...I think casual gamer/storyteller/actor are three different types of player. We're pretty squarely in the storytelling camp (as a group) - we have one definite actor, but the rest of us suck quite frankly. If you agree that those classifications exist, what do you think the difference between an actor and a storyteller is?
Oddly enough, this makes a certain amount of sense to me. It's like the incidental-to-the-topic stuff I hid above. Whether or not you see a lot of "transvirtuals" in your games may be a sign of nothing more than a tilting axis between "shared plot" and "character development." Surely we've all read stories that focus more on one or the other, and "good" stories can come in all types.
P.S. - J. Jacobs ... Oops. Sorry. Well, at least you know someone is reading and remembering your stuff (as a reporter, I know the good vibes that come from that) ... if not perfectly... ;-)
He He, I occasionally play a Changeling in a 5 gay/2 straight, all guy game. The other straight plays a male, while every gay plays a female, 3 elves and a half Elf at that. Once every conceivable bad joke, pun, etc. played out, it became a rather good crew. Then again, our GM is a hard-assed be-yatch who only gets to run a few times a year.
The local table top, pen and paper games otherwise tend towards 'you play YOUR D**N sex' due to a couple of a**holes that ruined entire campaigns by messing with folks heads. No openly gay in any of the dozens of campaigns I've played in has ever made a point of harassing straights. The reverse is almost 100%. One utter jerk who was married to a hot babe mars that. I counted my WoW toons and am 24 male/22 female. Almost every female is an Elf.
Well, the rest of you may have had success with this kind of thing, but it has caused nothing but problems at my table.
I cannot even count the number of times men have wanted to play female characters to satisfy some kind of lustful fantasy.
I have gone so far as to ban it entirely from my games. You play your own gender in my games.
That's...not a problem with players making characters of a different gender.
That's a problem of your players are all creepy man-children.
Anyways, play whatever gender suits your character best. 420 make rad characters everyday.
Well, the rest of you may have had success with this kind of thing, but it has caused nothing but problems at my table.
I cannot even count the number of times men have wanted to play female characters to satisfy some kind of lustful fantasy.
I have gone so far as to ban it entirely from my games. You play your own gender in my games.
That's...not a problem with players making characters of a different gender.
That's a problem of your players are all creepy man-children.
I agree with ProfCirno on this one - your players have the problem, your solution just punishes the good players for the misdeeds of the bad.
I play both types although Ive foound that some of my most memorable, and favorite (of everyone at the table or PbP) end up being female.
I'm definitely the actor type rp'er and bulid characters from the concept up.
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I'm a straight man and I've played female characters and am currently playing a halfling paladin who is unsure about his sexuality.
I have a female player that loves playing men (she's played men in most games I've run with her).
I've never had a problem with cross play, as long as everyone is having fun at the table.
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I mostly play male characters, but a couple of my most memorable ones were female. One of them a female Barbarian based on this magazine advertisement.
It depends on the concept mostly. When I get a chance to play my Half-orc Inquisitor, I may make it female, just so I can use the awesome preexisting art. ;-)
I remember we had a long discussion on a thread somewhere around here about that sort of armor.....
I think the conclusion was that only a man would be dumb enough to wear armor like that into battle.
blah blah blah...
Luckily it's only a painting and has no more influence on reality than, oh I don't know, riding a fracking polar bear.*
*insert rolling of eyes here.
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That's...not a problem with players making characters of a different gender.That's a problem of your players are all creepy man-children.
Anyways, play whatever gender suits your character best. 420 make rad characters everyday.
I think this sums up the main problem with playing female characters i.e. the inmaturity of some of the fellow players at the game table.
The lesson, don't play with immature little brats. In fact, a good way to find out if you're dealing with such is to broach the playing of female characters and watch the players/DM reactions.
All the Best,
Kerney
P.S. for the record, only pre-adolecents who look a lot like Dakota Fanning can have Polar bears as Familiars/Animal companions and only if their Mum works for an evil church and only if your Dad who is posing as your Uncle is a world famous Arctic Explorer.
That's...not a problem with players making characters of a different gender.That's a problem of your players are all creepy man-children.
Anyways, play whatever gender suits your character best. 420 make rad characters everyday.
I think this sums up the main problem with playing female characters i.e. the inmaturity of some of the fellow players at the game table.
