D&D General Do you allow "crossplaying" at your table? Has it ever caused problems?

[MNblockhead]

Nope, not a problem. I have a guy playing a female elf in my current campaign.

The only issue I've had is that often default to assuming the character is the same gender as the player. I find using initiative counters with the characters' portraits printed on them helps with this.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Nope, not a problem. I have a guy playing a female elf in my current campaign.

The only issue I've had is that often default to assuming the character is the same gender as the player. I find using initiative counters with the characters' portraits printed on them helps with this.

Yeah, that is the only challenge I've ever had with it, remembering which pronoun to use for the character. Other than that, no issues have ever come up.

 

[Zardnaar]

Nobody in my groups has showed interest in doing that in the last 20 years.

Last time I saw it action, we were all 14 year olds and a couple of male players tried playing female characters. As you can expect given our age at the time, things were not handled in a particularly mature way, but no horror stories, either.

I did hear about a female player role playing an horribly stereotyped gay character that made everyone uncomfortable, but it wasn’t my group.

Yeah we didn't cover ourselves in glory aged 15 or so.

 

[TheSword]

There is a fairly stupendous amount of hypocrisy in a DM that role plays both male and Female NPCs telling players they can only play their own gender.

When I listen to an audiobook I don’t bat an eyelid of the male narrator reads out a female line of dialogue or vice versa.

It bemuses me. Though I too find the term “cross-playing” unhelpful. It’s as if we’re trying to categorize and label something that really doesn’t need it.

 

[Quartz]

So as a discussion question for all you GMs out there: Is crossplaying common practice at your table? And for those of you that do allow it, has it ever caused any issues?

Isn't this an argument we had, what, 35 or 40 years ago?

 

[Blackrat]

Yeah, I’m in the ”why is this even a question” camp too. Never had trouble with it, and as a player I used to play opposite gender characters about 1/5 of the time until recently. Nowdays I don’t do that as much.

 

[LordEntrails]

Because in many gamers experience a lot of people especially guys who play the opposite gender do it in a manner that is disruptive to other players. Also not everyone has the same comfort zones at the table and gaming is about everyone having fun not just a few people.

That's a player maturity issue. imo its the same as playing a rogue (or kender) that steals disruptively from the party, a lawful stupid paladin. Or any of a thousand other player behaviors that can disrupt a table. If the table expects everyone to be working together, then they need to be working together. Doesn't matter if Big Ted is playing a dainty Fey or if Elizabeth is playing Brutus, it matters if the players are aware of and concerned with the fun of everyone at the table.

edit: and no, it's never caused problems. Even when we were immature teenage boys.

 

[Laurefindel]

That's a player maturity issue. imo its the same as playing a rogue (or kender) that steals disruptively from the party, a lawful stupid paladin. Or any of a thousand other player behaviors that can disrupt a table. If the table expects everyone to be working together, then they need to be working together. Doesn't matter if Big Ted is playing a dainty Fey or if Elizabeth is playing Brutus, it matters if the players are aware of and concerned with the fun of everyone at the table.

edit: and no, it's never caused problems. Even when we were immature teenage boys.

It's a societal maturity issue on the matter of gender (and ethnicity for that matter). Nevertheless, blantantly ignoring a fellow player's sensibilities - even if they are misguided - isn't much better either. Why should it even be a question? Because some players are jerks, or at best, naively ignorant, and different people are in different stages when it comes to gender. I don't think "allowing cross-playing" should even be a question, but it still is.

 

[Fauchard1520]

The biggest difficulty I've had recently was getting used to a "they/them" pronoun for a character who was nonbinary. Just like in real life, I've gotten used to seeing gender as a singular trait. Working with it in roleplaying helps me practice when I don't want to mess up in reality.

Starfinder runs into this a lot. It's a trip trying to portray the shirren.

 

[Fauchard1520]

I didn't even encounter it until the first time I went to a con and found that some tables forbid people from playing characters of a different gender. I found it very strange.

Now this is fascinating. What were the circumstances at the con? Did you get an explanation for the ban?