males playing females and the other way around, opinions?

[Diamond Cross]

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.

 

[rgard]

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

Frankly, if one want 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...

I'm not reading all 7 pages of this, but in case it hasn't been mentioned:

'Creepy', as in the 'creepy guy who always plays a hot elf chick'. That's an RPG archetype.

As for Thailand...nevermind.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Yeah, I think playing any sexuality in D&D is creepy.

I've only once thought it wasn't, while running a solo game for my wife. But a DM RPing a character's sexual partner? or two player's (involved or not) rping a sexual relationship to anuy great detail? Creepy.

Off screen is fine, but even one flirtatcious line creeps me out.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

This makes me think that it would be really fun to DM a game where there just are no women NPCs. They just don't exist. The characters are whatever gender the players are. I have both men and women in the group, and they usually play their own gender. So I wonder how long it would take for them to notice something is wrong....


"I call out for the barmaid and ask her for a drink!"

"Well, there are no barmaids, but there are men carting around drinks."

This could be the basis of some epic mystery... where are all the women? Why don't the populace seem to notice that there aren't any?

But isn't this exactly what happens? In many games, NPCs are "male until shown otherwise," and the vast majority of the time, female NPCs only crop up when someone actively female is needed.


Also, for the record, I didn't mean people should out and openly roleplay their sexuality. Just, you know, we all know about the barbarian warrior who wenches or the slick bard who picks up all the bar maids and so on and so forth. It'd be interesting to see how many people play against that.

 

[ExploderWizard]

This could be the basis of some epic mystery... where are all the women? Why don't the populace seem to notice that there aren't any?

THE WOMEN!!!!

 

[TarionzCousin]

It's fine so long as males playing females don't make them all slutty.

Slutty, no. Flirting with the homophobes, yes--especially if it's "flirtatcious."

 

[Khazan]

I used to be heavily into MUDding............ >snip<

.........I was playing a female character. (I'd been given a higher-level female character and found that chicks got in-game help from guys. So I creepily and offensively pretended to be a chick.

I was just curious if this might be some of the reason why you don't like when guys play female characters.... a negative association from your MUDding days, finding that some guys only played female characters because they knew they could get lots of help from other players (mainly guys).

Getting loads of phat loots from guys because your character is female - - which of course means the guys are either assuming you're a girl IRL, or you actively portray yourself as a girl IRL - - would certainly sour you on the practice of guys playing female characters I suppose (i saw that in WOW a lot, that's for sure).

Maybe that has carried over to tabletop gaming, where you are wary of guy players roleplaying their characters helping out a female character in extremis, regardless of who is in the driver's seat.

Just a thought. Good thread and good discussion all around btw.

 

[Diamond Cross]

On computer games I've played female avatars, but that was just for the eye candy. I like seeing attractive girls kick butt.

 

[Khazan]

On computer games I've played female avatars, but that was just for the eye candy. I like seeing attractive girls kick butt.

LOL

Yes, I seem to remember someone once saying, about a single-player PC game, "If I'm going to spend 6 hours playing this game, I sure as heck don't want to be staring at some guy's backside the whole time....that's why i made a female elf sorceress."

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I was just curious if this might be some of the reason why you don't like when guys play female characters.... a negative association from your MUDding days, finding that some guys only played female characters because they knew they could get lots of help from other players (mainly guys).

Negative? Not at all. I loved my MUDding days. (It might be accurate to speculate that MUDs are why I'm anti-MMORPG, though.)

Getting loads of phat loots from guys because your character is female - - which of course means the guys are either assuming you're a girl IRL, or you actively portray yourself as a girl IRL - - would certainly sour you on the practice of guys playing female characters I suppose (i saw that in WOW a lot, that's for sure).

No, there's really no association, and I believe I'm being objective.

(It was both, BTW ... at first they assumed, and then when they asked I lied, and by the time I figured out that lying was a douche move (I was young), I wasn't entirely sure how to extricate myself from the situation without losing my status and the gaming I loved. Eventually, though, I was outed, remained friends with my, uh, court of admirers, and continued as a wiz/admin for quite a while.)

It's really very simple: I am creeped out (and/or offended) by men playing women PCs in RPGs. I'm a super-liberal guy in the Bay Area, and the list of things that creep me out or offend me is surprisingly short (at least when it comes to gender or sexuality) ... but that's one of them.