The lesson, don't play with immature little brats. In fact, a good way to find out if you're dealing with such is to broach the playing of female characters and watch the players/DM reactions.
All the Best,
Kerney
I think its not just a matter of comfort in the group. At a table with people i dont know well i think i would normally stick to my own gender. Roleplaying gender based interaction can get a little akward if you dont know the people and you are playing outside your actual gender.
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Roleplaying gender based interaction can get a little akward if you dont know the people and you are playing outside your actual gender.
There is some truth there. I play male or female characters interchangeably among my friends, some of whom I've been gaming with for decades, and most of whom play either gender without even thinking about it. *Or*, I play make or female characters interchangeably in online games, where the people I'm grouping with may have no idea what shape of dangly bits I have in real life.
I'd be less inclined to bring a female character to an Organized Play game at a convention with a bunch of strangers, since any of them could have issues that I don't want to know about. (That being said, I've sat down at GenCon or Origins and grabbed a female PC from the Pregen pile, because I liked her stats better than any of the male PCs. Q'Lys the Barbarian was my favorite Dungeon Delve pregen! It seems more socially acceptable to play a female character that someone handed you than to bring your own Barbie to the playdate.)
In the case of the gamer that spent years at our table who was the least comfortable playing a female character, it was, we later discovered, symptomatic of his deeper issues with differentiating reality from fantasy. He felt uncomfortable 'playing a girl' because he was more strongly identifying with his characters than might have been strictly healthy. The rest of my friends keep a stronger separation between our characters and our selves, and don't get all, "Black Leaf, NOOOO!!!!"
Well, most women I've seen play male characters have played them as stereotypes as well. That or they have tended to want to play gay men. I've seen good RP from them, but for the most part it seems just as awkward as when men play women characters. Your experiences may vary of course...
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I think its not just a matter of comfort in the group. At a table with people i dont know well i think i would normally stick to my own gender. Roleplaying gender based interaction can get a little akward if you dont know the people and you are playing outside your actual gender.
I think this sums up the main problem with playing female characters i.e. the inmaturity of some of the fellow players at the game table.The lesson, don't play with immature little brats. In fact, a good way to find out if you're dealing with such is to broach the playing of female characters and watch the players/DM reactions.
All the Best,
Kerney
I think I misunderstand (and I made part of the misunderstanding). I guess asking the question and asking a few others help you gadge what kind of group you're joining. For example, in 3.5 the UA varients were some of my personal favorites in the system. Asking about that book told me a lot about the playstyle of the group I was joining.
Asking about their attitude (perhaps only to the GM) toward cross gender characters can also tell you a lot. A positive response might suggest heavy role players while a negative response could suggest anything from bad experiences to a straightlaced group or perhaps a level of inmaturity.
All the Best,
Kerney
What does annoy is people who assume my character will be female just because I happen to be female.
I stopped making that assumption a long time ago. Was some years ago that a fairly new female player to the group was playing a male character with a fairly non-distinct fantasyish name (who can tell with elf names nowadays?). I as the dm misjudged her character for like 4 sessions which led to some fairly amusing moments when a very brutish manly npc made advances on 'her'. After a good laugh I started paying more attention to the F or M letter on that gender line of the character sheet.
I have had female members of my group go long periods playing male characters, and have had many male members play female, though I definately think there is a trend of female players more likely to play male character then the other way around. I dont think its any direct reluctance in my group, i just think its a matter of the kinds of characters player are interested in pretending to be.
I agree with Mok. I find it disturbing because in my experience, it's never done well. It's like watching nightclub performers in drag: it's never all that interesting to begin with and gets tedious fast.
I agree with Mok. I find it disturbing because in my experience, it's never done well. It's like watching nightclub performers in drag: it's never all that interesting to begin with and gets tedious fast.
I guess its all about how much effort you put into the character. If you just play yourself (or some aspect there of) and have an F on your character sheet, I would agree it's not really worth it. Its when you are really trying to play something that you arent that it makes it worthwhile.
You know, I'm reminded of PaizoCon UK '09, where there was a running contest between a sorcerer and a wizard (both female) across several games to see who could describe the skimpiest, sexiest outfit.
Both were played by girls.
By contrast, my female monk was quite conservative and restrained.
