cross gender fun?

[alsih2o]

or the dwarven pc who has a sword that only dulls when she shaves...you know, fun stuff.

the female player who gets to write her name in the snow for the first time...but her name is "sir eldonta lispinsazo of griteruton" and she has to go back to the tavern for more beer to finish it....

 

[Ashtal]

....and roleplaying 8 month long elven menstruation and such.... [/B]

Oh my god, that would suck.

 

[Pielorinho]

Well, since you asked ....

My current character started as a dwarven druid who was spurred into adventure by a series of prophetic dreams, in which he met his death at the hands of an elvish woman.

Well. He reached seventh level before meeting his death at the hands of a nasty destrachan. My friends recovered his body and took him to a friendly druid NPC for reincarnation.

My DM didn't want to roll for reincarnation, since that's such a crapshoot -- he wanted it to be story-based. And he took my suggestion:

I'd misinterpreted my dreams. That elvish woman wasn't my killer -- she was me.

So now I'm playing an elvish woman with the soul of a dwarvish man. She's not entirely sure how to deal with it, expects the Goddess she worships is having a joke at her expense.

The other party members are a male lothario (played by a woman) and a male Cha 7 elf (played by a man). The lothario never knew my PC when he/she was a dwarf, and he hits on the elvish woman occasionally; my PC snarlingly rebuffs all advances.

OTOH, the elvish man has been her only constant traveling companion since the campaign's beginning, and despite his unkempt unfriendly self, they're awful close....

************

So that's my character. In the game I run, I've suggested the group call themselves the Jittery Trannies, due to the prodigious quantities of coffee the PCs drink and the ubiquitous genderbending. The PCs include:
-a female elvish fire wizard, played by a male.
-a female half-orc battle cleric, played by a male.
-and a male fighter who used to be female until she was betrayed by a djinn ally and turned into a male, played by female.

Victor/Victoria, anyone? Glen or Glenda? It gets confusing .

Nonetheless, the group is very responsible about all this genderbending. We play a relatively sexless game, but we'd probably do that no matter what sexes we played.

Finally, are you wondering what sort of character type you couldn't play as either sex?

Simple. One of the starting characters IMC was a teenaged mom with a six-month-old child.

Daniel

 

[Al]

The 'anti-cross-gender' brigade seem to have about threearguments, but none of them is terribly convincing: Stereotyping, Weaker Roleplaying and No Difference

Stereotyping

Now, the first major objection that they raised was that gender stereotypes would predominate. There were accusations that most male players play female characters as lesbians or whores. However, one must bear two things in mind.
Firstly, again, is this the fault of the notion, or of the roleplayer. It is perfectly understandable that some may have reservations about people playing stereotypes, but then these are likely to be faults inherent in the gamer. It may be therefore advisable to suggest that weaker roleplayers do not play cross-gender characters, but a blanket ban (unless you have a very poor group indeed) does not seem the solution.
Secondly, the notion of racial stereotypes has been discussed. How many dwarven fighters have you seen? Or halfling rogues? Or half-orc tanks? And so on ad infinitum. If you ban cross-gender characters because you feel that it encourages stereotyping, surely one must also ban cross-racial characters. Granted, there is no one 'to be offended' but the fact remains that this argument alone is specious (and the above argument only stands if you have truly awful players, and gamers of opposite gender to be offended.)

Weaker Roleplaying

Perhaps a more sound point. The fundamental premise is that it is more difficult to play a characters of a different gender to yourself than one of the same gender.

This is true.

However, it is also true that playing characters with radically different personalities is more difficult than playing 'yourself'. It is more difficult to get into the mindset of a different race to oneself. It is very difficult indeed to play characters of higher Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma than oneself. So the logical extension of the 'it's harder to play cross-gender' characters is that players should have characters which are nigh identical to themselves, as this enables them to get 'into the mindset'. This is clearly an untenable position. Roleplaying is about fun and escapism, and part of both of these are in playing characters different to you. If this is more challenging, and perhaps makes for worse roleplaying, so be it- as long as the players are all enjoying themselves. This is a game, not a performance.

No Difference

The weakest of the triad. The argument goes that a female character is no different, or of such insignificant difference, that it is unnecessary to run 'the risk' of cross-gender characters.

It could be argued that in a pure 100% dungeon hack campaign, that gender would have minimal impact (in fact, even here it has some mechanical impact, due to height and weight considerations.) However, in a roleplaying campaign this is quite untrue. For one, this is directly contradictory to the second main argument: if there is 'No Difference' in mindset, then how can playing a cross-gender character be any more difficult? However, since I have already conceded the second point, it is this which has the problem. Repeated psychological studies have shown that the fundamental mindset is, broadly speaking, different.

