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Kaeso
2013-04-29, 04:23 PM
My question is fairly simple, but probably something that has been brought up before. I've played quite a few characters of different classes, ethical backgrounds and personalities. However, I want my next character to be a female paladin. The problem is that I'm male and up to this point have only played male characters, because I'm most comfortable with them. I'd like to roleplay this female paladin with some degree of femininity so she doesn't end up simply being a man with boobs, but I don't want to cross the line where she becomes an offensive stereotype (though that can be fun to play, of course, but is unfitting for a though frontline class like a paladin).

I was wondering if some of you who have had the same "crossplaying" issue could comment on this, or some people with crossplay experience could tell me how they fared. While it may sound unusual, I'd also like to hear some stories of people who are/know women in the military or police force, so I can understand what women in these traditionally hyper-masculine spherese are like and perhaps keep that in the back of my mind.

Thanks in advance. :smallredface:

Rhynn
2013-04-29, 04:27 PM
Basically, there's no real difference, at least in most RPGs.

If you want to get into some kind of deep roleplaying in a setting with either historical fidelity (of some specific place and era) or really involved fictional culture, you'll have to consider those, but PCs are usually outliers anyway.

So come up with a character. Gender informs character, sure, but nobody is their gender. You undoubtedly know women in real life. Steal some traits or habits from them - that's how authors usually write characters, using aspects of people they've known.

Grinner
2013-04-29, 05:12 PM
If your female character lives in a patriarchal society but has decided to take up the mantle of Pelor and decapitate goblins for a living, she's unlikely to be your archetypal maudlin, husband-seeking woman.

Ashtagon
2013-04-29, 05:19 PM
If your female character lives in a patriarchal society but has decided to take up the mantle of Pelor and decapitate goblins for a living, she's unlikely to be your archetypal maudlin, husband-seeking woman.

This.

The difference between "men and women of action" vs. "civilians" is far greater than the difference between "men" vs. "women".

prufock
2013-04-29, 05:44 PM
Table rules: before playing opposite gender, you must don the Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity, and (if male) high heels, pantyhose, a thong, bra, dress, and makeup.

JusticeZero
2013-04-29, 06:08 PM
Just take out the exaggerated masculine macho mannerisms and replace them with nothing. Seriously, that's going to get the best results. Also, keep it in your pants. 'If they are trying very hard to be female, it's because they aren't.' Every horror story comes from a player trying hard to sell 'female' instead of just ceasing to sell 'jock'.

horngeek
2013-04-29, 07:55 PM
...since I actually crossplay more often than not...

My advice, treat them as a character first. Sure, their gender may inform their character, but it should not dominate it.

Craft (Cheese)
2013-04-29, 08:16 PM
The real difference between a male and a female character, I think, is not their biology but rather their society's expectations of them. Focus on how your character's culture expects her to behave differently from a man, then decide how she feels about these expectations, which ones she accepts and which ones she rejects. Both acceptance and rejection of societal norms is important: A character who fits their stereotype 100% is just as boring and predictable as a character who goes out of their way to defy stereotype at every moment. Their gender should not define their personality but should instead be a coloring and undertone to how they interact with their world.


Just take out the exaggerated masculine macho mannerisms and replace them with nothing. Seriously, that's going to get the best results. Also, keep it in your pants. 'If they are trying very hard to be female, it's because they aren't.' Every horror story comes from a player trying hard to sell 'female' instead of just ceasing to sell 'jock'.

"Wanna see my boobies?"

Janus
2013-04-29, 08:23 PM
A character who fits their stereotype 100% is just as boring and predictable as a character who goes out of their way to defy stereotype at every moment.
:smalleek:
You just summed up why I'm so bugged by people reacting to "cliches" by taking the opposite direction at every turn. THANK YOU.

Kazyan
2013-04-29, 08:33 PM
I crossplay allllll the time to the point where it's less comfortable to play a male character. From my experience, you just treat default behavior as feminine, and draw attention to the differences from the default. Which might come naturally. It's the same thing you do with men, but backwards, where you would assume masculinity and have the differences be something you make a point of. A more proper disclaimer on this subject might get me a warning for sensitive subjects, so, just...the default, the expected, is different for a woman.

If you don't know what to do, that's fine, because a woman played like a man will either go unnoticed in that regard, or it will be a lot less grating than a woman played like That Guy would be. When in doubt, do nothing different. The fact that you're concerned about the subtleties means that you probably have the perceptiveness to do it right anyway. This really is not as big a deal as it may seem.

Amaril
2013-04-29, 09:41 PM
Be very careful with this thread, Kaeso--last time somebody brought up a similar issue, it turned into little more than a flame war, and got shut down. Just wanted to warn you.

I don't crossplay often (I've come up with a few female characters, but never gotten around to bringing them into a game), but as far as I can tell, it's really not that different from playing your own gender. You probably don't need to worry too much about it.

Tengu_temp
2013-04-29, 09:49 PM
I'd like to roleplay this female paladin with some degree of femininity so she doesn't end up simply being a man with boobs

Almost everyone is missing this point. Playing a character of the opposite gender the same way you play one of yours is an improvement over offensive stereotypes, but it's less interesting than one who actually is visibly male or female in their behaviour in some way (unless their lack of gender behaviours is the whole point). Like it or not, there are some small differences between men and women, even if they're mostly cultural, and for most people their gender is an important part of what makes them, although it's rarely the most important part.

scurv
2013-04-29, 10:18 PM
I tend to play the personalty i picture. If you are serous about it You can find some works by female authors to gain some perspective. And also doing a bit of research in history in settings somewhat comparable to your campaign setting might be good. joan of arc is a good one to study and just because it reads like a DnD campaign The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon Or if you are kinda not in to reading as much, Look at old tyme tv and radio programs to gain a different perspective on women.

Zahhak
2013-04-29, 10:24 PM
So, I have a youtube video I think could be useful, but because its a broad cultural criticism I have this feeling that it'll get my ass banned. So, OP, if you want I could PM you

Mr Beer
2013-04-29, 10:53 PM
As said above, the main difference would come from society's expectations of you. Unless the GM cares enough to have NPCs treat you differently, there may well be no difference at all. Adventurers in many campaigns live pretty well divorced from the expectations of a pseudo-mediaeval society. Being a woman should probably be less remarkable than being a half-dragon or some kind of goblin race, for example.

Mastikator
2013-04-29, 11:51 PM
If your female character lives in a patriarchal society but has decided to take up the mantle of Pelor and decapitate goblins for a living, she's unlikely to be your archetypal maudlin, husband-seeking woman.

This.
She's more likely to be like Brienne of Tarth from a story of fire and ice.

Edit- Some players flirt with female NPCs to annoy the DM, flir with male NPCs instead. Or make male sexist jokes.

Cerlis
2013-04-30, 12:56 AM
this sounds redundant next to what others said but my best advice would be to think about your backstory. By thinking about her life and how she reacted to it you will form in the back of your head her general attitude. Thus solidifying her personality as a person who is female.



You could also look up Hawkgirl and Wonder Woman from the justice league. Both are amazons (ironically the Amazon is less of an amazon), but both never really seem unwomanly* (except when Hawkgirl burps). I think they are two good examples of how Amazon Warrior Women can be different. Hawkgirl likes to start barfights and kicks everyone in the face. Wonder woman is as or more intense in a fight (she once was going to punch her fist through someone's skull), but obviously prefers to be a strong willed princess and fights because she has to.

*Admittedly they are both hourglass Glamazons also, so take them with a grain of salt

Chugosh
2013-04-30, 01:00 AM
I always found crossplaying fun, and I was told on several occasions, by the women in the group, that I didn't do too bad at it. I don't do it very often nowadays, though. Anyway all of the advice above is spot on. Don't bother selling FEMALE, just drop the macho crap (really that was my favorite thing about it.)

OzymandiasX
2013-04-30, 10:13 AM
Just take out the exaggerated masculine macho mannerisms and replace them with nothing. Seriously, that's going to get the best results. Also, keep it in your pants. 'If they are trying very hard to be female, it's because they aren't.' Every horror story comes from a player trying hard to sell 'female' instead of just ceasing to sell 'jock'.
Or play a female jock. Especially if you're playing a strength based melee class 'jock' isn't at all inaccurate. Hang around with female athletes in any male-dominated sport (like MMA) and you'll see that this is often true.

Essentially, don't rule out behaviors because of gender. It should be the same as any other character you play.


Oh, and be sure to volunteer to do the dishes whenever the party finishes eating. (Because your character is OCD! ...not because she is a woman, you misogynist!)

Hyde
2013-04-30, 10:24 AM
Well, you can look at the comic for pretty good examples.

Miko Miyazaki, Hayley, and Sabine are all characters "played" (written) by the Giant. They are all distinct characters, running the gamut of femininity and sexuality (from none and none to yes and very yes, respectively). Even Roy's sister was written with a certain degree of depth that she avoids being just a cookie cutter character (Clearly feminine, clearly a spoof on "popular" girls, but also clearly has other things going on that define her character beyond that.)

Contrast other works, like Game of Thrones, where literally every female is defined by her male significant other (Yes, even Cersei and Danerys, I can discuss it at length if you like) even Brienne is only defined in terms of her love for Renly and her combat ability as compared to Jaime.

Arya is probably the only one who defies it, but I'm not sure if she counts. Melissandre might... but her character is pretty flat for other reasons.


Anyway. It's kind of hard to offend unless you go out of your way to do so. In writing it's easy- it's also really squicky to discuss why that is. If you're interested, it's another thing I could go on about at length.

the short of it is that at the end of the day your character's interactions are your interactions, and thinking too hard about it will probably just make it worse.

Hyde
2013-04-30, 10:25 AM
Also, allow me to kill any goodwill I generated with that post by saying:

"Yes, Ladies, I am an informed male." Wink wink.

JusticeZero
2013-04-30, 10:33 AM
Right. The main thing is that women don't go around trying to convince people that they are women. So anything that you do to "be more feminine" is going to stick out in a bad way.
Once you've gotten a hold of that, just start paying attention to how the WORLD treats women, not the other way around. Women don't act differently in situations where there's a difference because they're women, they act differently because even though it outwardly looked similar, they weren't presented with the same situation that the guy was in the first place. Because most of this is too subtle to be referenced in your GM's quick narration, you'll need to use some observation to figure out where this might be different at.

NikitaDarkstar
2013-04-30, 10:43 AM
I may not be military or anything but as a diesel mechanic I'm still in a male dominated area, and you know what? There's not much of a difference between the few girls I know in the field and the guys. Yhea some of us are more likely to still have nail polish on when we show up on Monday after having fun over the weekend, but other than that? Not much.