I have not rolled a cross gender character in a PnP game yet, but that's because I'm new to PnP; I will try it soon. I played mmorpg's for several years though, and I will say that some of the female characters I played were some of the most fun. I think it is because it's easier to see the character as a character you are storytelling rather than a representation of yourself if the character is the opposite gender. When I played male characters, there was always a sense that this is me in this fantasy world. With the female characters I tended to see them as creations, and I wanted to see how they fared in the game world.
I don't know if that will work the same way in a live table top game though. I am not an actor at all; I am completely a storytelling style of role player. I don't enjoy acting, so it will be easy for me to play the character as "... and Befana tries to persuade Character B to do X or Y... etc."
Actually, gender isn't that big an issue in role-playing. There are men who think like women and women who think like men, even in our world, so it's a fallacy to say that men and women don't think like each other (if you don't believe me, take the test). Further, you are playing a character in a fantasy world in a culture that is not one that ever existed on our world.
To say you cannot play a member of the opposite sex is like saying you cannot play a dwarf/elf/orc/whatever because you have never experienced life from there perspective. The fun in role-playing is imagining you are that person ...
Just because/ there are men who can think like women and vice versa, doesn't mean than any particular person would find it easy to do so.
You miss the point - the point is not that a man has to think like a woman in order to play one, the point is that he could be playing a woman that thinks more like a man. His best effort is always definable as 'good enough' in the light of this.
As to the logic of playing fantasy characters...well what can I say but that they are fantasy characters. Furthermore, when one plays a Dwarf, for instance, one plays a role based on a defined (explictly or implicitly) by the setting. To put in another way, a man from New York who is asked to act the part of a Southern gentleman would might take on the cultural aspects of upbringing and environment. The same asked to play a SOuthern woman might have a much more difficult time.
Might does not equal can't, and once again people are individuals, and you usually don't get more atypical than adventurers. You must remember that you are not playing a 'typical southern woman' but 'the southern woman involved in the adventure'.
To deny that men and women think differently is to deny culture, environment and biology.
Culture and environment can thrust different roles in society on men and women, and biology is as variable as the individuals themselves. In my experience, the cultural roles we undertake can thrust different expectations on men and women and hence a catalogue of shared experiences between most men that are different to most women, but these do not make them think differently - they think differently because everyone thinks differently. The fact that each gender has separate shared experiences and expectations only gives the illusions that they think differently based on gender. In reality, you have logical women and intuitive men - less common than the other way around, but they exist.
I am male. I appreciate the female way of seeing the world because it brings balance. I appreciate the benefits of being different. To bring this discussion back on topic, I find that the dynamics of a mixed sex group is completely different that a same sex group. The reason is that the sexes are different and they bring their unique (as well as common) characteristics to the game with them.
Indeed they do, and this is why some players like to play the opposite gender sometimes. There's no real reason that they shouldn't.
Research (and let's not get into the cite your sources give and take, a simple Google search will satisfy either arguement's side and lead nowhere but to frustration) has demonstrated that male and female brains physiologically function differently.
Indeed they do - but my point is, there are men with brains that are physiologically more female than male, as well as the opposite, as some of the same studies have confirmed.
Saying everyone thinks differently is like saying that all humans look different therefore we are just like dogs. Everyone does think differently--slightly--but even with those individual variations the diffent responses exhibited by genders is identifiable.
Tendencies are identifiable, I do not disagree. However, these are tendencies, and individuals can defy the trends.
By the way, you also jumped from my statement that male and female brains work differently to a statement about logic and intuition. I made no such assertion and I've never read a scientific study that would assert such a thing.
Yes, that was my bad! My point was that there are men who think like women, and women who think like men, to put it another way.
While a male and female may reach exactly the same conclusion, the logical progression of thoughts tends (note that it "tends") to be different. How much of this difference is a result of learned behaviour (learning is the process of establishing or discarding neurological pathways and is, therefore, still physological and biological) and how much is genetic is a matter for further research.
Oh yes, it certainly is! What we can say is that there are general trends, but individuals can vary enormously.
I think we are more in agreement than not, in any event.
