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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnBrown" data-source="post: 279775" data-attributes="member: 2243">Hey AI and Tsyr,First, lets make it clear that I am not in any way bashing people who like to play cross gender roles.  I simply said I don’t allow them in my game.  I may be misunderstanding what the two of you are saying, but you both seem to think that I am being restrictive somehow.AI,To answer your question about races, no, I don’t make them explain to me why they want to play a race.  I don’t do this because there are game mechanic differences between an elf, human, gnome, etc.  There are stereotypical (a better word escapes me at the moment) behaviors associated to the various PC races that can form the basis of a PC’s behavior and point of view.  The player could chose to play “against type” (say, a city dwelling, nature-hating elf) and I wouldn’t have any problem with that either.  I might make someone explain to me why he or she wants to play a Hill Giant, however.  If for no other reason, to make sure they understand, the difficulties a Hill Giant is likely to face when trying to interact with other races.  To make sure they are likely to “pay” for all of those combat bonuses.The male/female condition doesn’t have same sort of game mechanics built around it (well, at least not since 1E <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=":)" /> ).  You are correct in saying that bad role players will play badly regardless of what role they playing.   However, the number of truly good role players (which by my definition, means someone who can consistently play the game and be consistent to the behaviors and quirks that they have defined for their characters without it turning into bad dinner theater) that I have run into is a relatively small number, and, no, I don’t count myself among them.  Most of us fall somewhere in the middle.  Based on my experience, it is the average or good player that gets the most annoyed by bad gender portrayal.  None of us are actually elves or gnomes. A bad portrayal of a gnome might affect how much fun a person is having, but isn’t likely to insult them.  A bad gender portrayal can and many times often does, insult someone.  Best, again in my opinion, to make the majority of the people happy. There is no game mechanic benefit, the bad role player isn’t insulting, and the truly good role player is only minorly inconvenienced, if at all.    Tysr,To address your points, if someone wants to play a homosexual, I wouldn’t stop them.  A person’s sexual orientation doesn’t change their gender.  If someone wanted to be Asian, no I wouldn’t stop them, again not really a gender issue.  If you are asking would I intercede when a player is having their character behave in such a way that it is insulting to any Asian or homosexual players in the group.  You bet.  D&D is game, its about having fun.  If someone is ruining that for me and/or the other players, then I need to put a stop to it.  Controversial character portrayals are best left for the stage and screen.  Being gay might be important to for a player’s character development. Being jerk in real life, however, isn’t.  Although, I must admit, the number of times truly sexual or race based situations have come up in my game over the years have been very few.  A hero’s sexual orientation isn’t going to make the villagers any less appreciative when they are saved from the dragon (in my world at least).  As far as the PC race question, I believe the answers I gave AI pretty much cover that.  Dwarves, elves, etc. are different species; they potentially could have radically different abilities (covered in the game mechanics), or points of view (covered by role playing).  There is however, no difference form a game mechanics point of view or a game role playing point of view between male or females (whatever real life differences between men and women someone believes exists is probably best left for another thread <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=":)" /> ).  How your character behaves is not dependant on your character’s gender.  Since playing your own gender effectively restricts nothing, and nothing is gained by playing the opposite sex.  I again ask, what is the attraction?  Why would you want to?  Why am I wrong in my ruling?  I am not trying to be argumentative, or state that anyone is wrong for playing the opposite sex.  I just truly don’t understand why anyone would want to (at least in the context of a D&D game).</blockquote>

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