roleplaying across the gender line

[Snoweel]

Nice try, but it was you who chose to use the word 'lifestyle' and you who chose to describe it as irrelevant.

When did I EVER describe "lifestyle" as irrelevant? I merely said that your implied definition precludes anybody from having a violent, adventurous lifestyle. Since it seems that your definition requires that someone constantly engage in said activity for it to constitute a lifestyle.

As for where you stand with resepect to my contempt: I've never met you and don't know who you are. The only thing I have any opinion of is the argument you put up. If you wanted that to get more respect less of it ought to have consisted of ill-considered interjections of "bor-ing".

"bor-ing" is funny. Ask anyone.

On second thoughts, ask a 'T'.

 

[Qlippoth]

"bor-ing" is funny. Ask anyone.

It certainly is when Homer Simpson says it. Is trying to reason with Homer Simpson fun?

 

[Angelsboi]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re

Yeah. I only implicated AB's homebrew because it can stand up for itself.

Brilliant attention to detail.

BTW - did you ever see Brannisch's photoshop for the cover of AB's setting?

Nearly WET myself...

Awwwwwwwww guys thanks!!! Someone pointed me to this LOL!!! Snow, Billy, you know im YOUR Official Gay Witch Mascot =)

 

[mythago]

Qlipoth, often in a discussion your goal is not to reason with a particular poster--it's to show that they don't, in fact, want to hold a reasonable discussion.

I look at it like right/left handedness

Admittedly, I have never been in a game where the GM ruled that I could not play a left-handed or ambidextrous character. Nor have I ever had a GM rule that because there are certain emotional characteristics associated with left-handed people, that my character's handedness would have to change. ie, "No, you can't play a left-handed Dwarven engineer. That's mathematical thinking, of the type associated with the left brain; make her right-handed or pick a gnome artisan instead."

You realize, I assume, that handedness is not quite as charged an issue as gender, and people do not have quite the same....hm...investment in their opinions of what left- or right-handed people are like. You're not likely to run into a strongly right-handed player who insists on playing a left-handed elf, and then does an exaggerated parody of a hot-headed artiste, "because that's what left-handed people are inclined to be like."

Myers-Briggs is fine if you really want to use it to analyze whether a particular player can handle a particular type of character, I guess. It doesn't sell me on the poster who said that baby-birthin' hips make female PCs unplayable by male characters, I'm afraid.

 

[Angelsboi]

For those interested in my Homebrew:

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11740

 

[am181d]

Now stop attributing comments to me that I have not made.

I don't have the time or a consistant enough connection to the message boards (I couldn't get in at all yeserday: what's up with that?) to follow up at any length, but I just wanted to stress that my original post wasn't targeted at any one specific person. I was moved to post because I felt the tenor of the thread as a whole (especially early on) was appalling.

Billy, while I do think your position is odd (perhaps a little silly, but it's clear enough why you made the call you did), I was more concerned with the people who started the thread and were holding up the ruling you made for your personal game as something that should be applied universally.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Billy, while I do think your position is odd (perhaps a little silly, but it's clear enough why you made the call you did), I was more concerned with the people who started the thread and were holding up the ruling you made for your personal game as something that should be applied universally.

Well, I know that I, for one, never said anything like that. Matter of fact, if you check my second post to this thread, you'll see that I specifically used the phrase "it's not universally applicable."

 

[barsoomcore]

Why I Play Who I Play

Okay, so I'm a guy and I've played at least three or four female PCs in my time. Different campaigns and such.

Why?

Because I was interested in them.

I note that nobody has talked about characters as people they're interested in. That's 100% why I play who I play. I want to see how these people behave, if they can overcome their issues or perils or whatever. Will Fred ever find his little sister and if he does, what will happen to his adventuring lifestyle? Will Jill ever track down the gnolls who decimated her village, including her father who she idolized?

I CARE about my characters. They MATTER to me. I LIKE them. I play them to, as much as anything, find out what happens to them. Because I'm worried about them. I want them to have happy endings.

