roleplaying across the gender line

[Buttercup]

I don't see why there should be so many labels put on people. If you are a man and you want to play a girl play a girl. Put on a dress and pout all you want. You can play a manly girl or a feminine man, why should it matter? You can play elves and dwarves and magic users and axe weilding barbarians, so why can't you play cross gender?

This game is about doing things we can only dream of. Why put limits on our imagination?

Queenie

Hoping I don't get flamed for my first real opinion on these boards

Hi Queenie, welcome to EN World! It's good to see another woman around here. I'm glad you responded. I gave up in disgust several pages ago. You are obviously more patient than me.

I don't think anyone will flame you, but even if they do, don't pay any attention. Flamage is usually more a reflection on the flamer than the flamee.

 

[Bagpuss]

Finally, my gaming group is me and two other guys. Each of them plays two characters, one male, one female. Here are the characters, without reference to gender or race:

'A', the cleric, a gentle soul who doesn't like to resort to violence;

'C', the thief, who frequently gets the party into trouble yet rarely feels the consequences and is never sorry;

'L', the fighter, who lurks in the darkness of a cloak and wields a vicious scythe;

'T', the mage, who loves to find and claim anything that's shiny. Also head and shoulders taller than anyone else in the party.

Any guesses as to the genders of these PCs? Think about it. These are summaries of the characters in action. Can you guess?

Well, here're the answers. 'A' is an elven male. 'C' is a human female. 'L' is a human male, and 'T' is a triton female.

YES! 4 out of 4, not that it proves anything.

 

[Buttercup]

ConcreteBuddha, I have no idea what you are talking about with all your Ts and Fs. Must be some sort of psychological profiling. But I know rationality when I see it, and I wanted to thank you for the delightful dose you gave everyone in the statement below.

I would like to plead to everyone here: The genders cannot be boxed into permanent, unchangeable, absolute, psychological roles.

Amen, brother.

 

[Teflon Billy]

I couldn't beleive that someone had so completely misunderstood every single argument in this thread, until I realized..

A) He had misquoted everything he is referring to and

B) Who the poster is. My experience with Drew up until now (though in previous threads) involves my repeating the exact same information three or four times and still having extra words put in my mouth.

So, just to make sure that no one's opinions of what I said are contaminated by Drew's misunderstandings, I will clarify.

This is, by far, the silliest thread I've seen on this board in some time. So far, the space-time distortions I'll be polite enough to call arguments include:

Guys should never play female characters, because immature guys play female characters immaturely

No, that's not it at all. What I said was that previous groups of players had handled it so poorly tht I now no longer allow it, seemingly without detriment to my game. I then asked what folks though it added.

-and-

People should always make their characters as similar to themselves as possible, because then they'll roleplay them better.

Well, I don't think you can attribute this one to me.

My favorite is: If you're a man roleplaying a woman, you're not really roleplaying a woman, but a transvestite.

This one's all mine,and I stick by it.

you're playing an elf, are you "really" playing a man who has skinned an elf and is wearing his hide as a costume? No? If you play a female elf then, are you "really" an elf, but not "really" a woman?

Interesting attempt to score some points (in a "logic puzzle" kind of way), except for one thing: I didn't say any of that. I said that in my experience, men who played female characters were disruptive.

Let me be sure to clarify, so Drew understands, that if it had happened with Elves, Dwarves or anything else to the degree it had happened with "cross gender" RP my response would have been the same.

Roleplaying is roleplaying. You're never "really" anything but yourself. You pretend to be an elf. You pretend to be a woman. Etc. This is all obvious stuff. I get the sense that people are making it needlessly obscure to cover for the fact that THEY don't feel comfortable playing opposite guys playing girls.

I'd like a big round of applause for The World's Most Open Minded Poster. Congratulations on your new title Drew!

Now stop attributing comments to me that I have not made. I'm a DM, and am perfectly comfortable playing female NPC's.

Is it misogony? Homophobia? Or do people "really" not know how to roleplay? I'm hoping for the latter...

Was your post a result of Smugness? Ivory Tower pretentiousness? or is it just the same bossy "play my way" kind of crap that so often appears here amongst the self-styled role-playing elite?

I suspect (D) all of the above. Correct me if I'm wrong (but try and focus on what I actually said).