I prefer to match my own gender with my characters, especially in games where you have to role play. The last time I played a female character, the game ran for three years, and then we had some hardcore roleplayers join. This led to the DM constantly trying to hook my character up with other PCs under the justification of "rebuilding the noble lineage." I ended up dropping that character (the DM NPC-ed her, since she was an essential plot character), and rejoining the game as a male character since we had gone from virtually no roleplaying at all, to a game where combat was essentially decided on the roleplaying.
If its just a hack and slash, I flip a heavily weighted d3 and let fate decide. Or I just play a Warforged.
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I've played one male character out of 7 characters, and that was to fit a fictional character concept for an ongoing holiday game.
I like playing female more than male. (It's certainly easier for them to get laid in-game...though that's true IRL as well.)
My fiance plays both male and female. The two female characters I'm familiar with are a cleric and a druid. He plays mostly caster types in general, though.
I've seen opposite gender played with two other people. One was a lesbian playing male (though she didn't always play male), and the other was a guy playing a bard of Calistria.
With all the discussion about how the different sexes think, it makes me wonder when someone says they pick the sex of the character based on a concept, what is it that the sex defines? I mean, if you want a pregnant character, sure, that makes sense, but other than that, what other reason except a self-fulfilling* one would require one sex over another?
*If the concept is for a female pirate captain, then of course a female would be needed, but if the concept was for a pirate captain then either sex would work for the concept.
I usually choose a gender at random, but sometimes I have a specific idea.
My female half-orc fighter from 1st Edition was inspired by wondering what a female half-orc's life would be like. Making her male would of course lose that entire angle.
My female necromancer/monk was based on an NPC the PCs rescued in one of my game. The character could easily have been male, but a male with this lawful good personality would not have fit in well in this party. As a female, her alignment was considered "ladynight".
My female cleric/wizard was based on an idea I had for a character and decided to try in an RPG. The character could easily be male.
My male monk/ranger was based on a joke I read a long time ago about a guy who entered a monastery. A female character would have gotten tied up in mid-20th Century stereotypes of women.
I've long had an idea for a female drow trouble-maker who uses her charm and wits. A lot of those ideas ended up being used for my Iron Kingdoms winter-elf, whose gender was assigned randomly. A male wouldn't be able to charm male NPCs so readily.
Another idea I've had is for a male cleric of Pelor who is called "Father" for more than one reason...
I think often-times there might be a double standard that might make a concept work better with one gender than another.
Watching TV, Jay Leno was making fun of that Eclipse movie, and it reminded me of a Werewolf I once played in Werewolf: the Apocalypse. If the character had been female, I would be accused of hating women and wanting to make them look silly, but as a male PC the concept worked.
Well, about as well as an albino, alchoholic, pacifistic werewolf in Los Angelos could be expected to work.
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With all the discussion about how the different sexes think, it makes me wonder when someone says they pick the sex of the character based on a concept, what is it that the sex defines? I mean, if you want a pregnant character, sure, that makes sense, but other than that, what other reason except a self-fulfilling* one would require one sex over another?
Nothing would require such a thing. Indeed, assuming we rule out the need for pregnancy and procreation, we men could probably live just fine without women.
But I wouldn't want to live in that world, and I don't see the appeal in spending my recreational time in an imaginary world with no women either. I'm a bit past the 'no girls allowed in the clubhouse' stage.
A female character doesn't need to be female anymore than a male character needs to be male. It's a creative choice. I like to play with all of the crayons in the box, not just the 'safe' colors.
With all the discussion about how the different sexes think, it makes me wonder when someone says they pick the sex of the character based on a concept, what is it that the sex defines? I mean, if you want a pregnant character, sure, that makes sense, but other than that, what other reason except a self-fulfilling* one would require one sex over another?Nothing would require such a thing. Indeed, assuming we rule out the need for pregnancy and procreation, we men could probably live just fine without women.
But I wouldn't want to live in that world, and I don't see the appeal in spending my recreational time in an imaginary world with no women either. I'm a bit past the 'no girls allowed in the clubhouse' stage.
A female character doesn't need to be female anymore than a male character needs to be male. It's a creative choice. I like to play with all of the crayons in the box, not just the 'safe' colors.
Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you are saying here. I made no suggestion that alternate character choices shouldn't be used. I was just asking for clarification of people's claim that they picked a specific sex because of a character concept. For example Utgardloki mentioned a character concept of a drow. Drow society has very different roles for the different sexes. An overthrown leader of a drow house wouldn't be male, and so that character concept (overthrown drow leader) would pretty much have to be female. So certain there are very specific situations where one sex would be required for a specific role, but I think sometimes people don't look outside of the norm when it comes to sex choices.
