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I play male characters probably about 75% of the time and females about 25%. It's completely driven by what my concept for the charater is at the time, my whim, if I've seen any neat artwork that is nudging the creative process at all (or book or music or movie or whatever). Sometimes gender is decided before the stats are rolled, sometimes it's after all the equipment has been written down. Normally the character concept comes first, but not always.
...image of a naked Hawaiian dude on a couch with a handful of d20s. No offence to Sir Kai.
thats not an image I want in my head either.
no offence taken.
I am kinda curious if those who feel they can't or won't play a female character have very little close interpersonal relationships with women outside of their blood families. I would bet there is a direct corelation. I bet most males playing females in D&D games are cultural busters; adventureres themselves are outside the norm in any society and female adventures would be even more so other than clergy. I wonder how many GM's really play a game where women are treated as women would be treated by men in such a society. Did anyone of you ever read a Conan book for example and identify with one of the women he was usually with? I sure did not. I find that I can't read a lot of books written by females about male heroes because they are just too far from being believable males or at least the kind I would read about.
I think an rpg gives people the chance to play characters and explore new ideas and themes. If you play a female character as a male you might just find that to be true to the character so to speak, you are going to have to really dig deep into your conversations and what you know about the opposite gender. I imagine this would be pretty hard for someone who doesnt spend much time with women which is most of the D&D ers that I have ever known. Have you ever sat back and watched how a women gets what she wants from a man or other women? Have you noticed that when you negotiate something with a man it is generally much easier than with a woman?
When I play a female character, I get to roleplay situations that would never happen to a male character. Geez, if you female character gets pregnant, are you gonna stop roleplaying? How are you going to stave off advances or not? How are you going to make advances if you desire; are the characters only female on the character sheet or do you really try to play one. Several of my male players do women pretty well and they are straight guys. Of course this is my opinion, but then I have been with my wife for about 15 years, had several other long term relationships; have several married friends that I hand out with and watch how they get along and deal with things.
I play women characters for the same reason I play any character; to try to get into their head, their situation, play their strengths and weaknesses, to add flare and flavor to the game. Ever had a real live girl in the game tell you she knows a girl like the one your playing attitudewise? I take it as a compliment. Push the envelope; get out of your rut; play something that challenges you; read Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus (boy, I was temped to use a lot of things other than Venus)if you think it will help as it probably will.
But then are your elves just humans with elf written on the character sheet? When I gm a game, I want people to make up a personae and play the character not just show up and roll some dice. No, I do not know any elves, but we know a bit about the folklore of elves and can sumise a lot about them from that information. Your elves should not act like humans; nor should your dwarves, lizarmen or whatnot as your male characters should not act like your female characters.
Maybe this is all just babble, but I dont have a problem with anybody roleplaying any race, color, creed, sex, whatever as long as they TRY to do a credible job of it and have fun.
I've played both male and female characters pretty often over the years I've been involved in RPG's. (I am my group's primary DM, and have been for a number of years), but occasionally I get to play on the opposite side of the screen. I remember one of my most recent times, one of the guys in my group (who always played wizards in my Forgotten Realms games) wanted to DM a Greyhawk campaign. It was really pretty cool. I played a female halfling rogue who had a thing for keys. (Liked collecting them mostly.) She unfortunately died (an ambush by archers or some such.) Then I played a male halfling ftr/clr of Yondalla (inspired by Sir Didemus(sp?) from Labyrinth. (voice and all, even named my Golden Lab Ambrosius(sp?) :-) I retired him after some nasty jermalines captured our group and shaved all of our hair off (and they even shaved my riding dog.) :-( That was just mean. :P Funny now, mean back then. And then I did a female half-elf bard/wizard (crazy I know, she was inspired by character Arilyn Moonblade from the Elaine Cunningham FR novels.) She was also the 'love-child' of an lef wizard PC (who was messily killed in the privy by a grasping otyugh.) Boy... I thought having my poor riding dog get shaved was mean... nope... seeing your 'dad' get pulled down through an outhouse 'hole' by an otyugh's tentacle... that's a whole new kind of mean. :P
As for reasons... I do it for fun. A change of pace. And like some others, I think certain character concepts 'we' think about lend themselves to releasing our inner 'female' once in a while.
