Ranma & gender issues

[Dark Psion]

I think that hapened to two my characters, but the DM did a good job of working it into the story.

One was a Half-elf Thief/ Mage who had never ending bad luck. After the change, she started have great luck. It turned out that his unknown father was part of a family that had been cursed by Beshaba so that every Male member was followed by Ill Fortune. His transformation into her broke the curse, but also prevented her from going back to being a him. The transformation turned a thief who knew a few spells into a noteworthy Mage who knew a few sneaky tricks.

The other was a Cleric /Thief who was a Relic seeker. His change into a woman turned out to be part of a prophesy.


I did have an old Dual Classed Thief / Illusionist who spent a lot of time in an alternate female ID. Under the 1st edition dual class rules, you could not use any of the previous classes skills till the new class exceeded it in levels and he had lots of enemies (he was a guildbuster). So with a Hat of Disguise, he created a new ID to become an appprentice to an Illusionist. By the time he had enough levels as an Illusionist, he could switch between male and female and really mess with people's minds.

 

[drothgery]

While our group has zero problem with cross-gender roleplaying, we do not change a character's sex during a game.

It just seems, well ... silly.

I can't imagine changing a PC's gender except for a very short period, for laughs, in a very light-hearted game. But as a DM, I usually want players to play what they want (as long as it's not disruptive to the game), and, well, I figure they chose the gender they wanted when they created their character.

 

[eris404]

This is going slighty off-topic, but I saw a description of a novel that made me think of this thread. It sounds like an interesting story and an interesting reason to use gender switching magics. The book is called The Bone Doll's Twin. I have not read it, but here is a description:

The land of Skala has always been protected according to prophecy under the reign of its warrior queens. With the usurper King Erius, this line has been broken. In order to protect the new heir who will one day become Queen Tamír II, the child called Tobin is magically cloaked in her dead twin brother's image. Tobin grows up as a boy on a remote estate, to protect him from Erius's wizards and spies. His dead twin's ghost haunts the castle as well, angry at his murder and quick to lash out at every resident. Eventually Tobin will be summoned to attend Erius's son and heir, and no one knows whether the spell will hold under such scrutiny. And even though Tobin looks like a boy, he still has a girl's body under the spell, which could create complications with those who do not know the secret, including Tobin himself.

 

[Ao the Overkitty]

As a player, I've had a Wild Mage who started out the campaign gender changed and during the course of it wild surged and got changed back to their original gender.

As a Dm, I once put out a Ring of Wizardry (II) with a gender switching curse as treasure (equiped by a Hill Giant Sorcerer the group faced). The group's Male Halfling Wizard was absent the game the group identified the ring and its curse. The Half-Elf Ranger, who had a thing for Halfling women, quickly decided he didn't want to deal the issues it would cause and convinced the others to sell the ring before the wizard got back.