When Bob wants to play a female PC

[Falkus]

but a man will roleplay a woman like one most of the time. Which is what I don't want to even risk

If the player is incapable of playing a female character in a mature fashion, what makes you think he's going to be any better with a male character?

 

[Dread October]

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?

Have you ever played with a guy in the army who played a fighter like a steotypical army infantry goon?

Or the woman who plays her character as an equally brainless nymphomaniac whose definition of diplomacy is "I seduce him/her/it"?

Have you ever played with a guy who never had a girlfriend but all of a sudden started dating a female player in your game and then huis characters all became the stereotypical red hot lover types while she a generally level headed person and decent player, became a rock headed ninny whose characters couldn't buckle their cape on properly without the help of the dashing hero character player by her SO?

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?

As delicately as possible because essentialy we'd hope that they were your friends even if they were sort of jacked up. We may let some stuff slide sometimes but if a guy should stick to what he knows and what won't make us run from the room screaming, then we may just have to speak up.

Dread October

 

[John Morrow]

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."

No, but you hinted very strongly about where you were going. I'm going to shift your last paragraph up...

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.

This also points to your conclusion which seems to be that it's not socially acceptable for men to take on the role of women (or dress like women) while it is acceptable for women to take on the role of men (or dress like men), and this is reflected in cross-gender character role-playing as well as clothing. For the record, my answer wouldn't have been any different, which, like I said, doesn't support your conclusion. And if the tone of the thread was any different, it could have as much to do with the demographics of the hobby and this message board as anything else.

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.

By "historical realities", I mean that some settings are not "woman friendly" and it wouldn't be very fair to force a woman to play a woman in a setting where that would disadvantage her. I think there are several reasons why it is now more acceptable for a woman to dress like a man and not vice versa and think that even that issue can be fairly complex and isn't entirely cut and dried, either.

 

[Oryan77]

If your players can't handle gender issues, how do they handle women in real life?

Think about this for a second.....most D&D players I've met don't know how to handle real women in real life. I think you're thinking about this backwards. What you meant to say is, "If they can't handle real women, how can they handle gender issues?"

If the player is incapable of playing a female character in a mature fashion, what makes you think he's going to be any better with a male character?

Because he's not putting any effort into pretending to be a "male" character. I don't like roleplaying to feel forced because it's hard for me to DM that person when it doesn't feel natural. But I agree, some guys can't even play a male character maturely. Those are the types I wouldn't bother playing with.

 

[der_kluge]

Oh, is it time for our yearly cross-gender role-playing thread, already?!

I see that it is.

Ok, for the record, I'm not gay. I'm fairly certain my wife would not approve.

Secondly, I tallied up all the characters I'd ever played once upon a time. Fully 50% of them were female. Yes, HALF.

3rd edition is no exception. Male gnome cleric, female sorcerer, female sorcerer, male cloistered cleric, female sorcerer, male gnome illusionist. Yep, 50/50.

And for the record, my female characters aren't sluts, or man-haters, or any other stereotype. One female sorcerer was the daughter of a brewmeister, who was an illiterate peasant girl. She had 7 pages of history and information typed up on her.

Some argue that no female persona can't be recreated with a male persona. I wholeheartedly disagree. In our last session in the WLD, I replayed that illiterate female sorcerer I had previously made, and she ended up lasting all of one game. She died via a fireball. But during that game, we encounted this poor Ogre who had "given up" and resolved himself to his fate of being stuck in the dungeon. My character gave him a hug. Would a male character do that? Unlikely.

So, bottom line is this. I would totally refuse to play in your game if you wouldn't allow me to role-play female characters. Which, IMHO, would be a loss for you and your game, because I consider myself a good role-player.

 

[The_Gunslinger658]

Hey!!

Well, I play my Paladin as an Army MP goon.

"you there, thats contraband!, I'm going to have to confiscate your Iraqi Bayanet under CFLIC order number 1-A"

Scott

Have you ever played with a guy in the army who played a fighter like a steotypical army infantry goon?




Have you ever played with a guy who never had a girlfriend but all of a sudden started dating a female player in your game and then huis characters all became the stereotypical red hot lover types while she a generally level headed person and decent player, became a rock headed ninny whose characters couldn't buckle their cape on properly without the help of the dashing hero character player by her SO?



