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Deadmanwalking wrote: That would be considered problematic, yes.
Of course, Lashunta were all originally equally intelligent. The males had less Wis and Chr, but not less Int. Makes things a bit less problematic whichever gender is more physically powerful.
I dunno it makes sense to me. As I said in my rambly bit of theory. The females were in charge, they chose mates based on the traits they didn't possess. The strength of the whole was greater than the individual.
If I'm smart, wise, and charismatic, but physically frail I don't need a partner necessarily with those traits. If survival is a chief concern and I can pick someone to complete me who is strong, Hardy, and my intellectual equal, even if he's a little foolish and lacks social graces, together we can deal with any situation.
Yeah, the "short and hairy" half of the race wasn't any dumber, so I don't think that would be particularly controversial (the caste system is another matter). The issue here is more the "loss" of a race built around fanservice for straight dudes. That, I think, is why people think it's "social justice" ruining things.
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Kobold Cleaver wrote: Yeah, the "short and hairy" half of the race wasn't any dumber, so I don't think that would be particularly controversial (the caste system is another matter). The issue here is more the "loss" of a race built around fanservice for straight dudes. That, I think, is why people think it's "social justice" ruining things. That's not the only objection. I, as previously stated, don't object at all to the decoupling of sex and stat mods, but some people who do clearly just really enjoyed the idea of a legitimately sexually dimorphic sapient species, which is quite understandable to me.
I suggest the people at Paizo throw one in. Maybe something bird, reptile, spider, or insect inspired where the females are much larger and stronger than males (+2 Str, -2 Cha on females, +2 Dex -2 Str on males and the final stat mod consistent between genders, for example).
That could be interesting, and would tend to satisfy the people who just found a sexually dimorphic species neat.
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Well wierdly enough this causes all core races with fur now have a strength penalty. I defenitely will hope this is not the intention.
Well this way there will not be powergamers choosing their gender for only mechanical reasons.
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Deadmanwalking wrote: Kobold Cleaver wrote: Yeah, the "short and hairy" half of the race wasn't any dumber, so I don't think that would be particularly controversial (the caste system is another matter). The issue here is more the "loss" of a race built around fanservice for straight dudes. That, I think, is why people think it's "social justice" ruining things. That's not the only objection. I, as previously stated, don't object at all to the decoupling of sex and stat mods, but some people who do clearly just really enjoyed the idea of a legitimately sexually dimorphic sapient species, which is quite understandable to me.
I suggest the people at Paizo throw one in. Maybe something bird, reptile, spider, or insect inspired where the females are much larger and stronger than males (+2 Str, -2 Cha on females, +2 Dex -2 Str on males and the final stat mod consistent between genders, for example).
That could be interesting, and would tend to satisfy the people who just found a sexually dimorphic species neat. Dimorphic species are neat, but I do get where people aren't okay with the idea that it is okay one way, but not okay the other. Which is what I think rubbed people wrong with Lashunta.
Lashunta Males had +2 Strength, +2 Intelligence, -2 Wisdom.
Lashunta Females had +2 Intelligence, +2 Charisma, -2 Constitution.
What bothered people was that they had a lower Wisdom.
To use Starfinder's description:
Wisdom describes a character’s common sense, intuition, and willpower.
They were literally saying they lacked common sense. That bothered people. It is a pretty vicious stereotype too that is constantly used in television, usually sitcoms, as well.
Personally? It doesn't bother me. It is a freaking fantasy game.
Deadmanwalking wrote: Kobold Cleaver wrote: Yeah, the "short and hairy" half of the race wasn't any dumber, so I don't think that would be particularly controversial (the caste system is another matter). The issue here is more the "loss" of a race built around fanservice for straight dudes. That, I think, is why people think it's "social justice" ruining things. That's not the only objection. I, as previously stated, don't object at all to the decoupling of sex and stat mods, but some people who do clearly just really enjoyed the idea of a legitimately sexually dimorphic sapient species, which is quite understandable to me.
I suggest the people at Paizo throw one in. Maybe something bird, reptile, spider, or insect inspired where the females are much larger and stronger than males (+2 Str, -2 Cha on females, +2 Dex -2 Str on males and the final stat mod consistent between genders, for example).
That could be interesting, and would tend to satisfy the people who just found a sexually dimorphic species neat. I like the idea in theory.
I think it would be best kept out of the core races though. In a niche, where Lashunta were in PF, it's of an issue.
doctor_wu wrote: Well wierdly enough this causes all core races with fur now have a strength penalty. I defenitely will hope this is not the intention.