BTW... a really cool moment with the half-elf bard/wizard was meeting with the town's local wizard/sage. The DM did a great job of 'breaking' the fourth wall (as it were) and had the wizard stare at what would have been my breasts were I in fact a woman. (And when I realized that's what he was doing, I consciously 'covered myself' (although 'she' was fully clothed) and said (in game) "they're called breasts Taoser!" (that was the sage's name I think.) and we all had a good laugh at that game moment.)
Cheers
Ran away from home to escape an arranged marriage? Female. Whip-specializing rogue (the lasher prestige class)? Female. Generally I am ambivalent about gender; male is just the default and if someone says "Hey, we should have some women in this party" I might switch. But I would have had a hard time playing some characters as female, too: Armor-covered hammer-swinging dwarf? Male. Two-headed ogre with a 5 INT? Male.
Though the fun part is of course occasionally break the mold and play that male lasher escaping from marriage or armor-covered hammer-swinging female dwarf...for a reading tip about gender roles in fantasy, read Terry Pratchett books featuring Cheery Littlebottom, like Feet of Clay and Fifth Elephant...a female dwarf who has been exposed to humanity to the extent that idea of lingerie and rouge sound great, while still keeping up on such dwarf traditions like steel helmets and beards...
One male player I game with says he will never play a female. He claims it is because he knows he could never "properly" roleplay a female, but the rest of the group thinks his strong homophobic streak may have something to do with it. He was not impressed by me getting into female character, either.
Relating to another subject but valid in this issue too, this is a comment from Lisa Jonte (http://never-done.com/spinblog/index.php?blog=1&title=what_do_women_wa nt&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1):
"Being a woman doesn't automatically make one privy to the thoughts of all other women. We're not a club. We're not a hive mind. We are not some monolithic alien cluster with a group purpose and mysterious agenda."
Regarding the naked/asocial druid issue: A DM I know forbids druid characters because in his mind, a true druid would be asocial and would have no reason to go adventuring. But yeah, a female druid frolicking naked in a meadow is a good concept. Well... depending on the druid's CHA.
Part of the appeal of the druid class is the conflict of typically somewhat asocial behaviour and social requirements of a typical adventurer party. It is not supposed to be simple. Being naked as such does can make sense for any druid character...even those druids who live in communities (druids and shamans were spiritual leaders of communities, after all) since typically strange behaviour was accepted from holy people because spirits talk to them and so forth, while same behaviour would be shunned from normal folks.
Nudistic behaviour is, I believe, a bit more common for men but it is not unknown among women either (weather permitting, of course).The original example of a naked druid was indeed a bit eyebrow-raising and probably not the most shining example of man getting into female role but hey, maybe next character will be better (I do remember my first RPG characters...it took a while before I could do even a halfway convincing human being but eventually I got it).
What; hmm me thinks the previous post was just to throw us off; women not a hive mind or a big club; am very suspicous. After all back in high school they used to have all the women leave class and go to some strange meeting we guys were not informed about; I think that was their initiation; and a certain English comic has develved into the secret of Hopscotch with no man understands; and the whole group bathroom thing... ok, off topic maybe, but would be fun to play a group of female characters with a hive mind and trying to have women take over the world; they all ready have half the property and all the .... I bet they are the Illuminatii
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What; hmm me thinks the previous post was just to throw us off; women not a hive mind or a big club; am very suspicous. After all back in high school they used to have all the women leave class and go to some strange meeting we guys were not informed about; I think that was their initiation; and a certain English comic has develved into the secret of Hopscotch with no man understands; and the whole group bathroom thing... ok, off topic maybe, but would be fun to play a group of female characters with a hive mind and trying to have women take over the world; they all ready have half the property and all the .... I bet they are the Illuminatii
Sounds like a campaign to me...
Dude Looks Like a Lady (Elf)
Almost every role-playing gamer has met one: a person who plays a transvirtual character; in other words, a character whose sex is not the same as its player’s (Jacobs 8). From massive multiplayer online role-playing games to small pen and paper groups with only two or three people, transvirtual characters are everywhere. There are many people who play transvirtual characters. Some people do it for the role-playing, others do it for mechanical benefits, and some just plain prefer characters of the opposite sex.
About 30% of those who play transvirtual characters do so for the role-playing experience (Roberts 532). Most role-playing games are about escapism: leaving work and troubles behind for three hours and taking up a fake persona to save the universe. In that spirit, many gamers try to be completely different from their real selves. Some do this by playing maniacal axe-wielding minotaurs, others by playing characters who are gender neutral or of the opposite sex (Jacobs 8). We have all been told at one point or another that if everyone were the same that the world would be boring. The same goes for role-playing games.
