I am in the middle game. I cleared the southern Swamp, and I explored the Southeast Wilderness slightly (after killing Don Barlone for the Astral Dominae). Therefore, I get harassment from both Savant machines (who want me dead for having the Astral Dominae), and Rattkin (who want protection for keeping the AD, and if I don't pay, they attack). At this point, even if you did "honorably" pay Don Barlone for the AD, why not whack him? He keeps ordering "protection" money.
I can't keep up with the encumbrance of all those dead Rattkin's items, nor can I keep using up my Mana Stones to regenerate spell points from casting killing spells. In the Southeast Wilderness, a lot of enemies spawn with high hit points and low levels, or even moderate levels, so killing spells seem to be the norm (Quicksand, Asphyxiation, Death Wish, Instant Death).
My Priest and Alchemist did not focus on melee, instead on magic (Intelligence/Piety/Speed/Senses maxed). Therefore, they have a "kill first" attitude, although using spells.

One shouldn't discount the utility of faster level seven magic screen and soul shield. And character level is a very strong factor in that equation. Now, I, myself, don't like using spell-casting warriors to fill in a magic school, since the delay is much too strong in six-mans.

One could take that to a logical extreme. I.e. a system in which robots don't level and are one-hundred percent gear-dependent. Of course, I like races as classes. But having more than one progression systems seems like a good time to remember that rules are there so you think about them before you break them. Sure, some have made second-person future work, and some have had success with diverse progress, but one should have a reason for doing so. And if that reason, for the game system, of course, is only narrative, that's a red-zone. Tread carefully.

Today I learned: a woman with exceptional strength can't have more muscles than one with average strength.

My main problem with 1e is that the gender restriction writes a check that the game system can't cash. Another glaring issue I have with it is that it boils down to being penalized, even if only short-term, for high rolls when creating a character. That's just dumb, even if that's also, partially, how demihumans work. But D&D was, and, to some extent, still is an anthropocentric and biological determinism game. Makes sense, since Wizards effectively did the equivalent of the common very smart move of "not using a Christian calendar" by swapping BC with BCE. And that's doubly stupid since 3e and later are, cromulently, referred to as dandino (Dungeons & Dragons in name only).
While I'd play a man or woman for added difficulty, I'd rather each have their own strengths and weaknesses, or just not have "mechanical" sexual dimorphism at all. Then, I can simply customize my difficulty by playing against type. Now, what I've learned with my, admittedly, extremely limited experience with tabletop is that GMs don't like it when someone intentionally builds a mechanically weak character. I get it; makes it even harder to "shoot the monk," after all.

SaGa 2 and SaGa Frontier do exactly this. Worth noting that robots also get extra stats from equipment that humans do not (for example, equipping a rapier will boost agility), and the robots ignore body slot limitations (so you can equip multiple suits of armor on the same robot), though they can still only equip 7 items at once.

(Well, the games don't actually have XP based leveling, but still the principal applies; humans improve stats through their actions, while robots do not.)

(Incidentally, I'm developing a CRPG of my own, and the plan is to have robots grow like SaGa 2's robots.)

The CRPG I'm developing is not going to be story-focuses, so the reason for the game system isn't narrative.

(If anything, I'd build the story around the game system, rather than the other way around.)

One advantage of not have mechanical difference between the genders is that it makes it easy to allow for non-binary characters. If male and female characters have different stats, then how do you handle characters who don't fit into either category? Simply get rid of that difference and the issue disappears completely.

(The issue also applies to gender-locked classes and equipment. For example, Elminage Gothic allows ? gender characters to be Valkyries, but doesn't allow them to equip a certain post-game Valkyrie-only spear. The best solution, of course, is to not have gender-locked equipment, which does, of course, mean that male characters would be allowed dresses and skirts, if there are any in the game.)

If sex is not mechanical, why is it a choice?

Naturally, there's technically infinitely many answers to that question. But, I can only think of one reasonable answer off the top of my head. World reactivity. That still limits the amount of genders in a meaningful way, however. Now, for reasons that aren't actually reasonable. Third-person messages could require pronouns, but one could just use one set of gender-neutral pronouns. Better yet, that could be a set of user-definable fields. Aesthetics could be just that. Why do they need to be gendered? Unless mechanics or reactivity, or any other such c&c comes into play. That's why the short list of games without a gender selection, nor presume a character's gender, isn't all that short.

