Role Playing the Opposite Gender. Men playing women characters, women playing men characters.

Do you? How often?
Do you consider yourself any good at it? Why, or why not?

Do you know people who regularly play the opposite gender at the game table? Do they suck at it, or are they really good at it? What do you think about playing an opposite gender? Is it cool, or does it rub you the wrong way? Why?

Never had a problem with it, nor seen the big deal about it. My players do it all the time. The gay man at our table plays a better girl than the actual girls. Okay, that's not actually true, but he does it well.

Years ago I ran  a fantasy campaign where the player composition was three males and two females, and the character composition was one male and four females. And the only one playing the "chainmail bikini" stereotype was one of the female players.

I've never done it myself. One of the guys I play with almost always plays female characters. Don't know why exactly, he just seems to prefer it. It's not weird or strange, you hardly even notice during the game.

Most of my players, if they don't have a definite idea, roll a die for evens-odds as to which gender their characters take. That was always my practice, and it rubbed off on them. No big deal.

-clash

It happens, not incredibly often, have never ran into problems with it. I've never really had the desire to play one as a PC myself because I get enough of that GMing female NPCs.

Had one occassion when I was GMing a teenager who insisted that his PC was a well-endowed beautiful young woman ("She's hot! Imagine Brittney Speares with bigger tits! That's what I want her to look like!"). Adventures pretty much revolved around him using his PCs feminine wiles to con people out of their money or commit assinations amoung other crimes. After the second session, I began making it a habit of staring at the Player's chest whenever his PC was interacting with a male NPC. After the fourth session, he didn't want to play the character anymore and retired her.

I've had so many players its an amusing question. I usually prefer people play their own gender--because it allows me to keep pronouns straight.

In the many players I've had ones who do well, and ones who suck, I've had ones who enjoy it a great deal and ones who just try it for a lark, and never do it again.

I myself tend to to to not do so--I think its because my personal hero images are all male, despite loving to read stories of female heroes.


I've done it--and felt I did reasonably well, but then I would say that wouldn't I?

This thread again?

Yeah, I've played plenty of female characters. The question of whether or not I do it well is irrelevant. Can I play an Arthurian knight well? Can I play a Wookie well? Who knows? Who cares?

I guess if I were writing a serious piece of literature this might be a concern. But the when it comes to characterisation in roleplaying games the bar is pretty low; most of the time just having a personality puts your character ahead of the curve. And that is the way it should be. The day I get graded on how well I play my character is the day I'll go find a new hobby.

Quote from: Benoist;382550Role Playing the Opposite Gender. Men playing women characters, women playing men characters.

Do you? How often?
Do you consider yourself any good at it? Why, or why not?

Do you know people who regularly play the opposite gender at the game table? Do they suck at it, or are they really good at it? What do you think about playing an opposite gender? Is it cool, or does it rub you the wrong way? Why?

As a GM I often have to play female NPCs or even recurring allies or friends of the player characters. Some game sessions I'm more successful than other times at portraying women characters.

When the GURPS: TRAVELLER campaign was going on , one of my players complimented me that I pplayed a blievable woman starship crewmember better than many women players that she has seen.


- Ed C.




...and yes we've done some version of this thread topic in the past ...it might have been Pundit who started that one - maybe about two years ago...

Quote from: Soylent Green;382591This thread again?

Nobody's forcing you to read the thread, dude. If you don't care, you can skip the thread.

It's fairly rare at my table, since the passage of the Treaty of Willendorf that allowed women to game with us.  Every now and then a lad will create a lass.  I don't find it that distracting.

Dangerous territory.
 
Surely the first question you need to ask yourself, is "Is my character going to be any different is they are of the opposite sex to me?"
 
If you arent going to do anything special with the character that couldnt be done as your own sex, then why bother. All it can do it upset the other players and GM if done wrong.

Lawbag,

 Except that the games I often run are Sci Fi and probably set in the future. One of the often assumed features ofr that kind of setting is that women are in a bigger variety of jobs and military positions than they are today.

Especially with settings like TRAVELLER or STAR TREK its part of what is expected.

As a result the GM will likely often play women NPCs.

 Now as for my players?

I generally am more comfortable with them playing the gender they are in real life. The one exception was a young lady that played an andogynous rock band musician that was a passenger on the planet-hopping magic bus. Technically that character was male - the way she played it , it kind of worked.

- Ed C.

The hard thing is playing females who are in relationships with PCs and have those relationships being believable. I managed it once excpetionally well in a James Bond Campaign. The agent PC had been with this one female foil for three missions he really was smitten and when she was killed, as was inevitable, he stopped talking. Totally an hour and a half of silence. Until the murderer was caught and locked in the ship's brig. Then he told the guards to leave took out a gun and shot the guy in cold blood 4 times. Then he resigned.

I am more comfortable playing female characters in a chatroom based game. It gives me a sense of distance, I guess.
In a real life group, I would feel more self-conscious.

Brian

Never seen any cause to do it; it just seems like a particularly tricky thing to track (so many fiddly customs and such), which I wouldn't get much out of.

A few of my players have done so from time to time, normally when they had a concept that only really worked if they played the other way round.  For example, one of the women I game with regularly is currently playing a male eunuch in a medieval game (I'm a player in that one, too).  And it works well.

But it's a pretty rare thing.

Oh, and there was a game where the ladies of the group got together and collectively played the barbarian in the joke-adventure Pleasure Prison Of The B'thuvian Demon Whore.  Which was hilarious.