Quote from: GhostNinja on April 04, 2024, 10:39:08 AM
I don't get gamers.  Playing an Elf or an Orc? No problem.  Playing someone of another sex? Are you kidding me?

for me, it's not about willingness, but rather ability. elves and orcs are completely fictional magical creatures, so most would probably agree that as long as one's able to stay within the fiction of the game just about any kind of role playing goes with those.
sexual traits exist in real world, so some additional expectations are pretty much inevitable when one's to include those in their role playing, and so real life experience is useful and, i'd argue, preferable in this case. unless of course special effort is made to completely divorce those traits from real world via game fiction - but that would just make the whole sex schtick pointless imo.

that said, i do agree with many here, it's not a big deal - anyone who's capable of making it work will get nothing but praise from me.

I have played with a few people who would never play a character of the opposite sex.  They don't feel that they can handle it well enough to suit themselves, let alone the rest of the group.  If someone says that, I'm not going to argue with them.  Self awareness is a good thing.  If it's overstating the case, or maybe chronic shyness, it's not like failing to do so is causing the slightest bit of trouble for anyone.   At most, I'll file it away to notice if they show some signs of changing their minds. 

I will go so far as to say that certain roles are outside the competence of certain players, opposite sex merely being an obvious case.  I'd rather leave it up to self-aware players to police that themselves, and leave the rest of the players out of the game entirely.

Many men like capable and confident women. It's widely known that confidence is attractive. Women players are not necessarily going to play capable and confident women characters all the time. So, if a man wants to see that kind of character, he might as well play one himself. Is it a fantasy? Sure, just like the rest of the game is a fantasy. Anyway, that's my theory.

Also, I think the differences between male and female characters should be less pronounced anyway because both share the commonality of being adventurers. Differences between the sexes will be more apparent if we had, say, concubine and construction worker characters. But since everyone's an adventure, the differences get smoothed over somewhat.

And yeah, as others have mentioned, the GM plays both sexes, so playing the opposite sex should be no big deal if the table has a bit of maturity or agrees on what's off limits.

That's kind of a funny thing.  As a GM, I have played dozens of women. As a PC, that dropped to zero for any group.  Later, when I migrated to mainly solo play, that opened up genres and roles that never would have flown with any of the groups that I was in.

A quick survey of the last couple dozen or so games I have played... 

Four had female protagonists: Trollbabe (with Barbarian Prince), Magical Burst (beta), Magical Fury, and FAE (post-apocalypse kaiju pilots)
Five of them have a mixed party: Once More Into the Void, The Anomaly, The Trouble with Rose, Into the Chasm, and Fabula Ultima
And the remainder were all male protagonists.

Opposite gender? Opposite to what? Because nowadays there are eleventy genders, which opposes which?

I'm largely indifferent. Let people do what they want, although I do agree with the old "Fantasy Role Playing Gamer's Bible" that gender bending is often bad taste.

Also as a side note, the only gamer I played with who frequently played the opposite sex turned out to be trans (or presents as one now at least). I never thought he came across as a woman, but more insecure in his masculinity, but what do I know.

I tend to play male characters when I do get the chance to play, although one of my first characters was a female elven archer (inspired by the Larry Elmore Dragonslayers artwork IIRC). Pretty much every other character I've played was male though.

As many others have said, GMs have to roleplay all sorts of NPCs, and despite some wishing otherwise, GMs are not a special breed with roleplay super powers.

Most RPG creeps will play the same no matter what the sex, race, or nature of their PC.

To play something that I'm not is the pinnacle of Role-Playing.  To prevent myself and players from doing anything less means culling a significant amount of options at the gaming table.

If your table can handle it, do it. Whomever is the DM needs to be the Adult to tell when people step over the line in being an asshat and causing a problem.

Quote from: Kerstmanneke82 on April 16, 2024, 06:23:47 AMOpposite gender? Opposite to what? Because nowadays there are eleventy genders, which opposes which?

Opposite to your own gender, obviously.

There's only male and female.

Quote from: DonJonKeeper on April 16, 2024, 12:23:47 PMI tend to play male characters when I do get the chance to play, although one of my first characters was a female elven archer (inspired by the Larry Elmore Dragonslayers artwork IIRC). Pretty much every other character I've played was male though.

As many others have said, GMs have to roleplay all sorts of NPCs, and despite some wishing otherwise, GMs are not a special breed with roleplay super powers.

Most RPG creeps will play the same no matter what the sex, race, or nature of their PC.

I've heard the argument but to me its not the same.

An NPC is "scene dressing". You don't really make decisions that drive the game as an NPC, or at least you shouldn't.

So, the GM is roleplaying an NPC that may or may not appear ever again in the game. Which is completely different to a player that will play with the same character for an undetermined amount of time.