As part of escapism, some games are set in historical Europe or in a world with similar social settings. During those times, women did not have many of the rights they have today. They were treated as if they were inferior at best. A man may enjoy playing a woman in that era to get a feel for how bad it really was, and a woman may play a man to avoid the situation entirely (Bridges 229-230).
I have a friend named Ken who used to play Diablo 2 religiously, almost always as a sorceress. Why did he play a female character? There was no male equivalent of the sorceress in Diablo 2. In some games, people play transvirtual characters because certain options are only available to the opposite sex. Perhaps there are prestige classes or skills accessible only to certain genders, or maybe the option for a same sex character is simply not there (Jacobs 8). In Diablo 2, for example, all necromancers are male and all amazons are female, simple as that. A game may also be set in a world with species that have only one playable sex because the other is non-intelligent, such as the insect-like khepri (Baur 44-45). Besides, in a third-person video game where there are no statistical differences between the sexes, wouldn’t a male gamer prefer to look at a female character’s backside all day (Olivas)?
Just as people like to eat different things, gamers prefer to play different kinds of characters. Every slot machine in Las Vegas shows us that even a small infrequent pay-off can cause a repeated behavior (Coon 176-177). If a person’s same sex characters die quickly and tragically several times in a row, and then his transvirtual characters survive a series of difficult adventures, it is likely a person will prefer playing ‘luckier’ transvirtual characters (Jacobs 8).
Instead of relying on past experience, some people prefer to create characters based on a concept. They go out, see a movie or read a book they really enjoy, and decide that their character will be the next Awesome McCoolperson. Maybe they see a painting and think, “Wow! That looks awesome! I want my character to look like that!” Depending on the player, they may copy the sex of the character as well as the look, creating opposite sexed characters (Decker 12).
Keeping on the concept idea, someone may try to create a concept from a type of person, not just an individual seen in a movie or painting. Be it the sly seductress, the thick-skulled barbarian, or the intelligent prince, they will create their character with that goal in mind, and it’s difficult to play a male seductress (Decker 12).
In looking at this situation, some people may say that those who prefer transvirtual characters are expressing homosexuality or using their character as a form of cross-dressing. In fact, though, only about five percent of gamers who play transvirtuals actually took their sexual preferences into account when creating their characters (Roberts 532).
With its presence acknowledged and often played upon in advertising (Fantasy), few can deny the existence of transvirtual characters in the broad universe of gaming. What would drive a person to create such a character? The answers are simple. Some like the role-playing and mechanical advantages, others prefer transvirtuals for a myriad of personal reasons. The one answer that supersedes them all, however, is that they enjoy it.Works Cited
Baur, Wolfgang. “People of Bas-Lag.” Dragon. February 2007: 42-49.
Bridges, Bill, et al. Dark Ages: Mage. Stone Mountain: White Wolf Publishing, Inc., 2002.
Coon, Dennis. Introduction to Psychology: Exploration and Application. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: West Publishing Company, 1980.
Decker, Jesse, et al. Dungeon Master’s Guide II. Renton: Wizards of the Coast, 2005.
Diablo 2. Computer Game. Vers. 1.03. Blizzard Entertainment, 2000.
Fantasy Grounds 2. Advertisement. Dungeon. March 2007: 99.
Jacobs, James. “Girls are Luckier.” Dungeon. March 2007: 8.
Roberts, Lynne, and Malcolm Parks. “The Social Geography of Gender-Switching in Virtual Environments on the Internet.” Information, Communication & Society 2:4 (1999): 521-540.
Well, here's the paper. It got a 90%. Thanks for the Ideas.
At risk of sounding harsh, if "he" is a trangendered individual, then "he" is an "actual female." Plumbing which does not reflect an individual's identity is not license to disregard that identity...I beg to differ.
Female, in the sense of sex, is a reference to biological function -- it is an organism capable of producing ova (eggs). In the gender sense, common usage still refers to such biological characteristics; it is primarily in the social sciences that gender takes on behavioral meaning.
Transgender, in contrast, is a reference to psychological outlook. It specifically refers to behavior "involving tendencies that diverge from the normative gender role," whether those roles are assigned by nature or culture.
Being transgendered does not assign sexual/gender identity -- it is, by definition, being at odds with such identity. That notwithstanding, I'm not implying (nor do I think) that transgendered people are required to conform to the identity that biology or culture impose.
