males playing females and the other way around, opinions?

[S'mon]

A female player once criticised me for my portrayal of a female character. My PC was a viking-type 3e barbarian, like Fafhrd, only female, with something like an 18 strength. The other player said she was a 'man in drag'.

It's a fair point, the character was very masculine, but I think she was wrong to expect all female PCs to be feminine, particularly adventurer types.

Is Xena a "man in drag"? I think it's ok to play unusually male-brained female PCs. But still remember they're female - the Xena/Gabrielle relationship is still different than it would be if they were male 'friends'.

 

[S'mon]

My girlfriend and I once played gay Dwarves. We were both male characters. The reasoning behind this was because the ratio of male Dwarves to female Dwarves was eight to one, so she reasoned that because of such a ratio there would be a much higher number of homosexual Dwarves. Which at the time made sense.

But I stopped when the real gay guy in the group made up a Dwarf to fight my girlfriend for my attentions. That was one of the creepiest experiences of my life.

1e AD&D Dwarves "lust after human women", per the PHB. Like male humans lusting after female elves, male dwarves apparently like characteristics such as slender build and lack of facial hair more common among other races.

Later edition dwarves seem like dwarves though, or leave it to DM's discretion, in which case a preponderance of homosexual (or more likely bisexual/opportunity homosexual) dwarves would make sense.

I don't find the situation you describe creepy, BTW. I think the gay guy was being rather considerate, having his gay dwarf hit on your girlfriend's PC rather than yours! I've also seen gay male players show consideration for the straight male DM by playing heterosexual female PCs, rather than gay male PCs, which is a tradition that in literary and movie form goes back a long way. I'm not comfortable DMing a romance between a gay male PC and a gay male NPC, but I'm fine with DMing a romance between a straight female PC and a straight male NPC, whatever the gender and orientation of the player. Obviously other people have different (dis)comfort areas.

 

[InVinoVeritas]

I don't find the situation you describe creepy, BTW. I think the gay guy was being rather considerate, having his gay dwarf hit on your girlfriend's PC rather than yours!

Actually, the phrase used was:

fight my girlfriend for my attentions.

Against the girlfriend, for the dwarf played by the man.

 

[Nameless1]

The 'Romance Novel' formula =/= "dating" or even "romance", it's a very distinct formula where a powerful older man with some threatening characteristics falls for a younger, relatively inexperienced female protagonist. It's a very specific fantasy with a set structure. I think it doesn't much resemble most "romantic comedies" either, though there are some transitional works with elements of both.

Edit: That said, the formula would be much more workable in author-stance 'story creation' indie games than with the immersive, actor-stance, in-character approach of traditional RPGs.

My ignorance of romance novels actually knows no bounds, so I will have to defer to your expertise.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Note to self: contemplate how literal the phrase "hitting on" may be taken in Dwarven romances...

 

[avin]

This question shows up on Enworld from time to time. I still have my old opinion: this is a roleplaying game. You play a dwarf. You play an elf. You can play a girl.

The only GM Ipersonally know that has a problem with it spent a night with a tranvestite (on purpose) and was seen with her. He never touches the subject with us and never allows guys roleplaying girls.

I see guys roleplaying females all the time. Heck, I DMed a D&D group made of 3 girls and a guy. He decided to play a girl for the sake of don't being the strange on group

 

[Scotley]

As a male player, I rarely run female characters. But occasionally, female fits the concept I come up with and that's what I play. As a DM I run female npc's frequently. I've got no interest in exploring sexuality in my games. Those aren't the sorts of 'adventures' the folks I game with are looking for.

I play almost exclusively in online play by post games these days. When I'm coming up with character creation guidelines, gender never enters into it. Occasionally, I don't even know the gender of some of the players in the game. I guess that makes it easier in some ways.

 

[Barastrondo]

The "men wear pants and women wear dresses" is a usual trope of mass media to show that behind this tough woman there is a soft feminine side, and that can be true, just as behind this tough male soldier there can be a soft kitten-cuddling, rabbit-hugging soft side. But there are just as often military women who wear pants, formal "outfits" look very much like mens outfits for them, some of them attend formal events in the miltiary dress uniforms. And if we're still going with actual history here, throughout history, many men of many different social classes wore clothing similar to women. Weathly Westerners of the past wore heels, with long skirt-like robes, the Japanse developed a variety of dress that is fairly unisex, it's purpose simply a light wear fitting to work or to fighting. In poorer classes, men and women from around the world wore pants, because it was simpler and easier to work in than a dress.

I'm sort of losing the thread of the argument here. Because there can be exceptions and rationalizations to make characters unisex, it is more comfortable and natural for characters to be unisex? Or is more that a GM has the tools to mandate unisex answers if it's somehow deemed necessary? Because the example I use came from a player who wanted her character to put on a dress — something that nobody had ever seen said half-orc wear before, in part because it would challenge the character.

