males playing females and the other way around, opinions?

[JustKim]

Why's that?

Oh, it's more to do with characterization than comfort levels. It's just more difficult to create an NPC who, for instance, appeals to the character as a woman without putting off the player as a man. It's more difficult with male players, for me at least. I'm curious if the opposite is true for male DMs, but darned if I knew where to find them.

 

[pawsplay]

I don't think most people who are objecting to cross-gender playing understand gender as well as they might think.

I have been accused of playing a female character, badly. However, at the time, I was actually playing a foppish male character. That my flamboyant presentation could even be mistaken for the intention to portray a standard issue female character is a point of pride for myself (that I was able to convey enough there, there) and also a reason to laugh at people who think they know what they are seeing in gender situations when context is removed.

I used to MUD. I played a couple of female characters. I had no interest in flirting for gold or getting special attention, nor in "cybering," and in fact found OOC attention pretty annoying if it didn't result in XP. Nonetheless, chivalry was foisted upon me. Further, the flirtation was relentless, and at one point, I ended up in a long conversation over the course of two days, and remained cagey about my RL gender because I didn't want to be seen as a creepo. The result? Listening to mild heartache and serious self-pity when I was finally cornered into spilling the beans by my persistent paramour.

In my first Werewolf game, I played a female cheerleader, none too bright. While it would be easy to slip into stereotypes there, I thought it was really interesting to juxtapose a conventional, not very insightful character with the strange and surreal circumstances. Further, I played her as a very earnest, decent person. The other players remembered her for her obstinency, for her participation in a fiasco that nearly got her killed, and for her perhaps overly optimistic attempts to rescue lost cubs from the Black Spiral Dancers. They don't necessarily remember her much as to my credibility as a female.

I just wrapped up my level 1 to 20 3.5/Pathfinder game. One of the crowning moments of glory was the death of the hag, Higarla. My players hated her and constantly alternated between schemes to get her killed and figuring out a way to obtain her knowledge and aid. She did a seductive routine against a PC disguised as a milkmaid. I won't deny for a second I enjoyed playing her, that I took some vicarious pleasure in tormenting the PCs with her triple-crossing and her perverse affection for those she would lead onto a path that meant danger as well as possible glory... But for my players' part, the way they responded to her as a character, she might as well have been a different person. They all but danced on her grave.

 

[evileeyore]

I must be just as insane, because just as I don't assume that people who want to play an Evil character are "massive creephats," or that people who want to play an adult dragon character are "massive creephats," I don't assume that people who want to play a cross-gender PC are "massive creephats."

Sure.


But anyone playing the opposite sex just so they can get extra goodies? That's a creeptard right there.

 

[JustKim]

I used to MUD. I played a couple of female characters. I had no interest in flirting for gold or getting special attention, nor in "cybering," and in fact found OOC attention pretty annoying if it didn't result in XP. Nonetheless, chivalry was foisted upon me. Further, the flirtation was relentless, and at one point, I ended up in a long conversation over the course of two days, and remained cagey about my RL gender because I didn't want to be seen as a creepo. The result? Listening to mild heartache and serious self-pity when I was finally cornered into spilling the beans by my persistent paramour.

I know the kind of behavior you describe is responsible for a lot of women playing male characters. It's not so much that we're curious, we just don't want to have to beat off paramours with a stick. Or have to think about where your mind goes when we mention beating off paramours with a stick.

When I played MMOs, I found that I could play female characters perfectly comfortably because people would assume I was male. So thank you, 14 year old boys playing female characters, for that.

 

[fanboy2000]

I'm fine with it. It's been my experience that people play their PC's gender about as well as they play their race.

 

[S'mon]

Oh, it's more to do with characterization than comfort levels. It's just more difficult to create an NPC who, for instance, appeals to the character as a woman without putting off the player as a man. It's more difficult with male players, for me at least. I'm curious if the opposite is true for male DMs, but darned if I knew where to find them.

I think it depends a bit on the level of player-PC identification - I generally play PCs who, while they contain aspects of my personality, are very much 'not me', whether they're axe-wielding male barbarians* or dedicated female military officers.

