Comfort withcross gender characters based on your gender

Bagpuss said:

Does make me wonder how often the libido of a character comes up in play for most characters/groups?

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One way or another it's a near-constant in our crew: the sexuality-preference(s)-libido (or lack of)-etc. is every bit as much a part of a character's character as the rest of the elements that make up its personality. Sometimes it's in fun, sometimes it's more serious, whatever the mood at the time (and the characters involved) might indicate.

Our characters get into flings, romances, crushes, jealousies, breakups, marriages, and all that stuff just as a simple outcome of the run of play and these characters interacting in a high-stress low-life-expectancy environment. It just becomes another aspect of the ongoing story, in the end.

Lanefan

Hussar said:

Thank you for this. Ok, now, you are saying that it's "different and novel" to play a cross gender character. Ok, I'll buy that.

But, everyone else is saying that gender doesn't matter at all. That your female or male character (not you specifically, but you generally) should play exactly the same and no one should know or care what gender the character is.

Would you agree?

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Sometimes it matters, sometimes it doesn't. It's entirely possible to play games where characters gender and sexuality never really come up, and it is possible for them to be very important to the story. You can design a character where you want it to be one way or the other but then the adventure never presents the opportunities for it to matter, or alternatively brings to a head.

Now, this rather bizarre argument that "Well, the rules don't SAY that I should role play my character, so, I don't bother" is flat out baffling to me. So what if the rules don't say that you should portray elements of your character to the point where other people actually know what your character is? That's just role-play 101.

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If you break RPGs back to their roots it is entirely possible to play them like the Heroquest boardgame, with just tactical aspects, and testing the player not the character. Early dungeons often had tests aimed at the player not the character like riddles and puzzles. It's bizarre to me too, but I don't see it as an invalid way of playing some RPGs, particularly D&D.

If your female character has a male name like Dexter, and the rest of the group is given no other indications and no other information, can we really blame them for assuming that the character is male? Months of role play and not one NPC or PC has commented on the fact that your female character has a traditionally male name?

Look, at the end of the day, this is 100% my own opinion, so, take it or leave it. But, for me, I would consider that a complete failure to role play on my part if, at any time, another player turned to me and said, "You're a ____? Really?" You can put it off on the other person all you like. I don't. I figure that if my portrayal of this character is so lacking in indicators that revealing something so basic as gender is a surprise to the table, then I've failed to role play.

That's the standard I hold myself to.

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Yeah but the thing is gender (by this I'm referring to non-physical signifiers of sex) is a spectrum of behaviours some of which are stereotypically associated with being feminine and others with masculine, but most behaviours are shared to a greater or lesser degree.

The problem is you can't really discuss this with out thinking about the difference between biological sex, and gender signifiers outside those determined by sex. That's political can of worms nowadays, because for the majority of the population gender and sex match up, still for a significant number it doesn't (it might be a small as being a bit of a tomboy when little or full gender dysphoria).

So who's to say Dexter is female sex, has an androgynous look, and displays more masculine behaviours. If your playing that character well, why would they pic up on the sex of Dexter?

People have already mentioned they don't like it when players play stereotypes when they play the opposite-gender, but then without playing to these stereotypes that people recognise, how else are they meant to signify the gender of the character?

Hussar said:

But, everyone else is saying that gender doesn't matter at all. That your female or male character (not you specifically, but you generally) should play exactly the same and no one should know or care what gender the character is.

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That's not what I'm saying. Who's "everyone else"?

Hussar said:

Now, this rather bizarre argument that "Well, the rules don't SAY that I should role play my character, so, I don't bother" is flat out baffling to me.

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Who has made that argument? In what words?

Hussar said:

If your female character has a male name like Dexter

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Oh no you DON'T. I described one of my characters, named Dexter, in detail. That character was NOT female, neither by anatomical sex nor by social role. Actively misrepresenting someone else's character, contrary to their explicit statements, is rude. (By my standards of rudeness. By EN World's standards?)

Hussar said:

I would consider that a complete failure to role play on my part if, at any time, another player turned to me and said, "You're a ____? Really?"

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AFAIK no one here objects when you hold YOURSELF to that standard. If some player turns to you and says "You're a Rashemi? Really?" then YOU have failed at YOUR goal.

If I don't accomplish YOUR goal, and you say that I've failed, and/or you pretend that I'm accusing the asking player of having failed, then that is rude behavior. Heck, if I were running an AL game, and you told another player that she'd failed to roleplay, on the grounds that she didn't meet YOUR standards, I'd give you a warning the first time, and if you persisted then I'd bounce you from the table.

At this point, almost everyone understands the point you're trying to make, and you seem baffled that people can *understand* your perspective without then *sharing* your perspective. Conversely, you're so committed to NOT understanding points such as mine, that you actively misrepresent those points. I've seen that style before...

Eltab said:

Necessary but not sufficient.