Now the question is how gender-equal is your characters society? Because most fantasy game settings will be equal simply to not step on anyone's toes, meaning there won't be that big of a difference between the genders.

Just play her as you'd play any other character, because she's a character first. Especially if you're playing a melee character, since she's far more likely to be just "one of the guys".

Unless you want to add some actual, obvious, feminine traits, but honestly, if you're doing it just because "she's a girl" you're doing it for the wrong reasons. Figure out who she is, because then you'll know her personality, which will make her behavior and mannerism seem more natural.

JusticeZero
2013-04-30, 10:45 AM
Miko Miyazaki, Hayley, and Sabine are all characters "played" (written) by the Giant. They are all distinct characters, running the gamut of femininity and sexuality (from none and none to yes and very yes, respectively). Even Roy's sister was written with a certain degree of depth that she avoids being just a cookie cutter character (Clearly feminine, clearly a spoof on "popular" girls, but also clearly has other things going on that define her character beyond that.)Honestly, Miko was a reasonably feminine character. And Sabine's sexuality isn't actually any more developed than Haley's. They both have a certain amount of definition in what it is; quantity is not quality here. Sexuality involves reflexivity of behavior, not just quantity of; you can have a character who has absurd amounts of sheet time that has no sexuality to them because the only thing any of that recreational wiggling does is take them off panel periodically.

Anonymouswizard
2013-04-30, 10:48 AM
To be honest my main advice (which comes from my one experience crossplaying), is that if you are worried about your character not appearing to be feminine from your actions (and this is what stopped me from trying crossplaying until recently), take a step back from gender and create their personality from the other aspects of your character, and as other people have said, it might be better to just drop the masculine rather than add feminine. So I suggest making the character gender neutral in regards to personality (crusading charitable fanatic paladin of Pelor, insane kleptomaniac lawful good gnome illusionist for two examples that could work), and then round them out with traits from women you know.

Hyde
2013-04-30, 11:23 AM
Honestly, Miko was a reasonably feminine character. And Sabine's sexuality isn't actually any more developed than Haley's. They both have a certain amount of definition in what it is; quantity is not quality here. Sexuality involves reflexivity of behavior, not just quantity of; you can have a character who has absurd amounts of sheet time that has no sexuality to them because the only thing any of that recreational wiggling does is take them off panel periodically.

I'd say that "you've just activated my trap card". But I wasn't really trying to catch anyone with it.

Miko is a very complex character, as the Giant's characters tend to be. On the face, she's unfeminine (and borderline unhygenic, sleeping in muddy ditches as she will) but there are a few moments where she shows that she's not merely her duty, even if it is the most important thing to her by a wide margin.

The fact of the matter is that even the word "feminine" is a trap. What's "feminine"? The only answers anyone can give either are or echo so-called "traditional" gender-roles. If she shows a predilection for shoes or is demonstrably cleaner than her male counterparts, then she's supposedly more "feminine".

The words feminine or femininity are there to discuss gender-roles, so any argument that stems from that is more or less flawed, as far as the OPs purposes are concerned.

As far as sexuality of characters is concerned, I wasn't merely referencing the amount of action they get. Miko's sexuality is entirely a secondary or tertiary concern, Hayley is/was fairly repressed with lingering intimacy issues (as I suspect we'll see in the coming years of the comic) and for Sabine, sex is her job, her hobby, and her passion- She thinks almost exclusively in terms of it, as it is clearly her go-to in dealing with other characters, to the point where she doesn't begin to consider the sexuality of others when making advances. Obviously, there are other aspects to her character (such as sex does not equal love, as demonstrated in pretty much every aside featuring her without Nale and explicitly stated on at least one occasion).

I suspect you might be thinking about something other than the strictest sociological/psychological definitions of sexuality, though. It's pretty easy to view it under a wider umbrella.

Shadowknight12
2013-04-30, 02:15 PM
Gender is purely aesthetic. Unless the setting of the game has some steep cultural differences between the genders, play them exactly the same.

I will never support the people who say that "man with boobs" is somehow a bad thing (or, similarly, the concept of "woman with a penis"). I always support the idea that men and women have every right to break free from gender constructs, and the same goes for roleplaying.

There's an exception when it comes to LGB characters, but that's more related to the poisons of heteronormativity than gender identity in itself.

There is no "mystical secret" that makes up the idea of womanhood, just like there is no "mystical secret" for manhood. There's no need to see the opposite gender as some exotic Other that requires elaborate preparation to roleplay. You'd have no problem roleplaying a person of a different race/skin tone, right? This is the same.

JusticeZero
2013-04-30, 02:36 PM
Different race is a good point though. Just another person on one level. But some races, addresses, jobs, etc. are going to think differently about things like calling the police forces. I've seen lawyers advise never to call the police if you're minority at that moment, because the police will blame you. It isn't limited to race. It's more about learning the rules of the other role.

Hyena
2013-04-30, 03:06 PM
Crossplaying is tricky. It consists of two parts
In first, you create a male character, give him any personality you want and then replace "male" with "female" on character sheet.
The second part is the tricky one - you must resist the urge to make sex of character to be the defining trait and insert stereotypes.

Lord Torath
2013-04-30, 03:45 PM
Further examples from literature:

Tamora Pierce (http://www.tamora-pierce.com/books.html) has a long line of novels with female Heroines.

Alanna: The First Adventure and In the Hand of the Goddess cover her initial training as a knight while pretending to be a boy, and her "coming out" after she gets her shield (ie. gains her knighthood).

Protector of the Small (quartet) tells the story of the first girl openly training to be a knight in the same kingdom, several years after Alanna.

Terrier is the journal of a young woman serving in the 'police' force at a time when no-one blinked an eye at women in uniform (a hundred years or so before Alanna).

She (Tamora Pierce) has two other series (Immortals and Trickster's Choice) set in the same world with female protagonists.

Hiro Protagonest
2013-04-30, 04:00 PM
I think the only difference between my (hypothetical) male and female characters is that my women are willing to do domestic tasks, while my guys will only cook. I do like to have that distinction, but otherwise, my girls are martially skilled and have strong determination.

Man on Fire
2013-04-30, 04:05 PM
http://www.comicvine.com/articles/greg-rucka-on-how-to-write-a-strong-female-charact/1100-143968/


The answer to all of these questions is the same, fundamentally. One does not write a "female" character any more than one writes a "male" character. One writes character, and character is derived from many, many different components, gender being just one of them. Education, background, childhood, religion, sexual orientation and experience, unique history - all of these things influence character, and the writer's job is to present the whole package in the form of an individual. The problem isn't that writers forget they're writing one gender or another, it's that they do so without due consideration for the factors. To write any character, one must inhabit their life, evaluate it, and then see both through their character's bias, and objectively.

Thi also apply to roleplaying.

Terraoblivion
2013-04-30, 05:05 PM
Crossplaying is tricky. It consists of two parts
In first, you create a male character, give him any personality you want and then replace "male" with "female" on character sheet.

That's pretty terrible advice. For one thing it starts with the concept of male as default, for another creating a character and then switching something fairly major out for something else tends to create a vaguely disjointed experience.

In general, for advice specifically about how to handle a differently gendered character rather than just generally telling you to create an interesting character the best I can offer is to focus less on what would be different about the character herself. There's far too great diversity among people, regardless of gender, to say anything definite about what is or isn't female behavior, even if there are tendencies that are more prevalent in one gender or another. Instead focus on how the character is perceived as society certainly tends to have different expectations of men and women, even fairly equal ones. Just think about how differently a male and a female football player would be seen.

Tengu_temp
2013-04-30, 06:00 PM
Well, you can look at the comic for pretty good examples.

Miko Miyazaki, Hayley, and Sabine are all characters "played" (written) by the Giant. They are all distinct characters, running the gamut of femininity and sexuality (from none and none to yes and very yes, respectively). Even Roy's sister was written with a certain degree of depth that she avoids being just a cookie cutter character (Clearly feminine, clearly a spoof on "popular" girls, but also clearly has other things going on that define her character beyond that.)


I don't agree with this. No offense to Rich intended, but I don't think he's very good at writing female characters. Just for starters, all the women in OotS without a love interest are either asympathetic, or extremely minor characters. And for those who are in relationships, it forms a very big part of their personality.

tensai_oni
2013-04-30, 06:06 PM
Man on Fire has it right. That's a great link.

However I feel like adding:

If you don't know how to roleplay a character of a sex different than yours, and are afraid that you will be too offensive or stereotypical - there is nothing wrong in taking a (assuming male player) male PC and then just changing their sex to female, and roleplaying a female character that way.

It is not in any way an ideal or perfect solution. But it is a good starting point. By no means should you stop there - when you get more confident as a roleplayer, you should ask questions "how does my character being female/male/etc matter? What would change if they had a different sex?", and help the answers shape your view on your own PC.

But for a first cross-played character, it will do. Learn to walk before you start running.

JusticeZero
2013-04-30, 06:51 PM
Right. If you make a character and just remove the strongly masculine things, you will not go wrong. It is not a perfect solution, but it gives consistently good results and no bad results. From there you can start observing the world - not women directly but the situations they work with and how they deal with it - and THEN start to feed that into your characterization.

JusticeZero
2013-04-30, 07:24 PM
all the women in OotS without a love interest are either asympathetic, or extremely minor characters. And for those who are in relationships, it forms a very big part of their personality.
This is true. But that being said, for those MALE characters in relationships, the relationships are a large part of their personality. Elan minus Haley doesn't leave a lot, nor Nale minus Sabine.

Roy, Tarquin, and Belkar have had a lot of character development sans love interest, in part because of all their screen time. Durkon has always been a really weak character who has never been spotlighted, and he's both a main character and male. Plus, there was the whole Greysky City plot, that had a fairly solid amount of characterization in it for the Stick girls; I thought Haley came away with more non-Elan-centered personality there than Elan did with his subplot.

So, I think that objection is more an artifact of the consequences of the original casting decisions than an actual weakness.

Sith_Happens
2013-04-30, 07:56 PM
Roy, Tarquin, and Belkar have had a lot of character development sans love interest

I was going to say something about forgetting Celia, but frankly that one comes across more as a fling where both parties are just really clingy.:smalltongue:

Shadowknight12
2013-04-30, 08:02 PM
If you make a character and just remove the strongly masculine things

There's not even a need to do that. There are plenty of masculine women, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with a woman who defies gender stereotypes.

Razanir
2013-04-30, 09:13 PM
My advice, treat them as a character first. Sure, their gender may inform their character, but it should not dominate it.

This, first and foremost, is the best advice you can get.



