You and Your Characters: Gender and Sexuality

[Kalontas]

I'm male and I have played many things. Straight males, straight females and gay females, when it comes to sexuality. Straight males because that's what I am, and occasionally played a female character. Though they were either straight and not active, or lesbian for the same reason I haven't really played a gay male - aesthetic preferences.

 

[Elf Witch]

When I play I like to play my own gender. I just enjoy it more in the long term as a DM I mix it up.

 

[Shervyn]

I'm a CIS male, but have defaulted to playing female characters for as long as I remember. And since most of my gaming has been D&D or it's variants, that has generally meant a female shape to hang armor and weapons from and hasn't really had much affect one way or another.

 

[daichiasuka]

I've honestly never really thought about it. As a DM I am a little bit of everything, obviously, but as a player I can honestly say I don't think I have ever rolled a female character.

Now that you've made me realize this, I... wow. Yeah, I never have. My head hurts a little.

I guess my next character will be a female now.

 

[Gilladian]

I'm female, and when I'm not DMing I play a mix of races. I prefer male dwarf fighters because I'm forever branded by Tolkien and can't conceive of a female dwarf... If I play human, generally female, but sometimes male. Depends on the other characters in the party, a lot. Right now I'm in a game where my best friend and I (both women) are playing a pair of adventuring brothers, off seeking their missing father. We could have played sisters rather than brothers, but the opening scenario just made the guys seem more appropriate. One of the guys in the group is playing my character's girlfriend, which is cute. We flirt once in a while, but usually it consists of "you stole that kill from me!" as another pirate falls.

 

[DnD_Dad]

I make totally random characters(race, class, sex.) when I play. A few in my group do the same thing, but the rest stay to the norm. The guys make guys and the ladies make ladies.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

I voted Guy plays other things, but I tend to be pretty balanced - of my stable of characters I rotate through I tend to have equal amounts of male and female characters (and often something else). Between D&D and Champions right now - the actively played character (which we rotate through) total - I have 4 male characters, 4 female characters and a man sized amoeba from the Andromeda galaxy who's shape is constantly in flux, and reproduces by mitosis (not surprisingly that character is a Champions character).

This isn't really something I try to do, it is just something that has been a pattern for a long time.


edit - and wow - this is my 1000th post.

 

[BriarMonkey]

Although male, I do play a mix of characters. It depends on the idea and story for the character. If it'd be better as a lass, then I'll make a female character; the converse is also true. I can't say that any of the games I've played in ever had much for romance or the like, so orientation has never really come into play. But if it did/does, then that would just be another facet to the character and I'd likely play diversely there too.

 

[Deridis]

I prefer to play my gender. Although the few times I haved DMed I've had a pretty even mix.

 

[Arlough]

I find the guy:female (47:5) both amusing, and sadly surprising (Sad in that I was surprised to find almost 10% of the respondents are female. I have a really hard time recruiting women into my campaigns as active participants.)

Anyway, for me I would have rate my character gender as 94% same [male], 5% unmentioned [genderless or gender irrelevant] (warforged, treant, robot, androgynous rabid psychotic murderous agent of death, zombie, etc), and 1% opposite [female].
Really I only pick female if the setting demands (or at least heavily suggests) it, and the unmentioned category probably still falls toward male personalities most of the time.
I think it may be in part because I am spending so much effort being someone else in most other ways, that being a different gender is not interesting enough to offset the cost of the amount of effort I would need to invest to stay in character as a female and approach situations appropriately. Kind of like the Sorceress in "The Dorkness Rising" (go see it if you haven't already).

Similarly, I rarely play arachnids, masonry, fashionista, squid, or cats.