males playing females and the other way around, opinions?

[S'mon]

Playing a caricature of a police officer is inherently less offensive, because no police officers ever got killed for trying to vote.

Eh, where I come from a lot of police officers have been murdered for doing their job, for being a particular religion (and thus called 'traitors'), and so on. I can certainly imagine cases where I'd find caricaturing them offensive.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The best thing here for the DM to say, if the player won't, is Fade to Black. There's lots of stuff in a game that should not be described (use of the latrine, say), and for most games sexual intercourse is certainly one of them.

This. If it doesn't advance the adventure and it leaves the rest of the party out in the cold, put it in a cut scene. That goes double for sex and other things that would make the players uncomfortable.

And it depends on the players and group. Some players, *shudder* Some groups - between VoLK, Bourne Kingdom, and War of the Burning Sky at meetup I don't think we have a single cross-gender PC. On the other hand a recent Feng Shui campaign I was in looked as if it would turn into Monstrous Regiment - all female PCs who were impersonating men (except mine which was male to provide a straight man for the humour in the situation).

 

[Nameless1]

Um, no. At least, definitely not necessarily. When I play a female Fighter PC that doesn't mean I'm asking for life to be made difficult for my PC, far less to end up burned at the stake!

I didn't just say difficult. I said difficult/interesting. Maybe a little obtuse way of saying it, but meaning that the choice should be made meaningful in the game, not something that is just a box checked on a sheet. If the player goes out of their way to make their PC their opposite gender, then the choice should be a clue to the GM to play to that. Otherwise, they could have just stuck with their own gender and made things easier on everyone it seems.

If I want life made difficult for my PC (of either sex), I'll tell the GM. If the GM intends to make life difficult for my PC, s/he really ought to tell me in advance so I can reconsider my choice.
This goes for same-gendered PCs too; if the GM's world is going to significantly discriminate against female PCs in-play, s/he should make that clear to female players too, and they can decide if they'd rather play a male PC.

The base assumption is that players and GM should be communicating. One of the methods to communicate to the GM is through character creation. Someone who creates a character who is a sneaky, dissguise expert rogue is telling the GM that they want to have opportunities to sneak and wear disguises in the game that will matter. In the same way, makeing a cross gendered character is a way to tell the GM that gender is important to your character concept, and that the GM should make gender important to the fiction of their game. Otherwise the choice of gender is meaningless.

Or a really crappy GM could both discriminate against female PCs and ban cross-gender PCs. Lots of fun for the female players there.

That is just a crappy GM. For many reasons. He takes away the player's right to choose their gender, then enforces unjust policies that are based on gender. I do not play with people like that. The people who do actually play with people like that deserve the GM that they get. The unfortunate consequence will be immature and unsophisticated games with no female players. Probably in their parent's basement. With cheetos and mountain dew. And zits. Lots of zits.

 

[Barastrondo]

Most instances of "doing it badly" that I have witnessed have been when someone was really trying to make gender apparent as a player. Gender is one of the things that other players and the GM should be highlighting, not the player of the character. How does the orc shieftain treat the female fighter in a conversation? That is an interesting bit to RP. That is how to bring out gender. Bringing gender out through stereotypes as a player is often going to be bad. Bringing it out through NPC reactions is often very good.

When a player puts down a gender on their character sheet, the player is stating that they want to deal with situations in game that have to do with that gender. It is an invitation for the GM to make life difficult/interesting for the character because of their gender. A male player who playes a female fighter is asking for some joan of arc type stories. It is the GM's job to make the decision of gender have meaning, not the player's job. When a player attempts to make it meaningful without the assistance of the GM, the element of gender becomes uncomfortable.

When I play female characters it is because I want to explore the world through the lens of women. I want the opportunity to explore the differences between men and women. Almost always, these differences are in how the world treats them, not in what the character does. There are not many areas as fertile for "role"-playing as exploring gender roles. These gender roles have much less to do with the inherent natures of the sexes as they have to do with societal expectations and interpersonal interactions. That is the heart of RP, and that is why I play games. In games where a character is just a pawn, gender has no meaning except as scenery. In my games, gender is a very interesting and fulfilling aspect of character/culture to explore.

This is a good argument, and often the case, but I believe that it's not always. Sometimes a character's gender is based on an inspirational source. For example, consider a female adventurous archaeologist. The player may have chosen to do a riff on Indiana Jones, but be interested in the situations that being a female version in particular would bring about. But on the other hand, the player may have chosen to do a riff on Lara Croft, just because the character thinks Lara Croft is an interestingly playable character model in an RPG.

