Do you let PC's play opposite gender characters?

[DrZombie]

I don't allow it.

Player dependable, I think. Had one ore two players do it very very badly, but then again, they were very very very bad players anyway. Kicked 'em out.

I know one or two guys who always play women characters, one is as gay as it gets, the other is a father of four healthy kids, so there ya go.

I have no problems with it, as long as they stay sensible. I feel rather uncomfortable about roleplaying the between the bedsheets thinghy, so that is never explicitly played out.
I do feel that sexuality is a part of the character, and if a player is playing a bard that is a ladies man then so be it, and he'll have his "conquests" but in a very "dim the lights and fade-out" kinda way.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Yes, I allow PCs to play opposite-gender characters. I haven't yet had any problems arise because of this.

Besides, I've observed that most of the time, males play as male characters and females play as female characters. So the issue of opposite-gender characters dosen't come up very often anyways.

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

I with the jester on this one I male, hence the brother in my user name, and I have a few female characters and probably only run a male character 60% of the time.

I don't think I've ever caused an issue with this and except for one who is suppose to less than morally ethical they all avoid most of the stereotypes everyone keeps talking of.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Yes, I've always allowed cross-gender characters, and in fact my most recent character is female (I'm male, of course).

But, it HAS caused problems. Back in college, whenever a new guy would try to join in, there was a good chance he'd try something like this. Either he'd play a female and just be really stereotypical (slutty, whiny, whatever trait he associated with women), or he'd treat the other female characters that way (even the ones played by actual females). After all, he'd say things like "it's just a game, don't take it so personally!"

Eventually, we used that as a litmus test for players. Anyone who couldn't handle dealing with cross-gender players wasn't mature enough for our group.

It's also led to some of the most entertaining roleplaying I've ever seen. A thirty-year-old man whose character was a 6-year-old ("6 and three-quarters!") girl. Even though he KNEW what the monster was, there'd be no way she would. When confronted with an Ettin, she tried to tickle it. (And then rolled two natural 20s, followed by it rolling a 1 on its attack roll... DM ruled it must have been really ticklish and stopped fighting to play with her.)

 

[Silver Moon]

We have several players in our group who have characters with genders opposite to the players. It's never been a problem. In fact, I have a female ranger who is married to the party's leader (played by another male player) and she is about to give birth to their son. I have another female PC who is her daughter. My wife (kriskrafts) plays mostly female characters, but she also has a tall male paladin that she has a lot of fun playing.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I allow it in my campaign (one player strictly alternates between playing male and female PC's), and one of my PC's is female (I'm male). Never seen any problems with it or experienced any problems with it at all.

Cheers

 

[Aristotle]

I so don't get how folks can allow or disallow something like this. I won't critisize. You should run the game however you wish ... It just seems to be that disallowing someone to play a female character because they are male is like disallowing someone to play an elf because they are human.

Sure, some players suck when it comes to playing characters of the other sex. They end up playing odd stereotypes (and those stereotypes stand out more because people are usually expecting them in such situations), and generally not playing a well-rounded character. But then again ... That is less about gender and more about role playing. Folks who tend to play gender stereotypes are the same people who tend to play racial stereotypes. A poorly played female character is no worse in my book than a poorly played elf.

I allow it, obviously, and feel that the whole point of role playing is that you can play characters who are diverse and different from who and what you are in the real world. In my opinion that applies to all aspects of a character from race and physical appearance to gender and religous beliefs.

 

[Ottergame]

I don't mind people who play cross gender, but I'm not about to try to fool myself into thinking I can play a convincing female.

I have a twig and berries, not a camel toe, and the same is true of all my characters.

 

[Malk]

Well first of all, i am surprised and pleased to find out that my friends and I were much more mature in high school than i had previously known.

I have seen many good examples of cross gender play, and have only had one really bad experiance. But dont get me wrong, it wasnt the cross gender thing, it was a bad player. I mean this guy would only play lesbians or drow *shudder*

 

[Hypersmurf]

I have seen many good examples of cross gender play, and have only had one really bad experiance. But dont get me wrong, it wasnt the cross gender thing, it was a bad player. I mean this guy would only play lesbians or drow *shudder*

Eeee. Second-creepiest PbEM experience I've had involved a group with two male players who were both playing stereotypical gorgeous drow women (one might have been half-drow, from memory), who, a few days into the campaign, decided the characters had become lovers, and spent most of the in-character dialogue calling each other sickly pet names, making out, or commenting how they couldn't wait to get to the inn tonight...

Aiee.

On the other hand, it's not normally a problem. I've played my share of female characters, and an encouraging number of the female characters played by male players that I've come across have not been described as ravishingly attractive, which is always nice.

I took it as quite a compliment once when several months into a PbEM game, someone referred to me in an OOC comment as "she", and several players expressed surprise when I corrected him - apparently I'd avoided the cliches successfully enough that they'd assumed it was a female running the character.

But one of the more memorable cross-gender characters for me was an elven Ranger/Rogue in a FTF game - the player had modelled the character's personality on Phoebe from Friends (or perhaps Ursula), and played her in hyperditz mode with a piercing falsetto. The voice was contagious... at one point we had everyone at the table, bar one too-macho-for-this holdout, speaking in the same squeaky tones.

Horrible, but somehow horribly amusing at the same time

-Hyp.