male playing female PC

[Kahuna Burger]

Oni's Doodles

as a random side note, I misread this as "oni's Poodles" and was disipointed when I realized it wasn't doggie pictures....

More relavant responses to your post will have to wait till after work.

Kahuna Burger

 

[S'mon]

A couple questions, to sate my curiousity.

What's everyone's take on a woman playing one of the archtypes/stereotypes that most people here seem to find offensive for a man to play?


For you DM's out there, do these archtypes/stereotypes exist in your campaign worlds or have they been completely purged? If so, was it because you believe them to be false, or because you found them offensive?

I have no objection to anyone of either gender playing an archetype/stereotype of either gender. Although they would get extra brownie points (and possibly XP) for working to make that character interesting, perhaps with a twist on the stereotype, or simply by really making an effort to 'get into' the role - character acting or in-depth roleplaying rather than simple 'role assumption'.

Having said that: some characters will always make me uncomfortable, and may not suit my game, and may be disallowed. That doesn't depend on the gender of the person playing the character, though. In PBEMS the worst sex-crazed female PCs I've seen have been played by women. I'd probably discourage or ban a sex-crazed PC (any gender, any orientation) in my tabletop game, should such a situation ever arise.

 

[Oni]

as a random side note, I misread this as "oni's Poodles" and was disipointed when I realized it wasn't doggie pictures....

Sorry you were disappointed, maybe I could draw doggie pic.

 

[seasong]

What's everyone's take on a woman playing one of the archtypes/stereotypes that most people here seem to find offensive for a man to play?

For you DM's out there, do these archtypes/stereotypes exist in your campaign worlds or have they been completely purged? If so, was it because you believe them to be false, or because you found them offensive?

Some Archetypes: Amazon, Crone, Ice Queen, Virgin, Whore.

Some Stereotypes: Butch Lesbian Amazon B****, Withered Witchy Crone, Dominatrix Ice Queen Sorceress In Leather, Sweet-Hearted Virgin, Whore That Looks Like A Sweet-Hearted Virgin.

The archetypes, in and of themselves, aren't particularly offensive to me. Below are some examples of why I like them in many cases. Done badly, of course, they become stereotypes, but that hasn't really happened in my campaigns. Below is NOT an exhaustive list (or close), and the archetypes I listed are just the ones that occurred to me first.

The Amazon can be a paragon of femminine empowerment, chaotic social forces (the original amazons were monsters - everything the greeks feared in women), and potent iconic imagery. Wonder Woman (by DC) is an Amazon Virgin, for example, and when she's done well, she RAWKS.

The Crone is one of my favorite character archetypes, although more difficult to pull off well than the Amazon, because she should be wise, eccentric, and seemingly capricious without losing her compassion, and without budging an inch on matters of tradition.

Ice Queens are the unattainable, arrogance personied, cat made manifest in flesh. They make good employers, aristocrats, and, if played as only mostly unattainable, a fascinating, campaign-long romance and seduction. In our superhero soap opera, one of my players (a lesbian) has been pursuing the Ice Queen NPC in my campaign for, oh, 6 months real time now .

The Virgin isn't, or shouldn't be, merely a sexual connotation. The virgin is from somewhere else, a utopic state, and she has been thrust into a more violent world where she must cope or fail... without losing the essential innocence that links her to her utopic home. Sometimes in the story, the Virgin loses her innocence and can never return home; sometimes, she keeps it, and either returns home to safety, or fights on in the more violent world for principles the world doesn't understand yet.

The Whore is also the earth mother, and her primary traits are freedom of sexuality, compassion for men, passion for life. She makes a good healer of wounds, both those of the flesh and those of the soul. In many cultures, the Whore was also the Confidante (including our modern culture). Of course, true Whores are rare - most merely act out the part in return for favors, and this is a viable and interesting character concept as well.

Ugh, sorry about the length on that. Just got me thinkin'.

 

[S'mon]

Wow, cool discussion of archetypes there, thanks.

 

[JohnBrown]

Guilt Puppy,

I am sorry if you found that section of the post insulting. It wasn’t my intent to be insulting. I apologize. It doesn’t change my point of view though. I’m simply asking person X to play his or her own gender. This a rule that is applied evenly across all players. My female players play females. My male players play males. I have stated my reasons why this rule exists. I have stated why they are not exceptions. There has been post by people that implied that unless they could play a cross gender character they would simply take their bat and go home, sight unseen. Sorry, but that still sounds like a slightly immature reason to me. And while I can be childish with the best of them , I don’t think asking a player to respect my wishes and wishes of his or her fellow players is being so. There is a big difference between saying: “If we are going to play, then there are some rules that everyone has to follow,” and “If I can’t have my way, I am just not going to play.” If I was misinterpreting those people I apologize to them as well, and the whole point is moot.

