Gender, Settings, Mechanics, and Everything Else

[JamesonCourage]

As a reason for banning cross-gender PCs it's certainly unreasonable IMO.

I don't think it's unreasonable at all if it's reasonable to everyone involved. Thus my comment on the social contract.

Maybe it's to do with me mostly DMing,

I only really get to GM. I've played three sessions over the last two to three years. I played for years before GMing, though, so I have a decent base, but the majority of my experience is from GMing.

but I can't understand why anyone would think it's ok for the male DM to play female PCs,

I find your comment misleading, if I'm reading it right. I don't think a GM momentarily playing a female character is anything close to a long term PC. A GM is momentarily playing as an NPC. The effect is usually radically different than the long term, interpersonal communication required within a party, where one player (not the GM) is playing a cross-gender PC.

To that end, I don't think the same people that have objections to players playing cross-gender PCs would be okay with a cross-gender GMPC. It'd cause the same problems they already have (in the context of our conversation, it'd break immersion constantly).

but not for the male player to play a female PC.

As I said, I think it's quite different. However, I imagine if a player character (not an NPC) is immersion-breaking when it's cross-gender, than a lot of cross-gender NPCs are immersion breaking as well, even if they are momentary. It probably isn't to the same degree, but I doubt it's a one-sided problem.

I think it becomes a matter of what people to find "necessary evils" of the system. It's seems to fit perfectly within the bounds of verisimilitude to have a party that is all one gender, or mixed however to match the party (the characters' genders match the genders of the players). However, having no female NPCs at all would go against the grain of verisimilitude, as that's not how anyone imagines the world would be. And, if immersion is a top concern, verisimilitude is usually a top concern.

To that end, it makes a certain amount of logical sense to me for someone to say, "I don't think players need to be cross-gender, as it kills immersion for some of us, but the GM should probably have to play cross-gender NPCs from time to time, otherwise the lack of verisimilitude will break immersion for us, and I value verisimilitude within the setting more than I value my immersion in a setting with a premise that inherently disengages me from the setting."

There's no logical gap, there, to me.

Of course there are also the male DMs who won't play female NPCs...

And they aren't wrong to do so if their group supports it. It's not a style I've played under, or used personally, but I imagine if someone wanted to do this, and everyone was okay with it, then fun comes before other factors for them. If they won't use female NPCs because of some other issue with women, than it's just a symptom of a larger problem, and this RPG isn't a huge concern in the big picture, unless they're invested in it to an unhealthy degree.

As always, play what you like

 

[Cor Azer]

As a completely subjective, anecdotal observation: In games I've run, there has been a distinct improvement in the quality of cross-gender play when there are players of both genders present. This was true comparing mixed groups to both all male and all female groups. (I'd like to be a fly on the wall some day to watch a female DM with an all female group. However, I think the all female group I had thought of me as separate as the DM. So still an interesting sample.)

OTOH, there has been a distinct improvement in the overall quality of the roleplay when there are players of both genders. So how much of the above is included in the general roleplay improvement, I can't say.

In my past groups, roleplaying to the depth that gender actually becomes an issue didn't really occur until my groups became older, and theoretically more mature, but cross gender PCs were known before that - mostly because a few of my players had a drow kick and such things.

Since then, almost all of my groups have been 50% or more female. I won't speculate on the number of cross gender characters, but I can recall a few (I've played some).

It's also been since then that our groups' roleplaying has gotten deeper, and campaigns have become more than dungeon crawls.

Depending on your standard of "better" or "improved", I don't know if I can say that it's the mixed group that has improved the roleplay, or just maturity. For me, it has definitely improved, but I couldn't pinpoint the reason.

 

[Cor Azer]

There are 3 billion plus human women; there are no elves. Because of that, when a human player runs an elf character, there is no concept of "doing it wrong", it's all just about interpretation. But when a male player portrays a female character (or vice versa), this same is not true.

I guess I can see what you're saying here, but given the shared source of most of our "elf" knowledge (at least insofar as D&D is concerned), there is plenty to hang a concept on such that one person's interpretation is another's "doing it wrong".

And unless a person knows all the 3 billion women, I have a hard time accepting that they can say someone is "doing it wrong" - as long as the player is putting in a good faith effort.

In my experience, cross-gender play has almost always been a disaster. Like the cross-gender play portrayed in "The Gamers 2", only worse. Much, much worse. That said, I'm not seeing the same issues in my current campaign - it may well be a maturity issue.

I've never seen The Gamers 2, so I don't get the reference, but I do fully accept that cross gender play can be a complete and utter disaster. That's why I use the caveat of "good faith effort".

I do think it's a maturity issue. It loops back onto my "good faith effort" - mature players are more likely to put in good faith efforts, in my experience.

(It's much the same problem as the "universal roaming" mobile phone in Doctor Who, or the Macbook hacking the alien mothership in Independence Day. I have no problem with arcane and futuristic technology; I accept that as part of the genre. But I know these technologies, probably better than the writers, and I know they don't work like that, and that really causes problems.)

