Wow! What a lot of text people have generated in the five short hours I have been away from my computer.
First of all, I want to commend Kahuna Burger for some very insightful posts. Well done! In particular, I'm very impressed with her additional contribution to explaining why I have observed women being more proficient and playing men than vice-versa. I suppose it does make sense that everyone who is not a heterosexual white male will have an easier time slipping into that role than straight white males have slipping into the role of another identifyable group -- the vastly disproportionate over-representation of the straight white male point of view in literature, both fiction and non-fiction. I find this analysis immediately compelling and largely indisputable.
That stated, I don't feel that this observation invalidates my view that men's motivations are less complex than women's or that women are socialized to be more observant of the motivations of others than men are.
I'm therefore a little disappointed by her subsequent descent into sophistry regarding my observations about female height and strength.
I'm also impressed by seasong's posts; I'm glad to see that someone who doesn't share my particular ideology of gaming on this issue is giving similar advice in response to lokiqc's original post.
I think seasong is quite correct to state that my third piece of advice -- don't play out romance or sex in your game -- applies equally to male characters as to females. As a DM, I don't think romance and sexuality have a place in my games. It's just my experience that gender-bending male players are much more likely than the average player to want to do this; therefore, I thought it important to include this as one of my guidelines for men who insist on playing female characters.
Although I won't respond to all of Oni's post, including the lengthy mental acrobatics in the section on how my house rule discriminates against female players, I will take a shot at answering her question about why I've had more success running female NPCs than female PCs.
I guess it's a question of being "on" all the time. When I run a female NPC, the scope of the NPC's role is circumscribed by the plot I design. I am therefore able to plan-out and consider the NPC's possible reactions to most of the situations in which she will find herself. I obviously don't have that luxury when I run a female PC -- I have to be capable of improvising her reactions to a much wider range of events and situations. I think the enormity of such a task is a little too much for me.
Although I don't particularly wish to continue the flames with Lazarus, I must say that I'm surprised that he thinks, based on my posts, that I view males as insipid. I apologize for thinking he was misinterpreting the dictionary when in fact he was just misinterpreting my posts even more than I had previously imagined.
Finally, I have been corrected by a number of people on my 6th piece of advice. Because I have been very fortunate my whole life to have had friends of all ages, I irrationally assumed that others have my facility with understanding people much older. Looking back, I realize it is pretty abnormal that my closest friend in 1993-94 was 40 years older than me or that my closest friend in 1999-2000 was 25 years older. That stated, I do think the crone archetype is a much better archetype on which to base a character than the slut and virgin archetypes that other posters have sensibly identified as problematic.
First of all, I want to commend Kahuna Burger for some very insightful posts. Well done! In particular, I'm very impressed with her additional contribution to explaining why I have observed women being more proficient and playing men than vice-versa. I suppose it does make sense that everyone who is not a heterosexual white male will have an easier time slipping into that role than straight white males have slipping into the role of another identifyable group -- the vastly disproportionate over-representation of the straight white male point of view in literature, both fiction and non-fiction. I find this analysis immediately compelling and largely indisputable.
That stated, I don't feel that this observation invalidates my view that men's motivations are less complex than women's or that women are socialized to be more observant of the motivations of others than men are.
I'm therefore a little disappointed by her subsequent descent into sophistry regarding my observations about female height and strength.
I'm also impressed by seasong's posts; I'm glad to see that someone who doesn't share my particular ideology of gaming on this issue is giving similar advice in response to lokiqc's original post.
I think seasong is quite correct to state that my third piece of advice -- don't play out romance or sex in your game -- applies equally to male characters as to females. As a DM, I don't think romance and sexuality have a place in my games. It's just my experience that gender-bending male players are much more likely than the average player to want to do this; therefore, I thought it important to include this as one of my guidelines for men who insist on playing female characters.
Although I won't respond to all of Oni's post, including the lengthy mental acrobatics in the section on how my house rule discriminates against female players, I will take a shot at answering her question about why I've had more success running female NPCs than female PCs.
I guess it's a question of being "on" all the time. When I run a female NPC, the scope of the NPC's role is circumscribed by the plot I design. I am therefore able to plan-out and consider the NPC's possible reactions to most of the situations in which she will find herself. I obviously don't have that luxury when I run a female PC -- I have to be capable of improvising her reactions to a much wider range of events and situations. I think the enormity of such a task is a little too much for me.
Although I don't particularly wish to continue the flames with Lazarus, I must say that I'm surprised that he thinks, based on my posts, that I view males as insipid. I apologize for thinking he was misinterpreting the dictionary when in fact he was just misinterpreting my posts even more than I had previously imagined.
Finally, I have been corrected by a number of people on my 6th piece of advice. Because I have been very fortunate my whole life to have had friends of all ages, I irrationally assumed that others have my facility with understanding people much older. Looking back, I realize it is pretty abnormal that my closest friend in 1993-94 was 40 years older than me or that my closest friend in 1999-2000 was 25 years older. That stated, I do think the crone archetype is a much better archetype on which to base a character than the slut and virgin archetypes that other posters have sensibly identified as problematic.
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