talking".
Strength 18 means one thing on AD&D, a different thing
in D&D3, yet a third thing in GURPS and something quite
spectacular in FFRE!
But obviously Strength 18 is significantly higher than
average (even in AD&D it is "clearly above average"), and
this means that it becomes completely unreasonable for her
to weigh 130 lbs!!
(conversion values: 1 inch equals 2.5 cm or 0.025 m, 2.2 lbs
equals 1 kg. These are not exact values but are good enough
for BMI calculations. 1' equals 12 inches)
Let's try to do her as an FFRE character. Note that I am
considering changing the formula that derives General Mass
from Size (to yield something slightly lower), but the
below stuff is using the current formula:
If she is 182 cm tall then she ought to be Size 4, since this
is the Size of a present day Caucasian (maybe a bit lower for
some Caucasians, maybe a bit higher for Scandinavians). But
an alternative option is to make her Size 3 and then give her
one or two levels of the Long Legs advantage. This means
that for the purpose of Pace derivation (how fast she can
walk, jog, run and sprint), she counts as being Size 4 (or 5
with 2 levels), even though she is only Size 3. Long Legs
does not add to mass.
I think we'll settle for Size 3 and 1 level of Long Legs.
2 levels of Long Legs is "very rare" and thus costs a lot.
As for Strength... That's a toughie. FFRE has a quite well-
defined attribute scale, but conversion is still difficult
because other RPG scales are less well-defined. It gets
worse because I don't know what scale you're using.
AD&D has a broad scale. 18 is nothing special. An INT of 17
admits you to the Mensa Society, which means you're smart
but not spectacularly so. 18 is obviously a bit better but
not much. In fact a STR of 18 means you're 1-in-216. That
corresonds to an FFRE attribute of 5 or 6, and while it is
closer to 6 (1-in-700) than to 5 (1-in-47), we'll settle
for 5 because the in-game benefits of being STR 18 in AD&D
aren't too large (and thus they match FFRE Strength 5
better than FFRE Strenth 6)
D&D3 has a slightly tigher scale, and a STR (or any other
attribute) of 18 clearly corresponds to an 6 in FFRE. In
particular this is because the in-game effects of having
D&D3 STR 18 are quite a bit larger than in AD&D.
GURPS has an even more tight scale, and a stat of 18
corresponds to a 7 in FFRE, except for Strength which
in GURPS is quite cheap to buy up. Then again Strength
is also cheap to buy up in FFRE, so I'd say that a
GURPS ST of 18 corresponds to Strength 7 in FFRE.
I'll grab the middle assumption, that you're talking D&D3.
Thus, the character is Strength 6. I will assume that she
is Strength 6 both upper body and lower body. Otherwise
it would have been "cheaper" to buy Strength 5 and then
raise either Lower or Upper Body strength one step. But
we'll assume that she is Strength 6 full.
Your friend seems to have wanted to make her into some kind
of "warrior babe", in that he wants her to conform to
standards of attractiveness. Nothing wrong with that, and it
helps me by making it clear that she *does* have FFDs.
(otherwise he'd have to buy her at least two levels of
improved Appearance just to have NPCs react normally towards
her).
He also wants her to be somewhat thin, and thus suggets 1
level of Underweight, called "Thin". She can't have 2 levels
of Underweight ("Skinny") because then she automatically
looses FFDs, and then she can't be a warrior babe... So Thin
it is.
Now we know enough about her to derive her weight.
The formula for General Mass is
25 kg x (1.25^(Size))
In her case General Mass is: 48.8 kg
The formula for Muscle Mas is
Strength ^2
or
(Strength(L) ^2)/2 +
(Strength(U) ^2)/2
In her case, Strength is the same for upper and lower body, so we
can use the simpler formula. Her Muscle Mass is: 36 kg
1 Fat Unit (FU) equals 2.5 kg x (1.25^(Size)) or 1/10 General Mass,
which for this character is 4.9 kg.
We decided that she'd be 1 level Underweight, this subtracts
1 FU, but at the same time she has FFDs which adds 1 FU, so
these cancel out.
So her final mass (before tweak) is 48.8 kg + 36 kg = 84.8 kg
If we want to tweak her to have as low a mass as possible
("pretending" that her Size is 2.5 and her Strength is 5.5)
we arrive at 43.7 General Mass and 30.25 Muscle Mass which
adds up to 73.9 kg.
So she can weigh 84.8 kg or 73.9 kg or anything in between
those two values. (She can aslo weigh more, if you apply
positive tweak, in fact she can weigh up to 96.8 kg if you
want that, but I suppose you don't).
I'll settle for the lowest possible tweaked value, 73.9 kg.
Now, what height would be reasonable for such a weight? We
have already determined that she is very muscular, so her
height should be such that she falls in the Heavy category
or perhaps Heavy+. She still has potential to be a real babe,
since her weight comes from well-toned muscles and not flabby
fat, and having long legs also helps. On the other hand, long
legs suggests that she shouldn't be that heavy after all, but
convey a sense of "stretchedness".
Finally, we settle for a build of "Heavy", which means she
must fall within the 24-26 BMI bracket. For the sake of
realism, we decide that she should be near the high end
of the bracket (after all, she is heavily muscled). So
that gives a BMI of about 25.7.
Which means a Height of 169.6 cm.
If we keep the low-tweaked mass and make her 183 cm tall, we
get a BMI of 22.1 which makes her "Normal+" (but at the very
low end of the range)
If we use the un-tweaked mass and make her 183 cm tall, we get
BMI 25.3 which makes her "Heavy". If we make her only 180 cm
tall then she is 26.2 which is "Heavy+".
I'm not claiming that FFRE gives very good figures. Just that
they avoid absurdity (most of the time). I think the worst kind
of system is that which makes you roll for Weight, then roll
for Height, because it is possible to roll very high for one
and very low for another. If you absolutely must have randomness
in character creation, then it's better to do the same thing
Quest FRP does, which is to roll for Height then roll for
Build, and then derive Weight from Height and Build. At least
that way you can't get wild inconsistency.
And personally I preer the complete absence of randomness from
the character creation process.
--
Peter Knutsen
Bill Seurer
> People who are large-boned or small-boned are alse tricked
> by the formula,
And of course most overweight people are large boned, at least according
to them. I used to be that way.
BMI is just a quick gauge of your body proportions. If your BMI is 26
and you look and feel OK you probably are. If it is 30 you are
overweight barring *extreme* circumstances.
Warren J. Dew
My question is: How realistically do you try to match a
character's weight with height and strength?
My homebrew system has strong interdependencies between weight, height, and
strength. Of course, the player doesn't get any choices - it's all rolled for.
Minimum weight for an 18 strength character is significantly more than 130 lb,
but this is in a system where 18 is really the maximum for humans.
In systems that permit the player to choose height and weight independently of
attributes - for example, The Fantasy Trip, that permits it explicitly - I have
to just assume that the world works a little differently, or the attributes are
defined a little differently, so that this works. I don't think it's
reasonable to ban particular combinations based solely on a judgement call;
that's what mechanics are for.
Warren J. Dew
Powderhouse Software
Brandon Blackmoor
people, and very weak large people, and very strong large people... in
short, I think placing restrictions on someone else's character's height and
weight is silly and unrealistic.
--
bblackmoor en blackgate.net
http://www.rpglibrary.org - free games & gaming aids & no banner ads, ever
Bill Seurer
> I think placing restrictions on someone else's character's height and
> weight is silly and unrealistic.
Which reminds me, which games have realistic rules for eye/hair/skin
color? I was in a game recently and one player wanted to play a very
fair skinned person (almost albino) but with gray colored eyes and black
hair! Ridiculous! I couldn't believe the game system allowed it let
alone the GM.
Robert Scott Clark
>In the real world, I have seen very thin tall people, and very large tall
>people, and very weak large people, and very strong large people... in
>short, I think placing restrictions on someone else's character's height and
>weight is silly and unrealistic.
Yet, somehow, you leave out the one body type in question, the very
tall, very-very-very thin, very strong person. This is likely because
you *haven't* seen one of those, because they don't exist.
99.9% of games I play, the character wouldn't raise an eyebrow, but in
that 0.1% where I expect some degree of realism, that character would
do the same thing to my SoD as a player who wanted every rock his
character dropped to fall up instead of down.
Brandon Blackmoor
news:3c700a65...@news-central.giganews.com...
>
> Yet, somehow, you leave out the one body type in question...
I left out most of the possible permutations. I expected that people of
reasonable intelligence could extrapolate the trend.
Ian Sturrock
<pe...@knutsen.dk> gibbers
>Characters *should* be able to gauge the maximum possible strength of
>an encountered NPC, based on the size (=mass) of the NPC.
