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Alroy_Kamenwati
2013-12-15, 06:08 PM
Hi, so I'm in a bit of a conundrum. I really enjoy roleplaying as female characters, mostly because for some reason, whatever they may be, I make them more interesting than my male counterparts. I'm going to be roleplaying with a new group, and I'm rather worried about how they may react if I make a girl character. I guess what I'm looking for is maybe some opinions on the matter, perhaps with people who have more experience than I do with dealing with a new group and maybe some advice on how to introduce the idea that I'm going to be playing a girl.

Also, we are doing a Star Wars RP. I don't know the system, and the group of guys I'm playing with I haven't known for more than a month.

Thanks.

Calen
2013-12-15, 06:18 PM
I'd say it's not a big deal. One of the (male) players in the game I play is playing a lady. Everybody in the group said "Ok". YMMV of course.

Berenger
2013-12-15, 06:33 PM
Well, depends on the group in question.

Playing a male character is always "safer". Depending on the group, playing a female character may invite riducule, ingame "drama" via sexual harassment and in my experience female players tend to universally hate young (<20 years) female characters with a passion. Coincidentally, I was told so this very day.

So my advice is, if you are shy or tend to feel alienated or don't know what maturity level that foreign group has, go safe and play a male. Or send the DM a mail and ask him if playing a character of the other gender is common in his group.

Alroy_Kamenwati
2013-12-15, 06:39 PM
To be honest I tend to make female character over twenty as well xD But a lot of my characters are older.

I'm not all that shy, its the other people I'm worried about, I don't want to make other people feel uncomfortable, ya know? I'll message the DM so he can talk to his group about it, how I did it with my second group was I played a male in our first game so that they could see that I'm a decent roleplayer then I started playing girls and it worked out pretty well.

Remmirath
2013-12-15, 06:47 PM
It really shouldn't be a problem. You're already playing a character, after all, so there's no reason that anybody should have a problem with you playing a character that's just a little bit more different from you.

My advice? Just play the character and explain who they are as normal. If the other players assume your character is male, correct them.

I have many times played male characters in various groups (I typically play a fairly even distribution of female and male characters, all told), and that's worked for me every time so far. Granted, for whatever bizarre reason, people seem more likely to have a problem with men playing female characters than with women playing male characters, but this advice is also what my brother does when playing female characters, and it seems to work for him as well. If people in the group give you grief about it in any form, that's probably a sign that you're not playing with the best group anyhow and may wish to look elsewhere.


Playing a male character is always "safer". Depending on the group, playing a female character may invite riducule, ingame "drama" via sexual harassment and in my experience female players tend to universally hate young (<20 years) female characters with a passion. Coincidentally, I was told so this very day.


I would say that the first two of those indicate greater problems with the group, and the second seems a bit odd to me. I certainly don't have a problem with young female characters, or at least not any more of a problem than with young male characters (young enough characters I do find to be stretching the boundaries of belief, especially at higher levels, but that has nothing to do with their gender).

Lorsa
2013-12-15, 06:49 PM
The best thing you can do is to ask them how they feel about it. If they ask why, just explain like you did here that you usually find the characters are more interesting.

I personally don't care a single bit what gender my players choose for their characters. I suppose that's one of the reasons why I now have a group of 4 guys playing college girls in a nWoD campaign.

LibraryOgre
2013-12-15, 06:58 PM
I usually suggest making a "safe" character for the first time with a group... something that you know will be relatively acceptable, just to figure out if you even like playing with them.

However, if you like female characters? Go for it. There's always the thought "You know what, this is what I'm gonna play. If they don't like it, I should know now, before I've invested a lot of time with people who aren't gonna like my playing, anyway."

You might also ask the GM about what everyone else is playing, and float the balloon "Is anyone gonna have a problem with this?"

Airk
2013-12-15, 07:25 PM
This is a pretty good 'maturity litmus test' for a group. If you get weird or creepy reactions from being a guy playing a female character, it's a good sign that you might not want to stick around.

Knaight
2013-12-15, 07:30 PM
This is a pretty good 'maturity litmus test' for a group. If you get weird or creepy reactions from being a guy playing a female character, it's a good sign that you might not want to stick around.

That seems solid, provided that the character is reasonable (e.g. a guy playing a lesbian nymphomaniac might be playing a developed character who happens to have those two traits, neither of which makes a character bad, but a response against this is also very reasonable).

JustPlayItLoud
2013-12-15, 07:35 PM
I would initially be suspicious if you brought a female character to a game I was in/running, but that's due to personal experience. Aside from once or twice where the character was so bland as to effectively have neither a race or a gender, every male playing a female I've played with has played the character in an embarrassingly childish way, typically like an oversexualized, bisexual, polyamorous Valley Girl.

That said though I wouldn't make fun of someone for playing a character of the opposite gender anymore than I would make fun of them for anything else.

Gavran
2013-12-15, 07:39 PM
I'm gonna put away my "totally PC" hat in order to be more helpful to you than I would with it on.

I think it's weird when people play characters that aren't of their gender*. I feel like there are no good reasons to do it. Since I feel like there are no good reasons, I assume the person has bad reasons**. It doesn't bother me so much as to not play with someone, or even close to that, but it could cause me to evaluate you somewhat more harshly than I might've otherwise.

If I were in your new group, it would be wise for you to demonstrate to me that you're someone I want to play with first, but all in all as long as you aren't overly toxic to my game (for other reasons) it'd probably be fine.

*Meaning the gender they identify as.

**Usually playing out some kind of stereotype, sometimes much worse.

Alroy_Kamenwati
2013-12-15, 07:39 PM
The characters I tend to play are just characters that happen to be female, yes there are certain background tendencies and experiences that my female characters have that are related to being a girl, but I try to keep them from being oversexualized, unless that is just the character I had in mind, and as you said 'Valley Girl', but I understand your concerns.

EDIT: And I play guys too, it all depends on the character concept, sometimes I just see a personality/concept fitting better on a girl than a guy. Sometimes that is the case more often than not. I'm not abhorrent to playing my own gender, but to me I've never really been 'I'm a man therefore I must be a man!' my entire life, probably due to being raised mostly by women.

EDIT 2: Though my above statement isn't relative to my topic, and I'm sorry. Thanks for your input, I just felt the need to defend my position of playing a different gender a bit.

Ionbound
2013-12-15, 07:43 PM
Eh, don't worry about it too much that your female characters are better than your male ones. In my experience, making a character of your opposite gender makes the character less "you" and more "them", which leads to the character having a more developed personality and being more fun to play. As for the others reaction's, if they have a problem with it, ask them why. If it's a legitimate reason, try to find a way to make your concept work around this issue, and if they don't call them on having a bad reason.

Slipperychicken
2013-12-15, 07:44 PM
I think it's fine as long as you're mature about it.

There's a guy in my group who tends to play women just fine. He's a great roleplayer and excellent about not being That Guy. His female characters tend to be quiet, enigmatic witch-types who are clearly foreign, and don't have the same values as other PCs. He does not give them exaggerated sexual characteristics, nor are they stereotypes of traditional gender roles.


That said, many players I've seen are not mature about it, so I am wary about letting them "cross-play" unless they can convince me that they are mature.

Eldariel
2013-12-15, 07:44 PM
Playing a male character is always "safer". Depending on the group, playing a female character may invite riducule, ingame "drama" via sexual harassment and in my experience female players tend to universally hate young (<20 years) female characters with a passion. Coincidentally, I was told so this very day.

Is this really restricted to female characters and female players? I universally hate teenager-and-younger characters in most games simply because they tend to be completely insane (which, of course, is well-grounded in reality so it's not even wrong, but that doesn't make them much less annoying in my experience).

Frozen_Feet
2013-12-15, 07:50 PM
I'm always a bit flummoxed when people think this is anymore problematic than picking the shoe as your playing piece in Monopoly. Yeah, yeah, immaturity, sexism, all that jazz. People really need a thicker skin regarding those. Personally, if I want to play a female character, I just do it, and if someone start making stupid jokes about it, I either joke back or ignore it while continuing as planned. And if I happen to be the GM someone else makes a ridiculous character, I point it out, mock them about it, and then continue as planned. I'm used to playing at conventions or with completely new players, as far as I'm concerned well thought-out characters are so damn rare it's not worth it to get upset when a character is not. I do martial arts. Why would a game of make-belief make me more uncomfortable than rolling and sweating on a floor with a complete stranger?

GAThraawn
2013-12-15, 08:07 PM
I'd certainly say from my personal experience that people that tend to be nervous about cross-gender roleplaying, assuming they're not just highly immature, are likely concerned about problematic, stereotyped and overly-sexualized characters played by an immature gamer. I'm not opposed to opposite gender roleplay if done respectfully, but most of the attempts I have witnessed have fallen into just about every pitfall possible (Imagine an enormous, hairy, biker type dude playing a succubus, jumping on every opportunity to strip his character's clothes off and hit on other PCs and the GM's NPCs in eager and graphic style. Imagine me never playing with that group again.)

I would imagine a reasonably mature group being fine with it once you demonstrate your abilities, but you might find them nervous about the concept if they've had previous bad experiences.

Averis Vol
2013-12-15, 08:30 PM
In my four years of playing tabletop RPG's I just about a month ago rolled up my first female character. It was a little weird at first, I play with an immature group, but after session two or three where I showed (Not that I would ever do this in the first place) that I was able to play a female character without letting her being a female get in the way, things just sort of moved on as normal.

The most important thing is to not play up that you're a woman too much. I think the only time that it actually mattered that I was a woman, is when my group needed to sneak into a town controlled by an enemy country. we were all military special forces, so we couldn't jsut walk in, so I took off my armor tore my sleeve a bit and matted my hair and played it off like I had been attacked on the road.

The guards came to see if I was okay, I played weak and frail and made up a BS story while my group snuck inside with mine and their gear. I went to a small clinic, snuck out and got my stuff and we proceeded on with the quest. no biggie.

I think the point I'm trying to make is that if "I'm female" is the defining point of the character, there's a problem. You can describe your character without including gender and after a while make a point to bring it up, you know, once they accepted that you're playing the game straight. It doesn't need to be immediately apparent or prevalent to play the game.

The Oni
2013-12-15, 08:58 PM
The one attempt I made at a female character was Jaeira Fellhammer, Orc ranger, who toted around the biggest crossbow she could carry. I don't think she was in any danger of That Guy (Playing A Girl) territory, but nobody would take the character seriously.

Gavran
2013-12-15, 08:58 PM
I think the only time that it actually mattered that I was a woman, is when my group needed to sneak into a town controlled by an enemy country. we were all military special forces, so we couldn't jsut walk in, so I took off my armor tore my sleeve a bit and matted my hair and played it off like I had been attacked on the road.

The guards came to see if I was okay, I played weak and frail and made up a BS story while my group snuck inside with mine and their gear. I went to a small clinic, snuck out and got my stuff and we proceeded on with the quest. no biggie.

Would the presumably non-evil guards have ignored a man who was beaten and mugged? Were you given a circumstance bonus to the Bluff check for being female? Couldn't one of the other party members have done that, but they all (including you) assumed you should because you were playing a female character? Even in describing your success, it makes me question it... not that I'm trying to single you out. The only situation I can imagine where being male or female makes (or should make) a real difference is in carrying a baby, and frankly I'm just not sure why that would be part of your elfgames in the first place.

The Oni
2013-12-15, 09:01 PM
The only situation I can imagine where being male or female makes (or should make) a real difference is in carrying a baby, and frankly I'm just not sure why that would be part of your elfgames in the first place.

Men frankly react differently to women than men. Unless we're talking about a flawlessly egalitarian society, a lady attacked on the road is a better distraction. And I'm not making any moral judgements on that, just observations.

Gavran
2013-12-15, 09:05 PM
Men frankly react differently to women than men. Unless we're talking about a flawlessly egalitarian society, a lady attacked on the road is a better distraction. And I'm not making any moral judgements on that, just observations.

Correct.

However, guardsmen who are inclined to help an injured subject are inclined to help an injured subject. Again, assuming that they're non-evil guys. If they're evil guys who would ignore a male victim but help a female, then we're just perpetuating stereotypes about men being ruled by libido.

The Oni
2013-12-15, 09:18 PM
My point is not that the injured man would not be helped, but rather that the injured woman would garner more attention than the injured man, and it'd be easier to sneak past the guards.

Slipperychicken
2013-12-15, 09:21 PM
Correct.

However, guardsmen who are inclined to help an injured subject are inclined to help an injured subject. Again, assuming that they're non-evil guys. If they're evil guys who would ignore a male victim but help a female, then we're just perpetuating stereotypes about men being ruled by libido.

Or they're otherwise-decent people brought up in a society which perpetuates gender stereotypes.

Socializing agents (i.e. family members, peer-groups, teachers, religious figures, etc) most likely convinced them that women are more vulnerable than men, so they feel like they need to give women special attention, just like they would give to a child or a disabled person. In that context, it's not evil at all, the guards are just trying to help people who (they think) need it the most.

The Oni
2013-12-15, 09:27 PM
Or they're otherwise-decent people brought up in a society which perpetuates gender stereotypes.

Socializing agents (i.e. family members, peer-groups, teachers, religious figures, etc) most likely convinced them that women are more vulnerable than men, so they feel like they need to give women special attention, just like they would give to a child or a disabled person. In that context, it's not evil at all, the guards are just trying to help people who (they think) need it the most.

It affects women, too. Studies show that on average, blonde-haired women make the best salespeople/fundraisers, even when they're selling to other women, as they appear the least threatening and the least likely to have ulterior motives. Thems the breaks.

Kajhera
2013-12-15, 09:37 PM
The only situation I can imagine where being male or female makes (or should make) a real difference is in carrying a baby, and frankly I'm just not sure why that would be part of your elfgames in the first place.

Personal example? Because your character wants to have children, is presented with the opportunity to change their body into something else entirely, and decides to get pregnant before going ahead with that for the opportunity to bear children from their own body rather than the one they choose for it to become. The child is of an endangered bloodline, and that bloodline's continued existence maintains one of the wards on a powerful artifact gravely important to the functioning of a major city.

... Sometimes pregnancy is indeed a factor in a game.

SassyQuatch
2013-12-15, 10:04 PM
It isn't a problem at my table. I currently have seven regular players and there are examples of both types of "swapping" as well as playing to gender. It isn't a problem unless somebody decides to make it a problem, and if they do they probably won't last long with my group.

On the other subject, "neutral" campaigns are terrible. A guard of either gender will be more sympathetic to a young elf woman than to the burly dwarf. It is thoroughly ingrained in most cultures and individual psyches and unless some real forethought is put into the setting as to why a culture is different it is bland and unrealistic to make people who treat gender as a total non-issue.

Airk
2013-12-15, 10:26 PM
I think it's weird when people play characters that aren't of their gender*. I feel like there are no good reasons to do it.

Welp, that's about as far as you need to go with that. If you can't grasp that there are subtleties to culture surrounding gender, I'm not really sure what to tell you, but let me try.

First, I actually find it super weird that you had to PUT AWAY your totally PC hat to say "No no, everyone is the same, honest!" whereas I consider that the kind of response that someone who is whitewashing their views for fear of being offensive would put forth.

Is a meek, blind, waif of a teenage girl who happens to a powerful psychic more or less innocuous/surprising than a male character?
Is a mother defending her children not a different emotional vibe than a father protecting his family?
Is a matriarch who rose to power in a cutthroat, male-dominated political environment not more noteworthy than a man?
Is a female fighter who struggles for the recognition that she deserves in a predominantly male profession not an interesting story?

The real world doesn't treat men and women equally, in spite of the various efforts to the contrary. Why would a fantasy world that is making no such effort NOT treat them differently? And if two characters are treated differently, isn't that reason to play one rather than the other? Because you prefer the 'personal narrative' of one choice over the other?

GrayGriffin
2013-12-15, 11:20 PM
Some of the female characters in my current weekly game are played by dudes. Some are played by girls. However, I can guarantee that if I gave you a transcript featuring only character names, you would not be able to tell the difference.

Basically, just go for it.

NichG
2013-12-15, 11:33 PM
This is actually pretty common in groups I've played in/run for. My current game has a male player with a female character, a female player with a male character, a male player with a male character, and a female player with a very confused shapeshifter who is basically 'whatever works best for the given situation'.

Slipperychicken
2013-12-16, 12:00 AM
It affects women, too. Studies show that on average, blonde-haired women make the best salespeople/fundraisers, even when they're selling to other women, as they appear the least threatening and the least likely to have ulterior motives. Thems the breaks.

Yeah, in surveys (i.e. clients rating representatives and salespeople), women tend to score higher on attributes such as likability and friendliness. Of course, women also earn ~77 cents on the dollar (i.e. 77% of what men make), and often have to deal with the glass ceiling (can't rise any further above X position), the glass cliff (first to get fired from high-level positions), and the class cage (often kept in a certain job or department). Men also tend to do better in academia because of sexism, and are socially discouraged from "feminine" positions like dancing (often with the implication that men who do join those are homosexual). White women have also benefited from the civil rights movement, more than non-white men and women. Men also get drafted into the army more because they're believed to be stronger and hardier than women.

Gender stereotypes go lots of ways :smalltongue:

Remmirath
2013-12-16, 12:21 AM
I think it's weird when people play characters that aren't of their gender*. I feel like there are no good reasons to do it. Since I feel like there are no good reasons, I assume the person has bad reasons**. It doesn't bother me so much as to not play with someone, or even close to that, but it could cause me to evaluate you somewhat more harshly than I might've otherwise.


What, so somebody feeling like playing that character is not a good reason? How is that more strange than someone feeling like playing an elf or a dwarf instead of a human (or a character from a different culture, to pick something with no mechanical difference)? I do not understand this. Surely you don't believe that if someone were writing a story, the main character and indeed all other characters must also be of that person's gender?


It affects women, too. Studies show that on average, blonde-haired women make the best salespeople/fundraisers, even when they're selling to other women, as they appear the least threatening and the least likely to have ulterior motives. Thems the breaks.

Weird. My main determiner of salesperson trustworthiness is whether or not they grin all the time. I don't like it when they do. Feels like they're lying already.

Averis Vol
2013-12-16, 12:28 AM
Would the presumably non-evil guards have ignored a man who was beaten and mugged? Were you given a circumstance bonus to the Bluff check for being female? Couldn't one of the other party members have done that, but they all (including you) assumed you should because you were playing a female character? Even in describing your success, it makes me question it... not that I'm trying to single you out. The only situation I can imagine where being male or female makes (or should make) a real difference is in carrying a baby, and frankly I'm just not sure why that would be part of your elfgames in the first place.

There was plenty of good argument, but I feel the need to state my part.

The guards would have responded had it been a man, but the sight of a woman in such a position is a much more noteworthy occurrence. Whether you are happy that women are treated differently or not, the fact is they are. They are seen in a different light than men, and one of the big distinctions is that women are seen as weaker than men. I'm not going to get into a debate about sexism as I'm quite tired of them and all they do is bring up hot heads from both sides, but I wanted to bring out why that particular strategy worked better with the little elven magus rather than the grizzled dwarf fighter or the horned tiefling, or even the old bearded duelist who just resurfaced into civilisation.

Jack of Spades
2013-12-16, 01:28 AM
I always find it a bit weird that people are intimidated by the idea of playing a woman, but are completely fine with the idea of playing a dwarf, or an outsider, or a talking horse. Men and women (should be) more similar to one another than they are to any of those groups.

Personally, the gender of the character generally comes to me with the rest of the concept. That's generally male, but that's because we project ourselves into our characters and gender tends to be one of the things that gets through the membrane. However, I'm currently playing two females in various games (out of about 5 currently active characters).

I mean, we've all seen the stereotype of the dude playing R-rated situations out in games, but that problem is almost exclusively the realm of those who aren't used to playing females. People who prefer to play females generally play them respectably. In my experience, those players tend to lean on anime tropes a bit more than I'd like, but honestly that's such a personal taste thing that it doesn't really bear mentioning.

Kitten Champion
2013-12-16, 01:31 AM
I have a policy of switching my PC's gender every time I'm asked to write up a new one.

While the game itself doesn't treat me any differently, I think I do. It's peculiar, my female characters tend to be more... odd. Like if I don't make them stick out noticeably they'll fade into the background and maybe I'll be less interested in the game. My male characters are more sympathetic and subtle, going for nuanced character traits rather than unusual ones.

I'm going to have to change that, if someone in my group hadn't pointed it out I doubt I'd notice.

McDouggal
2013-12-16, 02:08 AM
Eh. My personal experience with female characters in D&D is not a good one. Then again, my playgroups were absolute <redacted> when it came to being mature, and I was the odd one out who actually tried to roleplay.

One instance in particular stands out-I had made a quite awesome archer ranger, whose main schtick in combat was that she could quickly unstring/restring her bow and use it as a quarterstaff. She stuck mostly to the shadows, and distrusted city dwellers. This was a few years ago, so I don't have the entire 3 page long backstory that I wrote, explaining how she became who she was when the adventure started. It wasn't important at all that she be female except that it helped fill out a small section of her backstory. I only played her differently than a male character if it made sense to do so.

3 members of the 5 man playgroup would distract an entire hour each session by trying to hit on her. The one that didn't was my brother.

I eventually had her just disappear into the woods one night, after leading the local hobgoblin tribe to the party. Not a good idea to piss off the member of the party who does all the mapping, concealing of your trail, and concealing of the camp. That campaign ended with a TPW, since my brother also left with me.

On the other hand, this was typical of the group. The previous campaign, I had a Paladin who was sworn to a vow of poverty. Any proceeds he got from adventuring, he would donate to the church (in way of thanks, the church would give him magic items and supplies).

I eventually figured out IC that the other party members were stealing the donations to the church. (I'd known OOC for several sessions.)

I took two down with me when they refused to give it back. I was willing to inspect the fine yet rustic architecture while they did less than good things, but that was too far. In the land of the unoptimized, the somewhat optimized character is king.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that if the group is a bunch of <redacted>, they'll be <redacted> no matter what you play. I actually prefer to play female characters as well, because they're more interesting to roleplay and explain why they started adventuring.

Slipperychicken
2013-12-16, 02:26 AM
Weird. My main determiner of salesperson trustworthiness is whether or not they grin all the time. I don't like it when they do. Feels like they're lying already.

The difference occurs even among people who claim not to be influenced by representatives' sex. The discrepancy often isn't intentional -even people who aren't sexist (or at least don't report their sexist beliefs) can still make unintentionally biased decisions. This sort of unintentional discrimination applies to to other categories too, such as race and religion, and is a problem for institutions trying to curb their biases.

Frozen_Feet
2013-12-16, 02:26 AM
Imagine an enormous, hairy, biker type dude playing a succubus, jumping on every opportunity to strip his character's clothes off and hit on other PCs and the GM's NPCs in eager and graphic style. Imagine me never playing with that group again.

I've imagined. I can't imagine myself being particularly bothered about it.

Imagine, if you will, a precocious teenage girl playing a dwarf who oils his muscles, trims his beard and walks around in leather pants. Now imagine two women dressed as the Doctor and Dean Winchester, and entering your game to turn it into a slash-fic of those two characters.

That's the reality I game in. When there are dudes dressed as maids at the table, along with women with beards and underage girls in little else than underwear, and I look like Alice Cooper in a tuxedo, this kind of thing slides past really easy.

Lorsa
2013-12-16, 03:36 AM
When I started playing with a new group when I had just moved to the city I now lived in, i submitted 3 character ideas to the GM and asked him what he thought of them. He preferred the one that was the opposite gender to me (which was a young female character). Perhaps you can try something similar?

Exediron
2013-12-16, 04:18 AM
Reporting in! :smallbiggrin:

My own road to playing female characters wasn't as straight as some people - I used to avoid doing so, in fact - but I now maintain a consistent balance of about 60-70% female characters, with most of the rest male and a small minority composed of evil robots and other genderless creatures. Considering that for me a hundred characters is a slow year, I've probably safely played for female characters than the average casual roleplayer will in their entire life. So I hope I'm qualified to speak on that side of the equation. As far as new groups go, less so - but I feel that doesn't matter so much...

Because my advice is: just go for it, assuming that a) you're serious about this group, and b) you feel that you would be able to perform properly in the group.

Playing female characters is a huge part of my roleplaying, but it's usually only something I do if I'm serious enough about the game that I'll really go to the lengths of creating a 'living' character. If all you need is a block of stats that walks and talks it is indeed far easier to make it male (rather or not you yourself are, frankly). Nobody will question it and it brings no troublesome roleplaying implications whatever the setting. Unless it's a Drow campaign, but then that's probably the point.

If I am serious about the game, there is no question for me. Any serious roleplaying group I want to be a part of will accept my playing a female character and treat her like the person she is in the game without question or immaturity. If they won't, I might as well know that right away. I'm sure (some) people have perfectly valid reasons for preferring the males in their games to stick to playing their own gender, but it's every person's right to choose the game they play in based on the experience they want to have. I also possess personal doubts about my ability to interact favorably with any person who would disallow opposite gendered characters.

That said...


I think it's weird when people play characters that aren't of their gender. I feel like there are no good reasons to do it. Since I feel like there are no good reasons, I assume the person has bad reasons. It doesn't bother me so much as to not play with someone, or even close to that, but it could cause me to evaluate you somewhat more harshly than I might've otherwise.

I couldn't let this one go unanswered.

First of all, I find the statement that there are no good reasons to play a character of the opposite gender to run blatantly counter to my notions of roleplaying, and I believe most notions of such. The only way I could agree with this statement is if indeed there is no intention for roleplaying to be done, in which case I suppose you can ignore the rest of this.

The 'reason' to play a female character is because when you create a character you are creating a whole person - a lump of opinions, experiences, beliefs, virtues and flaws. Among the many things that go into that whole is gender. There isn't more than a person out of a hundred - maybe not even out of a thousand - for whom gender isn't an important element of who they are and how they think of themselves, and for an individual to be able to honestly say that they would be exactly the same person if they had been born the opposite gender is rare enough that it would be a significant personality trait all in-and-of-itself.

It doesn't have to be something glaring and heavy-handed. It doesn't even have to be externally obvious. But I personally feel that gender is on the top of the character sheet (well, in D&D at least) for a good reason - because it's one of those huge defining characteristics that change the entire character. If I imagine two characters and ask myself 'if these people swapped eye colors, would they change?' the answer is probably 'no'. But if you ask the same question with gender, more often than not it will be a sound 'yes'. And if you cut that out, you cut out half of all the characters you ever could have played, or as the DM half the characters your players might have wanted to play. And I don't hold with that.

For me personally playing female characters is somewhat more than just different opportunities. I actually play more female than male characters, and as expected there's a reason for that, although I don't intend to psychoanalyze myself too deeply on a message board. The short version is that I empathize with and like to play mostly characters with traits that are primarily thought of as feminine in our world and generally mesh better with female characters, but the long version would take, well, longer to go into, and I think this is long enough already.

GungHo
2013-12-16, 10:03 AM
I feel people think about this stuff too much. Do what's fun. If Biff the Linebacker wants to play a waifish elven maid who fights for justice with magic knitting needles that warp the tapestry of the universe, maybe he just has a cool idea and you should just leave him alone about it.

I'm really not sure why people put so much worry into why someone wants to roll up a certain character unless that character is a sociopath invented to disrupt the entire game.

Dimers
2013-12-16, 10:22 AM
waifish elven maid who fights for justice with magic knitting needles that warp the tapestry of the universe

Sounds pretty awesome to me. I don't care about the waifish or elven parts, but I love the "re-knit the universal tapestry" idea.

Heh. "Purl of power." :smalltongue:

EDIT: I am a man who plays a wide variety of female and male characters. Gender and sex are often important in my backstory but rarely in play, because I tend to play hack-n-slash games. I'd be inclined to play a female character in a more RP-heavy environment, since my social affect is much more in line with what people expect of women than what they expect of men.

Red Fel
2013-12-16, 10:23 AM
I'm in the "don't think about it too much" camp. I play male and female characters. I play the character's gender.

Let me explain. My characters are characters. They have lives, and dreams, and habits, and so forth. I create and play them organically.

So, when I'm creating a character, I let the image evolve in my mind, and I note things like "This character is shy," or "This character has a fondness for oranges." At a certain point, having a fairly fixed impression in my mind, I can say, "This character is male," or "This character is female." Sometimes that happens fairly early in the process, others it doesn't happen until I've plotted out several levels in advance and drafted multiple versions of the character's backstory. Occasionally, it's a conscious choice, but quite often, it is simply a natural outgrowth of the original seed concept. I don't play a given gender because I have decided in advance to play that gender; I play that gender because the character is that gender. Full stop.

Do I feel awkward or uncomfortable when I play the opposite gender? No. Because when I'm playing a character, I'm playing the character; I'm not playing me playing the character. I don't think about what me playing the character feels, I think about what the character feels. And the character doesn't give much thought to his or her gender, anymore than I would give more than a passing thought to mine.

Gavran
2013-12-16, 11:20 AM
While I haven't read anything in this thread to totally change my initial answer, I should note that I'm relatively new to pen & paper, but have been playing video games basically my entire life. After reading posts here and thinking about it more, my bias probably largely stems from "guys that like to play female characters" in situations where roleplaying is rarely involved at all. I'm still not convinced that there are compelling reasons for a guy to play a female character in the kinds of games I play (D&D, heroic fantasy) though.


What, so somebody feeling like playing that character is not a good reason? How is that more strange than someone feeling like playing an elf or a dwarf instead of a human (or a character from a different culture, to pick something with no mechanical difference)? I do not understand this. Surely you don't believe that if someone were writing a story, the main character and indeed all other characters must also be of that person's gender? "Feeling like" isn't a reason, it's a result. An elf or a dwarf does come from a different culture, as well as a (possibly) hugely different physiology and (possibly) hugely different thought patterns. Those are all, to me, good reasons those choices can matter to a character concept. I don't believe that gender has the same depth.


Welp, that's about as far as you need to go with that. If you can't grasp that there are subtleties to culture surrounding gender, I'm not really sure what to tell you, but let me try.

First, I actually find it super weird that you had to PUT AWAY your totally PC hat to say "No no, everyone is the same, honest!" whereas I consider that the kind of response that someone who is whitewashing their views for fear of being offensive would put forth. I do censor my views and the opinions that I share on this board because it has strict rules about keeping a lot of real world discussion out of it which help keep it a nice place to be. I made the point that I was not doing that because the OP was asking for opinions on the matter, and telling him "No it wouldn't bother me at all" would be a lie and also unhelpful. If the topic had came up in another thread, I would've moved on without comment.


Is a meek, blind, waif of a teenage girl who happens to a powerful psychic more or less innocuous/surprising than a male character?
Is a mother defending her children not a different emotional vibe than a father protecting his family?
Is a matriarch who rose to power in a cutthroat, male-dominated political environment not more noteworthy than a man?
Is a female fighter who struggles for the recognition that she deserves in a predominantly male profession not an interesting story?
Not in the least, no and it makes me a little sad you think less of a father's love, sort of but no and oh-god-this-tired-trope-no. The last two examples are about overcoming adversity, not being a certain gender. There are more and more interesting adversities to overcome than those that are gender-based.