If you read some stories, some people have played the same character for years, sometimes even decades.


Ideally, the GM should try to get into the mindset of a prominent or important NPC of the opposite gender and make decisions accordingly, but then again by definition the GM will always be twice removed from the NPCs compared to the Players and their characters.

"You can play what you want" is closest to my position, but with the caveat that it has to fit the setting and the game.  I've had lots male and female players play both their own and opposite gender characters and its never been a big deal.  Probably they often got the psychology of opposite genders characters wrong, but seriously, who cares?  We're here to kill orcs and take their stuff, not explore the nuances of psychology.

Quote from: Cipher on April 16, 2024, 02:48:39 PM

Quote from: DonJonKeeper on April 16, 2024, 12:23:47 PMI tend to play male characters when I do get the chance to play, although one of my first characters was a female elven archer (inspired by the Larry Elmore Dragonslayers artwork IIRC). Pretty much every other character I've played was male though.

As many others have said, GMs have to roleplay all sorts of NPCs, and despite some wishing otherwise, GMs are not a special breed with roleplay super powers.

Most RPG creeps will play the same no matter what the sex, race, or nature of their PC.

I've heard the argument but to me its not the same.

An NPC is "scene dressing". You don't really make decisions that drive the game as an NPC, or at least you shouldn't.

So, the GM is roleplaying an NPC that may or may not appear ever again in the game. Which is completely different to a player that will play with the same character for an undetermined amount of time.

If you read some stories, some people have played the same character for years, sometimes even decades.


Ideally, the GM should try to get into the mindset of a prominent or important NPC of the opposite gender and make decisions accordingly, but then again by definition the GM will always be twice removed from the NPCs compared to the Players and their characters.

I see your point.

I think the crux of this thread is about the dissonance created when sat at the table and the player doesn't match the character, which comes more to the forefront with the sex of the PC than their race?

Stereotyped behaviours of how the player perceives a character of that sex should behave, while almost completely ignoring how an elf or dwarf may view things in a different way?

I've done this once, back in the 80s.  Of course, we weren't being stupid about it, nor were we getting into sexual situations.  We were doing adventures and heroics and things.  The question wouldn't even raise an eyebrow in the days before the woke invasion.

It's a game. If everyone involved is having fun, you're doing it right.

Quote from: DonJonKeeper on April 17, 2024, 04:15:18 AM

Quote from: Cipher on April 16, 2024, 02:48:39 PM

Quote from: DonJonKeeper on April 16, 2024, 12:23:47 PMI tend to play male characters when I do get the chance to play, although one of my first characters was a female elven archer (inspired by the Larry Elmore Dragonslayers artwork IIRC). Pretty much every other character I've played was male though.

As many others have said, GMs have to roleplay all sorts of NPCs, and despite some wishing otherwise, GMs are not a special breed with roleplay super powers.

Most RPG creeps will play the same no matter what the sex, race, or nature of their PC.

I've heard the argument but to me its not the same.

An NPC is "scene dressing". You don't really make decisions that drive the game as an NPC, or at least you shouldn't.

So, the GM is roleplaying an NPC that may or may not appear ever again in the game. Which is completely different to a player that will play with the same character for an undetermined amount of time.

If you read some stories, some people have played the same character for years, sometimes even decades.


Ideally, the GM should try to get into the mindset of a prominent or important NPC of the opposite gender and make decisions accordingly, but then again by definition the GM will always be twice removed from the NPCs compared to the Players and their characters.

I see your point.

I think the crux of this thread is about the dissonance created when sat at the table and the player doesn't match the character, which comes more to the forefront with the sex of the PC than their race?

Stereotyped behaviours of how the player perceives a character of that sex should behave, while almost completely ignoring how an elf or dwarf may view things in a different way?

I think the difference is that, specially with D&D, non-humanoids are very close to humanoids anyways.

How different is dwarf culture from a human culture that loves bear, stoneworking, metalworking, axes and hammers, tradition and honor?

How different is an orc culture from a human culture that is savage, tribal, competitive, might makes right, fearless and ruthless?


D&D has never created playable species with enough lore and nuance to actually make them alien to the human experience.

So, I think its easier to imagine yourself (as a man) having grown up in a culture like the orcs that I described above and then use that as a baseline for the character. So maybe the character is more evil than you are, and ruthless in ways you would never be, but you can imagine how that change the orc character's mindset because you can imagine that kind of culture since is not completely alien to our own.

It's the rubberhead aliens Star Wars did, where an alien culture is basically like a human culture with some minor differences. That's why its simple.

Yes, your specific homebrew setting is not bound to follow this, but lets be honest, in core D&D has never presented other humanoids as truly alien, and they always have been human-like. To the tune of being called "races" instead of "species" and even able to breed with humans, like half-elves and half-orcs.