guys and girls

[Djeta Thernadier]

I'm female and I played a male NPC the first time I joined in and played.

Later I created a female PC for the same game. I like playing women better, but I'm not opposed to playing a guy.

 

[Thanee]

Sorry folks, but stop trying to pretend you can tell me how a woman or man of a fantasy culture acts any better than you can tell me how an elf or dwarf acts.

That's not what he said... he said, that you can take actual examples from men and women, but not from elves and dwarves, to compare with. This makes comparison easier and errors (in playing an elf or dwarf) are more easily looked over.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

But it's okay to play a dwarf, or an elf, or an assassin, or divine spell caster, or a lawful evil, or a true neutral. He must mean that it makes him feel weird to address a female player as he and vice versa.

Roleplay = let's pretend.

The players in my group have played characters of opposite genders (or even different genders, for example an asexual draconian who dreamt of being male or female), different races, alignments, sexual orientations, species, etc.

viva la difference (or however you spell it)

It's nothing that I have personal beef with... and, it's never actually come up in any game that I've played in. Everyone just sticks with their own sex.

I just don't think that I would feel comfortable playing a character that was not female. If other people want to do it, I'm fine with it... but, in our group, the DM won't allow it-- and so, I guess, I've never really examined it as a legit option.

 

[Fenes]

That's not what he said... he said, that you can take actual examples from men and women, but not from elves and dwarves, to compare with. This makes comparison easier and errors (in playing an elf or dwarf) are more easily looked over.

Bye
Thanee

My point is: There are no such errors. You can't really say that playing a character a certain way - even if it is an extreme stereotype - is wrong. Odds are there is at least one human out there that will fit that stereotype perfectly, no matter if it is the slutty girl or the macho hormonally challenged barbarian or the crazy murderer.

Such stereoypes may be inappropriate to a particular party, campaign or gaming group, but they are not "wrong".

Edit: Taking an example from real life and then judging a player character as wrong is about as worng as taking another character as an example and then judging the first character as wrong.

 

[Naafra]

I'm a female, and I'm a DM.
It's obvious that a GM must roleplay both gendres, but they are NPC and are quite different from player characters. In my groups I've ever had a boy who plays a girl or a girl who plays a boy, but I've noted that these characters aren't so natural. Something is missing. Play a male or a female it's not only have different names and clothes, but a different points of view of the situations and different ways to resolve the problems. Yes, the character may be good, well used, very important in the party, but surrounded by an aura of weirdness.
The rare times that I play a player character I prefer to choose a female (yes, she may be masculine, sexy or wathever, but a female).

 

[Presto2112]

I'm a 31 yearold guy. My favorite character of all time was an 2e Elven thief I played back in 1990-1991 that went by the name of Laithian Shadowfire. I played the Chaotic Neutral to the hilt, and it was an absolute blast playing her.

 

[StalkingBlue]

Of the female players in my group, one ... 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. >

Now that is very obviously wise and true.

 

[spectre72]

What's the problem?

I don't see a problem with anyone playing any character.

My current characters are

Female Gnome - Monk 8 / Psion 1
Female Human - Druid 7

Working on

Female Sand Elf - Barbarian 4 / Fighter 2 / Frenzied Berserker

For me it has alot to do with the mini's.

I like reaper mini's and they have a ton of great female characters.

In fact I like many of their female sculptures better than the male ones.

So thus I get out a mini and start painting before I start the character.

As it works out this means that I work up more female characters.

Alot of this has to do with my hating shiney tin can soldiers

I just like painting something other than armor, and clothes and such are more common on female mini's (even though some of them show alot of skin also).

My female characters are mean and successfull.

The Gnome monk/psion I mentioned has gone head to toe whit more giants than I would like to remember, and is a self reliant partner in the party.

We play seriously, and we don't find a place in our campaign for anyone who plays a female character in an inappropriate manner.

Scott

 

[AIM-54]

I play in the same game as Queen Dopplepopolis and I happen to think our DM's rule is silly. I have played both male and female characters, as PC's and NPC's and never had a problem with it myself, nor has my previous group. One of my favorite characters from a couple of summers ago was my female Face character (essentially a charisma type character) in our Shadowrun campaign that year. I had a great time role-playing her, although I won't pretend it was perfect or all that good necessarily. Nonetheless, it was an enjoyable challenge and I think one of the reasons role-playing can be so much fun. The only more challenging character to play, I think, was my Muslim mage (again, another Shadowrun character, that being the preferred game of that particular group...and to clarify, he derived his magical abilities from his devotion to Islam, one of the flavor reasons I love the SR magic system so) because of my own ignorance of Islam. Had that particular game lasted longer, I would have been able to learn more and better play the character, but trying to capture the essence of a devout Muslim as well as the role of magic was more difficult than trying to RP any female character I've played.

 

[The_Gneech]

Some players can pull it off; some can't. In my current group, one player will randomly make about a third of his characters female, and generally has no problem with it. In a previous group, another player made about half of his characters female, and they were always leather-bodysuit barefoot vixens who had anger-management problems and would randomly have sex with people when they were upset. (WTF?)

I've had several female players in my games over the years, and not yet has one played a male character. I know a gal who plays a very femmy gay male on MUCKs ... not sure why she doesn't just play a woman at that stage, but I suppose she has her reasons.

I've played the occasional female character; it can add a certain amount of edge to a character. The tough-as-nails businessman, everybody expects. The tough-as-nails businesswoman has to be twice as tough to compete. But as time goes on, I've done this less and less. The novelty sorta wore off, I suppose.

-The Gneech