Maybe I invest a bit more of myself into my characters (for me, character creation is sometimes a lot of "what if". I don't self-insert, but I am my best model for a sentient being), maybe I see gender differently than a lot of the people in this thread. I don't know. I just wanted to share my honest thoughts on the matter.

To clarify slightly my original answer: If you're a candidate for my group you've already earned several "good" marks in my evaluation. If all I know about you is what I learned from your first post*, I'd be slightly wary of you playing a female character. If you were doing it for awful reasons (the two women Frozen_Feet mentions), I'd probably not invite you back. If you were doing it for boring reasons (being a female fighter because "fighters are all men normally guys"), I'd probably desire more depth from your characters but depending on the campaign-type I wouldn't care much. If you were doing it for reasons that are really compelling to you but not to me, I'd appreciate your effort but not care much.

*Less, actually, since by even making this thread I know you've put thought into it. I meant if you were a hypothetical newcomer to my group.

P.S. This is hugely off-topic, but what exactly do you get out of RPGs, Frozen_Feet? I can't imagine a game where two people who are there with the sole purpose of - not playing the game, not creating a narrative - but of shipping two guys they think are hot wouldn't be immediately turned away. Do you have a financial/professional stake in running the games with everyone who wants to join (like you're demoing a game or part of the convention staff)?

Kerrin
2013-12-16, 11:51 AM
As long as you do it well, I don't see how it matters...

Opposite gender, different race, different species, non-humanoid, non-corporeal...

Just do it well and you'll be fine.

Airk
2013-12-16, 12:08 PM
I'm still not convinced that there are compelling reasons for a guy to play a female character in the kinds of games I play (D&D, heroic fantasy) though.

Explain why.



"Feeling like" isn't a reason, it's a result. An elf or a dwarf does come from a different culture, as well as a (possibly) hugely different physiology and (possibly) hugely different thought patterns. Those are all, to me, good reasons those choices can matter to a character concept. I don't believe that gender has the same depth.

Why not? Most 'other cultures' in games are just humans in funny hats. Most of the time 'race' makes far less difference in a fantasy game than gender does.

Maybe you are the best roleplayer ever can truly understand the subtle but not even written up in the fluff text implications of what it means to be a short, hairy person with an extreme interest in gold, but I don't think most games ever even think twice about it.

Gender is interesting because we know and understand some of the differences between men and women. No one has the faintest freaking idea what it'd be like to live side by side with other sentient races that might or might not be anything like humans. So it's much more feasible for people to work with the implications of gender roles than it is for them to do the same with magical elf people.


Not in the least, no and it makes me a little sad you think less of a father's love, sort of but no and oh-god-this-tired-trope-no.

The more I read, the more convinced I am you just don't understand gender dynamics very well. Do you REALLY believe that other people have NO gender 'prejudices'? If the answer is "yes" you are hopelessly naive, if the answer is "no" why do you not believe those prejudices are worth exploring in a story? I mean, you really think that I am implying that a father's love is "less" rather than different? Do you not understand the concept of different? What is it that you are having a hard time grasping here? Gender creates differences. Two characters that are mechanically identical and with similar backgrounds but different genders are different. Different characters make the game interesting.


The last two examples are about overcoming adversity, not being a certain gender.

Oh, so all characters who are facing adversity are the same? :smallconfused: There are no types of adversity that only apply to one gender or another? Come on man, be reasonable and think about this. Gender impacts how the game world will treat a character. Therefore, altering the gender of the character can affect the game in subtle and unsubtle ways. I don't really see how you can argue with that.


There are more and more interesting adversities to overcome than those that are gender-based

Wow. Just wow. Did you really just make an absolute "X is more interesting than Y" judgement for all people everywhere? Good job on being the ultimate arbiter of what people find interesting. :smallfrown:



Maybe I invest a bit more of myself into my characters (for me, character creation is sometimes a lot of "what if". I don't self-insert, but I am my best model for a sentient being), maybe I see gender differently than a lot of the people in this thread. I don't know. I just wanted to share my honest thoughts on the matter.

I think it's closer to the latter, but more that you're not really thinking very hard about the implications of the subject.



If you were doing it for boring reasons (being a female fighter because "fighters are all men normally guys"), I'd probably desire more depth from your characters but depending on the campaign-type I wouldn't care much.

And under what circumstances is a one line description of a character EVER sufficient depth? Why do you believe that any of these characters should stop with gender ("Female fighter") rather than it being a part of the character? Would you say that someone playing a "male fighter who wants to prove himself" has provided you with the all the background you think necessary? If not, then why even raise the objection about the female concept, when the actual problem is just "this character is not developed enough" But if you start asking questions: Why is she a fighter? Why does she stick with it? What are her other goals? How do these things contrast with the world's expectations of her? These are questions that need to be asked for a character of either gender, but the answers would be different. And since the answers would be different, the character becomes different, and wanting to a play a specific character is all the reason you need to play that character, and not a character that is different from that character.

Edit to add: The only reason you should ever need to play a character is that that character is different from the other character options available to you, and you chose it. If you don't believe that changing a character's gender changes the way the world reacts to the character and thus makes the character different from a character of the other gender, then I shall dub you naive and have done.

JadedDM
2013-12-16, 12:10 PM
To the OP: I say, play what you want to play. If the rest of your group has a problem with you playing a woman, that's their issue, not yours.

I've played women before; usually if I notice the party is overwhelmingly male, I'll make a female character for more diversity. (But then, I'll also make a demi-human if the party is overwhelmingly human, and vice versa, as well.)

Remmirath
2013-12-16, 12:41 PM
There isn't more than a person out of a hundred - maybe not even out of a thousand - for whom gender isn't an important element of who they are and how they think of themselves, and for an individual to be able to honestly say that they would be exactly the same person if they had been born the opposite gender is rare enough that it would be a significant personality trait all in-and-of-itself.


There was a time when I would've said that I would expect it to be rather the opposite, but at this point I'll just settle for "hurrah, I'm rare".


While I haven't read anything in this thread to totally change my initial answer, I should note that I'm relatively new to pen & paper, but have been playing video games basically my entire life. After reading posts here and thinking about it more, my bias probably largely stems from "guys that like to play female characters" in situations where roleplaying is rarely involved at all. I'm still not convinced that there are compelling reasons for a guy to play a female character in the kinds of games I play (D&D, heroic fantasy) though.

Why does one need a compelling reason for it, though? Does one need a compelling reason to play a character with a different hair colour or eye colour than one's own, or a different height? How about a different dominant hand?

These aren't arbitrarily selected questions. I find that my height and my being left-handed have had significantly more effect on me in general than being female does, and the hair and eye colour have about as much. However, as Exediron pointed out, that may not be as common as I think.


"Feeling like" isn't a reason, it's a result. An elf or a dwarf does come from a different culture, as well as a (possibly) hugely different physiology and (possibly) hugely different thought patterns. Those are all, to me, good reasons those choices can matter to a character concept. I don't believe that gender has the same depth.

No? I'm curious how you decide what character to play at any given time, then. I'd classify most of the decisions I'd make about any given character as something I decided to do because I felt like it at the time.

And no, I don't think it matters anywhere near as much as species or culture. That's my point. If you don't have a problem with people playing different species or cultures, than presumably your concern isn't that they'll do it wrong or have a character too different from themselves, and why do you care what smaller decisions people make about their characters (see hair colour, eye colour, height, and so forth)?

I fail to understand why this is something that bothers you. You don't seem to think it has much effect on the character in general (and I do tend to agree with this assessment), so I'm unsure why you then care if the gender of the character is the same as the gender of the player.


Maybe I invest a bit more of myself into my characters (for me, character creation is sometimes a lot of "what if". I don't self-insert, but I am my best model for a sentient being), maybe I see gender differently than a lot of the people in this thread. I don't know. I just wanted to share my honest thoughts on the matter.

Quite possibly. A large part of why I've been asking you these questions is that I'm genuinely curious why you feel that way, since your reasoning for it seems quite different from other people I've encountered who prefer players to play characters of their own gender.

The only characters I've ever made that were noticeably similar to myself I've found to be dull, and if anything I aim for characters who are very different than me -- although for me, gender really doesn't play a part in achieving that aim, except when I decide to play characters who do see their gender as being an important part of themselves.

Most people, I have come to realise, do see gender differently than I do, so that's probably the case at least for me. Frankly, I have always had trouble accepting it as a concept at all, although it's important enough to enough people that I've come to accept that it is one -- just one that I don't seem to be capable of truly understanding and one that doesn't mean much to me, personally. I chalk it up as one of those things that most other people seem rather invested in that I just don't understand about. It's an annoyingly long list.

Frozen_Feet
2013-12-16, 12:56 PM
Gavran, I find it interesting to see how people react to various hypothetical scenarios. Two guys making out in a dark cavern is not outside parameters of the in-game reality, so there's no reason for me to veto such behaviour. It doesn't particularly matter to me if the only narrative they're interested in is their particular love story - their actions still move pieces inside the gameworld, and give birth to new events and scenarios. I don't really understand why you think that's not playing the game?

Oh, their reasons might not be very good, but I don't veto stupid things. I am quite vocal and snarky when players or characters are being fools, but I don't stop them, as long as they obey rules of a game. Besides, stupidity can be amusing in its own right. Farce and slapstick are genres, too.:smallamused:

The fact that I occasionally get a free convention ticket out of it is a complete coincidence. A complete coincidence, I tell you. :smalltongue:

Phobia
2013-12-16, 02:09 PM
I play male and female characters. I've even been known to play the odd nuanced male homosexual nymphomanic. So it doesn't matter to me. :smalltongue:

SassyQuatch
2013-12-16, 04:21 PM
Think of the following people as characters:

Joan of Arc
Mata Hari
Catherine the Great
Cleopatra
Amelia Earhart

Seems awesome? It should.

Why can't a male player enjoy these sorts of characters? It sounds like some people feel that way, that all these people would somehow be the same if gender-swapped, or that these characters just should not exist unless created by a female player. Which is quite frankly ridiculous.

"Hey guys, let's play a game full of wonder and fantasy, where anything is possible if you can only imagine it. But don't play a girl, that's just wrong."

Silkspinner
2013-12-16, 04:24 PM
In D&D you're writing a story, developing a character. Writers do that all the time, and they certainly don't limit themselves to just male or female.

GAThraawn
2013-12-16, 05:27 PM
I've imagined. I can't imagine myself being particularly bothered about it.

Imagine, if you will, a precocious teenage girl playing a dwarf who oils his muscles, trims his beard and walks around in leather pants. Now imagine two women dressed as the Doctor and Dean Winchester, and entering your game to turn it into a slash-fic of those two characters.

That's the reality I game in. When there are dudes dressed as maids at the table, along with women with beards and underage girls in little else than underwear, and I look like Alice Cooper in a tuxedo, this kind of thing slides past really easy.

Yes, well as long as everybody at the table is comfortable with what's happening, that's all that really matters. I don't have an issue with players gender-swapping, but it can cause problems if they're doing so primarily to play a hyper-sexualized character when that's not what the other players want to have to play with. I'm not terribly fond of being hit on in RPGs, even when it was my partner that was doing so, never mind some dude I've never met before.

kyoryu
2013-12-16, 07:00 PM
So, personally, I've seen males-playing-females and had it not been a problem. I've also had it be very much a problem.

I'm male, and have played female characters as well.

If a new player asks to cross-play, I kind of tend to watch their behavior around it a bit more. If a player I've played with before does the same, they get much less scrutiny.

*In general*, my *personal* policy is to only engage in cross-gender play with groups where I have an established presence and who have a comfort level with me.

CombatOwl
2013-12-16, 07:17 PM
Eh, I just roll for it if I'm rolling for stats, height/weight, and other characteristics. But I've also been known to roll for class and race too...

GungHo
2013-12-17, 09:45 AM
I'm still not convinced that there are compelling reasons for a guy to play a female character in the kinds of games I play (D&D, heroic fantasy) though.
And we're gonna come back and say we're not convinced that there are compelling reasons for a guy not to play a female character in the kinds of games you play. There's no compelling reason to play the game in the base case except for "this is fun."

Your only real argument against someone playing someone of the opposite gender seems to be that it squicks you out for some reason that you're not really sharing. My only real argument is that I don't really care that it bothers you or why it bothers you. If I think of a fun character I want to play (e.g. Buffy the Tapestry Slayer), that's what I'm gonna play. If it means I fail your interview, I'm gonna go play with someone else who isn't gonna tell me that I only want to play a girl because I'm weird, especially when I'm big, burly, MMA-fighting, former Marine who more than paid his manly-man dues in life.

Segev
2013-12-17, 10:21 AM
Personally, I avoid playing female characters if it's a game where I am communicating via voice to the other players and the DM. This is purely due to my own sense of immersion: the moment I hear my own low baritone/high bass voice, I have a hard time believing my character is female. I can get around this a bit when DMing because I can fall back on narrating rather than acting, but I have a harder time narrating all the time when playing a PC. Different mind-sets.

In IRC or other text-based games, I am more willing to play female characters because the text doesn't get delivered in a male voice. Immersion sustained.


I generally don't have an issue with guys wanting to play girls or vice-versa, though with a couple of exceptions, I often forget until reminded if the player at a table is cross-playing. (I have a couple friends who pull off mannerisms and vocal inflection well enough to remind just in how they speak for the characters.) A table-tent with the name of the PC and maybe (if not obvious from the name) a mars or venus symbol helps.

As to WHY you would play one gender over another? Like it or not, men and women are different, and different tropes have different impacts depending on the gender of the characters. The classic "princess running away from an arranged marriage" is easier to sell than "prince running away from an arranged marriage" because we're more used to it and most cultures emulated in D&D-esq settings are going to be male-dominated. Plus, our own culture's relatively recent backlash against traditional gender-roles in fiction has led to the "spunky action-girl princess" being a commonplace trope all its own. Its roots in traditional gender roles give it distinct flavor over the "spunky action-boy prince."

In our culture, too, we're a lot more comfortable with girls pretending to be boys (rooted both in 60s-era femanism's objection that girls should be able to wear pants, too, and in the old-fashioned notion that girls are more vulnerable than boys conflated with our idea of that being a myth of the past). Spunky action-girl princesses pretending to be (younger) spunky action-lads to protect themselves from nefarious types who would be interested in sexual predation if they knew she was female often dress up as boys, and we, as modern people, are not scandalized and don't react to it as ludicrous comedy.

Reversing that trope gender-wise is hard, because cross-dressing GUYS come off as awkward or just plain humorous. Like it or not, a guy wearing a dress isn't coming off as "empowered" the way a woman who "throws off the shackles of gender roles and wears pants" might. Moreover, it'd take a LOT of set-up to make a world where men were considered the "prey" gender in sexual relations and the "weak" gender in terms of self-defense believable on the same visceral level, to us. So you don't have the "spunky action-boy" dressing like a girl to protect his virtue nor to make it less likely that he'd be seen as a target for traveling alone or with just one other person.


None of this is meant to be judgmental, here, nor am I justifying or defending the roots of it. (That's a whole different discussion.) What I am doing is calling out reasons why certain genders for characters lend themselves better or worse to certain stories. We DO have cultural expectations, and the societies emulated in RPGs are rarely the utopian ideal of whatever special interest movement you happen to think is right. No, not even the chauvanistic/chivalric ideal of the 1950s; while the gender roles are more similar to those expectations, the ideals are NOT met because, frankly, women can be bad guys and men aren't all kind to their mothers, wives, and all members of the fairer sex.

(If you ever really want to explore why and whether a character's gender matters, invert the genders of every character in the story you're examining. Change names and style of clothing as little as possible without making it "all the characters are cross-dressing," and alter only the most essential plot points (e.g. who gets pregnant), and keep everything else - dialog especially - as identical as possible. See what events seem off-kilter or just plain weird. See which ones go from funny to offensive, or from dramatic to humorous, and how things do or do not continue to match to your expectations.

Even something as lauded as Babylon 5 will likely surprise you. One particular episode has some "ground pounders" in the army passing through the station. Garibaldi hits it off with a female soldier. They have a date. She tries to jump his bones, and when he objects because he's not looking for a one-night stand, she (relatively mildly) scolds him for wanting to hold her down and for not accepting that she just needs one-night stands because her army life keeps her moving and keeps her from knowing whether she's going to live to see a given sexual partner again.

Invert the genders, so Security Chief Michelle Geribaldi hits it of with a down-to-earth but genial male army grunt, has dinner, and HE tries to jump HER bones... Then have her say "no, I don't want a one-night stand, and I'm not ready for a relationship..." And then have the male soldier (even gently) scold her for expecting him to want more than a one-night sexual encounter...

Yeah.

Micheal Garibaldi comes off as a touch insensitive for not being comfortable with a one-night stand with the armygirl seeking some companionship for just one night. Flip the genders, though, and I doubt anybody would accuse Michelle Garibaldi of being insensitive; in fact, the armydude likely would come off as a bit of (or a lot of) a cad for seeking to use Michelle for simple sex.

This is an example where the genders of the characters absolutely mattered for how the expected tone of the scenes played out. The same can happen with PCs in games.)

Jay R
2013-12-17, 10:28 AM
Putting together the observations of several people on this thread:

Many male D&D players, especially ones with no girlfriend or wife, play female characters as an excuse to talk about sex. Based on this thread, I can see that others have run into this phenomenon as well.

If you are a male starting to play a female character, you will often be suspected of this, and people will be leery of the idea.

So either play a male character to increase their comfort level, or recognize that you are doing something they've seen done badly far more often than they've seen done well, and they are justifiably nervous. You will need to (slowly, over time) convince them that you are not what they've seen before.

Segev
2013-12-17, 10:34 AM
recognize that you are doing something they've seen done badly far more often than they've seen done well, and they are justifiably nervous. You will need to (slowly, over time) convince them that you are not what they've seen before.So, I have a Kender I'd like to play...


*ducks, runs*

Frozen_Feet
2013-12-17, 11:14 AM
A more interesting question is why people get so neurotic about sexual matters, but are okay with slaughtering of innocents. :smalltongue:

Lorsa
2013-12-17, 11:23 AM
Putting together the observations of several people on this thread:

Many male D&D players, especially ones with no girlfriend or wife, play female characters as an excuse to talk about sex. Based on this thread, I can see that others have run into this phenomenon as well.

If you are a male starting to play a female character, you will often be suspected of this, and people will be leery of the idea.

Some male players play their male characters as an excuse to talk about sex as well. They will try to hit on every barmaid they come across, or spend some of their hard-earned gold on prostitutes if the former fails. Why is this considered okay but playing a female character that would do the same not?

Amaril
2013-12-17, 11:30 AM
So basically, if we could all just get over our stupid cultural hangups that prevent us from talking openly about sex, it would also make our games better?

EDIT: I apologize for my insensitive wording above--it wasn't my intention to offend.

Hyena
2013-12-17, 11:39 AM
Why is this considered okay
Actually, it's considered to be a trait of That Guy.

Delta
2013-12-17, 11:39 AM
I'm still not convinced that there are compelling reasons for a guy to play a female character in the kinds of games I play (D&D, heroic fantasy) though.

You're coming at this the wrong way. First of all, why does there need to be a compelling reason? Second of all, what compelling reason is there to play any character?

You play the character you want to play. Wanting to play that character is by itself more than enough reason to play it. Now that doesn't mean there can't be reasons not to play a certain character (the proverbial chaotic evil necromancer in a group of LG paladins comes to mind), but that's a completely different topic since those reasons are situational. If you're playing in a setting with classical gender roles, of course options for female characters will be limited, but that doesn't mean female characters in general need "justification" any more than any other character.

I just think a lot of people are making way too big a deal out of this.

huttj509
2013-12-17, 12:22 PM
So basically, if we could all just get over our stupid cultural hangups that prevent us from talking openly about sex, it would also make our games better?

I think getting over anything described as a "stupid cultural hangup" is probably worthwhile.

If it's not stupid, it can stay. :-)

Subaru Kujo
2013-12-17, 12:39 PM
So basically, if we could all just get over our stupid cultural hangups that prevent us from talking openly about sex, it would also make our games better?

I can agree with that. Romancing the party's wizard in one of my games was absolutely hilarious in hindsight.

Note: the game didn't get too far due to the DM landing a job, but it was one of those things that brought the group closer together, strangely enough. For reference, an excerpt from our dwarf Rogue's letter to his paladin brother.


I travel now, with a human raised by dwarves. A wizard with a kind heart, an able mind, but a softness for mercy that sometimes goes against his own interest in surviving. He is a good man, almost good enough to be a dwarf were it not for his obvious human body.

There is a woman, a human as well, a follower of Cuthbert, that has many qualities that mother once had. A fine sense of justice, a fiery temper, and the ability to care for an addled minded fool. It seems she has taken a liking to the wizard, and the wizard has taken to her too. It really does remind me of mom and dad.

Scow2
2013-12-17, 12:52 PM
You're coming at this the wrong way. First of all, why does there need to be a compelling reason? Second of all, what compelling reason is there to play any character?

You play the character you want to play. Wanting to play that character is by itself more than enough reason to play it. Now that doesn't mean there can't be reasons not to play a certain character (the proverbial chaotic evil necromancer in a group of LG paladins comes to mind), but that's a completely different topic since those reasons are situational. If you're playing in a setting with classical gender roles, of course options for female characters will be limited, but that doesn't mean female characters in general need "justification" any more than any other character.

I just think a lot of people are making way too big a deal out of this.
I want to play Naked Demon Killing Catgirls in fantasy games because I find them fun. Most people don't want to play with a naked catgirl in the party, though, regardless of how good she is at killing demons.

Kalmageddon
2013-12-17, 01:05 PM
In my experience, there are two things to consider:
Is the guy about to play a female character going to play a teenage nymphomaniac bisexual girl with huge boobs?

If not, does having a female character in the campaign fits the setting or it would just create a whole new level of problems because of sexism and other stuff that is intrinsic in certain settings?

If the answer is again negative, sure let them play whatever they want.

With that said, I personally have huge problems roleplaying with female character played by male players, since it's kinda hard for me to ignore the fact that said player is often a bearded man in his mid 30's, possibly with a balding head. If he tries to put on a voice, it gets even worse.
So basically, immersion problems. It's the same reason why, when I'm the GM, I only roleplay male npcs in first person and everything else in third person. I think it makes it a little bit easier for everyone at the table.

Honest Tiefling
2013-12-17, 01:06 PM
I suggest, like many others, just to talk to the DM. I think that if you are taking the time to make sure others will be okay and not uncomfortable with the situation, you will be less likely to be That Guy.

Also, if sex is so unimportant, then why does it matter what I play? I don't make all of my characters all dark haired, pale skinned devastatingly dashing men, after all. My characters don't resemble me in many ways. If it matters as much as hair color in the end then it shouldn't really matter.

However, I find that the problem really isn't that a guy is playing a female, or vice-versa. Its that groups want to avoid That Guy. And even if they play a male, I find that Those Guys are often quite bad at either roleplaying, or not being a jerk in the games. They very often, don't care that some people don't want that type of game and force it anyway.

Dimers
2013-12-17, 01:10 PM
I want to play Naked Demon Killing Catgirls in fantasy games because I find them fun. Most people don't want to play with a naked catgirl in the party, though, regardless of how good she is at killing demons.

Huh. I personally feel that catgirl is a *great* kind of naked to have in the party. Hybrid-form werewolf is even better, but that's no disparagement against catgirl.

Maybe the people you've brought this up with all actually want to play demons?

Forrestfire
2013-12-17, 01:41 PM
Huh. I personally feel that catgirl is a *great* kind of naked to have in the party. Hybrid-form werewolf is even better, but that's no disparagement against catgirl.

Maybe the people you've brought this up with all actually want to play demons?

I imagine that he meant a catgirl more in the style of what you see in anime (that is, a normal human with cat ears and maybe claws and a tail).

GungHo
2013-12-17, 01:44 PM
Is the guy about to play a female character going to play a teenage nymphomaniac bisexual girl with huge boobs?
Who actually does this? Who really runs into this all the time?


If not, does having a female character in the campaign fits the setting or it would just create a whole new level of problems because of sexism and other stuff that is intrinsic in certain settings?
What sort of sexism are we talking about? What sort of sexism do you make intrinsic in your campaigns? Why is that sexism intrinsic?


With that said, I personally have huge problems roleplaying with female character played by male players, since it's kinda hard for me to ignore the fact that said player is often a bearded man in his mid 30's, possibly with a balding head. If he tries to put on a voice, it gets even worse.
Imagine harder.

And putting on stupid voices is putting on stupid voices. I don't do it. All my characters sound like they're big bastards from Texas. Your imagination is just gonna have figure out to make me sound like a young woman from Imaginationland with an Imaginese accent. It's not like anyone expects you to speak in tongues to play a monster or use a PA system to speak as a deity.

Icewraith
2013-12-17, 01:50 PM
I think getting over anything described as a "stupid cultural hangup" is probably worthwhile.

If it's not stupid, it can stay. :-)

It's really easy to call someone else's social/cultural/religious/moral/ethical/mental code/behavior/tradition/attitude/traumatic experience a "stupid cultural hangup" and expect them to get over it.

Here's a pretty good rule of thumb:

Is some part of your character's attitude, background, ability, personality, or your method of roleplaying that character adversely affecting one or more of the other people at your table's ability to enjoy the game?

If so, are there any simple changes you could make to reduce this aspect of your character?

(look man, that voice you do is really annoying and hurts my ears, could you please find some other way to have your character speak?)

(from now on any attempt to pick up women by the Bard will be handled by the phrase "bow-chika-bow-wow" and rolling a d20. This is taking up too much time and it gets boring and awkward for me and everyone else at the table.)

If there are no simple solutions, would it be possible for you to play a character that doesn't cause these issues or introduce worse ones?

(I don't think your CE dread necromancer is really a good fit for our mostly LG party)

Does the problem occur across multiple characters- i.e. is it a player issue?
(Please stop hitting on my character. It's getting creepy.)

If so, it may be time to remove a troublesome player from the group.

Everyone's table is different, but if you bring a character to a table that causes issues at that table (even if it would be fine at someone else's table), you either need to resolve the issues, change the character, or leave.

Edit: Gungho, as the average age of the people at the table approaches 15, the probability of such a character appearing approaches 1.

INoKnowNames
2013-12-17, 01:53 PM
Huh. I personally feel that catgirl is a *great* kind of naked to have in the party. Hybrid-form werewolf is even better, but that's no disparagement against catgirl.

Depending on how much hair the catgirl has, they aren't even actually naked! (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FurIsClothing)

Princess Peach from Mario. Princess Zelda from... well, the Legend of Zelda. Samus Aran of Metroid (at least pre Other-M). Lara Croft from Tomb Raider. Half the cast of Final Fantasy. Plenty of awesome female playable characters in all sorts of video games* have helped me pretty much not be sexist at all, at least in this regard. If I want to play a good character, their gender is only one aspect of their personality, and shouldn't be a problem period. I might be a guy, but that doesn't mean my character has to be a guy, or have a gender in the first place! I actually have one character I've been dying to play for two years on this forum, but I've never really had the chance to just yet...

That said, The only thing that is a problem is playing something that makes it impossible for someone else in your group to play, and if it comes to that, then figure out if you're playing the right thing, or playing with the right people, and correct the problem. Someone upset with someone else crossplaying but okay if a guy plays a murderous, rapist sociopath might not be someone I feel I would prefer to keep my company.

Although, I can understand being weirded out by a 40 year old man with a beard playing a 20 year old woman and shattering emersion with her by trying and failing to do her voice, but we don't punish for the effort.

*not saying that some of those characters don't have lots of flaws in and of themselves. Just saying they've helped me be completely at peace with a hero from any background or gender, with any personality they choose.

Delta
2013-12-17, 01:58 PM
I want to play Naked Demon Killing Catgirls in fantasy games because I find them fun. Most people don't want to play with a naked catgirl in the party, though, regardless of how good she is at killing demons.

If Catgirls are a valid race in the setting and fits the campaign, and her going naked is either an accepted cultural thing or you can live with the setting reacting appropriately if it's not, you can play that Naked Demon Killing Catgirl anytime as far as I'm concerned.

Actually, that character already sounds a lot more interesting than the next run-of-the-mill, six-foot-something warrior without any meaningful background or personality, and I don't say that because of the "naked" part.

Amaril
2013-12-17, 02:13 PM
It's really easy to call someone else's social/cultural/religious/moral/ethical/mental code/behavior/tradition/attitude/traumatic experience a "stupid cultural hangup" and expect them to get over it.

Well now that you put it like that, I can totally see how my comment might have been offensive to a lot of people, and for that I apologize--it wasn't my intention to hurt anybody. It's just my personal opinion that the world would be a better place if people were more willing to be open and honest about stuff related to sex.

Isamu Dyson
2013-12-17, 02:44 PM
People are still making a fuss about players, in general, assuming the roles of characters with genders different than their own?

Forehead, meet desk :smallconfused:.

Scow2
2013-12-17, 02:50 PM
People are still making a fuss about players, in general, assuming the roles of characters with genders different than their own?

Forehead, meet desk :smallconfused:.There are still and always will be people who's use their loins for character inspiration. Power fantasies aren't the ONLY fantasies people like to play out.

Kalmageddon
2013-12-17, 02:58 PM
Who actually does this? Who really runs into this all the time?


What sort of sexism are we talking about? What sort of sexism do you make intrinsic in your campaigns? Why is that sexism intrinsic?


Imagine harder.

And putting on stupid voices is putting on stupid voices. I don't do it. All my characters sound like they're big bastards from Texas. Your imagination is just gonna have figure out to make me sound like a young woman from Imaginationland with an Imaginese accent. It's not like anyone expects you to speak in tongues to play a monster or use a PA system to speak as a deity.

Since you like questions so much, I'll give you one: what's your problem?

I've expressed my personal opinion and experience on the matter, I can talk about it further if you want, but you come across as confrontational and unwilling to consider that I might have a point, which really doesn't make me want to answer any of your points, since it would just result in more arguing and nothing constructive.

If this was your attempt at asking clarifications about my vewpoint, try again with a different attitude. Until then, goodbye.

Coidzor
2013-12-17, 03:08 PM
The only issues I have with it is that it needs to be made clear and without the use of a horribly grating falsetto or anything to give the impression that this is a fetish of the player or an excuse for them to troll the other players by constantly making things sexual or hitting on them.

So, as long as the player isn't being that guy, I wouldn't care and the groups I've known wouldn't care, either. There's going to be some people who are uncomfortable with the very concept without any actual questionable behavior, but, eh, they tend to not be the kind of people that I would want to play with anyway, since it seems to be indicative of other arbitrary limiters to the game I won't like or agree with or, worse, demonstrate a general lack of willingness to work with others to realize a concept.


