males playing females and the other way around, opinions?

[Sunseeker]

I don't think so. I've never been in a situation with a man playing a woman where the roleplaying didn't creep me out.

Given that, why not play your own gender, even if only to avoid the "he -- wait, she -- wait, are you female?" issue?

Could you give us an example of how you feel, with the exceptions of the extremes, what did those characters do, how did they act, that particularly creeped you out? It couldn't be the rolling the dice, or the character sheet, or maybe their funny hat.

And failing to remember your player's character's gender sounds to me more like an issue of just simply failing to remember.

Neither offends me. However, I'll take a stab at the basic reason some might be offended: kobolds don't actually exist, and women do.

No, women don't exist. You perception of how a woman should be exists. Societal perceptions of how women should be exist. The females of the species homo-sapien exist. But "women" as a conglomerative group of people who act in a specific manner, do not.

The primary differences between humans and kobolds will tend to be simplistic and stereotyped, as even the multi-page document your DM gives you isn't a treatment in real depth on a whole society and culture. And we take that as okay, as we don't have any real non-human sentients walking around to compare to. We all know our attempts to do it will be rough, and no real person can take the rendition as mocking or insensitive.

So under your logic, I could play a female elf, dragonborn, or yes, even kobold, because they too do not exist. A female kobold is no more real than a female elf. And neither are any more real than your human male sorcerer.

Over-simplify the subtleties between the male and female points of view, however, and you are apt to cheese someone off, because there are real people involved, and real history in which some folks have gotten and still get the short end of the stick.

The probability that you will piss someone off doing something is downright overwhelming. You could sit around on your bum all day and THAT would piss someone off. People's problems in this day and age lie in the fact that everyone is being coddled. You don't like that I play a woman badly? Instead of tearing me a new one, help me play a woman better. If a woman complains and says "men will never understand" then that is simply sexism and I'll happily call them for it.

Non gaming example: Nobody cares about the weak portrayal of Wookie culture in Star Wars. As soon as they present Star Wars races that resemble some real world stereotypes too much, and you get a load of argument.

Not being a huge Star Wars nut I can't really say for sure on that example, but in general I agree. But that is a failing of the creators, not the viewers. If you're so tapped-out for material that all you can think of for wookies(or in the cause I champion, dwarves), is just taken from historical stereotypes of humans, then you really need to step back and refresh your mind.

 

[Subtlepanic]

Bah, I think the whole "men are from mars, women are from venus" thing is overblown anyway. Men and women are pretty darn similar personality-wise. It's just that most guys seem to think that in order to play women properly, you have to accentuate the small differences that do make us different.

Depends what sort of game you run. In your average kick-down-the-door, my-village-was-raided-by-orcs campaign, playing women shouldn't matter a bit. Avoid playing on the feminine, just like I'm sure you avoid overplaying the masculine.

If you're playing campaigns that feature stronger storytelling, you run the risk of romance cropping up, as it often does in good stories. Then, between guy DM and guy Player, you can have some uncomfortable moments. Best to handwave it away. Of course, romance in general in RPGs is kind of weird however you swing it. As a guy DMing for a bunch of girls, it's almost weirder...

Anyway, as an adult I've played with a load of girls who've played guys, and a quite a few guys who've played girls, and nobody's ever really batted an eyelid. Maybe I've just been blessed with good players.

 

[Crothian]

It doesn't bother me. That being said there are plenty of gamers that do end up being creepy when they play a different gender. But those gamers tend to just be creepy no matter what they play so instead of not allowing cross gender characters I find it easiest to just not play with creepy gamers. Or let them DM (Hi Ironwolf!)

 

[Mikaze]

I use first person, and I'll occasionally do an accent or distinctive speech pattern (though this is mostly for NPCs--too hard to maintain over the long haul for a player character), but I don't do falsetto for female characters. I figure, if my fellow gamers can imagine that I'm a dragon or a tiefling or whatever, they can imagine that my voice is a couple octaves higher than it is.

This has been my approach for GMing female NPCs too. I just use my range of male voices, soft or rough, and change inflections whenever needed.

No one at the table could take a Douglas Douglasson-style "female" voice seriously at all.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

I guess its time for me to trot out my "Why I started playing female characters" story again. Our group was sitting around the gaming table a week after finishing up one campaign, and had just decided what to play next. (I don't even remember what, probably D&D.) That's whe our only female player said that she was strarting to feel pretty funny having the only female character in the party, and would someone else please play another female, or maybe she ought to play a male character?

Now, this particular female player was: a). A really nice person. b). A real hottie. and c). One of the best roleplayers any of us have ever played with. Therefore the only question(s) was/were, who would play the other female character, and/or how many? (For a moment there it looked like we might end up with an all female party.)

