Guys playing girls (chime in, ladies)

der_kluge

Adventurer
"It all adds up... we feel 4% certain that you are...
A WOMAN!"

"Statistically speaking, you are a woman—whether you know it or not."

Wow. Wait til I tell my wife.
Maybe that's why I can play female characters so well.
 

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Emiricol

Registered User
It all adds up... we feel 28% certain that you are... A Man!

Compared to others...
5% more male than you — 2% like you — 93% more female than you
Just painful. I am a guy, but how screwed up do I have to be to be in the top 7% ?? I've had a lot of gay friends over the years, and probably as many female friends as male, so I'd have thought myself more in the middle. Not that the test itself is proven or anything :)

Amusing distraction from my job!
 

Epinephrine

First Post
Based on the data given after the test, it seems like they just picked interesting questions that might have some relation to gender and let the computer figure out what's relevant. That is, it looks like they convert your results into a point in some large-dimensional space and see whether the closest points (by some measure of "closest") are mostly male or female. Then they take your actual gender down and have another data point to compare others' to. Cute little application of a standard machine learning algorithm, IMO.

Anyway, to stay on topic, I played an an Arcana Unearthed game using PHB races last year with five players.
One male player played a very distinctive female character loosely modeled after Go-Go Yubari from Kill Bill. The character's behavior didn't suggest one gender or the other. There was never any pronoun trouble with her.
One male player played a male character. Masculine corrupt cop archetype, generally masculine behavior. No pronoun trouble.
One female player played a male character, with a pretty common male archetype, an older veteran warrior. Other than that his behavior was pretty gender-neutral. There was frequent pronoun trouble.
I, a male player, played a female character, part of whose personality took from a predominantly female archetype, the caregiver. (That covered about a third of what she was outwardly like, and it wasn't her true nature.) Like the others, gender-neutral behavior. There was frequent pronoun trouble.
And then one male player played a male character, who also encountered frequent pronoun trouble. His character's behavior was gender-neutral, but he was a sea witch, which is a very feminine archetype, and his name, Saena, was also feminine.

I really don't know what to make of all of it. Generally I've seen frequent pronoun trouble when people play across gender, so two of the cross-played characters come as no surprise. But the other two characters are unusual. The closest thing to a conclusion I can draw is that, holding behavior constant, the strength of the archetype is very important to correctly envisioning a character.
 

Wombat

First Post
Hmmm, I'm not entirely sure what to make of this quiz.

I took it and got "You are 0% likely to be a woman".

That's 0%, zero percent.

The bar at the bottom showed more female than male answers, but a fair number of "ambiguous answers".

So I guess the test has no idea what I am...

Maybe I should have answered less honestly? Did I confuse the machine that much?
 

Kemrain

First Post
Given that my life has been an experience in Cross-Gender role playing I think I have a unusually broad view of the situation. In my (relatively short) time, I've come to see Gender not as a "One or the Other" situation, but much more as "Shades of Grey." People tend to lean more towards one than the other, but there aren't two distinct categories, and there's plenty of bleedover. I've met women best described as masculine, and men who everyone agreed were effeminate, and, though they didn't conform to their gender rolls, they were comfortable with themselves so I could only be happy for them. Male and Female are biological terms, Masculine and Feminine are psychological and sociological ideas, and though they're related, the two groups have less to do with eachother than most seem to think.

I think that most of Gender is learned, and thus part of the character's background. We learn what both genders are expected to be like when we're very young, and it's hard to break these mental molds and learn to see things differently. I also don't think most people often stop and think "what does it mean to be male?" or "what does it mean to be female?" except under exceptionally introspective circomstances (though some people seem to ask once and never stop thinking about it.) We start learning our Gender Rolls as soon as we're out of the womb (male and female infants are treated remarcably different), and society pushes us along it's path until we die. Straying from this path is both easy and hard, and can carry grave social consequences, though people do it all the time, and some groups are more tolerant than others.

