males playing females and the other way around, opinions?

[Sunseeker]

For those who don't think male players do a good job accurately portraying female characters: How, specifically, do you distinguish a well-portrayed female character from a poorly-portrayed one?

I just wanted to remark on this, I've seen a number of male DMs who have said "I play women(PC or NPC) badly", therefore I don't allow others to do it. I find it strange to see their own failing extrapolated into: "i'm a man, and I can't play women, therefore anyone who's a man also is incapable of playing women." I see some people trying to defend it with biology, a fools errand, and others try to defend it with IRL society.

If we've already agreed that M or F is mostly an aesthetic choice, and that most fantasy settings are egalitarian enough to mean your character isn't going to run into trouble for being one sex or the other, and a fighter is a fighter is a fighter, then I really suggest some introspection.

Why does a man playing a woman offend you more than a man playing a kobold? Assuming of course, they're not trying to make a vampire-hooker-stripper-lesbian-ninja type woman.

 

[rogueattorney]

I mean, I think we can agree that the lesbian stripper ninja is probably not a well-portrayed female character. But I get the sense that's not what you folks are talking about.

Actually, that's precisely the type of thing I was talking about.

And like others have said, it's a creepy player problem, not a problem with people playing cross-gendered characters. If I don't allow the lesbian stripper ninja, he's just going to play a barbarian rapist with Turret's Syndrome. Get him out of the group and problem solved.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Maybe I'm just insane, but when people are massive creephats I don't ban their characters, I decide not to play with massive creephats.

I must be just as insane, because just as I don't assume that people who want to play an Evil character are "massive creephats," or that people who want to play an adult dragon character are "massive creephats," I don't assume that people who want to play a cross-gender PC are "massive creephats."

And yet I don't allow any of those things when I'm GMing. (Well, technically in my M&M game I'd probably allow the dragon ... )

 

[Dausuul]

I used to be heavily into MUDding. (For you kids, MUDs were Wow without any graphics. Yes, that's right ... no graphics. At all. Now shut up and get off my lawn.)

Oh, I remember MUDs very well. I was a developer on more than a couple of 'em. Heck, that was how I learned C++ syntax and object-oriented programming.

Eventually I became an administrator of a couple of MUDs, with access to player information (for legitimate reasons, including social ones). With no exceptions that I can recall -- admittedly it was 20 years ago -- the players of the creepy or offensive female characters were dudes, and the players of the non-creepy, non-offensive female characters were not. I was able to, using the "creepy or offensive" test, identify dudes-playing-chicks with no objective knowledge of their actual gender.

Interesting. I would expect a higher percentage of creepiness/offensiveness among online gamers, based on my experiences of how people behave online versus in person... still, it's something to think about.

Given that, why not play your own gender, even if only to avoid the "he -- wait, she -- wait, are you female?" issue?

Like I said, it's mostly aesthetics. Wednesday Boy put it nicely: "Sometimes I think my flying, thunderbolt wielding hero would be cooler as an African goddess than a Norse god." But if someone has a real problem with it, it's easy enough to write down M rather than F.

If I joined a group where the DM didn't allow male players to run female characters, I'd give the DM a funny look and inquire as to the reason, but assuming the reason wasn't itself offensive, I'd shrug and make a male character.

 

[WHW4]

I just wanted to remark on this, I've seen a number of male DMs who have said "I play women(PC or NPC) badly", therefore I don't allow others to do it. I find it strange to see their own failing extrapolated into: "i'm a man, and I can't play women, therefore anyone who's a man also is incapable of playing women." I see some people trying to defend it with biology, a fools errand, and others try to defend it with IRL society.

If we've already agreed that M or F is mostly an aesthetic choice, and that most fantasy settings are egalitarian enough to mean your character isn't going to run into trouble for being one sex or the other, and a fighter is a fighter is a fighter, then I really suggest some introspection.

Why does a man playing a woman offend you more than a man playing a kobold? Assuming of course, they're not trying to make a vampire-hooker-stripper-lesbian-ninja type woman.