Are you familiar with the Alice in Wonderland conversation "Words mean what I want them to mean, no more and no less" where Alice concludes 'you cannot have a meaningful conversation unless both participants are trying to communicate shared concepts' with shared words? Many social change discussions (not just EnWorld) have that problem.

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I am familiar with the Lewis Carroll version, in which Alice says no such thing. In Chapter 6 she says "The question is whether you can make words mean so many different things." Are you familiar with the Plato passage in which Socrates discusses names with Kratylus? Does your dictionary tell you the proper translation of "περὶ ὀνομάτων ὀρθότητος"? Kratylus argues that names arrive from divine origins, making them necessarily correct. I agree more with Hermogenes, who says that names have come about due to custom and convention.

I see the mutual intention of mutual understanding, as far more important than fixity of lexicon. If you are trying to communicate an idea in which gender equals anatomy, and I'm trying my best to understand you, then I will read your points according to your usage, even though I prefer the usage in which sex is anatomical and gender refers instead to role. By the former usage, Willmer "Little Ax" Broadnax was female. By the latter, he was male. As long as I understand which usage you mean, we can communicate effectively. Same with whether 4KB refers to four kilobytes or four kibibytes (usage has varied, for memory and storage devices).

Churchill has my deep respect *within* an English-speaking context, and not so much otherwise. His intercultural skills were... let's say... not his strong suit. This almost got him killed, when he failed to adapt to the USA convention of driving on the right, and walked into traffic.

Hussar said:

Thank you for this. Ok, now, you are saying that it's "different and novel" to play a cross gender character. Ok, I'll buy that.

But, everyone else is saying that gender doesn't matter at all. That your female or male character ((not you specifically, but you generally) should play exactly the same and no one should know or care what gender the character is.

Again, a picture is all it takes AFAIC. Presumably the other players can see that picture. Fantastic. Everyone's on the same page.

Now, this rather bizarre argument that "Well, the rules don't SAY that I should role play my character, so, I don't bother" is flat out baffling to me. So what if the rules don't say that you should portray elements of your character to the point where other people actually know what your character is? That's just role-play 101.

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I won't speak for anyone else, but what I'm saying is that you might have a hard time inferring the gender from a tableful of well role played characters if you weren't particular attententive to pronouns. Do you hold male characters to the same "demonstrate your gender" standards as the female characters?

I might draw a picture on my character sheet, but I probably don't show it to you very often, and you could see the place where it says "she/her" just as easily. And, honestly, I'm a crap artist, so the she/her will tell you gender better than the picture. I see real human beings misgendered all the time, let alone my crummy stick figure drawings.

Like, here's the deal. Don't come to my table and tell me I'm not role-playing right because you couldn't tell the gender of my character, and I won't yell at you for misgendering my character until the third time in one session. And yes, I've seen another player routinely misgender another players character, despite the fact that pronouns were written on the character tent and the player was doing a damn fine job rping their character, but the player couldn't help but assume the characters gender.

Riley37 said:

That's not what I'm saying. Who's "everyone else"?



Who has made that argument? In what words?

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[MENTION=3987]Bagpuss[/MENTION] right above you talks about going back to gaming roots and "play them like the Heroquest boardgame, with just tactical aspects, and testing the player not the character. Early dungeons often had tests aimed at the player not the character like riddles and puzzles." There were earlier comments as well.

Oh no you DON'T. I described one of my characters, named Dexter, in detail. That character was NOT female, neither by anatomical sex nor by social role. Actively misrepresenting someone else's character, contrary to their explicit statements, is rude. (By my standards of rudeness. By EN World's standards?)

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Appologies. I misread. I thought that the point of your bringing up the character was that the character was being played cross gendered. My bad. Sorry.

AFAIK no one here objects when you hold YOURSELF to that standard. If some player turns to you and says "You're a Rashemi? Really?" then YOU have failed at YOUR goal.

If I don't accomplish YOUR goal, and you say that I've failed, and/or you pretend that I'm accusing the asking player of having failed, then that is rude behavior. Heck, if I were running an AL game, and you told another player that she'd failed to roleplay, on the grounds that she didn't meet YOUR standards, I'd give you a warning the first time, and if you persisted then I'd bounce you from the table.

At this point, almost everyone understands the point you're trying to make, and you seem baffled that people can *understand* your perspective without then *sharing* your perspective. Conversely, you're so committed to NOT understanding points such as mine, that you actively misrepresent those points. I've seen that style before...

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It should never be another player holding you to that standard. AFAIC, that's the standard that anyone who actually believes in portraying a character should hold themselves. So, yeah, if another player turns to you and tells you, "You're a ____? Really?" then, AFAIC, yup, that's a role playing fail. Whatever you might think is fair enough. But, on here, on a message board, where the point of these conversations is to make games better? Yeah, I'll flat out say that that's a roleplaying fail.

I won't speak for anyone else, but what I'm saying is that you might have a hard time inferring the gender from a tableful of well role played characters if you weren't particular attententive to pronouns. Do you hold male characters to the same "demonstrate your gender" standards as the female characters?