That said, I don't have much experience as a player of playing a romance with a female PC. I remember one time playing 'Midnight' with a female GM my very reserved female Ironborn Fighter PC Zana Than clumsily tried to court a young man she took a fancy to, giving him a gift of jewelry, but the GM didn't pick up on it - I think Zana was *too* reserved!

The majority of my experience of romance subplots has been GMing female NPCs with male PCs played by male players, or in a few cases male NPCs with female players of female PCs. All have been heterosexual, I've never seen this "Male Player of Lesbian Stripper Ninja PC" thing, and I don't think I've ever seen or GM'd a Lesbian Stripper Ninja NPC either!


*Although as I'm an Ulsterman, some of my southern-English fellow gamers do seem to find me a little barbaric.

 

[S'mon]

Oh, it's more to do with characterization than comfort levels. It's just more difficult to create an NPC who, for instance, appeals to the character as a woman without putting off the player as a man. It's more difficult with male players, for me at least. I'm curious if the opposite is true for male DMs, but darned if I knew where to find them.

Lemme think - for a straight male player of a female PC, with a female GM and male NPC romantic interest... I'm thinking one trick might be for the male NPC to be a "man's man", someone the male player will identify with. Think Clint Eastwood or Charlton Heston, craggy square-jawed types. Avoid the kind of Johnny Depp/Orlando Bloom type male leads who mostly appeal to women, or the Romance Novel male who is strong-but-sexy and goes all squishy for the female protagonist.

That said, in the Midnight game the NPC my female PC was romantically interested in was a brave young squire of similar age to herself, and when I GM'd for female players in a Conan game they rapidly acquired downy-cheeked youths to swoon at the feet of their young female barbarian PCs, so that might be a possibility too. Also depends on how much of the romance is played out and how much is just abstracted.

 

[Hussar]

I gotta admit that romance is one area in my games that things have never really happened. I've honestly rarely even made much of an attempt at it (beyond the typical hur hur gurls sort of thing). The last longish campaign I ran, I straight up asked the players if this was something they would be comfortable with and most of them pretty much said no, they were not interested in romance in their D&D game. Phew, dodged that bullet.

The one time romance did come up in a game, I was very uncomfortable actually. One of the other players was playing the love interest of my character, chasing him around rather strongly. I played along at first, but, felt more and more uncomfortable as time went on.

Totally a failing on my part. The other player really did a great job.

Now, I tend to simply leave that end of things off the table. Just not something I fell really comfortable dealing with at the table.

 

[Bagpuss]

Yeah, this. I mean, as long as you're playing in a setting where the genders are treated equally, which covers the majority of fantasy settings,

But not a single modern day, or historical one.

there's little point, since no character concept requires a particular sex.

I played a Priestess of Idun in an 2nd Ed campaign, there are no Priest of Idun. But that's not the point, there is no character concept that requires your character to be rude, or tall, or an only child, or black, or whatever, but they are still part of your character concept even if they have no in game statistics or effect other than through roleplaying.

 

[Sunseeker]

Oh, it's more to do with characterization than comfort levels. It's just more difficult to create an NPC who, for instance, appeals to the character as a woman without putting off the player as a man. It's more difficult with male players, for me at least. I'm curious if the opposite is true for male DMs, but darned if I knew where to find them.

I find that the problem with NPCs is simply that they try too hard. Men are either charactichures(sp) of real men, or they're obsessively one thing. If they like fighting then the LOVE fighting, if they like food then they're fat and the OBSESSED with food. And so on. Or worse, they're men who approach romance like women, with subtle clues, dropping hints, and so on. In short, simply due to time constraints, male NPCs(IME) have generally been about as 2-dimensional as you can get.

Not to mention that even though the PC is a woman, the player is still a man, and men and women have distinctly different ways of picking up that someone is trying to romance them. Their brain simply isn't trained to receive information in the same way.


As a man, I can honestly say that as much as I like the shapes the female body provides, any other man can be funny, romantic, love food, enjoy heavy metal, and therefore, make me somewhat attracted to them. But I don't think most DMs, even the good ones, are going to invest that much time in it.

Not to mention, all relationships are willingly entered into(unless there's money!) which is why player-NPC romances are generally bad ideas. Either a lot of good work goes to waste when they're spurned, or it just gets weird essentially romancing the DM.