Roleplay Across the Gender Line

[TheUbster]

I played a female character in a one-off campaign. Didn't really play much differently, since it was a hack-and-slash dungeon. That said, it would really depend on the group, because i've seen many less-mature groups devolve into terrible "jokes" and stupid roleplaying, where it had the potential to be cool.

[lunarmaster54]

On video games and stuff I typically make female characters all the time even though i'm a male. I haven't done any campaigning yet (being a dnd noob) but i'm sure i'll make plenty of female characters once I do

[Ossifrage]

Even though I play more D&D than World of Darkness these days, a lot of the things I try to get out of roleplaying were shaped by my early WoD tabletop experience. Specifically, by the notion of the DM-as-Storyteller, and the conceit that, while there are mechanics and randomness and all that, at the heart, the players and DM are working together to create a story.

Science fiction and fantasy sometimes have a problem where all the characters that matter wind up being male. Actually, sadly, that's probably not a genre-specific complaint. But when I'm DM (or Storyteller or what-have-you), I try to be conscious of that. I'm male, but there are women in my worlds, and they're not just damsels in distress or bar wenches. I don't get to just play so much, and I've been blessed with a gender-diverse group in recent years, but I've had at least a few characters of my own played across the gender line. I'm not afraid to write them as long-term NPCs, why would I shirk from holding one up as "my" character?

That said, I've also played with people who tried this, and really shouldn't have. If your inspired concept for a female character is a gender stereotype, an awful cliché, and/or something you can't describe without snickering, please... just don't. Although I suppose that's just a specific case of an important rule of responsible gaming; don't play things that (whether because of you or them) your table isn't comfortable with.

[copatt]

Originally Posted by Jocularity

I make no secret of it, as a player i am Male. To lie about that is kinda creepy. However, here on DnDOG you'll notice that well more than half of my characters are Female.

Who else does this regularly, Roleplaying a gender different to their own? Have you ever encountered any complications or Criticisms? And what about DMing NPCs of a different gender? Does it differ between doing so as a DM and doing so as a player? How does it compare to playing a race that differs vastly to Humanity itself? I'm curious to hear a few thoughts on this.

For me, i don't really do it anywhere other than DnDOG and a few other places online. Its an opportunity to do something i could not bring my self to do in a tabletop game, staring another dude in the face and trying to talk from the point of a female character interested in his character, for example. Online you have anonymity, and that affords so much freedom and ability to detach a character from your real self in a way that i have trouble mustering at a gaming table.

I am male.

Most of my characters here, as well as in tabletop games, are female.

That said, one of my favorite tabletop characters of late is male: Daxter Potts, Halfling rogue (9 levels), ruggedly handsome ranger (1 level), and professional demon hunter (forced upon him by season 5 of PFS play).

[Harken]

I think...roughly half of my characters are female (I, for clarification purposes, am not). Sometimes it's because I have an idea or an image of the character, sometimes it's because I like to randomly generate characters and the dice decided things for me.

It definitely allows for a wider range of characters - honestly, usually I'm running games rather than playing, so I better be able to make a decent female character. :P

[Sassafrass]

I play whatever the characters comes to me as. Sometimes I get girls, sometimes I get guys, sometimes I get in between or not at all; it just depends on the character that comes to me. I've played one transgendered character on the site and no one but the DM was any the wiser that he was anything but a man, and Ibn was easily my favorite character to have been played so far. The personality and psyche of the character is much easier to fill in once you get past the idea of sex or gender, unless it's very important to the character.

[thargent]

I just ran inventory on my character sheets, and have confirmed that I have a 1:1 ratio of playing male (which I am) to female (which I am not). I've noted that I tend to do more wisecracking when playing male, so I tend towards playing across the gender line when I want to take things somewhat more seriously.

[GryffinSong]

I'm a woman, and I've played male, female, and genderfluid characters before. I used to play male characters most often, I think because those were the role models that I saw in movies and books of heroes. Also, my first DM did some flirting with my first character (female) and I prefer not to role play romance or sex. I'm there for the dragons.

I find that I now prefer to play women almost exclusively, and the other woman who generally games with me almost always plays men. The only problem we have is that she doesn't talk much, so we sometimes forget that her character doesn't match her gender. I'm older now (been playing since 1979/80) so that if someone tries to turn the story toward romance I have the confidence to deflect it either in character, or if I think the player is being particularly sleezy, out of character.

[Apus Arvandulin]

I'm only involved in one game, which I DM. It's been continuing strong for two years now, which is not bad for a first time DM, right?

Anyway, as you can imagine I've had to create quite a few NPCs, both male and female. The game is very roleplay-heavy, so most of the minor NPCs (merchants, craftsmen, waitresses, performers etc.) end up with names and take on a life of their own, which can take the game in some interesting directions.

All of the players are male, including myself so it's hilarious when the inevitable flirting happens. Some of the PCs have been successful charmers and the posts have had to "fade to black" until the next morning. Others have failed miserably whilst trying it on with some of the stronger female major NPCs.

[Abadassadon777]

I'm male, I play females sometimes. I don't really see what the big deal is, or care for people wasting college money and writing speeches about the difference.

[TGB]

I had very little 'player' experience before ending up as a GM for a while, by the time I crossed the screen again I was just too used to either pick gender at random or just nabbing a cool image or song and working from there. I tend to play more female characters than male characters now, and a whole lot with either no, fluid, or just alien genders. I don't see much issue with it so long as you aren't being obnoxious and playing a walking stereotype, same with races and nationality/ethnicity, tho those can be harder to do right.

[Dargos]

My all time favorite character was a Female Fighter who was a displaced Noble. Kind of like a Brienne of Tarth but a hell of a lot prettier. We didn't mess around with her sleeping around all that much and she didn't have many relationships.

[Morpheus]

I'm a male and I used to play male characters exclusively. Now I've actually shifted and I find myself playing more female characters than male. There's no particular reason for it, and I'm perfectly comfortable playing either. It's not something I find myself spending a lot of time thinking about, if there's a concept of mine that suits a particular gender then I'll play that gender -- for me it's all about the character and whether I can emphasise with the character itself. Gender doesn't tend to enter my thought process too often when creating them.

Basically what Sass says

[Peachyco]

I generally treat the Gender divide just like I do with every other divide: with forethought and purpose.

It's no different from deciding whether to play Lawful or Chaotic, Good or Evil, to attack with Strength or Dexterity, cast with Intelligence or Wisdom, play the character Short or Tall. To me, it is a non-issue. Pick whatever fits the circumstance, and roll/role with it.

[summerdruid]

I'm male and I tend to go for a fifty-fifty split with my characters, whether as a player or for NPCs. Unless I'm specifically trying to explore gender issues with a character I really just go on a whim. I do find it slightly more awkward to roleplay female characters at the table than with PbP, hence I stick to my own gender more often then. I find I use PbP to experiment more since writing with time is easier than improvising on the spot and so have more female characters here to keep a balance.