When Bob wants to play a female PC

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Not threatening, just prone to be wrong. I think that one of the biggest mistakes that people make in these threads, when they try to understand the "motives" for something, is to find a one-size-fits-all answer and I simply don't think there is one in this case. For example, the people annoyed by pronoun confusion may exclude cross-gender characters for an entirely different reason than someone who is uncomfortable thinking of their male buddies as women. Similarly, the person who wants to explore their kinky fantasies may play a cross-gender character for entirely different reason than a player who simply has a normal character concept that would best be handled as a cross-gender character.

I don't think there's a single, facile explanation, no. There usually isn't. Nevertheless, I do feel the subject raises interesting psychosocial points which I'd quite like to explore.

while a group of gamers who will allow women to play men but not allow men to play women might(*) support your analogy, the people who are equally unhappy with men playing women and women playing men doesn't. In fact, it actually refutes your analogy.

I haven't expressed any conclusions at all in this thread, so I really don't feel as if anything I've said has been "refuted."

I can imagine several reasons why a GM might let a woman play a man and not allow a man to play a woman, ranging from sexist stereotypes to historical realities, that have nothing to do with why it's more acceptable for women to dress like men than men dress like women.

I actually think that sexual stereotypes and historical realities have a lot to do with the reasons why it's nowadays more acceptable for a woman to dress in masculine clothing than vice versa, which is in fact part of what I'm edging towards here.

I also think that if the title of this thread had been "When Mary wants to play a male PC", the whole tone of the thread would have been totally different - and far more positive and more tolerant.

 

[tarchon]

The character's sex should match the pronoun used to refer to the player. Apply as necessary.

I guess that means if you game in a language that doesn't mark pronouns for gender, you can play whatever you want? And you can't play warforged in English because they don't have gender?

Lasher Dragon had a good point. The only thing that was perhaps excessive was the "LMAO" in the end, but pointing out the logical absurdity implied by an absurd contention is not an insult, it's just logic. Reductio ad absurdum is in no way a fallacy.

The fact is that it's very clear that some people just have a specific problem with cross-gender RP, and it seems just as clear that it's almost always rooted in discomfort with gender role confusion. Good, bad, I don't know, but there's little doubt in my mind that that's what it's all about.
In my groups we played cross gender characters all the time, and the pronoun thing hardly ever came up. You use the gender according to whether you're talking about the player or the PC. If Bob plays Yondara the Elf Maiden:
"Bob had better move his Mountain Dew before it spills."
"Yondara sheaths her sword."
Unless you have trouble remembering the difference between the PC and the player (and I hope you don't ), where's the problem?

 

[sjmiller]

I also think that if the title of this thread had been "When Mary wants to play a male PC", the whole tone of the thread would have been totally different - and far more positive and more tolerant.

I, for one, would have answered the same way regardless of the title. I prefer that starting characters be the same gender as their player. Male, female, it does not matter. If, for some reason, you need a new character and if, for some reason, you feel your character concept requires you to play a character of the opposite gender, I would expect a a darn good explanation for this. "Wouldn't it be cool?" usually means that it won't be. At least that has been my personal experience.

 

[Oryan77]

I'm not criticizing your decision to ban PC drag in your game, but I can't help but notice some factual-type errors in the above text you posted. Allow me...

1) RPG's are silly. People pretend to be elves. Or vampires. Or space cops. Enough said.
2) RPG's aren't cool. No matter how many White Wolf fans dress in black and smoke. Ask most women.
3) RPG's are childish. More specifically, they are a complex and extended indulgence in (male-gendered) adolescent power fantasies.
4) Men don't think women "act like hornballs". Women think that about men. And they're absolutely right.

Note: "Macho" is now a derogatory terms that derides the person using it, without regard to context.

RPG's are also a hell of lot of fun, but its best to call a spade a shovel.

