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2 years ago ::
Nov 11, 2011 - 2:07AM
#11
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Date Joined:
May 13, 2009
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It's the same thing as saying "Really? You can't hand-wave a 3.5e Paladin's alignment restrictions away?"
It's not that you can't.
It's that you shouldn't have to.
I mean; you're also literaly saying "It does absolutely nothing". Then why the hell is it a mechanic?
Epic Dungeon Master Want to give your players a kingdom of their own? I made a 4e rule system to make it happen! Your Kingdom awaits!Update 5th Sep 2011: Added a sample kingdom, as well as sample of play.
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2 years ago ::
Nov 11, 2011 - 2:11AM
#12
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Date Joined:
Aug 28, 2005
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Really? You can't hand-wave that one little sentence away?
I can, but not everybody has that luxury. I'm not just thinking of myself here. The OP's scenario is not unlikely.
It has ZERO mechanical effect anyways. It might as well say "All saytrs have brown fingernails." Who cares?
Exactly!
You want female saytrs in your game? LITERALLY NOTHING is stopping you.
Except for the fact that the mechanical stat block disallows it.
The writers have one particular take on saytrs, and they decided to write that bit of fluff into the book, but you are by no means required to care.
The fluff isn't nearly as problematic as the crunch. The crunch is the road-playing roadblock that the OP is needing to try to get around.
Why, yes, as a matter of fact I am the Unfailing Arbiter of All That Is Good Design (Even More So Than The Actual Developers) TMSpeaking of things that were badly designed, please check out this thread for my Minotaur fix. What have the critics said, you ask? "If any of my players ask to play a Minotaur, I'm definitely offering this as an alternative to the official version." - EmpactWB "If I ever feel like playing a Minotaur I'll know where to look!" - Undrave "WoTC if you are reading this - please take this guy's advice." - Ferol_Debtor_of_Torm "Really full of win. A minotaur that is actually attractive for more than just melee classes." - Cpt_Micha Also, check out my recent GENASI variant! If you've ever wished that your Fire Genasi could actually set stuff on fire, your Water Genasi could actually swim, or your Wind Genasi could at least glide, then look no further. Finally, check out my OPTIONS FOR EVERYONE article, an effort to give unique support to the races that WotC keeps forgetting about. Includes new racial feature options for the Changeling, Deva, Githzerai, Gnoll, Gnome, Goliath, Half-Orc, Kalashtar, Minotaur, Shadar-Kai, Thri-Kreen, Warforged and more!
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2 years ago ::
Nov 11, 2011 - 2:14AM
#13
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Date Joined:
Mar 29, 2005
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It's the same thing as saying "Really? You can't hand-wave a 3.5e Paladin's alignment restrictions away?"
It's not that you can't.
It's that you shouldn't have to.
I mean; you're also literaly saying "It does absolutely nothing". Then why the hell is it a mechanic?
In 3.5E, alignment had mechanical meaning and significance. Gender does not, in any edition.
And in 3.5's heyday, what kinds of arguments were the most asinine and pointless? The Alignment/paladin-code ones. That's why this annoys me. It's the same thing, and I'm not talking about the "rule," I'm talking about the complaining.
Actually, the amount of pointless, exaggerated complaining is what I dislike most about this forum in general.
EDIT: If I sound really angry in this post, I appologize. I'm extremely tried right now, and I may be getting a little cranky.
Ever feel like people on these forums can't possibly understand how wrong they are? Feeling trolled? Don't get mad. Report Post.
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2 years ago ::
Nov 11, 2011 - 3:01AM
#14
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Date Joined:
May 13, 2009
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In 3.5E, alignment had mechanical meaning and significance. Gender does not, in any edition.
Well, it does now, because if you pick "female" you're not allowed to play a Satyr.
Epic Dungeon Master Want to give your players a kingdom of their own? I made a 4e rule system to make it happen! Your Kingdom awaits!Update 5th Sep 2011: Added a sample kingdom, as well as sample of play.
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2 years ago ::
Nov 11, 2011 - 5:25AM
#15
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Date Joined:
Apr 14, 2011
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So here a different take on it, and some people may disagree on dogma and stuff, but anyway: There are three aspects to sexuality:
- Sex - your physical parts
- Gender - how you identify yourself
- Orientation - which sex/gender you are attracted to
So sure, you can play a female satyr. She is sexually male, but gendered female. Now how you term her orientation might be another matter. There are a number of real world example of people who's gender and sex do not match. Chas Bono is one. I think it would be a great roleplaying opportunity. Because of the blurring of sex vs gender and better understanding of it in the world today you see thinks like Australia allowing a third option of "X" when listing sex on a passport specifically for people who are physically one way but live the other. Don't get hung up on it, just have fun with it. TjD
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2 years ago ::
Nov 11, 2011 - 5:33AM
#16
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It's the same thing as saying "Really? You can't hand-wave a 3.5e Paladin's alignment restrictions away?"