If not, does having a female character in the campaign fits the setting or it would just create a whole new level of problems because of sexism and other stuff that is intrinsic in certain settings?

:smallconfused: I can't think of anything other than FATAL or Wheel of Time that has much sexism intrinsic to the setting(and even then, aside from FATAL it's hardly insurmountable because the designers generally realize that people who aren't troglodytes occasionally want to play female characters or are even women themselves), so the real question would be why the DM's homebrew setting is so sexist or why they're adding in extra sexism to published settings in the first place.


Who actually does this? Who really runs into this all the time?

Teen boys of the silly variety. People who are creating a gag character in order to troll. No idea who'd run into it all the time though.


What sort of sexism are we talking about? What sort of sexism do you make intrinsic in your campaigns? Why is that sexism intrinsic?

The more infamous examples are ye olde rape-obsessed DMs that sometimes get brought up every now and then.


It's really easy to call someone else's social/cultural/religious/moral/ethical/mental code/behavior/tradition/attitude/traumatic experience a "stupid cultural hangup" and expect them to get over it.

Better to erode the bad opinion by demonstrating its flaws and showing that it's wrong than to call them out as wrongheaded, even if it is an accurate assessment, as the one can effect change and the other makes them even more actively resistant to information that would change their minds.


Some male players play their male characters as an excuse to talk about sex as well. They will try to hit on every barmaid they come across, or spend some of their hard-earned gold on prostitutes if the former fails. Why is this considered okay but playing a female character that would do the same not?

It's not to my knowledge. It's considered slightly more OK than going out of one's way to hit on other players in order to try to troll them by freaking them out.


So basically, if we could all just get over our stupid cultural hangups that prevent us from talking openly about sex, it would also make our games better?

Take away the word stupid for a moment(better yet, toss it out altogether), or even cultural hangups, and call it taboo or custom or whatever. There are, in all likelihood, lots of things that could be improved by having the ability to have a frank and open dialogue about sex and sexual issues, really, since silence about a subject can lead to deaths and abuse.

GungHo
2013-12-17, 03:33 PM
Since you like questions so much, I'll give you one: what's your problem?
For the first section, my problem is that I have a hard time believing that "the guy about to play a female character going to play a teenage nymphomaniac bisexual girl with huge boobs" is a common enough occurance that it warrants a real concern when someone says that they're going to play a character of another gender to cause concern unless you've seen that performance out of that person before, and yet I've seen this theme brought up several times in this thread and other threads. Maybe because I'm older I don't run into that type of thing very much. But, I've been at this since the old days, and I can count on a couple of fingers the number of times someone really kept going back to that well enough that it really became a problem. Moreover, and again, maybe it's another experience thing, I've certainly never received a lot of rancor when I noted that they might be better to go with a different theme. However, despite that experience, and I've played with people from all around the world, I still see people coming back to worrying about the oversexualization of female characters. I'm directly confronting my own cognitive dissonance by asking if that really, truly happens all the time of if it's just a war story that's been told and retold to the point where it has a life of its own.

For the second section, that one was a real question. What really is intrinsic in the sexism in your campaigns that you'd say it's better not to have a female member of the party? And what type of sexism is it? Is it "they're gonna tell you to stay in the kitchen", or "you're gonna have to prove over and over again that you're the equal of any man" or is it "I'm gonna have your character victimized". I've seen all three represented on this board, so I don't really know where you were going with that. If it's the victimization tack, I'm really not sure why you'd do that, assuming you're in control of the development of the campaign.

The third section, while admittedly over sarcastic, is me not understanding why the voices thing is a big deal. You'd mentioned it specifically as an issue with the male playing female. You're able to make the leap of them playing monsters, elves, dwarves, orcs, and everything else. Why is it hard to make the leap of them being a man or woman in addition to the rest? Again, myself, I don't do voices. I never will. I have other players who do... they like doing that. But some folks are never gonna like doing voices, either because they're not good at it or they feel ridiculous doing it. Does that make them less worthy of a player? I don't think it should, though I've admitted my own bias as to why.

Sorry for pissing you off.

Icewraith
2013-12-17, 03:46 PM
Your disagreement on an internet forum based on your opinions and the people at your table is insulting to me personally and my opinions based on the people at my table.

This whole discussion is absent of context.

Some people are really good at RPing different gender characters. Some people are not. Some people are using the RPG to play and explore interesting characters or tell interesting stories. Some people are (consciously or unconsciously) using the RPG to fulfil needs better left to a psychologist's couch. Some people aren't bothered by opposite gender RP. Opposite gender RP is immersion breaking for other people, or bothers them for reasons that may be reasonable to everyone else or may be unreasonable.

I have experienced or have been all of these people at a gaming table at some point. My attitude is that it's fine right up to the point where it's not. In general I'm all for opposite gender RP, but there exist tables where the player dynamics are such that it is probably best to just ban it or boot players.

Some people can't handle it. Some people can't handle being at a table with someone who can't handle it. Some people have permanent mental scarring and other people's approach to it causes them mental anguish. Some people are jerks. Some people have issues with the way sexuality is expressed in society (liberal or conservative) and some people end up on the sex offender registry later in life (not kidding).

So everyone who's saying "it sucks, don't do it"... it doesn't always suck, and there are people who definitely should be allowed to play a character of the opposite gender. And everyone who says "it's fine, get over it"... it can be badly done, immature, disgusting, or horrifyingly creepy. It can come from someone that you wouldn't expect would end up being a problem. Sex is a touchy (hah) subject, and anything even tangentially related to it (like character gender) can either add or detract from the experience of your game.

So yeah, generally go for it, but immediately stop it if it becomes an issue.

Coidzor
2013-12-17, 04:26 PM
Is this really restricted to female characters and female players? I universally hate teenager-and-younger characters in most games simply because they tend to be completely insane (which, of course, is well-grounded in reality so it's not even wrong, but that doesn't make them much less annoying in my experience).

What's so crazy about young adults that are out to make a place for themselves in the world? Considering adult age for humans is 15 and then add in between 1 and several years for gaining their first level in a PC class, you could very well end up with a group of 16-19 (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm#age) year old first level adventurers just from everyone rolling humans. Heck, if you're going by the tables you can't have a first level rogue, sorcerer, or barbarian that's human and not a teenager.

IIRC, goblins and kobolds are even worse in that regard, but it's debateable if they have a teenager phase outside of OotS.


Personal example? Because your character wants to have children, is presented with the opportunity to change their body into something else entirely, and decides to get pregnant before going ahead with that for the opportunity to bear children from their own body rather than the one they choose for it to become. The child is of an endangered bloodline, and that bloodline's continued existence maintains one of the wards on a powerful artifact gravely important to the functioning of a major city.

... Sometimes pregnancy is indeed a factor in a game.

So they're obligated to breed in order that there be creatures of X bloodline, but they want to stop being a creature of X bloodline themselves? :smallconfused:


And everyone who says "it's fine, get over it"... it can be badly done, immature, disgusting, or horrifyingly creepy.

Already got'cha covered, hoss. :smallwink:

Waar
2013-12-17, 05:16 PM
Hi, so I'm in a bit of a conundrum. I really enjoy roleplaying as female characters, mostly because for some reason, whatever they may be, I make them more interesting than my male counterparts. I'm going to be roleplaying with a new group, and I'm rather worried about how they may react if I make a girl character. I guess what I'm looking for is maybe some opinions on the matter, perhaps with people who have more experience than I do with dealing with a new group and maybe some advice on how to introduce the idea that I'm going to be playing a girl.

Also, we are doing a Star Wars RP. I don't know the system, and the group of guys I'm playing with I haven't known for more than a month.

Thanks.

So in a setting which (I persume) allow you to play both aliens and droids, your main worry is gender? :smalltongue: (seriously thou, your choice of species should be able to have a much greater impact than your characters gender, if you let it)

CombatOwl
2013-12-17, 05:58 PM
The classic "princess running away from an arranged marriage" is easier to sell than "prince running away from an arranged marriage" because we're more used to it and most cultures emulated in D&D-esq settings are going to be male-dominated.

I'm sorry, but what? It's pretty easy to imagine a situation where that prince really doesn't want to get married. Maybe he wants to do some adventuring? Maybe he is married but "volunteers" to do some military campaigning because his wife is a shrew who the laws and customs of his kingdom don't allow him to divorce/kill easily? Maybe the marriage is politically arranged and he's got a deep and abiding hatred for the kingdom his wife comes from (of which his father does not care)? Maybe he's gay? Lots of reasons, really.

Reasons every bit as interesting, for that matter.


Plus, our own culture's relatively recent backlash against traditional gender-roles in fiction has led to the "spunky action-girl princess" being a commonplace trope all its own. Its roots in traditional gender roles give it distinct flavor over the "spunky action-boy prince."

Pretty sure the princely action hero predates the action-girl princess trope by about a thousand years.


In our culture, too, we're a lot more comfortable with girls pretending to be boys (rooted both in 60s-era femanism's objection that girls should be able to wear pants, too, and in the old-fashioned notion that girls are more vulnerable than boys conflated with our idea of that being a myth of the past). Spunky action-girl princesses pretending to be (younger) spunky action-lads to protect themselves from nefarious types who would be interested in sexual predation if they knew she was female often dress up as boys, and we, as modern people, are not scandalized and don't react to it as ludicrous comedy.

Really the rationale for that makes a whole lot less sense in the typical fantasy settings people actually play, which are by and large without great gender prejudice. Women pretending to be men in classical fantasy literature is about entry into an empowered class--that makes no sense whatsoever in a setting like Forgotten Realms, Eberron, or Golarion, where women aren't any less powerful socially.


Reversing that trope gender-wise is hard, because cross-dressing GUYS come off as awkward or just plain humorous. Like it or not, a guy wearing a dress isn't coming off as "empowered" the way a woman who "throws off the shackles of gender roles and wears pants" might. Moreover, it'd take a LOT of set-up to make a world where men were considered the "prey" gender in sexual relations and the "weak" gender in terms of self-defense believable on the same visceral level, to us.

I guess, but it's also kind of hard to put the social impact of magic on a "visceral level"--when some people can throw fireballs at will, those people should be utterly terrifying to normal people. To be honest, gender relations would necessarily be greatly different in a setting with actual magic and real monsters. What's the point in coming up with sexist ideologies when men and women are equally capable of appealing to divine power, or calling down the most powerful arcane spells? It just doesn't matter at that point--and it's hard to justify societies in such a setting creating class divisions along those lines.

On the other hand, it's also kind of hard to understand how grinding feudalism could exist in a world where any random peasant can be born with sorcerous magic. You'd think that a nontrivial number of said sorcerers would band together to free their families from the domination of their local lords. If even one of those sorcerers got to mid levels, he would have a pretty good shot at overthrowing his feudal masters.


So you don't have the "spunky action-boy" dressing like a girl to protect his virtue nor to make it less likely that he'd be seen as a target for traveling alone or with just one other person.

Given the complete indifference the D&D universe gives towards sex, gender roles, and the insane power curve of any given individual (regardless of gender), it's hard to see why women in a D&D setting would even need to dress like a man to protect their virtue. Seems like armor and a polearm would go a lot further. Or, you know, magic.

Coidzor
2013-12-17, 06:29 PM
Well, there's always thinking it's better to not have people have the chance to develop the idea that you've got some kinda Red Sonja deal going on rather than have to deal with unwanted, extra fights that don't give much in the way of loot.

Heliomance
2013-12-17, 07:26 PM
Some male players play their male characters as an excuse to talk about sex as well. They will try to hit on every barmaid they come across, or spend some of their hard-earned gold on prostitutes if the former fails. Why is this considered okay but playing a female character that would do the same not?

I seduce the priestess!

Hell, one of my friends once played a character under a curse that meant they flipped a coin each morning to see which sex they'd wake up as. Sadly, I wasn't in that campaign myself, but it wasn't done for titillation, and was one of the more popular characters of the game. If memory serves, the character treated the curse like a minor irritation that they'd quite like to get rid of at some point, but didn't feel any particular sense of urgency about. I think they did eventually get cured, but leaving them as the opposite sex to how they'd started out. The player has a reputation for playing bizarre, quirky characters, and we wouldn't have him any other way.

Sith_Happens
2013-12-17, 07:38 PM
Is the guy about to play a female character going to play a teenage nymphomaniac bisexual girl with huge boobs?

Funny, both of the nymphomaniac bisexual girls with huge boobs I've encountered in-game so far were played by women.

Tengu_temp
2013-12-17, 07:41 PM
The only issue I can think of when it comes to guys playing female characters is that some dudes just play them as horrible stereotypes, immature sexual fantasies and/or an opportunity to make sexist jokes. But, honestly, unless this player is really green and doesn't know better, he's probably that kind of guy you don't want around your table anyway.

Other than that, there's no issue. If male players playing female characters break your immersion, than you're most likely bull****ting yourself, because I never heard anyone say this about the DM pretending to be a freakin' dragon. If male players playing female characters make you feel uncomfortable, then grow the **** up and stop being so close-minded. Seriously.


Hell, one of my friends once played a character under a curse that meant they flipped a coin each morning to see which sex they'd wake up as. Sadly, I wasn't in that campaign myself, but it wasn't done for titillation, and was one of the more popular characters of the game. If memory serves, the character treated the curse like a minor irritation that they'd quite like to get rid of at some point, but didn't feel any particular sense of urgency about. I think they did eventually get cured, but leaving them as the opposite sex to how they'd started out. The player has a reputation for playing bizarre, quirky characters, and we wouldn't have him any other way.

Sounds like someone likes Ranma 1/2 a lot.

Heliomance
2013-12-17, 07:44 PM
Sounds like someone likes Ranma 1/2 a lot.

Wouldn't surprise me, he is quite into anime.

Kajhera
2013-12-17, 08:13 PM
So they're obligated to breed in order that there be creatures of X bloodline, but they want to stop being a creature of X bloodline themselves? :smallconfused:

No, the father's bloodline was the important one in this case, she just also wished for a child who was hers by blood / the grandchild of her parents.

GungHo
2013-12-17, 08:27 PM
What's so crazy about young adults that are out to make a place for themselves in the world? Considering adult age for humans is 15 and then add in between 1 and several years for gaining their first level in a PC class, you could very well end up with a group of 16-19 (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm#age) year old first level adventurers just from everyone rolling humans. Heck, if you're going by the tables you can't have a first level rogue, sorcerer, or barbarian that's human and not a teenager.
There's also nothing crazy about rolling up The Expendables or the team from Red... a bunch of middle-age or over-the-hill veterans who are brought back together to kick evil in the teeth one last time. It even gives you the chance to have a death scene where you say, "I... was... two... days... from... retire... men... uuugh."

Coidzor
2013-12-17, 08:37 PM
There's also nothing crazy about rolling up The Expendables or the team from Red... a bunch of middle-age or over-the-hill veterans who are brought back together to kick evil in the teeth one last time. It even gives you the chance to have a death scene where you say, "I... was... two... days... from... retire... men... uuugh."

That seems like it'd be especially nifty for an E6 game, I must admit. :smallbiggrin:


No, the father's bloodline was the important one in this case, she just also wished for a child who was hers by blood / the grandchild of her parents.

Ahh, ok. I think I get ya now.

AMFV
2013-12-17, 10:15 PM
I'll take "Things Gauranteed to Start an Argument" for 1000 GP Trebeck.

Seriously it's not really that important, I've only once had a character who was male play as a female character and it was not awkward in the least. I don't see that it would really be awkward. If the player in question rolls up a nymphomaniac bisexual catgirl, then his friends are likely similar level of maturity, and them's the breaks as far as your game goes. So I see no problem with it in even the most intense scenario.



There's also nothing crazy about rolling up The Expendables or the team from Red... a bunch of middle-age or over-the-hill veterans who are brought back together to kick evil in the teeth one last time. It even gives you the chance to have a death scene where you say, "I... was... two... days... from... retire... men... uuugh."

I've had this same idea, I thought it would be awesome, I've always wanted to run a campaign about "getting the gang back together" but I've never had the opportunity to.

Axinian
2013-12-17, 10:24 PM
I pretty much always play girls when I'm a PC. It usually doesn't come up because my characters would probably have similar personalities regardless of their sex.

I basically just do it because of habit, I started doing it because I was in a lot of groups that were pretty much all male, so I just wanted to inject some diversity into the cast. Now though, my groups usually include female players who player female characters, as well as other males who play female characters. This has led to multiple parties that are mostly female, which is a nice change of pace when we imagine what the party looks like.

I've never had a problem with "cross-playing," as it were, and I probably never will. I've never really encountered the buxom nymphomaniac type, the groups I'm in are usually more mature than that.

Kalmageddon
2013-12-18, 04:11 AM
It blows my mind that you guys think "sexism" is something that should never be reasonably present in any setting, when sexism is very much a thing even today in many countries.

Let's say I want to DM a "knights of the round table" campaign. Females can't be knighted, thus I would tell anyone that wants to play a female character to please roll a male character instead, to respect the setting and premise of the campaign.

Or let's say we are playing a campaign set in WW1 where the players are soldiers lost behind enemy lines. Again, no female soldiers.

In both of these scenarios a player could maybe play a female if she was pretending to be a male the whole time, but honestly I wouldn't want to bother with that clichè and thus I would simply veto a female character because it's easier. Yeah, playing a ttrpg is not a job, you know? So it's perfectly reasonable that the DM might want to not bother with complicated issues.
Now if this is a problem for you, great, luckly you and I don't need to play togheter. But otherwise as you can see you don't need to play FATAL to have situations where a female character would be reasonably inappropriate.

And the same could be true for a male character, by the way. If the premise of the campaign was "amazons fighting their enemies" a male character would be a bit out of place, don't you think? Sexism isn't always a bad thing in fiction, justs like racism isn't. Nobody complains when almost every fantasy setting ever has this or that race fighting eachother for no good reason outside of racial hatered, like orcs and elves, and yet on this forum even aknowledging that sexism exist is the recipe for a ****storm.
Seriously guys.

With all of that said, I would point out that neither the "nympho character" nor the "setting issues" were my main points for not wanting a male to play a female character, even if both of these are very valid concerns. My main problem with male playing female character is that I don't have a suspension of disbelief strong enough to not have my immersion broken when a dude plays a girl in first person. If others don't have this problem, great, that's awesome. I do. And this doesn't make me any less deserving to sit at the gaming table then anybody else, nor any less deserving of respect for my personal limitations.
Of course if someone wanted to play a female character anyway I wouldn't leave the campaign nor I would complain about it all the time, but the OP is basically concerned as to what could be a good reason to not play a female character in this campaign. I gave him two: setting and immersion problems of the other players at the table. These problems could be present or they could not. The OP should make sure of it before starting the campaign.

Delta
2013-12-18, 04:16 AM
Funny, both of the nymphomaniac bisexual girls with huge boobs I've encountered in-game so far were played by women.

That's a good point and one reason I'm always puzzled by the question of whether someone can play a female character "well". How do you play a female character "well"? I have never, not EVER, heard any player, male or female, being accused of not being able to play a male character well. Sure, they may be effeminate, over the top violent, angsty, whatever, but no one ever called in question whether they're a "correct" male. As soon as female characters are involved, that question gets thrown around all the time, because most people (especially male, but by far not exclusively) have a very clear expectation of what a "good" woman is supposed to look and act like, and if the character doesn't abide by those expectations, she's suddenly considered not a "well played" woman, even though in reality, probably a very high percentage of real females in the world wouldn't fit those expectations either.

There are over three billion women in the world, simple probability states that one of them will be pretty close to any female character I design (or a modern-day, human equivalent of it)

So long story short, I think that whenever you think about whether another player plays a woman "well", try to ask yourself if you'd ask the same question if the character or player was of the other gender, and if not, maybe that's something you could work on changing. Of course, this doesn't mean there can't be female characters that gets on everyone's nerves and simply doesn't fit the group or campaign, but in my experience, the "female" part most often doesn't play a big role in that.

Lorsa
2013-12-18, 04:17 AM
There's also nothing crazy about rolling up The Expendables or the team from Red... a bunch of middle-age or over-the-hill veterans who are brought back together to kick evil in the teeth one last time. It even gives you the chance to have a death scene where you say, "I... was... two... days... from... retire... men... uuugh."

There's nothing crazy about that, no. They probably aren't level 1. A level 1 adventurer character who is NOT a teenager or at the very least early 20's is kind of a special case I think (and somewhat learning impaired?).

Kalmageddon
2013-12-18, 04:21 AM
Other than that, there's no issue. If male players playing female characters break your immersion, than you're most likely bull****ting yourself, because I never heard anyone say this about the DM pretending to be a freakin' dragon. If male players playing female characters make you feel uncomfortable, then grow the **** up and stop being so close-minded. Seriously.

Because insulting someone like you did is so open minded, right?
Beside, dragons are not a real thing, females are. No it doesn't bother me when someone plays a dragon, because it's the only way to have a dragon in the campaign. Females on the other hand are something I interact with far more often and have a clear idea of.
I also never said that it makes me feel uncomfortable, I said that it breaks my immersion. That's hardly something that prevents me from having fun while roleplaying, it just prevents me from taking that character seriously, which sometimes could be a shame if we are having some good roleplaying moments.

I think you are simply humiliating yourself with your inability to accept other people's differences and personal tastes and you are proving to be far more close minded then I am.
Having to use personal insults doesn't speak highly of you, either.
So, good job. That was entrataining to read.

Delta
2013-12-18, 04:22 AM
Let's say I want to DM a "knights of the round table" campaign. Females can't be knighted, thus I would tell anyone that wants to play a female character to please roll a male character instead, to respect the setting and premise of the campaign.

Brienne of Tarth. Or Jeanne D'Arc, if you want a real world example. Sure, they were both not knighted, but they both very much played an important role in a setting usually deemed fit only for male knights.


Or let's say we are playing a campaign set in WW1 where the players are soldiers lost behind enemy lines. Again, no female soldiers.

Depends on where you set it, but there were TONS of women working with local resistances and militias during both world wars.

Not saying that a female character always fits every setting, just giving some examples where it can often work in settings not usually considered fit for that, of course I as a GM or player would always warn the player of the female character that said character would face bias and hardships because of the inherent sexism in the setting that her male comrades won't have to deal with, and of the player doesn't like that, recommend playing a male character.

Delta
2013-12-18, 04:25 AM
There's nothing crazy about that, no. They probably aren't level 1. A level 1 adventurer character who is NOT a teenager or at the very least early 20's is kind of a special case I think (and somewhat learning impaired?).

Well it's pretty easy to pull off in D&D, where class levels basically determine everything, you could make a case for a 30+ year old peasant who picks up his first level of Fighter and only then becomes a mechanically relevant part to the campaign setting. (yes, I know in theory he should have some Commoner levels or something but I think it's quite acceptable to "lose" those when you gain class levels)

It's a lot harder to do that in more "simulationist" systems where you'd just be stuck with a 30+ year old who for some reason never learned anything in his life.

Kalmageddon
2013-12-18, 04:30 AM
Brienne of Tarth. Or Jeanne D'Arc, if you want a real world example. Sure, they were both not knighted, but they both very much played an important role in a setting usually deemed fit only for male knights.



Depends on where you set it, but there were TONS of women working with local resistances and militias during both world wars.

Not saying that a female character always fits every setting, just giving some examples where it can often work in settings not usually considered fit for that, of course I as a GM or player would always warn the player of the female character that said character would face bias and hardships because of the inherent sexism in the setting that her male comrades won't have to deal with, and of the player doesn't like that, recommend playing a male character.

You are missing the point.
I'm not saying it's not possibile, I'm saying that it's reasonable to expect the charactes to be males in that context and that a DM that doesn't want to tackle sexism in-game might want to take the easy way out and simply ask his players not to play a female.

You can play anything anywhere, including a Power Ranger in a Call of Cthulhu campaign, this doesn't mean that you should. It depends on what the other people at the gaming table want.
If everyone else is cool with the premise of the setting then you should consider playing along and not trying to force others to accept what you want.

Honest Tiefling
2013-12-18, 05:12 AM
Perhaps if the DM didn't want to tackle sexism, he shouldn't be using sexist campaign settings. The Court of King Arthur and WWI are going to have tons of other 'isms' so I would be mildly surprised at not wanting to tackle one, but keeping others in mind.

TuggyNE
2013-12-18, 06:10 AM
Perhaps if the DM didn't want to tackle sexism, he shouldn't be using sexist campaign settings. The Court of King Arthur and WWI are going to have tons of other 'isms' so I would be mildly surprised at not wanting to tackle one, but keeping others in mind.

So … any game in a setting with systemic social flaws should be assumed to involve significant play that involves challenging all of those? That seems a little excessive. Rather, I'd say there should be some give and take; if the players really want to tackle some specific thing, they probably can do so, while if the DM really doesn't want to deal with all the problems of either whitewashing X out or having long campaign arcs informed by X, the players should probably steer away from that.

Or, more concretely, you can have a game in a setting with poverty, bad education, sexism, racism, slavery, Wall of the Faithless, and so forth without necessarily addressing any one of those. But if the DM really hates having to go through all the sexism stuff, then the players should probably give it a miss, while if the players really want to tear down the Wall, there can be an arc about that.

Delta
2013-12-18, 06:17 AM
So … any game in a setting with systemic social flaws should be assumed to involve significant play that involves challenging all of those? That seems a little excessive. Rather, I'd say there should be some give and take; if the players really want to tackle some specific thing, they probably can do so, while if the DM really doesn't want to deal with all the problems of either whitewashing X out or having long campaign arcs informed by X, the players should probably steer away from that.

Or, more concretely, you can have a game in a setting with poverty, bad education, sexism, racism, slavery, Wall of the Faithless, and so forth without necessarily addressing any one of those. But if the DM really hates having to go through all the sexism stuff, then the players should probably give it a miss, while if the players really want to tear down the Wall, there can be an arc about that.

I fully agree with all of that, not every aspect of the setting needs to be part of every campaign and a GM is well within his right to say "No, that character doesn't fit" as long as he remains fair.

If a female character doesn't fit, it doesn't fit. But obviously none of this depends on whether said character is being played by a male or female player, which is kind of my point.

AMFV
2013-12-18, 06:50 AM
I fully agree with all of that, not every aspect of the setting needs to be part of every campaign and a GM is well within his right to say "No, that character doesn't fit" as long as he remains fair.

If a female character doesn't fit, it doesn't fit. But obviously none of this depends on whether said character is being played by a male or female player, which is kind of my point.

This is probably a good point. The setting can be sexist, the table shouldn't be.

Frozen_Feet
2013-12-18, 06:51 AM
Sounds like someone likes Ranma 1/2 a lot.

Actually, to all people who are uncomfortable with guys playing as girl, I'd recommend reading that series from beginning to end.

Then, next time horrible stereotypes, immature sexist jokes or someone's sexual fantasies crop up, you can ask yourself "is this any worse than in Ranma ½?" After you have concluded "not really", you can keep gaming on happily as ever. :smallwink:

@Kalmageddon: I'm not against excluding character combinations for in-game reasons. There is, however, a significant difference between "there are no male Claymores, silly!" and "I don't want you playing as that because you're not X". One makes statement about values and rules of the game, the second makes a statement about the player.

Suppose we are, instead of Knights of the Round Table (which is an actual game, by the way), playing Noitahovi or Kagematsu. In the former, females hold both political and spiritual power. Men, while physically stronger, are basically under the heel of women. In the latter, only a woman is allowed to play the sole male PC, and men are are only allowed to play female characters.

Would your aversion towards crossplaying males be a good enough reason to not play these games at all?

Lorsa
2013-12-18, 06:56 AM
That's a good point and one reason I'm always puzzled by the question of whether someone can play a female character "well". How do you play a female character "well"? I have never, not EVER, heard any player, male or female, being accused of not being able to play a male character well. Sure, they may be effeminate, over the top violent, angsty, whatever, but no one ever called in question whether they're a "correct" male. As soon as female characters are involved, that question gets thrown around all the time, because most people (especially male, but by far not exclusively) have a very clear expectation of what a "good" woman is supposed to look and act like, and if the character doesn't abide by those expectations, she's suddenly considered not a "well played" woman, even though in reality, probably a very high percentage of real females in the world wouldn't fit those expectations either.

There are over three billion women in the world, simple probability states that one of them will be pretty close to any female character I design (or a modern-day, human equivalent of it)

So long story short, I think that whenever you think about whether another player plays a woman "well", try to ask yourself if you'd ask the same question if the character or player was of the other gender, and if not, maybe that's something you could work on changing. Of course, this doesn't mean there can't be female characters that gets on everyone's nerves and simply doesn't fit the group or campaign, but in my experience, the "female" part most often doesn't play a big role in that.

It's also interesting how a male GM can get away with portraying lots of women, some that might be the kind of barmaid that says yes to burly adventurers advances when a player acting the same way is considered "bad". Why are players judged by a different standard than the GM?

Some people play characters that I consider to be annoying or disruptive, but that usually has nothing to do with gender.

Knaight
2013-12-18, 07:10 AM
Because insulting someone like you did is so open minded, right?
...

I think you are simply humiliating yourself with your inability to accept other people's differences and personal tastes and you are proving to be far more close minded then I am.
Having to use personal insults doesn't speak highly of you, either.
So, good job. That was entrataining to read.
You do realize that this is pretty close to the "not accepting intolerance is intolerance" argument, or the "being against bigotry is bigotry towards bigots" argument?

Put bluntly, the personal tastes and differences you're highlighting are the imposition of rules to other people. It's not people deciding that they personally don't want to play characters that are of a different gender than theirs, it's that they don't want others to do so. This will come into conflict with those that want to do so, and the opinions cannot coexist within the same group. Acknowledging that they are at odds and coming down in favor of one side is not "inability to accept other people's differences", let alone close-minded. Open-minded and opinion less are not the same thing.

On a similar note, there's a difference between an insult and a criticism. Saying that someone is being close-minded about a particular issue is well within the criticism category. Had a term along the lines of "sexist douchebag" been employed instead, "insult" would be an accurate description.

AMFV
2013-12-18, 07:16 AM
You do realize that this is pretty close to the "not accepting intolerance is intolerance" argument, or the "being against bigotry is bigotry towards bigots" argument?

Put bluntly, the personal tastes and differences you're highlighting are the imposition of rules to other people. It's not people deciding that they personally don't want to play characters that are of a different gender than theirs, it's that they don't want others to do so. This will come into conflict with those that want to do so, and the opinions cannot coexist within the same group. Acknowledging that they are at odds and coming down in favor of one side is not "inability to accept other people's differences", let alone close-minded. Open-minded and opinion less are not the same thing.

As a side-note, I consider people that say they're "intolerant of intolerance" to be among the most intolerant people, at least in my experience. Bigotry as long as it doesn't effect your hiring decisions, or life decisions is pretty normal for most people.