Again, most games are going to assume sex is just sex, people who feel the desire to make sex into something more REALLY need to take their games less seriously.

You could say the exact same thing of any choice that has consequences in an RPG. Failing to disarm a trap means you could take damage from a trap? Charging an army with inferior strength and no plan could result in death? Mouthing off to the Dread Emperor-King means he might have you imprisoned or worse? You REALLY need to take your games less seriously. Sure, you can remove any potential consequences from sex for the sake of not wanting to focus on it, just as you can remove the possibility of death from combat or hazardous environments. But you're not some kind of weirdo if you don't. You can even say "I won't make your character get pregnant against your consent," and a player can still wind up spending gold pieces on contraceptives because it seems enjoyably in-character that the character would worry about such things, being bereft of the meta-knowledge of the social contract.

And yes, it is something you COULD play into your character, but you could just as easily say your fighter was wounded and is sterile, or your druid uses the power of nature to control her cycle, or heck, your druid believes that having children is a GOOD thing, and wants to get pregnant, even in the middle of a grand adventure! Yes, these are things you could portray as part of your character, but they are things that involve other things that generally only serve to complicate games.

Plenty of people like complicated games. Such complications are one of the things that differentiate RPGs from boardgames. I'm not saying that the ability to opt out is bad — far from it, I've had players tell me their characters were sterile for similar reasons, and that was fine! The ability to opt out is good, and in-game reliable contraceptives are a good design decision. However, the ability to opt in is also a good thing.

I'm not saying that the GM shouldn't acknowledge the PC's gender, or that the GM shouldn't act on it at ALL, but just that, for most significant reasons that we should differentiate men and women, such as sex and child bearing, these things serve only to make the game more complicated in a bad way. Which means they are by and large, things to be avoided. And things avoided have no bearing on the game.

All respect, but I cannot disagree more that these things only make the game more complicated in a bad way. Too much first-hand experience with gender differentiation and sexual identity as plot points that complicate the games in good ways. Some players want romantic subplots, which are impossible to do well if characters have no sexual preferences and no distinct attitudes toward sexuality in or outside of courtship or marriage. And some players (like the guy in my game who wants to have an angsty teenage romantic triangle) see romance as an opportunity to entertain everyone else at the table, possibly in comedic fashion.

Again, I'll absolutely back you if you say people should have the option to opt out. Completely disagree with the concept that opting in is a bad idea. In my experience, it's only a bad idea if the people around the table don't want to do it (which is not always the case), or if they just plain suck (also, thankfully not always the case).

I COMPLETELY agree, DMs and players should strive to communicate with each other the intent of the story and the intent of the players when making their characters. Many games I've partaken of often have 2 or 3 "introduction" sessions to get everyone to meet each other, and for players to talk with the GM about what they want to do and how they want to do their character.

Heh. I will admit that I post from something of a privileged position, as I pretty much roleplay with longterm friends and co-workers. My most long-running games are with people I know so well that we're often talking about games when we're hanging out like we would anyway. Now and again I have to remind myself that not everyone plays that way.

You might find that difficult - a couple days ago my wife was explaining to me the difference between RPGs and formula romance novels. Basically, in an RPG it's very important to be in control, whereas romance novel plots centre around willingly surrendering control. In an RPG, surrendering control normally leads to deprotagonisation, which is undesirable. So you might be able to recreate the romance-novel form in game-book format, but almost certainly not in a regular RPG.

There was a somewhat light-hearted thread on RPGnet a while back about designing a Jane Austen RPG, in which the goal was to design mechanics for your character to be utterly passive until the right gentleman falls utterly in love with you and sweeps you away.

Being somewhat entangled with a romantic subplot for a PC like this, I can say it's not totally easy to incorporate that motif, but achievable. Surrendering control without being deprotagonized is basically the kind of compromise that goes into, well, a relationship. It also generally involves some understanding of a meta level: the player sets the boundaries for when she's going to be surrendering control, which usually happen after she's established some similar form of "control" over the NPC (like having him fall hopelessly in love with her.) Tricky stuff, and our version involved as much (if not more) talking about the nature of romantic subplots as actual play as prep, but doable.

 

[Sunseeker]

I'm sort of losing the thread of the argument here. Because there can be exceptions and rationalizations to make characters unisex, it is more comfortable and natural for characters to be unisex? Or is more that a GM has the tools to mandate unisex answers if it's somehow deemed necessary? Because the example I use came from a player who wanted her character to put on a dress — something that nobody had ever seen said half-orc wear before, in part because it would challenge the character.