For example, male players seem to, in a large but clearly not universal extent, consider that only female characters can have a past where they were prostitutes or victims of sexual assault. In fact male characters can have histories like that, it is only some player's inability/unwillingness to go beyond the cliches that limits them to females for those kinds of backgrounds.
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For example, male players seem to, in a large but clearly not universal extent, consider that only female characters can have a past where they were prostitutes or victims of sexual assault.
Indeed, and that's a huge pet peeve of mine, the 'Red Sonja origin' where rape = empowerment and turns the meek little girly victim into the powerful avatar of righteous vengeance. I've been fortunate enough to see almost none of that at the gaming table in the last 20 some years, but have seen more than enough of it in fantasy fiction, comic books, genre TV and movies, where it seems that a female character can't go more than a couple of years before some sort of victimization or, even more stomach-churning, supernatural pregnancy, occurs.
I strongly prefer for a female characters' sex organs to not play a part in their backstory, and I don't much care whether that is 'realistic' or not. (Similarly, my male characters penises don't generally have any relevance to their decisions to become fighters, priests, mages or rogues...)
I have noticed that I have a tendency to craft female characters who have picked up a torch dropped by a dead male relative and taken up adventuring after the loss of a family member. That's probably a sexist assumption on my part leaking through, having the female somewhat passively taking up a job that a male has already started, but then again, it could be just as easily seen as sexist in the other way, as the male obviously failed at whatever task he had set out to do and the woman is now showing up to finish what he started and 'show him how it should have been done.' Ah yes, the woman's role in life, cleaning up a man's mess. :)
Sex and gender are two different things.
This is a very important thing to know.
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On the flip side I have never meet a girl that never played a male character personally.I know one girl that plays male characters exclusively, usually elves and androgynous 'bishies'.I know a bloke who made a female character enchantress/transmuter. She/he/it (gah) was researching the mating habits of various creatures, first hand.
o_o
''Say, where's your mount?''
''Celeste said she'd stable it.''
''She's be gone a while, hasn't she?''
''Well, yes, why? ..oh ... OH!''
WIN.
Indeed, and that's a huge pet peeve of mine, the 'Red Sonja origin' where rape = empowerment and turns the meek little girly victim into the powerful avatar of righteous vengeance. I've been fortunate enough to see almost none of that at the gaming table in the last 20 some years, but have seen more than enough of it in fantasy fiction, comic books, genre TV and movies, where it seems that a female character can't go more than a couple of years before some sort of victimization or, even more stomach-churning, supernatural pregnancy, occurs.I strongly prefer for a female characters' sex organs to not play a part in their backstory, and I don't much care whether that is 'realistic' or not. (Similarly, my male characters penises don't generally have any relevance to their decisions to become fighters, priests, mages or rogues...)
Let see....
Traeranna (my female cleric/wizard) was called by her goddess to adventure. There was no need to rape or otherwise traumatize her, athough the fact that she is an orphan helped inspire her to help other people the way that the priest who adopted her helped her.
Vanae (my female winter elf sorceress/wizard/ranger) was kidnapped by gobbers. She was always insanely curious, and would have wandered off anyway, but the gobbers sold her to pirates who brought her hundreds of miles south before she escaped.
Denara (my female necromancer/monk) was captured by an evil necromancer who killed her entire family, and tried to use her in some vile arcane ritual, tainting her with necromantic energy. That's why she swore revenge against all necromancers.
Nora (my current female sorceress/bard/druid) is fascinated by adventures and wants to experience things for herself.
Indeed, and that's a huge pet peeve of mine, the 'Red Sonja origin' where rape = empowerment and turns the meek little girly victim into the powerful avatar of righteous vengeance. I've been fortunate enough to see almost none of that at the gaming table in the last 20 some years, but have seen more than enough of it in fantasy fiction, comic books, genre TV and movies, where it seems that a female character can't go more than a couple of years before some sort of victimization or, even more stomach-churning, supernatural pregnancy, occurs.