You're stating that his viewpoint, that it breaks his immersion, an emotive experience is an inappropriate one. You're telling him that an emotional response is wrong. That's problematic at best. maybe he can't take it seriously when a guy plays as a girl, and that's not really a problem per se, that's a much a question of emotional playing as if he were wanting to play as a female character.

Now with two of those in the same group, it might be difficult, but that's part of the challenge of roleplaying, to learn to live with each others prejudices. One person has a strict sense of immersion, the other has a desire to play as a female character, those are both emotive playstyle decisions, and none of them should simply be mocked on the grounds that they are the "wrong" ones.

Kalmageddon
2013-12-18, 07:41 AM
Why are you trying to read into my statements far more then what I intend?
There is absolutely zero bigotry or intolerance in finding the sight of a manly male pretending to be a pretty princess incredibly hard to take seriously.
Which is all I'm saying.

I'm not saying that I despise those males that play female characters.
I'm not saying that it's wrong on any level outside of personal preference.
I'm not saying that I wouldn't play with a male that is roleplaying a female character.

The ONLY thing I'm saying is that, presumeably, I would have a really hard time taking his character seriously because every time I gaze upon the face of siad player, or listen to his voice, the illusion that he is his character immediatly breaks.
I've also admitted that this is a limitation with my ability to suspend my disbelief and nothing more. I don't feel hostility towards those that roleplay a different gender then their own.
I think it would be nice if someone that is going to paly with me would consider this when making a character. If he doesn't, I don't care much, I can and probably will have fun playing anyway.
If I was playing via chat or play by post I wouldn't have any problem with even the manliest of males playing a female character because obviously his phyisical appearence wouldn't factor in my ability to immerse myself in the campagin.

Is this concept too hard to grasp for you guys? Or do you have a on overwhelming need to see deeper issues in a statement that is entirely restricted to roleplaying games in person? :smallannoyed:


As a side-note, I consider people that say they're "intolerant of intolerance" to be among the most intolerant people, at least in my experience. Bigotry as long as it doesn't effect your hiring decisions, or life decisions is pretty normal for most people.

You're stating that his viewpoint, that it breaks his immersion, an emotive experience is an inappropriate one. You're telling him that an emotional response is wrong. That's problematic at best. maybe he can't take it seriously when a guy plays as a girl, and that's not really a problem per se, that's a much a question of emotional playing as if he were wanting to play as a female character.

Now with two of those in the same group, it might be difficult, but that's part of the challenge of roleplaying, to learn to live with each others prejudices. One person has a strict sense of immersion, the other has a desire to play as a female character, those are both emotive playstyle decisions, and none of them should simply be mocked on the grounds that they are the "wrong" ones.

Thank you for your understanding.
And I would point out that at no point I've said that roleplayng a female is wrong for a male, I've just said that, depending on the setting and campaign premise, it could be inappropriate (but still free of any character judgment), like if for exemple I was to run a prison campaign where all the inmates are males, something that happens irl.
Other then that, yes, I've just stated my personal preference and dared to hypotesize that it might be shared by the group of the OP and that he should check first if he wants to be considerate.

Lorsa
2013-12-18, 08:03 AM
Why are you trying to read into my statements far more then what I intend?
There is absolutely zero bigotry or intolerance in finding the sight of a manly male pretending to be a pretty princess incredibly hard to take seriously.
Which is all I'm saying.

-snip-

Is this concept too hard to grasp for you guys? Or do you have a on overwhelming need to see deeper issues in a statement that is entirely restricted to roleplaying games in person? :smallannoyed:

It is perfectly understandable to me. It does bring me some questions in regards to how your suspension of disbelief works. Why is it harder to imagine a large man as a woman than it is a dwarf? Or perhaps you have problems with dwarves (and elves) as well? Do you have similar problems with disbelief with scrawny 1.7 meters tall guys with a soft tenor voice playing large muscle-bound barbarians?

I'm not trying to accuse you of anything here actually, merely trying to understand both what your limits are and why you have issues with one over the other. Also, what about the female NPCs that are being portrayed by the GM?

Tengu_temp
2013-12-18, 08:03 AM
It blows my mind that you guys think "sexism" is something that should never be reasonably present in any setting, when sexism is very much a thing even today in many countries.


People play RPGs to have fun. If they don't want to play in a sexist setting, then you can't force it on them in the name of Muh Realism.

As for everything else you said... Yeah, I can't even be arsed to respond. Everything you say just further paints yourself in very unpleasant colors, and your attempt at pretending you don't care what I said by fakingly laughing it off and trying to take a higher moral stance doesn't fool anyone. What I said stands; if you're uncomfortable with guys playing girls on principle, grow up. And if it breaks your suspension of disbelief but a guy playing a freakin' elf or dragon doesn't, then that asks some questions about how you see gender as something that defines us more than our species.

AMFV
2013-12-18, 08:10 AM
People play RPGs to have fun. If they don't want to play in a sexist setting, then you can't force it on them in the name of Muh Realism.

As for everything else you said... Yeah, I can't even be arsed to respond. Everything you say just further paints yourself in very unpleasant colors, and your attempt at pretending you don't care what I said by fakingly laughing it off and trying to take a higher moral stance doesn't fool anyone. What I said stands; if you're uncomfortable with guys playing girls on principle, grow up. And if it breaks your suspension of disbelief but a guy playing a freakin' elf or dragon doesn't, then that asks some questions about how you see gender as something that defines us more than our species.

That's pretty harsh, there's no reason to take that tone. I mean he can have whatever ridiculous principles he wants to. Maybe I would be bothered by people roleplaying as Gnomes (many people actually have this limit in 3.5, at least in my experience), and it is immersion breaking for them. It's an emotive thing, and blaming somebody for how they feel, is the worst of bull**** that there is.

Claiming some kind of higher ground over somebody for an emotional response they have, because you don't have that particular response, is a very nasty kind of bigotry. Do you also tell depressed people to just snap out of it. Do you also tell drunks, that the solution to all of their problems is just to quit and it should be a piece of cake, because you don't drink like they do.

In belittling somebody elses' emotive responses, and viewpoints, you are participating in a form of bigotry. Even if it is a problem, even if it is a mental disorder, then you should be more sensitive for the reasons I've outlined above. I'm more inclined to think that it's a way of thinking, and not even necessarily a negative one. Everybody has unusual things that break immersion, that's just his.

Kalmageddon
2013-12-18, 08:27 AM
It is perfectly understandable to me. It does bring me some questions in regards to how your suspension of disbelief works. Why is it harder to imagine a large man as a woman than it is a dwarf? Or perhaps you have problems with dwarves (and elves) as well? Do you have similar problems with disbelief with scrawny 1.7 meters tall guys with a soft tenor voice playing large muscle-bound barbarians?

I'm not trying to accuse you of anything here actually, merely trying to understand both what your limits are and why you have issues with one over the other. Also, what about the female NPCs that are being portrayed by the GM?

Because it would be incredibly moronic if I complained about the dwarf character's player not being a dwarf irl. There are no fantasy races irl. It can't be done. We don't know how a dragon would sound.
Females on the other hand are real, which is wonderful for us all. They can and they often do play roleplaying games. Having a female at your gaming table is not impossibile.
Therefore, it's reasonable to me that having a female play a female character is prefearable, immersion-wise, then a man playing a female character.
On the other hand, if someone wants to roleplay a dragon I won't have as much problems because a dragon is something so far from reality that my expectations for his roleplaying are not going to be as strict as those that I would have for someone roleplaying a humanoid female.

But, above all else, why do I need to justify my personal taste? If I'm just really bizarre to you that's fine I guess, but really do I need to come up with a better explanation then "that's just how I feel"?
And again, I have played with males roleplaying as females in the past and it's not a big deal. I'll have fun anyway. I won't complain even once. If the character is good it's still good.
It's just my personal sense of immersion that would be challenged.
Can we please drop this now? Or do you think that my advice for the OP, "check with your group if they are cool with it first" is wrong? If so, why?


People play RPGs to have fun. If they don't want to play in a sexist setting, then you can't force it on them in the name of Muh Realism.


You are either incapable of reading my posts or simply too set in trying to demonize me.
I never forced anyone to do anything, much less play in a setting they aren't comfortable with, much less encouraged the kind of behaviour you are accusing me of. Where did you even got this from?!
I'll refrain from further judgment on you, but man... :smalleek:

Frozen_Feet
2013-12-18, 08:42 AM
You do realize that this is pretty close to the "not accepting intolerance is intolerance" argument, or the "being against bigotry is bigotry towards bigots" argument?


To be frank, anti-something isn't necessarily any more desireable than that something. It is perfectly possible to be bigoted towards bigots; the important factor is what your your unacceptance of intolerance leads you to do.

For example, I have no problems accepting a guy playing a gal breaks Kalma's immersion and makes it hard to take that player's character seriously. I know the feeling of "oh, you've got to be kidding me". But, as noted elsewhere, I don't stop my players from doing stupid moves, only illegal moves.

So the important question to Kalma is, how does your antipathy towards guys playing gals affect your scenario design, or the games you play?

AMFV
2013-12-18, 08:44 AM
To be frank, anti-something isn't necessarily any more desireable than that something. It is perfectly possible to be bigoted towards bigots; the important factor is what your your unacceptance of intolerance leads you to do.

For example, I have no problems accepting a guy playing a gal breaks Kalma's immersion and makes it hard to take that player's character seriously. I know the feeling of "oh, you've got to be kidding me". But, as noted elsewhere, I don't stop my players from doing stupid moves, only illegal moves.

So the important question to Kalma is, how does your antipathy towards guys playing gals affect your scenario design, or the games you play?

I'll field this one, since it was just discussed:



And again, I have played with males roleplaying as females in the past and it's not a big deal. I'll have fun anyway. I won't complain even once. If the character is good it's still good.
It's just my personal sense of immersion that would be challenged.
Can we please drop this now? Or do you think that my advice for the OP, "check with your group if they are cool with it first" is wrong? If so, why?

Delta
2013-12-18, 08:50 AM
But, above all else, why do I need to justify my personal taste? If I'm just really bizarre to you that's fine I guess, but really do I need to come up with a better explanation then "that's just how I feel"?

Well as soon as you use that personal preference to limit the freedom of other people, which you're doing if you're telling someone "You can't play that!" (not saying you're personally doing that, but that's what this thread is about), it's always good to justify yourself, because otherwise you just come off as arrogant and arbitrary.


Therefore, it's reasonable to me that having a female play a female character is prefearable, immersion-wise, then a man playing a female character.

I think that's the point where you lose me (and many others in this thread). I can literally not understand the reasoning behind it, much less how you can consider it "reasonable". I don't have to understand it to accept it, of course, but just be aware that what you consider obvious and "reasonable" might be anything but to someone else.

And as I have stated in another post, a lot of the heated reaction to this is that a lot of this sentiment does seem to have its root in everyday sexism (note that this does not mean I consider you sexist or anything like that). For a lot of people, it's very clearly defined in their mind what a woman is supposed" to be like, to the point where gender can become THE defining aspect. While there also many stereotypically "male" aspects, it's far more acceptable for a male to defy those, maybe you'd call him less "manly" or anything, but no one would ever dream of calling the shy, weak bookworm scholar who hides behind the strong, tough, drinking, sexually aggressive female warrior a "badly played" male, while the same is definitely not true about the warrior.

So there's a definite sexist double standard here, and considering playing female characters a kind of art form that requires some "special skill" because women are oh so different from "normal" people does help perpetuate this even if there is no conscious sexist sentiment behind it.

Kalmageddon
2013-12-18, 09:00 AM
So the important question to Kalma is, how does your antipathy towards guys playing gals affect your scenario design, or the games you play?

Ok, that's enough. :smallmad:
For the last time: I DO NOT HAVE ANY ANTHIPATY, HOSTILITY OR OTHER SIMILAR FEELINGS TOWARDS MEN PLAYING FEMALE CHARACTERS.
Therefore your question does not apply.

Spoilered for off-topic tangent:
I am disturbed by this forum sometimes. It's full of very vocal people ready to jump at the throat of anyone that expresses a divergent opinion for no good reason outside a mislpaced and distorted sense of tolerance and open-mindness.
That's not how tolerance works. That's not how open mindness works. Stop prentending to be the "good guys" when all you do is try to make feel bad those that don't think like you do. All you are doing is being intolerant yourselves and calling it something else to justify your bitterness and inability to accept that what matters is not that we all think the same way, but that we are ready to let other people live their life as they want.
You are far too eager to identify those that don't think like you as enemies, band under the banner of "tolerance" and basically use the same techniques of the groups that you apparently despise to try and make them feel wrong, inadequate and less worthy of respect then you.
I'm sure that some of the worst among you might call it "fighting fire with fire", I call it being hypocrites jerks and setting back your own supposed cause (which is also incidentally my cause, I just avoid being a **** about it). Actually I call it something far worse, but forum rules prevent me from saying it.
I'm sick of this and I'm not going to answer any more questions that are based on false assumptions.

Frozen_Feet
2013-12-18, 09:01 AM
Yeah, based on that, Kalma and I at least aren't in disagreement. If discomfort only leads you to roll eyes, then you're my kind of player. :smallamused:

But I'd like to aim the same question to others in this thread. Let's go back to the examples of Noitahovi and Kagematsu, where male-to-female crossplay is either encouraged or required. Would your antipathies or fear of "That Guy" prevent you from playing these games?

EDIT: Kalma, my intent was not to insult you. Antipathy was probably too strong a word, it was simply the first that cropped to mind. Subsitute "dislike" or other milder term to get my point. Though it doesn't matter much since you did already answer the question.

AMFV
2013-12-18, 09:09 AM
I think that's the point where you lose me (and many others in this thread). I can literally not understand the reasoning behind it, much less how you can consider it "reasonable". I don't have to understand it to accept it, of course, but just be aware that what you consider obvious and "reasonable" might be anything but to someone else.

And as I have stated in another post, a lot of the heated reaction to this is that a lot of this sentiment does seem to have its root in everyday sexism (note that this does not mean I consider you sexist or anything like that). For a lot of people, it's very clearly defined in their mind what a woman is supposed" to be like, to the point where gender can become THE defining aspect. While there also many stereotypically "male" aspects, it's far more acceptable for a male to defy those, maybe you'd call him less "manly" or anything, but no one would ever dream of calling the shy, weak bookworm scholar who hides behind the strong, tough, drinking, sexually aggressive female warrior a "badly played" male, while the same is definitely not true about the warrior.

So there's a definite sexist double standard here, and considering playing female characters a kind of art form that requires some "special skill" because women are oh so different from "normal" people does help perpetuate this even if there is no conscious sexist sentiment behind it.

The problem is that a female does have different social expectations, whether that's a product of our culture, or of hormonal things it is that way. So there is a factor to it, arguing that gender is completely a construct is moving far too much the other direction. Gender is not a construct.

I couldn't play a woman, at least not believably, I don't know, but I can't. I can't play dumb characters, I hate that, I can't tone that back down. Those are fundamental aspects of a person, their gender, their intellect, and I'm rather caught up in some of them. Now others can play characters who are dumber, or different gendered, but to imply that there is no difference is probably not exactly true. At the very least there are heavy cultural differences, and the worst, certain biological differences.



But I'd like to aim the same question to others in this thread. Let's go back to the examples of Noitahovi and Kagematsu, where male-to-female crossplay is either encouraged or required. Would your antipathies or fear of "That Guy" prevent you from playing these games?

For me, I know I'm not Kalma, but I don't think I would enjoy either of those games. I tend to play characters that are based on my perception of myself, and I don't really see myself as being feminine in any real way, that may or may not be true, but it is my perception. I would rather take a male who is under the heels of the females and play that character than a female character. I think that would be a fun role for me, since it's an interesting reversal.

Again that's my preference, but that's definitely the way I would role in those particular games. Provided I am understanding their operations correctly.

Segev
2013-12-18, 09:16 AM
I'm sorry, but what? It's pretty easy to imagine a situation where that prince really doesn't want to get married. Maybe he wants to do some adventuring? Maybe he is married but "volunteers" to do some military campaigning because his wife is a shrew who the laws and customs of his kingdom don't allow him to divorce/kill easily? Maybe the marriage is politically arranged and he's got a deep and abiding hatred for the kingdom his wife comes from (of which his father does not care)? Maybe he's gay? Lots of reasons, really.

Reasons every bit as interesting, for that matter.Never said otherwise. But look at how your examples differ from the classic "princess runs away from an arranged marriage."

Your prince "volunteered for military service" or just decides to go off adventuring. Culturally and politically, the assumption is that he has the ostensible right and privilege to do these things, and that to a certain extent, he would even be considered an upstanding prince for doing so. It is only when he re-ups for his fifth season of adventuring or military service and has moved 95% of his courtly duties to his command tent while STILL keeping his princess back home that one might start wondering if something was up.

Meanwhile, the Princess version of the tale, classically, is done before the wedding is performed for a number of reasons rather deeply engrained in some of our double-standards about marriage and virginity and the desirability of the character based on said character's gender. Not all of those double-standards are fully on the "better for the guy" side, either. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale) It takes a fair bit of narrative effort to paint it as horrific when it's the Prince running from his husbandly duties than it does when it's the Princess running from her wifely ones.

Add in that the Princess - pre- or post-marriage - is likely a runaway with all that entails, while the Prince in your very examples has political and job-based excuses, and even the double-standards about adultery when performed by men vs. when performed by women in both modern and in modern-view-on-medieval culture...

They're vastly different stories. Take one and simply invert the genders, and it starts to look unusual. Flip the runaway prince into a runaway princess, and it looks a bit like a female empowerment kingdom, which is a more accepted trope to our modern culture, but flip the runaway princess to a runaway prince with all that entails, and you wind up with a different feel to it. There's even an easier path there to making the runaway now-a-prince seem like the one at fault for spurning his poor arranged bride.




Pretty sure the princely action hero predates the action-girl princess trope by about a thousand years.Absolutely. I don't see how that negates the point I was making. I said that NOW the "spunky action-girl princess" is its own trope. I believe saying "now" indicates that it is relatively new. It is noteworthy that said trope has an implied sense that it's "defying convention" when this action-girl shows up. Usually, her spunk and action-girl status is revealed by way of the hero (or soon-to-be male side-kick or hapless love-interest) attempting to be gallant only to be shown up by her heroic capability to save herself. Very commonly at this point the male is called out for his sexist assumption that she couldn't handle it herself.

Invert the genders so that a dashing action-girl is going to rescue an apparently distressed dude, only to have the dude flip out and save himself in a moment of introductory awesome, and it would be somewhat jarring. The audience also wouldn't have the "ah! The action-girl was being sexist, and has been shown up for it!" reaction automatically, and might even find it really weird if it was driven home deliberately. It's not EXPECTED that a male should be helpless and need a female to rescue him. And by "expected," here, I mean the trope isn't based on the assumption that a sexist would expect such. (By now, the action-girl intro scene where she "defies expectations" is so common that the audience is expecting the male to expect her to need help, but said audience is anything but surprised when she turns out not to.)




Really the rationale for that makes a whole lot less sense in the typical fantasy settings people actually play, which are by and large without great gender prejudice. Women pretending to be men in classical fantasy literature is about entry into an empowered class--that makes no sense whatsoever in a setting like Forgotten Realms, Eberron, or Golarion, where women aren't any less powerful socially.Sure, but that doesn't change that you still see the tropes played out as if it were standard medieval culture and tech, with magic coming up as a rare, mysterious, and unexpected force. In fact, this disparity between genre convention and what really would happen with all those things in place is what makes Tippyverse such an interesting exercise: Tippyverse actually tries to take all these things into account, and see how the world setting really looks at that point.

You just don't see bandits wandering down dark alleys deciding that the hot chick travelling unescorted is probably NOT somebody to mess with because she might be a sorceress. And you DO see them assume that their male sorcerer plus their numbers means picking off a female sorceress is worth trying, where they might not think picking off a male sorcerer was so worthwhile. (Or, at least, they might pick the sorceress over the sorcerer...after all, all bandits are male and want more than just her jewelry.) Then again, you wind up with Discworld where genre-savvy bandits can spot an adventurer for whom they're a below-CR encounter and decide they don't want to mess with him. Or her.




I guess, but it's also kind of hard to put the social impact of magic on a "visceral level"--when some people can throw fireballs at will, those people should be utterly terrifying to normal people. To be honest, gender relations would necessarily be greatly different in a setting with actual magic and real monsters. What's the point in coming up with sexist ideologies when men and women are equally capable of appealing to divine power, or calling down the most powerful arcane spells? It just doesn't matter at that point--and it's hard to justify societies in such a setting creating class divisions along those lines.Well, this is...a deeper question than we probably want to get into in this thread. "Men and women are different," is the short answer. Because they are, "sexist ideologies" will develop, rooted to some extent in the legitimate differences and the needs and drives they entail. With magic, some of these are overcome, but not all.

Unless you go so far into it as to polymorph into the opposite gender or into something sexless to overcome them, at which point you're not really going to escape the sexism so much as allow people to choose what version of it they want to be treated as. Interestingly, in fiction, a shapeshifter who is able to fully become whatever gender (s)he wishes is generally going to be treated by the fiction as being of the chosen gender. If it's treated as "false," it's probably because the shapeshifter's type-B "favored form" is of the opposite gender, so the temporary one is a "lie" in that it doesn't match the audience's identity of the character.


On the other hand, it's also kind of hard to understand how grinding feudalism could exist in a world where any random peasant can be born with sorcerous magic. You'd think that a nontrivial number of said sorcerers would band together to free their families from the domination of their local lords. If even one of those sorcerers got to mid levels, he would have a pretty good shot at overthrowing his feudal masters.In a world without magic, you could argue the same thing about big, burly peasants with access to longspears (pitchforks and the like) banding together to free their families from the domination of their local lords.

In practice, tyrants root out such behavior by punishing even the hint of it harshly, and punishing those close to them for "conspiracy" unless those close to them actually turned the "traitor" over to the nobles. This will be equally true with magic-users. One kingdom might simply outlaw the practice of magic by non-nobility; sorcerers and others who are born with the gift are executed just like wizards. Fairness is irrelevant to a tyrant, after all. Another kingdom might declare all spellcasters to be nobility. Sorcerers are "proven" to be noble by-blows, and are taken in as soon as their talents manifest to be put into training to serve in their new, loftier position (probably low-level nobility in name and in practice serving as a middle class of privileged administrators). Non-magically-gifted nobles will learn some wizardry to keep up appearances.

Magic changes things, but an oligharchy of elite, well-trained and well-equipped people can keep a populace with equal percentages of skilled/talented/whatever people oppressed if they're ruthless about it and leverage their political and military power properly. It takes a special kind of person to really run a revolution.




Given the complete indifference the D&D universe gives towards sex, gender roles, and the insane power curve of any given individual (regardless of gender), it's hard to see why women in a D&D setting would even need to dress like a man to protect their virtue. Seems like armor and a polearm would go a lot further. Or, you know, magic.

Actually, the "complete indifference" is not as evident as I think you're implying. The D&D universe treats men and women exactly as differently as the real world does, within a reasonable level of abstraction. What cultural mores and traditions develop around genders are a matter of world-building, not game rules. So there is no "complete indifference" that inherently makes any sort of sexism in-setting fail to make sense.

Delta
2013-12-18, 09:20 AM
The problem is that a female does have different social expectations, whether that's a product of our culture, or of hormonal things it is that way. So there is a factor to it, arguing that gender is completely a construct is moving far too much the other direction. Gender is not a construct.

You're kind of making my point. There are social expectations for males too, but for some reason, it's completely acceptable to defy those and still be considered male.


I couldn't play a woman, at least not believably, I don't know, but I can't.

First of all, no one's telling you to play a woman, no one's arguing with that. But second of all, can't you see this is exactly what I was talking about? What is a "believable" woman? The whole notion that such a thing (or the opposite, an "unbelievable" woman) even exists is pretty ridiculous by itself. Just think about it, three billion women on the world living at this very moment, I'm pretty sure for pretty much every aspect of an "unbelievable" female character, I'd find thousands of women somewhere in the world who are exactly like that.

On the danger of repeating myself, I have played many cross-gender characters over the years and I have witnessed many people of both genders doing the same. Not ONCE has anyone asked the question whether the character was "believable" about any male character, while I cannot count the times it has been asked about pretty much every female character. How is that?

Again, I'm not trying to tell you to play female characters, but I think it's a good thing to question yourself and your inner bias (and I include myself in that) before using phrases like that.

AMFV
2013-12-18, 09:26 AM
You're kind of making my point. There are social expectations for males too, but for some reason, it's completely acceptable to defy those and still be considered male.

I think you must have not been around too many hyper masculine cultures. Like the military, or sports teams, because it is not acceptable in most of those cultures to defy gender expectations. Not even a little bit. I think it is overall a cultural thing.



First of all, no one's telling you to play a woman, no one's arguing with that. But second of all, can't you see this is exactly what I was talking about? What is a "believable" woman? The whole notion that such a thing (or the opposite, an "unbelievable" woman) even exists is pretty ridiculous by itself. Just think about it, three billion women on the world living at this very moment, I'm pretty sure for pretty much every aspect of an "unbelievable" female character, I'd find thousands of women somewhere in the world who are exactly like that.


Thousands is a really small number, statistically that is pretty close to unbelievable, and I wasn't under the impression that people were asking me to play a woman, but if I'm not comfortable with that, why is that a problem for you.

There are cultural factors and biological factors that shape the development of both men and women, and they are divergent in some respects. I will never be able to understand the emotions that surround a pregnancy at least not on any real level. That's an extreme example, but its the same way as woman may not be able to understand some of the territorial stuff that Men have without even thinking about it.

I'm saying that there are clear differences, not necessarily insurmountable ones, but there are differences, and thousands is pretty small less than .03 of a percent, so not being able to rationalize that doesn't seem that extreme.



On the danger of repeating myself, I have played many cross-gender characters over the years and I have witnessed many people of both genders doing the same. Not ONCE has anyone asked the question whether the character was "believable" about any male character, while I cannot count the times it has been asked about pretty much every female character. How is that?

Again, I'm not trying to tell you to play female characters, but I think it's a good thing to question yourself and your inner bias (and I include myself in that) before using phrases like that.

I've been asked about what my character would do, or if it's believable as a character as a male character. The thing is that you choose what defines your character. If you're a male, playing a male character, that's not making any real statement about it, if you're a male playing a female character, that's indicative of a cognizant choice, which means that it is a deliberate thing that defines your character and therefore increases scrutiny. The same way as a character who's playing a noble, might be told that he's not acting appropriately for nobility, or a knight character might be told that he's not acting in conduct with chivalry.

Segev
2013-12-18, 09:29 AM
Regarding the "bigotry against bigots" business...

The problem arises when you are intolerant of what you consider intolerance in others to the point that you actively demand that others cater to YOUR views. You move beyond saying "live and let live" and into "sit there and LIKE IT or you're a bad person."

Consider two people who dislike smoking. One is intolerant of people smoking at all, and the other simply doesn't want to be around it. The first will demand that anybody who pulls out a cigarette in his presence either put it away or leave. The second might request this, but will acknowledge that it might be his responsibility to leave the area if he can't stand it.

Consider two smokers. One is intolerant of intolerance, and the other is willing to live and let live. The first will not only be offended if somebody who doesn't like his smoking asks him to put it out, but will be offended if that person chooses to leave or otherwise avoid the first smoker's presence while smoking or smelling of smoke. He will demand that people tolerate his smoking, and any action to avoid it is something he won't tolerate. The second smoker may not be willing to get up and leave if asked, but he will not bear any animus towards somebody else who chooses to get up and leave to avoid his smoking.

Consider two role-players. Both have no issue with a man playing a woman at their table (and might be planning to do so, themselves). The first is intolerant of intolerance. The second is willing to live and let live. The first, when encountering somebody who asks that nobody cross-play (for whatever reason), will not only argue that this person has no right to deny cross-players' rights to cross-play, but will actively demand that said players sit there and pretend to like it if cross-playing does happen. They will not tolerate that person wanting to leave if they find the cross-playing to be too detrimental to their enjoyment, and will in fact gloat about how much better off the game is without such awful people if that person does leave. The second player will still likely defend cross-players' rights, though would have no problem with the prospective cross-player(s) and the player who doesn't like it coming to some agreement, whether that's the cross-player not cross-playing after all, or the player with the issue deciding the game isn't for him.

"Intolerance of intolerance" is easily just as obnoxious as the intolerance itself, and can be just as tyrannical. It starts to make demands to COMPEL others to behave in certain ways, and assumes that your preferences are, in fact, so superior to others' that you have a right to impose them. It crosses that line from "demanding you not impose something on others" to "demanding you allow imposition to be made on yourself."

Segev
2013-12-18, 09:32 AM
You're kind of making my point. There are social expectations for males too, but for some reason, it's completely acceptable to defy those and still be considered male.Uh.

Women in pants.
Men in dresses.

Which is more easily accepted without being remarked upon when it shows up in fiction? (Let alone real life.))

Delta
2013-12-18, 09:42 AM
Uh.

Women in pants.
Men in dresses.

Which is more easily accepted without being remarked upon when it shows up in fiction? (Let alone real life.))

Women not wearing pants isn't a social expectation anymore. Men not wearing dresses is.

Again, I'd like everyone to prove me wrong on the context I'm talking about, roleplaying. I have seen the weakest, shyest, timid, asexual, pick any traditionally "male" stereotype you like, male character, not once has it been called into question whether it was a "believable" male.

AMFV
2013-12-18, 09:45 AM
Women not wearing pants isn't a social expectation anymore. Men not wearing dresses is.

Again, I'd like everyone to prove me wrong on the context I'm talking about, roleplaying. I have seen the weakest, shyest, timid, asexual, pick any traditionally "male" stereotype you like, male character, not once has it been called into question whether it was a "believable" male.

You've never seen somebody given **** for playing an effeminate male? Again you've not played in groups that contain people from cultural elements that are full of machismo. I've played in D&D games with Marines when I was in, and I think that every single game we had at least one guy who would be made fun of cause his character wasn't manly enough in some respect. Particularly spellscale characters.

Segev
2013-12-18, 09:57 AM
Women not wearing pants isn't a social expectation anymore. Men not wearing dresses is.

Again, I'd like everyone to prove me wrong on the context I'm talking about, roleplaying. I have seen the weakest, shyest, timid, asexual, pick any traditionally "male" stereotype you like, male character, not once has it been called into question whether it was a "believable" male.

And I've seen the most boistrous, strongest, outgoing, oversexed, pick any traditionally "female" stereotype to be averted, female character and not had it called into question whether it was a "believable" female.

You're kind-of cherry-picking, here, when you say "believable" is tied to broad-stroke personality stereotypes.

When somebody says they can't play a "believable female," it could be as simple as my own issue: I can't open my mouth to speak for a female PC and maintain my own immersion.