Well this way there will not be powergamers choosing their gender for only mechanical reasons.
Humans don't have a penalty.
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HWalsh wrote:
What bothered people was that they had a lower Wisdom.
This isn't what bothered me. What bothered me is that having sexual dimorphism in player characters sorts male characters in one direction and sorts female characters in another direction, if they want to mechanically strong (which most people do), leading to certain builds, such as a Female Lashunta Cleric being undisputably weaker than their male counterpart.
Even if it had been no penalty and just a bonus, it's an unnecessarily limiting quirk in the mechanics that leads to most characters fitting a specific gender stereotype.
It didn't matter so much when the Lashunta were some obscure alien race that had almost zero chance of actually showing up as a player character, but when they made them Core races, this was something that needed fixing, and I like the way they fixed it.
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evilnerf wrote:
This isn't what bothered me. What bothered me is that having sexual dimorphism in player characters sorts male characters in one direction and sorts female characters in another direction, if they want to mechanically strong (which most people do), leading to certain builds, such as a Female Lashunta Cleric being undisputably weaker than their male counterpart.
Even if it had been no penalty and just a bonus, it's an unnecessarily limiting quirk in the mechanics that leads to most characters fitting a specific gender stereotype.
It didn't matter so much when the Lashunta were some obscure alien race that had almost zero chance of actually showing up as a player character, but when they made them Core races, this was something that needed fixing, and I like the way they fixed it.
Out of vague curiosity, how is that any different than racial modifiers as a whole? You didn't see dwarf bards/oracles in PF because of those penalties among other similar combinations due to incompatible stat spreads/classes. How is that any different than having the old dimorphic lashuntas beyond an extra layer of division on how the stat spreads are distributed?
As a note, I don't have Starfinder and thus don't have the official stat spreads, but I'm going to assume that most of the races have some stripe of penalty that pigeon holes them out of/into certain classes just like PF.
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evilnerf wrote: HWalsh wrote:
What bothered people was that they had a lower Wisdom.
This isn't what bothered me. What bothered me is that having sexual dimorphism in player characters sorts male characters in one direction and sorts female characters in another direction, if they want to mechanically strong (which most people do), leading to certain builds, such as a Female Lashunta Cleric being undisputably weaker than their male counterpart.
Even if it had been no penalty and just a bonus, it's an unnecessarily limiting quirk in the mechanics that leads to most characters fitting a specific gender stereotype.
It didn't matter so much when the Lashunta were some obscure alien race that had almost zero chance of actually showing up as a player character, but when they made them Core races, this was something that needed fixing, and I like the way they fixed it. Exactly.
There are a couple of things getting mixed up in this discussion. This play issue is one of them.
HWalsh posted above in a way that makes me think they were mostly considering whether the race makes sense from an in-world point of view. "If I'm smart, wise, and charismatic, but physically frail I don't need a partner necessarily with those traits", etc.
All along with the larger ways the dimorphism reflects or reinforces real world gender stereotypes.
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Tarik Blackhands wrote: evilnerf wrote:
This isn't what bothered me. What bothered me is that having sexual dimorphism in player characters sorts male characters in one direction and sorts female characters in another direction, if they want to mechanically strong (which most people do), leading to certain builds, such as a Female Lashunta Cleric being undisputably weaker than their male counterpart.
Even if it had been no penalty and just a bonus, it's an unnecessarily limiting quirk in the mechanics that leads to most characters fitting a specific gender stereotype.
It didn't matter so much when the Lashunta were some obscure alien race that had almost zero chance of actually showing up as a player character, but when they made them Core races, this was something that needed fixing, and I like the way they fixed it.
Out of vague curiosity, how is that any different than racial modifiers as a whole? You didn't see dwarf bards/oracles in PF because of those penalties among other similar combinations due to incompatible stat spreads/classes. How is that any different than having the old dimorphic lashuntas beyond an extra layer of division on how the stat spreads are distributed?
As a note, I don't have Starfinder and thus don't have the official stat spreads, but I'm going to assume that most of the races have some stripe of penalty that pigeon holes them out of/into certain classes just like PF. It's not, except that it's by gender instead of race, which changes things.
First, it interacts with our own gender stereotypes - being in many ways an exaggeration of them.
Second, a lot of players are more willing to play different races than different genders, so this will be a flash point for "Why can't I?" arguments.
And KC, I think your mention of Digger got caught up in the deletion, but those hyenas are now my go-to for running gnolls.
