guys and girls

[Quicken]

Item Drawback: 30–32 Character’s gender changes.

If you've never played in a campaign with something like this. Talk to your DM. It's very entertaining when a character has to go through all the shock and is told by high level clerics there is no "cure" and that perhaps he/she can find a similar such "cursed" item to reverse the process.

 

[Fenes]

My very first AD&D 2E character fell into the cursed spring of drowned girl in his second or third adventure - any Ranma fan knows what I am speaking of (cold water changes him to a girl, hot water reverses the change). Suffice to say that an umbrella became standard issue for that character, and his womanizing ways changed quite a bit over the next 12 levels.

Nowadays I mainly DM, and roleplay both male and female NPCs. I don't have a problem with roleplaying female NPCs or PCs, and I don't try to sound like a girl when roleplaying - and I use indirect speech ("She tells the watch officer she is terribly sorry about the misunderstanding") often. Since as a DM I provide love interests for the player characters without them batting an eye I don't see how playing a female character as a male could freak them out.

 

[Whisper72]

Hmmm... I have played a girl character, but in PBeM games. This is IMHO a bit easier then sitting in front of a guy whose PC is a girl. If you have no RL face/person in front of you, it is easier for other players to take the PC at 'face value'.

 

[Asmor]

I have played one once in Hunter: The Reckoning, the hardest roleplaying of my life, a futile girl with a large wealth that her father gave her, I would say she is Alicia Silverstone in that damn movie I cannot remember the name. She lived in Berverly Hills, by the way, both my character and the one of Alicia.

I loved the character and it ended up being one of my best roleplaying acts and one of the greatest challenges I have ever had. Making a female fighter would be another good one, specially while tying to keep her feminility untouched...

Maybe I will take that idea a step further next time I can make a character...

Batman & Robin?

 

[S'mon]

As a (male) GM I play lots of male & female NPCs.

As a (male)player I play quite a lot of female PCs, somewhere around 1/3 or so of all my PCs are female. I don't think I'd ever be comfortable playing a 'sexy' or sex-oriented female character as a PC though; never mind a 'sex-crazed slut'. *eek*
Most of my female characters tend to be strong, often reserved, types, often Fighter types, to me their mindset being female is quite different from my male Fighter PCs, but they're not 'typically feminine', they're more like the female soldiers & such I've met IRL. I find these a lot easier to identify with than I would with a CHA-18 female Bard who uses feminine wiles to make her way.

 

[S'mon]

I think for me, I have a hard time with the whole "I'm a real big badass" persona kind of character. I've never played a barbarian, and could never see myself doing that. My male PCs tend to be scholarly, or aloof, or shadowy, and I've played a variety of female personas - low int female paladin, or a lusty priestess of Sune, or a naive street urchin. You name it.

I'm kinda the opposite - nearly all my PCs, male and female, are "I'm a real big badass" types!
I play a male scholar IRL, so that'd be kind of boring. > I don't like playing low INT, I prefer 10+, but not too intellectual (I use my brain plenty GMing, playing I prefer to rely on emotions more), and I'd tend to be uncomfortable playing lusty or (very) naive female PCs, though as GM in my Conan game I've enjoyed playing a couple of naive young teenage male NPCs who hero-worshipped (and doubtless lusted after, but were too shy to say) two older female warrior/barbarian PCs...

 

[Tuzenbach]

Nice thread! It's very interesting the amount of guys who play girl characters. What would Freud say? LoL!

Just as interesting is that it doesn't go both ways. Yes, the stats show that there are far fewer girls who play guy characters, but there are also far fewer girls who play D&D than guys.

Being a guy who's only ever played guy characters, I was surprised by this poll to discover that I was in the minority.

 

[S'mon]

Of the female players in my group, one seems to play all female PCs, the other plays about 1/3 male to 2/3 female, just as I play 1/3 female to 2/3 male. I think this is a nice normal healthy ratio. >

 

[Asmor]

Nice thread! It's very interesting the amount of guys who play girl characters. What would Freud say? LoL!

Hmm... That might explain why I like to play matriarchal female characters who smoke cigars...

 

[Khaalis]

Well just to throw in a few late comments... I answered that I play females only because I DMed almost all of the time and I was forced to personify both male and female personalities all the time.

I have however, played with people who cross-gender play. In fact one friend of mine prefers to play female characters 90% of the time (disturbing as that is in RL...)

As far as being a player, I have never played a female, even in the various MMORPG's. Personally I have met very few guys that can accurately play a females. Most In my experience, most guys tend to play female characters from their perspective of what they "want" a female to be - which in most cases just comes across as feeling awkward and wrong (usually due to it coming across as a sexist or immature surreal view of femininity). Not that no guy ever could, I just haven’t met any.

However, as someone else mentioned this really falls into the same arena as cross-species play as well. For example, I honestly do not think that anyone could truly play an Elf's personality as they are described. With their extremely long lifespan and the way they view the passing of time being SO alien to us, I really don’t feel that they can be accurately role-played. Elven players are always the "oddity" in Elven society. Otherwise, if all elves acted the way PC elves do, every game world would be dominated and ruled by thousands of 40th level epic elves.

Anyway, just a few rambling thoughts.