At a Live-Roleplay event some years ago, a number of us had an arm-
wrestling contest. My pal John trounced all comers, including guys who
were bigger and a lot more muscly than him, but that's no real surprise
'cos he's a big guy himself and a rugby player. Some of those arm-
wrestles were hard-fought, but there was never any doubt that he was
going to win.
Then, this skinny hippy called Dan finally gets out of bed & ambles over
to join in. He beats John, on both arms, with ease. He beats everybody
else. Anyone who arm-wrestles with him has a sore arm for weeks, if they
try to resist in any way.
Then he ambles off to get stoned somewhere.
Appearances can be deceptive.
--
"A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then
thrown out, as good for nothing." Samuel Johnson
Brett Evill
<pe...@knutsen.dk> wrote:
>> mass (in kg)
>> BMI = _____________________
>> height (in m) squared
>
>Yup, this is the same formula I use. But note that it doesn't work
>well for people who are extremely short, extremely tall, or extremely
>muscled. People who are large-boned or small-boned are alse tricked
>by the formula, although not to a large extent.
I agree that it doesn't work well at extremes, and judging from personal
experience. My father was extremely tall (2 metres), and I am of
extremely robust build (and I have very short legs, for the length of my
torso).
My father had a BMI of 25, and he was often described as a beanpole. 100
kg (220 lb) is not all that heavy for 2 m height (79").
The lowest I ever got my BMI after achieving adult height (1.79 m) was
24.7, and everyone asked whether I had been ill (I had).
Brett Evill
<pe...@knutsen.dk> wrote:
> And since it is beneficial to be stronger
>than one looks, the GM should by all that is right have charged the
>player something for it.
Sometimes it is beneficial to turn out stronger than people expected.
But I have found through my life that there are also considerable
benefit to looking as though you could break a man in half if you wanted
to. It all depends on whether you want to trick people into fights they
are going to lose, or keep out of fights in the first place.
Brett Evill
<pe...@knutsen.dk> wrote:
>Medical statistics suggests that the lowest probability of
>health problems comes with a BMI between 20 and 25. That's
>a good rule of thumb (although it is pointed out again
>and again that it doesn't apply to body builders and
>top athletes), but I think that it is lacking when it
>comes to gender differentiation. Obviously, the ideal
>weight for a 180 cm tall female is lower than the
>ideal weight for a 180 cm tall male.
That may be obvious to you, but it isn't obvious to the death rate
statistics.
Biologists will tell you that humans are a species with little sexual
dimorphism because men are 'only' 10% taller, 20% heavier, and 30%
stronger than women. That is only a rough figure, obviously, but it is
consistent with men and women having roughly the same distribution of
BMIs as men.
There are interesting results coming in from experiments to extend
lifespans by life-long calorie restriction. Everything from parameciums
to cats have been tested on low-energy diets with adequate proteins,
vitamins etc. And the results show large extensions of lifespan for
animals that are kept seriously underweight. But of course lab
conditions are very benign: in the wild these underweight specimens
would succumb to lethargy, disease, accidents, short-term shortages.
etc. etc. where the specimens equivalent to the controls would survive.
How the results will extend to humans are not clear (lab results for
monkeys and apes aren't in yet, because the subjects haven't begun to
reach their lifespans yet.
Robert Scott Clark
>"Robert Scott Clark" <cla...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
>news:3c700a65...@news-central.giganews.com...
>>
>> Yet, somehow, you leave out the one body type in question...
>
>I left out most of the possible permutations. I expected that people of
>reasonable intelligence could extrapolate the trend.
So, you are then claiming to have seen a very tall, very thin, very
strong person in real life?
Brandon Blackmoor
>
> So, you are then claiming to have seen a very tall, very thin, very
> strong person in real life?
Of course I have. So have you, unless you live in a cave.
People come in all shapes and sizes. Trying to exert control over someone
else's character's height and/or weight is ridiculous (which to say, it
deserves to be ridiculed). You may as well put arbitrary restrictions on a
character's strength or intelligence based on their race and/or sex. It's a
profoundly moronic thing to do.
Robert Scott Clark
>"Robert Scott Clark" <cla...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
>news:3c72546e...@news-central.giganews.com...
>>
>> So, you are then claiming to have seen a very tall, very thin, very
>> strong person in real life?
>
>Of course I have. So have you, unless you live in a cave.
No, I have not. I have not seen a 6' 130lb person who can bench 300
pounds. You haven't either, because that person doesn't exist.
<and I didn't say dick about restricting character choices, so I see
no need to respond to that part here. You want to insult me for
reducing characer choice, you better damn well find a place I say I
would restrict charcter choice.>
Martin Boyden
On Mon, 18 Feb 2002, Brett Evill wrote:
> Sometimes it is beneficial to turn out stronger than people expected.
> But I have found through my life that there are also considerable
> benefit to looking as though you could break a man in half if you wanted
> to. It all depends on whether you want to trick people into fights they
> are going to lose, or keep out of fights in the first place.
Totally agree that both have advantages, and could be quantified as
character traits in games for such allowances. Call one unassuming or
deceptive build, the other intimidating build.
--Marty
Brandon Blackmoor
Great, then we agree. No need to beat this dead horse furher, then.
Brent & Dianne
Is this a GAME or reality, folks? In a game, if I want, I can have a pencil
thin Ziggy Stardust type be stronger than a muscular Arnold S. "Terminator"
type.
While it might be difficult to impossible to find a 130 lb. person able to
benchpress 300 lb. in the world, in a FANTASY world you might have scads of
them. It is all up to the people playing the GAME.
Brent & Dianne
> There are interesting results coming in from experiments to extend
> lifespans by life-long calorie restriction. Everything from parameciums
> to cats have been tested on low-energy diets with adequate proteins,
> vitamins etc. And the results show large extensions of lifespan for
> animals that are kept seriously underweight. But of course lab
> conditions are very benign: in the wild these underweight specimens
> would succumb to lethargy, disease, accidents, short-term shortages.
> etc. etc. where the specimens equivalent to the controls would survive.
> How the results will extend to humans are not clear (lab results for
> monkeys and apes aren't in yet, because the subjects haven't begun to
> reach their lifespans yet.
Yes, I thought those were interesting. It has a lot of implications that in
a society where food was plentiful and not an issue, a skinny-scrawny person
might outlive a person who was muscular and fit by our definition, and
certainly someone who was overweight.
Harald Nachtigall
have a max strength of about 13. The average man should be in the range of
about 8, because women come to about 60 to 70% of the corresponing man.
This keeps enough place for the women who can beat many men, because STR 11
to Str 9 is still impressive.
We should give the distribution of attributes a new look because there are
much fewer people falling in the high range than most RPG suggest. Anyone
with statistics to this point?
ie.96 WR in weightlifting up to 64 kg (best relation I found, others are
even worse) 235 kg for twintest to 330 kg.
If you consider the impact on skill on this you would have to calculate the
benefit proportional to base strength or women would look even worse.
Talking about intelligence the average seems to be equal but the averages,
if not potentials, in the subcathegories seem to vary with alternating
advantages for men and women.
Leif Magnar Kj|nn|y
Bill Seurer <Bi...@seurer.net> wrote:
>Peter Knutsen wrote:
>> People who are large-boned or small-boned are alse tricked
>> by the formula,
>
>And of course most overweight people are large boned, at least according
>to them. I used to be that way.
I'm not fat, I'm big boned.
>BMI is just a quick gauge of your body proportions. If your BMI is 26
>and you look and feel OK you probably are. If it is 30 you are
>overweight barring *extreme* circumstances.
Extreme? Hardly; if I'd spent any more time lifting weights in my mid-20s
I'd easily have been well above 30 still without being overweight (I did
briefly reach 30 as it was). And I'm not extreme; I'm just a tall guy
who's built much like a scale model of an average-proportioned smaller
guy (you want extreme, check out the serious weight lifters who hang
around the university gym). That BMI formula assumes that taller people
should be proportionately slimmer than shorter ones, which I suppose may
be true on average but not in a lot of specific cases.
--
Leif Kj{\o}nn{\o}y | "Its habit of getting up late you'll agree
www.pvv.org/~leifmk| That it carries too far, when I say
Math geek and gamer| That it frequently breakfasts at five-o'clock tea,
GURPS, Harn, CORPS | And dines on the following day." (Carroll)
Peter Knutsen
Brent & Dianne wrote:
>
> Robert Scott Clark at cla...@mindspring.com wrote:
> > So, you are then claiming to have seen a very tall, very thin, very
> > strong person in real life?