Contrast other works, like Game of Thrones, where literally every female is defined by her male significant other (Yes, even Cersei and Danerys, I can discuss it at length if you like) even Brienne is only defined in terms of her love for Renly and her combat ability as compared to Jaime.

Arya is probably the only one who defies it, but I'm not sure if she counts. Melissandre might... but her character is pretty flat for other reasons

Agree on Arry. And kinda disagree on Cersei and Daenerys. But another thread for another time... That said, all the female characters are better developed than *shudder* Sansa. Her characterization IS Joffrey and Tyrion


My 2 cp for the discussion: The last character I made was a female variant monk with shapeshifting powers. (Derived from the Generic Class 2.0) She wasn't afraid to get dirty, but I definitely would have used my high Charisma and played her as having hidden depths of being cultured and sociable. Stereotyped? Maybe a bit, with her being a bit of a socialite, but it was definitely a neat character concept

illyrus
2013-04-30, 09:47 PM
Going to make a similar suggestion as another. If you're looking to have a female character that does not act like a male character read some literature featuring prominent female characters in roles of power that is written by a woman*.

As an example, Basara is a manga featuring a female protagonist thrust into the situation of having to lead an army as a warlord. An added wrinkle was she has no formal martial or physical training either as before then she was a botanist. While I wasn't a big fan of the romance portion of the manga (nor was I the intended audience in the first place) or the very beginning I thought the creator did a good job of creating a dynamic character that went from immature to a strong character without trying to play feminine traits as weak.

*As a note I'm not saying that a writer can only write for their gender well, I've read books featuring very compelling male and female characters written by the opposite gender. I've just noticed that many of the authors I've read do the best job writing for their own gender.

Cerlis
2013-04-30, 10:15 PM
at the risk of opening up a can of worms, since masculinity/femininity dont really have anything to do with the issue (especially since i think many people view things viewed as feminine/masculine as having nothing to do with gender) the question might be how, say, a soldier just as strong and skilled as her companions might be reminded of the fact that she is a woman.

So it comes down to biology and what amount of impact it has on you when it comes to dealing with others.

illyrus
2013-04-30, 11:16 PM
Sorry, maybe I was making an incorrect assumption. I generally assume when these questions come up that the poster is wanting to delve into the traditional mindset issues both of the character and society around them more so than the biological side.

If I was going to play a stone cold badass female character then the only thing that would really matter would be how society treated her and her reaction to it. Depending upon the world itself that element might not even exist.

If instead I wanted to play a mother who decided to set out after her boy that ran away to join the army and ended up going through a series of adventures along the way then that would be a different story.

The two characters could end up as 20th level paladins with the exact same stats and chopping down demons as they battle through the abyss. I'd find the latter much harder to roleplay well though. Personally I'd find the latter a much more engaging story too even though both are just as valid of concepts.

If for example I was going to play a character that was a lunatic the only role gender would play is whether he or she was thrown in the male or female wing of the insane asylum.

I wouldn't be asking for help on playing the character due to the gender for the stone cold badass or the lunatic though. That's why I tend to make the assumption that what the OP of these sort of posts is talking about a mindset or societal viewpoints and not biological stuff.

Cerlis
2013-05-01, 01:00 AM
Sorry, maybe I was making an incorrect assumption. I generally assume when these questions come up that the poster is wanting to delve into the traditional mindset issues both of the character and society around them more so than the biological side.

If I was going to play a stone cold badass female character then the only thing that would really matter would be how society treated her and her reaction to it. Depending upon the world itself that element might not even exist.

If instead I wanted to play a mother who decided to set out after her boy that ran away to join the army and ended up going through a series of adventures along the way then that would be a different story.

The two characters could end up as 20th level paladins with the exact same stats and chopping down demons as they battle through the abyss. I'd find the latter much harder to roleplay well though. Personally I'd find the latter a much more engaging story too even though both are just as valid of concepts.

If for example I was going to play a character that was a lunatic the only role gender would play is whether he or she was thrown in the male or female wing of the insane asylum.

I wouldn't be asking for help on playing the character due to the gender for the stone cold badass or the lunatic though. That's why I tend to make the assumption that what the OP of these sort of posts is talking about a mindset or societal viewpoints and not biological stuff.

Well what i was getting at is that its entirely possible in a combat oriented storyline to have a female character 100% exactly like a male version of herself. Same personality, same look, same attitude. But she would not be exactly like her male self because she is in fact a woman. Even if she didn't care that she was and did not get treated differently there is still the fact that she is a woman and most everyone knows it. Even when you have her marine buddies who have worked with her for years make that comment "Sarge is just one of the guys, i forget that she is a woman" is still making that (accurate) label. So even if the biological gender makes no difference, it makes a difference just by being there.

So the notion was, that for characters like the marine chick from Wreck-it Ralph in which 90% (or 100%)of her screentime was spent doing everything a male version of herself would be doing ...(She originally was going to be a man, and even the wedding scene could have had the roles reversed), what subtle differences would there be.

a few examples might be simular to :
- the first is a real world example. Lets just say that my previous supervisor used to joke about another associate that we worked with alot "I know her so well i can tell you when she is on her period"
-And as the Guys often talk about life, girls, and adventures around the campfire there is the question of how one's character (a "girl") would react. Does she dislike their piggish behavior when talking about Brods. Does she embrace it and insult-jest the other guys. In turn if she participates does this result in them learning more about women and appreciating them since you proof that they aren't strange enigmas.



-----------

but to sum up, even if your character acts exactly as they would if they where the opposite gender, same as culture, race, and even sexuality, their gender is still there and most people are aware of it.

So for a girl who is no different than a guy, the question is: "what immutable things would not be the same."

JusticeZero
2013-05-01, 04:47 AM
There's not even a need to do that. There are plenty of masculine women, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with a woman who defies gender stereotypes.
A female player can get away with playing a female character who 'defies gender stereotypes'. A male player not so much, because they have an OOC "male" element that their character has no control over that they have to get past to be accepted as a character. A woman doesn't need to sell her femininity, but a male player has to actively avoid masculinity in order to make the role seem plausible just to get past what their PLAYER brings to the table.

Thus, the starting point is to purge the masculine and seek out a characterization that is essentially devoid of gender, then allow "female" to be projected onto that character by other people by simply failing to deny any incidental traits that people might notice and ascribe as "feminine". For instance, you purge the masculine wenching and do not apply any sexuality directly, then simply fail to reject/nosale if some male character flirts with them. They probably shouldn't *do* anything about the flirting, but just the fact that the flirting by a male character was acknowledged, whereas the hot barmaid was ignored means that that character has had that identity put on them. Hot barmaid? . o O (This reference clearly was not directed at me, I do not even respond when it comes up.) Cute guy flirting? Smile and tell him he's sweet, but you're just not interested. Bang, you haven't actually DONE anything, especially nothing annoying, but you have signaled that you should be considered until further notice to be female and probably straight.

Likewise, if the guys want to do some stereotypically manly feat of muscle and suchforth, you reject that; you simply don't show any particular interest in it. If something stereotypically female is presented as an object of RP, you acknowledge that and interact with that bit of the scene, even if it's only to talk about how you aren't good at or interested in that thing. The fact that you interacted with that piece of the scene at all will do what you need done.

In essence, if your character's characterization were a room, you are "playing with dolls" and making your character seem more "feminine". This is happening even though you aren't actually "playing with dolls" just by acknowledging that the "dolls" exist and not the "toy trucks". As you ignore the "toy truck" behaviors, they disappear from peoples image of your character, and as you fail to ignore "dolls", they stick, even though you haven't actually DONE anything with them.

All except for that one big "truck" that you can't do anything about without insisting that everyone plays online while you use voice changing software, that one you can't do anything about.


I was going to say something about forgetting Celia, but frankly that one comes across more as a fling where both parties are just really clingy.:smalltongue:
I didn't forget Celia - but Celia usually is not around for Roy to interact with or talk about. A girlfriend who is safe on another plane isn't much different in this regard than a lack of a girlfriend.

Blightedmarsh
2013-05-01, 05:36 AM
I think that the cultural barriers and stereotypes may be harder to brake through than cross gender stuff. The lifestyle and mindset of a medieval peasant of whichever gender is pretty alien to that of a modern persons, perhaps to the point that makes the differences between men and women seem small by comparison.

Hyena
2013-05-01, 08:57 AM
That's pretty terrible advice. For one thing it starts with the concept of male as default, for another creating a character and then switching something fairly major out for something else tends to create a vaguely disjointed experience.
I am sorry, did you just call gender difference "something fairly major"? Because, I am not touching real life with 10-foot pole here, in the fantasy settings, it's not. Genders are as equal as it goes and no "traditional gender roles" shape man's or woman's character, so I can not see how changing gender would be so major.

Terraoblivion
2013-05-01, 09:18 AM
Given how society is? Yes. That doesn't mean they're inherent or natural or whatever, but denying that society treats and interprets men and women differently and that has an effect is pretty ridiculous. Even nominally equal settings will be approached with all the gendered baggage of the player's cultural background. Just look at reactions to men who care about fashion or female mechanics. Completely ignoring this and just genderswapping a male character might lead to a rather odd character or a rather different experience than intended, simply because people interpret the same behavior differently based on gender, including the other players.

A further point is that saying that there is no difference in a hypothetical gender equal fantasy setting and so you should just play female characters like male ones is just another form of devaluing the feminine and declaring female identities inferior. Essentially, it's still a way of perpetuating the dominance of male perspectives and male desires, while devaluing those women are expected to abide by. If you actually mean a fully gender equal setting, it would be one where there is also room for traditionally feminine women to be heroes and kick ass, as well as for men to prefer traditionally feminine interests.

Shadowknight12
2013-05-01, 12:07 PM
A female player can get away with playing a female character who 'defies gender stereotypes'. A male player not so much, because they have an OOC "male" element that their character has no control over that they have to get past to be accepted as a character. A woman doesn't need to sell her femininity, but a male player has to actively avoid masculinity in order to make the role seem plausible just to get past what their PLAYER brings to the table.

No, he doesn't. He is not forced to arbitrarily reduce the masculinity of his female character if he doesn't want to. He doesn't have to "sell" anything; that's how stereotypes get started. And the same is true of the opposite case: I'd never dream to tell a female player that her male character is too feminine.

We don't have masculinity/femininity quotas to uphold. We are not obliged to enforce gender policing.