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Tarik Blackhands wrote: \
Out of vague curiosity, how is that any different than racial modifiers as a whole? You didn't see dwarf bards/oracles in PF because of those penalties among other similar combinations due to incompatible stat spreads/classes. How is that any different than having the old dimorphic lashuntas beyond an extra layer of division on how the stat spreads are distributed?
Short answer? Because no one is an Orc in real life.
Long answer? Racial bonuses are a choice you're making for the character that have nothing to do with real life. I know plenty of folks that don't mind playing characters of either gender. However I know WAY MORE people who far prefer playing characters that match their own gender in real life, and I've sat at tables where they don't like other players playing genders that don't match real life.
There shouldn't be gender based modifiers for the same reason there shouldn't be ethnicity based modifiers. When people make a character, they should be free to make a character they identify with, regardless of the bonuses. It's ultimately more interesting, and more fun for them if they do.
evilnerf wrote:
Short answer? Because no one is an Orc in real life.
Long answer? Racial bonuses are a choice you're making for the character that have nothing to do with real life. I know plenty of folks that don't mind playing characters of either gender. However I know WAY MORE people who far prefer playing characters that match their own gender in real life, and I've sat at tables where they don't like other players playing genders that don't match real life.
There shouldn't be gender based modifiers for the same reason there shouldn't be ethnicity based modifiers. When people make a character, they should be free to make a character they identify with, regardless of the bonuses. It's ultimately more interesting, and more fun for them if they do.
On the flip side, no one's a telepathic alien with antennae in real life either so the whole reason rings a bit hollow to me.
I guess to me the whole hypothetical "Making a Male Lashunta Envoy is mechanically unsound" falls under the same reasoning as "Making a Dwarf Oracle is mechanically unsound" and if anyone was deadset on making one of those for whatever reason something would have to give whether it be class or race/gender (or just taking the suboptimal option). I'd understand the grief if females across the entire product were -2S, +2Cha or whatever, but this is an alien that (hypothetically) is explicitly called out as sexually dimorphic. I'd hope most people are mature enough to get that it's just a quirk of Lashuntas being aliens and not some sweeping claim on real life gender issues (Just like I'd hope people are mature enough to run around not calling dwarves antisemitic or something similarly dumb).
Either way, Paizo did what it did and it honestly isn't a huge deal. People have their preferences one way or another and that's cool. Nothing stopping home games from using the old fluff after all.
Tarik Blackhands wrote: evilnerf wrote:
Short answer? Because no one is an Orc in real life.
Long answer? Racial bonuses are a choice you're making for the character that have nothing to do with real life. I know plenty of folks that don't mind playing characters of either gender. However I know WAY MORE people who far prefer playing characters that match their own gender in real life, and I've sat at tables where they don't like other players playing genders that don't match real life.
There shouldn't be gender based modifiers for the same reason there shouldn't be ethnicity based modifiers. When people make a character, they should be free to make a character they identify with, regardless of the bonuses. It's ultimately more interesting, and more fun for them if they do.
On the flip side, no one's a telepathic alien with antennae in real life either so the whole reason rings a bit hollow to me.
I guess to me the whole hypothetical "Making a Male Lashunta Envoy is mechanically unsound" falls under the same reasoning as "Making a Dwarf Oracle is mechanically unsound" and if anyone was deadset on making one of those for whatever reason something would have to give whether it be class or race/gender (or just taking the suboptimal option). I'd understand the grief if females across the entire product were -2S, +2Cha or whatever, but this is an alien that (hypothetically) is explicitly called out as sexually dimorphic. I'd hope most people are mature enough to get that it's just a quirk of Lashuntas being aliens and not some sweeping claim on real life gender issues (Just like I'd hope people are mature enough to run around not calling dwarves antisemitic or something similarly dumb).
Either way, Paizo did what it did and it honestly isn't a huge deal. People have their preferences one way or another and that's cool. Nothing stopping home games from using the old fluff after all. I think we're flipping back and forth between issues again. evilnerf's talking about not wanting to play the other gender - which is pretty common, not about sweeping claims on real life gender issues.
thejeff wrote:
I think we're flipping back and forth between issues again. evilnerf's talking about not wanting to play the other gender - which is pretty common, not about sweeping claims on real life gender issues.
Wouldn't surprise me if I'm mixing conversations, still not 100% woken up here.
Still point (mostly) stands. There's plenty of races out there where gender (hypothetically) means nothing at all (mechanically) and the person could always just choose one of those (or adjust class/take the sub optimal hit) which is what redirects it to the same category as just choosing a different race imo.