It's not that you can't.
It's that you shouldn't have to.
I mean; you're also literaly saying "It does absolutely nothing". Then why the hell is it a mechanic?
This. THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS.
Another day, another three or four entries to my Ignore List.
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2 years ago ::
Nov 11, 2011 - 8:37AM
#17
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Date Joined:
Sep 27, 2010
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In 3.5E, alignment had mechanical meaning and significance. Gender does not, in any edition.
Well, it does now, because if you pick "female" you're not allowed to play a Satyr.
That is fluff. If you wanna play one, do it.
Fluff is just a suggestion. So are all the rules. Lots of people modify the rules without saying they are stupid and shouldn't have existed in the first place (well most of the time).
When I buy DnD product I expect to have fluff with rules. I also expect the fluff will most likely be medieval or inspired by real world mythology. If I didn't want that, I'd buy another RPG.
Faithful
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2 years ago ::
Nov 11, 2011 - 11:29AM
#18
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Well, with the exception of Mr. Durriken, this got completely away from my questions and just turned back into the old thread. I guess I should have expected that.
To the people who are saying "all satyrs are male in the games I run:" What would you do with my Sara the Satyr Skald example? I mean, technically she's male, but would you disallow the character because she claims to be female? That seems a little silly. I could certainly see disallowing it because it violates your intended tone, if you're the kind of hands-on DM who needs to make those decisions about the characters your players play.
Again, because your Satyr is unlikely to actually use his (or potentially her) genitals in play, the character's actual biological sex seems unlikely to be an important issue.
I really have no problem with the sexual dimorphism argument for Satyrs and Hamadryads as different "races" statwise, but if Sara the Satyr Skald doesn't actually violate any crunch rules and the DM prohibits her on "awkward fluff" grounds, then the crunch wasn't actually the sticking point that prevented my "female" Satyr from seeing play, the awkward fluff was. Which is exactly how it would have worked if the "all Satyrs are male" was outside the crunch box as several people are suggesting,
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2 years ago ::
Nov 11, 2011 - 11:37AM
#19
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It's the same thing as saying "Really? You can't hand-wave a 3.5e Paladin's alignment restrictions away?"
It's not that you can't.
It's that you shouldn't have to.
I mean; you're also literaly saying "It does absolutely nothing". Then why the hell is it a mechanic?
This. THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS.
Based on my example above, I would argue that it isn't a mechanic, it's just made to look a lot like one. But if you play it to the letter of the law and ignore all the attached fluff from "your character is male," it doesn't really create a problem.
The poster who compared this to the somewhat idiotic alignment restrictions on some of the recent E-classes had a wonderful point, including that alignment restrictions are more obnoxious than sex restrictions, but equally easy to ignore. Just like there's nothing to stop me from writing "Lawful Good" on my Cavalier of Sacrifice's character sheet and then playing him like a selfish and unpredictable sadist, there's nothing to stop me from writing "theoretically male" on my Satyr's character sheet and playing her like the female she is.
Show of hands: How many of you, in the course of your 4e experience, have ever felt the need to describe or even imagine your character's genitals? For anyone who's raising their hand right now, my argument is invalid, I guess your character's biological sex is a crunch issue for you. For everyone else, it's a flavor concern that got shoved in a stupid place, and should be houseruled or, lacking a houserule, fragrantly ignored without violating Da Rules to play the character you'd like to play.
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2 years ago ::
Nov 11, 2011 - 11:55AM
#20
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Date Joined:
Apr 14, 2011
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I'd say your DM is afraid of "awkward fluff", possibly in real life. Play her as transgendered. What's he gonna do about it. I would be putting the finishing touches on Marvelous Awesome, a flamboyant gay bard, right now for Encounters (he would be marvelously accessorized and awesomely equipped), but another guy wanted to play a bard, so I dropped it. The only touchy thing would be that there are three pre teens at the table, but 2 are mine and I am perfectly comfortable with them being exposed to LBGT stuff. They've been to same sex wedding where my wife co-officiated. I don't have anything to prove either, married 16.5 years with 4 kids. It's just roleplaying. It's for fun. I was also looking forward to seeing my son react to my bard hitting on his pixie! And the stories he'd tell Mom after the game would be fabulous. Besides someone else playing a bard (and he's DM'd a couple season, so he deserves to play the character he wants) the only reason I wouldn't have played that is if the mother of the other kid (the mother plays too) had asked me not to. Because it her daughter I would have done it. I was going to check with her first. But in the company of just adults, if they aren't mature enough to handle it... TjD
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