Requesting some role-play advice from the women of EN World

[Delemental]

Thanks to those who think Myndrila's a good character idea. I pride myself on making interesting characters. And it seems the best advice is to not worry about her gender and just play her as a person. I guess I really knew that all along, but it's just the perfectionist in me - I want to get it just right.

Dragonlancer: That's an interesting alternative to the rape scenario. It offers the same setup, but also means that the Sembian merchant family that forced her mother to give her up is still out there - giving Myndrila an opportunity to find out about them. Perhaps they've been successful because the entire family has the blood of Tymora in them, blessing them with good fortune. This actually would make more sense to me; I was a little uncomfortable having Myndrila essentially being the granddaughter of a goddess; with a bloodline that close she'd be a lot more powerful than an aasimar, which isn't what I was going for.

Buttercup: This is exactly the feel I'm going for with Myndrila. Obviously, I probably won't take three years to get her past that.

bekkilyn_rpg and S'mon: As one of my fellow players always says, "All adventurers come from dysfunctional families." Myndrila will definitely not be passive when facing danger. After all, she's a War Wizard; she's just never been given a chance to prove herself, thus is unaware of what's she's capable of. Once she has a few battle successes under her belt, she'll start to realize she's more than what everyone has told her she is. Nothing like a Widened Empowered Fireball to build self-confidence.

 

[bekkilyn_rpg]

I think she'll end up doing just fine

And believe me, not even females play female characters perfectly. I know I don't.

 

[der_kluge]

Play a man, and then remove reason and accountability. - Jack Nicholson.



I'm kidding, btw. But that is a great line.

 

[billd91]

bekkilyn_rpg and S'mon: As one of my fellow players always says, "All adventurers come from dysfunctional families."

An interesting observation and, by my experience, true enough. Why IS it that many gamers feel compelled to have their characters come from dysfunctional backgrounds? Is this the only plausable way we can come up with loosened wingnut adventurer types in the first place? Have we read too much Batman, watched too much Conan? Is there a kind of bizarre background inflation going on where we try to make sure OUR character is the more interesting one based on character origin story?

Dysfunctional background stories can be interesting enough, if done well. They can also be extremely boring when used too often.

I'll admit, I have characters with dysfunctional backgrounds. But they make up only about a third of my characters (sure, that's probably enough to question my sanity). How many player's characters come from normal backgrounds, regardless of whether they are male or female?

 

[Sage]

Why IS it that many gamers feel compelled to have their characters come from dysfunctional backgrounds?

I think its simply because if they did come from a fuctional family they would crow up and become either a) normal suppresed pesants, or b) normal oppressing rich guy (or girl)

Now as for bringing this thread back on line.

For me it seems that this character has had no love at all in her childhood, and has been put down constantly to boot. This would, IMHO, create a person filled with supressed rage adn hatred, shed be like a ticking bomb, and would hat everyone (because they're so mean), her parents even more (because it's their fault her life is so rotten), and herself most of all (because she doesn't have a better life).

I'm no expert on people though, and might be wrong.

Sage

p.s. I hope i didn't sound too harsh

 

[fusangite]

I have only one piece of advice. If you, a man, are really set on playing a female character (something that I never ever recommend), place your lowest stat in Charisma and focus your character away from social interactions. This will most efficiently minimize the manifestation of your in-built deficiencies at what you're trying to do.

 

[barsoomcore]

Why IS it that many gamers feel compelled to have their characters come from dysfunctional backgrounds?

I think the answer's pretty simple. Everybody has a dysfunctional background. That's what makes people interesting.

There are no stories told about happy, well-adjusted people for two reasons: A) happy, well-adjusted people don't exist (bear with me) and B) happy, well-adjusted people, if they did exist, would be dull.

A story is about somebody trying to do something. If you have everything you want, why would you try to do anything?

I'm exaggerating for effect, but the principle is true. What's interesting about people is what's broken about them -- their obsessions, their phobias, their hatreds. So naturally, when we are creating characters, we seek to create characters who are interesting. People without much experience in creating characters (or perhaps people who have not done much close observation of what makes others tick) will gravitate towards characters with obvious "broken bits" -- it's easy to see what's interesting about them. Delemental, I'm NOT talking about you here. Myndrila sounds like she'll be fun to play.

Okay, so when I say happy, well-adjusted people don't exist, what I mean is we all have our obsessions and suchlike, so we can all to some degree be considered "broken". That's not to say we can't function well, or be happy (I am, for example), or whatever, but just that there's always something interesting about each of us.

Let us know how the character turns out! I've had fun playing female characters myself, even if I did fall into so many of the stereotypical "traps" one does. Sometimes you have try out a stereotype to see your way through it.

 

[Delemental]

For me it seems that this character has had no love at all in her childhood, and has been put down constantly to boot. This would, IMHO, create a person filled with supressed rage adn hatred, shed be like a ticking bomb, and would hat everyone (because they're so mean), her parents even more (because it's their fault her life is so rotten), and herself most of all (because she doesn't have a better life).

I'm no expert on people though, and might be wrong.

I think this would definitely be one way to go. However, I've played the "angry at the world" character before, and I didn't want to go that route. I wanted to play more the "repressed person breaking out of the shell" type.

I think that the reaction you describe would be more common in males than females, however. Granted, this isn't an absolute, but in general males will focus such feelings outward and blame others for their misfortune, while females focus inward and blame themselves. This is an observation based on work experience with the mentally ill - admittedly a skewed sample of human behavior, but reflective of a more general trend in human society I think.

Maybe part of the problem that arises when playing a cross-gender character isn't so much a lack of understanding of the opposite gender, but a lack of understanding of historical gender roles. After all, the psychology of a modern woman is very different from that of a Middle Ages era woman. Heck, let's not forget that we aren't even technically discussing Middle Ages women - we're discussing magical fantasy women, which ends up being sort of a weird mix of modern and medieval.

Think about it - you've still got classic medieval societal traits (barter economy, feudal systems, hereditary monarchies, rigid class system), combined with things like readily available birth control (at least in FR), examples of women in high authority or performing high-risk work (such as adventuring), and the balancing factor of magic (which does not discriminate by gender on who can become really powerful). Let's not neglect the possible effects of a polytheistic religion which includes both male and female figures.

So, anyone want to attempt a sociological study of gender roles in Faerun?