Furthermore, social considerations make different characters a totally different experience. In a pseudo-medieval world, the attitude towards female characters would be very different to male characters, and the cultural taboos imposed upon the gender could make quite a significant differences. This is entirely ignoring the possibility of romance...


Simply put, the anti-cross-gender advocates have no clear and solid argument. I sympathise that they have had bad experiences with their groups, but this is still no reason to impose blanket bans on cross-gender characters, and it is unfortunate that their experiences have warped their views on the topic. More sensible than a blanket ban would be to veto individual character archetypes (or stereotypes?) just as one would with same-gender characters. The litmus test has to be thus: ask yourself whether you would ban the character concept if it were played by a player of the same gender. If the answer is still yes, then you have probably judged that individual character concept to be unworthy; if the answer is no, then banning it as a cross-gender character is totally irrational. Opposing individual concepts is sensible and constructive DMing; opposing all cross-gender characters is authoritarian and narrow-minded.

 

[Pielorinho]

One other point I should make:

I obviously allow all sorts of gender shenanigans in my game, and play in games with crazed queers crawling the walls -- however, I wouldn't allow stereotyping play, even when non-cross-gender. *


And I probably wouldn't play in campaigns that didn't allow cross-gender play. It would ick me out and make me think the game wasn't as focused on RP as I like my games to be.

But honestly. What do I care if other people forbid cross-gender play? It's frankly none of my business how y'all play your games.

I figure this is one of those "as long as you do it in your own den with the curtains drawn" issues. Heck -- for all I care, you can play erotic furry D&D. None of my business.

Daniel

* I had one woman IMC who played this "eek! a mouse!" female barbarian that she thought was funny. Yeah, I thought. ha. ha. Her ass was out on the curb before the next game session.

 

[Sebastian]

As a GM and player I am also one of the No-crossgender crowd. My main reason for that is that crossgendering disrupts my imersion in the story.
The most important aspect of any human I interact with in real live is his gender. And in my perception of the game, the PCs played meld with their players. If I was to describe a PC of an other player as I imagine him, he would always carry traits of the player.
Crossgendering would obviously make this much more difficult. Also in speech the he/she -problem makes it more cumbersome.
None of those reasons are sufficient to reject a character that has a compelling reason to be of the opposite sex than his player, but no special reason exists, you might as well make it easier on me, your GM.

On roleplaying: It has been stated several time in this thread, that roleplaying a different species should be more difficult than roleplaying a different gender. While this is true, it is also irrelevant. Because nobody knows, how an elf behaves in real life, you have a lot of leeway on how to present an elven PC. OTOH even most gamers know something about woman behaviour. Thus, it is hader to play a believable woman.

 

[Vaxalon]

Originally posted by Sebastian ....My main reason for that is that crossgendering disrupts my imersion in the story. .... And in my perception of the game, the PCs played meld with their players. [/B]

Is this a failing of the person playing crossgender?

Originally posted by Sebastian ... most gamers know something about woman behaviour. Thus, it is hader to play a believable woman. [/B]

Harder, and at the same time, easier, because that very knowledge about how a woman "should" act is available to the man who is playing one.

 

[William Ronald]

As a DM, I have had to portray men, woman, humans, non humans, and deities. So, I don't see a problem portraying a female character.

I really haven't portrayed female characters in my home campaign (I have a deep voice, so trying to do a female voice for a long period is hard.) However, I have played female characters at conventions and enjoyed playing them.

Why were they enjoyable? Because there were good background stories that let me get a feel for the characters. Also, the suspension of disbelief by the other players helped.

I think what is important is how well a character is played, not its gender or race. Of course, the key issue at the gaming table is simple: Is everyone having fun.

So, I don't have a problem with a DM ruling a character cannot be of a different gender than the player if he thinks it will promote good role playing. Mind you, I have seen some excellent role playing of women by males and men by women. (In Teflon Billy's case, he seems to have a few horror stories. In this case, I think it is his comfort level as GM that has to be considered.)

Can't we all just get along?

 

[Negative Zero]

i recently decided to try to play a female character. what a mistake. while i love the character, the maturity level of my group is very quickly leeching the fun out of playing her. i've alreday heard the "female bards are sluts" joke over three dozen times in about four sessions. *sigh* i'm already considering retiring her and playing something else. oh well ...

~NegZ

 

[William Ronald]

Negative Zero, it is up to you to decide if you want to retire the character. If you do so, I suggest you have her spread ugly rumors about the party before she goes. Something appropriate to how they have been treating her. (Turnabout is fair play.)