As you've no doubt guessed by now, I ended up playing the other female. Not being sure how to play one 'correctly', I just played her the way I play any other character. She seemed to think I did an ok job, so I became the 'designated other female' of the group. Since that time I've played about 75% female characters (which probably puts the total around 50%), many simply out of habit even when playing with different groups.

Have there ever been times where things have gone differently because I was playing a female character? Yeah, but its been really rare, and usually ended up with everyone having a good time of it. ((Ok, I'll relate the one that I actually remember. We were around 5thish level at a dwarven party outdoors [weird enough already] when a group of werewolves attacked. My female half-elf spellcaster was soon out of spells and got bitten. Not wanting to risk changing in the middle of battle and attacking anyone else I had her run back to a group of dwarves who were guarding the birthday cake [or somesuch] and yelled: "Tie me up!" Looking around the table at the shocked expressions on everyone else's faces, and hearing the evil snicker coming from the GM, I realized that I'd just put my foot in it up to the hip. Much hilarity ensued! Fortunately we were/are all friends, so nothing too terribly bad happened.))

 

[Psion]

When approaching the topic of making characters, I don't draw much distinction between making one to play than I would identifying a character that interests me in fiction. Is it okay for me to like Sydney Bristow or Jean Grey as TV or comic characters, for example?

That being the case, I wouldn't impose a restriction on a player to the contrary.

That being said, I'd prefer if there be a way the players can actually tell your character is a female (if male) or vice-versa. Having a mini, an illo, or a convincing portrayal all would help.

Now playing a Kender is something I don't allow.

 

[Doug McCrae]

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.

 

[Dark Mistress]

I don't have a problem with it. As long as the player doesn't play out some twisted sexual fantasy or worse. Make a character simply to make fun of the other gender.

I have seen people play other genders. Some do it great where if you closed your eyes you could imagine them really being that gender. Some do it good where you could believe it. Most do it ok, same as how most play any character with a lot of difference from them. Then some do it poorly but they are trying to do it well. Then there is some that just suck at it.

Finally we get to that small group that is horrible and they tend to stick in our minds. The ones that cause horror stories and get it banned from tables. Which i find personally odd. I personally allow it when I GM, but if you do play a horrible other gender. Then I will warn you and if it keeps up. Yank the character and ban that player from playing it. Just like i would do if someone played a elf in a stupid way and refused change. As in one that talked like a Valley Girl, contently hugged tree's and played up all the worse stereo types of elves that have built up over the years.

 

[Doug McCrae]

That's whe our only female player said that she was strarting to feel pretty funny having the only female character in the party, and would someone else please play another female, or maybe she ought to play a male character?

Now, this particular female player was: a). A really nice person. b). A real hottie. and c). One of the best roleplayers any of us have ever played with. Therefore the only question(s) was/were, who would play the other female character, and/or how many? (For a moment there it looked like we might end up with an all female party.)

As you've no doubt guessed by now, I ended up playing the other female. Not being sure how to play one 'correctly', I just played her the way I play any other character. She seemed to think I did an ok job, so I became the 'designated other female' of the group.

You were like her gay best friend.

 

[sev]

Historically I've played cross-gender more often than I've played my own gender. I've been on a streak of playing my own gender lately, and I haven't figured out yet whether that's significant in any way.

I do know that roleplaying is a significant source of insight for me into my own head, even when I'm not seeking that insight. It's just that whatever is happening in my subconscious gets lit up with a really bright light when it shows up in my characters. My favorite throw-caution-to-the-winds character who leaped into the unknown with a cheer showed up when I was starting to get impatient with the caution in my own life and really did need to learn how to step into the unknown. I wasn't at all aware of it at the time, but even very shortly after it was clear that I was practicing something I needed in my life.

One way this manifests regarding the gender of my characters is that oftentimes I'm playing with traits that I avoid because I've been socialized to think that "girls don't do that." In some cases if I was a boy I'd probably have been taught that "boys don't do that," too -- but since I *am* female, I can get around the gendered messages I might have absorbed by playing a male character.

Regarding other people playing cross-gender, I've seen the creepy factor crop up too, though not with my current gaming group. A person's disdain for women that might so minor as to be normally invisible can get magnified when that person plays a caricature.

Caricature in and of itself isn't an awful thing -- without it, we couldn't roleplay. I am not a super-strong and sturdy axe-wielding dwarf, and I have to rely on some shorthand to roleplay that character. From some people, in some roles, that shorthand can be horrifically creepy or offensive. I'd be interested to know how people point that sort of thing out to someone who's doing it, if any of you have actually tried.