Do you let PC's play opposite gender characters?

[Hypersmurf]

Are you saying this would not bother you if it were two females instead?

The post was a reaction to someone else's experience with cross-gender drow lesbian PCs I'm afraid I don't have any non-cross-gender drow lesbian PC stories to relate...

Yikes! If that's the second-creepiests PbEM expirience you've had, then the creepiest expirience must have been really strange and disturbing.

Well, at least the drow lesbians played out the bedroom scenes by private email.

The creepiest one was a semi-freeform game set in Imperial Rome, and the DM accidentally cross-posted something from another game she was running, involving a priestess ceremonially raping a male slave PC as part of some harvest rite, in graphic detail. And given that indications pointed to the same sort of thing on the horizon in the Roman game, I got out of there...

There wasn't any warning in the campaign info or character submission guidelines that we were signing up for cooperative porn...

-Hyp.

 

[Orius]

I do allow it, although I generally think it's a little strange for someone to play someone of the opposite sex (unless they got stuck with my all-time favorite cursed item, the belt of femininity/masculinity, and that desn't really count ). Perhaps it's because I almost never play characters of the opposite sex. I'm not a woman, I don't know what it's like to be a woman, so I don't play women as PCs, even though I'm not a "real-roleplayer" type. The only female character I played was way back when I started playing, when I joined a game in progress. The other players gave me the party's female cleric to play, and I didn't want the character. Not just because the character was female, but because cleric is hardly my favorite class as well. They tried to convince me by saying, "Dude you can ride unicorns!", but I hate unicorns too.


I have DMed female NPCs in the past, but I have a slight tendancy to create more male NPCs.

 

[Scarbonac]

"Let"?

I'n at a loss as to how and why one would stop them.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I'n at a loss as to how and why one would stop them.

Well, the "how" is easy.

The DM says "No templates, no psionics, and no females."

And if you don't like it, what are you going to do? Try and play your Half-Dragon Seeress anyway?

-Hyp.

 

[S'mon]

As a DM I generally don't let people play outside their own gender. The few times I have, the characters have been badly played stereotypes of the gender. (Both Men and Women have screwed this up) I was just wondering how others handle this topic??

Thanks
Z

Currently in the game I DM a female player (StalkingBlue) is playing a male PC.

In the game StalkingBlue DMs, I (a male) am playing a female PC.

My wife plays both male & female PCs in games I DM, depending on the type of character desired.

I don't see a problem with this in principle. Some players are too immature to play characters of the opposite gender, but I think this is a fairly small minority of (male?) players.

 

[S'mon]

I can't understand why anybody would not allow someone to play 'the other gender' unless they themselves (the person disallowing or objecting) had some sort of unresolved 'psychological issue'.

Although I agree, many players and DMs do have issues with this, so it's really not abnormal/aberrant behaviour. It may be perfectly understandable, if you have immature players who play opposite-gender characters excruciantingly badly it's only natural to blanket ban it as a self-defense mechanism. If you've been burned several times, it's safer just not to allow the possibility again.

 

[Chacal]

Yes, I allow it.

No, I've never seen any problems.

Me too


Chacal, who needed to post a "Me too" this morning

 

[RangerWickett]

Well, I understand the issue of immature gamers. This Christmas, I ran a game for a friend and some of his friends. They each had two PCs, one male, one female, and at one point during the game the three female PCs decided to seduce some information out of a man. All three worked together. I admit, I was really surprised by this, especially since the game I was guest-DMing for was Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. I suppose it was somewhat appropriate, now that I think of it.

 

[Silver Moon]

I'm not a woman, I don't know what it's like to be a woman, so I don't play women as PCs.

Ah, I think understand. So by using that same logic I can safely assume that:

1. You only play humans, since you don't know what it's like to be a dwarf, elf, orc or halfling.

2. You never play spellcasters, since you don't know what it's like to actually cast real magic spells.

3. You only play D20 Modern, since you don't know what it's like to live in a different period of time.

4. All of your characters work as the same profession as you have in real life, since you don't know what it's like to have a profession other than that.

 

[Templetroll]

Well, I understand the issue of immature gamers. This Christmas, I ran a game for a friend and some of his friends. They each had two PCs, one male, one female, and at one point during the game the three female PCs decided to seduce some information out of a man. All three worked together. I admit, I was really surprised by this, especially since the game I was guest-DMing for was Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. I suppose it was somewhat appropriate, now that I think of it.

Are you saying the three handled the roleplay immaturely or that you thought the decision was the players using the female characters to seduce rather than the female characters decided to seduce?

My input on the topic is that I have played female characters, some well and some badly and some that started out like they might be bad ended up well.

I've let players select their genders and have leeway if they had some odd idea to try out. My favorite was Marmaduke Bonthrop Shalmardeen, played by a woman - Marmaduke was a female who was evident during the day, Shalmardeen was a female evident during the night and Bonthrop was male and was evident during battle. I added a thing that if anyone ever said all three names in the right order there was a localized violent aberration in the time space continuum of my world. This only occured once by accident and once to test the theory. The players didn't want to try it again since I was smiling.