>
> Is this a GAME or reality, folks? In a game, if I want, I can have a pencil
It is a game about making *decisions*, and one can only make decisons
if one knows what is possible and what is possible. As I pointed out
in a previous post, one can make allowances for explicit deviations
from the real world ("magic exists and works like this... [detailed
description]"), but the more the game world rsembles the real world,
the easier and more fluent the decision-making process is.
> thin Ziggy Stardust type be stronger than a muscular Arnold S. "Terminator"
> type.
Then how do you make decisions, if the game takes place in a world
that is completely unrelated to the one you and I live in?
> While it might be difficult to impossible to find a 130 lb. person able to
> benchpress 300 lb. in the world, in a FANTASY world you might have scads of
> them. It is all up to the people playing the GAME.
You keep forgetting what the game is *about*.
--
Peter Knutsen
Robert Scott Clark
Really? So, in a modern game, with no magic, and no super powers or
ultra-high technology, someone can bring in a character who is 13 feet
tall and you wouldn't care?
Rupert Boleyn
wrote:
>
>
>Brett Evill wrote:
>
>> Note that the medical guidelines for weight suggest that your body mass
>> index should be between 16 and 25, where
>
>Between *20* and 25. I think it might be fair to shift the range
>a bit according to gender, as in between 20 and 26 for males and
>between 18 and 24 for females.
Nope. According to most stats, particularly ones taken beofre being
slim was considered attractive in women, a woman will on average weigh
about 3-5 pounds less than a man of the same height.
--
Rupert Boleyn <rbo...@paradise.net.nz>
"Inside every cynic is a romantic trying to get out."
Rupert Boleyn
<br...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>Yes, I thought those were interesting. It has a lot of implications that in
>a society where food was plentiful and not an issue, a skinny-scrawny person
>might outlive a person who was muscular and fit by our definition, and
>certainly someone who was overweight.
But would their quality of life be as high? And in a world where
everyone is border-line starving who does the heavy lifting?
Bill Seurer
> If I'd spent any more time lifting weights in my mid-20s
> I'd easily have been well above 30 still without being overweight (I did
> briefly reach 30 as it was). And I'm not extreme; I'm just a tall guy
> who's built much like a scale model of an average-proportioned smaller
> guy (you want extreme, check out the serious weight lifters who hang
> around the university gym). That BMI formula assumes that taller people
> should be proportionately slimmer than shorter ones, which I suppose may
> be true on average but not in a lot of specific cases.
I am a tall guy and when I hit 300 pounds (BMI 35+) I decided that was
it. I am now down to BMI of 25 (I lost 95 pounds and went down 7 inches
around my waist) and I am *not* "skinny". I could probably lose another
10-15 pounds and still not look skinny and that'd put me at BMI 23 or
so.
And I used to lift weights, too, though I did lots of reps more than
heavy weights. I gained 10 pounds and my shoulders broadened
considerably; I had to replace all my shirts at the time.
Leif Magnar Kj|nn|y
Bill Seurer <Bi...@seurer.net> wrote:
>Leif Magnar Kj|nn|y wrote:
>> If I'd spent any more time lifting weights in my mid-20s
>> I'd easily have been well above 30 still without being overweight (I did
>> briefly reach 30 as it was). And I'm not extreme; I'm just a tall guy
>> who's built much like a scale model of an average-proportioned smaller
>> guy (you want extreme, check out the serious weight lifters who hang
>> around the university gym). That BMI formula assumes that taller people
>> should be proportionately slimmer than shorter ones, which I suppose may
>> be true on average but not in a lot of specific cases.
>
>I am a tall guy and when I hit 300 pounds (BMI 35+) I decided that was
>it. I am now down to BMI of 25 (I lost 95 pounds and went down 7 inches
>around my waist) and I am *not* "skinny".
Now *that* sounds like a good and healthy decision. I'm guessing those
95 pounds were mostly not muscle? At 192 cm the most I've ever weighed
was about 110 kg (I've gone through a couple of "get fit, build muscle,
get lazy, turn somewhat flabby, eat less, lose weight" phases but have
avoided truly major oscillations in body mass). Looking at the serious
weightlifting guys (several of whom are taller and broader than me,
and bench press ungodly amounts of metal) leads me to believe that
it's quite possible to have a BMI in excess of 35 without being
"overweight" (though some of those guys also have respectable guts).
>And I used to lift weights, too, though I did lots of reps more than
>heavy weights. I gained 10 pounds and my shoulders broadened
>considerably; I had to replace all my shirts at the time.
Yeah, been there done that. Never was all that interested in lifting
the seriously heavy weights (got a somewhat flaky back already). In
recent years I've been doing more endurance-stuff than strength building;
I've lost about 10 kg from four or five years ago and I'd actually like
about half of that back (want more upper body strength again).
John Morrow
> dimorphism because men are 'only' 10% taller, 20% heavier, and 30%
> stronger than women. That is only a rough figure, obviously, but it is
> consistent with men and women having roughly the same distribution of
> BMIs as men.
A lot of the speed and strength differences can be traced to height and
weight differences. The main differences are that women generally have a
higher fat to muscle ratio than men (muscle is heavier than fat) and there
are some skeletal differences related to wide hips and shoulders, both of
which can impact strength and running speed.
Back to the original question, a woman with an 18 strength *should*
realistically be built like a man with an 18 strength because a man with
an 18 strength is built that way for a reason. It isn't decoration.
Indeed, she'd probably be non-reproductive due to a low fat-to-muscle
ratio and would probably be a bit of a mutant.
With respect to a role-playing game, you've got three choices:
1) If you want absolute real-world reality, women will have limited
strengths or will have to be one-off mutants to be as strong as men. As
stated above, women are generally 30% weaker than men both at the average
and high-end and this cannot be waved away with a long laundry list of
social factors that inevitably gets hauled out (e.g., unequal nutrition,
training, etc.) but which can all be dismissed pretty easily. Simply put,
women are genetically smaller than men, their bodies naturally retain a
higher ratio of fat for reproductive purposes, and their skeletons are not
optimized for upper body strength.
2) You can assume that strength works a little differently in the game
world and that simply being muscular can make one very strong, regardless
of size. Many animals are much stronger for their mass than humans (e.g.,
chimpanzees) and one can assume a shift in the muscle structure and not
just the muscle mass is behind these high strengths. In the real world,
these stronger animal muscles do have a downside. Chimpanzees sink
because their over density is so high that the can't swim and I've read
that they don't heal as well as humans (who retain quite a few juvenile
traits into adulthood including the ability to heal quickly).
3) It's fantasy. Live with it. Not my personal favorite but certainly
reasonable enough and it works for a lot of people. Just assume that the
characters in the setting can tell that she is strong somehow.
> There are interesting results coming in from experiments to extend
> lifespans by life-long calorie restriction. Everything from parameciums
> to cats have been tested on low-energy diets with adequate proteins,
> vitamins etc. And the results show large extensions of lifespan for
> animals that are kept seriously underweight.
Why am I picturing human bonsai here?
> But of course lab
> conditions are very benign: in the wild these underweight specimens
> would succumb to lethargy, disease, accidents, short-term shortages.
> etc. etc. where the specimens equivalent to the controls would survive.
I'm reminded of the joke that eating healthy won't make you live forever,
it will just make it seem that way.
> How the results will extend to humans are not clear (lab results for
> monkeys and apes aren't in yet, because the subjects haven't begun to
> reach their lifespans yet.
There are some substantial physiological differences between humans and
apes. An article that I read quite a while ago suggested that humans
retain a substantial number of juvenile traits into adulthood which allow
for more flexible bodies that heal faster but aren't as strong (compare
human strength with a chimpanzee of the same mass). This might also be
why we are so susceptible to cancers. In any event, if we have more
juvenile metabolisms, we might not react as well to deprivation as other
primates.
John Morrow
Warren J. Dew
if I'd spent any more time lifting weights in my mid-20s
I'd easily have been well above 30 still without being
overweight (I did briefly reach 30 as it was).... That
BMI formula assumes that taller people should be
proportionately slimmer than shorter ones, which I
suppose may be true on average but not in a lot of
specific cases.
It's probably a result of looking for a simple monomial least squares fit
assuming height is the abscissa and weight the ordinate. In general, if you
plot two somewhat independently varying variables against each other, the least
squares fit will tend to be more horizontal than vertical. Switch the
coordinate system around and the best fit might be that height is the cube or
even fourth root of weight.
Some people may argue that they aren't independent, that weight really is a
function of height, so placement of height on the abscissa is justified. I
think that's an oversimplification.
Master Cougar
--
MasterCougar
Yahoo IM Mastercougar
AIM Mstrpuma
Master Cougar
> Then how do you make decisions, if the game takes place in a world
> that is completely unrelated to the one you and I live in?
> You keep forgetting what the game is *about*.