Either way, I should probably start playing more men, outside of games where it's the only choice. Might help my fictioneering. And alignments other than lawful neutral, heh.

I see gender as functioning just fine as a cosmetic choice, just like (in Wizardry 8) name, nickname, portrait, and voice. It may affect the way the game looks and sounds, but doesn't need to have any mechanical effect.

(Some games gate romance choices by gender. For example, in Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, Sosiel will only date a male PC.)

User-definable fields for pronouns are a good idea, but there are a couple things to be careful with:
* The player will need to specify pronouns for every case. (Like she, her, and hers are each in different slots.) There's also cases like how "they/them" needs plural conjugations of verbs ("are" instead of "is"), even if it's only a single character being referred to. Furthermore, I believe the situation is actually a bit more complex than that.
* Localization: This "pronoun" discussion is very English-centric. If you were to localize a game that does this into, say, Spanish or Japanese, you would need to re-work this whole system. Don't forget that some languages gender other parts of speech, like adjectives. (Are there any languages that gender verbs? That is, are there languages where "he attacks" and "she attacks" use different translations for "attacks".) And some languages don't have gendered pronouns at all.

Either way, these things are easy to sort out, by planning for them to begin with. Easy to fix during localization, too.

Romances could be seen as falling under reactivity, no? Where, once again, it's often better when NPCs aren't player-sexual as the kids say. Or, at least, not all of the " choices." (That sounds objectifying, hmm. Too tired to fix.)

Sure, it was cute when games started to have fields like favorite food, or blood-type. But if it's just another chore for the end-user to start the game, sigh. It should be reflected somehow, even if only in a stupid one-off Easter egg. Otherwise, why is it there. And sex and portraits, voice-sets, etc. need not be intrinsically tied. If they are, then there should be more there there, or why is there a choice. At least make some npc treat my character differently, dadgummit.

In the case of pronouns, the idea is to have presets for the most common pronoun sets. For example, most players will probably just pick she/her and he/him and be done with it. A minority might go with they/them, and that's enough to cover almost all cases. The few people who want different pronouns and who care will go through the trouble of filling out all those fields.

By the way, one of the complaints about Cyberpunk 2077 is that the character's gender and pronouns ares tied to their voice, so you can't create a man with a high voice or a woman with a low voice.

Speaking of favorites, Earthbound asks for your favorite thing, and one of the psionic powers (the game's version of spells) that the main character gets will use the favorite thing entered as its name.

It's entirely just silly. I like how W8 does it, gender is just a formality, similar to the name, portrait, voices, etc, except that there shouldn't be gender-specific items (not that it matters that much, a few early-game stamina-regenerating items. I made my Bard and Gadgeteer female, but they could have just as easily been made male, as the stamina regeneration doesn't matter much during battle, and after battle, it regenerates quickly (quicker with a Rest All spell, which is usually unnecessary, unless another battle is eminent).

Don't forget the Cameo Locket and the Diamond Ring.

Of course, the former is rare (only source is a non-respawning random treasure), and the latter is import-only both in this game and in the game you'd import it from. Well, and the Chieftan's Sceptre, but that requires killing a friendly NPC (but at least it's guaranteed to drop if you do so).

Stamina regen from an item has one other advantage: It allows you to run indefinitely outside of battle. If you do not have stamina regen on at least one character, after running for a while your entire party will fall unconscious and the game will force you to rest.

The Cameo Locket isn't that bad of an item either, alas. There are some other sex restricted items, but one has another use, and the armor is, well, not good. Unless you really need lighter weight chest armor.

I prefer to walk, or tap directions to spot a hidden item, heh. Running is useful to avoid combat, or get to better ground. But running everywhere can lead to some nasty issues if one's not careful.

It is, however, only available in one random treasure location, and therefore not an item I consider when theorycrafting.

(If I do happen to find it, it will likely go unused, as I play all-female parties and only male characters can use it.)

Running is also good to save time, like when you're in an area you've been before and just want to get through quickly.

(On the other hand, there's a couple spots where running might not be safe, like on parts of Trynton where there's no railing or in the narrow platform in the Umpani Training Grounds.)

What's a few seconds on an agonizingly long game? :D

[You're not good at subtext, yes?]

They add up over the course of the game.

Also, there's at least one person who has done speedruns of the game, and he runs pretty much everywhere in the speedrun.