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View Full Version : DM Help Is crossplaying good or bad?



TheMagician
2015-08-29, 05:41 PM
I recently had a very bad experience with a few male players playing female characters. They played their characters in very disturbing ways and I need your advice should i just straight up ban crossplaying all together or pose some kind of test for people that want to do it? Please share if you have had any bad experiences with crossplaying and how you handled them.

Vitruviansquid
2015-08-29, 05:48 PM
It is never what is being played.

It is always who is doing the playing.

Ninja_Prawn
2015-08-29, 05:48 PM
It's a tough call. Personally, I like crossplaying, but there are definitely some people who shouldn't be allowed to do it.

How can you tell what sort of person a given player is? I mean, some people hold some very toxic views about sex and gender but you wouldn't know because they never voice them.

Jormengand
2015-08-29, 05:51 PM
If they're playing the character in weird ways, that's just them being immature. Two of the players in my regular games have at some point or other been playing opposite-gender characters and I have to think for a moment to remember who is and who isn't because it barely comes up. I don't think that it's necessarily a problem to do with "Crossplaying" but with the type of person in the first place.

Rater202
2015-08-29, 06:03 PM
If someone is biased against or holds offensive views towards one gender, then they should not be allowed to play as that gender.

Beyond that, there's no harm and it can be fun to play as a different gender.

Rockphed
2015-08-29, 06:09 PM
If people playing as the opposite sex disturbs you, don't let them do it. If it is just the people in question, ban them specifically. If it is any of it, ban it altogether. I personally find that it takes a very good roleplayer to play as the other sex without either being disturbing or weird.

Millstone85
2015-08-29, 06:53 PM
I don't know, Rockphed. In my group of players, we are four men and one woman. She, another and I crossplay. That hasn't been a problem at all. And we are not good roleplayers.

Red Fel
2015-08-29, 07:04 PM
It is never what is being played.

It is always who is doing the playing.

This. It shouldn't be revelation, but playing a female character and playing a male character are two acts that are remarkably similar. If the players are doing it in a strange way, it's not a problem of crossplaying; it's a problem of the players.

So let's refine the question. Is crossplaying good or bad? It's neither. It's a thing, like playing an orc or a space marine or a paladin. It's just a thing. Can crossplaying be good or bad? It depends on context.

Here's the interesting thing, though. I could describe to you my experience of a player who played an orc or a space marine or a paladin, or some other concept, and did so amazingly well. I could lay out the story, and at the end there might be a dozen people commenting "Awesome story" and "That's how an orc/space marine/paladin should be played!"

I can't think of the same for playing a gender. I mean, I know it helps form the identity of the character, but I can't grasp someone saying, "That's how a male/female character should be played" in a non-offensive way. I guess it's because, to me, there's nothing fantastical about a gender. It's like saying, "Now that's how you play an accountant." They exist. They are a thing.

So, having taken the long way 'round: No. Crossplaying is neither bad nor good. It's just a thing. It's there. If you don't like it at your table, say so. If you don't want a player doing it because he turns into a creeper, the problem is the player.

Also, tell him he's a creeper.

OldTrees1
2015-08-29, 07:23 PM
When I DM, I DM on a level of abstraction where NPCs don't have genders unless a player asks(which rarely happens). One of my players has played both Male and Female PCs. There we no problems either way. The player was mature. I just needed to remember which pronoun to use with regard to this player's PC.

Your situation is different. You might benefit from banning crossplay. I would certainly suggest striking down any disturbing or disrupting crossplay.

As Vitruviansquid said

It is never what is being played.

It is always who is doing the playing.

Honest Tiefling
2015-08-29, 07:50 PM
I've had plenty, unfortunately many I cannot relate due to NOT being PG-13. I've even had problems with ladies playing men, especially gay men so I guess everyone can be on the offensive train when it comes to this issue.

I am going to jump onto the 'Ban the players, not the style' thing. Firstly, people often don't want to audition for a hobby. Interesting concepts and ideas will be abandoned or you might chase off players that you'd otherwise want to keep.

Secondly, it isn't going to work. People can make normal seeming characters on paper and then it's 'oh god what are you doing with that ten foot pole and it is going WHERE!?' after the second session and then you have to have a discussion of why paladins shouldn't rape people because they SEEMED normal at first.

In my experience, male or female, those who have issues with cross-playing are going to end up doing other offensive stuff. In my experience, they ended to act really poorly in regards to those of the opposite sex. I really have to say to be careful about including anyone whose failed to portray the opposite gender with some modicum of respect, because it can quickly destroy a game and make for a creepy atmosphere.

The ONLY exception to this I can think of is that younger players are well, quite immature. However, much like auditioning, many people don't want to deal with it. Some people do it and grow out of it, but I haven't really seen that people who play offensively like that as an adult really get over it.