Just to clarify my position, I don't have a problem with it.

As a player I don't do it myself because I feel I am not as believable in my RP. I use alot of in character chatter and commentary when I play, so it's not something I just gloss over. I don't have a problem when another player does it.

As a DM I do tend to gloss over some NPC dialogue, mainly female, because again I feel I am lacking in the believability department. I do NPC voices alot also, plus my voice is fairly deep and I don't think I would want the evil sorcerous to inspire laughs from the players as I attempt to reach for those last three octaves with my voice, hehe. I certainly don't have a problem with players the playing opposite sex in any game I run either. Got one now, in fact, M&M.

I clarify because I most certainly don't feel that because I can't adequately RP a female to MY standards that someone else can't do so (standards not withstanding).

 

[Umbran]

Why does a man playing a woman offend you more than a man playing a kobold?

Neither offends me. However, I'll take a stab at the basic reason some might be offended: kobolds don't actually exist, and women do. There are still real-world people who have real-world problems with gender roles. The roles of kobolds in our society have yet to cause any consternation.

The primary differences between humans and kobolds will tend to be simplistic and stereotyped, as even the multi-page document your DM gives you isn't a treatment in real depth on a whole society and culture. And we take that as okay, as we don't have any real non-human sentients walking around to compare to. We all know our attempts to do it will be rough, and no real person can take the rendition as mocking or insensitive.

Over-simplify the subtleties between the male and female points of view, however, and you are apt to cheese someone off, because there are real people involved, and real history in which some folks have gotten and still get the short end of the stick.

Non gaming example: Nobody cares about the weak portrayal of Wookie culture in Star Wars. As soon as they present Star Wars races that resemble some real world stereotypes too much, and you get a load of argument.

 

[Mikaze]

I'm fine with it, as long as the players aren't going for stupid stereotypes. Given my players, this isn't an issue.

They've only played characters of the opposite sex once and it went perfectly fine. Two of our regular players were tied up with other responsibilities, so the four that could make it had to have a filler game. We had the idea of taking the fleshed-out followers that the party fighter had picked up in the main campaign and having each player roll to see which one they would play for a one-off Level 1 adventure. Two male players got female characters, one female player got a male one.

It went wonderfully. By the end those four followers were more fleshed out than they had been before, the two male players with female monk NPCs had completely cemented the sister-like relationship between them, and the female-played male halfling bard was only more confident by the end.

It all comes down to the players(including the GM).

 

[Aloïsius]

I think another question linked to the OP's one is "are you using first person or third person when describing your character and you character's actions ?"

If you are using third person, it's immediately easiest to play anything you want :
-> with a gleeful laughter, the petite warlock ask the guard "what if I turn you into a fish and let you fry in the desert? Or maybe you have more information to tell us..."
VS
-> I ask the guard : (changing voice to a ridiculously high pitched one) ""what if I turn you into a fish and let you fry in the desert? Or maybe you have more information to tell us..."

Ok, both maybe somewhat creepy, but in the first case it's an intended effect, while in the other...

 

[Barastrondo]

I find it there to be a number of gray areas in the whole "are you portraying the opposite gender correctly?" question because of little things like the personality of the woman I married. If I were to portray her personality accurately in a game, some people might think I was doing it wrong: doesn't like kids, doesn't socialize with other women, was really excited for The Expendables? She's pretty atypical, but I assure you that she's very realistic. So I'm cool with a little "inaccuracy" as long as it's not clearly a player working through... issues with the other gender. Thankfully, nobody in my group has said issues.

That said, I'm not sure why I haven't played a female character since college. I guess I use up all the concepts for females when I'm running games.

 

[Dausuul]

I think another question linked to the OP's one is "are you using first person or third person when describing your character and you character's actions?"

I use first person, and I'll occasionally do an accent or distinctive speech pattern (though this is mostly for NPCs--too hard to maintain over the long haul for a player character), but I don't do falsetto for female characters. I figure, if my fellow gamers can imagine that I'm a dragon or a tiefling or whatever, they can imagine that my voice is a couple octaves higher than it is.