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Nope. I hold cross gendered characters to this standard, because, rightly or wrongly, without any additional information, I'm going to assume that your character is the same gender as you. Not a terribly bad assumption, by and large. But, if you're male and your character gives absolutely no indication of its gender, then, yup, I'm going to assume your character is male. Why? Because I'm looking across the table at you.

In the same way that without any additional information, I would assume your character is human. Again, because I'm looking across the table at you and, by and large, you're going to be human. So, if we're five sessions in and it turns out that you're a dragonborn or an elf, yeah, I'm going to call that pretty poor roleplay.

Bagpuss said:

Does make me wonder how often the libido of a character comes up in play for most characters/groups?

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4/11 of my most recent characters.
2 male:
* (5e) My 1/2elf ranger in SKT - Had a fling with an NPC fm human mage in a town they were defending. Then, while working the diplomacy angle, charmed (non-magic) one of the Storm Giant princesses & they found new uses for enlarge/reduce person spells. And then on a gambling boat he & our fm human cleric (fellow PC) had way too much to drink, missed a planned ambush, and the rest of the party found them in a compromising position in bed the next morning....
* (PF game) My Human Wizard/Bard & another PC, a Human FM Barbarian/Cleric, hit it off. Actually she seduced him. They married under her clans customs. At first they was adventuring for the hell of it. Now they save the world etc for their twin toddlers & an unborn 3rd child.
2 Female:
* (PF game) My Lawful Evil FM Tiefling Wizard has a thing for LG male Paladins.... She's drawn to them like a moth to flame. Ideally PC paladins, but NPCs will do as well.
Specifically I made the character to play off of our groups paladin. The guy plays really awful paladins. Always has. He's just no good at it RP wise. And the DM for that campaign didn't feel up to challenging him on that front. So the pair of characters I made, I made specifically to push his buttons in various ways & get some improved RP out of him.
And I know the AP we were playing, so I was also trying to get him used to dealing with evil sorts in ways other than just "Paladin Smite!" as there's a key chapter where you need to redeem a succubus & shift her alignment from evil....
He could practice for this by trying to redeem my vaguely evil characters. Or at least the seeds of this idea could be planted in his head. The tiefling never did manage to actually seduce the PC Paladin (though she did bed a few NPC Paladins throughout the AP), but my efforts to improve the other players RP were successful.
* (5e) Hmm, how to keep this PG13 enough.... My FM 1/2ling barbarian is an adventurer (and a barbarian!) specifically because of poor judgment concerning her curiosity of a satyr party/orgy she snuck into. She didn't initially intend to participate, just see what all the fuss was about. But with enough booze, drugs, & pheromones, things spiraled out of control. And so although she had a good time (at least what she can remember) she's now far from home, has had to learn to fight, and is beginning to suspect she might be expecting....
{this character started out as an NPC, in a much more mature rated game, where some of the PCs did attend this party. Then they set off to rescue her from the satyrs & made things worse via a Cubic Gate....}

Hussar said:

But, everyone else is saying that gender doesn't matter at all. That your female or male character (not you specifically, but you generally) should play exactly the same and no one should know or care what gender the character is.

Would you agree?

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I don’t agree that anybody should be telling anyone what they should or should not be doing with their character. Gender matters as much as the player and the DM want it to matter. I have a player who likes the attachment and drive having a NPC romance creates. Baldurs gate had the option for romantic leads, but it was all optional.

My personal advice about this is, don’t get too hung up on it. It is about as important as having Con 14 instead of 12. If you want to role play that great. What your character does is far far more important than what they are.

Riley37 said:

Oh no you DON'T. I described one of my characters, named Dexter, in detail. That character was NOT female, neither by anatomical sex nor by social role. Actively misrepresenting someone else's character, contrary to their explicit statements, is rude.

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Not initially you didn't. You conveniently left out the part about Dexter being covered in scales/being a dragonborn.

Given the discussion about the gender swapping/sex changing elves going on elsewhere I mistook you as playing an elf.
When you later added the fact that you have scales someone guessed Yuan-Ti & you got all coy about that not being a PHB race.
Dexter being a dragonborn is one of those things that would be obvious. Even if my own character doesn't have the proper name for whatever you are.

Hussar said:

In the same way that without any additional information, I would assume your character is human. Again, because I'm looking across the table at you and, by and large, you're going to be human. So, if we're five sessions in and it turns out that you're a dragonborn or an elf, yeah, I'm going to call that pretty poor roleplay.

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I’m confused. Do the players at your tables not introduce their characters at your tables? How is it possible that you could get five sessions in and not know the race, gender and general make up of a fellow players character? Doesn’t your party discuss who’s playing what beforehand? I can understand some groups may not do the latter but surely the former is a bare minimum for party cohesion.

Assuming someone is a male human commoner because that’s what their player looks like, is probably missing out a fairly important stage of party building - in a game where people can play any one of a dozen classes or two dozen races.