The Bigotry of Height

[Azaelas Fayth]

David knott 242 wrote:

So people in the 6 to 7 feet tall range make fine adventurers -- their health problems kick in at around middle age, well beyond the end of their expected adventuring careers.

But they are also susceptible to bone and muscle injuries.

[RipfangOmen]

And a weapon can kill you in one hit. Why is this still a topic?

[Azaelas Fayth]

I don't know... I really don't.

[Aaron Scott 139]

How do you know when you've over thought something? Yep, you guessed it. This thread.

[prosfilaes]

Glendwyr wrote:

yellowdingo wrote:

Do you understand what 17d6 does to a bell curve?

Yes. It makes it very sharply peaked. You have about 1 person in 17 trillion being 8'11", thus greatly underestimating their actual frequency. That's bigotry against outliers, I tell you!

The problem is human height isn't exactly on a bell curve. The standard deviation of human height among male Americans (or female Americans)* is only 3 inches. (I suppose the world would have a much larger standard deviation, primarily due to dietary reasons.) 8'11" is about 11 standard deviations away from the mean. The 17d6 has a standard deviation of 7 inches, which is about twice as large as it should be.

Personally? Meh. As I said above, if someone wants to play someone extremely tall or short, go ahead. You shouldn't get a giant or a tiny person by rolling random numbers.

* But not among Americans as a whole, because you're combining two bell curves with difference means.