I agree with #'s 1-3. I don't score points with hot women because I'm a roleplayer, and we're cool. In fact, the hot woman I'm with now took away some of my cool points when she learned about roleplaying from me. Except she now plays too

However, I was referring to the type of rpg games I choose to run. I realize more & more that most players play a more "goofy" type of game from what I've witnessed. Or maybe it's just that most of the players I've met are just silly guys in general. I prefer to play more serious games where the humor is even mature. I don't like childish gaming where players do random acts in an attempt to be funny but it's more just silly and immature. It's just not my style.

You're right about #4, but your response prove my point. Men don't think women act like hornballs, but a man will roleplay a woman like one most of the time. Which is what I don't want to even risk. And women do think men act like hornballs, because they do....but men don't roleplay their male PC's like hornballs most of the time. So it's silly to do that if they play female PC's. Of course I'm referring to the type I like to play with. I can see the "silly" players I mentioned playing their male PC's like hornballs. I wouldn't play with that type of player. If his PC is known as a romancer and acts smooth about it, that's fine. Or if the PC tries to be a romancer but just isn't smooth about it, that's fine too. But just hitting on female NPC's for the sake of being silly just isn't fun for me.

 

[JustKim]

As the DM, have you asked or encouraged a player to not play a PC of the opposite gender?

I haven't, but personally I do lean that way just because it's confusing to remember that so and so is playing someone of a different gender. And somewhere in the back of my mind, there are always the horror stories of Trixie the hyper-sexual lesbian barbarian, even though I have every reason to trust my players.

As a player, do you enjoy playing a character of the opposite sex? If so, why? If not, why not?

I don't at all, I think the opposite is true for many women, as I've seen no less than three women start gaming with male characters. As a DM I play an equal number of male and female NPCs (Which might in itself be unusual), and I don't mind it then, but I don't have any desire to get in the shoes of a male PC. I can't say offhand why that is, I'd be tempted to say guys are just gross but I don't mind playing a humanoid frog so doubtless there are some deeper issues involved there.

As DM or player, do you get squirmy when Bob brings his attractive female half-elf to the gaming table?

Unusual attractiveness would put up a red flag for me because at this point in gaming we've gotten over the every character must be stunningly beautiful phase. When there's a lot of detail in how attractive someone is, there's usually a reason for it and if the reason is that the character is the player's gender of preference it's a little creepy.

The female part I wouldn't be too squirmy about.

 

[nyrfherdr]

I was so avoiding this topic.
It's come up on ENWorld over and over...

Everyone games from their experiences. Everyone's experiences and their game style are different. Even if similar. I do not presume to evaluate your style and your group. Only if your group were to for some reason merge with mine would those styles have to interact.

I have no problem with people gaming in their groups and playing cross-gender.

In my games, it has been allowed, but it has always effected the game. Sometimes in little ways, sometimes in big ones. I discourage cross-gender roleplaying... It avoids both sets of issues.

In my experience, gender is the issue that is the most loaded for everyone and for lots of reasons. Some small, some big. I discourage cross-gender roleplaying... It avoids both sets of issues.

This makes my game no less valid than yours.
Destan is the DM and can make the choice. As a player you can respect the choice, or you can disrupt the game. There are plenty of other roleplaying opportunities in Destan's game and plenty of cross-gender opportunities in other people's games. Explore both, you will just have to explore them separately.

I'm with Destan on this issue, although I'm sure we disagree on something else. We are different afterall.

Game ON!
Nyrfherdr

 

[Nellisir]

I'm a bit late to this brouhaha, and it's quite possible I've missed a reply or two. I apologize if that's so.

Could it, possibly, perhaps, mayhaps, be that we all just have different likes and dislikes? If someone doesn't agree or particularly enjoy a certain aspect of gaming, does it always need to be rooted to some childhood trauma? Our society seems to want to throw any odd views into the lap of a therapist, or trace their foundation to the day that a duck ate someone's pet dog.

I've DMed a few cross-gender characters, the one that comes first to mind being in the cliche "brutal killer victim of trauma" class. The only defense I have for allowing this being once the character's personality solidified (over a few sessions) the player roleplayed the character consistently and without extreme stereotyping (beyond the initial background) throughout the course of the campaign. She was a nasty brutal vicious killer, but she was always a nasty brutal vicious killer (I don't think the player ever read Joel Rosenberg, but there were very strong shades of Tennetty).