I hope this isn't coming across as argumentative or inflammatory -- it's not meant that way.
Respectfully,
Jack
I fail to see how any of this some how would give one license to ignore the persons preference in gender identity. Whatever biological reality may be in a social situation biological reality is not that important most of the time. Seems like basic good manners to me.
well; as gm you gotta play everybody; in pc games n such; well who wants to look at a guys behind all day? not me.
Oh, c'mon... that's just silly. There isn't a culture on the face of the planet that walks around "all of the time" completely naked. Even in cultures where partial nudity is the norm, total nudity isn't done. I'll buy the argument of being naked for a ritual here and there, perhaps on the order of the night-dancers of Eiliastraee. Even in various druid rituals, I could buy total nudity from time to time as part of an ancient rite. But all the time, as Moriarty said his player wanted? Not a chance.
I think that's because of Religious influence on society. Most religions, especailly Judeo Christian dominated societies teach people to be ashamed of their bodies, and that it's a 'Sin' to walk around naked. This is caried to the extreme in some Muslim cultures where a woman can be stoned to death for uncovering her face in public. What I believe is that if a character lives in a society that is open minded enough, and lives in a climate that makes the protection of clothing unnessassary (Or are a species where hot and cold don't effect them.) It is perfectly reasonable to assume that this type of society and character could evolve. Especialy if their is enough magic to compensate for a lack of armor. (Besides given most fantasy art, how much protection could a chainmail bikini or a loin cloth really offer?)
Valegrim made some interesting comments I wanted to respond to:
Let's say one of us was running a game set in the worlds of someone like RE Howard, George RR Martin, David Gemmell, Terry Goodkind, Jacqueline Carey, Katherine Kurtz and so on. All these authors tend to depict rather traditional gender roles, with some variations. On average in these worlds soldiers for example are usuallly men. This is not to say that women don't play heroic roles, and in fact we could come up with examples from all of them.
However I've noticed that in rpgs with the except of some like say the Conan D20 rpg things tend to be rather gender neutral. In a way this is cool, because gradually it has gotten both sexes into gaming and I've found that it can be a more well rounded and interesting game with both sexes present. But it also makes it a challenge to think of how gender might affect cultural life in the game worlds we run.
in cultures in my game where there are clearly defined roles between the sexes; I give cultural bonuses to those skills as applicable; this is due to expertise and training and has no real regard for gender; just traditional gender roles.
Hello. I am writing a paper for my Writing 122 class with a topic of "speculating on a cause." I have decided that I will write on why people sometimes play a character of the opposite gender when they play roleplaying games.
Thanks!
There is a lot a nice female miniatures so why not use them as PCs.
Every time I make up a female PC the pbp tanks.
In meatspace I'm the DM.
Now I'm afraid to roll up any wimmin folk.
As a player I played a female char once just for the hell of it, as something different, my wife also played a female so we played them as half sister, I was a half elf she was full elf. I was also playing a male char so it did help me create completly different personnalities for them. Most people I know that play multi chars, play them all the same way, even if they are different classes. And now that I am a DM its just straight out funny to play a female NPC that intereact with the PC's. And I always play a female on my computer or Play station just because I think the females chars look alot better than the male chars.
I've played mostly female characters for the past 15 or so years (I've gamed for 20, give or take). Once in a while I go back to being male. I've been human, elven, half-fiend, changeling, and a few others. In the beginning, I did it because I didn't care for the idea of an adventuring party without a female character in it. Over time, it's become habit. That, and it makes the DM look at me strange:-)
It's a challenge I continually work on. Our group doesn't do the marriage or children thing in-game, though flirting occurs (between the husband and wife duo). On one occasion, my female elf wizardess was joined by a female half-elf ranger, played by a woman. We ended up cousins. It's difficult to try to understand and emulate the mind of another person, but worth the effort. Many of my own character ideas come from artwork I've seen (thank you Larry Elmore and Clyde Caldwell!), but whatever character I envision, I create. When I was younger, I created more male characters-who met with various bad ends. I also just didn't see the depths of their personalities; few of them lasted long except in memory. The women have lasted longer; I'm more attached to them; they don't die so quickly either!
I guess everyone has their reasons. I enjoy annoying my DM, the challenge, and the act of creation itself.
I like playing someone who is different from me. That said, I don't play female characters as much anymore. Some people think it's a little creepy.
