roleplaying across the gender line

[Gez]

From my own experience (which seems rather dissimilar to Teflon Billy's), the actual gender of the PC don't change much in the roleplay. Less than the choice of race. I don't remember any case of "total sluts" nor of "man hating lesbians" in our own group.

I have two female PCs I play in D&D. The first is a gnome wizard, and don't bother about non-gnomes. As we (nearly) never met any, she's rather a-sexual. The other is the wife of another PC in a game where we decided everyone would be in the same family, either by wedding or by brotherhood. She's a bit jealous and possessive of her husband, but she'll never betray him. All things considered, both are fun to play and don't pose any problems.

 

[Ancalagon]

Darnation, my post got eaten.

Anyway.

Hong: nothing wrong with asking other people, neh?

Teflon: No, my character is neither a slut nor a man-hating lesbian. Give me a wee bit of credit. Also remember I did not choose to role-play a woman.

I have to come in snoweel's defence here (gasp! ... so... painful... ) and note that some of his coments were nutkinland references and probably not 100% serious.

Ahem

Anyway, so that people don't accuse me of being a mean old troll trying to start a flamewar, here is my character background (let's get this back on topic)

Ok, here is what I came up with until now. There are holes, but that is because I know nothing about the campain itself, so I can't elaborate on certain things.

Natalya was born in east germany, and led a fairly typical life for an east german kid, exept perhaps for a greater awareness of goverment surveilance and spying (her parents were nervous about such things). (this might explained why she joined such an agency, she wants to be the watcher, not the watched). She was a single child, and didn't spend a lot of time interacting with other childrens.

When she was 9, her world shatered. She and her parents were adbucted by a group of (here I'm not 100% sure... satanits, cultits, anyway, crazy people). Her parents got killed, and she would probably have died too, if it was not for the intervention of the STASI (east german secret police), who thought this was a covert meeting of subversives. Having missinterpreted the situation and not being fully prepared to face a group of (insert crazy people here), the situation quickly degenerated in a firefight. An oil lamp fell on Natalya, inflicting serious burns on the left side of her body. The Stasi officers prevailed, and Natalya was rescued by a Stasi agent with a kinder heart than usual.

Natalya spent 2 years in state hospital and orphenage. She healed physicaly, but felt terribly alone and isolated. The other kids made fun of her scars, and she slowly deperished.

Then, in 1989, the berlin wall colapsed. Natalya's case was brought to the attention of the western goverment (by the same agent who had rescued her), and she was provided with better medical and psycological care.

Natalya's scars have healed well, but are still visible (uper left arm, left side of back, and behind her left leg, her face and hands are untouched.) While she is fairly attractive, she doesn't feel that anyone who saw the scars would not be repulsed. As a result, she shows as little skin as possible. Standart outside atire would be dark pants, boots, leather jacket and gloves, and a scarf or turtleneck, leaving only her face visible. She feels ill at ease with women, feeling them judging her and envious of their ease with their feminity. She gets along better with men, but deals poorly with those who are attracted to her, feeling that any relationship is doomed. This, combined with her introversion, make her a loner.

Natalya has a very high tolerance for pain, shruging off paper cuts and broken bones. Nothing can be worse than the fire (and the convalesence) she endured when she was 9. To this day, she remains both fearfull and attracted to fire.

Natalya has spent much of her times studying serial killers, cults, occultists and psycopath. She needs to know what makes them tick, and is obsessed by the question "why us?, why did my parents have to die?". In her duties as a basement agent, she has found that psycopathic behavior has occured all over the world and once had the opportunity to stop such a killer (wich she did). She is looking forward to other such investigation/terminations.

Depending on what the GC (DM in spycraft) has in mind, it is probable that Natalya will be upset at being pulled off her studies and research. However, she feels a fierce sense of loyalty to western civilisation in general, who she sees as having rescued her from the coldness of the east-german orphenage. Because of this, she will undertake any mission that could have any benifit to western ideals, interests, or simply the interest of her agency.