My longest running character was a svirfneblin female (I'm a 6' tall guy). She'd probably fall into the "gender-neutral" category. There were no romantic entanglements (there were also no other svirfneblin, either PC or NPC, in the campaign), no promiscuity, no rape, no tight clothing...in retrospect, I wanted the female character because a) I had the image of a female gnome with a thick braid in her hair in my head, and b) I'd recently been hearing an advertisement for swiss chocolates on the radio spoken by a woman with a (probably faked) swiss accent, and I wanted to use the accent (yes, with some practice I can do accents.)

I don't relate this to try and guilt you into anything, but just to give an idea of my rather bland background with cross-gender players.

My concern, were I a player in your game, would be the lack of a reason for your dislike. Many or most of the character restrictions in a game are there for in-game (there are no halflings so you can't play one) reasons or to help the game run smoothly (you can't play an evil character; you can't play a loner). To simply have the DM hand down a declaration from on high stating that I can't play a female character would be a bit offputting and set off a torrent of puzzlement. What else doesn't the DM like? Accents? Loud shirts? Does he think I'm a crappy roleplayer? Am I being punished?

Without a reason, it comes across as just a meaningless restriction on the player's choice.

Cheers
Nell.

 

[shilsen]

You know, I'm really offended by this thread. There's absolutely no mention here about the frustration and the agony suffered by DMs like me who have players who cannot play their own gender. What do you do when your players play their PCs as complete stereotypes of their own gender? What do you do when some guy plays his male barbarian as a brainless moron who is only interested in sex and violence? Or the woman who plays her character as an equally brainless nymphomaniac whose definition of diplomacy is "I seduce him/her/it"? How do you tell people that you don't want them to roleplay human beings since they obviously can't and that they should stick to playing different species and genders since then the lack of ability to depict a rounded three-dimensional character will actually have an excuse? Where's the love, people?

 

[The Shaman]

If I wore her clothes in the street - well, most of them, I just couldn't. I'm British and it's just not socially possible for a British man to wear women's clothes (unless he's a High Court Judge). I can't even imagine doing it.

You're kidding, right? I mean, we are talking about the country of Monty Python and Benny Hill, yes?



Interesting topic, Destan. Thank you for sharing your POV and your willingness to open that up as a topic for discussion. Sorry that some of the posts have been so pointlessly rude.

I don't think I've ever really given this much thought. As a player over the course of twenty-eight years I've played exactly one cross-gender character, motivated largely by the fact that I had this really cool archer miniature that I wanted an excuse to use. As our gaming group consisted of a bunch of teenage guys at the time, I played her as pretty asexual, as I didn't want to be perceived as "odd" for playing a female character - she would fall into the category of mostly indistinguishable from a male character (though an NPC did try to hit on her once and she - I - brushed him off; in hindsight the GM may have been testing my boundaries a bit).

More often than not I've played in gaming groups that included female players, and to the best of my knowledge I've only seen maybe two or three cross-gender characters, invariably guys playing girls.

As a GM I've never made a ruling one way or another - I think the big thing for me would be if the player's character meshes well with the rest of the group and the character is not disruptive to the campaign and makes sense in the context of the setting. Those are my criteria for participation in any of the games I run, regardless of player/character gender issues.

 

[Dread October]

Lasher was a voice of humor in this thread, and I'm still scratching my head to see how anyone could take offense at anything he said.

It does seem like a preposterous question to me -- I'd never think of constraining what gender my players chose for their characters -- so my first response was amusement as well.

(That, and I've come to the conclusion that some of you have really low expectations out of your players. Associating cross-gender characters with a guy wanting to put on his wife's makeup? What the heck? If your players can't handle gender issues, how do they handle women in real life?)

On the contrary. Some of us have very good players most of the time who sometimes give us a peek behind the psycological curtain. We'd really just rather not go "there".

Edit: And As far as I'm concerned, Lasher is still more than funny enough for me.

Dread October