Ever play a PC of the opposite gender?

[Psion]

Playing a male is easy, you just have to think with your... ah-uh. Sorry.

More seriously, I have found out that human personalities are so varied -- and at the same time, so predictible -- that it's not that hard to be realist.

Just so.

I must admit, I thought that the personality of the character I portrayed... and the woman I met that matched her personality... is not what I consider the type of girl I meet every day. But who cares? Females like that exist, and some of the personality traits she had would show up in many or most adventurer type females whether the player was male or female.

 

[Darth Shoju]

me too

Originally posted by fusangite I have to ask, having read more responses, who here doesn't feel qualified to play across gender? Am I the only one?

Naw, I feel that way too. I don't have anything against other people doing it (in fact I think it's pretty cool), I'm just no good at it. Not to be immodest, but I think I roleplay my male characters well enough (lol though I'm sure I could be better), but I just have this feeling that my female characters come across as too manly. I dunno, just my hangup I guess.

 

[Sejs]

Ace, Sejs, Hypersmurf. Much as I like mixing it up with the best of them on the question of DMs disallowing cross-gender RP by men, this thread was, I think, specifically framed from the players' point of view so that the perennial ENWorld debate doesn't resurface in this thread.

Whoops, sorry - didn't know it was a reoccuring problem, heh. I don't recall wading into a similar debate before here, so it was probably before my time.

Please pardon my faux pas.

^_^

 

[Hypersmurf]

As for Dracula, isn't that literally translated as "son of the Dragon" or "Son of the Devil", i.e. Dracul-a?

Yup, or so I've heard.

His father was Vlad Dracul, "Vlad the Dragon"... and so he was Dracula, "Son of the Dragon".

Unfortunately, it also translates as "Son of the Devil", and he apparently took the title to... heart.

-Hyp.

 

[s/LaSH]

Reference: I'm male, and I rarely play females (I wish I had more gaming time and someone else to DM; that count might go up).

I don't really see there as being much difference between genders. (There are things, but not big things.) All adventurers have something in their psyche that makes them go off and fight things that really, really want to kill them. Male or female, that's going to lend itself to some pretty extreme personalities.

It's personality first, as far as I go. I've never seen a male PC 'flaunting his wares', why should a female? Maybe a lowcut dress if that's culturally apt, maybe a bit more aesthetic panache than male PCs (hence desire for shiny things in various treasure hoards), but really, not too much difference.

I mean, look at Cat in Dungeon Damage. Replace her with a sixteen-year-old boy and the lines still fit (I think). That's how I played her (when she was my NPC). That's my philosophy.

 

[kibbitz]

I'm wondering how often gamers role-play a PC of the opposite gender. I've heard some gamers (especially males) have problems with the idea of a male playing a female and consider it to be "gay" or just improper due to the fact that males often pervert the situation or role-play various female stereotypes that aren't realistic.

Right now I (a male) am playing a female cleric/bard. It's fun - she isn't terribly girly (despite being a priestess of Sune) and no, I don't talk in a high voice. Basically she's just another party member. I've also found it's useful for a party to have a female in it for at least a couple reasons:

1. Females can flirt/distract males and gather information that males might not be able to obtain - assuming they don't have really bad charisma, of course.

2. Females are less likely to be suckered by charming female NPCs that are often inserted by the DM to mislead or distract the party.

So - have people played female NPCs in the past? If so, what did you think?

Tried, failed. Partly because we were young and dungeon-crawling or mass combat was on the agenda, so gender never really mattered.

Partly because we were in an all-boys school then and our encounters with the opposite gender were usually limited to family (and sometimes, they don't count ), so our roleplaying, well, not credible to say the least And since we were young and *ahem* innocent the flirting/charming/distracting bit really never struck us as possibilities and either way, most of us then would have been too dense to catch any of it, heh.

 

[Fenes 2]

I am male and play more female PCs than male PCs, but I mainly DM. I don't really understand how people could fear "unrealistic female PCs" - we are playing adventurers and other misfits, not the average people.

No one has any problem with playing a male PC that does not, as a lot of the peasants in D&D are apt to do, toils the soil, bows before the local knight, gets drunk whenever possible and has strong opinions about strangers. No one has any problem playing a male PC that is not hypercharged on testosterone, or thinks with his zipper, or conforms to any other stereotype, and no one has any problem playing a male PC that conforms to the male stereotype of the week either.

Only if you are playing a female PC it is suddenly possible to do it wrong? How on earth do you fail at playing your own PC? It is not as if there is an universally true and accepted standard of female behaviour that applies to any and all women, even to the crazy adventuring breed.

Heck, even if you play a slutty vamp, or a butch male-hating lesbian you are not doing anything wrong - you are just playing an extreme PC, like the pacifist priest, or the gung-ho fighter, or the lawful stupid paladin.

Only if your playing said PC in that way results in lessened enjoyment of the game for the rest of the group are you doing something wrong.

 

[Tanstaafl]

Only if your playing said PC in that way results in lessened enjoyment of the game for the rest of the group are you doing something wrong.

Good point...

 

[Artimoff]

My first D&D character as an adult was a hemiphrodite mulatto based on the comic character Rebis from Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol. After that every other character is female. I also choose a female if no one else is going to just to have a variety in the party.

 

[Orius]

Only once, and only for one game. I talk about it over in the "Worst Campaign Ever" thread. Basically, I was the new guy in the group and they stuck me with the cleric who happened to be female.

I don't play female characters not because I don't understand women, because I feel I can't handle a female mindset, or something. It's because I simply don't identify with women characters.