One of the reasons I'm personally fine with cross-gender roleplay is that I think it allows clearer inspiration: you can base a character off Indiana Jones, or "female Indiana Jones," or Lara Croft, or "male Lara Croft," and all four of those are going to be different starting points. Players aren't stuck drawing solely from the pool of inspirational characters that are their own gender, or being encouraged to gender-swap them.

(And now I am wondering what a character based on the concept of "female Jack Burton" would be like. The picture in my head is enormously likable.)

 

[Abraxas]

Your banning it shows that it clearly is an issue, at least for you.

In exactly the same way it is an issue when a DM bans monks, dragonborn, evil PCs, etc, etc, etc... but no one seems to give those DMs grief

 

[Doug McCrae]

In exactly the same way it is an issue when a DM bans monks, dragonborn, evil PCs, etc, etc, etc... but no one seems to give those DMs grief

They do. Moreso, I think. Players generally have stronger preferences regarding race or class than gender. You know, the guy that always plays an elf or a ninja, or loves to play something weird.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In exactly the same way it is an issue when a DM bans monks, dragonborn, evil PCs, etc, etc, etc... but no one seems to give those DMs grief

I do.

It's kind of like arguing a call with the ump in baseball- it won't change things NOW, but you may get things to go your way later.

So while I might not get to play THIS disallowed aspect of a PC, the next time, I may get to play a different one the way I see fit later.

 

[fanboy2000]

In exactly the same way it is an issue when a DM bans monks, dragonborn, evil PCs, etc, etc, etc... but no one seems to give those DMs grief

Yes, they do. I remember, way back in the days of 3e before 3.5, someone said they didn't allow Prestige Classes. That person was dog piled on fairly quickly.

It's kind of like arguing a call with the ump in baseball- it won't change things NOW, but you may get things to go your way later.

So while I might not get to play THIS disallowed aspect of a PC, the next time, I may get to play a different one the way I see fit later.

I think you've just described 90% of the arguments I have with my players.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

IME, I have yet to see a character concept that requires the character to be male or female. IMO, I honestly don't see how a player could need their charatcer to only be male or female that doesn't include elements that I don't care to have in a game I play for entertainment.

YMMV, probably does, and that's fine and dandy

Just going back to this one.

Would Ellen Ripley be exactly the same character if it was Alan Ripley?

Would the story remain the same if it was Steven Connor, father of John Connor, who was saved by a female soldier from the future, and said soldier gave birth to John but was killed by a Terminator?

Or, let's take a series where the character's gender was changed - Battlestar Gallactica. Starbuck in the original series was this kinda smarmy lothario style character. Kara "Starbuck" Thrace was based on the same concept, but was certainly female.

Gender can play an enormous role in character. Now, sure, you can play a female character that is constantly trying to submerge her feminine characteristics, but, that should come out in play.

And, yes, Nameless1 points out, it should be helped along by other players. But, the ball is squarely in the player's court first. That player has to bring it up in play because, if that player doesn't, no one else is going to, other than maybe the DM. And, really, why should the DM? The player is obviously not interested in making gender an issue, since the player never brings it up.

While I certainly like to roleplay with my players, I generally don't want to browbeat them into it.

And one of those ways, of course, is to play a woman who doesn't emphasize her femininity in any way. Asexuality is a viable option for character concepts, naturally enough. In these discussions about players failing to portray the opposite sex "accurately", it seems all too easily to slip into sweeping generalizations on how men or women should act, according to some set of conventions: "All men behave like this" or "No woman would do that", when common sense tells that somewhere in the wide world, right at this very moment, people are proving that false.

The old advice still holds true: play a complete person, not some stereotype of a sex or a gender, and it will work out all right.

But, again, it's a matter of degree. Gender, unless there is some species reason why not, is pretty readily apparent. There's a significant difference between playing against gender expectations and completely ignoring them entirely.

Even if your character is trying to be asexual, that most certainly SHOULD be brought up in play. That's something interesting about the character. That's a pretty strong trait. So, let's see it at the table.

That's all I'm asking for. If you want your character to have a specific trait, then play it.

 

[Dausuul]

That's all I'm asking for. If you want your character to have a specific trait, then play it.

How?

Specific examples please.