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I've played a few female characters, but not many. I played them like most of the women I know act, but unlike many D&Der's I have just as many female friends as I do male, maybe more. I find it very easy to get into the female psyche since I'm already good at getting into almost anybodies head. We all stayed in character pretty well, and none of us get freaked out when somebody plays a cross-gender character. Of course I played into a few female stereotypes, but not as much as I could have. She disdained physical labor and made the men carry her stuff, even though she was just as strong as the men.
One thing that is always off-limits at our gaming table is sex. Sure, we make jokes about it and always have the male characters roll a d12, but not everyone in our group is mature enough to handle actual talk, and none of us as a DM feel comfortable DMing one of the players having sex, not even "off screen".
Also, as a side note, most of the entries in the PHB and most of the other books use "her" and "she" for most of the descriptions.
One thing that is always off-limits at our gaming table is sex. Sure, we make jokes about it and always have the male characters roll a d12, but not everyone in our group is mature enough to handle actual talk, and none of us as a DM feel comfortable DMing one of the players having sex, not even "off screen".
<looks around nervously.>
Apparently Thorn rolled 4d6...
... zip it, Moth....
Come on! He doesn't even wear pants, she couldn't help herself!
the shame, the shame
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One thing that is always off-limits at our gaming table is sex. Sure, we make jokes about it and always have the male characters roll a d12, but not everyone in our group is mature enough to handle actual talk, and none of us as a DM feel comfortable DMing one of the players having sex, not even "off screen".<looks around nervously.>
Apparently Thorn rolled 4d6...
... zip it, Moth....
Come on! He doesn't even wear pants, she couldn't help herself!
yeah, the first time I rolled it I got an 11 and I refuse to roll it again. The best laugh we ever had was when the DM rolled a 3 and his girlfriend rolled a 12...
One thing that is always off-limits at our gaming table is sex. Sure, we make jokes about it and always have the male characters roll a d12, but not everyone in our group is mature enough to handle actual talk, and none of us as a DM feel comfortable DMing one of the players having sex, not even "off screen".Thats to bad, its a very minor part of our game but we do have fun with it, As DM I sent my group down in to the underdark were they came across a non evil drow community, I know who ever heard of non evil drow, Any ways one of my guys that was playing a male elf had a set of armor made and once it was finished he changed right there in the open and just as a joke I told them that some female drow tosed her shirt at him, so her went after her. So i just skipped to the next morning and told him that he didnt remeber a thing due to the amount of booze he drank. He looked around and found out that he was in a dorm room at the temple, then I told him he had just de-flowered the daughter of the high priestess of Vandria Gilmadrith the Elven Goddess of War. How he is having fun trying to get approvale from her folks. And Im having lots of fun with that
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We did once, and the DM called for a constitution check just because it seemed like it would be appropriate. And what did he roll? A 1. We laughed for about 5 minutes and jokes have been made ever since. If anything, no one will do it just for the fear of rolling a 1 and having the same fate. On a related subject, one of our players was playing a barbarian and was captured by hobgoblins. They were torturing him, and he wanted to make a roll to see how much he liked it since he didn't want to take damage. The DM told him to roll d% when the goblin stuck a dagger in his side, and he rolled a 100. The goblin did it again, and he rolled another 100. Needless to say, we all never looked at his character the same way again...
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I have never played a character of the opposite sex in a P&P but the reason I do in Pbp adventures is pretty simple. When I start building my character and in my mind it feels better as a girl that what I go with. I do think that it would be hard to play a female in a P&P game so I might have to try it in the future.
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One thing that is always off-limits at our gaming table is sex. Sure, we make jokes about it and always have the male characters roll a d12, but not everyone in our group is mature enough to handle actual talk, and none of us as a DM feel comfortable DMing one of the players having sex, not even "off screen".<looks around nervously.>
Apparently Thorn rolled 4d6...
... zip it, Moth....
Come on! He doesn't even wear pants, she couldn't help herself!
the shame, the shame
4d6 result = 16.
Ouch man.
I've only played women (I'm a guy) in computer games. As others have pointed out, it is easier on my eyes to watch a face and figure that I can admire...(artistically, of course)
Playing Oblivion and Mass Effect, I have designed male characters that I have been happy with, esthetically. It made me realize that in many computer games, the male characters (if pregenerated) just don't look as good as the females (causing me to avoid choosing a male avatar--Neverwinter Nights is a classic example). Speculation: most video game designers are men; do they perhaps put more effort into designing attractive portraits/models that are female?