Tarik Blackhands wrote:
I guess to me the whole hypothetical "Making a Male Lashunta Envoy is mechanically unsound" falls under the same reasoning as "Making a Dwarf Oracle is mechanically unsound" and if anyone was deadset on making one of those for whatever reason something would have to give whether it be class or race/gender (or just taking the suboptimal option).
Okay, so say they had kept things the same, right? Say I want to make a Sorcerer, and I don't like playing female characters. There are many reasons why this could be, including but not limited to: Me wanting to play a character I identify with, my table not being comfortable with me gender-bending, me not feeling confident that I can play a female character in a respectful manner.
So I'm making an engineer. There is basically a whole race that is basically off limits to me for the sole reason that I am a male and want to play a male character. That sucks!
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Deadmanwalking wrote: That would be considered problematic, yes.
Of course, Lashunta were all originally equally intelligent. The males had less Wis and Chr, but not less Int. Makes things a bit less problematic whichever gender is more physically powerful.
So the Males still have less going on upstairs than the females, and if I'm remembering my lore the Lashunta are matriarchal.
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evilnerf wrote: Tarik Blackhands wrote:
I guess to me the whole hypothetical "Making a Male Lashunta Envoy is mechanically unsound" falls under the same reasoning as "Making a Dwarf Oracle is mechanically unsound" and if anyone was deadset on making one of those for whatever reason something would have to give whether it be class or race/gender (or just taking the suboptimal option).
Okay, so say they had kept things the same, right? Say I want to make a Sorcerer, and I don't like playing female characters. There are many reasons why this could be, including but not limited to: Me wanting to play a character I identify with, my table not being comfortable with me gender-bending, me not feeling confident that I can play a female character in a respectful manner.
So I'm making an engineer. There is basically a whole race that is basically off limits to me for the sole reason that I am a male and want to play a male character. That sucks! Like I said, I don't see that as any different than the whole dwarf oracle thing or the guy who wants to play a Vesk Mechanic because he really likes Trandoshans from Star Wars and is a bit of gearhead irl but finds the whole race off limits because Vesk take -int or something (Again, don't have the books, so feel free to substitute the proper race/class that don't work). Sucks, but that's the way the news goes the way the game is designed.
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The only changes to Lashunta that bug me are that they lost the universal intelligence bonus and that they gained that weird "everyone loves them" fluff. That stuff bugs me. I don't mind the dropping of the sexual dimorphism. Hopefully dimorphism will return in a non-core race that isn't humanoid. I think that would be rad.
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Tarik Blackhands wrote: evilnerf wrote: Tarik Blackhands wrote:
I guess to me the whole hypothetical "Making a Male Lashunta Envoy is mechanically unsound" falls under the same reasoning as "Making a Dwarf Oracle is mechanically unsound" and if anyone was deadset on making one of those for whatever reason something would have to give whether it be class or race/gender (or just taking the suboptimal option).
Okay, so say they had kept things the same, right? Say I want to make a Sorcerer, and I don't like playing female characters. There are many reasons why this could be, including but not limited to: Me wanting to play a character I identify with, my table not being comfortable with me gender-bending, me not feeling confident that I can play a female character in a respectful manner.
So I'm making an engineer. There is basically a whole race that is basically off limits to me for the sole reason that I am a male and want to play a male character. That sucks! Like I said, I don't see that as any different than the whole dwarf oracle thing or the guy who wants to play a Vesk Mechanic because he really likes Trandoshans from Star Wars and is a bit of gearhead irl but finds the whole race off limits because Vesk take -int or something (Again, don't have the books, so feel free to substitute the proper race/class that don't work). Sucks, but that's the way the news goes the way the game is designed. I think the main difference is all of us are humans (not Vesk, Shirren, etc.), and we all understand the concept of gender. We all have some form of gender. We might not fully relate to Shirren, Orc, or Dwarf, so it isn't as disheartening to be told "dwarves make bad oracles, don't play them". But we can much more fully relate to the concept of male, female, and other gender concepts. Being told "Your character can't be a good oracle because they are a woman" feels a lot worse than "You can't be a good oracle as a Shirren". One I can directly relate to, whereas I can only theoretically relate to the Shirren.
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Tarik Blackhands wrote: Like I said, I don't see that as any different than the whole dwarf oracle thing or the guy who wants to play a Vesk Mechanic because he really likes Trandoshans from Star Wars It's because one is a fictional criteria, and one is a real life criteria. That's it.
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thejeff wrote: evilnerf wrote: HWalsh wrote:
What bothered people was that they had a lower Wisdom.
