males playing females and the other way around, opinions?

[El Mahdi]

Personally, I find it to be pointless and...creepy.

Frankly, if one wants to explore being a different gender, I'd prefer they not do it in my game. Instead, I think they should just take a trip to Thailand...

 

[EvilQAGuy]

In the game I DM I have a guy that plays a girl, a girl that plays a guy, and a girl that plays a dwarf that has an undisclosed gender.

My only problem is that the guy playing the girl character used a male mini for the first three or four sessions and it's thrown me completely out of whack, even a month later.

As a DM I play female NPCs all the time. Some of those NPCs are recurring, and some stick with the party for a few sessions. No one has ever thought that it was odd when I played a female NPC, unless I was wearing a wig …

 

[Abraxas]

I've seen it done badly so often that I don't allow it when I DM.

 

[jonesy]

I think everyone should do it at least once.

 

[IronWolf]

Though I would prefer my players not play the opposite gender I trust them enough to do so if it was they really wanted to do. Hasn't been a question that has even come up so far.

 

[Umbran]

Old school!

*snrk*

As a complete aside, a song lyric comes to mind these days when I see that phrase: "You're not retro, you're old!"

 

[Mallus]

It's fine.

DM's/GM's are often called upon to play different genders, unless you run all same-sex worlds of fantastic, well-oiled gladiatorial adventure (which is fine if that's what you're into...). Why should it be different for players? While my group doesn't have any cross-gender PC's at the moment, it does have a transgendered one; a towering M-to-F giantess who's like mountain made of fabulous.

My friends and I don't perform deep, serious, and public psychological self-analysis when we play role-playing games. All we're after are fun fictional characters.

 

[Zhaleskra]

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

I know of one case where this is untrue. There is a prestige class in a third party campaign setting where the character has to be female. Unfortunately, that's all I can say about it.

Put me down for the "it's okay as long as they don't go into unfortunate stereotype mode".

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

If it's got no creepy factor attached to it, then I'm okay with it. Sadly, my experience is that males playing females often has the creepy factor going on. That doesn't seem to be true of females playing males, though (again, purely anecdotal and in my experience.)

 

[rogueattorney]

If it's got no creepy factor attached to it, then I'm okay with it. Sadly, my experience is that males playing females often has the creepy factor going on. That doesn't seem to be true of females playing males, though (again, purely anecdotal and in my experience.)

Basically the same. A number of women have played male characters in my games and it's never been a problem. Most men who have played female characters have done so without a problem. But when there is a problem, it's the guy playing the female character.

It doesn't happen enough for me to disallow it out of hand.