The truth is, many characters are only as "believable" as they are internally consistent.

Delta
2013-12-18, 09:59 AM
You're kind-of cherry-picking, here, when you say "believable" is tied to broad-stroke personality stereotypes.

How am I cherry-picking? I'm quite serious, in all my years as a gamer I have had the question whether a character was a "believable" example of its gender come up dozens and dozens of times. Every single time the character in question was female. Not one single exception.

Delta
2013-12-18, 10:02 AM
You've never seen somebody given **** for playing an effeminate male?

What does this have to do with anything? Maybe I'm not explaining myself well, but I'm talking about precisely what I say, not about characters getting ridiculed or called out on their weaknesses or whatever, that happens all the time with every character. But to question whether the character is a "realistic", "plausible", "believable" or whatever example of their gender, that happens exclusively to female characters in my experience.

AMFV
2013-12-18, 10:06 AM
What does this have to do with anything? Maybe I'm not explaining myself well, but I'm talking about precisely what I say, not about characters getting ridiculed or called out on their weaknesses or whatever, that happens all the time with every character. But to question whether the character is a "realistic", "plausible", "believable" or whatever example of their gender, that happens exclusively to female characters in my experience.

Well I guess I'm saying that your experience is not consistent with mine. My experience is that unless a character fits a certain archetype they are ridiculed in certain games. Particularly those in the culture I described. That would be roughly the same effect as being called "unbelievable". It's just a differing form of ridicule, and it's actually probably more vicious, since unbelievable is only a challenge to your ability to roleplay, while an accusation against your manhood is much more severe. At least in the cultural context with which I am familiar.

I have NEVER, I repeat NEVER EVER, seen a female character played by a female called "unbelievable", or even the one time I had a female character played by a male. So my anecdotal experience is the exact reverse of your own.

Kalmageddon
2013-12-18, 10:08 AM
Women not wearing pants isn't a social expectation anymore. Men not wearing dresses is.

Again, I'd like everyone to prove me wrong on the context I'm talking about, roleplaying. I have seen the weakest, shyest, timid, asexual, pick any traditionally "male" stereotype you like, male character, not once has it been called into question whether it was a "believable" male.

I think you are kind of missing the point, my point at least.
I'm not talking about "believable" female characters. The character itself can be incredibly believalbe and I'd still have immersion problems if it was played by a male.
It's not how he roleplays his female character, it's just that he isn't female, not by birth, not by any kind of transition.

It's a matter of dissonance between what is presented in-character and what I see out of character, exacerbated by the fact that, doesn't matter if you like it or not, females in general tend to look and sound in a certain way we can see and measure for a fact. They are generally less muscular, they are generally less tall, they are generally less rough-looking, generally have longer hair, generally have softer voices. Yes there are exceptions, but they are not common in real life, therefore my perception of what is female has very clear standards that I'm not encouraged to challenge in my daily life, nor I have any interests in challenging because I'm comfortable as a male and I find women attractive because of at least some of those general traits, either because of my intrinsic nature or because of social conditioning.

I've never said I don't have limitations, in fact I awknowledged them early on in this discussion. That they have a reason to exist is pretty obvious when you look at society. That it is unfortunate that I have such limitations in the first place still remains true, but there's nothing I can do about it, either because I'm comfortable with them or because I'm too old to change so radically.

This still doesn't make me feel any dislike towards man roleplaying women, as I've stated multiple times. I have the remarkable ability to not share an idea or a personal taste with someone but still be able to like them and befriend them. I'm saying remarkable because apparently everyone thinks that if I don't personally enjoy males playing as females as much I shouldn't be alble to play at the same table with them, which confuses me greatly.

Segev
2013-12-18, 10:09 AM
How am I cherry-picking? I'm quite serious, in all my years as a gamer I have had the question whether a character was a "believable" example of its gender come up dozens and dozens of times. Every single time the character in question was female. Not one single exception.


What does this have to do with anything? Maybe I'm not explaining myself well, but I'm talking about precisely what I say, not about characters getting ridiculed or called out on their weaknesses or whatever, that happens all the time with every character. But to question whether the character is a "realistic", "plausible", "believable" or whatever example of their gender, that happens exclusively to female characters in my experience.
You're being told that others have not had this be exclusive to female characters in their experience.

Personally, I haven't had it happen to either gender of character, in mine. The closest I've come is seeing it come up in internet forums, and generally the only reason I've seen it come up wrt specific characters is somebody trying to do the feminist-empowerment thing to scoff that a traditional female stereotype played by a male player is "unbelievable" since it's just a stereotype and proves how awful boys are towards girls.

So, if you want an answer from my perspective, you only see it called into question with female characters probably because there's a version of feminism out there that asserts any portrayal of a girl that doesn't fit their narrow "egalitarian" view of women is "unbelievable."

But again, this is rooted in my experience that the only thing that makes a character unbelievable is inconsistent portrayal or over-perfection, not gender-specific tropes.

(On the other hand, I've never really seen somebody try to play a gender-specific trope straight, but with the gender reversed. Would the "runaway princess" converted to a prince without changing any other aspect of the narrative be more unbelievable?)

Serpentine
2013-12-18, 10:37 AM
Out of curiosity, Kal, do you also find it "challenging" to your immersion for a woman to play a male character?

The best character I have ever had the pleasure of playing alongside was a girl played by a man. She was wonderful, and I miss her terribly.

Not really relevant to the thread, but unless there was something really incredible or special about it to convince me otherwise, I would not play I a game that would not allow any compromise whatsoever in the choice of my character's sex. Female-in-disguise, sorceress, witch, nurse, spy, thief, posh lady dragged into circumstances out of her control - unless the setting is specifically ABOUT the entire nonexistence of one of the sexes, women don't just cease to exist, not even in the most male-dominated of societies. It might not be easy, but it should NEVER be forbidden, certainly not "just because", and ESPECIALLY not "because realism".
It's like the old excuse of "My character acts like a jerk because that's what he would do": you control your character, you're the one who decided he was a jerk. A DM saying "no gurlz alowd because my setting doesn't have girls" is responsible for the decision to create that setting, and everything that implies.

AMFV
2013-12-18, 10:49 AM
Out of curiosity, Kal, do you also find it "challenging" to your immersion for a woman to play a male character?

The best character I have ever had the pleasure of playing alongside was a girl played by a man. She was wonderful, and I miss her terribly.

Well that is a good story, and may help to influence your position to the opposite of Kal's.



Not really relevant to the thread, but unless there was something really incredible or special about it to convince me otherwise, I would not play I a game that would not allow any compromise whatsoever in the choice of my character's sex. Female-in-disguise, sorceress, witch, nurse, spy, thief, posh lady dragged into circumstances out of her control - unless the setting is specifically ABOUT the entire nonexistence of one of the sexes, women don't just cease to exist, not even in the most male-dominated of societies. It might not be easy, but it should NEVER be forbidden, certainly not "just because", and ESPECIALLY not "because realism".

There are scenarios where women would not be present... If I was playing a Guns of Navarrone campaign, there would be women present, but if they were, they would be only there for small sections of the story, if I wanted to keep any kind of verisimilitude.

I've spent time in the military, and there were large portions of that, where there were literally no women present. Well not large portions. If I had been infantry there would have been though. Even in our modern era there are situations when there are no women present.

Now I can understand from a gamist perspective why you feel that way, but it is very contrary to any simulation of reality in certain settings.



It's like the old excuse of "My character acts like a jerk because that's what he would do": you control your character, you're the one who decided he was a jerk. A DM saying "no gurlz alowd because my setting doesn't have girls" is responsible for the decision to create that setting, and everything that implies.

I think that's a poor analogy, sometimes characters do act like a jerk, because that's what they would do. I've done that. I've had characters made decisions that I considered immoral or poorly considered. Because it fit their character. To do otherwise would have dramatically limited the characters that I could play. And maybe they wouldn't work at all tables, just like a world with gritty real sexism might not, but it is at least a facsimile of realism.

Scow2
2013-12-18, 10:51 AM
It blows my mind that you guys think "sexism" is something that should never be reasonably present in any setting, when sexism is very much a thing even today in many countries.People don't like sexism in fantasy/tabletop settings strictly because it is a thing in the real world, and most players (Especially female players) are absolutely SICK OF IT and want it to **** off far far away from their fantasy elfgame time (Or catgirlgame time, as the case may be.)

There's a lot of social stigma against a masculine voice/face playing a female, because "Men Are Pigs" (Especially when the guy's not doing anything to prove that wrong).

Frankly, I'm one of the reasons guys aren't allowed to play female characters... largely because the male form is considered abhorrent/comical/threatening to most people. I envy the amount of flesh most female characters are allowed to show without being perceived as silly or gross.

And yes, I like to be immature about it - Maturity is for stiffs and people on their way to the grave, and should keep miles and miles away from happyfun gametime.

AMFV
2013-12-18, 10:56 AM
People don't like sexism in fantasy/tabletop settings strictly because it is a thing in the real world, and most players (Especially female players) are absolutely SICK OF IT and want it to **** off far far away from their fantasy elfgame time (Or catgirlgame time, as the case may be.)

There's a lot of social stigma against a masculine voice/face playing a female, because "Men Are Pigs" (Especially when the guy's not doing anything to prove that wrong).

Why is that we have this double standard for sexism in games, when it's not there for violence? We don't say you should never have violence in any game because it could cause problems for players. That's intrinsic to far more campaign settings than sexism is, and we don't discuss it. Sexism is fine to include in a game of the appropriate maturity, and if a player has a problem with it, they can say something, that's how agency works.

For example, if I was playing in a game, and the DM wanted to set it in Fallujah in 2008, I'd probably have problems with that, and would say something to that effect.

I've found the social stigma doesn't really exist, I've never seen it, one person has said it was "immersion-breaking" but that they'd tolerate it, and likely not bring it up. Another said they couldn't understand it. I've said I didn't think that I, personally, could do it believably. That's a far cry from hatred and social stigma, that's three kind of moderate mild objections, well two actually, and those really aren't even that heavy-handed. I think this is just a case of imagined persecution at least to my mind, since we have here some empirical evidence, (this very thread in fact) that does not support that notion.

Scow2
2013-12-18, 11:01 AM
[QUOTE=AMFV;16638450]Why is that we have this double standard for sexism in games, when it's not there for violence? We don't say you should never have violence in any game because it could cause problems for players. That's intrinsic to far more campaign settings than sexism is, and we don't discuss it. Sexism is fine to include in a game of the appropriate maturity, and if a player has a problem with it, they can say something, that's how agency works.

For example, if I was playing in a game, and the DM wanted to set it in Fallujah in 2008, I'd probably have problems with that, and would say something to that effect./QUOTE]The LACK of violence in games causes a lot of problems for players, because we're sick of not being able to beat the **** out of problem-people in the real world. Getting in fights and killing things and being violent for the sake of violence is fun for the whole table. Kicking ass and taking names is one of the best uses of time. Being a sexist pig and oppressing women doesn't have the same broad appeal as saving orphans and blowing up oversized bullies.

Serpentine
2013-12-18, 11:01 AM
The military is constantly used like it's a get out of gaol free card. It's really not. Women don't just disappear from warzones, there are always civilians, personnel like nurses, spies, soldiers - yes, even historically. Maybe you didn't have any women specifically in your platoon or whatever, but you know what that is in game terms? All the players happening to decide to play men. Which is fine. But it isn't the only state of reality, and I would heavily question any DM who decided that they were only and exclusively interested in playing that very specific scenario, when it would be very simple and even arguably more historically accurate to have at least some option for a female presence.
Basically, it is harder to try and explain away the complete impossibility of a female character than it is to explain ther presence. If you can't find a way to reasonably include a female character, you are not trying hard enough; if you want to actively EXclude all female characters, you'd better have a damn good reason for it - like in media, it is th exclusion of roughly half the population tha needs to be justified, not their inclusion.

And sure, there may be good reasons for your character to act like a jerk, *but it is still you, the player, who decides that and determines those perimeters*, and if your "acting in character" is disrupting the game or someone else's enjoyment of it, "it's just what my character would do" is no excuse.

AMFV
2013-12-18, 11:07 AM
The military is constantly used like it's a get out of gaol free card. It's really not. Women don't just disappear from warzones, there are always civilians, personnel like nurses, spies, soldiers - yes, even historically. Maybe you didn't have any women specifically in your platoon or whatever, but you know what that is in game terms? All the players happening to decide to play men. Which is fine. But it isn't the only state of reality, and I would heavily question any DM who decided that they were only and exclusively interested in playing that very scenario, when it would be very simple and even arguably more historically accurate to have at least some option for a female presence.

I've had women in my battalion for most of the time, but I was saying that even in a modern war, you'd have places that women wouldn't be. Like for example I spent about four weeks on a fairly remote desert spot, with no women, I saw literally no women, for four weeks. They weren't even allowed at that spot, and this at the more enlightened time.

That's a fine preference to have, but you have to realize that historical precedent isn't statistically on your side, women in wartime, were unusual, it's why we hear so much about them in history classes. Joan of Arc, was an unusual circumstance. Now it's sometimes possible to work them in, but not always. However I could understand if you wouldn't play in that kind of game, but suggesting that a desire to play that sort of game is a sexist action is a little out there.

Also you might have civilians around the battlefield but if you're following the troops from London, to the Normandy Beaches, to Berlin, you're not going to have the same consistent group of women, so it makes it very hard to build and construct characters. It would be very difficult to maintain party cohesion.



And sure, there may be good reasons for your character to act like a jerk, *but it is still you, the player, who decides that and determines those perimeters*, and if your "acting in character" is disrupting the game or someone else's enjoyment of it, "it's just what my character would do" is no excuse.

I think it is an excuse, or at least an acceptable thing to do. I would probably discuss it, mention it to the other players at least one session ahead of time if I was betraying them. Just like I mention when my character is about to do something monumentally stupid to the DM. I've found that if you give somebody a heads up they're much more okay with the scenario.


The LACK of violence in games causes a lot of problems for players, because we're sick of not being able to beat the **** out of problem-people in the real world. Getting in fights and killing things and being violent for the sake of violence is fun for the whole table. Kicking ass and taking names is one of the best uses of time. Being a sexist pig and oppressing women doesn't have the same broad appeal as saving orphans and blowing up oversized bullies.

We didn't say that it was a setting where women were oppressed, only a setting where there was official oppression of women. And violence isn't always fun for the whole table, frankly the only type of person that would make that allegation has not been around that much violence. I'm fine with violence in games. But if you start talking to me about reports of people dying, or vehicles capsizing, I have problems, and I don't think that's a fair thing to have an issue with.

Kicking ass and taking names may be fun, but violence is probably objectively as bad as sexism under many, if not arguably most circumstances. The fact that I've done things that could have caused other human beings to die... is one of the hardest things I've ever had to live with. And don't you dare, don't you dare, belittle that. Not even a little bit.

Serpentine
2013-12-18, 11:14 AM
We're not talking about statistics, we're talking about options. If there has ever been even one female soldier, then the inclusion of a female character in a military setting is historically accurate - and I can tell you now, there's been a lot more than just one. Note, moreover, that I am not saying that here MUST be female characters in every single group, just that there are very, very few - if any - where they should, or even could justifiably, be forbidden.
See also my edit to my last post.

I wonder whether you guys would jump through the same hoops to find scenarios where you would be justified banning, say, black characters. Sure, you probably COULD come up with such a setting, but why go to that much special effor to exclude them? The determination to do so, to completely veto that specific type of character because you just don't want them to even have the possibility or option of being a protagonist in your story, is pretty suspect.

Segev
2013-12-18, 11:19 AM
"I'm running a game wherein I want all of the PCs to be Utaku Battle Maidens because this is a military campaign focused on their troop sent out as advance harrying forces, and non-Battle Maidens wouldn't be participating in 70% of the scenes. Battle Maidens are one of the two girl-only Schools, so no male PCs."

This is perfectly acceptable for a GM to determine in running his game. He's running a game with a specific set of circumstances in mind. He likely has specific reasons for it being Utaku Battle Maidens, specifically, and not some other school of samurai.

It is also perfectly acceptable for you to not be interested in that game, for any reason you might have. I, personally, don't find military campaigns to be fun to play, and I'm not a huge fan of the Utaku Battle Maidens in general. I, therefore, wouldn't want to play it.

It is NOT reasonable to get high-and-mighty about it. "You're dictating that I can't play the sex that I want to play, and that's always unacceptable and you're a bad GM for doing so," is bad behavior. It's not the GM that is demonstrating intolerance nor bad form, between the player who says this and the GM who said the quote with which I opened this post.

GungHo
2013-12-18, 11:22 AM
It blows my mind that you guys think "sexism" is something that should never be reasonably present in any setting, when sexism is very much a thing even today in many countries.

Let's say I want to DM a "knights of the round table" campaign. Females can't be knighted, thus I would tell anyone that wants to play a female character to please roll a male character instead, to respect the setting and premise of the campaign.

Or let's say we are playing a campaign set in WW1 where the players are soldiers lost behind enemy lines. Again, no female soldiers.
Thank you for your explanation. These "historical fantasy" campaigns are certainly appropriate, as is the Amazonian example. My triggers probably went off a little too early and I honestly wasn't thinking about that.

I was more thinking "we're just gonna gear our entirely homebrew setting to be unreasonably vicious for your character because we can", probably because this was addressed a few weeks ago on this forum... specifically a DM saying that they weren't going to have their NPCs force themselves on a PC, but that doesn't mean that the other PCs won't, which has kind of thrown me in a "WTF-how-can-there-actually-be-people-who-play-that-way do-loop".

There have also been a couple of high-profile threads regarding outright misogyny in TTRPGs and in the community itself, and it's one of my hot buttons. I apologize for my prejudice... I shouldn't be saddling you with my own baggage.


There's nothing crazy about that, no. They probably aren't level 1. A level 1 adventurer character who is NOT a teenager or at the very least early 20's is kind of a special case I think (and somewhat learning impaired?).
Sorry for not adding more context. I was going along the lines of having "alternate age" campaigns. The other poster was noting that there is justification for having younger characters, and I was just building on the theme of exploring across the age band. Probably better for its own thread.

AMFV
2013-12-18, 11:22 AM
We're not talking about statistics, we're talking about options. If there has ever been even one female soldier, then the inclusion of a female character in a military setting is historically accurate - and I can tell you now, there's been a lot more than just one. Note, moreover, that I am not saying that here MUST be female characters in every single group, just that there are very, very few - if any - where they should, or even could justifiably, be forbidden.
See also my edit to my last post.

Yes there were female soldiers, but very few female soldiers in US Navy Frogger teams. Very few female Green Berets (none in fact), very few female SEALS (also none in fact), very few female in Marine Infantry (Prior to this year, there were none). So if you're having a campaign that follows these type of groups around it would be very hard to work a female in, with travel and that sort of thing.

Also in any campaign focusing on these characters women would wind up as being a secondary character, since the women wouldn't be part of the assault team or whatnot. It's actually easier to justify in less modern settings, since medical examinations were less common and thorough, and camp followers were a thing. Also you had people like Boadicea, so you have settings where it works and settings where it just not be a practicable effort for the DM to include them and have any verisimilitude, now I can understand sacrificing the verisimilitude for a player, I probably would, in fact. But if I was really into the history, then I might not, and it might not be because of sexism.

Personally I wouldn't mind having the first female seal, or somebody that got attached, but it isn't really that historically accurate. There are settings where women are absent. If you had a campaign in a distant OP in Iraq, then it would be very hard to have a female PC, since the PCs are part of a different group than the locals. If you had a game set in a monastery, it would be very difficult to include the female characters in everything the male characters were involved in, at least without some wrangling.




Sorry for not adding more context. I was going along the lines of having "alternate age" campaigns. The other poster was noting that there is justification for having younger characters, and I was just building on the theme of exploring across the age band. Probably better for its own thread.

Well skills atrophy, particularly with age, while there's no in game rules for this, it's reasonable to explain that if you're playing old geezers, in fact retraining montages are really common for those type of films as well.

Serpentine
2013-12-18, 11:30 AM
Again, see my later inclusions to my last two posts (I'd copy them down so they don't get missed, but I'm on my phone). My point is not that you CANNOT come up with such scenarios, but that the fact that you would want to go so very out of your way to exclude even the possibility of someone playing that sort of character is extremely suspect. Not NECCESARILY instantly condemnable, but they would definitely have to try at least as hard to justify it to me as they did to find such an exclusionary and specific scenario (and no, "historicalness" won't cut it - there are ALWAYS exceptions, even without magic and fantasy).
edit: I would also mention that the inclusion of women into even those military whatchoocallits is currently the subject of debate, and far from a natural and unbending given. If what is "historical accurate" in the real world is subject to change, how can that possibly be the be-all and end-all justification for denying someone the option to play they character they want in a fantasy world?

AMFV
2013-12-18, 11:33 AM
Again, see my later inclusions to my last two posts (I'd copy them down so they don't get missed, but I'm on my phone). My point is not that you CANNOT come up with such scenarios, but that the fact that you would want to go so very out of your way to exclude even the possibility of someone playing that sort of character is extremely suspect. Not NECCESARILY instantly condemnable, but they would definitely have to try at least as hard to justify it to me as they did to find such an exclusionary and specific scenario (and no, "historicalness" won't cut it - there are ALWAYS exceptions, even without magic and fantasy).

If we were playing a game about confederate soldiers, then yes I'd ban the playing of African Americans, unless they were in the station that they were in at the time. Political whitewashing of history is never good. Never.

And I did come up with the scenarios. SEAL team, they travel around the world thwarting terrorists. How would a female be attached to them, and if she was she wouldn't be allowed to participate in combat missions. Period. There you go, there's one example right there, in fact it is one of the several I provided in the previous post.

Segev
2013-12-18, 11:36 AM
It gets easier to justify when you just have decided, "I want to run a specific campaign." Campaigns often impose restrictions. "Everybody must be a mecha pilot" is a perfectly reasonable restriction for a campaign where you expect 40% or more to involve mecha fighting. "Everybody must be an Army Ranger" is perfectly reasonable in a game focused on the adventures of an Army Ranger squad going on missions. If this was set in, say, the Vietnam War, "Everybody must be an Army Ranger" would translate, as well, to "Everybody must be male."

Because yes, "historical accurateness" says that during the Vietnam War era, the US Army didn't send women into combat.

"But I want to play a female Army Ranger in the Vietnam War" is not sufficient to justify changing that rule, any more than "But I want to play a male Utaku Battle Maiden" is sufficient to justify changing the rules that only females can be Battle Maidens.

And while, in this case, I am going out of MY way to come up with campaign ideas that would reasonably restrict gender choices of PCs, these are not actually campaigns that are unlikely to come about entirely innocent of active desire to restrict the gender of PCs. "I have this great idea for a campaign about a troop of US Army Rangers in the Vietnam War," is something very similar to campaign pitches I've heard real prospective GMs make.

Serpentine
2013-12-18, 11:37 AM
Sorry to do this again, but again, see my edit. An again, I'm not saying you can of come up with plausible scenarios, I'm saying that seeking them out and insisting on them is suspect and would make me question the person being exclusionary.

Segev
2013-12-18, 11:39 AM
Sorry to do this again, but again, see my edit. An again, I'm not saying you can of come up with plausible scenarios, I'm saying that seeking them out and insisting on them is suspect and would make me question the person being exclusionary.

Again, the point is that those scenarios are not inherently suspect. Note that there is one common denominator here: the GM has said "all PCs will be of X gender, due to Y and Z nature of the campaign."

This means that any male players in the Battle Maiden game, and any female players in the US Army Ranger or SEAL team games, will be cross-playing.

AMFV
2013-12-18, 11:43 AM
Sorry to do this again, but again, see my edit. An again, I'm not saying you can of come up with plausible scenarios, I'm saying that seeking them out and insisting on them is suspect and would make me question the person being exclusionary.

It's not anymore exclusionary than not letting players play Elves in an Orc Campaign, or not letting players play as Orcs in an Elf campaign. It's just a character build thing, and a minor one at that. I would understand that it might not be for everybody.

But I doubt, Mr "I'm a DM who just watched Apocalypse Now" is really being sexist, he wants to recreate that kind of experience, or "I'm a DM who just watched Saving Private Ryan" those are both legit influences, and it would be hard to work women into those type of campaigns. At least not in any active role, while it might not be for everybody those are fine settings and are unlikely picked because of the sexism inherent in the time where they occurred.

Serpentine
2013-12-18, 11:46 AM
The fact that you can come up with lots of different specific campaign types that completely exclude women for "good" reasons does nothing against my point. I'm sure I could come up with exactly as many to explicitly exclude black people; the fact that they would all be perfectly reasonable and well-justified doesn't make my efforts to do so any less dodgy, nor any reservations of a black person in joining that expicitly exclusionary game any less justified even if they didn't even intend to play a human, much less someone the same colour as themselves.
Edit: also, elves do not have a very real history of being excluded even from the very history books, or from what counts as a real person.

Segev
2013-12-18, 11:47 AM
Heck, "I just watched the Justice League episode where Superman went to Themiscrya, and now I want to run a campaign based on young Themiscryans learning to be amazon warriors, so all PCs have to be young Themiscryans. ...no, Bob, that means you cannot play a guy." Also totally reasonable.

AMFV
2013-12-18, 11:49 AM
The fact that you can come up with lots of different specific campaign types that completely exclude women for "good" reasons does nothing against my point. I'm sure I could come up with exactly as many to explicitly exclude black people; the fact that they would all be perfectly reasonable and well-justified doesn't make my efforts to do so any less dodgy, nor any reservations of a black person in joining that expicitly exclusionary game any less justified even if they didn't even intend to play a human, much less someone the same colour as themselves.

It's only dodgy if that was the reason the setting was chosen, which is your default assumption. That's why I provided different scenarios, regarding popular film to show other potential reasons why a DM might be drawn to those sort of scenarios. It likely has more to do with books and media about those particular settings than anything else.

People tend to be more comfortable with people of different skin tones being excluded in games, for example an OA game would very likely do that, and I doubt it would raise anyone's hackles. A Battlemaiden game would be even more exclusionary, you are playing a noble women of the psuedo-Asian race in the game and that's it.

I would understand if a black person had reservations about the game, or didn't want to play, and I would likely adjust the game so that they were comfortable about it, but it's not a requirement particularly if historical accuracy is your goal.

Amaril
2013-12-18, 11:55 AM
If we were playing a game about confederate soldiers, then yes I'd ban the playing of African Americans, unless they were in the station that they were in at the time. Political whitewashing of history is never good. Never.

While I agree with you completely on your point about political whitewashing of history, I feel somewhat obligated to point out that I have heard at least one report indicating that African-Americans did in fact serve in the Confederate military, though it was by no means common. I can't speak to the accuracy of that (I'm not exactly a history buff myself), but my point is that even things that most of us take for granted as being historically accurate are often disputed, at least by some people in the world.

Serpentine
2013-12-18, 11:57 AM
Put it this way: for all this hypothetical theorizing, I have never seen someone seriously put forward the possibility of actually forbidding female characters whom I did not have deep suspicions of for other reasons. I will be suspicious of anyone proposing such a thing in real life until they demonstrate to me otherwise, because for all "there totally could be completely nonsexist reasons to pretend half of humanity doesn't exist", I consider it a far less likely an explanation for someone going to that much effort to do so, and frankly I have better games to play, that will let me create the characters and tell the stories I want to.

Segev
2013-12-18, 11:58 AM
Would you find a game set in African-Jungle-inspired setting focused on a tribe that has never before encountered the mysterious elven explorers to be suspect for not allowing you to play a white man?

AMFV
2013-12-18, 12:02 PM
Put it this way: for all this hypothetical theorizing, I have never seen someone seriously put forward the possibility of actually forbidding female characters whom I did not have deep suspicions of for other reasons. I will be suspicious of anyone proposing such a thing in real life until they demonstrate to me otherwise, because for all "there totally could be completely nonsexist reasons to pretend half of humanity doesn't exist", I consider it a far less likely an explanation for someone going to that much effort to do so, and frankly I have better games to play, that will let me create the characters and tell the stories I want to.

Well it's fine if you wouldn't want to play in any of the aforementioned campaigns. But what I'm saying is that viewing it as an indictment of the DM's character is probably harsh. It's more likely that he was inspired by movies and such than that he "hates" women. Or even dislikes women, or even is a sexist at all. It would be entirely possible to have such a campaign run by a female DM, with all female players. Would that change your viewpoint on it?

I mean this is something that women were never able to really do, at least at this point, serve on a SEAL team, so it might be wish-fulfillment, it might be a desire to expand their horizons by playing male characters, who knows? My question is would you view that as an equally dodgy thing?


While I agree with you completely on your point about political whitewashing of history, I feel somewhat obligated to point out that I have heard at least one report indicating that African-Americans did in fact serve in the Confederate military, though it was by no means common. I can't speak to the accuracy of that (I'm not exactly a history buff myself), but my point is that even things that most of us take for granted as being historically accurate are often disputed, at least by some people in the world.

That's pretty interesting, I believe you, and I am not a student of civil war history either. I was merely trying to point out one example of a setting where people of African descent might be banned. If that was the case historically and the DM was moving for absolute accuracy I could see including it.

However if I recall correctly, most of them did not serve in combat roles, and performed mostly support duties. I've seen it suggested that if the confederacy had conscripted slaves and then given them freedom afterwards, that the numerical superiority would have shifted the war.

Edit: Although I could be completely off in this regard, as I haven't read anything on that topic in a very long time, and I'm too lazy to google it at the minute, but that is my recollection, which may or may not be right.

Segev
2013-12-18, 12:03 PM
Put it this way: for all this hypothetical theorizing, I have never seen someone seriously put forward the possibility of actually forbidding female characters whom I did not have deep suspicions of for other reasons. I will be suspicious of anyone proposing such a thing in real life until they demonstrate to me otherwise, because for all "there totally could be completely nonsexist reasons to pretend half of humanity doesn't exist", I consider it a far less likely an explanation for someone going to that much effort to do so, and frankly I have better games to play, that will let me create the characters and tell the stories I want to.
Okay, seriously. How do you go from "This campaign won't support female PCs" to "I'm pretending there are no women?"

Of course, one is allowed to be judgmental and prejudiced if one likes. (And "If they don't go well out of their way to prove my initial impression wrong, I will assume the worst about them" is judgmental and prejudiced.) But it's always rather ironic when it's done in the name of accusing others of being somehow prejudiced or bigotted or...

...honestly, I don't even know what you're accusing people of, here. Other than "being bad people for having restrictions I don't agree with."

Scow2
2013-12-18, 12:06 PM
We have gotten WAY off-topic.

Can we start talking about whether to let 40-year-old neckbeards trying to play scantily-clad catgirls again? :smalltongue: Maturity is for those so boring they started to grow up (Which is a truly horrific experience to go through)

Segev
2013-12-18, 12:12 PM
I'm not sure there's much more to say on it. It's probably easier to achieve immersion when you're playing via textual media if the other players are too vastly different from their characters, but if you have a more "narrate" than "act" style of play, it's probably easy enough to keep it convincing enough not to be disruptive.