This isn't what bothered me. What bothered me is that having sexual dimorphism in player characters sorts male characters in one direction and sorts female characters in another direction, if they want to mechanically strong (which most people do), leading to certain builds, such as a Female Lashunta Cleric being undisputably weaker than their male counterpart.
Even if it had been no penalty and just a bonus, it's an unnecessarily limiting quirk in the mechanics that leads to most characters fitting a specific gender stereotype.
It didn't matter so much when the Lashunta were some obscure alien race that had almost zero chance of actually showing up as a player character, but when they made them Core races, this was something that needed fixing, and I like the way they fixed it. Exactly.
There are a couple of things getting mixed up in this discussion. This play issue is one of them.
HWalsh posted above in a way that makes me think they were mostly considering whether the race makes sense from an in-world point of view. "If I'm smart, wise, and charismatic, but physically frail I don't need a partner necessarily with those traits", etc.
All along with the larger ways the dimorphism reflects or reinforces real world gender stereotypes. I think you and I are the only ones to read that post... That is what I get for forum'ing on pain meds. lol
I always liked the dimorphism because a) it was really interesting to have any sort of definitive physiological sexual dimorphism in a sentient species, and b) it always seemed really cool that lashunta females were powerful and in charge, not entirely twisted and evil like drow, and really liked their own short hairy antenna'd dudes (which, you know, got that way via sexual selection, if we follow current theories).
That said, I appreciate what Paizo did, in terms of making them more accessible. I don't like it as much, for my preferences, but that's fine - my preferences shouldn't define the whole hobby.
All that said, in-canon, the broad availability of serum of sex shift makes for a lot of relevant sense for the change - within relatively short order, there would be little difference after the gap.
Also worth noting, I'd be super-okay with that short hairy female/tall beautiful male race mentioned elsewhere - it would actually be a really cool concept that would (more or less) embody lots of types bishonen manga, and that would be really awesome, too, in my mind!
This is a relevant thing: outside of the reincarnate spell, is there any way of changing your race or even apparent-race? The spell totally changes your race, but I'm wondering if there is anything known or referenced about changing your apparent race on a permanent basis.
This would be extremely relevant to those experiencing body-dysphoria based on race (or, at least, apparent-race). Could also generate interesting stories, too, about both breaking down social barriers (and the proliferation of broad acceptance in the Pact Worlds) and (in certain worlds or communities) prejudice about the whole thing. It might well lead to potential hope for races (such as half-orcs) who no longer can proliferate easily.
If not, I might want to adapt cyclic reincarnation and reincarnate spy in some way.
EDIT: Commenting on the loss of intelligence (a separate issue from the dimorphism, I think) - that bugs me, too. There are lots of problems with the changes, but I'm pretty sure they were made in the name of making more playable races balanced across the board. Again, though, it can make sense in-universe.
The short version is that as-written they didn't fit the themes and tropes the SF team were looking for and so changed them for both needs of in-game and lore to mesh with their vision.
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evilnerf wrote: Tarik Blackhands wrote: Like I said, I don't see that as any different than the whole dwarf oracle thing or the guy who wants to play a Vesk Mechanic because he really likes Trandoshans from Star Wars It's because one is a fictional criteria, and one is a real life criteria. That's it. "It's ah, my life because ah, I'm not a dumb ah, jock following um, that Dammitrash um a-hole. I um, like having brains and ah, being able to um, use 'em!"
Don't particularly care for Trandoshans. Do like the idea of a large Vesk woman that is a total nerd, though. We now hopefully return the thread to normal operations...
"Lashunta are a much um, better race in balance without um, one side of the gender divide not being um, larger than the other. They um, don't have to um, worry about their backup generator bringing all the um, soldiers to their rear property."
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Tacticslion wrote: EDIT: Commenting on the loss of intelligence (a separate issue from the dimorphism, I think) -... With Magic being less important in the more advanced setting there was no need for every magic user to pump up to an 18 int. Evolution-wise it wasn't necessary anymore.
Yeah, I read your post above.
Hence the part you snipped:
Quote: Again, though, it can make sense in-universe. :)
Tacticslion wrote: Also worth noting, I'd be super-okay with that short hairy female/tall beautiful male race mentioned elsewhere - it would actually be a really cool concept that would (more or less) embody lots of types bishonen manga, and that would be really awesome, too, in my mind! Also, in a not-super-related thing to this, I stumbled across this earlier, when I was looking up "bishonen" to make sure I (more or less) spelled it right. That's... surreal. XD
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