Whether they're male or female doesn't really signify to me, except insofar as they possess a gender when they come to me. I play them whatever gender they are.

As far as DM's restricting character choices, while I have to admit, Snoweel, your style of communication seems a little more confrontational than is really necessary, I have a very similar system to you -- humans only, fighters and rogues only. Players have to make very detailed cases to play anything else, and whatever happens I usually twist the class around to fit my campaign's rather peculiar cosmology and magic system.

A DM can do whatever they want with their campaign. I don't think that any way is conclusively BETTER than any other, and if my system hugely sucks I'll probably have trouble finding players. Which I kinda do, so perhaps I suck. But I have every right to suck if I want to.

As far as T Billy's system goes, I've never had to implement anything that drastic, fortunately, and I have to say that to me it speaks much more highly of the maturity of the people he's played with than any general statement on mankind. Which he was the first to point out, of course.

The idea that guys who play women are actually playing transvestities is hilarious, though. It's like saying guys who play fighters are actually playing VirtuaFighter players. No. When I play a female character, I'm playing a woman. I may be doing a poor job of it, but that's what I'm doing. When I play a transvestite, THAT'S when I'm playing a transvestite.

 

[s/LaSH]

Well said, barsoomcore. And this touches on an interesting subject... I can't think of a title for it, so I'll explain it instead.

When I write or role-play, I take the time to sit back and look at what I'm doing. And it's often pretty cool; I wouldn't do it if I couldn't look at it and enjoy myself exactly the same way as if I were watching someone else's work. If I don't like a TV show or a book, I can always write something better, or at least more to my own tastes.

I put forward that a male playing a female character is simply a slightly more cerebral method of, say, playing Tomb Raider or watching Aliens. The main characters there are female, and I'll bet nearly everyone here has had experience with both franchises. What's the difference? In role playing, you simply have to think a little harder, perhaps use your emotions more, and hopefully gain an insight into other people. And people say you shouldn't be allowed to do this little extra thinking? That's the only reason I can think of for not allowing someone to entertain themselves with a protagonist of opposite gender.

(All right, I do realise that there are frightfully immature people in the world. I've had the 'honour' of playing with some of them. If Teflon Billy is 'blessed' with such players, an outright ban on outlets for their immaturity may well help them get a grip and eventually mature into people who have a hope of getting a girlfriend one day. No offense intended to anyone but idiots.)

And to go slighty off-topic, it occurs to me that a transvestite might be an interesting character to play... if I ever get into a good group I'm not DMing, I think I'll give that a whirl, purely to expand my horizons. (I have two sisters and I've never felt an urge to put on their clothing, mostly because it's so darn uncomfortable-looking.)

 

[takyris]

You know, I disagreed with his Teflonitude about the "Guys shouldn't play gals" mindset, but him saying, "If they had the same problem with elves/dwarves, I'd do the same thing," pretty much kills any criticism on my part -- 'cause I'd do the same thing, I think.

I've never run into the problem TB is describing. If I did, I'd deal with it. The few times that a man has opted to play a female character in one of my campaigns, he's been pretty respectful about it. My games don't feature enough on-screen romance for it to really come up as a factor one way or the other, and as for the guy who plays a skanky easy woman who does anything that moves... If I for some reason opted not to nuke it as TB did, I'd do something in-game that made it abundantly clear that the PC's reputation was suffering -- and that reputation was something the player did in fact need to worry about. Having the women in the town all pitch in to hit the misbehaving PC with a Curse that drops her Constitution by 6 would be pretty decent -- and realistic, in my mind. The wives are angry that she's stealing their husbands, the courtesans are angry that she's stealing their business, and the barmaids are angry that she's stealing the attention they'd ordinarily be getting from innocent flirtation. Sounds like a Women's Council meeting, a discreet hat-passing, and a Bestow Curse with DM-ruled Failure on the Save.

I still disagree with the people who think that there's no reason, ever, for a man to roleplay a female character. But I certainly would be willing to smack down a player who wanted to play a character that in my mind would ruin the game for other people.

-Tacky