It's a bit of a struggle between the desire to avoid the cliché and stereotype and in some cases trying to represent realistically what occurs. I have included sex in the background of one character in a game alongside one of yours, Set, but did so because it was simply what I felt would have happened - Waifrin was a slave, female, with an off-the-scale charisma. To assume sex wouldn't have been involved at some point would have been unrealistic (it's there in most slave-owning societies, after all, and this is Cheliax), I thought, and so I included it as the incentive for her escape. That said, it's not something I've dealt on over much, and where the character is going is more important to me.
This leads on to another angle, that of romance in the game. It's only normal that when you have a group of men and women in close proximity to one another some of them take an interest. So how do you handle IC romance? I treat it as just another aspect of role-playing, but I know it makes some players uncomfortable to even involve it ...
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Indeed, and that's a huge pet peeve of mine, the 'Red Sonja origin' where rape = empowerment and turns the meek little girly victim into the powerful avatar of righteous vengeance. I've been fortunate enough to see almost none of that at the gaming table in the last 20 some years, but have seen more than enough of it in fantasy fiction, comic books, genre TV and movies, where it seems that a female character can't go more than a couple of years before some sort of victimization or, even more stomach-churning, supernatural pregnancy, occurs.It's a bit of a struggle between the desire to avoid the cliché and stereotype and in some cases trying to represent realistically what occurs. I have included sex in the background of one character in a game alongside one of yours, Set, but did so because it was simply what I felt would have happened - Waifrin was a slave, female, with an off-the-scale charisma. To assume sex wouldn't have been involved at some point would have been unrealistic (it's there in most slave-owning societies, after all, and this is Cheliax), I thought, and so I included it as the incentive for her escape. That said, it's not something I've dealt on over much, and where the character is going is more important to me.
This leads on to another angle, that of romance in the game. It's only normal that when you have a group of men and women in close proximity to one another some of them take an interest. So how do you handle IC romance? I treat it as just another aspect of role-playing, but I know it makes some players uncomfortable to even involve it ...
Many of my characters of any kind have some truama in their background as motivation to leave there old life behind
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Honestly, it just puts a gap in for me. When someone rolls an opposite-sex character, i can't really bring myself to treat them as that gender, try though I might. And when you do try, it makes them feel awkward and nervous.
I have games with many females, I have yet to see one roll a male. Most of the males I have seen do so are the more socially awkward men I've met that somehow find being female allows them to fulfill their repressed desires; not sure how it works, certainly I'm not an expert on psychology. I do know it's hard to treat them properly in the roll; and it gets to be like in Gamers 2, where the character has to be constantly reminded they're female.
So overall I'd prefer it was avoided, but when it does happen I've learned to simply ignore it and let them fulfill their needs.
And I guess I did once meet the reverse, and that was a couple where each played the opposite sex. Guy played a shy wizard while the woman played a brute barbarian constantly hitting on her. I actually found that cute in a sense, maybe because the couple really had fun with that, maybe because I have double standards? Dunno, but it worked.
In live games I tend to play male characters; simply because I have to think about playing a female and sometimes I slip out of character, easily to slip out of character as a male playing a male, just lose the extras.
In PbP I play both males and females, my favorite character is female actually.
In DDO, I play males exclusively, however in City of Villains/Heroes I have more female characters than male.
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This leads on to another angle, that of romance in the game. It's only normal that when you have a group of men and women in close proximity to one another some of them take an interest. So how do you handle IC romance? I treat it as just another aspect of role-playing, but I know it makes some players uncomfortable to even involve it ...
I'm not a fan of it. Like most people, I like to think I'm relatively open-minded, but I'm not at all comfortable with the idea of RPing any sort of physical relationship with another dude. Come to think of it, I'm not terribly interested with RPing a physical relationship with a female player in front of a bunch of other people.
I'm probablty less turned off by the 'dude' part than the 'creepy exhibitionist' part. :)
With Zarabeta, her attitude makes it likely that she'll die a virgin, although the constant bickering between her and Akorian could be mistaken for sexual tension by those who didn't know better...
I'm not a fan of it. Like most people, I like to think I'm relatively open-minded, but I'm not at all comfortable with the idea of RPing any sort of physical relationship with another dude. Come to think of it, I'm not terribly interested with RPing a physical relationship with a female player in front of a bunch of other people.