As delicately as possible because essentialy we'd hope that they were your friends even if they were sort of jacked up. We may let some stuff slide sometimes but if a guy should stick to what he knows and what won't make us run from the room screaming, then we may just have to speak up.

Dread October

 

[der_kluge]

I wouldn't mind hearing justifications as to why a man needs to play a woman PC other than just "because I want to". Why do you guys want to play female PC's? What do you get out of it that you don't get when playing a male?

I think needs is a strong word. None of us "need" to play Dungeons and Dragons. So, "want" would be a better choice of words there. I think the female player in our group said it best when I asked her why all of her characters were really, really talle. She said, "I'm short in real life, so I want my characters to be really tall."

Yep, I think that's about it. I play a guy in real life. Is it so wrong to want to play a woman in a fantasy setting? I don't think so.

 

[Crothian]

If the player is incapable of playing a female character in a mature fashion, what makes you think he's going to be any better with a male character?

Becasue it my experince they do. Some people cannot handle playing a female character. I don't know why but it is true.

 

[John Morrow]

I guess that means if you game in a language that doesn't mark pronouns for gender, you can play whatever you want?

It could mean that it's not as much of an issue. Some comments by Finnish role-players that I've read suggest that might be the case. It could also be different in Japanese, where the first person pronouns as well as overall language use have a strongly gender-specific component. I don't role-play in either Japanese or Finnish so I really can't be sure. But I do know that in English, which is the language I use, pronoun usage is an issue that has been commented on by other people in this thread.

And you can't play warforged in English because they don't have gender?

English has a neuter gender. Perhaps you've heard of "it"? What do they use in the source material? Does anyone have experience playing in games with Warforged characters? Did the players refer to them as "he", "she", or "it"?

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.

When the reductio ad absurdum is applied to a straw man, when it begs the question, or when it's used as a crude appeal to consequences, it can be. When the "ad absurdum" is either (A) built on top of a straw man or (B) ignores distinctions that differentiate the absurd conclusion from the initial argument, it's essentially a hollow argument.

Nobody (to my knowledge) was claiming that nobody should be able to role-play any character that has characteristics different than the player. That's either (A) the straw man or (B) begging the question. It's a straw man if it's a characterization designed to be knocked down. It's begging the question if the assumption is that a player or character's sex is as significant as any other attribute that the player might have in common or different from their character.

By the way, I wasn't claiming that the reductio was insulting. That's another straw man. Calling people immature or insane if they don't agree with you, however, is insulting.

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.

Do you have evidence to support your assumption? In my case, it has nothing to do with discomfort with gender role confusion. In the case of other people I know, it has nothing to do with gender role confusion. In the case of several other responses in this thread, it seems to have nothing to do 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.

That's nice. And with my equally subjective anecdotal evidence, I see plenty of evidence that that's not what it's all about. In some cases? Yes. In many cases? No.

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:

And I've played in groups that allow cross-gender characters and they do have the pronoun problem. I'm not claiming it is a universal problem. I'm claiming that some people do have the problem, even when it's not intentional. I've seen it, as have others in this discussion. Again, my equally subjective anecdotal evidence doesn't agree with you.

Unless you have trouble remembering the difference between the PC and the player (and I hope you don't ), where's the problem?

I don't think it's an entirely conscious problem with a lot of people. In other cases, it's just laziness or inattentiveness. Maybe some players can't tell the difference between the player and the character. Different people play at different depths. Regardless of the cause, it's darned distracting when it happens. Just because you don't have a problem doesn't mean that other people don't.

 

[Tinner]

The standing rule for any game I DM is "Friends don't let friends cross-gender roleplay."
Not because it creeps anybody out. Lord knows as a GM I always have to portray female NPCS. Heck, I've GM'd romance/seductions with both male and female PC's & NPC's.
The big issue is that no one I have EVER played with male or female can do a decent, non-disruptive job of roleplaying the other gender.
I don't care if you're male, female, gay, straight or bi. IMO males cannot maintain a female persona consistently, and the same hold true for females playing men.
Sooner or later it always devolves into stereotypes and stupid behavior.
I don't let men play women for the same reason I don't let certain munchkin/gun-bunny players try to play sensitive political PC's - it doesn't work.
And if it doesn't work the game stops being fun, and that's really the whole point.