Man on Fire
2013-05-01, 12:56 PM
A further point is that saying that there is no difference in a hypothetical gender equal fantasy setting and so you should just play female characters like male ones is just another form of devaluing the feminine and declaring female identities inferior. Essentially, it's still a way of perpetuating the dominance of male perspectives and male desires, while devaluing those women are expected to abide by. If you actually mean a fully gender equal setting, it would be one where there is also room for traditionally feminine women to be heroes and kick ass, as well as for men to prefer traditionally feminine interests.

As long as we're talking about setting where both traditionally feminine women and mansculine ones are treated as equal. Too often I seen settings which preaches equality you described and then s*** on tomboys as inferior to traditional women (see: My Litte Pony's treatment of Rainbow Dash from seson 2 onwards). Such setting is acceptable only if it doesn't turn into forcing every female characters to have feminine traits justfor it's own sake.

And when this is not done as an excuse for something completely stupid. No, if you are a warrior, I don't care how feminine you want to feel, fighting in high heels is still stupid (and considering how exploative of things associated with feminity is comics industry, which tries to hide it behind pretense of the same equality you described, this is a problem).

JusticeZero
2013-05-01, 01:01 PM
From a theoretical perspective, I have no argument with that. There are lots of women who have a lot of masculine interests and traits, and that's just fine.

I am not speaking from a theoretical perspective, though. I am speaking from a pragmatic perspective. The performance of your character has to be accepted by your group.

You as a player already have an unfair handicap against achieving that acceptance; the image of your character is significantly different from the image of you as a player. Therefore, you have to do more to successfully portray the 'face' of your character as "female" than a player who does not have that handicap.

A woman can like football, fixing motors, and all sorts of other stereotypically "masculine" activities all as a whole, and people will still consider her a woman. That's because everything she does is interpreted in light of the face that she, for reasons beyond her control, also has these big round things on her chest, a higher pitched voice, and so on.

As a male player, you don't have any of those things. All you have is the fact that you have told people that your character has those things, but that memory is easily forgotten if it is not backed up with other cues. If you attempt to present a character who drinks beer, watches football, has a girlfriend, et cetera, then the fact that you as a player are, for reasons beyond your control, putting an image into peoples heads that has wide shoulders, a deep voice, and a beard means that people will interpret the fact that you stated the gender to be female as an inconsistency rather than as characterization.

JusticeZero
2013-05-01, 01:13 PM
Anyways, can we please not argue about gender roles per se here? I don't want to have to see people start arguing about the fairness of portrayal of women or anything like that, because that is not what was asked. The question was about how to successfully portray a character as female. That requires that the gender roles of the setting, regardless of fairness, unfairness, theoretical consistency or whatever, be acknowledged and accepted (at least as far as they are all interacted with) as presented for pragmatic purposes of constructing a believable presentation.

If the setting claims that, for instance, women are equal and treats tomboys badly, then that is the base assumption that the character will exist under. This assumption is not argued against or anything, because that is not the point of the exercise.

In this case it can be considered closer to a research exercise than an activism exercise; in research, your job is to listen to what your research subject has to say; if you argue with, correct, or inform your research subject in any way, you are failing as a researcher and ruining your own research.

Shadowknight12
2013-05-01, 01:16 PM
I am not speaking from a theoretical perspective, though. I am speaking from a pragmatic perspective. The performance of your character has to be accepted by your group.

Your entire argument hinges on the idea that all groups are A) incapable of basic imagination, B) afflicted with terminal-stage Alzheimer's, and C) of such narrow-minded viewpoints that they cannot comprehend the idea of a woman who is not a walking stereotype.

I assure you that such groups are an extreme rarity, not the norm.

The idea that because you are male, you must eliminate any trace of masculinity from a female character (and, I presume, that if you are a female, you must eliminate any trace of femininity from a male character) is not only fundamentally flawed on a basic logic level, it's also a reinforcement of harmful gender constructs. And, most importantly, it leads to the portrayals of unreal characters. Not unrealistic, but flat-out unreal, because such characters do not exist. I do not know a single woman without a trace of masculinity, and I do not know a single man without a trace of femininity. Every person has "traditionally" masculine and feminine traits, especially since those are arbitrary and liable to change over time and space (see: pink as a masculine colour and blue as a feminine colour, as just one of many, many examples).

It also assumes that absolutely all games take place in real life, in tabletop, and completely disregards play-by-post, play-by-chat or other forms of online gaming. But that's kind of a minor point when compared to the rest of the argument.

EDIT:


That requires that the gender roles of the setting, regardless of fairness, unfairness, theoretical consistency or whatever, be acknowledged and accepted (at least as far as they are all interacted with) as presented for pragmatic purposes of constructing a believable presentation.

No, this is not an obligation. A male player has a right to play a female character who rebels against the social conventions of her culture, and viceversa for a female player and a male character. It's a perfectly valid character archetype that has been roleplayed countless times before.

This is a textbook case of taking one tiny aspect of a character's sheet and using it to straightjacket the entire character.

Blightedmarsh
2013-05-01, 01:36 PM
I think that it is near impossible to draw an objective hard dividing line between things that are wholly masculine and things that are wholly feminine, well setting aside the obvious biological attributes. Trust me when I say this, no one is quite who you think they are, no one is quite who they think they are for that matter either.

My advice; ignore everyone, ignore all of the politics. It just gets in the way of the point of RPG's; namely to have fun. Build a character YOU find interesting; remember that most stereotypes are kind of flat and one dimensional, you may find that such characters begin to grate on you after the fist session or so. If you are struggling to flesh her out then that's fine as well, it just allows you room to develop the character as you go.

JusticeZero
2013-05-01, 01:41 PM
I am not saying "everything must be pink", I am saying "Do what you can to get rid of the garishly blue stuff. Furthermore, do not attempt to actively acquire garishly pink things. Orange, purple, red, and green are all fine."

No, this is not an obligation. A male player has a right to play a female character who rebels against the social conventions of her culture, and viceversa for a female player and a male character. It's a perfectly valid character archetype that has been roleplayed countless times before.A woman may have a RIGHT to wander all-but-naked through a bar in the poorest and worst part of town while wobblingly drunk without anyone being anything but respectful. However, we are not talking about what you have the theoretical right to do here, we are talking about effectiveness and pragmatism; on a pragmatic point, if one were to try doing that, she would be putting herself in grave danger of bad things happening to her. In the case of the RP, the "bad thing" is "people do not accept my character's femaleness".

Thus, the advice is to START by not doing highly masculine things, and by acknowledging (but not obsessing over, initiating, or even doing much with) feminine things. This will have good pragmatic results and a foundation from which one can start to add flavor, nuance, and detail to. It is a starting point, not an ending point.

JusticeZero
2013-05-01, 01:55 PM
The idea that because you are male, you must eliminate any trace of masculinity from a female character (and, I presume, that if you are a female, you must eliminate any trace of femininity from a male character) is not only fundamentally flawed on a basic logic level, it's also a reinforcement of harmful gender constructs.
For purposes of achieving the results we want, "reinforcing gender constructs" (harmful or not) is the entire intended point of the exercise. One would think that having more men spending time becoming aware of those constructs from the inside would be a GOOD thing toward breaking down the bad stuff. Furthermore, this isn't an exercise in advanced characterbuilding, this is "how to build the basic form that you will be working from".

Shadowknight12
2013-05-01, 02:34 PM
A woman may have a RIGHT to wander all-but-naked through a bar in the poorest and worst part of town while wobblingly drunk without anyone being anything but respectful. However, we are not talking about what you have the theoretical right to do here, we are talking about effectiveness and pragmatism; on a pragmatic point, if one were to try doing that, she would be putting herself in grave danger of bad things happening to her. In the case of the RP, the "bad thing" is "people do not accept my character's femaleness".

This is victim blaming. It puts the onus of what other people do and how they react squarely into the person's shoulders, absolving others of responsibility for the things they say and do. If your group doesn't "buy" your character's femininity, they are awful people, and the fault is theirs, not yours (or the person playing the character).

This is like saying that your dwarf must be a walking stereotype or else your group is not going to buy his or her dwarfishness.

Or, if they're black or gay, [insert ugly implications here].


For purposes of achieving the results we want, "reinforcing gender constructs" (harmful or not) is the entire intended point of the exercise. One would think that having more men spending time becoming aware of those constructs from the inside would be a GOOD thing toward breaking down the bad stuff. Furthermore, this isn't an exercise in advanced characterbuilding, this is "how to build the basic form that you will be working from".

I viscerally disagree with this. I cannot express in words how anathema this is to me. I would never support reinforcing gender constructs under any circumstance.

Using gender constructs to build your character is just as bad and harmful as using stereotypes to build your gay, black, or [insert marginalised group here] character.

That is not good roleplaying.

JusticeZero
2013-05-01, 03:11 PM
This is victim blaming. It puts the onus of what other people do and how they react squarely into the person's shoulders, absolving others of responsibility for the things they say and do. If your group doesn't "buy" your character's femininity, they are awful people, and the fault is theirs, not yours (or the person playing the character).Awful people exist. This is a pragmatic exercise intended to get results in spite of awfulness, not to work perfectly surrounded by theoretical abstractions.
Using gender constructs to build your character is just as bad and harmful as using stereotypes to build your gay, black, or [insert marginalised group here] character. Which is why I explicitly said not to use stereotypes to build the character. Instead I advised to remove stereotypes that worked directly counter to the characterization.

This is not "great" roleplaying, and it was never claimed to be. What it is, is a way to build a skeleton of a character that is
a: accepted by a critical and possibly "awful" audience and
b: not offensive in the way that the bad-stereotypical raging lesbian bimbo played by what seems like an adolescent boy that puts people off of crossplay tends to be.
Once you have that skeleton, it can be fleshed in with various traits and revelations to improve it.

I would never support reinforcing gender constructs under any circumstance.Which is a good indicator that you have no business posting in this thread, for the same reason that a person who says "I don't like psionics, don't want to learn the rules, and don't allow it in my campaign" has no business posting in a thread asking about how to make a better psionic character in a psionic campaign.

Shadowknight12
2013-05-01, 04:00 PM
Awful people exist. This is a pragmatic exercise intended to get results in spite of awfulness, not to work perfectly surrounded by theoretical abstractions.Which is why I explicitly said not to use stereotypes to build the character. Instead I advised to remove stereotypes that worked directly counter to the characterization.

And it is not your job (or anyone else's) to validate the worldview of awful people. If they don't "buy" the representation, it's their fault, not yours.

What you term "removing stereotypes that work directly counter to the characterisation" IS stereotyping, because in order to determine which traits work in favour or run counter to the characterisation, you must craft a general image to aim to. If that image necessitates the elimination of all masculine traits, that is a stereotype.