No Peter, you just keep forgetting that _your_ way of playing isn't the _only_ way of playing.
You are an elistis snob when it comes to gaming styles.
Master Cougar
> Now that you mention it. If 18 is human max strength the top of woman should
> have a max strength of about 13. The average man should be in the range of
> about 8, because women come to about 60 to 70% of the corresponing man.
Well, in a 3d6 system where the stats are generated purely randomly the average is 10-11.
We`re talking about a curve here, although a rather steep one, some would say a triangle, not a linear
distribution, unless I am very much mistaken on my terms. I also don't understand how you get your
numbers. Why would men, according to your calculations, but average of 8? You speak of the max
human and calculate a max women of 13, which is slightly more than 70% of 18. But where does the 8
come in?
Master Cougar
I think you are mixing up low-calorie diet with being scrawny. A person who is musular is no
necessarily on a higher calorie diet. I've known people whom I'd describe as tooth picks who eat a lot
more than I do, and I'm far from being skinny. I have muscles and am 20 pounds overweight.
Master Cougar
> It's probably a result of looking for a simple monomial least squares fit
> assuming height is the abscissa and weight the ordinate. In general, if you
> plot two somewhat independently varying variables against each other, the least
> squares fit will tend to be more horizontal than vertical. Switch the
> coordinate system around and the best fit might be that height is the cube or
> even fourth root of weight.
Personally I feel that the important factor is the lean body mass to fat ratio. In a male 4-1 lean
mass to fat seems to be the upper limit to be considered healthy, while in women it reachs 3-1 lean
mass to fat. There is, I believe a maximum amount of weight that can be considered healthy for the body
frame of a person, but that's usually higher than those outdated insurance tables indicate. I'm 220 now,
and 5'11" according to those tables I'm about 50 pounds overweight, but accoriding to my lean body
mass to fat ration, I'm only about 20 pounds overweight.
Peter Knutsen
Master Cougar wrote:
>
> On Mon, 18 Feb 2002 13:10:15 +0100, Peter Knutsen <pe...@knutsen.dk> wrote:
>
> > Then how do you make decisions, if the game takes place in a world
> > that is completely unrelated to the one you and I live in?
>
> > You keep forgetting what the game is *about*.
>
> No Peter, you just keep forgetting that _your_ way of playing isn't the _only_ way of playing.
> You are an elistis snob when it comes to gaming styles.
You do *not* make decisions when you game????
> --
> MasterCougar
> Yahoo IM Mastercougar
> AIM Mstrpuma
>
--
Peter Knutsen
puzzled
Brent & Dianne
>
>
> Brent & Dianne wrote:
>>
>> Robert Scott Clark at cla...@mindspring.com wrote:
>
>>> So, you are then claiming to have seen a very tall, very thin, very
>>> strong person in real life?
>>
>> Is this a GAME or reality, folks? In a game, if I want, I can have a pencil
>
> It is a game about making *decisions*, and one can only make decisons
> if one knows what is possible and what is possible. As I pointed out
> in a previous post, one can make allowances for explicit deviations
> from the real world ("magic exists and works like this... [detailed
> description]"), but the more the game world rsembles the real world,
> the easier and more fluent the decision-making process is.
Unless you get caught up in analysis paralysis about being TOO caught up in
it. I used to play SL & ASL, and eventually left simply because the rules
became the game rather then the scenario at hand.
I always thought (and still do) that a bad B movie usually makes a pretty
good scenario/RPG setting. This would include the "don't look too close at
this" anachronisms and things that "wouldn't work that way" in reality.
I guess I am saying I am an ex-simulationist and a storyteller.
>> thin Ziggy Stardust type be stronger than a muscular Arnold S. "Terminator"
>> type.
>
> Then how do you make decisions, if the game takes place in a world
> that is completely unrelated to the one you and I live in?
As long as I set up a set of consitent rules and make the players aware of
them, then all is well. More importantly, is everyone having fun?
>
>> While it might be difficult to impossible to find a 130 lb. person able to
>> benchpress 300 lb. in the world, in a FANTASY world you might have scads of
>> them. It is all up to the people playing the GAME.
>
> You keep forgetting what the game is *about*.
Having fun? Beating up dragons, trolls and orcs?
I guess my overall point is the following:
1. "Contradictions to the Real World (tm)" if handled properly might
actually make the game more fun, but certainly won't detract.
2. A bad B movie/TV show can make an excellent game (Think: Xena, Hercules,
King Soloman's Mines)
3. You can quickly degenerate into "Advanced Squad Leader" if you get too
wrapped up in the details (and, yes, this is a detail).
4. If you *must* be as realistic as possible, you can come up with
perfectly setting-oriented explanations for something a bit or a lot out of
the ordinary.
5. The more "realistic" you game, the more apparent small details being a
bit out of whack will be -- so if you paper over the cracks, most players
will still have a great time and lose themselves in the reality you sculpt.
I have run more than one game where I gave the characters a description
sheet and never let them look at the numbers and I think the level of fun
might have been a bit higher - especially when someone was going to give
something a go when they figured they *might* succeed but didn't know the
exact odds.
AND MOST IMPORTANT:
7. Role Playing Games are more about acting and story telling than minute
details -- your players should be asking the questions, and the answers
should be like JRR Tolkein's story writing -- Rather than concentrating on
why something shouldn't be so, concentrate on why is *should* be that way
because you end up with a more detailed and rich world than otherwise.
I'll get off my soapbox now...
Brent & Dianne
> On Sun, 17 Feb 2002 22:24:40 -0800, Brent & Dianne
> <br...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>> Yes, I thought those were interesting. It has a lot of implications that in
>> a society where food was plentiful and not an issue, a skinny-scrawny person
>> might outlive a person who was muscular and fit by our definition, and
>> certainly someone who was overweight.
>
> But would their quality of life be as high? And in a world where
> everyone is border-line starving who does the heavy lifting?
>
Dunno, not my study. Depends if they were food oriented and if they felt
they were starving. Have no clue about something as subjective as "quality
of life" but one thing for certain, if the study holds out for people, the
skinny person would have a lot more quantity to decide for him or herself.
Brent & Dianne
>
>
> Master Cougar wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, 18 Feb 2002 13:10:15 +0100, Peter Knutsen <pe...@knutsen.dk> wrote:
>>
>>> Then how do you make decisions, if the game takes place in a world
>>> that is completely unrelated to the one you and I live in?
>>
>>> You keep forgetting what the game is *about*.
>>
>> No Peter, you just keep forgetting that _your_ way of playing isn't the
>> _only_ way of playing.
>> You are an elistis snob when it comes to gaming styles.
>
> You do *not* make decisions when you game????
No, I think he is saying that the game isn't about making a decision or two,
but about having fun.
Brent & Dianne
I think the bog-average person has 8's, and the "heroics" have an average of
10-11 meaning they are on average excellent specimens of their species.
Brent & Dianne
You may be right - but sometimes those skinny folks will lose tons of weight
if they eat less - so they are next to starvation, while folks like me look
at food and put on a pound of fat.
(Used to be 270lbs, now am 215lbs, 6' tall, not very fit at all)
Peter Knutsen
But I'd still really, really appreciate being told what this Cougar
dude bases his decisions on, the decisions that he makes when he
games. Because I can't figure it out.
--
Peter Knutsen
Warren J. Dew
Back to the original question, a woman with an 18 strength
*should* realistically be built like a man with an 18 strength
because a man with an 18 strength is built that way for a
reason.
Yes.
Indeed, she'd probably be non-reproductive due to a low
fat-to-muscle ratio and would probably be a bit of a mutant.
Depends on how you define strength. Many people consider Sumo wrestlers to be
high strength, but they aren't low fat.
As stated above, women are generally 30% weaker than men both
at the average and high-end and this cannot be waved away with
a long laundry list of social factors that inevitably gets
hauled out (e.g., unequal nutrition, training, etc.) but which
can all be dismissed pretty easily.
Well, there certainly seems to be a genetic component even after all those
things are accounted for. On the other hand, the environmental factors do
account for some of the difference, too.
When this was hashed out at length in .advocacy - with cites to figures from
various web sites - I think the general consensus was that the genetic portion
of the difference was in the 10-20% range.
It should also be noted that we are talking upper body strength here. Some of
the figures indicated that women were comparable to men in lower body strength,
and significantly stronger in abdominal strength. These, of couse, involve
muscles that hook into areas where the female skeleton is larger.
Many animals are much stronger for their mass than humans
(e.g., chimpanzees) and one can assume a shift in the muscle
structure and not just the muscle mass is behind these high
strengths.
