Playing characters of the opposite gender
- Thread starter Blizzardb
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Aeolius
Adventurer
All your female NPCs are hags, but you have no issue whatsoever?
I said "many"... not all.
As for having issues.... weeeeeellllI said "many"... not all.
"Many are hags, and thus are female" - but are there any non-hag female NPCs?!
Aeolius
Adventurer
Recent non-hag female NPCs include a malenti captain of the guard, a half-troll sea elf witch, a mechanatrix (though she was born from a construct inhabited by the ghost of a hag), and a shoal halfling scout.
Recent hag NPCs include the undead shrunken head of a shellycoat (greenhag), a reef hag (parthenogenetically born offspring of a sea hag), and a spirit hag (spectral hag that inhabits the dreams of those she knew in life).
Vancian Magic
First Post
I think it's fine. Really, as long as everyone in the group is mature (mentally mostly) enough to handle it, what's the problem? I wholeheartedly encourage it if people are inclined, and I play about 50/50 male and female characters myself depending on the game and the opportunities it'd provide.
mhacdebhandia
Explorer
The poll doesn't include my position:
"I don't care about the gender of your character."
That's not strictly true. I know a gamer who always plays ridiculously over-sexualised female characters, seemingly because he gets off on that in some way. Technically, I won't play with him because he plays cross-gender characters - but, specifically, it's because he plays cross-gender characters in a creepy way, so practically speaking I won't play with him because he's unpleasant to play with, not because his characters are female.
The best game of D&D I ever played included a female sorceress played by a male friend of mine. The next d20 game I played in after that included a female spellcaster played by a guy. The last GURPS game I played in started off with a female character played by a guy, though he had to drop out after a while. It has never been an issue for the people with whom I game, probably because I game with really good players.
"I don't care about the gender of your character."
That's not strictly true. I know a gamer who always plays ridiculously over-sexualised female characters, seemingly because he gets off on that in some way. Technically, I won't play with him because he plays cross-gender characters - but, specifically, it's because he plays cross-gender characters in a creepy way, so practically speaking I won't play with him because he's unpleasant to play with, not because his characters are female.
The best game of D&D I ever played included a female sorceress played by a male friend of mine. The next d20 game I played in after that included a female spellcaster played by a guy. The last GURPS game I played in started off with a female character played by a guy, though he had to drop out after a while. It has never been an issue for the people with whom I game, probably because I game with really good players.
Vyvyan Basterd
Adventurer
Yep. I wouldn't play with anyone who played their PC in a creepy sexual way, whether they played cross-gender or same gender.
Wulf Ratbane
Adventurer
In addition to Old Crone, my repertoire also includes Slutty Barmaid.
And Old Barmaid.
And very occasionally, Slutty Old Crone.
Aeolius
Adventurer
Have you been rolling on the Random Prostitute Encounter Table in the 1e DMG again?
I note that most posters in this thread, including the OP, are referring to gender (cultural categories) rather than sex (biological categories). So let's go with that.
What gender categories mean -- what attributes or social roles are considered masculine or feminine -- depend on the culture. Another cultural variable, closely related, is how men and women are treated. A lot of gamers like their gameworld to mirror their real-world culture, which in my part of the world is unusually egalitarian. In most societies, past and present, gender is much more determinative of a person's social roles than in contemporary North America. How determinative is it in your campaign?
D&D is inspired my a melange of settings, some historic and some fantasy. In all the historic cases, and most of the fantasy cases, PC-type roles are men's work. Which doesn't mean that you don't find women in them, just that women aren't the norm. The treatment of a woman who chooses to don armour and go hunt monsters can vary from the scandalous ("don't let a lady turn out that way!") to remarkable (think of how Joan of Arc's mystique was partly due to the oddity of her femininity).
I like campaign world's to mirror this, because it makes gender a more meaningful character attribute, a more substantial part of the character concept. It provides options for character backstories: perhaps she became an adventurer, working on the margins of civilized society, to escape the uninspiring roles that her culture assigned her. It can affect social encounters: what happens if the people the adventurers have to deal with do not accept a woman in that role? Or, to go the opposite way, if she does achieve renown, there's a Joan of Arc dimension to her celebrity.
If you go this way, I'm strongly opposed to restricting character gender or sex according to player gender or sex. If a character concept fits your game, then all players should have the same option to play it. Why shouldn't I be allowed to play a character based on Joan of Arc, or my sister one based on Conan? Count we with the "neither encourage nor discourage" camp.
I'd say about two-thirds of my characters are male. But that's not because I'm male. It's because I think of male as the default for adventurers. A paladin who is female is a female paladin, while a paladin who is male is simply a paladin, sex/gender unremarkable. I like female PCs to be the exception. But I also like them to exist, and from time to time I want to play one, just because I like to try the full range of options. I've made characters of all races, all classes, all alignments, why not both genders?
What gender categories mean -- what attributes or social roles are considered masculine or feminine -- depend on the culture. Another cultural variable, closely related, is how men and women are treated. A lot of gamers like their gameworld to mirror their real-world culture, which in my part of the world is unusually egalitarian. In most societies, past and present, gender is much more determinative of a person's social roles than in contemporary North America. How determinative is it in your campaign?
D&D is inspired my a melange of settings, some historic and some fantasy. In all the historic cases, and most of the fantasy cases, PC-type roles are men's work. Which doesn't mean that you don't find women in them, just that women aren't the norm. The treatment of a woman who chooses to don armour and go hunt monsters can vary from the scandalous ("don't let a lady turn out that way!") to remarkable (think of how Joan of Arc's mystique was partly due to the oddity of her femininity).
I like campaign world's to mirror this, because it makes gender a more meaningful character attribute, a more substantial part of the character concept. It provides options for character backstories: perhaps she became an adventurer, working on the margins of civilized society, to escape the uninspiring roles that her culture assigned her. It can affect social encounters: what happens if the people the adventurers have to deal with do not accept a woman in that role? Or, to go the opposite way, if she does achieve renown, there's a Joan of Arc dimension to her celebrity.
If you go this way, I'm strongly opposed to restricting character gender or sex according to player gender or sex. If a character concept fits your game, then all players should have the same option to play it. Why shouldn't I be allowed to play a character based on Joan of Arc, or my sister one based on Conan? Count we with the "neither encourage nor discourage" camp.
I'd say about two-thirds of my characters are male. But that's not because I'm male. It's because I think of male as the default for adventurers. A paladin who is female is a female paladin, while a paladin who is male is simply a paladin, sex/gender unremarkable. I like female PCs to be the exception. But I also like them to exist, and from time to time I want to play one, just because I like to try the full range of options. I've made characters of all races, all classes, all alignments, why not both genders?
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