And figure out how to actually spell "Misogyny" if your intending to bandy the term about.

 

[Snoweel]

So many people just dying for an opportunity to attack others from the moral highground...

So many people desperately trying to put words in other peoples' mouths in order to achieve that moral highground...

Originally posted by Oogar:
*Chuckle* that would pretty much take 50% of the fun out of D&D for me then.

Yeah, well for mine, having to endure playing in a boring-ass campaign in a boring-ass setting run by a boring-ass DM would ruin somewhere between 51% and 100% of the fun for me.

And y'know, allowing any old character concept is often a crutch for an unimaginative DM.

In fact, I think the best campaigns are run with pregenerated PC's.

Originally posted by Agback:
Yes, but these things do not constitute their lifestyle.

Ok. The old argue-the-definition-of-one-irrelevant-word trick. Figures considering your use of the ignore-ninety-percent-of-a-post-because-it-invalidates-your-argument-in-favour-of-the-little-that-you-might-be-able-to-argue-against trick.

It's considered extremely poor form here to not concede a point.

Anyway, I concede - If lifestyle means "the stuff you do every day", then I guess nobody engages in a "violent, adventuring lifestyle". Especially not your PC's. Not even mine.

Then the relevance of your arguments to your conclusion (that players should not be allowed to play characters of the other sex) is diminishing rapidly.

Umm, is that my argument?

No. That's Teflon Billy's argument.

My argument is that if a male's going to play a female adventurer, he may as well play her as he would a man, since amongst individuals, there is enough psychological overlap between the genders that any particular woman could conceivably think and behave exactly as a man would.

Of course, I can't see why a man would want to play a woman, since if the campaign has any semblance of gender roles, and its cultures any basis in historical research, then that character will experience either crippling social restrictions, or unfair advantages.

An example? Look at the support women receive on the internet if a man should dare to chastise her for saying something stupid or if he even has the gall to disagree with her.

Don't believe me? Watch this:

Queenie122 wrote:
Hoping I don't get flamed for my first real opinion on these boards.

Don't worry about that Queenie. This:

Queenie122 wrote:
I am a women, and I love playing D&D.

Means you can say whatever you want here with impunity. In fact, were I even to correct your spelling of "woman" without including some inane emoticon, my good name would be sullied beyond redemption.

Bagpuss wrote:
Oh oh I know this one, is it because in your fantasy roleplaying game they are force into playing mudane humans?

Well, smartass, my last group included more girls than boys. Of course back then I wasn't so restrictive against magic-using classes. And the girls always found a way to make a 4 hour session take 6+ hours. At least they were having fun.

Since then my homebrew has undergone quite an overhaul, and while I allow spellcasters only with very good reason (and anyway, I've weakened magic considerably IMC to the point that a character is better off trusting her sword or stealth than spells), I prefer the PC's to be mostly ignorant of the precise workings of magic.

Heightens suspense, y'know?

They arn't bright enough to play a none human race, or a human with any abilities outside there own.

It's nothing to do with bright.

It's more to avoid the feeling that "These are my mates, Joe the Half-Orc and Steve the Necromancer."

I mean, why stop at the PHB? Why not allow Illithid PC's and Kuo-Toa? We've all got imaginations, right?

IMC, if a sentient isn't human, then it is FAR from human. I've seen too many elves played like mere wierd/quiet/effeminate/snobbish/etc humans, instead of the alien lifeforms they're intended to be.

Of course, if the elves in your campaign are just long-lived humans with pointy ears, then I think you should allow elven PC's.

ConcreteBuddha wrote:
I think your heart is in the right place, but the way you get there is incorrect.

Thanks CB. At least you don't pretend not to know what I mean.

And as I stated above,

I wrote:
My argument is that if a male's going to play a female adventurer, he may as well play her as he would a man, since amongst individuals, there is enough psychological overlap between the genders that any particular woman could conceivably think and behave exactly as a man would.

T's and F's aside, it doesn't take a genius to realise that a sweeping generalisation does not preclude the extreme variation possible in any individual.

Though it astounds me that so many here wish that someone would say something so ignorant. I guess moral highground just makes some people feel safe.