This is not "great" roleplaying, and it was never claimed to be. What it is, is a way to build a skeleton of a character that is
a: accepted by a critical and possibly "awful" audience and
b: not offensive in the way that the bad-stereotypical raging lesbian bimbo played by what seems like an adolescent boy that puts people off of crossplay tends to be.
Once you have that skeleton, it can be fleshed in with various traits and revelations to improve it.

Firstly, I never used the word "great". I used the word "good".

Secondly, you continue to purport the idea that the player must bend their character backwards to please an audience, regardless of what the audience believes in. What if they have an audience of men who think that women should stay in the kitchen? Then he can't play a woman at all, because they'd never believe that a woman could adventure, much less take a class like fighter or paladin!

While trying to avoid being disruptive is excellent, and trying to play something that others find agreeable is very noble, there comes a point where you need to draw the line between being a pleasant player and validating someone else's prejudiced beliefs.

Thirdly, basing a character on stereotypes, whether you're adding or removing them, is just as bad as playing a stereotype. The point is not that some stereotypes are more offensive than others (which is something very subjective), the point is that the root of the problem with stereotypes is that they are based on faulty logic. The same faulty logic that you are displaying here, that outward appearance and behaviour are more important than the complexity of the character itself. You are prioritising how the character comes off instead of what the character IS. You are reducing women (and men, since I hope you apply this rationale to the opposite-gender situation too) to a sum of stereotypical traits. You are denying their capacity to be fully realised characters for the sake of "how it would look to others".


Which is a good indicator that you have no business posting in this thread, for the same reason that a person who says "I don't like psionics, don't want to learn the rules, and don't allow it in my campaign" has no business posting in a thread asking about how to make a better psionic character in a psionic campaign.

That is a clever way of trying to silence the opposition, but it's not going to work. Not everyone works under the assumption that the only way to create believable characters of a given gender is to be a slave to gender constructs. It is perfectly possible to build a believable, entirely acceptable and inoffensive character of the opposite gender without resorting to gender constructs whatsoever.

As far as "how to roleplay characters of the opposite gender" goes, my opinion is just as valid as yours.

Man on Fire
2013-05-01, 04:01 PM
I am not saying "everything must be pink", I am saying "Do what you can to get rid of the garishly blue stuff. Furthermore, do not attempt to actively acquire garishly pink things. Orange, purple, red, and green are all fine."

So in other words, you're saying that character must be defined by the gender and it's wrong to play character who iss not. Yeah, that's a horrible advice, also pretty against what even repected professional writers, who create good female characters, will tell you.


A woman may have a RIGHT to wander all-but-naked through a bar in the poorest and worst part of town while wobblingly drunk without anyone being anything but respectful. However, we are not talking about what you have the theoretical right to do here, we are talking about effectiveness and pragmatism; on a pragmatic point, if one were to try doing that, she would be putting herself in grave danger of bad things happening to her. In the case of the RP, the "bad thing" is "people do not accept my character's femaleness".


and because that is really victim blaming, I think we should assume that if your players cannot accept Hank is playing a woman then it's first of all their fault, not Hank's.


Thus, the advice is to START by not doing highly masculine things, and by acknowledging (but not obsessing over, initiating, or even doing much with) feminine things.

it's still getting the gender solely define the character.


This will have good pragmatic results and a foundation from which one can start to add flavor, nuance, and detail to. It is a starting point, not an ending point.

and it's a horrible starting point that arbirtary limits your character options and twists whatever you choose to fits this already-etabilished perspective, that is solely based on gender as definite characteristic.


Also, something to counter your entire line of thinking:
Why the heck should I care what other people think about my character? I won't bend over to their prejuiced expectations, because it won't be fun for me. First rule of RPG is to have fun, if I'm not going to have fun from it, then I'm not roleplaying how other people expect me to.

Toofey
2013-05-01, 04:30 PM
The fact that you're concerned about the subtleties means that you probably have the perceptiveness to do it right anyway. This really is not as big a deal as it may seem.

......This

Water_Bear
2013-05-01, 04:43 PM
Getting away from the gender politics for a second, because this thread is not about that, I was wondering...

How would you folks recommend RPing female NPCs as a GM?

A lot of the advice here relies on the idea that you can spend a lot of time fleshing out backgrounds and thinking about histories, but even critical NPCs aren't going to have half that much investment in their backstories. In fact, at least in my experience, most NPCs start as a name (maybe a statblock and some quick notes if they're important) and their personality and mannerisms get made up on the fly.

This is a bit of a problem for me because I try to keep a roughly 50/50 balance of NPC sexes for aesthetic reasons, but I also like a sense of social verisimilitude in my game worlds "genuineness" in how characters act and react which poorly RP'd NPCs tend to break. My 'solution' has been to steal personalities and mannerisms from female characters in media I like, but some hard-and-fast rules or general tips would be nice.

illyrus
2013-05-01, 04:49 PM
I think people are getting sort of far afield here, in an attempt to bring it back around:

I'd like to roleplay this... paladin with some degree of femininity...

I removed the gender in the sentence of the OP's post.

So what would be some ways for a paladin to display some degree of femininity?

- Perhaps they're married and occasionally play the caregiver role in between slaying demons
- Perhaps they play more a redeemer style paladin instead of a "see evil smite it style"
- Maybe they come off as soft spoken in conversation and try to listen to opposing viewpoints without immediately dismissing them
- Maybe they openly show sorrow for the passing of a comrade without immediately screaming for vengeance
- Or to take from a traditional one maybe they could pledge themselves to a noble's side and write platonic love sonnets to them

None of these are gender specific but personally I'd see them as all being at least somewhat feminine and stuff I could see a paladin doing.

Shadowknight12
2013-05-01, 04:56 PM
How would you folks recommend RPing female NPCs as a GM?

I'd recommend striving for diversity in terms of behaviour, mannerisms, appearance and the like. My rule of thumb is to have a man and a woman for every behaviour/appearance you come up with. Musclebound, angry warrior? Comes in man and woman. Delicate, soft-spoken, sheltered young aristocrat? Comes in man and woman.

And so on.


I also like a sense of social verisimilitude in my game worlds

This is a slippery slope I have observed many, many times, and it never leads anywhere good. The actual, real-life history that D&D draws from is really, really sexist. I would personally recommend to stay as far away as possible from "social verisimilitude" and the like. D&D (rightly) works under the assumption that gender is purely aesthetic and that men and women do the same tasks and behave identically. I would heartily recommend to stick to that as closely as possible.

Water_Bear
2013-05-01, 05:25 PM
I'd recommend striving for diversity in terms of behaviour, mannerisms, appearance and the like. My rule of thumb is to have a man and a woman for every behaviour/appearance you come up with. Musclebound, angry warrior? Comes in man and woman. Delicate, soft-spoken, sheltered young aristocrat? Comes in man and woman.

And so on.

The problem is, 90% of roleplaying an NPC (at least for me) is in the voice and body language. Obviously they get physical descriptions, but the way the NPCs get treated has a lot to do with how the Players visualize them based on how I act. If I don't convey a sense of gender clearly in how the NPC speaks or behaves all my Players see is a large man sitting behind a laptop holding dice, and they react accordingly.

Telegraphing sex and gender through characterization in a movie or a book or a video game is ham-handed and bizarre, but at the table it's kind of important to remind the Players who it is they are talking to at the moment.


I would personally recommend to stay as far away as possible from "social verisimilitude" and the like.

I didn't make myself clear. What I meant was, I want NPCs to react in ways which seem believable given their character. If their characters are cliche or poorly thought out, that puts me at a one-hand disadvantage trying to portray them acting and reacting in ways which seem genuine.

Madwand99
2013-05-01, 05:42 PM
I've been roleplaying for nearly 20 years now, and roughly half of the hundreds of PCs I've played in that time have been female. It is a personal challenge to me to help the group to suspend their disbelief and believe my PC is a woman. It's not easy, as I have a deep voice and I'm not exactly scrawny, but JusticeZero has it exactly correct when it comes to good advice for doing so: to act in a way that will help the group believe your PC is female, ignore male stereotypes and acknowlege female ones. His advice is the best I've ever seen when it comes to roleplaying women. Stereotypes aren't necessarily bad, as long as they are not your sole guiding principle: any good PC will use sterotypes to inform their actions, not use them as straightjackets. The sterotype of the gruff, hard-drinking, gold-loving dwarf is a traditional one, and makes a fine PC, but a dwarf that gives much of his gold to charity is perhaps even more interesting.

I do not blame the group if they fail to remember my PC is a woman. That is my fault for being a poor actor, or the GMs occasionally for failing to present opportunities that would allow me to roleplay appropriately. It is a big challenge to me to contribute to the group's suspension of disbelief while remaining mature, and advancing my own acting talents.

I agree with Water_Bear that I prefer social verisimilitude in my games. The challenges presented by some amount of NPC sexism provide great roleplaying opportunities, and the additional challenges are fun to overcome in any case. I've really enjoyed playing both male and female PCs in Harn, a game world that closely models medieval England, sexism included. It's a LOT of fun if your group is mature. Just because the PCs and/or NPCs are sexist, doesn't mean the players are. This goes for any form of prejudice. Racial prejudice is endemic to RPGs anyway (orcs, drow, anyone?), why should sexism be any different? My main goal in any RPG, beyond having fun, is suspension of desbelief, for both myself and my group.

horngeek
2013-05-01, 05:46 PM
Getting away from the gender politics for a second, because this thread is not about that, I was wondering...

How would you folks recommend RPing female NPCs as a GM?

A lot of the advice here relies on the idea that you can spend a lot of time fleshing out backgrounds and thinking about histories, but even critical NPCs aren't going to have half that much investment in their backstories. In fact, at least in my experience, most NPCs start as a name (maybe a statblock and some quick notes if they're important) and their personality and mannerisms get made up on the fly.

This is a bit of a problem for me because I try to keep a roughly 50/50 balance of NPC sexes for aesthetic reasons, but I also like a sense of social verisimilitude in my game worlds which poorly RP'd NPCs tend to break. My 'solution' has been to steal personalities and mannerisms from female characters in media I like, but some hard-and-fast rules or general tips would be nice.

My advice remains the exact same as it does for RPing female PCs if male, think of them as characters first.

Water_Bear
2013-05-01, 05:47 PM
I agree with Water_Bear that I prefer social verisimilitude in my games. The challenges presented by some amount of NPC sexism provide great roleplaying opportunities, and the additional challenges are fun to overcome in any case. I've really enjoyed playing both male and female PCs in Harn, a game world that closely models medieval England, sexism included. It's a LOT of fun if your group is mature. Just because the PCs and/or NPCs are sexist, doesn't mean the players are. This goes for any form of prejudice. Racial prejudice is endemic to RPGs anyway (orcs, drow, anyone?), why should sexism be any different? My main goal in any RPG, beyond having fun, is suspension of d[i]sbelief, for both myself and my group.