When I role play, I don't care as much about designing a wildly different personality than my own; I am more interested in exploring (NPCs and locales) and solving problems with class skills I don't have in real life. As a matter of fact, I felt very uncomfortable speaking harshly or carrying out evil quests in Knights of the Old Republic I & II, as well as in Morrowind and Oblivion. I guess that when I role play, I want it to be 'me' in that fantasy world...
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For me it's concept driven. I write up the character, and almost every time, it's just 'obviously' a boy or 'obviously' a girl. Sometimes class plays into it, and I've got some biases that show up there.
Most of my tabletop characters are male (my gender of birth, and, conveniently, of choice also). My highest level online characters in EQ2, DAoC and CoH are female (while the highest level CoV, WoW and SWG ones are male), although I never roleplay, gender or anything else, in online games at all, since I type too clumsily for that sort of thing. "Oh, everyone died again! I tried to type, RUN!, but all that came out was WWWKASKDFAHDFA!!!!"
In tabletop games, we never roleplay any sort of sexual shenanigans, although raunchy humor abounds, since we're all grown-ups. If the table doesn't bust out laughing a half-dozen times from some rude innuendo, it's a slow night. Same sort of humor seems to abound in online games, particularly on our Vent server, which should really have some sort of warning label for when people start screaming, 'Armageddon!' and talking about flaming hamsters.
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Also, as a side note, most of the entries in the PHB and most of the other books use "her" and "she" for most of the descriptions.
References to Wizards or Rogues will say 'she,' since the 'default Wizard' is Mialee and the 'default Rogue' is Lidda. Examples using un-named Fighters or Clerics will likewise use 'he,' as Regdar and Jozan are the 'default' members of those classes.
It's pretty fairly balanced, in that regard.
White Wolf got that complaint a *lot,* that they overused, or even exclusively used, the female pronoun, and they used a word-finder and confirmed their intended usage, that they alternated 'he' and 'she' in every other example, and that, since 'he' was generally the first pronoun used, they used a tiny percentage *more* of the male pronoun!
This didn't stop the male readers from glossing over the male pronouns and insisting that they used only female pronouns, in defiance of pesky facts. The male pronoun is pretty much invisible to us, since it's assumed. It's as likely to jump out at us as the word 'the.' The female pronoun, used generally, jumps out at us and is very noticeable, and so seems terribly over-represented, even when it is in minority usage!
I find this discussion very interesting... Our group make up consists of 3 males, 2 females with our ages ranging from 24-32. I myself am a 29 year old male. Rarely is our group completely reflective of gender. We have one female who almost always plays males, one female that swaps back and forth depending on the situation and myself, i play both roles.
My characters gender depends on the concept. Often weeks before its time to roll a new character for an upcoming campaign I'll get the image in my head and build a character around it, other time i'll have a concept and gender will come from that.
The last few characters i've played, in no particular order are:
a female half elf rogue, acrobatic and skilled with knives and bow
a male kobold monk (some very nice rolls on this one)
a human male "white" necromancer (i wanted to try playing a good aligned necromancer)
a a female human traditional necromancer (NE can be fun!)
a male gnome, cleric/illisionist
I had no problems getting into the mindset of the various characters, each had a definitely different and distinct personality with their differing virtues and flaws that made playing them enjoyable.
Many have stated "men and women don't play the other gender correctly". This in itself is a stereotype. Based on the "average woman" half the time the WOMEN don't play the women "correctly" in my games. We're talking fantasy characters in a fantasy setting. Its not going to be like real life because its NOT real life.
Be it a gruff "butch" female, a prima donna male, a burly masculine warrior, a prim and proper maiden or anything in between if it fits the character it should be allowed so long as its not disruptive. If you have a mature gaming group just about anything should be able to be explored.
Life has enough restrictions, let fantasy go where your imagination takes it
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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My personal character breakdown is about 1/3 male, 2/3 female, which means i play a character of the opposite gender frequently. Why is that?
* Its fun - simply because its a little more escapism from what is normally expected of you.
* Some character ideas just call for it. Same thing as a male really. There are some concepts which just fit better with a male character or a female.
* Its easier for me. Yeah, plain and simple. It puts up an additional barrier between "what TerraNova on the table thinks" and "What Character X thinks." Always a good thing.