Quite the opposite, I believe. If you look at a chimp skeleton, the lower body
- hips and legs - are tiny relative to the upper body. With humans, the upper
body is small relative to the lower body. The same skeletal distribution
reasoning that applies to human sexual dimorphism can also explain the much
greater difference in upper body strength between chimps and humans of the same
weight; the chimp just has a lot more area for upper body muscles to attach to,
and a lot more space for the muscle to occupy.
In other words, it is just a shift in muscle mass, from the lower body to the
upper body. Indeed, physiologically, even insect muscle is very similar to
human muscle.
In a fantasy game, of course, I agree that strength working a little
differently is a reasonable solution. Actually, just defining 'strength' a
little differently can help. For example, is muscle length involved in
strength, or just cross section? There's a justification for including length,
since people with longer arms can apply the force to a weapon over a longer
distance, with a greater final kinetic energy. So maybe that 130 lb strength
18 woman is strong partly because of, rather than despite, her height.
John Morrow
> Depends on how you define strength. Many people consider Sumo wrestlers to be
> high strength, but they aren't low fat.
This is actually something I've been struggling with. There are
effectively two strength ranges for humans -- the range for people with a
normal physique and the strength for people who optimize for lifting.
I've been looking for a good way to deal that because most RPGs are not
out to emulate people optimized for lifting (which has other physical
implications) but an RPG should be able to handle that, too.
> Well, there certainly seems to be a genetic component even after all those
> things are accounted for. On the other hand, the environmental factors do
> account for some of the difference, too.
Environmental factors can account for some of the variation. A lot of it
is simply size related, as Brett seemed to be suggesting. Another big
part of it is fat to muscle ratios which are naturally higher in women
than men. A final part of it has to do with skeletal issues due to
shoulder and pelvis width.
> When this was hashed out at length in .advocacy - with cites to figures from
> various web sites - I think the general consensus was that the genetic portion
> of the difference was in the 10-20% range.
The "consensus" -- at least from the perspective that Brian and I were
coming from -- was that it was in the 10% range for speed and in the 30%
range for lifting. I was willing to concede that the 10% was too small to
worry about modelling in most RPG systems and I think Brian rounded to
about 25% for Strength for convenience and to err on the side of too
little difference.
> It should also be noted that we are talking upper body strength here. Some of
> the figures indicated that women were comparable to men in lower body strength,
> and significantly stronger in abdominal strength. These, of couse, involve
> muscles that hook into areas where the female skeleton is larger.
I believe Brian had data that disputed much of the conventional wisdom
about strength. Anyone interested should do a search of "sexual
dimorphism" on "rec.games.frp.advocacy" on Google if they are interested
in all of the details of that debate.
[snip]
> In other words, it is just a shift in muscle mass, from the lower body to the
> upper body. Indeed, physiologically, even insect muscle is very similar to
> human muscle.
This article suggests that you are correct:
http://courses.washington.edu/phys208/notes/lect9.html
I can't find any information concerning the article or theory that I'm
talking about online so I'll drop it unless I manage to find the issue of,
I believe, Discover that I saw it in. It had to do with the density of
muscle tissue, the presence of "baby fat", and the fact that humans can
float while chimps do, indeed, sink.
> In a fantasy game, of course, I agree that strength working a little
> differently is a reasonable solution. Actually, just defining 'strength' a
> little differently can help. For example, is muscle length involved in
> strength, or just cross section? There's a justification for including length,
> since people with longer arms can apply the force to a weapon over a longer
> distance, with a greater final kinetic energy. So maybe that 130 lb strength
> 18 woman is strong partly because of, rather than despite, her height.
You might also find this interesting.
http://www.human-nature.com/books/geary7.html
I think that in every physical activity area that would be relevent to an
RPG, dimorphism shows up. That doesn't mean, of course, that such
dimorphism has to be reflected in a game. Indeed, some people quite
explicitly don't want such dimorphism to appear in the games that they
play.
John Morrow
Brandon Blackmoor
news:Pine.LNX.4.44.020218...@hagbard.io.com...
>
> I've been looking for a good way to deal that because most RPGs are
> not out to emulate people optimized for lifting (which has other
> physical implications) but an RPG should be able to handle that, too.
Why should it?
> A final part of it has to do with skeletal issues due to
> shoulder and pelvis width.
Is pelvis width an issue that frequently arises in games you play?
--
bblackmoor en blackgate.net
http://www.rpglibrary.org - free games & gaming aids & no banner ads, ever
John Morrow
> > You keep forgetting what the game is *about*.
> Having fun? Beating up dragons, trolls and orcs?
What constitutes "having fun" can vary *substantially* from group to
group. Too many people seem unable to grasp that simple point.
> 1. "Contradictions to the Real World (tm)" if handled properly might
> actually make the game more fun, but certainly won't detract.
Handled badly, depending on how you define "having fun", they can most
certainly detract.
> 2. A bad B movie/TV show can make an excellent game (Think: Xena, Hercules,
> King Soloman's Mines)
Or, depending on how you define "having fun", it might not. Not everyone
watched or enjoyed Xena, Hercules, or King Soloman's Mines and not
everyone would enjoy a game in that style.
> 3. You can quickly degenerate into "Advanced Squad Leader" if you get
> too wrapped up in the details (and, yes, this is a detail).
And you can quicly degenerate into "The GM tells you a story" if you get
too wrapped up in the story. Bad games happen for all sorts of reasons.
And here is the really horrifying though -- what some people think is a
"bad game" might meet someone else's definition of "having fun".
> 4. If you *must* be as realistic as possible, you can come up with
> perfectly setting-oriented explanations for something a bit or a lot out of
> the ordinary.
And, over time, a series of perfectly setting-oriented explanations can
turn into a series of obvious GM handwaving and manipulation. Whether the
players bother to notice or even care will depend on their definition of
"having fun".
> 5. The more "realistic" you game, the more apparent small details being a
> bit out of whack will be -- so if you paper over the cracks, most players
> will still have a great time and lose themselves in the reality you sculpt.
> I have run more than one game where I gave the characters a description
> sheet and never let them look at the numbers and I think the level of fun
> might have been a bit higher - especially when someone was going to give
> something a go when they figured they *might* succeed but didn't know the
> exact odds.
Did you ever run a campaign for a year or more this way? What works for
short games does not always work for long games and visa-versa (see my
point under item [4] above). Of course how well this works and whether
the players care if it doesn't will also vary depending on their
definition of "having fun".
> AND MOST IMPORTANT:
> 7. Role Playing Games are more about acting and story telling than minute
> details -- your players should be asking the questions, and the answers
> should be like JRR Tolkein's story writing -- Rather than concentrating on
> why something shouldn't be so, concentrate on why is *should* be that way
> because you end up with a more detailed and rich world than otherwise.
And my idea of "having fun" says, "If the GM wants to tell me a story,
they can write it up and I'll read it later if I have the time. If I want
to tell a story, I'd be writing one instead of role-playing. If I wanted
to act, I'd join a local theater group." I role-play to get inside of the
head of a different person in a different time and place, experiencing
different things that I experience in my real life. The details matter to
me. That's what I consider "having fun".
As for Tolkien, he wrote:
That state of mind has been called 'willing suspension of disbelief.'
But this does not seem a good description of what happens. What really
happens is that the story-maker proves a successful 'sub-creator.' He
makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he
relates as 'true': it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore
believe it, while you are, as it were, 'inside.'
(Quote from http://www.leaderu.com/humanities/craft_acting.html)
Verisimilitude matters to a lot of people. It is what seperates Tolkien
from any number of other writers who don't sweat the details of their
setting and worry more about story.
John Morrow
John Morrow
> > I've been looking for a good way to deal that because most RPGs are
> > not out to emulate people optimized for lifting (which has other
> > physical implications) but an RPG should be able to handle that, too.
> Why should it?
In case you want to play a character optimized for lifting?
OK, I'll add a "YMMV" if that makes you feel any better.
> > A final part of it has to do with skeletal issues due to
> > shoulder and pelvis width.
> Is pelvis width an issue that frequently arises in games you play?
The implications of pelvis width may, which was the point of discussion.
It can impact lifting, running, and the odds of a debilitating knee injury
as that result of certain types of leg-related "fumbles".
Now before you go off on a rant about why RPGs shouldn't worry about this
because they deal with fantasy, please see the *other two points* that I
made in my original reply which was that (A) you can come up with a
realism-based reason to hand-wave these issues away and (B) you can simply
ignore it.
John Morrow
Brandon Blackmoor
>
I wasn't planning on ranting about anything. It just seemed an odd thing to
focus on in a role-playing game, and I was wondering how often your
character's pelvis width (or the distance between a character's eyes, or the
curvature of their eyeball, or any number of other biological measurements)
was something your character needed to worry about.
It just struck me as peculiar, is all.