Any other "level of creepiness" really has less to do with whether it's a male or female player playing a male or female character, and more to do with the player choosing to play a character in a creeptastic way.

GungHo
2013-12-18, 12:21 PM
We have gotten WAY off-topic.

Can we start talking about whether to let 40-year-old neckbeards trying to play scantily-clad catgirls again? :smalltongue: Maturity is for those so boring they started to grow up (Which is a truly horrific experience to go through)

As long as you're not annoying about it, go for it. If you start insisting on speaking in Meow and try to climb into my lap for naptime, we're probably gonna have to at least give me time to put on my nomex.

Kalmageddon
2013-12-18, 01:14 PM
The fact that you can come up with lots of different specific campaign types that completely exclude women for "good" reasons does nothing against my point. I'm sure I could come up with exactly as many to explicitly exclude black people; the fact that they would all be perfectly reasonable and well-justified doesn't make my efforts to do so any less dodgy, nor any reservations of a black person in joining that expicitly exclusionary game any less justified even if they didn't even intend to play a human, much less someone the same colour as themselves.
Edit: also, elves do not have a very real history of being excluded even from the very history books, or from what counts as a real person.

Serp, what exactly is your point?
That if someone is offended by something present in the setting he shouldn't join that campaign? That's perfectly reasonable, I don't even see the point of arguing about it.
Or that said person after refusing to join said campaign should also feel justified to harshly judge anyone that decides to play instead? Because then we have a problem. Or rather, you have a problem, since it's a very unhealthy and intolerant attitude to have.

With that said, yes I would have the same problems I previously mentioned even if it was a female roleplaying a male character, for the same reasons, which I'd like to stress are just personal taste and in no way should be considered objective.


Okay, seriously. How do you go from "This campaign won't support female PCs" to "I'm pretending there are no women?"

Of course, one is allowed to be judgmental and prejudiced if one likes. (And "If they don't go well out of their way to prove my initial impression wrong, I will assume the worst about them" is judgmental and prejudiced.) But it's always rather ironic when it's done in the name of accusing others of being somehow prejudiced or bigotted or...

...honestly, I don't even know what you're accusing people of, here. Other than "being bad people for having restrictions I don't agree with."

Agreed.

Icewraith
2013-12-18, 01:47 PM
Put it this way: for all this hypothetical theorizing, I have never seen someone seriously put forward the possibility of actually forbidding female characters whom I did not have deep suspicions of for other reasons. I will be suspicious of anyone proposing such a thing in real life until they demonstrate to me otherwise, because for all "there totally could be completely nonsexist reasons to pretend half of humanity doesn't exist", I consider it a far less likely an explanation for someone going to that much effort to do so, and frankly I have better games to play, that will let me create the characters and tell the stories I want to.

Let's try a scenario...

We have an all-male gaming group. The setting is historical World War II. Everyone is playing a member of the same military unit. A new player wants to join the preexisting campaign that is either female and doesn't want to cross play or wants to play a female character.

Now, you can roll up a female character fine... as a nurse or something to end up in the combat medic role, and if you're running something like the D-Day invasion of Normandy you can have the troop ship she's on start to sink and she ends up in the landing vehicle as it's better than drowning, and then you've got your nurse stuck in at least one phase of your Normandy invasion.

The trick is, if you were running more than one phase of the invasion, you have to keep coming up with wierder and wierder justifications to send the nurse back in to combat along with the PCs, or end up splitting the party. I mean, the PCs can't always get pushed back until they have to defend the field hospital, especially if you're going for historical accuracy. It's not impossible for a GM to make the thing work, but it would certainly be way easier for him if he had another male character to place in the unit.

What would be worse, is if it's a campaign with a high character mortality rate you keep on running into these women who end up with the unit (which might be easier on the GM from a story perspective- Nurse scenario, then the unit is assisted by a local female guerilla, then they have to rescue the local mayor's wife who will be shot for treason while the german army is withdrawing unless rescued, etc) for more and more bizzare reasons.

Now I will grant you that if the whole group is making characters together at the start of the campaign, the GM should be able to handle the continual presence of a female character by altering the storyline to fit. Instead of a particular regular, rules-and-tradition-abiding military unit the characters are irregulars or mercenaries, and have this one PC that is basically Red Sonja with a rifle and combat boots and too good not to take. Piece of cake.

But if this sort of thing comes up in the middle of a campaign, and the GM wants to include the new player, it is far simpler for his story arc and the campaign setting if the newcomer plays male characters that fit in with the established campaign theme (historical WW2 military grunts) instead of female characters (historical WW2 military grunts and the unlucky nurse that somehow ends up on the front lines every session and isn't allowed on military vehicles as they always blow up or malfunction and she ends up with the party anyways).

(the point is, there's no malice involved here, it's just how things happened to work out, and while it is not impossible for a GM to work adding a female character, it does make his life significantly more difficult and mess with his campaign story arc)

Honest Tiefling
2013-12-18, 01:58 PM
So … any game in a setting with systemic social flaws should be assumed to involve significant play that involves challenging all of those?

Actually, I was trying to say that if you don't want sexism, don't use a sexist setting...Which would imply that some settings aren't sexist.

Through the military examples bug me as reasons why someone couldn't play a female character. Because now you have an odd double standard that a guy can't play a female character, but all women in the game would be encouraged to play a male character if a female player came along later.

Segev
2013-12-18, 02:05 PM
Through the military examples bug me as reasons why someone couldn't play a female character. Because now you have an odd double standard that a guy can't play a female character, but all women in the game would be encouraged to play a male character if a female player came along later.

You'll note that the military examples are not talking about whether it's "okay" for somebody to cross-play or not, but are describing why a GM might say "all PCs must be male" or "all PCs must be female."


Heck. "I am running a Magical Girls campaign. I'd rather not have any male PCs, and I can't really justify more than one to serve the Tuxedo Kamen-style role," is something I have seen GMs do.


But these examples are not "why it's okay to tell guys they can't cross-play," but rather "why it's okay to have GMs who say that the game will only allow PCs of a specified gender."

Icewraith
2013-12-18, 02:17 PM
Actually, I was trying to say that if you don't want sexism, don't use a sexist setting...Which would imply that some settings aren't sexist.

Through the military examples bug me as reasons why someone couldn't play a female character. Because now you have an odd double standard that a guy can't play a female character, but all women in the game would be encouraged to play a male character if a female player came along later.

It's not so much an odd double standard as a theme like "we're all playing Drow" that invalidates (without a lot of work on the part of the DM) certain character variable combinations, like "male drow cleric in Menzobarranzan".

Themed campaigns limit some character choices by definition- gender isn't usually one of the variables on the character sheet out of the player's control but clearly there are some campaign setting or concepts that constrain it.

Coidzor
2013-12-18, 03:15 PM
It blows my mind that you guys think "sexism" is something that should never be reasonably present in any setting, when sexism is very much a thing even today in many countries.

Because it's both indicative of a horrible mindset on the part of the DM/group and, worse, *boring* to have to deal with constant harassment and rape attempts because of the DM's conception of "realism" demands that a female character constantly get **** along all fronts.

You seemed to be less talking about a game where a female character wouldn't fit and more about a game where a female character would have to deal with not-quite-FATAL-but-still-horrible ****, and so I responded as such.


So … any game in a setting with systemic social flaws should be assumed to involve significant play that involves challenging all of those?

No, but you're obligated to make sure that all of the players are on board individually and not just being buffaloed along.

Kalmageddon
2013-12-18, 03:41 PM
Because it's both indicative of a horrible mindset on the part of the DM/group and, worse, *boring* to have to deal with constant harassment and rape attempts because of the DM's conception of "realism" demands that a female character constantly get **** along all fronts.

You seemed to be less talking about a game where a female character wouldn't fit and more about a game where a female character would have to deal with not-quite-FATAL-but-still-horrible ****, and so I responded as such.


Could you provide me with my exact quote that gave you this idea that I personally find incredibly offensive because of my past history that is none of your business?
Because if I did say something like this, I need to correct myself immediately.
If I didn't, well... You should think twice before posting.

Icewraith
2013-12-18, 05:08 PM
Because it's both indicative of a horrible mindset on the part of the DM/group and, worse, *boring* to have to deal with constant harassment and rape attempts because of the DM's conception of "realism" demands that a female character constantly get **** along all fronts.

You seemed to be less talking about a game where a female character wouldn't fit and more about a game where a female character would have to deal with not-quite-FATAL-but-still-horrible ****, and so I responded as such.



No, but you're obligated to make sure that all of the players are on board individually and not just being buffaloed along.

Look, there's settings where racism or sexism is a thing and then there's Terry Goodkind. (If you have to play in such a setting may I suggest homebrewing a race without orifices) Emphasizing any part of a campaign to the point that it makes someone at the table uncomfortable is one of those "generally you shouldn't do this" things.

Coidzor
2013-12-18, 05:10 PM
Why is females so preferable to women anyway? :smallconfused:


And the same could be true for a male character, by the way. If the premise of the campaign was "amazons fighting their enemies" a male character would be a bit out of place, don't you think? Sexism isn't always a bad thing in fiction, justs like racism isn't. Nobody complains when almost every fantasy setting ever has this or that race fighting eachother for no good reason outside of racial hatered, like orcs and elves, and yet on this forum even aknowledging that sexism exist is the recipe for a ****storm.
Seriously guys.

I don't think sexism is quite the right term here.

Then again, I'd always understood the whole orcs vs. elves things to have grown out of religious, ethnic, and economic/territorial tensions that have flared up ad nauseum more than simply disliking one another for having the wrong skin tone.



Why is that we have this double standard for sexism in games, when it's not there for violence?

Because violence is coded as fun. Sexism, Sexist violence, and Sexual Violence aren't fun, though FATAL stands as an example that some people think it's great fun, or at least their prerogative.


We don't say you should never have violence in any game because it could cause problems for players.

Actually it's quite commonly recommended to stay away from Domestic Violence and other triggers, and then great big flashing warning lights are put up about triggery topics, especially if one knows that something is a trigger for one of their players.

Granted, there's always going to be the people who laugh at others for not wanting to roleplay about rape and sexual violence, but, eh, as long as they're not trying to force the issue or otherwise being more than high-and-mighty about their views.


That's intrinsic to far more campaign settings than sexism is, and we don't discuss it.

*We* might not, due to that not being the topic of this thread, but people do in fact discuss it and have discussed it on GITP in the past as I recall.


Sexism is fine to include in a game of the appropriate maturity, and if a player has a problem with it, they can say something, that's how agency works.

Depends on the nature of said sexism. Many things the responsibility lies in the DM making sure people are on board first, rather than assuming everyone will be fine with it and then running damage control or acting imperious about it later.



Then, next time horrible stereotypes, immature sexist jokes or someone's sexual fantasies crop up, you can ask yourself "is this any worse than in Ranma ½?" After you have concluded "not really", you can keep gaming on happily as ever. :smallwink:

Sorry, no, if I'm helping someone gather material for their mental spank folder, they'd better be a damned good player to make it worth my while, since while I understand that different people invest different amounts in, and get different amounts out of, the game, that kind of blatantly uneven setup where I'm playing fluffer for someone else is anathema.


But I'd like to aim the same question to others in this thread. Let's go back to the examples of Noitahovi and Kagematsu, where male-to-female crossplay is either encouraged or required. Would your antipathies or fear of "That Guy" prevent you from playing these games?

Nah, because then in addition to smacking a player upside the head in meatspace for being "That Guy" in game, there's also the built-in opportunity to show him how it's done by showing him up, either at his own game to shove how he acts back down his throat with interest or by doing it right. Granted, I'm not particularly concerned with fears of people being "That Guy" since I'm more than capable and willing of calling someone out for being a doof or jerkface.

The closest thing to an actual concern I'd have is that it sounds like those games require a mixed group to play in the first place or have the risk of an inherent assumption of tokenism on the part of women who play, which makes me slightly concerned for the possibility that they they didn't account for this in the games themselves and sidestep that pitfall.


Could you provide me with my exact quote that gave you this idea that I personally find incredibly offensive because of my past history that is none of your business?

Because if I did say something like this, I need to correct myself immediately.

If I didn't, well... You should think twice before posting.

Well, considering it's none of my business, why are you bringing it up as if it's some part of your sensibilities I should have been aware of?

I'd wager that it was as much the context of the thread as your particular phraseology, and how your particular use of the term sexism as code for "settings where a female character would be difficult and the DM can't be arsed or female characters just can't work" rather than the bad behaviors usually labeled as sexism/sexist behavior. Especially in the context of the pseudo-medieval mores people come up with for fantasy roleplaying, and especially when sexism or sexist settings are brought up as to why women would not be suitable to be PCs, well, things seem to have a tendency to get exaggerated to be even worse than what would really fit in the name of being "realistic."

Everyone should, of course, and I admit that my wording was a bit harsher than my intent due to a temporary brainfart and that I made some assumptions based upon my experience of the context of sexism in pseudo-medieval settings and the banning of female characters. Thankfully it turned out you were discussing something else entirely, but I'd gotten the impression that you were confused as to the responses you garnered initially and so I felt it necessary to explain my response, although I suspect it was probably not one of the ones that gave you as much consternation or drew as much of your attention due to the time that elapsed and the discussion that unfolded in the interim.

Edit: Actually, yeah, wow, upon re-reading my response a few times I realize that it both failed as an explanation and was harsher in tone than I had thought I had been when I was thinking that I had merely been a bit too brusque and a little harsh in phraseology. Sorry.

I especially didn't mean to convey that was what I still thought you had meant at the time after catching up on the thread.


Look, there's settings where racism or sexism is a thing and then there's Terry Goodkind. (If you have to play in such a setting may I suggest homebrewing a race without orifices)

Emphasizing any part of a campaign to the point that it makes someone at the table uncomfortable is one of those "generally you shouldn't do this" things.

I read initially read it as sexism to the point where no one in their right minds would want to have their character be a woman. (You just made me almost fall out of my chair from paroxysms of laughter. x.x)

Agreed. I think I've managed to fall into the trap of pessimism and then some from dwelling too much on DM horror stories. :smallredface:

Kalmageddon
2013-12-18, 05:27 PM
Edit: Actually, yeah, wow, upon re-reading my response a few times I realize that it both failed as an explanation and was harsher in tone than I had thought I had been when I was thinking that I had merely been a bit too brusque and a little harsh in phraseology. Sorry.

I especially didn't mean to convey that was what I still thought you had meant at the time after catching up on the thread.
:

No harm done then. Misunderstandings happen, as for my phraseology you should keep in mind that I'm not a native english speaker, so please assume that any poor choice of words is due to that rather then malicious intent.
The more subtle meanings of some english words and expressions still escape me sometimes.

As for me sayig that I find something offensive but not saying why, it's mostly because rape is a pretty bad trigger of mine and being accused of promoting rape fantasies and similar things in roleplaying games is probably the most hurtful and offensive thing you could do to me. But as you might imagine I'm not anxious to discuss my past history in front of potentially the whole world, here on this forum. Hence why I said it's "none of your business", because I'm not going to explain it further and I don't want you or anyone else to ask for clarifications, but I do want you to know that you should be careful treating that subject with me.

AMFV
2013-12-18, 05:45 PM
Because violence is coded as fun. Sexism, Sexist violence, and Sexual Violence aren't fun, though FATAL stands as an example that some people think it's great fun, or at least their prerogative.


Well violence is much more prevalent in the world than sexism, and while I might not play in a game where sexual violence is present, saying that having it all in your games is sexist, even if it's handled maturely is pretty rough.



Actually it's quite commonly recommended to stay away from Domestic Violence and other triggers, and then great big flashing warning lights are put up about triggery topics, especially if one knows that something is a trigger for one of their players.


I don't disagree with this at all.



Granted, there's always going to be the people who laugh at others for not wanting to roleplay about rape and sexual violence, but, eh, as long as they're not trying to force the issue or otherwise being more than high-and-mighty about their views.


I don't think we were suggesting that the characters go around playing serial murder-rapists, or rapists, we were suggesting games where there might be some setting inherent degree of sexism.



*We* might not, due to that not being the topic of this thread, but people do in fact discuss it and have discussed it on GITP in the past as I recall.


It's far less frequent, and people tend to be far more bothered by sexism. I've not seen many folks that would refuse to play in any game with certain types of violence, except sexual violence. Which is a different perspective.

I was bringing it up, not in some attempt to derail the thread, but to point out that we include lots of unconscionable things in many games without thinking about it, but sexism a special case? I don't think so, if you have a setting with unpleasant torture, murder, brutal military campaigns, then sexism in a setting, is not inherently worse.

Furthermore just as playing a murder-hobo doesn't necessarily mean that I have fantasies of murdering people and taking their stuff, playing in a setting that is sexist, doesn't in any mean that I am sexist. That's the point I'm trying to convey.



Depends on the nature of said sexism. Many things the responsibility lies in the DM making sure people are on board first, rather than assuming everyone will be fine with it and then running damage control or acting imperious about it later.

Certainly that's the only reasonable assumption, but we're saying that there are settings where there would be no women present, at least not without some very significant shenanigans, and that's not always a bad thing. Nor is playing in one of those settings, a result of the sexism of a player or the DM.

I'm fine with people not wanting to play in WW2 military games, I have never played in one, and I don't know how fun it would be for me. But to say that anybody that plays in a setting with some sexist overtones is themselves is pretty accusatory and unpleasant. That was what I was arguing against, was the argument that if somebody plays in a WW2 game, or as Rangers in Vietnam they are not necessarily sexist to want the setting to be period accurate.

Honest Tiefling
2013-12-18, 05:56 PM
I think its a slightly different issue. In one, the player is just bucking the (presumably) agreed upon setting. In the other, a player is unable to pursue a certain option because of their real life gender/sex.

AMFV
2013-12-18, 05:59 PM
I think its a slightly different issue. In one, the player is just bucking the (presumably) agreed upon setting. In the other, a player is unable to pursue a certain option because of their real life gender/sex.

This is true and that's a problem, I think that the real-life sex shouldn't matter if the character wants to play as something different. Although I could understand it being immersion breaking for somebody like Kalma, I don't think it should be prohibited.

The reason I'm harping on this, is that at one point there was a general accusation of sexism leveled at anybody that played in a setting that was sexist, or at least where it was not tenable for female (or male) PCs to be present. I'm saying that it doesn't follow that you're sexist because you play in a setting that might be slightly sexist.

Airk
2013-12-18, 06:07 PM
So at risk of re-railing this thread, I think we all agree that:


"No female characters please, they don't fit with the setting/theme/game I'm trying to run." is okay, in much the same way as "We're playing a game with only divine magic, so no wizards, sorry." is okay.
"No Bob, you can't play a girl, because reasons." is still lame. (Though generally "Bob, unless you really have to, we'd all prefer if you didn't play a girl." is probably okay.)
"You need a really good reason to play a female character or I'm going to consider whether I want to keep gaming with you in the future" is ridiculous.


Discuss. :P

Icewraith
2013-12-18, 06:40 PM
So at risk of re-railing this thread, I think we all agree that:


"No female characters please, they don't fit with the setting/theme/game I'm trying to run." is okay, in much the same way as "We're playing a game with only divine magic, so no wizards, sorry." is okay.
"No Bob, you can't play a girl, because reasons." is still lame. (Though generally "Bob, unless you really have to, we'd all prefer if you didn't play a girl." is probably okay.)
"You need a really good reason to play a female character or I'm going to consider whether I want to keep gaming with you in the future" is ridiculous.


Discuss. :P

Regarding point three...

"Bob, you are an overweight man, your "female voice" is terrible, and I KNOW since the Halloween party that you own and will try showing up in a string bikini and football shoulder pads to "get into character" and I would like to keep my lunch down this time. Also, nobody believes that it's wookiee cosplay even though you stopped waxing. I don't care how cool your "hot lesbian frenzied berserker with enormous knockers" idea is, whenever you make the sound that indicates you're raging you spit into the chips. You need to find a different character to play or you will not be playing in this game."

I mean, if anyone had ever actually tried this at my table they would already be gone, but you get the idea.

:p

Tengu_temp
2013-12-18, 06:41 PM
"No female characters please, they don't fit with the setting/theme/game I'm trying to run." is okay, in much the same way as "We're playing a game with only divine magic, so no wizards, sorry." is okay.

As long as the DM is open for discussion. It might turn out that the game is more female character-friendly than the DM thought, or that the game will require modifications or scrapping entirely and starting from scratch.

And that's true in general about all DM decisions. The stance of "everything the DM says is final, the players can either go with it or vote with their feet" is too prominent around here. The DM is a human, humans are open for discussion, and good OOC communication is the key to a successful, fun game!


"No Bob, you can't play a girl, because reasons." is still lame. (Though generally "Bob, unless you really have to, we'd all prefer if you didn't play a girl." is probably okay.)

If those reasons are "because every girl you play is an offensive stereotype that makes half the group facepalm and the other half ucomfortable", then I'd say it's okay.

kyoryu
2013-12-18, 06:46 PM
So at risk of re-railing this thread, I think we all agree that:


"No female characters please, they don't fit with the setting/theme/game I'm trying to run." is okay, in much the same way as "We're playing a game with only divine magic, so no wizards, sorry." is okay.
"No Bob, you can't play a girl, because reasons." is still lame. (Though generally "Bob, unless you really have to, we'd all prefer if you didn't play a girl." is probably okay.)
"You need a really good reason to play a female character or I'm going to consider whether I want to keep gaming with you in the future" is ridiculous.


Discuss. :P

Eh, I disagree on point two, and sort of on point three. If people are uncomfortable with stuff, they're uncomfortable with it. Period. You can say "you shouldn't be", but that doesn't account for reality. Using rules to tell people "you have to be okay with this!" is counterproductive.

On point three - well, honestly, I've found that guys that want to play girls are more likely to be problem players than average. Maybe 2 or 3 in 10 as opposed to 1 in 10. But people that can't accept any restrictions on what they do are probably about 80% likely to be problem players.

"Hey I'd like to play a female character!"

"Well, we'd prefer if you did that after everyone was a bit more comfortable with each other."

"Sure, okay!"

That's probably someone that'll be fine in the game. They're showing they're able to accept influence, reach a compromise, and be sensitive to the feelings of others, even if they don't agree.

"Hey, I'd like to play a female character!"

"Well, we'd prefer if you did that after everyone was a bit more comfortable with each other."

"What's wrong with you? Are you repressed? Don't you know that it's been decided that cross-playing is okay? How dare you limit my creativity and tell me no!"

... that guy is probably not gonna last long in the group.

Prime32
2013-12-18, 08:12 PM
As long as the DM is open for discussion. It might turn out that the game is more female character-friendly than the DM thought, or that the game will require modifications or scrapping entirely and starting from scratch.For military campaigns there's always the "It's a special branch with its own command structure, and the guys running it are pretty chill" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MildlyMilitary) excuse. If you want historical accuracy, say it was a secret branch. :smalltongue:

Or instead of running a World War II campaign, change a few of the country names and say it's an alternate universe. Besides giving the opportunity to add in female soldiers, unusual squad compositions, and nuclear tanks shaped like motorcycles, you can also diverge from the script to cut down on metagaming.

Tragak
2013-12-18, 08:17 PM
For military campaigns there's always the "It's a special branch with its own command structure, and the guys running it are pretty chill" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MildlyMilitary) excuse. If you want historical accuracy, say it was a secret branch. :smalltongue: Yeah, but that's an excuse to do something cool, not an excuse not to!

Airk
2013-12-18, 10:59 PM
And that's true in general about all DM decisions. The stance of "everything the DM says is final, the players can either go with it or vote with their feet" is too prominent around here. The DM is a human, humans are open for discussion, and good OOC communication is the key to a successful, fun game!



If those reasons are "because every girl you play is an offensive stereotype that makes half the group facepalm and the other half ucomfortable", then I'd say it's okay.

If everytime you do <thing> it comes out as an offensive stereotype, I don't think I want to be gaming with you AT ALL.

To some extend, that goes for people with mysterious hangups that they can't explain about guys playing female characters too. There can be good reasons, but odds are if you can't explain them, they're not.

Scow2
2013-12-19, 12:32 AM
For military campaigns there's always the "It's a special branch with its own command structure, and the guys running it are pretty chill" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MildlyMilitary) excuse. If you want historical accuracy, say it was a secret branch. :smalltongue:

Or instead of running a World War II campaign, change a few of the country names and say it's an alternate universe. Besides giving the opportunity to add in female soldiers, unusual squad compositions, and nuclear tanks shaped like motorcycles, you can also diverge from the script to cut down on metagaming.Aye... Sexism (Especially of the "No females allowed" type) is something that tends to bother people as a reminder of serious problems in their own life (Almost every woman has been noticeably negatively affected by sexism at least once). Breaking "Historical Accuracy" to loosen up on gender roles isn't really a problem - give the character a flimsy excuse to function. After all, you're already playing fictional battles with fictional combatants, and there are far more important and far less overdone themes in a Vietnam/World War 2 simulation game than sexual inequality.

AMFV
2013-12-19, 01:13 AM
For military campaigns there's always the "It's a special branch with its own command structure, and the guys running it are pretty chill" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MildlyMilitary) excuse. If you want historical accuracy, say it was a secret branch. :smalltongue:

Or instead of running a World War II campaign, change a few of the country names and say it's an alternate universe. Besides giving the opportunity to add in female soldiers, unusual squad compositions, and nuclear tanks shaped like motorcycles, you can also diverge from the script to cut down on metagaming.

That works well if the DM or Players don't want historical accuracy, but a desire for historical accuracy does not make either of them into sexists. At least not in most cases. Also if you're a military history buff, the chance that "mildly military" will be what you're looking for is almost zero.


Aye... Sexism (Especially of the "No females allowed" type) is something that tends to bother people as a reminder of serious problems in their own life (Almost every woman has been noticeably negatively affected by sexism at least once). Breaking "Historical Accuracy" to loosen up on gender roles isn't really a problem - give the character a flimsy excuse to function. After all, you're already playing fictional battles with fictional combatants, and there are far more important and far less overdone themes in a Vietnam/World War 2 simulation game than sexual inequality.

It's not really a theme in the game, it's just there, it's an unpleasant truth in the system, if you're playing a game about war, then whitewashing it is pretty much a bad idea IMHO, it makes me much less comfortable to remove elements that were there, because we have worked towards solving those problems, than it does to include them. We should not PC whitewash history for comfort in all settings.

And again the players can totally choose not to be involved in a historical accuracy game, that'd be fine, or they can try to get the DM to change the focus, the point is that the focus does not make the DM or any other player into some kind of misogynistic monster, it's just a different set of priorities.

Tengu_temp
2013-12-19, 03:46 AM
For military campaigns there's always the "It's a special branch with its own command structure, and the guys running it are pretty chill" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MildlyMilitary) excuse. If you want historical accuracy, say it was a secret branch. :smalltongue:

Or instead of running a World War II campaign, change a few of the country names and say it's an alternate universe. Besides giving the opportunity to add in female soldiers, unusual squad compositions, and nuclear tanks shaped like motorcycles, you can also diverge from the script to cut down on metagaming.

Or:
1. Don't play as soldiers, play as members of one of the various resistance movements. They all couldn't afford not to allow female members. Also, this way you can get to be badass who wins against a seriously overpowered enemy in terms of both equipment and numbers thanks to your grit and cunning.
2. Play as Russians. They had some female tank crews and snipers.

Scow2
2013-12-19, 03:49 AM
It's not really a theme in the game, it's just there, it's an unpleasant truth in the system, if you're playing a game about war, then whitewashing it is pretty much a bad idea IMHO, it makes me much less comfortable to remove elements that were there, because we have worked towards solving those problems, than it does to include them. We should not PC whitewash history for comfort in all settings.It's very presence makes it a theme, especially if "it's just there". There are far more things worth exploring in a game about war than the continuously-beaten dead horse of sexism and female exclusion.

AMFV
2013-12-19, 03:50 AM
Or:
1. Don't play as soldiers, play as members of one of the various resistance movements. They all couldn't afford not to allow female members. Also, this way you can get to be badass who wins against a seriously overpowered enemy in terms of both equipment and numbers thanks to your grit and cunning.
2. Play as Russians. They had some female tank crews and snipers.

But what if I don't want to play as Russians... (They did have a lot worse issues than sexism, and many of those I might not want to touch on).

What is wrong with wanting to play as soldiers? Why would that be such a terrible option? It's fair for everybody at the table, since all people are invited and the same restrictions apply to everybody, while they may be not great restrictions, they are accurate.

So again the question is, is it wrong to want to play a campaign like that? I think not. It isn't wrong to play in a world that is sexist or racist, it doesn't necessarily make the players or the DM so.


It's very presence makes it a theme, especially if "it's just there". There are far more things worth exploring in a game about war than the continuously-beaten dead horse of sexism and female exclusion.

So you don't explore it. I mean it's just there, it doesn't need to be a focus in the game, in fact I would suggest that it not be in a World War 2 game, or a Vietnam game, since it is unlikely that anybody would have thought that sort of thing was a problem.

The point is that the setting being sexist doesn't make the players or the DM sexist.

Scow2
2013-12-19, 03:55 AM
The point is that the setting being sexist doesn't make the players or the DM sexist.But the players and DM not being sexist doesn't make the game not sexist. The setting does.

AMFV
2013-12-19, 04:08 AM
But the players and DM not being sexist doesn't make the game not sexist. The setting does.

The question is "is that inherently bad?" As we've pointed out most games involve copious amounts of violence and other very questionable things. I don't think that we should prohibit something from gaming, ever, because it is uncomfortable for some people. While those people have a right not to play in the game, there is no fundamental right to judge others for playing such a game, anymore than there is to judge people for playing a game because it includes magic, or violence.

Furthermore... A sexist setting does not necessarily make a sexist game, that's kind of a ridiculous point in any case, if sexism isn't addressed and no character is discriminated against because of their sex (impossible since they are all the same sex), that would make the game itself not inherently sexist.

TuggyNE
2013-12-19, 05:08 AM
But the players and DM not being sexist doesn't make the game not sexist. The setting does.

As I said earlier, does that mean that only settings that are, essentially, utopias (free of all such systemic evils as might offend the noblest among us, or at least those that have the best swooning reflexes) are suitable for play? Or is there some double standard, whereby sexism is not only wrong and evil, but so horribly wrong and evil that not even a thought of it can taint our most holy games even in the slightest, while oppression, wars, prejudice of all other kinds, and so forth are considered fair game for a setting's assumed backdrop?

I mean, sure, if your group only wants to play in games in which all those unpleasant things are gone without trace, go for it. That seems excessive and impractical to me, but hey.

Tengu_temp
2013-12-19, 06:41 AM
But what if I don't want to play as Russians... (They did have a lot worse issues than sexism, and many of those I might not want to touch on).