T and F describe a series of behaviors that have nothing specifically to do with gender. They can be applied to gender, but they do not equal gender.

Only a total idiot would even say that they equal gender.

To post such a disclaimer as this is an insult to everybody's intelligence.

I prefer the cleaner terms of T and F. You step on a lot less toes

Well, you seem to know enough about psychology to know that being outraged can serve to make people feel important.

The only toes one will ever step on are the toes looking to be stepped on.

Case in point:

Buttercup wrote:
I gave up in disgust several pages ago.

You see the irony in that comment?

 

[Tsyr]

And y'know, allowing any old character concept is often a crutch for an unimaginative DM.

In fact, I think the best campaigns are run with pregenerated PC's.

Ya know... I'm trying to stay more or less out of this thread, because I've been down this arguement before, but I just wanted to completely hijack the thread for a moment and say I disagree with this. Actualy, 180 degrees disagre. I think running a game with pregens is a crutch for an unimaginative DM, and allowing any concept and then meshing it into a whole takes far more skill and tends to yield a more fun game.

But, that's just my experience. Not that I've never played in a fun pre-gen game, but I generaly dislike them, if for no other reason then I have a hard time "getting in to" a character I had no real hand in creating.

 

[Snoweel]

Tsyr wrote:
I just wanted to completely hijack the thread for a moment and say I disagree with this.

Don't be so lazy.

Start a new thread - I'll argue it with you.

 

[Tsyr]

Don't be so lazy.

Start a new thread - I'll argue it with you.

In the morning I'm just waiting for a download to finish, and fleshing out some details of my arguement on another thread, then I'm hitting the hay

 

[mythago]

Unlike T. Billy, I do allow players to go cross-gender with characters. Firstly, because it *is* roleplaying--it seems odd to say "Well, I believe that you can get into the mindset of a two-hundred-year-old dwarven warrior, but playing a human female is beyond you."

(I mean, think about what that says--that women are SO weird, and SO alien, that it's easier to play an imaginary creature!)

Second, because while I recognize the players Billy references (see below), there aren't any in my gaming group. One fellow player in my D&D game almost exclusively plays female characters. One person in my CoC game chose a male character. The only problem is that, occasionally, one of us will use the wrong pronoun. No biggie.

As for Why Women Don't Play D&D, whatever the psychological factors about combat vs. roleplaying blah blah true or not, a very very big factor is the perceived hostility of the largely male gaming community.

Yes, things are much better than they used to be. I remember in the mid-80s going to a gaming con and literally having players crowd around me, marvelling at the sight of a female GM. No foolin'. Today, nobody would bat an eye.

But there is still a very strong perception that all RPG players are surly teenage boys and immature adult men with Issues about their manliness, who are more than happy to express said Issues in the direction of female NPCs and players alike.

 

[Snoweel]

Unlike T. Billy, I do allow players to go cross-gender with characters. Firstly, because it *is* roleplaying--it seems odd to say "Well, I believe that you can get into the mindset of a two-hundred-year-old dwarven warrior, but playing a human female is beyond you."

(I mean, think about what that says--that women are SO weird, and SO alien, that it's easier to play an imaginary creature!)

Who said this?

As I see it, the issue of not allowing cross-gender roleplaying isn't about roleplaying ability - it's about motivation.

Teflon Billy has even said that he, as DM, roleplays women. So don't confuse things, eh?

And as for roleplaying 200 year old Dwarves, see my above post. If I think you can do it, then I'll allow it in my game.

But if your Dwarf thinks and behaves like Jim the IT-consultant, then forget it. It's already enough of a stretch of the imagination to think that we can believably portray a fantasy human in the full-time role of a PC.

And as for my roleplaying faults as a DM - they're easier to avoid if I only have to be "in character" for 5 minutes at a time.

As for Why Women Don't Play D&D, whatever the psychological factors about combat vs. roleplaying blah blah true or not, a very very big factor is the perceived hostility of the largely male gaming community.

Gamers are hostile toward women?!?!? Please.

Take a look on the internet - gamers are so fawningly protective of women, it borders on disrespect.

But there is still a very strong perception that all RPG players are surly teenage boys and immature adult men with Issues about their manliness, who are more than happy to express said Issues in the direction of female NPCs and players alike.

Well I never!