John Morrow
> focus on in a role-playing game, and I was wondering how often your
> character's pelvis width (or the distance between a character's eyes, or the
> curvature of their eyeball, or any number of other biological measurements)
> was something your character needed to worry about.
Not directly, no, unless they are a biophysicist who is consciously aware
of such things.
> It just struck me as peculiar, is all.
Well, the comment was part of a much larger discussion about the reality
of sexual dimorphism. I was trying to explain the biological factors that
impact the physical capabilities of men and women and the factors that
make them differ from each other. That was simply one factor. Taken is
isolation, yes, I'm sure it looks odd.
John Morrow
Master Cougar
Yup, but Peter won't get it, because in his view, only his view counts. And if someone does
soimething differently in their games, even if he has nothign to do with the game, their missing the point
of the game.
Robert Scott Clark
I noticed no mention of high or low fantasy. A low fantasy game would
be basically the same as a historical or modern game. I think if the
example was intended to reflect some magical enhancement to the
strength it would have been mentioned (and that would have essentially
eliminated the question, as would being of a race with a different
muscle compiosition or having low weight cybernetics in a high tech
game.) I assumed, oddly enough, that none of these things were the
case, because, had they been, the question wouldn't have made much
sense.
Robert Scott Clark
>> 4. If you *must* be as realistic as possible, you can come up with
>> perfectly setting-oriented explanations for something a bit or a lot out of
>> the ordinary.
>
No, you can't. If your setting is "real world", then there is no
explanation for an 11 foot tall person.
Peter Knutsen
Robert, the above was not written by John Morrow but by Brent or
Diane. Please be careful with misquotes, especially in a debate as
heated at this one.
--
Peter Knutsen
Peter Knutsen
My understanding is that in your style of gaming, TV shows like
Hercules and Xena are seen as ideal stories and one is expected
to strive to emulate them.
Also, as I understand it, in your style of gaming if the campaign
had been a re-enactment of "Lord of the Rings", in particular of the
fight in which one of the hobbits (aided by a mail-clad woman from
Rohan) kills the Witch-king, it would not have made any difference
whether the hobbit had decided to attack the Witch-king with the
Numernoean dagger or if he had instead decided to just pluck a hand-
full of grass and use that to attack with.
Because, as you say yourself, decisions are not important in your
style of gaming.
I do understand that that is your *view*. The fact that you hold that
opinion. But I do not at all *understand* the opinion itself. I find
it completely absurd.
I also find that it is grossly insulting towards the players that
the decisions that they have their characters make are regarded as
completely unimportant. When *I* GM, I take my players *very*
seriously. I treat them as adult responsible beings (even if their
characters are not).
> --
> MasterCougar
--
Peter Knutsen
Bill Seurer
> >them.
> Really? So, in a modern game, with no magic,
Did you even read the posting you were replying to?
Martin Boyden
On Mon, 18 Feb 2002, John Morrow wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Feb 2002, Brandon Blackmoor wrote:
>
> > Is pelvis width an issue that frequently arises in games you play?
>
> The implications of pelvis width may, which was the point of discussion.
> It can impact lifting, running, and the odds of a debilitating knee injury
> as that result of certain types of leg-related "fumbles".
AND it factors in a cyberpunk game if you got a character with a lot of
grafted muscle and say hip armor or what not trying to get through a
subway turnstile (or any turnstile) real fast.
--Marty
Leszek Karlik
<bblac...@spamcop.net> disseminated foul capitalist propaganda:
[...]
> I wasn't planning on ranting about anything. It just seemed an odd thing to
> focus on in a role-playing game, and I was wondering how often your
> character's pelvis width (or the distance between a character's eyes, or the
> curvature of their eyeball, or any number of other biological measurements)
> was something your character needed to worry about.
You've never played a woman character, I take it?
"I look too fat in that dress."
"I think my eyes are a bit too close to each other. Maybe I'll go to
Body Shop and get oriental-style eyes, I'll probably look better
in them."
"Do I look fat? I mean, do I look fat?"
;)))
> bblackmoor en blackgate.net
Leslie
--
Leszek 'Leslie' Karlik; ailurophile by trade; SNAFU TANJ TANSTAAFL; /^\ lk
Do you want to join the Ancient Illuminated Seers of Bavaria? / (*) \
Put $ 3,125.00 in a cigar box and bury it in your backyard. / \
One of our *Underground* Agents will contact you shortly. /_____________\
Peter Knutsen
Rupert Boleyn wrote:
>
> On Sun, 17 Feb 2002 13:23:29 +0100, Peter Knutsen <pe...@knutsen.dk>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >Brett Evill wrote:
> >
> >> Note that the medical guidelines for weight suggest that your body mass
> >> index should be between 16 and 25, where
> >
> >Between *20* and 25. I think it might be fair to shift the range
> >a bit according to gender, as in between 20 and 26 for males and
> >between 18 and 24 for females.
>
> Nope. According to most stats, particularly ones taken beofre being
> slim was considered attractive in women, a woman will on average weigh
> about 3-5 pounds less than a man of the same height.
When was that? As far as I'm informed (but being young I've been
unable to eyewitness it) slimness in females have been in fashion
for a *long* time. Like the Vikings (~1000 years ago) preferring
their thrallgirls slender and young.
Or did they do serious weight statistics on the Bronze Age?
;-)
> --
> Rupert Boleyn <rbo...@paradise.net.nz>
--
Peter Knutsen
Peter Knutsen
Leszek Karlik wrote:
>
> On Mon, 18 Feb 2002 16:15:59 -0500, Brandon Blackmoor
> <bblac...@spamcop.net> disseminated foul capitalist propaganda:
>
> [...]
> > I wasn't planning on ranting about anything. It just seemed an odd thing to
> > focus on in a role-playing game, and I was wondering how often your
> > character's pelvis width (or the distance between a character's eyes, or the
> > curvature of their eyeball, or any number of other biological measurements)
> > was something your character needed to worry about.
>
> You've never played a woman character, I take it?
The campaigns Brandon plays are populated exclusively by asexual
characters. *None* of them have sex lives, nor even sexual
orientations.
> "I look too fat in that dress."
> "I think my eyes are a bit too close to each other. Maybe I'll go to
> Body Shop and get oriental-style eyes, I'll probably look better
> in them."
> "Do I look fat? I mean, do I look fat?"
Not gonna happen in any of the campaigns Brandon is involved in. For
some reason (choice or habit, I wonder?) *none* of the conflicts in
his games are of an eroto-sexual nature.
> Leslie
--
Peter Knutsen
John Kim
John Morrow <mor...@io.com> wrote:
>With respect to a role-playing game, you've got three choices:
>
>1) If you want absolute real-world reality, women will have limited
> strengths or will have to be one-off mutants to be as strong as men.
> average and high-end and this cannot be waved away with a long laundry
> list of social factors that inevitably gets hauled out (e.g., unequal
> nutrition, training, etc.) but which can all be dismissed pretty
> bodies naturally retain a higher ratio of fat for reproductive
> purposes, and their skeletons are not optimized for upper body strength.
I'm not sure I see the relevance of this to most gaming. As
far as I can tell, the people who have human maximum strength are
"mutants" regardless of whether they are men or women. In gaming
terms, what is the significance of being a "mutant"?
Moreover, why would you dismiss social factors? As far as
the game goes, social factors are no less "real" than genetic factors --
unless you have PC's children who are raised in a different culture
from their parents and want to realistically represent their statistical
distribution. For nearly all campaigns, I don't see any in-game
need to mechanically separate genetic and early-childhood factors.
Rupert Boleyn
wrote:
>> Nope. According to most stats, particularly ones taken beofre being
>> slim was considered attractive in women, a woman will on average weigh
>> about 3-5 pounds less than a man of the same height.
>
>When was that? As far as I'm informed (but being young I've been
>unable to eyewitness it) slimness in females have been in fashion
>for a *long* time. Like the Vikings (~1000 years ago) preferring
>their thrallgirls slender and young.
Ah, but how did they like their wives?
--
Rupert Boleyn <rbo...@paradise.net.nz>
"Inside every cynic is a romantic trying to get out."
Peter Knutsen
John Kim wrote:
> Moreover, why would you dismiss social factors? As far as
> the game goes, social factors are no less "real" than genetic factors --
> unless you have PC's children who are raised in a different culture
> from their parents and want to realistically represent their statistical
> distribution. For nearly all campaigns, I don't see any in-game
> need to mechanically separate genetic and early-childhood factors.
You don't see the need because you assume that all PCs and all
NPCs will conform to the social norm.
But in fact they won't. Some of them will deviate from the social
norms. Therefore it is necessary to have hard rules for genetic
factors and softer rules (really just guidelines) for social
factors.