Yeah, I really didn't mean that actually. Not that I disapprove of the playstyle, but that's not what I was getting at.

To the edit button!

Madwand99
2013-05-01, 06:00 PM
Yeah, I really didn't mean that actually. Not that I disapprove of the playstyle, but that's not what I was getting at.

To the edit button!

It was more of a reply to ShadowKnights post on the matter anyway. I'm not really trying to put words in your mouth.

Shadowknight12
2013-05-01, 06:28 PM
The problem is, 90% of roleplaying an NPC (at least for me) is in the voice and body language. Obviously they get physical descriptions, but the way the NPCs get treated has a lot to do with how the Players visualize them based on how I act. If I don't convey a sense of gender clearly in how the NPC speaks or behaves all my Players see is a large man sitting behind a laptop holding dice, and they react accordingly.

Telegraphing sex and gender through characterization in a movie or a book or a video game is ham-handed and bizarre, but at the table it's kind of important to remind the Players who it is they are talking to at the moment.

I fail to see why gender is so excessively important and crucial for the player that it needs to be shoved in the players' faces. I'd recommend playing an archetype (angry warrior, decadent aristocrat, friendly cook, etc), and then referring to gender casually, such as "when I was a little girl/maiden..." or "my husband" and such.

Gender can be outright ignored (as I prefer it), or it can be a slight influence on the character (as others recommend), but I'd recommend against going to the other extreme and making it define and confine the character.


I didn't make myself clear. What I meant was, I want NPCs to react in ways which seem believable given their character. If their characters are cliche or poorly thought out, that puts me at a one-hand disadvantage trying to portray them acting and reacting in ways which seem genuine.

That's completely true, and that's why I recommend going by genderless archetypes, which can be used as a skeleton that you can flesh out. Then, you can add gender as a subtle touch on top of an already fleshed-out character.

@Madwand99:

I will cite Chimamanda Adichie on this one:

"The problem with stereotypes is not that they are false, it's that they are incomplete."

The problem with stereotypes is that you are reducing an complex, fully-realised character into a set of stereotypes in order to "sell" them to an audience. Instead of giving them the fair treatment that you would give them if they were part of the privileged group, you are thinking about their "authenticity" first, you are making their entire identity dependent on what others think of them.

If you had a straight cis white male, you wouldn't be doing that. They get to be a fully realised character with no expectations or stereotypes placed upon them, while anyone who deviates from that must suddenly become dependant on what others think about them. The problem is not that a female character might be feminine (and/or non-masculine), it's that their femininity (or lack of masculinity) becomes her defining characteristic, the be-all and end-all of her character, the straightjacket that curtails her freedom of expression.

I'm sorry, I find it depersonalising.

Madwand99
2013-05-01, 06:48 PM
I will cite Chimamanda Adichie on this one:

"The problem with stereotypes is not that they are false, it's that they are incomplete."


I believe there has been a misunderstanding here. Both I and (I believe) JusticeZero have been arguing this exact point from a different direction. We start by acknowledging stereotypes exist and have some truth, but are incomplete. That means they are the starting point of a characterization, or "skeleton" in JusticeZero's words. They are not the end point: you build on them, you complete them to make a character. When used this, way, stereotypes are actually a useful tool for characterization, but as I said above, should never be a straightjacket.

Go back to JusticeZero's original posts on how to crossplay, abandoning any prejudice about the word "stereotype". His explanation rings very true, from decades of personal experience I can back him up and tell you that this is exactly how to do it. It really does work, and it feels great when you successfully pull off a great job of acting. Crossplaying well is a lot more than just saying your PC is a different gender. You have to back that up somehow, otherwise what's the point? Acknowledging or ignoring certain stereotypes (while not letting your character being defined by them) is by far the best, most mature way of doing that.

JusticeZero
2013-05-01, 07:04 PM
The problem with stereotypes is that you are reducing an complex, fully-realised character into a set of stereotypes in order to "sell" them to an audience. Instead of giving them the fair treatment that you would give them if they were part of the privileged group, you are thinking about their "authenticity" first, you are making their entire identity dependent on what others think of them.
If you had a straight cis white male, you wouldn't be doing that. They get to be a fully realised character with no expectations or stereotypes placed upon them, while anyone who deviates from that must suddenly become dependant on what others think about them.Except that that is not what anyone was saying. The stereotypes, for the sake of creating a stage character that you can sell without costuming and the like, just offer some ideas that you can use as a starting point. They don't constrain. Also, they aren't being used to make a theoretically normalized character, they are being used to make a character crafted to have to overcome the problem of convincing people that they are who they are instead of the actor.

Dwarves are stereotyped as dour and hard working and gold obsessed. There are underlying cultural forces that make these tendencies appear as tendencies. They aren't all-defining of course. Just acknowledge those. You don't have to be any of those things, but they offer a start point to start interrogating those traits. "Oh, no, i'm not big on gold. Let's face it, it's the only crop we can get under a mountain. But I live in town now and work at a butcher's shop."

There are, by the way, a whole constellation of unflattering stereotypes about white cis males that, I might add, are often somewhat accurate; about as accurate as the other silly stereotypes that get tossed around.

Shadowknight12
2013-05-01, 07:04 PM
I believe there has been a misunderstanding here. Both I and (I believe) JusticeZero have been arguing this exact point from a different direction. We start by acknowledging stereotypes exist and have some truth, but are incomplete. That means they are the starting point of a characterization, or "skeleton" in JusticeZero's words. They are not the end point: you build on them, you complete them to make a character. When used this, way, stereotypes are actually a useful tool for characterization, but as I said above, should never be a straightjacket.

That's not what the quote means. The quote is talking about a meta-level of characters in stories, about the portrayal of characters and the plurality of stories when taking all of literature as a whole. She was talking about the problems of only portraying a group of people as one thing. That's what she means by "incomplete", that they are not the whole story, they are not the entire spectrum of appearances, customs and/or behaviours.

Starting a character based on stereotypes means that you will always be telling the same story, with slight changes. That is literally in direct opposition to what the author of the quote intended to say.


Go back to JusticeZero's original posts on how to crossplay, abandoning any prejudice about the word "stereotype". His explanation rings very true, from decades of personal experience I can back him up and tell you that this is exactly how to do it. It really does work, and it feels great when you successfully pull off a great job of acting. Crossplaying well is a lot more than just saying your PC is a different gender. You have to back that up somehow, otherwise what's the point? Acknowledging or ignoring certain stereotypes (while not letting your character being defined by them) is by far the best, most mature way of doing that.

No, you do not have to back anything up. You do not have to "prove" that you belong to X group. How would you roleplay a transgender person, then? Or a gay person? How would you roleplay a black person? Would you make them "prove" that they belong to the group in question?

The right answer is "there is nothing to prove." It very much IS a case of just "stating" that they belong in the group, yes. I, as an LGBTQ+ person, do not adjust my behaviour or appearance to match outsider expectations because I happen to belong in a group. Similarly, women do not have feminine quotas to fulfil.

Women are literally just people. There's absolutely no need to make such a big deal about it.

EDIT:


Except that that is not what anyone was saying. The stereotypes, for the sake of creating a stage character that you can sell without costuming and the like, just offer some ideas that you can use as a starting point. They don't constrain. Also, they aren't being used to make a theoretically normalized character, they are being used to make a character crafted to have to overcome the problem of convincing people that they are who they are instead of the actor.

You are repeating yourself. I have already replied to this. You do not need to convince anyone that you are playing a character of the opposite gender. It's not your responsibility. It's not your fault if others have strong opinions on how feminine a female character should be.

Stereotypes restrain. It's what they do. If you broke out of the stereotype, the character wouldn't be stereotyped anymore.


There are, by the way, a whole constellation of unflattering stereotypes about white cis males that, I might add, are often somewhat accurate; about as accurate as the other silly stereotypes that get tossed around.

Again, the problem with stereotypes is not that they do not exist or are incorrect or inaccurate, it's that they are always repeated, over and over, and they are never abandoned. That's why I recommend against even thinking about stereotypes, because they are always poisoning otherwise excellent characters, simply because their creators had the misguided idea that they "had" to acknowledge them.

Nobody has to acknowledge any stereotype. They are ghosts. Stop taking them seriously, stop being so mindful of them all the time, and they will vanish into the mists of time.

JusticeZero
2013-05-01, 07:28 PM
You do not have to "prove" that you belong to X group. How would you roleplay a transgender person, then? Or a gay person? How would you roleplay a black person? Would you make them "prove" that they belong to the group in question?If the people that I am at the table with already ascribe those traits to me as a player, I don't have to do a darned thing, because the default assumption is that my character matches my player in sign unless otherwise noted.

However, if a player is very black, and their character is white, maybe in a spy game where all the same roles are in place, they are going to need to work a bit to actively change the sign people ascribe to their character. They'll have to actively avoid letting the things associated with the "black" sign stick to them so that they can build up associations associated with "white". Because if they actively try to fill those stereotypes, it will come off badly, they will have to do that by just acknowledging the stereotypes that are associated with "white" as they come up, even if they acknowledge the stereotypes to say that they don't fit it.
Similarly, women do not have feminine quotas to fulfilAnd that is why you do not try to ACTIVELY fulfill any of those stereotypes.

Madwand99
2013-05-01, 07:39 PM
You do not need to convince anyone that you are playing a character of the opposite gender. It's not your responsibility. It's not your fault if others have strong opinions on how feminine a female character should be.

For me at least, this is just wrong. I absolutely do have to convince both myself, and the rest of the group, that my PC is who I say they are, through roleplaying. That is the name of the game, after all. A character is much more than a set of numbers, they are a gender, a race, a profession, a set of competencies, and more. All of these (I believe) should be roleplayed, and if I fail to convincingly do so, then I have failed and I blame myself. You don't need to play this way, pure hack-and-slash games are fine and fun and all, but when I'm roleplaying, I am going to do my absolute best as a character actor. Otherwise, there's just no point to writing down "F" on that character sheet.

Shadowknight12
2013-05-01, 07:40 PM
If the people that I am at the table with already ascribe those traits to me as a player, I don't have to do a darned thing, because the default assumption is that my character matches my player in sign unless otherwise noted.

You are not your character. No part of you, physically or behaviourally, is your character. If your players cannot grasp such an extremely simple concept, they are not mentally equipped to roleplay, because they are not grasping the most fundamentally basic tenet of roleplaying.

Your character is not "you, unless described otherwise." Your character is what they happen to be, no buts or ifs.