Because there can be, and also can not be, it is upon the player's head to effectively communicate how far they want to take things. The problem that's been presented here is when DMs say "well, you're playing a chick so I'm going to..." There's no choice in this situation, the DM has removed the choice, and nobody likes to lose control.

You could say the exact same thing of any choice that has consequences in an RPG. Failing to disarm a trap means you could take damage from a trap? Charging an army with inferior strength and no plan could result in death? Mouthing off to the Dread Emperor-King means he might have you imprisoned or worse? You REALLY need to take your games less seriously. Sure, you can remove any potential consequences from sex for the sake of not wanting to focus on it, just as you can remove the possibility of death from combat or hazardous environments. But you're not some kind of weirdo if you don't. You can even say "I won't make your character get pregnant against your consent," and a player can still wind up spending gold pieces on contraceptives because it seems enjoyably in-character that the character would worry about such things, being bereft of the meta-knowledge of the social contract.

Of course you could, but unless you're playing with the Book of Erotic Fantasy, you're probably going to address sex from a social standpoint, whereas a trap would be addressed from a mechanical standpoint.

Plenty of people like complicated games. Such complications are one of the things that differentiate RPGs from boardgames. I'm not saying that the ability to opt out is bad — far from it, I've had players tell me their characters were sterile for similar reasons, and that was fine! The ability to opt out is good, and in-game reliable contraceptives are a good design decision. However, the ability to opt in is also a good thing.

Exactly, the problem is, as I've noted, when you get DMs or players who want to go farther than the group. It is a group game, and even if one guy wants to role play all the sex scenes, and one girl wants to get knocked up every time she has an "encounter". It's opt in, or opt out, but it's also a democracy, the game only goes as far as the group is willing to let it go.

All respect, but I cannot disagree more that these things only make the game more complicated in a bad way. Too much first-hand experience with gender differentiation and sexual identity as plot points that complicate the games in good ways. Some players want romantic subplots, which are impossible to do well if characters have no sexual preferences and no distinct attitudes toward sexuality in or outside of courtship or marriage. And some players (like the guy in my game who wants to have an angsty teenage romantic triangle) see romance as an opportunity to entertain everyone else at the table, possibly in comedic fashion.

True, again, this is one of those "talk it out and see how far everyone wants to go" moments.

Again, I'll absolutely back you if you say people should have the option to opt out. Completely disagree with the concept that opting in is a bad idea. In my experience, it's only a bad idea if the people around the table don't want to do it (which is not always the case), or if they just plain suck (also, thankfully not always the case).

But is there not a certain degree to which once people have opted in, you are opted in as well? Or vice-versus? Lets say maybe Joe makes a joke about his female PC having a wild time and maybe getting knocked up. Jill(playing a female pc) the player is mildly annoyed at him, but rolls with it, and says "okay, lets see if she got pregnant", the DM, being the fun sporting type plays along and tells Joe to roll a d20, if he gets say, 1, 10, or 20, his character is now pregnant. Joe rolls a 20, and weirdness and hilarity ensue.

Except, like in the legal world, we now have a precedent, perhaps this group also includes Jack(playing a female PC), Frank(a male PC), and Jane(also a male PC), Frank doesn't care because hey, his PC is a guy. Jane thinks it's all funny, but Jack is a little distrubed at this. Now, Jack has a few choices, he can talk to the group, he can leave the group, but under pressure, he may acquiesce to the group decision, never voicing his discomfort.

Once you get a certain level of approval(such as the previous statement by someone about their players agreeing female PCs get extra damage 3 days out of the month), you either much object, possibly being the group buzz-kill, or you must leave(which is never fun), or you have to roll with it.

Heh. I will admit that I post from something of a privileged position, as I pretty much roleplay with longterm friends and co-workers. My most long-running games are with people I know so well that we're often talking about games when we're hanging out like we would anyway. Now and again I have to remind myself that not everyone plays that way.

You do, because if the above were to go down in my current group, I do not think I know people well enough to roll with it.


Again, I'm totally in favor of opting in or out, but because of the group dynamic, the one player who doesn't want to go down this road can often get steam-rolled into something they don't want to do.

Which, IMO, once you get past romantic entanglements, into the more physical aspects of men and women, then you start to complicate the game in a bad way. Romance? Sure, fine. Love quad-rangles? Confusing, but often fun. Sexual encounters, if your PC desperately wants to have a baby, these things, they make the game complicated. Especially when they are unilateral decisions made by a single obnoxious player, a iron-fist DM, or by simple group dynamic.

 

[S'mon]

Actually, the phrase used was:

Against the girlfriend, for the dwarf played by the man.

Oops, yes I can see how that could be creepy!