So far, the stance FFRE (still in development) takes is that if you
deviate from the genetic rules (that is, you are a mutant), you
must pay a high "unusual background price". For instance if you
have a +2 bonus to a sensory acuity, that represents inHuman
capability (the maximum acuity that a Human can have is +1 above
the Human norm) and thus you must pay double cost for the bonus.
If you want to have an Agility of 9 or a Charisma of 9 or any
other attribute at 9 (except Strength which is capped at 9 and
thus only 10+ is inHuman) you must also pay extra for this
because it violates the genetic limit that applies to your
species.
So far I haven't made rules for violations of "social rules",
but if I do the penalties will be *far* smaller, because I
see it as much less of a problem if most of the PCs are
violating the social ruls of the setting than if most of the
PCs are violating the genetic rules of the setting. Because
one represents merely current conventions, whereas the
other represents the laws of physics.
And notice that I still don't mind violations of the laws
of physics. FFRE has an optional rule called the "my great-
great-grandfather was of the Faerie" clause, which allows
minor variations from the genetic limits (as in you may
exceed the genetic limit +1 point) at double cost, and
this rule is in force in my default setting (AErth). It
is not appropriate for all settings, but it is in force
for my default setting. The reason for this is that
Faerie and Humans do mingle (although rarely), and that
mutant genes may be in the Human gene pool, and thus
minor excessions of the genetic limits are appropriate.
--
Peter Knutsen
Peter Knutsen
Rupert Boleyn wrote:
>
> On Tue, 19 Feb 2002 00:41:40 +0100, Peter Knutsen <pe...@knutsen.dk>
> wrote:
>
> >> Nope. According to most stats, particularly ones taken beofre being
> >> slim was considered attractive in women, a woman will on average weigh
> >> about 3-5 pounds less than a man of the same height.
> >
> >When was that? As far as I'm informed (but being young I've been
> >unable to eyewitness it) slimness in females have been in fashion
> >for a *long* time. Like the Vikings (~1000 years ago) preferring
> >their thrallgirls slender and young.
>
> Ah, but how did they like their wives?
Probably they would have preferred them to stay slender too, but
they (wives) didn't, and this is (probably) the reason for the
massive slave-raids. Intense sexual frustration :-)
Brandon Blackmoor
news:3C7191A1...@knutsen.dk...
>
> The campaigns Brandon plays are populated exclusively by
> asexual characters. *None* of them have sex lives, nor
> even sexual orientations.
Hairless, beige, and androgenous, every one. ;)
Peter Knutsen
Brandon Blackmoor wrote:
>
> "Peter Knutsen" <pe...@knutsen.dk> wrote in message
> news:3C7191A1...@knutsen.dk...
> >
> > The campaigns Brandon plays are populated exclusively by
> > asexual characters. *None* of them have sex lives, nor
> > even sexual orientations.
>
> Hairless, beige, and androgenous, every one. ;)
[High-fives Brandon]
> --
> bblackmoor en blackgate.net
--
Peter Knutsen
Warren J. Dew
There are interesting results coming in from experiments to
extend lifespans by life-long calorie restriction. Everything
from parameciums to cats ... show large extensions of lifespan
for animals that are kept seriously underweight.
Yes. The cats are new since I last checked, but the mouse results
approximated, 'you get to eat a certain amount of food in your lifetime, the
only question is how fast'.
At that time, they had not separated the effects of weight from the effects of
calories: that is, they hadn't run a set of animals that were given lots of
food, but exercised so much that they were still seriously underweight, to see
whether they fit in the 'long lifetime' or the 'short lifetime' category. Have
these results come in yet?
But of course lab conditions are very benign: in the wild these
underweight specimens would succumb to lethargy, disease,
accidents, short-term shortages.
True. Then again, one might argue that a modern office worker lives in
something very like lab conditions.
Rick Pikul
> Peter Knutsen wrote:
> > People who are large-boned or small-boned are alse tricked
> > by the formula,
>
> And of course most overweight people are large boned, at least according
> to them. I used to be that way.
>
> BMI is just a quick gauge of your body proportions. If your BMI is 26
> and you look and feel OK you probably are. If it is 30 you are
> overweight barring *extreme* circumstances.
Like having a non-standard body type, I am both tall, with my
height in my torso, and have a high body density, the 20-25 range would
have me as a bean pole.
Even if I got down a bit to my optimum, (at least according to my
doctor), I'd still have a BMI of ~28.5.
--
Phoenix
Robert Scott Clark
I'm trying to reach a place of common ground from which we can work
back to the more controvercial question.
Peter Knutsen
"Warren J. Dew" wrote:
>
> Brett Evill posts, in part:
> But of course lab conditions are very benign: in the wild these
> underweight specimens would succumb to lethargy, disease,
> accidents, short-term shortages.
>
> True. Then again, one might argue that a modern office worker lives in
> something very like lab conditions.
You do go out and meet quite a lot of people, compared to lab
critters, and that exposes you to infectious diseases, but
apart from that I agree that we live in quite benign conditions.
> Warren J. Dew
--
Peter Knutsen
Master Cougar
In other words, no.
Warren J. Dew
As far as I'm informed (but being young I've been unable
to eyewitness it) slimness in females have been in fashion
for a *long* time.
It goes in and out of style. Probably the late 19th century was the last time
plump women were in. WWII U.S. G.I. pinup girls were also not slim by today's
standards.
Master Cougar
> Master Cougar <master...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >On Mon, 18 Feb 2002 12:47:03 GMT, cla...@mindspring.com (Robert Scott Clark) wrote:
> >> Brent & Dianne <br...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> >> >While it might be difficult to impossible to find a 130 lb. person able to
> >> >benchpress 300 lb. in the world, in a FANTASY world you might have scads of
> >> >them. It is all up to the people playing the GAME.
> >>
> >>
> >> Really? So, in a modern game, with no magic, and no super powers or
> >> ultra-high technology, someone can bring in a character who is 13 feet
> >> tall and you wouldn't care?
> > What part of "Fantasy Game" didn't you get Robert, the fantasy or the game part?
>
>
> I noticed no mention of high or low fantasy. A low fantasy game would
> be basically the same as a historical or modern game.
You are just trying to rationalize your error. Historical and Modern games are based on reality
as we know it, not fantasy. In a fantasy world it could make sense to have tall skinny people that can life
more than Arnold Swarchanageer can. Your comment was ridiculous.
Master Cougar
>
>
> Master Cougar wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 18 Feb 2002 09:31:33 -0800, Brent & Dianne <br...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> > > Peter Knutsen at pe...@knutsen.dk wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > > You do *not* make decisions when you game????
> > >
> > > No, I think he is saying that the game isn't about making a decision or two,
> > > but about having fun.
> >
> > Yup, but Peter won't get it, because in his view, only his view counts. And if someone does
> > soimething differently in their games, even if he has nothign to do with the game, their missing the
point
> > of the game.
>
> My understanding is that in your style of gaming, TV shows like
> Hercules and Xena are seen as ideal stories and one is expected
> to strive to emulate them.
>
As usual you understand nothing. You know nothing about me or the type of games or gaming
I do, yet you presume to make such a statement?
Robert Scott Clark
In other words, I knew what was said, and was attempting to broaden
the discussion to make a point.
Robert Scott Clark
>On Mon, 18 Feb 2002 22:03:29 GMT, cla...@mindspring.com (Robert Scott Clark) wrote:
>> Master Cougar <master...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> >On Mon, 18 Feb 2002 12:47:03 GMT, cla...@mindspring.com (Robert Scott Clark) wrote:
>> >> Brent & Dianne <br...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>> >> >While it might be difficult to impossible to find a 130 lb. person able to
>> >> >benchpress 300 lb. in the world, in a FANTASY world you might have scads of
>> >> >them. It is all up to the people playing the GAME.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Really? So, in a modern game, with no magic, and no super powers or
>> >> ultra-high technology, someone can bring in a character who is 13 feet
>> >> tall and you wouldn't care?
>> > What part of "Fantasy Game" didn't you get Robert, the fantasy or the game part?
>>
>>
>> I noticed no mention of high or low fantasy. A low fantasy game would
>> be basically the same as a historical or modern game.
>
> You are just trying to rationalize your error. Historical and Modern games are based on reality
>as we know it, not fantasy.
You mistakenly said "are" instead of "can be".
> In a fantasy world it could make sense to have tall skinny people that can life
>more than Arnold Swarchanageer can.
You actually used the correct word here, but seem to not know what it
means. You correctly typed the word "could", but seem to be treating
it like it means "does".
David Johnston
> When was that? As far as I'm informed (but being young I've been
> unable to eyewitness it) slimness in females have been in fashion
> for a *long* time.