What is wrong with wanting to play as soldiers? Why would that be such a terrible option? It's fair for everybody at the table, since all people are invited and the same restrictions apply to everybody, while they may be not great restrictions, they are accurate.

So again the question is, is it wrong to want to play a campaign like that? I think not. It isn't wrong to play in a world that is sexist or racist, it doesn't necessarily make the players or the DM so.


If everyone is okay with playing an all-male campaign, then it's alright. But if someone wants to play a female character, then some discussion and potential campaign premise change is in order. Because what's more important: a campaign premise set in stone, or making sure everybody at the table has the characters they want to play and have fun?

AMFV
2013-12-19, 06:47 AM
If everyone is okay with playing an all-male campaign, then it's alright. But if someone wants to play a female character, then some discussion and potential campaign premise change is in order. Because what's more important: a campaign premise set in stone, or making sure everybody at the table has the characters they want to play and have fun?

It depends on the game which is more important. Sometimes the DM should compromise, but sometimes the players might have to. Really, it depends. Because the DM should be able to have fun as well and even if their fun is predicated on having watched Saving Private Ryan one too many times, that shouldn't be a problem for everybody in all cases.

If somebody has a problem with it there should be discussion, but not necessarily an expectation of complete compromise on either side, maybe the DM wants to run a really historically accurate game, this one time, maybe they're willing to compromise and that could work well for the player. Maybe the player has to sit the one game out, there are many options, but assuming the DM should necessarily compromise the setting is putting the onus on a single person to do all the compromising.

Brookshw
2013-12-19, 07:14 AM
If you want historical accuracy, say it was a secret branch. :smalltongue:

Or instead of running a World War II campaign, change a few of the country names and say it's an alternate universe. Besides giving the opportunity to add in female soldiers, unusual squad compositions, and nuclear tanks shaped like motorcycles, you can also diverge from the script to cut down on metagaming.

Eh, the whole historical accuracy thing is kinda odd to begin with considering the scope of change that's happened over the years and the level of cultural relevance involved. In the revolutionary war there were enlisted female scouts, a division from NJ that was approximately 16% female, and a plethora of secret women in the army. A surprising number of soldiers after freezing to death in Death Valley were discovered to be women. Jump to another culture, we're playing an Oriental Adventures game, we'll, if we're going for historical accuracy at one point the Emperor had to command his Samurai to stop having sex with each other and start producing heirs so the noble families didn't die out. There's a lot of relativity when it comes to historical accuracy.


I don't think that we should prohibit something from gaming, ever, because it is uncomfortable for some people.

Eh, what was that video game that came out a bit over a decade ago where you were basically playing Sim City meets a WW2 concentration camp? The one where you're building gas chambers? Oh yeah, a game that never should have happened. (just to clarify, I don't think you're endorsing this as a viable game concept, rather you're saying mature gaming can deal with sensitive subjects). There are some lines and taboos extremely important to us as a culture and I have to wonder if there's value in ever letting that veneer crack. Up to the group I suppose.

To reverse the OP, oddly enough many of my female players have a tendency to play male players (thankfully my wife never made one named Bob, though that could have resulted in some hilarious conversations in it's own right).

Ah well, exit thread.

NichG
2013-12-19, 08:01 AM
This whole 'setting sexual asymmetry' argument is really contrived, at least when it comes to the original question of cross-play. I mean, people don't throw up this much of a fuss about the disadvantages of being subject to elven racism when playing a dwarf. Its almost like people just like to talk about sexist settings or something.

Most of the time (nearly all of the time, really) people aren't choosing to play one gender or another for an in-game advantage - they're doing it to explore a specific character concept. Sometimes that could be gender-specific in biological or setting ways, sometimes it just seems to fit better that way, sometimes they're just trying to see if they can pull it off or expand their ability as a roleplayer (heck, any GM will generally need to play a whole slew of NPCs - being able to play a convincing member of the opposite sex is a useful skill to develop for that).

Now, there is a difference between a human playing a dwarf and a guy playing a girl. We have a frame of reference to say that the guy is 'doing it wrong' - whether that frame of reference is actual, or just imagined. But really, there's such a range of personalities and behaviors in real people that you have to be trying pretty hard to legitimately get called on it (e.g. someone playing what amounts to a gender parody).

Now, there can be uncomfortable situations, where someone is basically using this to play out their own biases or even to harass other people at the table. The general rule of 'don't be a jerk' will still apply though - if someone is playing the opposite sex in order to bring things into the game that are specifically there to make other people uncomfortable, the problem isn't that they're playing a character of the opposite sex, its that they're being a jerk.

Lorsa
2013-12-19, 09:58 AM
Wow, this thread moves fast. Sorry to bring up some old stuff that I felt I wanted to reply to:


But, above all else, why do I need to justify my personal taste? If I'm just really bizarre to you that's fine I guess, but really do I need to come up with a better explanation then "that's just how I feel"?
And again, I have played with males roleplaying as females in the past and it's not a big deal. I'll have fun anyway. I won't complain even once. If the character is good it's still good.
It's just my personal sense of immersion that would be challenged.
Can we please drop this now? Or do you think that my advice for the OP, "check with your group if they are cool with it first" is wrong? If so, why?

You don't need to justify your personal taste to me. I am merely trying to understand it. I am hoping it will help me understand others with similar thoughts in the future. A reason such as "that's just how I feel" is perfectly valid to me. That's why I asked these questions, to find out more about how you felt.

You still didn't answer me if you had similar immersion problems of short scrawny guys playing large muscle-bound barbarians or GMs portraying female characters (which assume will happen). I'm not looking to bash you. I am curious and want to understand where your limits are and why they are like that.


The problem is that a female does have different social expectations, whether that's a product of our culture, or of hormonal things it is that way. So there is a factor to it, arguing that gender is completely a construct is moving far too much the other direction. Gender is not a construct.

For some people gender is more important than for others so yes it is highly relevant. This is also one of the reasons that some people DO want to play a different gender. They have spent most or all their life experiencing it from one viewpoint and want the opportunity for a different experience.


I couldn't play a woman, at least not believably, I don't know, but I can't. I can't play dumb characters, I hate that, I can't tone that back down. Those are fundamental aspects of a person, their gender, their intellect, and I'm rather caught up in some of them. Now others can play characters who are dumber, or different gendered, but to imply that there is no difference is probably not exactly true. At the very least there are heavy cultural differences, and the worst, certain biological differences.

Interestingly enough, I can play dumb characters and I consider myself fairly intelligent. Do I like it? Well, sometimes. It's very refreshing to simply say and do not-very-clever things and it being in-character.

As for gender, most of the personality tests I do seem to tell me that I am in truth a woman (whereas my sex is male). Or at the very least that I have more feminine personality traits than masculine. I also value many of these traits more and sort of detest much of the masculine manly-man stuff that people expect me to adhere to. So, sometimes I like to bring these feminine traits to the surface in a shape where they'd be seen as more appropriate (a female character). My male characters are almost always more masculine than myself (I can bring forth those traits too) and sometimes I make masculine female characters. I usually don't consider it to be very enjoyable to play myself though (you know, a more feminine type of male), I do roleplaying to get different experiences than those I usually get.


You're kind of making my point. There are social expectations for males too, but for some reason, it's completely acceptable to defy those and still be considered male.

Ehm, no it isn't. I know you said in respects to roleplaying or whatever later but I feel this is an important point. It's actually MORE acceptable to defy your gender-based social expectations if you're a woman, it's considered female empowerment, whereas if you're a man you'll better behave like one or you'll loose your man-hood. Women being masculine is considered to be okay, but feminine men aren't.


First of all, no one's telling you to play a woman, no one's arguing with that. But second of all, can't you see this is exactly what I was talking about? What is a "believable" woman? The whole notion that such a thing (or the opposite, an "unbelievable" woman) even exists is pretty ridiculous by itself. Just think about it, three billion women on the world living at this very moment, I'm pretty sure for pretty much every aspect of an "unbelievable" female character, I'd find thousands of women somewhere in the world who are exactly like that.

On the danger of repeating myself, I have played many cross-gender characters over the years and I have witnessed many people of both genders doing the same. Not ONCE has anyone asked the question whether the character was "believable" about any male character, while I cannot count the times it has been asked about pretty much every female character. How is that?

I would agree with you that there's really no restriction on the type of personality a woman could possibly have. Women come in all shapes and forms after all.


I think you must have not been around too many hyper masculine cultures. Like the military, or sports teams, because it is not acceptable in most of those cultures to defy gender expectations. Not even a little bit. I think it is overall a cultural thing.

This is sort of what I was trying to say as well before. It's a shame that so much of our society is hung up on such expectations.


Women not wearing pants isn't a social expectation anymore. Men not wearing dresses is.

Again, I'd like everyone to prove me wrong on the context I'm talking about, roleplaying. I have seen the weakest, shyest, timid, asexual, pick any traditionally "male" stereotype you like, male character, not once has it been called into question whether it was a "believable" male.

But women not wearing pants was a social expectation that they could beat and move past and it's considered acceptable. Try to beat the men not wearing dresses expectation and you'll see how easy that is.

I do agree with you that it is ridiculous to say that something isn't "believable female" or "believable male". There are some characters that aren't believable, but saying that a "woman/man wouldn't be this way" is kind of weird to me.


We have gotten WAY off-topic.

Can we start talking about whether to let 40-year-old neckbeards trying to play scantily-clad catgirls again? :smalltongue: Maturity is for those so boring they started to grow up (Which is a truly horrific experience to go through)

I think that if a 40-year-old neckbeard wants to imagine himself being a scantily-clad catgirl who am I to stand in his way? There could be any number of reasons for this, but if it makes him happy that's all I care about! As a GM however, I am going to play the world with logical reactions to scantily-clad catgirls (which would depend on the setting and the individuals encountered).

GungHo
2013-12-19, 10:13 AM
If those reasons are "because every girl you play is an offensive stereotype that makes half the group facepalm and the other half ucomfortable", then I'd say it's okay.
Agreed. As long as you gave him the chance in the first place and he fumbled the ball, repeatedly, yeah... I'd say the same thing if the guy repeatedly went for "minstrel show kender".


"Hey, I'd like to play a female character!"

"Well, we'd prefer if you did that after everyone was a bit more comfortable with each other."
My response to this would probably be "hey, relax... I'm not gonna be weird." I'd have probably asked you a few things about your setting, though, before offering whatever concept I thought would be a fit.

Shadowknight12
2013-12-19, 10:30 AM
Given the rampant sexism still running amok in society, I'm not surprised this harmless-sounding question is actually a problem. I personally have no issues roleplaying female characters over PbP or written media (I've written female characters before, after all).

At the end of the day, some people aren't interested in the experiences of the marginalised groups they're roleplaying. They don't really know, understand, or even care about the sexism a woman might face (I'm not talking about the game setting, I'm talking about Real Life) and as such they are prone to doing horridly offensive things with their characters.

Scow2
2013-12-19, 11:22 AM
Agreed. As long as you gave him the chance in the first place and he fumbled the ball, repeatedly, yeah... I'd say the same thing if the guy repeatedly went for "minstrel show kender".Minstrel show kender are fun! As is playing a Kender based more on Sam Starfall than the traditional fluff.

[spoiler]My response to this would probably be "hey, relax... I'm not gonna be weird." I'd have probably asked you a few things about your setting, though, before offering whatever concept I thought would be a fit.[/QUOTE]Where's the fun in not being weird? :smalltongue:

The Oni
2013-12-19, 12:22 PM
It's my personal opinion that if you're offended that sexism exists in a fantasy universe, which may or may not feature as prominent setting-dressing legitimate, Smite-Evil-tossing jihad-declaring gods, slavery (mindrape optional), genocide, crimes against nature, magic designed for inventive mass murder and the systematic destruction of the soul...and Kender...you might want to consider your priorities.

And that is all I will say on that subject, in this thread, period. So how about dat crossplay.

AMFV
2013-12-19, 01:12 PM
Eh, the whole historical accuracy thing is kinda odd to begin with considering the scope of change that's happened over the years and the level of cultural relevance involved. In the revolutionary war there were enlisted female scouts, a division from NJ that was approximately 16% female, and a plethora of secret women in the army. A surprising number of soldiers after freezing to death in Death Valley were discovered to be women. Jump to another culture, we're playing an Oriental Adventures game, we'll, if we're going for historical accuracy at one point the Emperor had to command his Samurai to stop having sex with each other and start producing heirs so the noble families didn't die out. There's a lot of relativity when it comes to historical accuracy.

We've already shown that there are setting points where that would be true, for example World War 2, or the Vietnam War. I've pointed out that historically it'd be easier to explain in an older setting. But there are settings that wouldn't support female player characters.

I'm rather perturbed by the comparison of sexism on the battlefield to overt genocide, this is, I think, in microcosm the problem. Sexism is somehow elevated far beyond the level that it should be, it is not tantamount to genocide. And it should be fine to include. Many games include attempts at genocide and few people bat an eye, but when you're including sexism... then you're sexist, and a terrible person, that seems a awfully misguided attitude.

GybeMark
2013-12-19, 01:21 PM
As a gal, I'll throw in my thoughts. Guys playing female characters -- not weird. Guys (or girls) playing female characters who are defined purely in terms of sexuality -- weird.

I've never seen any guy make-fun-of a guy who played a female, but I think I play with fairly mature/cool guys.

So story time... Back in high school (AD&D timeframe) most of the guys I played with (yeah, they were all guys) played male characters. One played a female once, but she got killed quick, and his next character was male. It wasn't weird that he played a girl, and everyone was cool with it.

Story time 2... One of the guys got his girlfriend to play with us for a few sessions. She played a female character who typified "how not to play a female character in your boyfriend's party". All she (the character) did was flirt with her boyfriend's character, and try to seduce every NPC (male or female) to try to make boyfriend's character jealous. If she were really role playing a character obsessed with bf's char, then it might have worked, but the player did no role playing other than "I'm a sexy elf, look at my ass". Being high school (and all the awkwardness that implies) the group never really confronted her (or the bf) about "we don't want to play with you" but we just started scheduling games on nights that she was busy... yay passive-aggressiveness :smallsmile:

Story time 3... When I went to university and didn't know anyone around, I found out there was a group of people who would play pick-up games of D&D (this was 3rd edition by this point). I went and it was all guys (not normally a problem for me, as tended to get along better with guys than girls anyway). I went to this group a handful of times. More often than not there were a couple of guys playing females whose idea of roleplaying was "I take off my top for a diplomacy bonus, hahahaboobies". Before long I stopped dropping in on the games, and didn't play anything for a long time. A bad experience.

Story time 4, the finale... In my current play group (again all guys) I play a male, and 2/4 guys are currently playing females. They're playing characters, not stereotypes, and it's cool. In the group I GM (Pathfinder) there's one other girl (playing a female) and 0/2 guys playing female, but I don't think anyone would bat an eye if one of the guys did.

All this to say, it never felt weird when a guy (or girl) played a female, as long as they played a "character".

AMFV
2013-12-19, 01:35 PM
As a gal, I'll throw in my thoughts. Guys playing female characters -- not weird. Guys (or girls) playing female characters who are defined purely in terms of sexuality -- weird.


But aren't some people defined, or self defined by their sexuality? I mean you can have a person that acts that way, I don't see why that would be a problem in a game, unless it was disruptive to the game.



I've never seen any guy make-fun-of a guy who played a female, but I think I play with fairly mature/cool guys.


I've actually seen more guys get made fun of for playing effeminate male characters than female characters, although that was in a specific cultural subtext, I don't really think it's a problem there, but that's beside the point.



So story time... Back in high school (AD&D timeframe) most of the guys I played with (yeah, they were all guys) played male characters. One played a female once, but she got killed quick, and his next character was male. It wasn't weird that he played a girl, and everyone was cool with it.


Cool, that sounds like a reasonable way to react.



Story time 2... One of the guys got his girlfriend to play with us for a few sessions. She played a female character who typified "how not to play a female character in your boyfriend's party". All she (the character) did was flirt with her boyfriend's character, and try to seduce every NPC (male or female) to try to make boyfriend's character jealous. If she were really role playing a character obsessed with bf's char, then it might have worked, but the player did no role playing other than "I'm a sexy elf, look at my ass". Being high school (and all the awkwardness that implies) the group never really confronted her (or the bf) about "we don't want to play with you" but we just started scheduling games on nights that she was busy... yay passive-aggressiveness :smallsmile:


That seems kind of less cool, much less cool. I mean somebody should have talked to her about that. Furthermore if being a sexy elf is the kind of escapism she was looking for then maybe not letting her play as that sort of thing was a problem, at least to my thinking. Although that was high school, so I could understand that being socially difficult, that sort of thing usually follows and is more forgivable then.



Story time 3... When I went to university and didn't know anyone around, I found out there was a group of people who would play pick-up games of D&D (this was 3rd edition by this point). I went and it was all guys (not normally a problem for me, as tended to get along better with guys than girls anyway). I went to this group a handful of times. More often than not there were a couple of guys playing females whose idea of roleplaying was "I take off my top for a diplomacy bonus, hahahaboobies". Before long I stopped dropping in on the games, and didn't play anything for a long time. A bad experience.

That's kind of tacky, but it sounds like the games weren't very mature, and that sort of thing is kind of expected in those games, so if you had wanted to play in them you'd have to get used to that maturity level, it's like appreciating bad jokes, there's a certain humor point where you can.



Story time 4, the finale... In my current play group (again all guys) I play a male, and 2/4 guys are currently playing females. They're playing characters, not stereotypes, and it's cool. In the group I GM (Pathfinder) there's one other girl (playing a female) and 0/2 guys playing female, but I don't think anyone would bat an eye if one of the guys did.

All this to say, it never felt weird when a guy (or girl) played a female, as long as they played a "character".

Cool, but would you be understanding if it was difficult for somebody to accept a female character played by a male? We've had at least one person for whom it was immersion breaking, would you judge somebody like that? That's a pretty big question in regards to this sort of thing.

Kalmageddon
2013-12-19, 02:00 PM
understand[/i] it. I am hoping it will help me understand others with similar thoughts in the future. A reason such as "that's just how I feel" is perfectly valid to me. That's why I asked these questions, to find out more about how you felt.

You still didn't answer me if you had similar immersion problems of short scrawny guys playing large muscle-bound barbarians or GMs portraying female characters (which assume will happen). I'm not looking to bash you. I am curious and want to understand where your limits are and why they are like that.


I guess it depends, if this guy is a stuttering, curved Woody Allen caricature they yes, it would be fairly hard to take him seriously. If on the other hand, despite his phyisical appearence he was able to convey an appropriate image of his character through body language and voice it should be ok.

GybeMark
2013-12-19, 02:38 PM
But aren't some people defined, or self defined by their sexuality? I mean you can have a person that acts that way, I don't see why that would be a problem in a game, unless it was disruptive to the game.


Absolutely, and thanks for pointing it out. I think I maybe have used the wrong terminology when I typed. I'll try to convey what I had meant here, so if you could offer suggestions of how I could re-word my original post, that'd be great.

What I had meant was probably not "characters defined purely by their sexuality" (and a succubus is an example of where this character type works GREAT). More along the lines of "players who's unrealistic portrayal of sexuality breaks the game for others."

One could imaging a player playing a barbarian who can't see any object/NPC/creature/whatever without going "grr... Grombor SMASH! Power Attack! roar!" but it breaks the game for for GM and it breaks the game for the other players. No GM/party would tolerate that, (even if the player says "but that's how my character reacts in any situation.")

Now I've never seen anyone try that with a barbarian, but I've seen people try that playing female characters (every encounter starts with "I try to distract the enemy by taking off my clothes and running around naked, because, girl, hahahaha"). Again, I think this is the minority of players (and an extremely small minority of players over 20) but they exist :smallfrown:

If you can think of a concise way of summarizing the above, I'll edit my original post


Cool, but would you be understanding if it was difficult for somebody to accept a female character played by a male? We've had at least one person for whom it was immersion breaking, would you judge somebody like that? That's a pretty big question in regards to this sort of thing.

I honestly don't know how I'd handle the situation. I've never been in it. On one hand, I like to "immerse" the players as much as possible (yeah, I'm "that GM" who plays woodland sounds in the background during forest encounters...) and if something is breaking immersion then I like to see what I can do about it. On the other hand, if a player is saying "I'm okay pretending that the character is a 500 year old elf and that fireballs are shooting out of the their hands, but I'm not okay pretending it's a girl" then it strikes me as an odd delimiter for suspension-of-disbelief.

But I can't say how I'd handle it -- I don't know the players involved, and I've never been in that type of situation. At the end of the day, my friends and I are getting together to drink beer and have a few hours of fun, so if someone's not having fun then that sucks for everyone. How did you handle it?

[edit] I just read some of your previous posts, and assume you're talking more from a "I don't think the character fits in this setting" immersion breaking thing. That I can understand more than the fantasy scenario I had originally assumed...

Kalmageddon
2013-12-19, 02:42 PM
(every encounter starts with "I try to distract the enemy by taking off my clothes and running around naked, because, girl, hahahaha").

Oh, come on, girls do that all the time. :smalltongue:

Callos_DeTerran
2013-12-19, 02:52 PM
I would initially be suspicious if you brought a female character to a game I was in/running, but that's due to personal experience. Aside from once or twice where the character was so bland as to effectively have neither a race or a gender, every male playing a female I've played with has played the character in an embarrassingly childish way, typically like an oversexualized, bisexual, polyamorous Valley Girl.

Y'know, I've seen plenty of people play opposite gendered characters IRL (mostly me, cause I determine my character's gender randomly), but I've never seen that particular arch-type before.

...Now I want to do it personally to see if I could make it more then just that summation of it's parts.

Er...should probably include something more relevant then that.

As mentioned above I determine my character gender randomly and this has lead to my playing genders that are not my own on more then a few occasions. It rarely...actually, I don't think it's ever even been brought up by my IRL group other then the occasional slip of mixing up genders and them usually asking me what gender my character is on occasion to remind themselves. The only time it got weird was recently, while playing a Game of Thrones game, another PC proposed that my character and another PC's character get married in order to seal a political alliance between our houses. Made great political sense, but neither of us were comfortable with it because we (the players) were the same gender and it got kind of awkward. Both characters refused the wedding (for IC reasons) but other then that...there hasn't been any problems.

Brookshw
2013-12-19, 02:53 PM
We've already shown that there are setting points where that would be true, for example World War 2, or the Vietnam War. I've pointed out that historically it'd be easier to explain in an older setting. But there are settings that wouldn't support female player characters.

Certainly, I'm expanding upon the historical accuracy issues with further examples and mentions of cultural relativism in sexual roles and norms, also in a sense of historical accuracy.


I'm rather perturbed by the comparison of sexism on the battlefield to overt genocide, this is, I think, in microcosm the problem. Sexism is somehow elevated far beyond the level that it should be, it is not tantamount to genocide. And it should be fine to include. Many games include attempts at genocide and few people bat an eye, but when you're including sexism... then you're sexist, and a terrible person, that seems a awfully misguided attitude.

This was actually a separate point regarding whether there are certain mores and taboos too important to ever break in a game, intentionally an extreme example, one which I doubted anyone would challenge. I certainly hadn't anticipated that it would be conflated as having a direct correlation to sexism. It's not a comparison. Agreed the only time I'd ever want to see it (genocide) in a game would be prefixed with "attempted" followed by "was heroically foiled".

Scow2
2013-12-19, 02:59 PM
I'm rather perturbed by the comparison of sexism on the battlefield to overt genocide, this is, I think, in microcosm the problem. Sexism is somehow elevated far beyond the level that it should be, it is not tantamount to genocide. And it should be fine to include. Many games include attempts at genocide and few people bat an eye, but when you're including sexism... then you're sexist, and a terrible person, that seems a awfully misguided attitude.The difference, and reason for the elevation of the problem of Sexism over Genocide is "How many people do you know are personally adversely affected by genocide every (arbitrary measurement of time)" - With Genocide, it's less than a fraction of a fraction of a percent. With sexism, it's damn close to 50% of the population.

AMFV
2013-12-19, 03:08 PM
The difference, and reason for the elevation of the problem of Sexism over Genocide is "How many people do you know are personally adversely affected by genocide every (arbitrary measurement of time)" - With Genocide, it's less than a fraction of a fraction of a percent. With sexism, it's damn close to 50% of the population.

I know several... I've had several friends of Jewish descent. Some of whom I've roleplayed with, so I think that about settles that issue. I myself have been affected by violence, in my own life, and I'm fine with it in a game.

I absolutely refuse to accept that it is okay to censor gameplay because "it could offend somebody, maybe" that's bull. Whitewashing things out of a game because they might be problematic for somebody is kind of ridiculous.

Again we allow violence in games without even suggesting that it be whitewashed out. And most people aren't bothered by it, possibly many women aren't bothered by sexism in games or in fiction, because to remove those aspects would make it seem unreal.

By your argument we'd have to have games that take place in perfect gender-equal utopias, and that's not realistic, not even a little bit. Maybe it'd be fun to play in for some people, but for others it would smash their suspension of disbelief into tiny tiny pieces.

If it is triggering for a player, then they can discuss how to mitigate that, but I refuse to accept that because, it could be offensive, something should be excluded from every game, that's preposterous and is the worst kind of PC crap I've heard of.



Certainly, I'm expanding upon the historical accuracy issues with further examples and mentions of cultural relativism in sexual roles and norms, also in a sense of historical accuracy.

This was actually a separate point regarding whether there are certain mores and taboos too important to ever break in a game, intentionally an extreme example, one which I doubted anyone would challenge. I certainly hadn't anticipated that it would be conflated as having a direct correlation to sexism. It's not a comparison. Agreed the only time I'd ever want to see it (genocide) in a game would be prefixed with "attempted" followed by "was heroically foiled".

And that's a fair point, but some games might have genocide in them, you can have virtually any mature subject matter in a game, its one place where those things can be explored depending on the comfort level of all involved. I'm bothered by this idea that certain things SHOULD NOT be included ever, because they might be offensive to some people.

This is a form of kind of preemptive and unnecessary censorship. In the course of a game, one could easily explore the more intense aspects of negative things, or have them laying about in the background to show you what kind of world the game is. And suggesting censoring topics out-of-hand is a little dangerous I think.

Dimers
2013-12-19, 03:21 PM
Y'know, I've seen plenty of people play opposite gendered characters IRL (mostly me, cause I determine my character's gender randomly), but I've never seen [an oversexualized, bisexual, polyamorous Valley Girl] before.

...Now I want to do it personally to see if I could make it more then just that summation of it's parts.

About half my time in my first three years of RPing was oversexualized, bisexual, polyamorous canny young women -- I didn't do the whole ditz thing, but the rest certainly applies. This became known in my local circles as "the Dimers chick". They liked it fine, as far as I can judge from social cues (at which I excel), but eventually I got a little weirded out by it myself, and I definitely wanted to try playing some other stuff. So Dimers chicks stopped ... for a long time.

More recently, I wanted to go against the doomgloom aura in my World of Darkness group, because I like playing with those people but man do I hate the WoD theme. And I said to myself, "Dammit, self, you had fun playing The Dimers Chick for so long, and she's so not WoD. Give her another night out on the town!" It was awesome :smallbiggrin: With my greater experience being noncreepy and making sexuality a part of the character rather than a totality, that oversexualized, bi, poly, pagan body-mage was a great character for me and for the campaign.

Honest Tiefling
2013-12-19, 03:32 PM
Oh, come on, girls do that all the time. :smalltongue:

From my experience, not without robbery or possibly stabbing involved.

On a more serious note, I don't think there is anything abhorrent in including sexism in a game. Think of movies, particularly those that deal with sexism and horrible events. They might portray a massacre, but to invoke fear or misery. These things, for good or ill, are a part of us. But they (usually) aren't trying to glorify it.

In the same vein, while tons of moviegoers have experienced racism or sexism, it doesn't mean that movies dealing with these themes are made by people like those who made FATAL. People WANT to see this, and I would not be surprised if it is a common power fantasy among female gamers and geeks to rise above the expectations of being meek and become a kick*** warrior who saves the day.

In the same way, gaming might not be high literature, but it is a story. A story can include horrifying and repulsive elements and still be a good story. The trick is, don't be creepy with it just as you wouldn't pop in a R rated movie into the DVD player during a game without knowing if everyone was okay with it, and had the ability to say no.

Coidzor
2013-12-19, 03:41 PM
But aren't some people defined, or self defined by their sexuality? I mean you can have a person that acts that way, I don't see why that would be a problem in a game, unless it was disruptive to the game.

Doesn't matter, if it's not appropriate to the game, it's not appropriate to the game. And you pretty much have to be running BOEF for it to be appropriate to the game. And it was in reference to "purely" or "solely" defined by sexuality, which is kind of a problem in meat space if someone is like that as well.

AMFV
2013-12-19, 03:44 PM
Doesn't matter, if it's not appropriate to the game, it's not appropriate to the game. And you pretty much have to be running BOEF for it to be appropriate to the game.

Not necessarily. If the character is sexualized it doesn't necessarily have to lead to erotic descriptive interludes, it can be implied, and still be PG-13 at the worst. Difficult to include in some games certainly but not nearly as restrictive as you would suggest.

Coidzor
2013-12-19, 03:45 PM
Not necessarily. If the character is sexualized it doesn't necessarily have to lead to erotic descriptive interludes, it can be implied, and still be PG-13 at the worst. Difficult to include in some games certainly but not nearly as restrictive as you would suggest.

That would imply that there's something going on with the character other than sex or they'd not be doing anything.

edit: Not even a succubus, a demon that exists to promote sex-based corruption is purely defined by sexuality, after all.

AMFV
2013-12-19, 03:49 PM
That would imply that there's something going on with the character other than sex or they'd not be doing anything.

edit: Not even a succubus, a demon that exists to promote sex-based corruption is purely defined by sexuality, after all.

We'll say primarily defined then, I may have misspoken with purely defined, what I meant was that having a sexually focused character, such as a womanizer, or a woman with an insatiable appetite, is not necessarily terrible, and could be fine in some games.

mucat
2013-12-19, 03:50 PM
In the same way, gaming might not be high literature, but it is a story. A story can include horrifying and repulsive elements and still be a good story. The trick is, don't be creepy with it just as you wouldn't pop in a R rated movie into the DVD player during a game without knowing if everyone was okay with it, and had the ability to say no.
Besides the "creepy vs. non-creepy" issue, a GM should also be very much aware of the distinction between "the game world discriminates against (any group)" and "the game will be less fun for (players of that group) to play."

The first can be vivid world-building; the second is a game I would not want to join, whether I belong to the group in question or not. (And yes, in many cases I would think less of those who do run and play in it.)

It's also why racism against elves is less tricky to portray than bigotry that hits closer to real life. Elves are not in your base of potential players. :smallwink:

AMFV
2013-12-19, 03:53 PM
Besides the "creepy vs. non-creepy" issue, a GM should also be very much aware of the distinction between "the game world discriminates against (any group)" and "the game will be less fun for (players of that group) to play."