As for the biological factor, having been on both sides of this equation, I must say that hormones do play a part in your mood, and shouldn't be discounted (though it is very easy to overplay, as these things are so commonly stereotyped.) The physical differences in males and females are suprisingly small, and, thankfully, DnD makes no moves to quantify them in the rules (a very safe decision.) This leaves it up to you to portray these differences... Or not to, if you don't care to. It is okay to play a character who comes off as androgenous; many people in real life do, and would only do so more the more difficult you made determining their sex by looking for visual or auditory cues (like a faceless character in a game.)

Most of what I'd give for advice on roleplaying a character of the opposite sex has already been given. It, like all the rest, is a list of what not to do, and I won't bother repeating what others have said. I will only add that, "Everyone is unique, and as long as you make your character a Real Person, their Sex and Gender don't matter at all."

Given my position, I like games that take Gender Rolls into account, and go into the consequences of breaking them, but these ideas aren't for everyone, and many people are made terribly uncomfortable by them. Just as I'm made uncomfortable with the idea of a group I couldn't play either male of female characters with. To each their own, and it's all about having fun. Remember it's just a game.

- Kemrain the Transgendered Person.

Oh, and I've taken that Gender test. It had no idea what I was. I found that extremely comforting for some reason- perhapse because I took it before I had an idea what I was.
 

vulcan_idic

Explorer
The one statistic they quoted me was something like 48% to 52% or something in that vicinity, which I'm fairly certain isn't a statistically significant margin of difference between the two...

Which reaffirms my opinion that regardless of what sex, gender, racial, class, or any other groups your character might fit in choose a character - stereotypical or not as you choose as long as there's a character motivation for that choice - and play the individual true to themselves.

As Laertes said to his son (admittedly a questionable source of advice, but still...) "This above all, to thine own self be true." Or to your characters own self as the case may be.
 

MarauderX

Explorer
Playing a stereotype?

Str 4
Dex 12
Con 10
Int 10
Wis 20
Cha 18

Bard 1, Monk 1, Druid 7.
Is this character male or female?


Female.
Does this fit the sexist pig definition (via stats) of a woman? Perhaps, but it's all in the way she'll be RP'ed. She is the next PC I am looking to play in the upcoming second part of a homebrew campaign, and since there are no fey (that we are aware of) in the world I thought I would start one up. Not aiming to be any character of societal consequence, the motivation will be that of a tree-hugging zoologist. Sterotypical? Sure, but that's what I am looking to play this time around and think I'll enjoy it thoroughly, but there will be no eye-batting or other flirting going on since I don't think it fits. Think Diplomacy 0, Wild Empathy 15.
 

Kemrain

First Post
Having just read my last post, I must admit that I'm feeling some pangs of fear and regret. However, I'm also feeling trusting and hopeful, so I won't edit it away and pray no one read it. Here's to openness.

- Kemrain the Hopefully not Frightfully Ignorant.
 

Rel

Liquid Awesome
Kemrain said:
Having just read my last post, I must admit that I'm feeling some pangs of fear and regret. However, I'm also feeling trusting and hopeful, so I won't edit it away and pray no one read it. Here's to openness.

- Kemrain the Hopefully not Frightfully Ignorant.

I wouldn't sweat it, Kemrain. I'll tell you the same thing I tell my players, "I'm not here to judge you. I'm just here to kill you." ;)
 

Look_a_Unicorn

First Post
Kemrain said:
Having just read my last post, I must admit that I'm feeling some pangs of fear and regret. However, I'm also feeling trusting and hopeful, so I won't edit it away and pray no one read it. Here's to openness.

- Kemrain the Hopefully not Frightfully Ignorant.

You seem to be mostly concerned about your character concept. You admit it might be a little cliched (I'm not sure about that), but if your goal is to play a character that interests you, I don't think anyone will fault you. If the character turns out to be annoying, that's something for you & your group to sort out :)
 

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