Look at female nudes in paintings between 1600 and 1800.
Brett Evill
rbo...@paradise.net.nz (Rupert Boleyn) wrote:
>On Sun, 17 Feb 2002 22:24:40 -0800, Brent & Dianne
><br...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>>Yes, I thought those were interesting. It has a lot of implications that in
>>a society where food was plentiful and not an issue, a skinny-scrawny person
>>might outlive a person who was muscular and fit by our definition, and
>>certainly someone who was overweight.
>
>But would their quality of life be as high?
Obviously I don't think so, because by the weight-for-height tables I am
30 kg overweight.
> And in a world where
>everyone is border-line starving who does the heavy lifting?
Hydraulics engineers.
--
Regards,
Brett Evill
<ev...@NO.webone.JUNK.com.MAIL.au>
Brett Evill
psych...@aol.com (Warren J. Dew) wrote:
>Brett Evill posts, in part:
>
<snip>
>At that time, they had not separated the effects of weight from the effects of
>calories: that is, they hadn't run a set of animals that were given lots of
>food, but exercised so much that they were still seriously underweight, to see
>whether they fit in the 'long lifetime' or the 'short lifetime' category. Have
>these results come in yet?
Not that I am aware.
> But of course lab conditions are very benign: in the wild these
> underweight specimens would succumb to lethargy, disease,
> accidents, short-term shortages.
>
>True. Then again, one might argue that a modern office worker lives in
>something very like lab conditions.
I have often said so, particularly with reference to the incentives
schemes.
Robert Scott Clark
>>True. Then again, one might argue that a modern office worker lives in
>>something very like lab conditions.
>
>I have often said so, particularly with reference to the incentives
>schemes.
I would work so much harder if someone gave me tasty pellets for doing
so.
John Morrow
> I'm not sure I see the relevance of this to most gaming. As
> far as I can tell, the people who have human maximum strength are
> "mutants" regardless of whether they are men or women. In gaming
> terms, what is the significance of being a "mutant"?
I personally think that most RPGs treat strength pretty poorly. That
said, the significance of being a "mutant" is that the woman would be
built exactly like a man, would probably be non-reproductive, and possibly
have other issues related to the biology that makes that possible. See
both the PCOS disorder and the health of women athletes who were pumped
full of male hormones throughout their lives to enhance their athletic
performance for details. A *realistic* woman who was as strong as the
strongest man would be a long way from what I suspect most people envison
and what the first article in this thread (a 130 pound woman with an 18
strength) suggested. That is, of course, if you even want to accept that
such a woman would be naturally possible (which I personally doubt). If
such a woman existed, she'd probably be a one-off, which is also
significant -- especially if the players want two or three in the party.
That is, of course, if you want to be absolutely realistic. These are
fantasy games so you don't have to be realistic, as I pointed out in my
other two suggestions.
> Moreover, why would you dismiss social factors?
Because they don't account for the differences in any significant way.
And where they do, they'd probably only make matters even worse for women
and dimorphism even more pronounced.
If you want to factor in social factors and limit strength by, say, social
class based on childhood nutrition, that might be interesting. It would
be appropriate in a setting where the lower classes are actually
malnourished or are, in some way, deprived of physical activity.
> As far as the
> game goes, social factors are no less "real" than genetic factors --
> unless you have PC's children who are raised in a different culture from
> their parents and want to realistically represent their statistical
> distribution. For nearly all campaigns, I don't see any in-game need to
> mechanically separate genetic and early-childhood factors.
I've seen little evidence that the social factors could do anything to
improve dimorphism and some evidence (e.g., poorer nutrition to female
children, excercise denied to female nobility) that they might make it
worse. The in-game "need" (more of a "want", actually) would be to
emulate the real-world sexual dimorphism with respect to strength. Since
social factors would generally only make dimorphism worse, considering
only the genetics represents a "best case scenario" for dimorphism which
is not unreasonable. Of course you could always factor in social factors,
as well, if you want.
Could you use social factors to reduce sexual dimorphism in a setting? I
suppose. But you'd have to essentially be depriving males through
malnutrition and lack of physical activity at a pretty severe level to
make it work. I'm not sure what good males would be in such a setting or
why the Amazons in charge would want to keep many men around in such a
state but it could be interesting. There is a review of a game called
_Maidenheim: The Age of Scorn Amazon Campaign Setting_ on RPGnet that
seems to be this sort of setting.
Of course if you don't want sexual dimorphism, it is much easier to follow
my other suggestions. Either suggest that strength works a little
differently in the fantasy setting and that a muscular woman can be as
strong as a muscular man or simply wave your hands, throw reality to the
wind, admit it is fantasy, and don't worry about it.
John Morrow
John Kim
Peter Knutsen <pe...@knutsen.dk> wrote:
>John Kim wrote:
>> As far as the game goes, social factors are no less "real" than
>> factors.
>
>You don't see the need because you assume that all PCs and all
>NPCs will conform to the social norm.
I said no such thing. PC's can and will deviate from the
social norm; but by the same token they will also deviate from
the genetic norm. Neither of these are unbreakable: there are
genetic freaks just as there are social freaks. However, one should
consider carefully the effects of breaking either.
-*-*-*-
>
>So far, the stance FFRE (still in development) takes is that if you
>deviate from the genetic rules (that is, you are a mutant), you
>must pay a high "unusual background price".
[...]
>So far I haven't made rules for violations of "social rules", but if
>I do the penalties will be *far* smaller, because I see it as much
>less of a problem if most of the PCs are violating the social ruls of
>the setting than if most of the PCs are violating the genetic rules
>of the setting. Because one represents merely current conventions,
>whereas the other represents the laws of physics.
Well, to each his own. You put a priority on genetics in
your games, but apparently you don't care about the social reality.
I would say that nutritional laws are just as physical and concrete
as genetic laws -- but you can feel free to ignore them, or make them
easily dismissable. Its your game, and if you don't want realism
that's a valid choice.
To my mind, the social reality is far more important than a
PC's hair color or hip width. In particular, with regards to female
characters, the issue of 25% upper body strength is frequently pretty
miniscule compared to the social effects of being female.
Nis Haller Baggesen
>
>
> 2) You can assume that strength works a little differently in the game
> world and that simply being muscular can make one very strong, regardless
> of size. Many animals are much stronger for their mass than humans (e.g.,
> chimpanzees) and one can assume a shift in the muscle structure and not
> just the muscle mass is behind these high strengths. In the real world,
> these stronger animal muscles do have a downside. Chimpanzees sink
> because their over density is so high that the can't swim and I've read
> that they don't heal as well as humans (who retain quite a few juvenile
> traits into adulthood including the ability to heal quickly).
>
Wow, maybe I'm a chimp too. I can't float.
John Kim
John Morrow <mor...@io.com> wrote:
>On Tue, 19 Feb 2002, John Kim wrote:
>> As far as the game goes, social factors are no less "real" than
>> factors.
>
>I've seen little evidence that the social factors could do anything to
>improve dimorphism and some evidence (e.g., poorer nutrition to female
>children, excercise denied to female nobility) that they might make it
>worse. The in-game "need" (more of a "want", actually) would be to
>emulate the real-world sexual dimorphism with respect to strength.
>Since social factors would generally only make dimorphism worse,
>considering only the genetics represents a "best case scenario" for
>dimorphism which is not unreasonable.
Er, for what society? For any medieval or pseudo-medieval
society, say, I would say it is it is totally unreasonable to consider
only genetics for female strength. In fact, as far as realistically
emulating real-world dimorphism goes, I would call it utterly moronic.
That is, realistic medieval women will be a lot less than 75% as
strong as medieval men. Heck, modern-day women are significantly
less than 75% as strong as men.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-
>
>Of course if you don't want sexual dimorphism, it is much easier to
>follow my other suggestions. Either suggest that strength works a little
>differently in the fantasy setting and that a muscular woman can be as
>strong as a muscular man or simply wave your hands, throw reality to the
>wind, admit it is fantasy, and don't worry about it.
Personally, I am fine with sexual dimorphism in my settings.
Vive le difference, as they say.
As far as I can tell, this better describes your position.
From the statements above, you feel that less sexual dimorphism is
better -- and you are willing to throw reality to the winds and ignore
relevant factors to get the level of sexual dimorphism you want (i.e.
the level which you believe to be purely genetic).
Basically, if you want true realism for female characters in a
(pseudo-) medieval setting, then they are going to have to be severely
restricted in strength as well as in many other ways. If you are
willing to break with reality on this, however, I don't think that
genetics makes a magic line. i.e. I see virtually no difference
between letting in a medieval swordswoman with 75% of human maximum
strength and one with 100%. Having "medieval swordswoman" as a
viable character at all is the main issue.