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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sialia" data-source="post: 280028" data-attributes="member: 1025">Ok, definitely yes. I'm in favor.I especially like those randomly handed out pre-gen characters I used to get back in the days when I attended cons. I loved getting the opportunity to play a character I never would have thought of rolling up for myself. Playing a gender or race or class I hadn't tried recently kept me out of a rut. Gave me new opportunities to explore social dynamics, group dynamics, skills and abilities. It's fun. Cons are great because in four hours you can try all kinds of wacky stuff and not damage a character or campaign you've spent years creating, or wreck friendships with people you have to live with. Another instance was when I had burned out on running a mature, responsible 20-something year old female cleric who wanted to make the world a better place, I rolled up an adolescent male who wanted to have fun.Since I'd been complaining for months that the whole D&D system was biased towards the interests of adolescent males, getting to play one gave me the opportunity to stop trying to make the genre fit my own sensibilities, and fit my sensibilities to the genre. I was right. D&D is more fun when you're completely immature and irresponsible, beleive that you're immortal and have no problems accepting the premise that it's ok to kill people and take their stuff, especially if they are of a different race or tech level.Why not do that with a female character? I suppose I could have, but it wouldn't have rung as true. Most females I know don't do violence casually or for entertainment. Most of us need to get real worked up and invested before we get violent, and then it's not for fun, it's for keeps. Girls don't even usually touch each other when they play--guys roughhouse all the time. Girls sometimes roughhouse with boys, but almost never with each other. There's a reason--when girls roughhouse, it gets mean and ugly, and it's not usually fun.Guys can punch stuff and get slugged and somehow not take it personally. Pretending to be that carefree really was  . . . enlightening. Entertaining.But I regret that so many male gamers seem anxious about trying on female personas. They're fun in their own way. I usually run female characters because I think every party needs some for balance. Mixed gender groups are always better. If no one else will run the womenfolk, then I will always volunteer, because it needs to be done.Somebody's got to stop and ask directions once in a while.</blockquote>

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