However, if a player is very black, and their character is white, maybe in a spy game where all the same roles are in place, they are going to need to work a bit to actively change the sign people ascribe to their character. They'll have to actively avoid letting the things associated with the "black" sign stick to them so that they can build up associations associated with "white". Because if they actively try to fill those stereotypes, it will come off badly, they will have to do that by just acknowledging the stereotypes that are associated with "white" as they come up, even if they acknowledge the stereotypes to say that they don't fit it.

This is too offensive for me to actually reply to.

Let it just be said that if we were at the same table and you were to tell me this regarding my ethnicity, I'd get up and leave.


And that is why you do not try to ACTIVELY fulfill any of those stereotypes.

You are still acknowledging them and letting them define, in a greater or lesser way, the character itself.

EDIT:


For me at least, this is just wrong. I absolutely do have to convince both myself, and the rest of the group, that my PC is who I say they are, through roleplaying. That is the name of the game, after all. A character is much more than a set of numbers, they are a gender, a race, a profession, a set of competencies, and more. All of these (I believe) should be roleplayed, and if I fail to convincingly do so, then I have failed and I blame myself. You don't need to play this way, pure hack-and-slash games are fine and fun and all, but when I'm roleplaying, I am going to do my absolute best as a character actor. Otherwise, there's just no point to writing down "F" on that character sheet.

There are some aspects of a character that do not need to be emphasised in order to be roleplayed effectively. Race, gender, sexuality and the like are perfect examples of such things. You roleplay people, not a collection of traits that must be roleplayed individually.

JusticeZero
2013-05-01, 08:00 PM
You do not need to convince anyone that you are playing a character of the opposite gender. It's not your responsibility. It's not your fault if others have strong opinions on how feminine a female character should be.Except that it IS, because the entire point of this exercise is to successfully convince others that your character is the opposite gender. It's a bit like saying "It isn't my fault that nobody liked the bread I baked. Yeast is overrated! Viva la revolution!" This is a performance skill that we're trying to develop.

At the table is not the appropriate venue for a feminist rage thing. (Well, unless your whole group enjoys joining in on feminist rages. Then I guess it's part of the fun.)

However, helping more men to be able to successfully play female characters to the point where they spend time observing and learning the female side of things? So that they will actually notice some of the garbage that happens? Might actually help.

Shadowknight12
2013-05-01, 08:09 PM
However, helping more men to be able to successfully play female characters to the point where they spend time observing and learning the female side of things? So that they will actually notice some of the garbage that happens? Might actually help.

Reinforcing stereotypes does not help one bit. On the contrary, it paints a completely inaccurate picture that lets people pat themselves in the back for "getting it" and being self-congratulatory for portraying such "authentic performances" instead of actually listening to what women have to say.

Men roleplaying female characters sure helps, particularly in terms of training them to put themselves in another person's shoes. Telling them that the best way to portray a female character is to start with stereotypes? It actually achieves the opposite of what you're suggesting. It fosters misunderstanding and a "I don't need to listen to you, I know what I'm doing" attitude.

JusticeZero
2013-05-01, 08:20 PM
...Which would be why I said to do that as your STARTING POINT, and then follow up by engaging in observation and examination of the world to get more ideas of how to flesh out the character beyond that.

Shadowknight12
2013-05-01, 08:34 PM
...Which would be why I said to do that as your STARTING POINT, and then follow up by engaging in observation and examination of the world to get more ideas of how to flesh out the character beyond that.

It doesn't matter in which step of the process you are using the stereotypes, if you use them at the beginning, middle or finishing point of the character creation process.

You are still letting them shape the character. They are still spectres hanging over the character when they shouldn't be.

Stereotypes are powerless on their own. They only keep being a problem because of mentalities like this, where people think they are actually useful.

Exediron
2013-05-01, 10:08 PM
Stereotypes are characteristics attributed to a group of individuals with something in common - some have a basis in reality while others do not. It's best to just ignore them, typically - if you happen to fit one, fine; if you don't, also fine. At their core, they're neither good nor bad; if you make a good thing a stereotype you don't make it bad automatically.

In the (possibly vain) hope of trying to get something productive out of this thread, I'll try to offer some actual advice on the foundations of playing a character of the opposite gender.

When I was quite young and just starting to explore what true role-playing is, I found it difficult to play a female character - not so much because I didn't know what to do, but because I was afraid the other players (all female, incidentally) would find something wrong with my playing that I hadn't noticed. I think this is actually the problem for a lot of people - not the fear of doing it wrong, but the fear that someone else would think you're doing it wrong. First piece of advice: Don't worry about it. Your character, your personality - any personality can be female, so there is no such thing as a personality that is objectively wrong for a female character. Unless you happen to get any specific details that are objective wrong, but I'm going to assume the game won't be going there :smallwink:

Over the years I've gone from about a 5% share of female characters - and none of them favorites - to about 65%, which is the rate I maintain today, with well over half of my favorites as females. The only thing I'm more consistent about is playing elves. So my advice definitely comes with a big dose of experience; no advice works for everyone, but I hope I can help at least help one or two people to develop the confidence and ability to play the characters they've always wanted to (as a male player this is mostly from the male-playing-female point of view, but the idea's the same - except that for whatever reason nobody judges females harshly for playing traditionally masculine males, but I'm not going to go there :smallcool:).

Understanding & Motivation: Not the characters' - yours. The first thing is to understand your motives for wanting to play a character of differing gender. Is it because you want to be on the other side of a given society's gender roles? To hit the correct mix of femininity or masculinity in the character? Purely aesthetic reasons? To play around with tropes and expectations? No reason is also a reason, but I've found that if you're good at introspection there's almost always a reason to be found.

There aren't really any wrong answers, but it's important for you to understand what you hope to get out of the character. Mostly I choose on the basis of which gender/orientation/preference combination (I usually choose all at once) creates the most interesting harmony with the character's personality as I conceptualize it. This is really very subjective; maybe I want a very feminine male warrior and an equally feminine female cleric because I find the idea of exploring how they see each other and the sort of relationship they will develop interesting. Or maybe I just want a badass character and I decided to go female for some obscure personality facet that I felt was enhanced that way, or I wanted to make a point (often a bad reason, by the way) that a traditionally feminine female can still be uncompromising and effective as a warrior. Whatever the reason, it informs all else that comes after it on a subliminal level if nothing else.

Actually playing your character: First off; your character's gender is just a trait. Don't let it dominate their personality (if it isn't supposed to, which ought to be rare) - when you speak a line for your character or dictate an action, your inner monologue of how that character thinks shouldn't go "She's female, so she'll do X". That's like saying she's an elf, so she'll do X - invalid. If she's an elf the experiences she's had as a result of being an elf - and possibly some mental and physical differences inherent to being an elf - will inform her personality, but the fact of being an elf itself is not a personality trait - and neither is being female. If she led a pampered life because that's how a female is treated in her society, that has a personality effect; if she has a quiet voice that might have something to do with both being an elf and being female, but it's not a personality trait on its own (if she has a tendency to keep silent because she knows nobody will hear her anyway, that is - or on the flip side if she is very aggressive about making sure everyone listens to her).

I find it helps me as a role-player to do voices for all my characters, and this applies to the females I play also. I have a relatively deep voice, so I do raise it for (most) of my female characters - but keep it fairly subtle. If you actually try to match your voice to a vastly different natural range the result won't be pretty - unless you're very good, at least, and most people aren't. The difference should be perceptible but not overstated; you need to leave room in your vocal range for all your characters, after all, and if you raise all your female characters to the top of your range you're both likely caricaturing a good chunk of them and making it hard to tell them apart. I personally try to focus more on the vocal qualities of a character than on their pitch; a slightly throaty or particularly sonorous voice goes much farther to differentiating your character than a pitch change and is usually easier to pull off naturally.

Another thing I think is a bit of a stumbling block for a lot of people is showing attraction from the viewpoint of a differently-gendered character. For a heterosexual player it can be difficult to evaluate what their opposite-gendered character would be attracted to, since they wouldn't likely to be interested in the same traits. This one catches me up sometimes too, I admit; I'm not naturally attracted to pretty much any characteristics that could be described as masculine, so I can't use my own standards for the majority of my female characters. However, it's never really the best to use your own standards for your characters, so I always have a sort of mental map of my characters' preferences and interests: While for myself the strongest attraction factors might be general cuteness and interest in common areas with myself, I can easily map on a character who is looking for someone who makes them feel safe so that they can enjoy themselves fully. I just objectively evaluate people for their criteria and they react accordingly. This same principle works for almost any difference of preference or opinion; if your character is buying a car and you know that what they want out of a car is an intimidating presence on the road but also crash safety, you can rule out the Corvette that you (well, I at least) might have gone straight for and check out the V10 pickup trucks with an eye to their crash ratings.

Now, a lot of this sounds just like general role-playing advice, and there's a reason for that; if you're capable of top-level role-playing - the true creation of a virtual character within your own mind with a complete set of opinions, preferences, goals, etc. - then you're capable of playing a character of a different gender. The pitfalls mostly don't come from within, anyway...

Dealing with other players: You're always going to have problems with other players, either because they follow an outdated belief that a man cannot play a woman and vice versa, or because they just assume your character is exactly like you in every important respect. Both attitudes can be discouraging and hurtful (I find the second to be worst - it makes you feel that there's no point even playing a character, and to me is a sign to find a new group) to a player who is just starting out in their gender role-playing experiences.

The best way to deal with the first is, in my opinion, to ignore it. If you try to change the way you're playing you will end up destroying your character, and you probably won't appease the critics anyway. In contrast if you play a consistent and believable character the way you want to, you might even succeed in changing their view or at least getting them to stop bugging you about it. A lot of people seriously don't seem to understand that there are other reasons for a male to want to play a female then to have breasts and get a lot of attention, and I think many just haven't ever seen anything different. The rule here is a good one in general; let your actions be informed by what you want, not what others expect. If you can't play the character you want the way you want to, it's time to look for a new group.

People who consistently forget that your character is a different gender are harder to deal with, because ignoring them doesn't help. I find the best solution is to subtly work your character's gender in rather than changing anything you're doing. Refer to your character by name whenever possible - don't say "I pick up the discs and rejoin the group", but try something like "Lyriel picks up the discs and stuffs them in her pouch before she rejoins the group". It helps people differentiate between you and your character when you differentiate.

...

