Playing cross-gender PCs

[The_Gunslinger658]

I play a Male Human Paladin that acts like a military policeman in my freinds FR campaign, a half elf Cleric/ Rogue in another freinds campaign. So I play only male characters, it wairds me out to much to play a female character plus NCO's dont do the cross gender thing!

Now as DM, I have to role-play female NPC's to have some kind of life in my FR campaign, so for example, I had to Role play Lady Alustriel, so I played her as a very noblewomen, intelligent and savvy. Storm Silverhand I role played as radical ed, fun and mischievious.

Scott

 

[Darkness]

Ok I am sorry that this is VERY MUCH off topic, but a friend of mine found out about this place and sent me here to join the forrum. He said i need to post something saying "May i join this forum?"

There's no such requirement in EN World. Feel free to simply start posting.

Anyway, you most definitely may join this forum. Welcome!

 

[Undead Pete]

I'm a DM now, so I'm basically genderless. I do have a slight problem with people playing cross gender characters, but it's mainly due to the vast majority of players being incapable of doing so without adding an aspect that is either annoying or creepy.

This includes, but is not limited to:

• Speaking in falsetto
• Unnecessary flirting with NPC of the "opposite" gender. Just because you're a guy playing a female doesn't mean you have to be "easy"
• Playing female characters as stereotypically sensitive, or playing male characters as stereotypically sexist

I once played with someone who was the epitome of the character Gordo in The Black Hands of KODT fame.

He was not the most attractive or socially skilled guy, and it always seemed that he would play women to "show his true inner beauty". He played a swanmay druid named Songwind

Maybe I'm just an uptight bastard, but it bugged me

 

[Jdvn1]

I'm a DM now, so I'm basically genderless.

Wow, your group is tough.

I do have a slight problem with people playing cross gender characters, but it's mainly due to the vast majority of players being incapable of doing so without adding an aspect that is either annoying or creepy.

Yeah, that's what I always worry about. Immature players.

 

[Crothian]

I may have done it once or twice, but they have not been memorible enough or successful enough to count. When making characters I do like to explore diufferent ideas and diffeerent takes on the characters. Perhaps one day when I run out of male character ideas I'll move on to something else.

I did play a hermaphrodite once, in Star Wars there is a race called Verpine that are all hermaphrodites. It was very fun and I got to make fun of the other gender based races.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I tend to play majority female characters, and as the DM, slightly more of my NPCs tend to be female. This is probably because I have only gamed with girl gamers once ever, and the other guys in my groups tend towards always playing males, and I think that there should be a good representation of females in the world to keep the group from becoming too male-heavy, plus there are many interesting concepts of female characters to play. I get to be males of all sorts in playacting and other theatrical endeavours, so sometimes its fun to try out female character concepts in D&D, where it is easier to do cross-gender casting.

 

[James Heard]

I've played female characters but I'm inordinately careful of who I play them with I suppose. I think mostly it's well received because I'm usually more careful about those characters than my male characters, which quite honestly are usually annoying as spit. In general my female characters are more heroic and less like me in general, though for truly dark glimspes of my personality I think that sexless characters are the ones I need to stay away from completely. Anyway, my main problem is in players going "Ah, a female character! Time to get out that Lame Pickup Lines For Dummies book I bought last year at BasementCon!" I don't particularly care to engage in flirty-kissy behavior under the best of circumstances during a game, much less when it's some hairy dude with bad teeth trying to talk up his Cleric. Ew.

Once we're all past that though, it's all golden.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It very much depends on the group, and the player.

IMXP, it's the challenge of the "role-playing" part of it. If you're a skinny white guy who goes to audition for the role of "obese oriental woman", chances are people will raise eyebrows and you won't be able to do it well...you have no experience with something like that, and can only really use stereotypes.

Of course, in an RPG, stereotypes are really all we play as....dwarves are drunk and militaristic, elves are l33t ninj4, hobbits are homebodies, paladins are crusaders, druids love nature, blah blah blah, the game is *based* on stereotypes (or "archetypes" if you want to be PC about it).

And there are certain stereotypes for the game that subsume gender...I'd trust nearly any woman to play a raging orcish barbarian man, for instance, and I'd trust nearly any guy to play, I dunno, the aloof, unavailable elf princess role. Of course, if the woman insists on playing the orc as a leather-daddy who talks dirty to his enemies, or the man insists on playing the princess as a sex-crazed lesbian, those are things that break the mood too much for my tastes, and, frankly, reek of being tasteless. I don't care how 'in character' the story of how your hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold-sorceress is...there's just certain things that aren't apt for any game I'm willing to run.

That's not to say I'm not flexible....I've had characters who pledge themselves to fertility goddesses, or psions who really play up their Charisma. You make a character based on an Artemis figure of a forested virgin, that's cool, and you're welcome to make her gender and romantic affairs a big issue (and if it is a big issue for your character, you should expect it to become a big issue for the story, too). But crossing gender lines stretches the shared fantasy of a D&D world pretty thin, often to the point of breaking if not done VERY carefully. You've got to keep in mind other players, how well they'll buy that you are in the character of this woman. Generally, that's easier online than it would be in person.

But really, like a friend of mine said, we play this game to be someone different than ourselves. The standing rule probably isn't a good idea, even if the nervousness is understandable.

 

[demiurge1138]

I am male, and have only played male characters. Of course, I've only played as a player maybe four or five characters (I DM mostly), so that's not exactly a major indication. I would have no aversion to playing a female character, though. It's just never come up.

Demiurge out.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I think my propensity to play non-heterosexual characters increases by time period. In other words, I can't bring myself to play a lesbian or gay anything in a fantasy setting, since it doesn't really seem to fit. Those concepts don't strike me as particularly "medieval".

*Cough* Richard the Lion Hearted *cough, cough*

It happened often enough, several noted kings, a number of popes... But it tended to be people in power who could get away with it... And the Byzantines had a... reputation.

The Auld Grump