Cross-gender PCs

[Lanefan]

When I read the topic I expected a thread about playing characters who were themselves cross-gendered e.g. playing a male character posing as - or trying to become - female (I recently had a player do just this in my game). But no such luck...

I play both male and female characters. I can't for the life of me imagine a game where the rules said I couldn't, with the exception of a game-based situation where in a particular race or culture only one gender adventured.

That, and the experience of which you post was at a convention...hardly a good example, as by their nature convention games tend to be over-the-top one-offs anyway.

Lanefan

 

[Masquerade]

I'm always stunned when this thread topic comes up on the Enworld.

In every game I've ever played there has been cross-gender player or more at the table. It's never been a problem.

Encounter so many posters with the same gender rule always leaves me scratching my head.

Ditto; I see male players with female characters and vice versa in every campaign, and it simply is not an issue. In fact, I would never play with a group that didn't allow it; I would be really offended if someone told me I couldn't play a certain character because of my RL sex.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I've encountered this kind of crap before, yep. Once, and once only, there was a campaign that maybe could've been fine, if not for these sorts of shenanigans.

But I figure, those gamers, and others like them, have. . . other issues too, and I don't particularly want to be gaming with them in the first place. They can take their socially retarded or otherwise exceedingly inappropriate attitudes. . . elsewhere.

For ages though, nah - no problems! Crossing 'the gender line' from player to character, that's quite kosha. Just do your level best, despite - generally speaking - the difficulties inherent.

 

[Halivar]

I remember a story on EnWorld several years back, where someone recounted an RPGA event where the male (and very.. uh... unhygienic, shall we say) DM was roleplaying a female NPC trying to seduce a male player, with icky DM-on-player pantomiming. Why'd I mention it?

Well, in this case, the player absolutley, 100% broke immersion. If the DM had maybe described the action instead of pantomiming it, the player might have rolled with it, but no guarantees. NOW, consider a female DM doing the same as above. Would this feel odd, or break immersion? I think a majority of EnWorlder's would say yes. I would like to pretend to be that egalitarian, but I'm not, and I suspect a good many of my fellow gamers are the same. This would not affect me as much, and I would not feel as wierd.

My point is this: gender is only one axis of characterization, but it's a heavy one. The more of these axes that are diametrically opposite from you, the harder it is (1) for you to roleplay and (2) for your fellow roleplayers to accept. If you are a capable roleplayer, gaming with other capable roleplayers, then you shouldn't have a problem. If you're like me, then you only play male, lawful-good-but-slightly-lawful-stupid paladins. It's the character concept that most closely aligns itself to my real personality. Immersion is easy, and the group readily accepts my character.

However, if you're like me, you gotta avoid playing character exactly like you every single time. The only way to grow as a roleplayer is to play characters that aren't already you. By the same token, I think you must be careful to know your limitations. I am now capable (through three character's worth of practice) of playing Chaotic Good characters, but I would simply fail to properly roleplay any sort of evil character. To date, I have never played a female character, and I do not see myself doing so in the future.

EDIT: To date, the single hardest roleplaying I have ever done was playing a sexually-ambiguous CN half-elf bard. I drew Scales on a DoMT and rolled LG. I took levels of paladin and ended up back with my old mainstay.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

When I read the topic I expected a thread about playing characters who were themselves cross-gendered e.g. playing a male character posing as - or trying to become - female (I recently had a player do just this in my game). But no such luck...

Girdle of Feminity/Masculinity?

One of my great unrealized Wraith characters was a transsexual who died shortly before either completing transition or undergoing SRS. Never got around to running the game though.

 

[Set]

If any dude thinks that someone can role-play an elf, vulcan or half-pixie/half-storm giant, but somehow considers the workings of the brains of the other 50% of our species too complicated to respectfully portray, then he's gonna have real problems getting laid. Eventually, you've kinda got to be able to talk with and relate to a woman, no matter how alien and scary and incomprehensible they seem at first.

I play whatever gender the character 'feels like' to me. Some have boy-parts. Some have girl-parts. Many of them cast spells. Some of them are aliens or robots, and their gender is irrelevant, or... complicated.

There are guys who play female characters as 'Slutty the She-Elf,' but they are quite often the same immature twits who play obnoxious loud-mouthed inter-party-conflict-causing *male* characters as well, so it's not that they suck at playing girls, it's just that they are disruptive jerks who pretty much suck at team activities where the goal is for everyone to have a good time.

As always, add 'IMO' to the end of any sentence that starts with a capital letter.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I really don't understand why someone would want to band cross-gender PCs at all...

Sure, it might be a problem with some individuals, but most likely those kinds of players would drag the game down regardless of what they play. I have seen male players play male characters in more obnoxious and insulting ways than I care to recall, after all.

In my own experience, have a character of a different gender than the player is pretty normal. I have played a few characters this way, other people in the group have also done so, and no one has ever had a problem with it.

 

[Gort]

I can't be the only one who read the title as meaning "transsexual fantasy characters".

Anyway, to contribute, I've seen lots of cross-gender PCs played, and none were offensive to anyone. The term I would probably use for them would be "lacklustre", for males playing female characters, and "girly men" for females playing male characters.

Male players aren't really interested (in my experience anyway) in playing a female character as feminine, particularly. They're more after a sort of femme-fatale character - often sexy but never actually doing anything sexual, and they rarely speak "in character", since guys just can't really do girl voices. I noticed a common theme for downtime for male-female PCs was "my character goes off, gets married to some dude and has a kid, then returns to the party". I found that totally bizarre.

Female players are similar in a lot of ways. They usually play characters with next to no machismo, who don't get stuck into the fight hand-to-hand - I see a lot of timid rogues and rangers, or spellcasters of one stripe or another who stay at range. Again, no male sexuality expressed, little talking "in character" because it's hard to do a male voice as a girl.

I don't discourage the cross-gender PC thing in my games, I've just yet to really be impressed by it. When I'm playing, I usually stick to my own race and gender since I think it a lot easier to stay true to the source material - though recently I had a lot of fun roleplaying a dragonborn inspiring warlord.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm a guy, and I've always played PCs of either/many genders- as others have pointed out, some beings are sexless or have more than the conventional 2 sexes common on Earth. I've encountered some GMs who don't like it when I do, but I've usually convinced them that at least some players can pull off PCs of opposite genders from themselves...and I'm one of them.

RE:

Only one was actually kind of fun (and the most believable), while all the rest were prissy, judgemental, and unfun for everybody at the table, and one was also stupid and uber-slutty to boot.

IME, I've encountered women who were prissy, judgemental, unfun, stupid and uber-slutty to boot...and men who are as well. Merely playing a stereotype or lampoon of a gender role doesn't invalidate the quality of the player's RP.

For example, I played a fairly slutty biker chick in a Cyberpunk GURPS campaign (in game parlance, she was a "street samurai"). She was quite popular with the other gamers at the table, including the women- one of whom, for the record, gave me pointers on being a slutty biker chick.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Bad players are bad players, regardless of the M or F they put on their sheet.

That said...

When I read the topic I expected a thread about playing characters who were themselves cross-gendered e.g. playing a male character posing as - or trying to become - female (I recently had a player do just this in my game). But no such luck...

I have seen this done. Female to male. It was magnificent.

"Don't ask him how he got those scars. He'll give 'em to you." "Him? But she's just a-" "ESPECIALLY don't call him a woman. The aforementioned scares are just ugly, not fatal."