I could go on forever, but I hope that covers the basic principles of how I approach so-called 'crossplaying'. Don't think of yourself as playing a female character - think of yourself as playing a character who is female. You'll feel more comfortable and in the end you'll probably end up with a more believable character anyway. For some people their gender really is a dominant personality trait, but not for most, so don't try to make it one. I also don't recommend just making gender purely aesthetic either; you're missing out on personality and role-playing options by doing that, and it sends an unfortunate - and probably completely unintentional - message that if females (usually) aren't being overtly feminine they might as well not be female.

In conclusion, I hope this thread doesn't devolve fully into a pointless argument, because I think this is something that is poorly understood by a huge portion of the role-playing public and could benefit from some honest advice and clarification.

Cerlis
2013-05-02, 01:02 AM
Your entire argument hinges on the idea that all groups are A) incapable of basic imagination, B) afflicted with terminal-stage Alzheimer's, and C) of such narrow-minded viewpoints that they cannot comprehend the idea of a woman who is not a walking stereotype.



No

If anything its proof of them having imagination and good memory that when a player says what their character is saying or doing that people may imagine that person. I have a vivid imagination but when i go to a group everyone isnt the slightest bit able to paint a picture for me and so I have to actively generate a holo-image of the scene in my head to get a good picture of what is "actually" happening.

All he is really saying is that in a persons mind actual stimuli (i.E. looking at your face and hearing your voice) is stronger than imagined stimuli (Using your voice to mimick your character's voice, which no one ever hears....Ever)

Lorsa
2013-05-02, 07:14 AM
One thing I would like to say that I've always found as rather curious is that GMs have to portray characters of both (and neither) gender on a regular basis (or else the world will be very one-sided), yet when a player choose to take on the opposite gender it's all of a sudden a big deal. I find it very interesting and rather odd.

Man on Fire
2013-05-02, 03:02 PM
I think that what JusticeZero and Mandwand99 are doing wrogn here is the assumption that charracter must start at the gender. This is simply not true. What we're starting character from is really the most important part of that character - the fundaments on which we will build rest of it. What we're starting from should be what is most important, the definite part of the role. If we will start every character of opposite gender fro mthat gender, they will all become the same. Instead we should focus on what is the most important aspect of thi specific character for us and go from there. You will come to answering questiosn about gender, but you should do it through the perspective of most important part of your character. If you want to play Paladin, you don't ask "How this woman's life is affected by the fact she is a paladin" but "how this paladin's life is affected by teh fact she is a woman". "How being female in modern day society had shapen worldview of my sociopath" instead of "how this woman's worldview has been shaped by the fact she is a sociopath". you don't shape your character of X to adjust it to being female, you shape your character to adjust it's female side to being X. You need to recognize what the character is about and go from there.

I don't know if I'm making myself clear here, ask if anything's not clear.

Maybe an example:
I'm making Cleric of Orcus, okay? That is most important part of my character - she worships Orcus. I think how being cleric of orcus affects character's various levels of life. When I take a look at character's views on various aspects of setting/plot - history, other races, magic, variosu events and gender-issues and roles, I answer all questions I can think in relation to them keeping in mind she is cleric of Orcus. If, during the game, I come upon any issues related to gender, I think to myself "what woudl cleric of orcus do". Because that's the most important part of my character here. Sure, I shouldn't be absolutist here - there are some situations in which other traits will change the outcome my character should follow, but they're not that often as you may think. 90% of time answering question "what would cleric of orcus do" be enough.

Madwand99
2013-05-02, 05:01 PM
I think that what JusticeZero and Mandwand99 are doing wrogn here is the assumption that charracter must start at the gender.

This is a misunderstanding. We have never suggested that gender is the most important starting point for defining a character; quite the opposite. Rather, ignoring or acknowledging appropriate stereotypes is a good start for characterizing anything that is very different from the player, whether it is race, gender, or anything similar.

I completely agree that gender is not the most important defining quality for most PCs. But, this thread is here to answer the OPs question, "how do I play the opposite sex", and the answer is given in JusticeZero (and now Exediron's) posts.

Sith_Happens
2013-05-02, 05:30 PM
ignoring or acknowledging appropriate stereotypes

Figured I'd emphasize this part in the vain hope that it will keep anyone from flipping another s***.:smallsigh:

Tumskunde
2013-05-03, 11:40 AM
I tend to play the personalty i picture. If you are serous about it You can find some works by female authors to gain some perspective. And also doing a bit of research in history in settings somewhat comparable to your campaign setting might be good. joan of arc is a good one to study and just because it reads like a DnD campaign The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon Or if you are kinda not in to reading as much, Look at old tyme tv and radio programs to gain a different perspective on women.

The Deed of Paksenarrion is good, the first in it "The Sheep Farmer's Daughter" is available online through the Baen Free Library (http://www.baen.com/library/).
Elizabeth Moon does some other fine book series as well - The Heris Serrano, Vatta's War, Planet Pirates. All portray Women as people first. Gender only taking a role in defining how the society they are in is percieved.
Stereotypical as it sounds, a brilliant protrayal of an old stubborn independant woman was well done in Remnant Population.

David Webber does some decent literature in that regard as well, Honor Harrington novels were a staple of my youth. And the Safehold series is an excelent read as well, defining some interesting gender issues on the side.

Most are classed as Sci-Fi, but really a character is a character, only the setting is different.

Now I'm not saying reading up on it will help. But for me, I've read them through and through, and in each you could pull personality quirks from anyone, male or female and shove them in a bowl and mix them up to make another for yourself.
It's said before:
Playing up Femininity starts with removing 'gender' to the core and adding it in, piece by piece. That is not easy, it requires empathy, understanding, and self awareness. All things which can be gained with practice as well as talent.

Being an 'obvious physically looking male', my personal experiences with crossplay were mostly online, where I didnt have to worry about my voice or face disrupting the flow of the role play, as well, the PbP format of most of the roleplays I was in let me sit and stew for a bit.
This helped immensly, but when I dropped into face to face roleplay, I constantly had to reign myself in until the character could take hold and ride on it's own, the early character personality's were lifted from friends and family.
So the easiest thing is to start from what you know.
If you want a tragic backstory, draw from tragedy in you life, like the death of someone close to you, the betrayle by those you once held sacrosanct, the broken love between to people who once shared heart and soul, the anger/rage/hate against someone who has wronged you or your own in the worst possible way, etc...
If you can pull it from within you, and manage to remove the 'gender' from it, in most cases it'll be easy if you can use raw feelings.
A mother who's child is killed often shares the same feelings with the father. They may react differently due to societal gender behaviors, but they, more likely than not, feel the same feelings inside. Add the sgb bits in after, but realise that your character is also a part of you and should flow from how you percieve/feel that character to be. If you find yourself on a hard choice about how the character would act/react then sit, mull, talki it over with them and you might find where the seeds of that character are planted and then you can draw strength right from the root.


For DM's running NPC's: Crib the best bits, be they quotes, oneliners, psalms and sayings. And don't be afraid to change your tone and posture to better suit the character if you can. But if you've had no theater training, test it in front of a computer screen with a camera. That way you can try and adjust the way you portray the character to more how it is in your head before you bring them in front of your players. If your players complain a lot then stop, but otherwise keep going, more often than not the players will join in to and you'll have a blast.


Oh and on a note on stereotypes, knowing a bit about them so you can use/avoid them is great, losing 14 hours of a day to TVTropes researching them is not.

Frosty
2013-05-03, 09:02 PM
Come now? 14 hours in a day? That's a bit ridiculous :smallbiggrin:

Sith_Happens
2013-05-03, 10:24 PM
Come now? 14 hours in a day? That's a bit ridiculous :smallbiggrin:

Seriously. Anyone who's actually been to TV Tropes knows that it will be a lot longer.:smalltongue:

Icewraith
2013-05-04, 01:27 AM
I think the issue here is that we don't have the fantasy dwarves and elves in real life, so although literature and the game setting can inform our roleplaying choices, we can't get things "wrong".

However, we all have people of the opposite gender to interact with everyday. The number of women I have personally met who are taller than me or deeper voiced I can count on one hand (I may not need any fingers? ). When gming a female character, talking in the first person sometimes breaks my own immersion, because it just sounds wrong.

There is a set of situations where a character's gender will be a dominating factor in their response. To me at least, there are times where I can get those "wrong". There have been enough references to the uberslut/guy with boobs rp situation that we can all at least agree it happens (if it never happened at your table count yourself fortunate. Go read the early run of the "Goblins" webcomic, the parody of this type of character is hilarious and dead on).

I don't think you can have a conversation about playing the opposite gender and demand everyone at the table ignore sterotypes. If you want to play a character whose gender is a valuable addition instead of scrawled on the character sheet and forgotten, you will either follow or subvert relevant stereotypes instead of ignoring them. The stereotypes for good or ill are there because "everyone knows about them" (may not like them but most are aware, that's why there are stereotypes in the first place).

Lorsa
2013-05-04, 04:56 AM
There has been some good advice here, but I suppose I should add in some myself.

It is very difficult to give advice about how to make a female character unless we know your general process for making characters. For me, having a "feel" for a character is very important. I need to somehow feel like the character, I need to be it, to find within me the feelings and thought processes that makes up the person. When I manage to do that I don't need to second guess my actions, they will come naturally and often surprise me. So, once I manage to find the right frame of mind for a character, some will just feel like they are female whereas others will feel like male. It will feel right saying one or the other. When left to my own workings (that is none of the people at the table has any weird opinions on playing the opposite gender) it usually ends up being a 50/50 spread of genders on my characters. It might not be the same for you, and some people will never make a character that will feel like the opposite sex and that's okay. But if you think your character is a certain gender you should go for it.

As for acting out the character, the same advice applies to all characters. Change your voice, alter your vocabulary, switch your pose and use different gestures / body language. The difference between male and female voices are as much about resonance as about pitch. But the important part isn't there really. They just have to talk a little bit different from how you talk. It's the same for any character really. Also consider body language. It's a very important factor and should fit the character.

Stereotypes, well, I've always disliked and never understood them. I have an easier time to see similarities between genders than differences. There are differences between people but I guess I just grew up with (and am myself) people that don't really fit into the normal gender stereotypes that I never understood them. So my personal advice is just to ignore it. It's what you should do in reality so why shouldn't you at the gaming table? Treat people as people first, not gender first.

Someone said that attraction can be the hardest part of playing the opposite sex. That doesn't come so much from playing the opposite sex though as from playing another sexuality than your own. It can be very difficult and you just have to find it within you somewhere. Then again you shouldn't have more romance in your game with a female character than you would with a male. So if it's typically not a part of your games it's not really an issue.

The very same applies to NPCs as it does to player characters. I spend most time being GM so obviously most of my "characters" are NPCs.

Thinking about this has made me come up with two interesting paladin characters though. But then again paladins ARE interesting.