Comfort withcross gender characters based on your gender

[Jeff Wilder]

I responded that I'm uncomfortable with cross-gendered characters. In 24 years of roleplaying, I've never seen a player run a cross-gender PC well ... I've never even seen it done with mediocrity. In general, in my experience, people who routinely play cross-gender (and especially those who always play cross-gender) are doing so to seek attention.

Two caveats:

One, I've never played with a woman who tried playing a male character, so my experience and opinion is based solely on male-playing-female. Call me sexist, but I believe women would be better at playing cross-gender, primarily because I believe women in general would do so for different reasons than men. (And secondarily because I believe women in general are better roleplayers than men.)

Two, I'm also uncomfortable with "bizarre" character concepts -- e.g., the one-horned minotaur cleric of a unicorn goddess -- for pretty much the same reason: the types of people who want to play those types of characters do it very, very badly, and they do it to get attention. Why is it that the players that can't even roleplay a standard class-race combination well think they need something off-the-wall?

 

[MetalBard]

I voted in the first category as well, that I'm a male and uncomfortable with cross-gender characters. Now, I've only seen males playing females, so I don't know about the reverse, but in my 12 years of role-playing I've only seen one male play a female well, and that female was pretty asexual. The character did develop a crush on one of the male NPCs, but it was the non-sexual kind. I've never allowed cross-genders in my games since then, because I haven't seen it reasonably played since then.

 

[Wisdom Penalty]

I responded that I'm uncomfortable with cross-gendered characters. In 24 years of roleplaying, I've never seen a player run a cross-gender PC well ... I've never even seen it done with mediocrity. In general, in my experience, people who routinely play cross-gender (and especially those who always play cross-gender) are doing so to seek attention.

ditto+++

*snip* Crude stereotyping is not okay. -Darkness
players get to pick the campaigns they want to be a part of, just as GMs should have some say over the type of campaign they're running.

it's as simple as that.

perhaps we should schedule a battle royale. in the left corner: Destan, Diaglo, Teflon Billy, Wulf Ratbane. in the right corner: S'mon, die_kluge,and some other pro-cross-gender guys (or gals). we can mandate wulf and his compatriots play female PCs while die_kluge & company play traditional male melee fighters (assuming die_kluge & co. are males). eric's grandmother can GM, unless she has a weak stomach, in which case piratecat can do the honors. ah, the madness! the world turned on its head! pandemonium!

this topic has now officially annoyed the hell out me. surely there must be something more interesting to talk about?

W.P.

 

[Crothian]

There's my answer as well.

Me three, even in a PbP game I ran the only person who wanted to play cross gender turned out to be the biggest trouble maker in the group by far.

 

[Wombat]

Cross-gender, cross-species, cross-dressing, whatever -- I have no problems with the concept, per se. What I do have a difficult time with is flat characters, characters that are only stats on a page with no attempt to play out a role.

Okay, I am primarily a GM, but about 1/3 (a bit more, probably) of the characters I have run as a player have been female. Equally, just shy of half of the NPCs that I run as a GM are female. I've never had any complaints about these cross-gender characterizations, even from my female players.

Yes, I've seen badly played female characters out of males, and vice versa. More importantly, I've seen males playing horrible male characters, and again their counterparts. I work hard with my players (or GM if I am a player) to develop appropriate characters who feel like they belong in the world -- that means more than simply worrying about feats, skills, or gender.

**shrug**

I see this whole thing pretty much as a non-issue.

 

[Ukyo the undead]

I´m male, and confortable in palying female characters.

In fact, half or more of my characters were female.

I play magic users as male characters, and fighters as female characters. The exception are rogues and Paladins( mostly males), and sorcerers( depending heavilly in what I am using for source of inspiration for the character). As a rule, if a character do or is something that I think have nothing to do with my personality or abilities, I play it as a female.

 

[Mordane76]

At the risk of sounding sexist or homophobic...

I'm a male. I selected indifferent because I had no other option.

I am normally comfortable with women playing cross-gender, but I'm a little less comfortable with men doing so. I've seen it done well and I've seen it done poorly. As long as the sexuality of the character is not openly obvious or used as a goad, plot point, or manipulative tactic, it works fine for me. When guys try to use their character's "womanly wiles," it just creeps me out, because it usually comes across as stereotypical stripper/hooker-talk.

It completely destroys my suspension of reality because it forces me to listen to a usually burly man trying to say things he's heard porn stars say in movies. It's rare when a man uses his character's wiles in the subtle tenor normal women use them in; we're just not experienced enough with these actions to do something like that correctly...

It's even more disturbing, and usually grounds for immediate censor in my games, when a guy makes a female character so he can explore his lesbian fantasies... they never say it up front, they wait until some inappropriate scene to try and come onto another female character or NPC... bad all around.


This might have something to do with the types of games I generally run though - I tend to leave the sexual themes at home unless discussed ahead of time, and then they are usually only dealt with if absolutely necessary or appropriate for the genre and particular scene involving them. Otherwise, I prefer that people leave the sexual stuff at the door to the gaming table - it's just easier that way.

 

[Darkness]

Just a friendly reminder of the EN World rules:

Keep it civil: Don't engage in personal attacks, name-calling, or blanket generalizations in your discussions.

Please keep it clean, folks. Thanks.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Human beings don't have gender. Gender is a grammatical concept.

That said, I play women* all the time . . . as the referee.

*Elf-women, giantesses, etc.

 

[the Jester]

Not only am I fine with cross-gender characters, I am baffled by those who are uncomfortable with them. I mean, really, what's the difference?