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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnBrown" data-source="post: 279620" data-attributes="member: 2243">I no longer allow players to play their gender opposites.  Since I put this “rule” into place about five years ago, not a single player I have played with since then has complained.  What are my reasons for this?  Well, I have a couple:1.  While I have I seen people play their gender opposites very well in the past, the number of times I have seen it done poorly greatly outnumbers the good portrayals.  Suffering through the bad portrayals just simply isn’t worth it.  I have been lucky to have many female players over the years, and while most of them have found it amusing to watch a guy play a woman at first, eventually it starts grating on their nerves (when done badly).  Since I primarily DM, having players complain to me about other players ruins the fun for me, so anything I can do to keep it the players “harmonious” I am in favor of.  (Now that I think about it, I have never had a female player want to play a male character, so I am not sure what that says about the male psyche. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> )2.  I not exactly sure what it really adds to the game.  I realize that it is a fantasy role-playing game, but, just like real life, aside from some purely biological differences, there is nothing a male character can do that a female character can’t do, or visa versa.  You can just as easily be cruel, heroic, sultry, sensitive, nurturing, and/or brutal playing either sex.  If you really want to look at the world through a different set of eyes, be any elf, or a dwarf, or any other race besides human.The handful of times someone has asked me of it was OK to play a different sex (they were always new to the group) the conversation always went something like this:New Player:  “Hey, can I play a female character?”Me: “No, we talked about this already.”New Player: “Aww, come on…”Me (trying to give him the benefit of the doubt):  “OK, why do you want to play a female?”Then comes one of two answers:Player Answer 1: “I have this great character idea…”My Answer (after listening to a great, or not so great, character idea): “And why couldn’t a male behave this way?”Player (after a moment or two of silence):  “Well, I don’t know…I hadn’t thought about that.”Or the player response with:Player Answer 2:  “Because it would be a fun change of pace…shake things up a bit.”My Answer (realizing that there is 9 out of 10 chance he just wants to play a woman with loose morals):  “No, give me a better reason.” This then leads back to answer 1I am sure some of you may disagree with my views on this, and if you like playing the opposite sex and do it well, I say more power to you.  I would be interested in hearing how playing the opposite sex enhances your actual gaming experience, however.   What can you do as a your gender opposite that you can’t do as your actual gender?</blockquote>

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