Comfort withcross gender characters based on your gender

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

Not only am I fine with cross-gender characters, I am baffled by those who are uncomfortable with them. I mean, really, what's the difference?

In my experience, the one that wants to play the cross-gender character is always the boy/man that cannot do it without being offensive or ridiculously immature.

If I had experienced it done in a mature way, my opinion may be different, but at current, it makes me uncomfortable.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Human beings don't have gender. Gender is a grammatical concept.

Gender is grammatical. However, gender is not solely grammatical. Folks in this thread are mostly using the word correctly.

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=gender&x=0&y=0

 

[IronWolf]

Deja Vu... Feels like I was posting a similar thread just a month ago...

I went with male and indifferent. I would be more concerned is the person that wishes to do it a good roleplayer or a trouble maker. That is the bigger deciding factor as to how comfortable I am with it.

 

[Xath]

I'm female and I'm comfortable with it. I've seen people play cross-gendered characters stupidly, but those people seem to play most of their characters stupidly, so I don't think it has much to do with the gender.

I take issue when someone makes a cross-gender character who is deragatory to the gender they are portraying, but that's never happened in a long term campaign in which I have played.

I actually find that it's more convenient to play a male character in certain situations, especially if you don't want the gender flak for playing an adventuring woman in a game where sexism is an active factor.

 

[John Morrow]

So, please vote on the one that lists your gender and your comfort level.

I think "comfort" may be the wrong word here because it's a fairly loaded word.

From a "comfort" perspective, I'm indifferent to cross-sex characters. From a preference perspective, I prefer that players play their own sex.

I'm not "uncomfortable" with the idea of someone portraying a character that doesn't match their sex (my group has plenty of romances between PCs and NPCs which often involve a cross-sex NPC). Cross-sex characters just regularly seem to cause problems related to either (A) the other players forgetting the character's sex is different than the players (e.g., pronoun confusion seems to be incredibly common) or (B) the player's portrayal of a cross-sex character (ranging from offensive stereotypes to characters that just feel wrong or off like characters forced to cross-dress in a comedy or cheesy sitcom for laughs). No, these problems don't seem nearly as common or as severe when a GM is portraying a cross-sex NPC for a variety of reasons that I've explained elsewhere (ranging from the GM providing more verbal markers about which character is talking to NPC portrayals being more brief and focused than PC portrayals), so a cross-sex NPC does not have the same dynamic as a cross-sex PC, in my experience.

The easy way to avoid those potential problems is to just not do it. And for many groups that don't have players eager to play cross-sex characters, it's not a terribly controversial or distruptive solution, either. From my own perspective, there are a near infinite number of interesting male PCs that I could play so being told that a female PC is off limits just doesn't feel very limiting to me. YMMV.

Does that mean that no group should do it? Does that mean that no player can do it well? Does that mean that it always causes problems or that the problems are always the player's fault? Of course not. And if your GM or group has no problems with it or even if you do have problems but feel that the benefits (and there are benefits) outweigh the problems, then by all means do it. But, personally, I'd prefer players not do it. Of course there are plenty of other things I'd prefer players not do, too (e.g., play Evil PCs -- and, yes, I know that some people have a lot of fun doing that, too).

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

ditto++++

perhaps we should schedule a battle royale. in the left corner: Destan, Diaglo, Teflon Billy, Wulf Ratbane. in the right corner: S'mon, die_kluge,and some other pro-cross-gender guys (or gals).

Wait a second, how did I get dragged back into this? Not that I'm not down for a rumble. I haven't met or seen diaglo, but I'm willing to bet me, TB, and Destan can take four times our weight in dudes who like to play chicks.

we can mandate wulf and his compatriots play female PCs while die_kluge & company play traditional male melee fighters (assuming die_kluge & co. are males).

Ok, but I'll be playing Tigglebitty Funbaggs, the whip-cracking halfling whore of Greyhawk.

 

[Ottergame]

I just don't care what people play, as long as it's not disruptive. I don't see what the problem some people have with players playing a different gender PC.

I mean, if someone can pretend to be an elf who casts spells at dragons in medieval world, why should it be a problem if it's also a female?

 

[Aristotle]

Not only am I fine with cross-gender characters, I am baffled by those who are uncomfortable with them.

I'm pretty much in the same boat.

 

[Snapdragyn]

Male & comfortable.

Of the times I've encountered this, it's not caused any problems in the game. Currently I'm in one campaign where one of the women always plays a male character; we've gotten so used to it that there's never any pronoun confusion. Though our sessions can involve some PG13 activity there hasn't been any hint of her using the male character to act out stereotypes or fantasies instead of responding in ways appropriate to the character.

In my other current campaign, we recently had to restart after a TPK & one male player now has a female character. We are having some pronoun confusion, partly because this is a first for this group, but also I think partly because it's a very hack-and-slash group where no character's sex really comes up often enough to remind us.

I've never allowed cross-genders in my games since then, because I haven't seen it reasonably played since then.

I do have to wonder at this. I mean, that certainly seems rather self-fulfilling, no?

 

[AIM-54]

Male and comfortable.

I've never had a problem with it and have had great fun on those occasions that I've had an opportunity to play female characters. Part of that may stem from the fact that in those groups where I've done it have been all male so there's been no discomfort really (and nor have there been significant caricatures, though plenty of kidding around ).

I haven't done it in awhile, 'cause my current group has some issues with it. It's not a big deal either way for me, although I think it's silly to be too militant about it.