males playing females and the other way around, opinions?

[Oryan77]

I find it distracting and I don't allow it. And although many people would disagree, I find it unnecessary. Heck, I have a hard enough time playing female NPCs because I'm just not good at portraying women. I hate when I have to roleplay a female NPC.

But then again, I'm all man, macho and stuff. I like women, but I don't like watching my male friends acting like them...even when we're not playing D&D.

 

[Aloïsius]

The majority of my characters are male. I have seen both male playing female PC and vice-versa. Most of the time, it does not cause any problem. In a few exception, I have seen mildly bad players (males) playing annoying sluty female PC. I just take caution to not have those players in my campaigns.

 

[Abraxas]

For example, many mystic traditions teach that your magical abilities are affected by your sexual activity. Typically in such traditions, men lose their powers temporarily after engaging in sex...but women lose whatever mystic powers they had completely when they lose their virginity and never regain them. Certain other, similar traditions teach that a woman's power changes (instead of being lost) at that point, sometimes completely.

Just curious why you couldn't substitute male or female into either of those traditions for the sake of the game. Nothing above screams only a woman's magical abilities must be lost or changed permanently or a man's powers are lost temporarily- other than the fact that it may have been described that way in some real world text.

I have found that only with concepts that have elements I don't wish to explore or include in games that I run does it ever really matter whether the character is a man or a woman.

Of course you also wouldn't get to play a character that is the same sex as yourself if your character's an ass or you insist on including concepts that I find inappropriate for the group's gaming entertainment.

 

[Dausuul]

For those who don't think male players do a good job accurately portraying female characters: How, specifically, do you distinguish a well-portrayed female character from a poorly-portrayed one?

I mean, I think we can agree that the lesbian stripper ninja is probably not a well-portrayed female character. But I get the sense that's not what you folks are talking about.

 

[pawsplay]

I mean, I think we can agree that the lesbian stripper ninja is probably not a well-portrayed female character.

Well, admittedly I've known one or two people that kind of fit that mold, but not many, and I run in odd circles. I've hung out with a kickboxing, bisexual stripper who played a barbarian in a LARP, but admittedly, she may not have been a well-realized, three-dimensional character.

That's really the problem with fiction, actually. It has to make sense. Real life doesn't need to explain itself.

 

[Nork]

I'm going to share my armchair theory on this subject.

Some people self-identify with their characters in a roleplaying game. They view them as extensions of themselves, and a means to do things that they want to do but can't (be it the literally impossible, like throwing fireballs and fighting dragons, or merely things that are out of their personal reach, like fighting in a war or being a hacker, or have unacceptable costs or consequence, being a criminal is fun if and only if it is literally impossible for any party to be harmed, which is possible in fiction). On some level I think the major appeal of RPGs for this demographic is a sense of empowerment and escapism.

Some people do not self-identify with their characters in a roleplaying game. They view them as interesting character studies and hypothetical 'what if' scenarios, almost like thought experiments. Their interest lies in "what actions do I think someone with this background and personality would choose when presented with this situation". I think for this group the major appeal of RPGs is similar to that of reading a biography or watching a documentary.

While neither group is "doing it wrong", there is also the reality that there is a maturation process in people, and you live a part of your life where you master understanding things from your point of view before it really hits you that things can be understood from another, external, point of view. Meaning that some of the people in the first group (especially younger people who haven't had the time to develop the pathways), just are not equipped to understand the second group. To their mode of thinking, someone with a character that is of a different gender means to them on some level that the player wishes they were that gender. Which I think is typically not the case, and seemingly incongruent information distresses people, which I think leads to all the "I can't understand why someone is playing a character that isn't their gender" threads you see for RPGs.

I'm not meaning to imply that one group is 'better' (or 'higher level' if you will) than the other, or that there is a quantum leap between types, or that a person can't or shouldn't shift back and forth between groups as their mood suits them. All I'm saying is that there are different motivations for playing RPGs, and that the development process in people means that at some point they will understand one motivation without having achieved an understanding of the second motivation.

 

[WHW4]

For those who don't think male players do a good job accurately portraying female characters: How, specifically, do you distinguish a well-portrayed female character from a poorly-portrayed one?

I mean, I think we can agree that the lesbian stripper ninja is probably not a well-portrayed female character. But I get the sense that's not what you folks are talking about.

I think that personally I can't portray a female PC/NPC and (therefore try not to play them) the reason for this is simple; to me at least. I'm a male, and there are fundamental chemical differences happening in the female brain with respect to the male brain that alter how you view the world, relationships in the world, and everything else in it. Yes, there are gender-neutral observations/motivations, but I just don't trust myself as a RPer to portray those neutral devices alongside the idiosyncracies of being a woman. RPing a man is just... natural feeling, so to speak.

That's not saying someone can't pull-off an impressive female character as a male player, or vice-versa - I just think it's harder to do simply because of biology. You're more likely to RP the filter through which you see the opposite sex, rather than how they see themselves.

 

[Dausuul]

I think that personally I can't portray a female PC/NPC and (therefore try not to play them) the reason for this is simple; to me at least. I'm a male, and there are fundamental chemical differences happening in the female brain with respect to the male brain that alter how you view the world, relationships in the world, and everything else in it. Yes, there are gender-neutral observations/motivations, but I just don't trust myself as a RPer to portray those neutral devices alongside the idiosyncracies of being a woman. RPing a man is just... natural feeling, so to speak.

That's not saying someone can't pull-off an impressive female character as a male player, or vice-versa - I just think it's harder to do simply because of biology. You're more likely to RP the filter through which you see the opposite sex, rather than how they see themselves.

So how would you, looking from the outside, tell if someone was doing it well or badly?

 

[barbarianguy]

Thanks for the replies everyone! I just asked since I thought of making a character that would be like the alchemist savant in magic of eberron, but I wanted some opinions on role-playing the opposite sex.

 

[WHW4]

@Dausuul,

You know, that's a VERY good question. One I haven't even thought about. I guess I just measure on a phantom yard-stick - it's one of those things you base on gut, for me.

I guess you'd have to have a group of cliches or tropes already in mind, to call it bad. We can use ninja-lesbo as a bad example. That's an extreme one though - I'm not sure how to really identify what's "bad" in a more conservative case. In fact, I'd probably just go ahead and call something a "good" example simply because of the absense of horrible cliche.

Very interested to hear what others answer.