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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbra" data-source="post: 1549566" data-attributes="member: 17086">I base my decision about the gender to make a character based for a multiple of reasons such as (some stereotypes follow for the sake of brevity <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> ):What is the gender balance in the party?The well rounded party doesn't mean just a balance of classes and races. Sometimes when you come across the burnt out farm house, the woman who has just lost her husband and children in an orc raid will be more communicative to another woman. Some organisations, religions and cultures will ban men or women from certain places, jobs, etc. Sometimes a member of the opposite sex will have a better chance of getting x from y. etcWhich gender will provide the most interesting role-play opportunities (difference = conflict = good drama)?Both within the party and within the setting.  Example, if the party is all female, playing a male can be interesting.  If the party approaches a town gate and the guards automatically talk to the male in the party...watch out!Which gender matches the character concept/history?I have created a character that was a male halforc barbarian but on thinking about the history (human mother raped by orc) I decided playing a female would add to the characterisation of someone with absolutely no tolerance for full blood orcs, rapists and most especially, both <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":]" title="Devious    :]" data-shortname=":]" /> !What will be fun/educational?I can't separate these two aspects as they are strongly connected for me.  Yes I may be crap in playing a female character (from a female's point of view) but it's fun to try and I may just learn something about how the other sex operates (blatant generalisation but I have noticed a few things).The DM.Of course, DM's without the skills to handle this stuff make the point mute.For those interested, there is a great book by Deborah Tannen (i think) called You Just Don't Understand.  Tannen is a social linguist who analyses how men and women use language differently and what their preferences for communicating are.  Reading this book improved my relationship with my mum enormously (we were going through a rough patch) and with women in general <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> .</blockquote>

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