The first can be vivid world-building; the second a game I would not want to join, whether I belong to the group in question or not.

It's also why racism against elves is less tricky to portray than bigotry that hits closer to real life. Elves are not in your base of potential players. :smallwink:

But is the game necessarily less fun for players of that group to be involved in? I don't think that's always the case. I think that in fact implying that it would be is a kind of sexism or a kind of racism, "Because they've had to put up with it they're incapable of putting up with it in this context"? That sounds sexist and/or racist to me.

Now I could understand that for some players it might be the case, and that's why communication is the key, but to imply that something should be cut out because it may offend members of a certain group is in my opinion as offensive to that group as potentially including whatever kind of questionable issue would be.

Coidzor
2013-12-19, 03:59 PM
We'll say primarily defined then, I may have misspoken with purely defined, what I meant was that having a sexually focused character, such as a womanizer, or a woman with an insatiable appetite, is not necessarily terrible, and could be fine in some games.

Oh. Well, in that case, yeah, as long as it's not some kind of offensive caricature that paints all men or women in a certain light or something of that ilk.


It's also why racism against elves is less tricky to portray than bigotry that hits closer to real life. Elves are not in your base of potential players. :smallwink:

Plus, unless the DM is some kind of elf-lover or has a greater amount of hatred for them than is usual, you typically get to give as good as one gets with the whole elf/non-elf thing and it gets played for laughs rather than bogging the game down with conflict that is not enjoyable. Because there's in-game conflict that's fun and then there's in-game conflict that makes one want to strangle the GM for being a butt or bogging the game down.

Sexism-based conflict is sorta consigned to the unfun category by default, and it takes special effort to get it back out again.

AMFV
2013-12-19, 04:03 PM
Oh. Well, in that case, yeah, as long as it's not some kind of offensive caricature that paints all men or women in a certain light or something of that ilk.



Plus, unless the DM is some kind of elf-lover or has a greater amount of hatred for them than is usual, you typically get to give as good as one gets with the whole elf/non-elf thing and it gets played for laughs rather than bogging the game down with conflict that is not enjoyable. Because there's in-game conflict that's fun and then there's in-game conflict that makes one want to strangle the GM for being a butt or bogging the game down.

Sexism-based conflict is sorta consigned to the unfun category by default, and it takes special effort to get it back out again.

Why is sexism based conflict unfun, is it unfun for everybody? It features in quite a bit of literature and isn't unfun there... Why is fantastic racism more acceptable, I mean there are people that are victims of real racism and some of them are gamers.

I hold again that suggesting that people cannot handle something because they may have been victims at some point, is in itself a form of sexism or racism. It's like a bizarre version of it yes, but it is. Some women would be fine with fictional depictions of sexism, some people who have been exposed to racism, would be fine with fictional depictions of racism. To suggest otherwise, to speak for an entire group is the very nature of stereotyping in a sexist or racist way. Particularly if you aren't a part of that group.

mucat
2013-12-19, 04:33 PM
But is the game necessarily less fun for players of that group to be involved in? I don't think that's always the case. I think that in fact implying that it would be is a kind of sexism or a kind of racism, "Because they've had to put up with it they're incapable of putting up with it in this context"? That sounds sexist and/or racist to me.

Ah, but that's exactly the distinction I was drawing. Maybe I phrased it poorly.

A game set in a world where serious sexism exists is not necessarily less fun for women to play; likewise for any other form of real-world bigotry. Hell, one of my favorite games right now is set in a pseudo-Victorian world full of casual racism and sexism. The female and/or non-pseudo-European PCs are having a great time running circles around anyone who underestimates them. (And my character, who once served quite proudly as an officer of one of the dominant Empires, is quietly having his world view undermined at all turns...)

On the other hand, I've also seen games where the GM was quite clearly using in-world prejudice as a thinly-veiled excuse to say all the sexist, racist, or homophobic things that "politically correct oppression" kept him/her from saying in real life. Hell, some openly and gleefully admitted that. Those are the games where a (whichever group the GM is using as a virtual punching bag) player would pretty much inevitably have less fun at the table. And those are the games where I meant that I would think less both of the GM, and of players who find that sort of thing fun.

So I suppose the point of my post was "If you're going to include serious bigotry that has a close real-world analogue, then make sure to build that first type of campaign, not the second type."

Coidzor
2013-12-19, 04:47 PM
Why is sexism based conflict unfun, is it unfun for everybody? It features in quite a bit of literature and isn't unfun there...

Why is fantastic racism more acceptable, I mean there are people that are victims of real racism and some of them are gamers.

Because either it's a foregone conclusion either way(the sexist characters get hoist by their own petard as a matter of course or the DM finally succeeds in sexually assaulting the character(s) after trying to do it all campaign) or it bogs the game down, typically. Then there's the nature of sexist conflict being **** like attempted sexual assault, constant in-game harassment, and other things that demand the story be about them, so unless one wants to play a game about dismantling the patriarchy, it's largely a distraction unless you've got a DM and Players who really have their kit together and know one another perfectly to pull it off without a hitch, and even then there's the question of the investment in doing it right being worth the payoff.

So, yes, you can make a game about dismantling the patriarchy be fun, but then it's all about sexism and you're already taking special efforts anyway.

Fantasy racism doesn't generally have very good parallels to real racism unless you put them in there yourself and is typically more along the lines of these groups are at war with one another periodically than groups A, B, and C are an oppressed underclass under groups X and Y. :smallconfused:



I hold again that suggesting that people cannot handle something because they may have been victims at some point, is in itself a form of sexism or racism. It's like a bizarre version of it yes, but it is.

Some women would be fine with fictional depictions of sexism, some people who have been exposed to racism, would be fine with fictional depictions of racism. To suggest otherwise, to speak for an entire group is the very nature of stereotyping in a sexist or racist way. Particularly if you aren't a part of that group.

It's not about coddling so much as execution and medium. Most of us aren't equipped to do it right, so it's something that should demand people actually think about doing it first rather than be something where people are encouraged to do it willy-nilly.

Maybes and Mights don't translate well into do what thou wilt without a care. Nor does the potential OKness of exploring and combating sexism in a game transfer to the potential OKness of what people actually mean when they talk about sexism in games.

AMFV
2013-12-19, 04:58 PM
Because either it's a foregone conclusion either way(the sexist characters get hoist by their own petard as a matter of course or the DM finally succeeds in sexually assaulting the character(s) after trying to do it all campaign) or it bogs the game down, typically. Then there's the nature of sexist conflict being **** like attempted sexual assault, constant in-game harassment, and other things that demand the story be about them, so unless one wants to play a game about dismantling the patriarchy, it's largely a distraction unless you've got a DM and Players who really have their kit together and know one another perfectly to pull it off without a hitch, and even then there's the question of the investment in doing it right being worth the payoff.

Wait, are we talking about the same kind of in-game sexism? Because violent sexual assault is usually not acceptable to most groups. But a mild patriarchy is probably fine. Besides which its not really a foregone conclusion, in a setting that's sexist, like WW2, it may never even come up, the characters are all male, and wouldn't think about female soldiers, or the Navy SEAL example, NSW people aren't going to really think about it, so it won't be an overt factor of the game. I don't think it'd be a distraction except for possibly at character creation.



So, yes, you can make a game about dismantling the patriarchy be fun, but then it's all about sexism and you're already taking special efforts anyway.


I don't think that it's exclusive to that, you can have games that have a presence of slavery that aren't all about dismantling slavery, any game set in the Forgotten Realms is an exceptional example of this. Which could naturally bother some people, but it's part of the imperfect character of the world, just like sexism in a setting should be.



Fantasy racism doesn't generally have very good parallels to real racism unless you put them in there yourself and is typically more along the lines of these groups are at war with one another periodically than groups A, B, and C are an oppressed underclass under groups X and Y. :smallconfused:


I see the parallels, at least fairly easily in most circumstances.



It's not about coddling so much as execution and medium. Most of us aren't equipped to do it right, so it's something that should demand people actually think about doing it first rather than be something where people are encouraged to do it willy-nilly.

Certainly it should be thought about, most game topics should, but it shouldn't be banned out of hand, because it's something that requires thought or careful handling. Sexism in a game setting is as acceptable as slavery, or fantastic racism, or murder, or child labor, or devil worship, or piracy, or tyranny, or theft, or graverobbing. There are things that are present in most games, sexism is not any worse than most of these, so there's no reason it should have a special exclusion.

Yes sexism could affect all women, and some portion of men. But violence could affect everybody, so I fail to see why sexism would be given a special exclusion, except that somewhere on the internet somebody declared that "sexism is a special kind of evil" but it's not. Sexism is not a special kind of evil, it's not more painful than violence, certainly not more destructive than murder. Sexism is yes bad, but it's not the worst bad, and certainly not the worst thing that could be included in a game.



Maybes and Mights don't translate well into do what thou wilt without a care. Nor does the potential OKness of exploring and combating sexism in a game transfer to the potential OKness of what people actually mean when they talk about sexism in games.

Well what about a game where combating sexism isn't the point, its just there, it's a thing in the world, just like slavery in the Forgotten Realms, it might be an unsavory part of the world, but an unsavory world is more real than one that is whitewashed out by political correctness.

Icewraith
2013-12-19, 05:36 PM
One time I definitely regretted trying out a female character was a group that formed on an instant chat-type site quite a while ago. I figured I wouldn't have to deal with the normal "guy playing a girl" hang-ups because I wouldn't have to speak, just type.

So I randomly ended up rolling up a character with severe Agoraphobia and the campaign ended up taking place in a world seemingly composed of endless savannah. The character ended up becoming extremely agitated and near violence-prone any time she was in a very large enclosed space or any space without a roof. One of the other players decided that his character would spend a great deal of effort attempting to sleep with my character.

Since my character was dealing with her mental illness 24/7, this was definitely not appreciated. The RP ended up about how one might expect in a real-world situation, with his character playing the role of the enemy bomber pilot and my character playing the role of the anti-aircraft defense. It was a bit of an eye opener and definitely provided a different perspective on women than what I had acquired up to that point.

Also, I failed to realize this at the time, but the way I had been playing up the mental illness thing my character probably could have blown his character into a fine mist via shotgun without incurring significant repurcussions.

Coidzor
2013-12-19, 05:53 PM
Wait, are we talking about the same kind of in-game sexism? Because violent sexual assault is usually not acceptable to most groups. But a mild patriarchy is probably fine. Besides which its not really a foregone conclusion, in a setting that's sexist, like WW2, it may never even come up, the characters are all male, and wouldn't think about female soldiers, or the Navy SEAL example, NSW people aren't going to really think about it, so it won't be an overt factor of the game. I don't think it'd be a distraction except for possibly at character creation.

I'd agree that a mild patriarchy is probably fine, given that's going on in several published settings and is arguably the current setup in various places in the real world. I just don't see as it sexism of a level that's really relevant to potentially impinge on anyone's fun and thus need discussion, because it's not something that seems like it would be relevant to discuss as something that would make playing a female character into an onerous task or be a barrier to someone wanting to play a female character in that setting.

I thought by default we were talking about more egregious sexism, like the constant insulting that derails the plot exposition NPCs because they're too busy insulting the party's female characters to get on with it, even after the competence of the party's female characters has been demonstrated.

I mean, if we're just talking the small stuff... I'd have to re-evaluate the entire conversation up till now. :smallconfused::smalleek: Though parts of it still don't seem to add up with that being the case...

I mean, I imagine we're actually talking about something inbetween the two points, but darned if I can actually envision what that'd look like.

AMFV
2013-12-19, 06:21 PM
I'd agree that a mild patriarchy is probably fine, given that's going on in several published settings and is arguably the current setup in various places in the real world. I just don't see as it sexism of a level that's really relevant to potentially impinge on anyone's fun and thus need discussion, because it's not something that seems like it would be relevant to discuss as something that would make playing a female character into an onerous task or be a barrier to someone wanting to play a female character in that setting.

I thought by default we were talking about more egregious sexism, like the constant insulting that derails the plot exposition NPCs because they're too busy insulting the party's female characters to get on with it, even after the competence of the party's female characters has been demonstrated.

I mean, if we're just talking the small stuff... I'd have to re-evaluate the entire conversation up till now. :smallconfused::smalleek: Though parts of it still don't seem to add up with that being the case...

I mean, I imagine we're actually talking about something inbetween the two points, but darned if I can actually envision what that'd look like.

Well what had happened was... we were talking about a system where female characters might not be appropriate, like playing as part of a SEAL team in Vietnam, or as WW2 GIs, a place where it would be hard to work in female characters, so the DM might ban them out of hand.

Then it was implied that any DM that would create such a game, was sexist, and that was what I was arguing against.

TuggyNE
2013-12-19, 07:13 PM
I'd agree that a mild patriarchy is probably fine, given that's going on in several published settings and is arguably the current setup in various places in the real world. I just don't see as it sexism of a level that's really relevant to potentially impinge on anyone's fun and thus need discussion, because it's not something that seems like it would be relevant to discuss as something that would make playing a female character into an onerous task or be a barrier to someone wanting to play a female character in that setting.

I thought by default we were talking about more egregious sexism, like the constant insulting that derails the plot exposition NPCs because they're too busy insulting the party's female characters to get on with it, even after the competence of the party's female characters has been demonstrated.

I, and almost certainly several others, use "sexism" to refer to the entire spectrum, however offensive or inoffensive it might be, since I don't feel like getting into the whole complex issue of figuring out what sorts of differentiation are OK*. And since much of the justification for including background sexism in a setting or game is because it makes it easier to port over real-world expectations without having to rewrite mental images of society, it's plain that we were talking about real-world levels thereof, not exaggerated.


I mean, if we're just talking the small stuff... I'd have to re-evaluate the entire conversation up till now.

So it would seem.


*Is it OK to admit that females have lower average and absolute maximum upper-body strength and running speed? Probably not, from past experience, whether or not that's actually any kind of sensible thing to value a person for.

The Insanity
2013-12-19, 08:02 PM
The classic "princess running away from an arranged marriage" is easier to sell than "prince running away from an arranged marriage" because we're more used to it and most cultures emulated in D&D-esq settings are going to be male-dominated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqfJqLFQSIk


Women don't just disappear from warzones, there are always civilians, personnel like nurses, spies, soldiers - yes, even historically.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQg28Qwmaro


If we were playing a game about confederate soldiers, then yes I'd ban the playing of African Americans, unless they were in the station that they were in at the time. Political whitewashing of history is never good. Never.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_Army#African_Americans_in_the_C onfederate_Army


Put it this way: for all this hypothetical theorizing, I have never seen someone seriously put forward the possibility of actually forbidding female characters whom I did not have deep suspicions of for other reasons.
I actually witnessed a game where the DM wouldn't allow the players to play the opposite gender.
Oh. Did I mention it was a pbf?

Personally I play females, because there's more cool artwork that appeals to me for them than for males. Oh, and because I'm a male IRL. No need to be the same in a pretend game.

Coidzor
2013-12-19, 09:09 PM
So it would seem.

That just seems to leave the aforementioned history-fetish army games as a point of discussion though, is the thing, since everything else can generally be summed up as lazy DM is lazy, hostile DM is hostile, or a non-issue. :/

AMFV
2013-12-19, 09:20 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqfJqLFQSIk


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQg28Qwmaro


This is a thing, and it would make it possible to maybe work in Female Special Operations folks in a modern game. But it'd be hard to in a historical context.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_Army#African_Americans_in_the_C onfederate_Army

It would still be difficult to have them be participating in the game though.



I actually witnessed a game where the DM wouldn't allow the players to play the opposite gender.
Oh. Did I mention it was a pbf?

Personally I play females, because there's more cool artwork that appeals to me for them than for males. Oh, and because I'm a male IRL. No need to be the same in a pretend game.

Good enough reasons for me.

The Insanity
2013-12-19, 11:00 PM
I never subscribed to this "Lets stay historically accurate" thing. Why limit yourself in a pretend game that's supposed to be fun? You're not making a history essay for school or anything like that.
Then again I'm a fan of superhero comics and/or films where the setting is our world but not really.

AMFV
2013-12-19, 11:08 PM
I never subscribed to this "Lets stay historically accurate" thing. Why limit yourself in a pretend game that's supposed to be fun? You're not making a history essay for school or anything like that.
Then again I'm a fan of superhero comics and films where the setting is our world but not really.

Some people like it, military history buffs tend to be really obsessive about that sort of thing, for whatever reason. It's a thing, I'm not sure exactly why they get so butthurt about it, but they do, and I don't think it has to do with sexism.

Tengu_temp
2013-12-19, 11:15 PM
"Muh historical accuracy" is actually used as an excuse for sexism and other bigotry a lot of the time. And I mean a lot. Ironically, people who do this often aren't really that knowledgable about history.

The Insanity
2013-12-19, 11:28 PM
I failed history a lot and I'm playing only fantasy. In my setting there's a tribe of orcs that has very low male birthrates, which results in females outnumbering males 10 to 1. Because of that males are a precious resource that's essential to the tribe's survival, so they're treated almost like princes. Sure, they have to train hard to be useful to the tribe, they compete against each other for prestige and women (each adult male has a harem, the stronger and better warriors have bigger), but it's the females who are workers, hunters, warriors, crafters, etc.
It's sexism in there, but out of necessity. :smalltongue: It's kinda serves as a counterbalance to drow matriarchal society.

Hyena
2013-12-19, 11:58 PM
Sounds awfully a lot like krogans.

AMFV
2013-12-20, 12:04 AM
"Muh historical accuracy" is actually used as an excuse for sexism and other bigotry a lot of the time. And I mean a lot. Ironically, people who do this often aren't really that knowledgable about history.

Well History Buffs, particularly military history buffs tend to be pretty knowledgeable, although I probably wouldn't want to participate in such a game based on accurate military history, it would be one that might be difficult to facilitate female players, and I don't think it would involve sexism on part of the DM, but on part of the setting.


I failed history a lot and I'm playing only fantasy. In my setting there's a tribe of orcs that has very low male birthrates, which results in females outnumbering males 10 to 1. Because of that males are a precious resource that's essential to the tribe's survival, so they're treated almost like princes. Sure, they have to train hard to be useful to the tribe, they compete against each other for prestige and women (each adult male has a harem, the stronger and better warriors have bigger), but it's the females who are workers, hunters, warriors, crafters, etc.
It's sexism in there, but out of necessity. :smalltongue: It's kinda serves as a counterbalance to drow matriarchal society.

And there'd be nothing wrong with this kind of setting, I don't think that it makes you a sexist. Not even a little bit, because you participate in a setting which is mildly sexist.

The Insanity
2013-12-20, 12:08 AM
It's not really the setting. It's just a small part of it. And I know I'm not sexist.

Scow2
2013-12-20, 12:53 AM
I think the big problem with the "Males shouldn't play female characters" and what makes it creepy is that, effectively, it can be perceived as a male fully dominating/controlling and shaping a female to be what HE thinks a female should be and act like.

Frozen_Feet
2013-12-20, 06:15 AM
The difference, and reason for the elevation of the problem of Sexism over Genocide is "How many people do you know are personally adversely affected by genocide every (arbitrary measurement of time)" - With Genocide, it's less than a fraction of a fraction of a percent. With sexism, it's damn close to 50% of the population.

... which should make sexism easier to discuss, not harder. Easier to ignore, too.

Personal anecdotes ahoy: I have to deal with teenage girls calling me a pedophile and insinuating (read: explicitly stating) I'm either a whore (yes) or a perpetual virgin, dependings on phase of the moon and how sparrows happen to fly on a given day. And not just any random teenage girls, but girls who are my subjects. So my continued functioning in my duties with them is reliant on a) everyone realizing they are talking out of their asses and b) on me not giving a single **** about such stupid namecalling.

It's really, really hard for any random sample of roleplayers to top that. But it also has the side-effect that I find it hard to take seriously when someone takes offense to comparatively minor things (such, as say, gender-based strenght score penalties). RPGs are games. A stupid joke said or a stereotypical character played at a table doesn't automagically become part of some social narrative and make the world a worse place. A lot of sexism in RPGs, like many other bad things in them, is plain irrelevant. It doesn't affect one thing or another, so it's nothing to get fuzzed up about.

Lorsa
2013-12-20, 07:45 AM
Eh, I disagree on point two, and sort of on point three. If people are uncomfortable with stuff, they're uncomfortable with it. Period. You can say "you shouldn't be", but that doesn't account for reality. Using rules to tell people "you have to be okay with this!" is counterproductive.

On point three - well, honestly, I've found that guys that want to play girls are more likely to be problem players than average. Maybe 2 or 3 in 10 as opposed to 1 in 10. But people that can't accept any restrictions on what they do are probably about 80% likely to be problem players.

"Hey I'd like to play a female character!"

"Well, we'd prefer if you did that after everyone was a bit more comfortable with each other."

"Sure, okay!"

That's probably someone that'll be fine in the game. They're showing they're able to accept influence, reach a compromise, and be sensitive to the feelings of others, even if they don't agree.

"Hey, I'd like to play a female character!"

"Well, we'd prefer if you did that after everyone was a bit more comfortable with each other."

"What's wrong with you? Are you repressed? Don't you know that it's been decided that cross-playing is okay? How dare you limit my creativity and tell me no!"

... that guy is probably not gonna last long in the group.

This reminds me a bit of an (already established) group I joined in a few years back now.

When sitting down with the GM I asked: "So, do you have anything in particular you don't want me to do?"

"Well, I'd prefer if you didn't make a female character, I have some bad experiences when men does that."

"Al right, no problem at all!"

Later on in that campaign, we had some break from our normal characters to play a few sessions in a completely different time setting with characters that were pre-made by the GM. To my surprise, the one he made for me was a female character (the only one in the group). I'm not sure if he thought it turned out okay or not, he didn't say anything bad about my performance but he didn't say anything good either.

So yeah, I do feel it is important to be sensitive to the feelings of others and reach compromises. I adapt to the group.

Kalmageddon
2013-12-20, 07:52 AM
I'd agree that a mild patriarchy is probably fine, given that's going on in several published settings and is arguably the current setup in various places in the real world. I just don't see as it sexism of a level that's really relevant to potentially impinge on anyone's fun and thus need discussion, because it's not something that seems like it would be relevant to discuss as something that would make playing a female character into an onerous task or be a barrier to someone wanting to play a female character in that setting.

I thought by default we were talking about more egregious sexism, like the constant insulting that derails the plot exposition NPCs because they're too busy insulting the party's female characters to get on with it, even after the competence of the party's female characters has been demonstrated.

I mean, if we're just talking the small stuff... I'd have to re-evaluate the entire conversation up till now. :smallconfused::smalleek: Though parts of it still don't seem to add up with that being the case...

I mean, I imagine we're actually talking about something inbetween the two points, but darned if I can actually envision what that'd look like.

Hell, that would explain the massive overreaction going on here.
As the guy that started this whole discussion (yay... :smallsigh:) by saying that in certain settings a female character is inappropriate I was simply talking about the "key positions in the story are usually a male exclusive in the setting" factor, not the "your female character will be constantly abused if you so much dare to breathe".

I thought that further exemples would have clarified this, like saying that if we are all going to roleplay WW1 soldiers it would be hard to have a female character without stretching suspension of disbelief or having to focus entirely on the difficulties that said character would have.

Frankly at this point I don't even know why this discussion is still going on.
Let's be honest, if someone were to be offended by a setting that contains anything other then perfect social utopia, this person can be safely ignored as being overly sensitive.
Otherwise, I think everyone can recognize that some settings and games have a fundamental bias towards playing one kind of characer over another. In a WH40K rpg the bias is towards playing a human as opposed to an alien, in a Lord of the Rings campaign the bias would be strongly against playing a "good" orc, in a historically accurate WW2 D-Day campaign the bias would be playing a male soldier and not a female soldier.
And I think it's safe to state that unless the people interested in playing in these settings are doing so BECAUSE of the various "-isms" present in them in a power fantasy kind of way, these people are not to be considered any more intolerant or predjudiced because of it.

This, I feel, is the most sensible way to approach the issue. If you want to play any character, regardless if you are male or female irl, you should check if the campaign is fitting for the kind of character you have in mind.
Sometimes what's wrong with your character might be the class, other times the race, other times it might be its gender.
The gender of the character shouldn't be considered any more deserving of compromising the campaign premise then any other aspect of your character.
If the campaign is explicitly stated as low-magic, it would be unreasonable to insist in playing a wizard. If the campaign takes place in a prison where only male inmates are held, it would be unreasonable wanting to play a female character.
Now, since this apparently needs to be stated explicitly: nobody is saying that you HAVE to play in a campaign which premise you don't like. If you want to play a wizard and you have no interest in any other kinds of characters then obviously a low-magic fantasy setting is not what you are looking for. This is a problem with you as it is with the setting and there shouldn't be any blaming involved.
Expecially no real life moral judgement should come out of it.

Now, can we agree on this or is there something wrong with what I've said? And if so, could you debate it while adressing my exact quote from this post instead of making strawmen or jumping to conclusion I've never ment?

Lorsa
2013-12-20, 08:14 AM
Now, can we agree on this or is there something wrong with what I've said? And if so, could you debate it while adressing my exact quote from this post instead of making strawmen or jumping to conclusion I've never ment?

How can you possibly argue for [insert strawman here]! Would you also say that [insert jump to conclusions]? That's just completely wrong because [insert weak argument here].

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

The Succubus
2013-12-20, 08:23 AM
Currently playing a female geisha bard in a 3.5 game.

She's my character and I'll role play however I damn well please.

ShadowFighter15
2013-12-22, 05:16 AM
Got a female Rogue Trader I'm getting into a game on Myth Weavers. Had her in one ages ago but it died after a single space combat and some post-battle RP, looting and prisoner-taking (you know; standard-operating-procedure for a Rogue Trader vessel).

Idea behind her was to make someone who, at first glance, didn't look like a Rogue Trader - barely five-feet tall, mid-late 20s and very attractive is a far cry from how most Traders look. In reality; she's a lot closer to her grandfather than most archetypical female Traders. Said grandfather being a giant of a man who was basically a heroic version of Blackbeard (no fuses, though) and the perfect role for Brian Blessed. I figured this was the easiest way to explain why she had the Renowned Warrant talent. A good way to describe her would be a pint-sized, non-smoking version of Integra Hellsing.

Main reason I settled on that idea was because every male RT idea I could think of felt too same-y. It could just be my love of a good con but I could never think of a way for a guy to play with a rival's preconceptions about them like that, not without them playing an arrogant fop like the Prince in Blackadder's third season.

Zale
2013-12-22, 08:41 AM
I think the reason I sometimes create female characters, at least for text-based roleplays, is because I read many High Fantasy books with female protagonists when I was growing up.

So it's easy to swing in that direction with character concepts.

detritus
2013-12-22, 07:07 PM
I do have trouble with some of the responses on here, I really hope they are hypothetical. If not you really need to find a different Rp group.

My roleplaying has always included female players, I have played both male and female - there have never been issues regarding a male playing a female, none of the DM's has ever tried to get the female pc in a sexually compromising situation, none of the players has ever done anything as stupid either.

I like to think that most rp-ers are adults, thinking outside the confines of normal society. If your experiences contradict that, seriously think about who you adventure with.

PS - I have been a roleplayer for more than 35 years, just to give you some idea about the range of experiences. The group I play with has been together with a few minor adjustments for 32 years , but even as teenagers nobody was that stupid.

Scow2
2013-12-22, 07:41 PM
I like to think that most rp-ers are adults, thinking outside the confines of normal society. If your experiences contradict that, seriously think about who you adventure with.Well, I adventure with people who have learned that growing up and being mature is a con game that leads to misery and boredom. :smalltongue:

AMFV
2013-12-22, 08:02 PM
I do have trouble with some of the responses on here, I really hope they are hypothetical. If not you really need to find a different Rp group.

Which responses in particular? I mean some of them are pretty disagreeable, but it'd be easier to follow your line of thought if we knew which things you were disagreeing with.

Dundee15
2013-12-27, 01:22 AM
I've got 2 characters in my current game lined up after my first one dies. The current one is male and then the next is female and last is male again.

The character I'm playing now is a human male rogue and was created with no knowledge of the world and isn't much of a character, but I've been retconning things into his backstory bit by bit to help flesh him out. (Rogue that owes a debt... debt is to giants... gambler... wife was partner... she got caught and was to be sold off... so he made a huge bet to get the money to buy her back... lost the bet and owes money... lost his wife to some slaver) He's a decent Rogue but if he vanished, the main story wouldn't change.

The 2nd one was created after I knew about the world. Norse mythology based so the DnD gods are replaced with Thor, Loki, Sif and the like. Well I noticed our party needed a paladin so I was going to make one... then thought, well, since the gods are different, what would be the equivalent of a paladin? How about a Valkyrie... or a paladin that's trying to become a Valkyrie! Now I've got an ultimate goal (becoming a Valkyrie) and a reason to stay with the party (who is working closely with/for Sif and Thor). Only problem is that the character MUST be female to work (otherwise it just comes out creepy) so... I made her female. Will this affect reactions, maybe. Won't know until we play again (game's been on hold for 2 1/2 months now.)

The last one was only as a backup for the backup and isn't fleshed out other than class. (and won't be unless the first one dies or completes his sidequest... he is a rogue after all.)

Driderman
2013-12-27, 01:39 AM
At OP: I can't really see why it should be a problem, unless the gaming group in question has maturity issues and fears "catching teh gay", getting cooties or something equally pubescent, from you playing a female character.

In my own roleplaying environment, we've never really been bothered with stuff like that. One of our guys ALWAYS plays female roles and sure, we've made a fair share of jokes about that (away from the game) but it's never been an issue. Choosing the gender of your character is just like choosing class, archetype, clan, nationality and other features and default-ly, no choice is better than the other, it's simply a matter of what you feel suits and what you'd like to play.

Roxxy
2013-12-27, 07:01 AM
"Muh historical accuracy" is actually used as an excuse for sexism and other bigotry a lot of the time. And I mean a lot. Ironically, people who do this often aren't really that knowledgable about history.If we are talking the middle ages, then you are right. Those who claim realism very often don't understand much about medieval cultures. Medieval gender roles are a complicated beast, and "no women going to war" is an oversimplification of what was actually going on, especially since we are talking about a thousand year period and more cultures than I can count. To refer to a previous example, however, in World War 2 or Vietnam a women isn't going into the vast majority of combat units (unless she is a Russian sniper or pilot or a British or German anti-aircraft gunner [not sure if the Russians had female AA gunners]), and isn't sneaking into one since you have to strip nude during intake. Partisan units used women all the time, but that is very different than being an Army Ranger in Vietnam or Normandy, and may not be what the game is about. The Historical Accuracy card works in some cases, but it is very often not used realistically at all.