A woman should start less strong and have less endurence but me more agile and smarter. I am a dood and I am being real not sixist

Women have higher endurance for pain I'm pretty sure.
And there's no significant real world evidence suggesting women are more intelligent than men.

This is irrelevant though, we're looking at fantasy races not the human race. Nords, Breton, Imperials might share the same general differences between males and females as they're based on real humans, but as for the other races it's up to the devs really.

Examples, please.

I love how this topic festers in every new major game... And why is everyone sugar coating this? Men in MOST cases= stronger and more athletic. I'll give women intellegence and charisma.

Well Males do have one obvious weakness :whisper:

Yes...?

Yeah well women give birth duh they can handle more pain so give women more health. Also most of my friends the guys are retards and the girls are smart I am the only non [censored] guy I know practicly. Exept for a few snoody [censored]es the girls are smarter definitly.

Women in the game, as far as I understand it, have better mental attributes, but slightly lower physical attributes. Whereas with men it's the opposite. It balances out, it just means that men and women are slightly better at different areas.

At any rate, here are two points which make this entire argument redundant.

1. The difference is 10 skill points or so...really? you're complaining about that? It makes almost no difference.
2. The system is in place, the game is too close to release for Bethesda to scrap an integral part of their character creation process now.

You might have a different personal experience than what is the norm, but it's not proven that women are more intelligent on a biological level - at least not higher IQ anyway, which admittedly measures a very specific type of intelligence that's not necessarily the most important, just the only one that can be roughly measured currently.

Exactly. A male or female could very well gain the same strength or skill if both worked hard enough. That's how it is in the real world and how it is in Elder Scrolls. Sure, women are less likely to become the hulk then men but that doesn't mean they can't. I'll never understand the "restriction" mentality people have when it comes to role-playing. The beauty of RPG's (good ones) is that if you work hard enough you can achieve anything you want and be anyone you want. This is how it should stay.

Ah yes, it has alway been implemented in the games, that's right.
I don't care so much for the game, and the difference is as you said quite small.

I just took the RL-sixism flame bait.
Mental superiority for one six makes absolutely no evolutionary sense at all. Everyone needs to be smart.

But it's a game, betterfor balance I guess.

This is quite a bigoted post... And a lot of it is wrong. I mean if you pay attention to the world's scientific community at all, you would notice most of them are, in fact, males. Now, I am not at all saying males are smarter, it could just be the influence of society's overall opinion of the female intellect affecting one's position in life, but it certainly does prove that men are not "retards". Also, no, being more tolerant to pain has absolutely nothing to do with how much punishment you can take without dying (besides, there is plenty of contradictory evidence on both sides when it comes to just which gender is in fact more tolerant to pain). Giving birth has nothing to do with pain tolerance. It is a logical fallacy to say that, because women give birth, they are more tolerant to pain. Especially considering you could perhaps argue that a man passing a sizable kidney stone is an equatable endeavor.


I've always thought of IQ as how quickly you can process information accurately. I've never thought it had anything to do with intelligence, just how quickly you can figure things out logically.

That's just not true, though. While women are less strong and more agile, intelligence is almost gender irrelevant (each does have certain advantages in different types of intelligence but not overall). If I recall, the average IQ for people earlier in life is only 3 points higher for females, and later in life (probably because Males take longer to finish puberty and thus mature) males are higher by 2 points. At least that's how it is from the best of my memory, I could be slightly off. But the basic idea is that there is no significant difference between the average intelligences of males and females.

EDIT: And I realise that IQ is not an accurate measure of intelligence (what is, really?) but it's the closest thing we have to getting a good idea of it.

On this earth mankind has created societies of cooperative individuals. Unfortunately as a byproduct of living in these societies false and strange opinions and ideals become fact through a form of dictated democracy. These strange phenomena tend to dictate the lives of most, if not all people living in the society and merge them into the social norm. This process tends to occur subconciously and is rarely relevant to any other social structure or even to life outside the sociatle bubble. Unfortunately since social conditioning tends to override personality, logic, or even survival in the average human being they can cause people to do things cometely out of character or reason quite frequently. Aka muscly women are not attractive in today's society, therefore there are very few.

I'm not saying it makes a lot of sense, but I hardly think it's sixist. There are limits to how seriously a video game should be taken. This is just the way it is, and the difference is so arbitrary that it's not worth complaining about.

Why fight about intelligence? In OB, only the argonian have a 10 point difference. Keep the race and gender start bonuses, with an additional 10 points to distribute as we see fit. Role playing is about taking the benefits and penalties of your actions, it was never about full freedom. Want to be an attractive female orc? Sorry, won't happen because it doesn't make sense. Maximum start possibility would be 35 for a female orc vs 50 for most other races (wopping 60 for Imperial females), after putting the ten points into personality. If we got total freedom, then what is even the purpose of having races and genders? Then it's just visuals and the game has lost much of its charm.

It mainly has to do with problem solving skills I'm pretty sure. Processing information is part of that but it's also what you do with the information given - you have to understand and be able to use it.

Intelligence has a lot of definitions, it's a pretty abstract term, but IQ tests were made to attempt to measure one aspect of it.

This is true, but still, women are less capable of feats of strength than men. You only have to look at the highest tier of this, the Olympics and such, to see that this is true. Acts by female gymnasts tend to be much more impressive and show greater flexibility, while men in weightlifting and such show much greater strength.

I think each gender can have bonus points, but I'm not sure the other gender should lose points. It's a proven fact that males are generally capable of more strength than females (with a few outliers of course), so I don't mind guys getting a starting boost in strength or something.

In response to the hundred million "men/women are typically more X than the other" posts ...

You don't play the typical man. You don't play the typical woman.

You are the Dragonborn. You are the most powerful dragon-shouter since Tiber Septim. Your actions will, I have no doubt, effect Tamriel for centuries to come. And really, by the time you finish the game you're going to be godly powerful anyhow.

I don't see why the argument should be based on what is "typical" of your character's gender, considering most men and women of your race - of any race - will probably never accomplish the things you will. You are exceptional. So really, why should "typical" factor into it?

Y'know, from what we've seen, it appears the only special thing about the dragonborn is their ability to use Thu'um/dragon shouts.

A very good point indeed sir. Though I expect the role player's argument of "Well, not all of my characters are the Dragonborn" to be thrown at you. Which has it's merits, but people should remember the game is being designed as you being the Dragonborn.

Edit @Dragonbone, yes. But this Dragonborn is also expected to slay dragons. Not something just a typical villager could accomplish.

OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD! FEMALES AND MALES ARE EQUAL!!1!1!!11!11!111!!!1 WHY MUST YOU PEOPLE BE SO sixIST??!?!/1/!?//1?!?! LEAVE FEMALES ALONE!!1!1!!1!!!!!!! this world is so messed up!1!1!!!!!1 *cry*

I don't think it is worth adding in hard caps, but a slight difference in starting attributes like it has been for a while is fine. Though I'd prefer we go back to the daggerfall purchase your stats, and bonuses system.

lol this thread has turned into something else... well the arguments have already been made