Thomas Bowman
First Post
I agree, but I think there could be many burnt kids in this room. Like, players who have seen very bad examples of cross-gender character play and who don't want any of this in their game.
Thing is that cross-gender play isn't the reason for such obnoxious play, but rather too little communication on what is considered appropriate. Hence my "If you don't wish to portray your cross-gender character like an actual person, then don't play one" statement. Because I'm a woman and I'm really uncomfortable when someone at the table plays my gender as a sexy lamp and as wish-fulfilment only. I can only guess the same applies to queer people and queer characters.
Note: I'm talking about "serious campaigns". Satire or comic relief play is a wholly different animal as long as everyone is on board.
I guess you mean imperfect cross gender characters, ones that don't quite make the transition from male to female or the other way around in a convincing way, is that what you are trying to say. In the movie Dragonslayer, there was a character who was a woman posing as a boy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonslayer_(1981_film)
"A sixth-century post-Roman kingdom called Urland[3] is being terrorized by a 400 year-old dragon named “Vermithrax Pejorative”.[3] To appease the dragon, King Casiodorus (Peter Eyre) offers it virgin girls selected by lottery twice a year. An expedition led by a young man called Valerian (Clarke) seeks the last sorcerer, Ulrich of Craggenmoor (Richardson), for help.
A brutish soldier from Urland named Tyrian (Hallam), who has followed the expedition, intimidates the wizard. Ulrich invites Tyrian to stab him to prove his magical powers. Tyrian does so and Ulrich dies instantly, to the horror of his young apprentice Galen Bradwarden (MacNicol) and his elderly servant Hodge (Sydney Bromley). Hodge cremates Ulrich's body and places the ashes in a leather pouch, informing Galen that Ulrich wanted his ashes spread over a lake of burning water.
Galen is selected by the wizard's magical amulet as its next owner; encouraged, he takes it upon himself to journey to Urland. On the way, he discovers Valerian is really a young woman, who is disguised to avoid being selected in the lottery. In an effort to discourage the expedition, Tyrian kills Hodge; before dying, he hands Galen the pouch of ashes and dies with the words "Burning water ..." on his lips."
Now if a character does a cross gender well, no one notices, people just think the person is of the gender he or she is pretending to be. However there is a character in Shrek 2.
Now in the first instance, the character made a convincing "young boy", in the second...