I'm probablty less turned off by the 'dude' part than the 'creepy exhibitionist' part. :)
I can understand that. I think it's possible to observe good taste while RPing a romance, but it isn't for everyone.
With Zarabeta, her attitude makes it likely that she'll die a virgin, although the constant bickering between her and Akorian could be mistaken for sexual tension by those who didn't know better...
Yes, I have chosen a rather more passionate personality with Waifrin, who isn't exactly backward in coming forward.
People have played all types of characters in the 30+ years I have been DMing and playing, but the majority seem to have preferred staying in gender. I do myself, largely because when I roleplay I am living out my own fantasies and like to envision the characters as an alternate version of myself. It may reflect my lack of imagination, but I can't really picture a female version of myself. I have played female characters before, but never for long, and I can't say I do it terribly well. I also have a very deep bass voice and a beard, so even when I DM, I know that it is a little jarring for people (especially my wife and daughters) when I'm roleplaying a woman.
One reason that I have seen a preference for cross-gender roleplaying was earlier in my life playing with younger and less mature (or more hormone driven) folks, when some women I played with would always play male characters because they were sick of the guys at the table using their characters to hit on them and use juvenile sexual innuendo. My group now has a more mature attitude (or it could just be that the only women currently playing with us are my wife and daughters, and they don't dare hit on them in my presence :)}.
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I'm not a fan of it. Like most people, I like to think I'm relatively open-minded, but I'm not at all comfortable with the idea of RPing any sort of physical relationship with another dude. Come to think of it, I'm not terribly interested with RPing a physical relationship with a female player in front of a bunch of other people.
I'm probablty less turned off by the 'dude' part than the 'creepy exhibitionist' part. :)
With Zarabeta, her attitude makes it likely that she'll die a virgin, although the constant bickering between her and Akorian could be mistaken for sexual tension by those who didn't know better...
I'm a guy. A majority of my characters are female. As I've done 90%+ of the GM'ing since 1978, those opportunities have come few and far between. Since my players have seen me play male and female NPC's, it didn't seem unnatural to see me play a female PC.
Similarly, it didn't seem unnatural for my female characters to be involved in romances. They've been involved with NPC's and with PC's. For a while, it seemed like my character was getting involved with a particular player's PC's fairly often. He just seemed to make the kind of PC that my character would find attractive (one was a terrific bodyguard while my character was a noble in a Fading Suns campaign, for example). We got the expected jokes... but all of us are married (half of us to women who used to be in our gaming group) so its just the sort of ribbing you'd expect from your buddies. One of my characters was even married to another player's.
The (politely said) exact details of their relationship just aren't necessary to describe. Maybe some like that sort of thing. I'd be way too embarrassed whatever the configuration of the participants. Since that's not our preference, when our characters are intimate, it doesn't even have to be mentioned. How often do your own friends know when you've been intimate with your partner... unless you're the type to talk about it?
Just knowing one character is in love with another is enough for the story. What they do behind closed doors is just candy. We know Han Solo loves Leia. Peter Parker loves Mary Jane. Arwen loves Aragorn. For the story, we don't need to know if there's anything physical going on that we aren't shown. We can guess, theorize, discuss, debate, wonder all we want... and maybe that's even more enticing. But, for the story, all we need to know is just how that motivates the characters to do some of the things they end up doing... or not doing. I honestly can't see where that creates discomfort.
With all the discussion about how the different sexes think, it makes me wonder when someone says they pick the sex of the character based on a concept, what is it that the sex defines? I mean, if you want a pregnant character, sure, that makes sense, but other than that, what other reason except a self-fulfilling* one would require one sex over another?
Well, a whole bunch of reasons really, but basically of that sex =/= gender thing. It's not just about sex, but about gender, and gender is an important part of how one fits into society.
Plucking a random example, in some standard pseduo-feudal environment, the youngest male child of a noble family is pretty well good for joining the church or standing around quietly in case his elder sibling's die; the youngest female might not even stand a chance at being a heir, or might be extremely valuable as a possible political pawn by marriage. Either way, the reasons why each might take to adventure are different, or at least could be so, which is what I think that people mean.
The whole situation is probably made a bit worse by how the class system interacts with gender roles, because fantasy and fantasy gaming has its own set of gender stereotypes for each class. The point is, if one wants to use, avoid, or subvert those stereotypes, sex choice matters because it creates gender expectations.