While I can certainly appreciate the issues with those things ("It doesn't work that way!"), I don't think it's quite the same thing. For one, those are technical problems and factually based. Whereas, for example, your experience may be that women don't do certain things that a player wants to do, it may not be a fact that they can't, in which case, it comes down to the good faith effort.

The difference is that the DM plays huge numbers of different characters, almost all very briefly. If the portrayal is off, it's probably a matter of minutes before it's done and forgotten. A bad cross-gender PC is a problem for the duration, which may be months of play.

I can see that. In my experience, (or at least, when I run a game), such short term NPCs don't really get any sort of portrayal at all (if it doesn't seem relevant, the shopkeep doesn't get any more detail than "it's a shopkeep"). It's a bit insane on my part, but every NPC that might become plot relevant (including side plots and hooks) gets some sort of development in my mind, and most get a note or two in my logs. Even if the plot relevance isn't going to occur for ages.

So, in my case, yes, female NPCs can be just as long term as PCs.

 

[Balsamic Dragon]

To that end, it makes a certain amount of logical sense to me for someone to say, "I don't think players need to be cross-gender, as it kills immersion for some of us, but the GM should probably have to play cross-gender NPCs from time to time, otherwise the lack of verisimilitude will break immersion for us, and I value verisimilitude within the setting more than I value my immersion in a setting with a premise that inherently disengages me from the setting."

I can only imagine what you would think of the verisimilitude a game where a female GM played mostly female NPCs, villains, etc., and only played a male NPC "from time to time"

 

[JamesonCourage]

I can only imagine what you would think of the verisimilitude a game where a female GM played mostly female NPCs, villains, etc., and only played a male NPC "from time to time"

I wasn't the one who expressed the concerns of immersion based on cross-gender PCs. In fact, I've directly expressed that this wouldn't be an issue that would make me stop someone from playing a cross-gender PC. I'm defending an obviously rational point that people have seemed to express a certain amount of dismissal towards. So, feel free to imagine me thinking anything you want about that game.

As always, play what you like

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I guess I can see what you're saying here, but given the shared source of most of our "elf" knowledge (at least insofar as D&D is concerned), there is plenty to hang a concept on such that one person's interpretation is another's "doing it wrong".

That's a big assumption. After all, JRRT isn't the only one who wrote about elves. And how he wrote about elves changed over time ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elf_(Middle-earth) ). Heck, JRRT isn't the only source used by D&D's designers that talks about elves.

And some of us players have also wandered far from JRRT's works as well...including sampling the very works that inspired him.

And unless a person knows all the 3 billion women, I have a hard time accepting that they can say someone is "doing it wrong" - as long as the player is putting in a good faith effort.

Well, Wilt Chaimberlain is dead, and Gene Simmons doesn't play D&D.

 

[Stormonu]

*shrug*

In my opinion, maturity in cross-gender play doesn't factor in as much as self-consiousness about playing another gender.

I mostly DM, but one of my favorite (and rather few) characters that I played as a player back in my college days was a female witch necromancer named Kalli, which lasted for two years. One of my (male) friends played a female warrior in the same campaign. We didn't think twice about playing female characters, I don't remember anyone else in the group having any problems with it.

Now having been married for 15 years and looking back on it, my portrayal wasn't very "girly" - it was approached about the same way as someone might approach playing an elf. But I had a great time and don't regret it one bit.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In my opinion, maturity in cross-gender play doesn't factor in as much as self-consiousness about playing another gender.

I don't know...some of the worst cross-gender play I've seen was perpetrated by teens and guys who never really grew up.

Its one thing to play a slut. After all, they DO exist. But its another thing entirely to play ALL of your cross-gendered PCs as sluts of pornographic magnitude.

 

[S'mon]

Now having been married for 15 years and looking back on it, my portrayal wasn't very "girly" - it was approached about the same way as someone might approach playing an elf. But I had a great time and don't regret it one bit.

My female warrior PCs tend not to be very 'girly'. The female warriors*, bodyguards et al I've known IRL haven't been very 'girly', either.

*Well, some army women are quite girly. Others could clearly kick my butt. When playing an heroic female warrior who could kick the butts of umpteen normal guys, the latter typically seem a more appropriate model.

 

[delericho]

I just thought of one example - when my wife was courting me, she sent me a scanned picture - of her rock hammer. I guess if she was playing a Dwarf Delericho would be happy, but a human?

Interesting...

Firstly, roleplaying isn't real life. "Truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction must make sense."

Secondly, just because a woman owns a rock hammer doesn't mean I think she's "doing it wrong". You seem to have me mistaken for someone I'm not.

Thirdly, if you choose to allow cross-gender play at your table, you do that. I really don't care.

However, what I do object to is suggestions of "homophobia" or "huge psychological issues", when my ban on cross-gender play was a result of only ever seeing it done horribly.