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One of my male friends at the gaming table plays almost exclusively females, and when he plays a male it's always an over the top horndog that tries to flirt with anything that moves, usually a sorcerer who overuses charm person. None of us are really too sure what to think of him, but it very obvious that he thinks that all men are oafish and genetically inferior to women (and trust me, he does think this). This may be because he grew up in a house with 5 sisters and no father, but it certainly doesn't seem to be a healthy way to view the world, especially being male himself.
As a side note that has nothing really to do with the subject but this made me think of it, although I don't like sexist men, I don't like feminists either. It's not very fun to hang out with a big group of women that just talk about how stupid men are and how all they care about is sex. I just can't tolerate extremes on either side of the spectrum.
In my experience, the best view of the world is a balanced one. Sure, there have been many sexist men in the past and there still are today, but acting the same way isn't going to make anything better.
Like a lot of others, I have two reasons why I play female characters (and do so about 1/3 of the time):
1) They are inspired by artwork. A lot of my character ideas come from a particularly cool illustration, and some of them happen to be female. (Note: This isn't an eye candy matter since, one it's just a bunch of stats on paper, the eye candy isn't as appealing. Plus, PCs are like an extended self and considering myself eye candy... well, that just gets weird.)
2) When an idea pops into my head, it just happens to be female.
I suppose I could add a 3rd reason down, but I'm not sure if it's come up with my PCs. It happens more with my writing. But sometimes I'll take a male character idea, change it to female and see if that brings about any interesting inspirations.
But for the most part, I occasionally play female PCs because, in a way they already exist as female and I just discover them that way. :)
There's a few reasons for playing female characters as far as I'm concerned. Primarily it's because I tend to use roleplay to learn about people who aren't like me. I'm always striking out in a new direction. I'd like to think that my characters are a wide and diverse group with only a bit of overlap. That said, girls are fascinating. They really do approach things from a very different point of view and it's interesting to try and see things that way.
It's also a bit like why I tend to play a lot of humans. The simulationist in me wants to see a PC group that's similar in composition to the world around them. Those kinds of games where Jedi are supposed to be rare, but yet there's three of them in the group, just rub me the wrong way. A lot of folks want to be the biggest baddest, rarest thing out there. Every other guy is from some extinct bloodline, or some race from across the world, or some wierd niche class. Yuck. Me, personally, I like a character who fits organically into the world--who is something straight out of the baseline. Females are under-represented, so often I'll play one if only just to even things out.
I've always done both.
When I was playing with strangers a lot, in college, I'd play mainly male characters--I had one or two unpleasant experiences with groups that thought a female player with a female character was an excuse for unpleasant behavior. Nowadays I play with people I know, and it's just not an issue.
I'm a bit scared to play in groups which ban cross-gender roleplaying, because I'm afraid it may be a warning symptom of not drawing clear line between player and character, and that can screw up the game in so many ways. I'd like my PC (either gender) to be able to react romantically, or competitively, or in any other necessary way to other PCs without it being seen as a reflection of my own feelings.
I've seen excellent portrayals of female PCs by male players, and I'm baffled by "I wouldn't know how to do this" statements--they come out of a "men and women are fundamentally different" worldview that I just don't share.
My own blind spot is gay male PCs: I try to do them now and again, but I've never felt satisfied. Flirtation in particular always feels forced. This is just my limitation as a roleplayer, though. I ran for an excellent, subtly-portrayed gay male PC (straight male player) in college. It took the other players something like six months to notice, and then we had some interesting sessions as the other male PCs adjusted to the realization. Wasn't a problem for the players.
When people ask about my marriage I like to mention that I met my husband-to-be in a gaming group, and that for something like four months I didn't actually know his name but thought of him by his character's name (he was very shy outside of the gaming context). We were both males in that particular game, and our PCs became close friends, but were both straight and uninterested in each other romantically. Made for a strange start to a romantic relationship. (But a good one. We've been gaming together for 23 years this September.)
We play a lot of "in-house" games with one player and multiple PCs, and having PCs of both genders just helps differentiate them, just as having PCs of multiple races and cultures does.
In video games I prefer females for the same stated reason as a lot of guys here; they're more appealing to look at. Bias of the artists, I think.
Mary
I have played 2 fem characters in 16 years. Both widely spaced, just to shake things up. The second was an enormous, ugly half orc female barbarian with bowling ball sized...mammaries, and a ravenous libido. Was a blast to RP...with my 6 charisma.