Natalya has 2 great desires in life: Seeing her parents again (which she knows very well is impossible) and meeting the Stasi officer who rescued her.

What do you think?

Ancalagon

 

[StalkingBlue]

Looks like you're going to have fun, Ancalagon!

I almost didn't make it through to your char background post because wading through all the usual gender blah blah they bring up every single time bores me to no end.

So, great you persisted in bringing this back on topic - and great I found the post! This sounds like a cool character to play, cross-gender or not. No gender caricature here.

Natalya is a Russian name, of course ... so perhaps her parents had Soviet connections?

 

[Desdichado]

Great background -- I'd jump at the opportunity to play this gal.

Natalya (usually spelled Natalia though, since it's in the Latin alphabet) is also a Polish name. I know tons of German names are common on Poland, but I don't know how common people (and names) of Polish descent are in Germany, particularly east Germany.

 

[Terwox]

Aye, sounds like the character will be great fun to play, just have fun with it and don't worry about it too much!

 

[Drawmack]

sounds like a great character and it also sounds like you've managed to come up with a personality that anyone can play. In the areas where you're not sure how a ''woman'' would react you probably have it covered in your background.

I mean the only place that it's really important is interpersonal interaction and you have spelled out very clearly how she acts in these situation. Women she is uncomfortable with, men she is comfortable with, unless they are attracted to her then they fall into the catagory with the women but not because of the man more because she is affraid of loosing someone she loves again.

 

[mirzabah]

Think of a film or book or comic book heroine and play it like her?

Except ugly...

But seriously, I'd say let instinct be your guide. If you try and consciously play like a girl, you're bound to get it wrong somehow. In my experience, characters tend to take on a life of their own after a few sessions (or die ), so I wouldn't worry too much about the gender thing at this stage.

 

[Teflon Billy]

...Teflon: No, my character is neither a slut nor a man-hating lesbian. Give me a wee bit of credit. Also remember I did not choose to role-play a woman...

Yeah, I wasn't actually talking about you at all Anc. Colonel Hardisson asked me to post my thoughts on the subject and I did.

No posts that followed really did anyting to explain to me (outside of a situation like Ancalgon's, where the characters are assigned by the GM) why they need to have a cross gender PC.

That Gnome one in particular comes to mind

Any thoughts?

 

[Gez]

That Gnome one in particular comes to mind

My gnomette ? (I've seen no other gnome mentionned in this thread, so I assume it's mine. If not, just consider I'm paranoiac and see people talking about me everywhere.)

Well, the basic reason she was a she was pretty simple. Garden gnomes are always male. Sometimes, you have garden Snowwhites to go with the garden dwarfs, but that's all. By taking a female gnome, I was avoiding boring jokes from the other players.

 

[Drawmack]

I only played cross sex once. Normally I play someone who is either the child or student of a previous character.

We did a three campaign intro to 3e with premade characters. The character that I played had a daughter.

We came back and started playing again 18 years later. I played my previous character's daughter.

I was a female gnome bard.

As far as why play cross sex I retort why not? When I am planning a character sex is the last thing I pick. I build the whole character and then see if they should be male or female. Mine have always been male, but if I build the character and the mental image that I get is a female then I would want to play that character as cross-sex.

As far as Billy's thoughts on the subject. Okay so you've had a lot of immature people play women. I think it is very sexist to assume that no man can adaquatly play a women but that women can adaquatly play men. Additionally I see nothing wrong with a woman trading sexual favors to attain goals, offer some of your male PCs the opportunity sometime and see what they do. It happens, it's part of the game if the GM allows it. Remember your the GM your NPC can turn down sex with an attractive adventurer if you want them too. On the other hand if it would be out of character for them to do so, maybe it is in character for their secret admirer to send hordes of minions after the party because of how they ''forced'' her beloved to behave.

I find that most times when someone needs to make a rule such as Billy's it is because they as a GM cannot handle the situations that it presents to the game.