AI,

To answer your first question, in my game I ask males to play males and females to play females.

As far as the homosexual/heterosexual question goes, the act of sex (heterosexual or homosexual) has no real place in the game that I run. If a conversation goes much beyond “Well, we destroyed that evil cult, now back to town for wine, women (or men) and song…” then you will first probably get good natured ribbing and people chiming in with you. If it continues you’ll probably get gentle stares (if the joke has gone on a bit too long), then cold stares, and then finally a request by me or the other players to drop this particular line of behavior/conversation. There is nothing wrong with “adult theme” games; it is simply not something I am interested in participating in. As I said before, there are other outlets for that sort of thing that are much better at catering to it than your average D&D game.

Sex, sexual orientation, and other things such skin color, don’t carry any stigmas in my game so, those things are mostly irrelevant. I run a version of Greyhawk, and in it the main “motivations” are the struggle of law vs. chaos, good vs. evil, and the struggle to keep the balance between them. Princes are just as likely to be kidnapped as princesses and that evil wizard might just as likely to be female as male. The Scarlet Brotherhood still thinks that everyone is beneath the Suel race, skin color just isn’t something that happens to differentiate the Suel from the other races, etc.

As for your third point/question, I am not trying to convince you or anyone else that it is a universally good rule. Logick asked for an opinion, and I gave him the reasons while I don’t allow it in my game. If you want to play cross-gender characters in other games that’s fine with me. There is nothing wrong that. I would just ask you not to do it mine. There just seemed to be a large amount of responses that were implying that anyone who didn’t allow cross-gender characters were “wrong” somehow, and that we were stifling creativity. My point was that no creativity was being stifled in my game, a restriction perhaps, but from a D&D perspective no worse than saying you can’t play celestial or a dragon or a demon. You allow players to play those, fine go ahead; please just don’t ask to play them in mine. Your character can be a brutal/nurturing, positive/negative, etc. as you want your character to be in my game, and you don’t need to have a gender designation to be like that.

Also, I do believe I am gaining something. I have always been lucky in the sense that my players have always been very diverse: different sexes, sexual orientations, races, creeds, and ages. Cross-gender portrayals just seem to be a sticking point for some reason. This doesn’t apparently happen for you and I am happy for you. It does seem to happen from time to time in my experience so, I believe I am gaining piece of mind. I believe I have eliminated a potential point of conflict between my old friends (my current players) and between myself, my old friends, and potential new friends (new players). Again, I am not trying to convince you of anything, just explaining my point of view.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Yeah, over here on the right.

*waves*

Canada II -- The Revenge -- We've been too nice for too long and we're not going to take it any more!

Once more: Here's a Vancouverite who's totally fine with guys playing girls. Also with monks. Also with lesbian dominatrices.

I think the single most amazing thing is that there's someone else on the planet that can come up with the proper plural to dominatrix. Yea Barsoomcore!

On another note, let's keep comments of personal superiority based on nationality, race, religion, country of origin, intellect or any other basis out of the discussion. Thanks y'all.

 

[Gez]

This thread has become the new Hivemind.

Just to give fuel for fl..., err, food for thought, here's a quote from Da Man Himself:

FWIW, I use this system:

Fire into melee and miss, check again for a hit on a friendly target, same chance as to hit the one aimed at.

Seems to work well, and nobody firing complains, because after all a hit is a hit Fact is that my lone Avatar got laid low that way a while back, but fortunately she wasn't dead, just at death's door, so a quick bit of Extraordinary healing brought her around. She doesn't know that one of her comrades missed his target and got her instead...

Cheers,
Gary

Read it carefully, folk, Gary says "she" to designate a character he played.

 

[Hypersmurf]

So since we can't possibly know the mindset of female Elves, there's nothing wrong with playing them is there?

Heh! That was my first reaction on reading that paragraph, too...

I was disappointed to see someone had beaten me to it...

-Hyp.

 

[Henry]

Ladies and gentlemen,

Let's please leave sweeping generalizations of various nations and their socio-political core values at the front door, please. What is being discussed here is not how Canadians or Americans play RPG's but how WE play RPG's.