Playing cross-gender PCs

[DragonLancer]

I'm a male player, and I'd say 50% of my characters are female. I don't know why, its just something that creeps in during character creation.

I don't play a character based on its gender, so I don't try to play male or female, I just play the character.

To be honest, providing that you have a bunch of good mature players letting them play opposite sex characters shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The last (and indeed only I think) objection to my playing of a female character came from a woman. She said my character was a 'bloke in a dress'. She had a point admittedly. Ursa was a Norse barbarian with an 18 strength who was fairly similar to Conan.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I prefer to play female PCs. I fully admit that this is both sick and wrong.

There's almost certainly a sexual component, too.

 

[hong]

I prefer to play female PCs.

PCs are male. It's Macs that are female.


Hong "let's not talk about Unix" Ooi

 

[Bagpuss]

For a female playing a male in D20 modern it should be easy just remember there are two main things on any mans mind at all times:
1 Sports (sex can be put under this heading)
2 Beer (and pretty much food in general)

Everything else is secondary

By the same logic a male can play a female, remembering there are two main things on a womans mind at all times:

1. Shopping (dating can be put under this)
2. Does her bum look big in this?

:\

 

[Gez]

My last few female characters were "pretty" but that is probably due in large part to them being sorcerers, so obviously charisma is my primary score for mechanical reasons.

I've a number of female characters amongst the PCs I created, and most of them are not described as being particularly pretty or ugly.

I've one that was supposed to be reasonnably attractive (a vampire in a WW Vampire game set in the Renaissance), but her attractiveness was more because of her Presence discipline than because of her natural look.

One, in Ars Magica, was described as being cute. But she had sidhe feyblood.

One, in D&D, is described as being really otherwordly beautiful. But she's a sorceress, and an aristocrat, and she's from a supernatural bloodline.

The last of my pretties was not supposed to be pretty. She was supposed to be average, and in fact a bit nerdy. This was in an (aborted, BTW) World of Darkness campaign where we had to create our characters as children, and then they would become one of the supernatural critters of the WoD, as chosen by the GM, during a fast-forward introduction that brings them to adulthood. I made everything I could so that the character would scream "I'm a mage! I'm a mage! I can't be anything else than a mage! Aretes and spheres, here I come!" but the GM choose instead to make her an Eiluned Sidhe. And Sidhe have a +2 bonus (and that would be a +8 bonus for a D&D ability score) on their Appearance score, so she went from "Average" to "Very Pretty".

BTW, same thing for my male characters. They're seldom described as being pretty -- only when it makes sense, for the character's concept, to be pretty.

(And I have even one character that is ugly. A Brujah vampire, covered in scars from his mortal past as a mercenary. But he's dead, now, having been dropped into a pit leading to Hell itself in a Vampire Dark Age campaign that was itself falling into a spiralling abyss of frantic shark-jumping.)

 

[der_kluge]

I prefer to play female PCs. I fully admit that this is both sick and wrong.

There's almost certainly a sexual component, too.

Even I will admit that that's kind of strange. Do you consider yourself very effiminate? Grow up with a lot of sisters, or otherwise have some trait that makes you feel like you identify with the female persona better?

 

[Mystery Man]

Please read and follow the EN World rules. This part, for example:

Keep it civil: Don't engage in personal attacks, name-calling, or blanket generalizations in your discussions. Say how you feel or what you think, but be careful about ascribing motives to the actions of others or telling others how they "should" think.

It doesn't matter that this post was probably meant as a joke - it was quite inflammatory and not even close to acceptable.

-Darkness

 

[Desdichado]

Exactly what is the challenge of playing a character of the opposite sex as yourself?

Really? Are you really asking that? I'm only sayin', because I can write a lot about it, but I don't want to spend the trouble if that's just some rhetorical question, or if you don't actually, y'know, know anyone of the opposite sex as yourself, or are only trolling for responses or something. I mean, I guess inserting a lot of "feminine" characteristics into a male character can give you the same challenge most of the time, but that's not really the same thing, nor is it appealing to many. Again, coming at this from a "writer" POV, there's tremendous differences between a woman and a man character in most instances, and trying to explore "the other side" is bound to be a challenge by its very nature.

If you're the kind of gamer that doesn't really care much about character or character development, or your campaigns don't really give you an opportunity to explore that, then yeah, it wouldn't matter. In a highly role-playing, social, etc. environment, it changes significantly. Not saying one is better than the other, but it does influence my tendencies to play certain character concepts.

Can someone give me an example of a character concept that requires it be female or male only (that isn't due to a campaign restriction)? die_kluge's example at the beginning of a female personna better fitting a naive, youthful character is lost on me.

Not one that you can't pick apart if you want to. Just like I'd be unlikely to present a character concept that "had" to be an elf; (why can't you play that same concept as a gnome, or even just a human, etc.?) That's just what the concept is. It's a personal thing; some concepts only work for the player if it's a package deal. Just using two words; naive and youthful, I could come up with both male and female character concepts, but they wouldn't be the same character concepts.

 

[BlackSilver]

Sick of the lack of acceptance

Well this and the other thread were very entertaining (read as much sarcasm as you want into that statement- I doubt it was enough).

Seeing so many posts that think it is gay (by I think you mean homosexual) just because someone pretends to be a different gender in a game where you are playing at being someone you are not. I remind you that this is a game, that you are suppose to be pretending to be someone that you are not, that you are suppose to pretend to a completely different person then you are.

At the “strangest” it could be called transgender, not gay or homosexual. There is a difference.

If you are attracted to your own gender then have fun, accept people for who they are, and be at peace. If you are attracted to the opposing gender- then have fun, accept people for who they are, and be at peace. If you are turned on by thinking you are a woman/man and you are not then have fun, accept people for who they are, and be at peace. If you just want to play a character that is different then you are then have fun, accept people for who they are, and be at peace. If you can’t accept people described in the above then… well, get involved in a hate group and leave true role players alone.

I know what it looks like to me- these people that object to someone playing a different gender, it looks like they have some major insecurity in their own sexuality.

Perhaps you should do some soul searching if you take offense to this observation.