Makiru
2015-08-29, 08:05 PM
More or less parroting what most of the above posts have said. Many of the people I play with tend to gravitate towards other genders and it tends to be fine for the most part. As has been said, a person/character's personality is rarely based on what's between their legs and on their chest, and if it is, then that will probably be a bland, one-sided character.

People who play females and go "Hur, boobies!" all the time will likely find another outlet for idiocy when crossplay is denied. All that has been accomplished is the limiting of an option for people who had the maturity to enjoy it. That said, if you are going to be running for a completely new group, it's safer to just tell everyone to play their gender until you get a read on how they behave in game.

So, in so many words, no, I don't think it's bad.

goto124
2015-08-29, 11:07 PM
Where do you get your players from? A society?

Also, I personally think a gender restriction is... overly restrictive. If it happens rather frequently, maybe you should look for a different source of players? One that less likely to give players who're that immature?

Their behavior, their character sheets, etc could've had red flags. But sometimes not. There's always the 'kick them out' solution...

Draconium
2015-08-29, 11:17 PM
While these particular players might pose a problem, I agree with the general opinion that there's nothing wrong with crossplaying inherently. If the players aren't mature enough to handle playing another gender, then don't let them. But don't restrict it from players that are mature enough.

goto124
2015-08-29, 11:38 PM
People have banned the Evil alignment, because Evil easily goes into Eating-Babies Evulz (according to their experience, at least).

But... crossplaying? Really?

TheOOB
2015-08-30, 12:56 AM
The only answer to the question in the topic is Mu, or simplified, the question is wrong. Playing different gendered characters is neither good nor bad, it simply is. A character can be roleplayed poorly or offensively no matter what gender the character or player is.

That said, I would strong recommend against restricting people against playing genders other than their own. Even ignoring the fact that such restrictions may make this hobby less safe or inclusive to people, the idea that you're going to prevent people from playing 50% of the potential characters they could play is just silly.

If someone is causing problems and being offensive, talk to them about it, and if that doesn't work, don't play with them.

In my personal experience I play male characters 90+% of the time, I'm male, and feel more comfortable playing male characters. That said, a few times I have had a character where I felt I could do something much more interesting as a female character than a male one, so I did so, and it worked out fairly well. Other players in my group are similar to me in such methods, but we have an understanding that if someone is doing something that makes any of us uncomfortable, we just stop and talk it out. We're all mature adults.

Piedmon_Sama
2015-08-30, 01:20 AM
There's no problem with it. Although I would have a hard time roleplaying seriously as a woman----I'm a big guy, I have a deep voice---people shouldn't feel discouraged from trying it if they want.

Kami2awa
2015-08-30, 01:29 AM
What does this guy do that's a problem?

Jormengand
2015-08-30, 05:54 AM
I would have a hard time roleplaying seriously as a woman----I'm a big guy, I have a deep voice

I feel that that's less of a problem when the DM's roleplaying as a dragon.

Hawkstar
2015-08-30, 08:14 AM
Where do you get your players from? A society?

Also, I personally think a gender restriction is... overly restrictive. If it happens rather frequently, maybe you should look for a different source of players? One that less likely to give players who're that immature?

Their behavior, their character sheets, etc could've had red flags. But sometimes not. There's always the 'kick them out' solution...Most people who play offensively-portrayed opposite-gender characters play their own gender just fine (Even around members of the opposite gender).


I feel that that's less of a problem when the DM's roleplaying as a dragon.
Nope. Dragons talk and sound very similar to humans, but maybe with a bit of a reverb. I know it may come as a shock, but they didn't really get real dragons to voice Smaug in The Hobbit or Alduin in Skyrim.

Jormengand
2015-08-30, 08:24 AM
Nope. Dragons talk and sound very similar to humans, but maybe with a bit of a reverb. I know it may come as a shock, but they didn't really get real dragons to voice Smaug in The Hobbit or Alduin in Skyrim.

And they didn't get real women to voice or even play women until very recently, but I'm still waiting to hear what your point is. Moreover, I imagine that Smaug was voiced using some kind of funky voice alteration to which the DM of your average game doesn't have access.

Hawkstar
2015-08-30, 08:39 AM
And they didn't get real women to voice or even play women until very recently, but I'm still waiting to hear what your point is. Moreover, I imagine that Smaug was voiced using some kind of funky voice alteration to which the DM of your average game doesn't have access.My point is that we are accustomed to hearing human men and women voice their respective genders. Women have been playing/portraying women far beyond living memory.

They've also had women voicing/playing women in public performance arts for centuries. Just because there was, at one point in time one culture prohibited women performing does not make it a norm we recently crawled out of from the abyss of history.

Outside of comedy, when they do have men voicing women and women voicing men, the actors change their voices in ways many gamers can't.

Jormengand
2015-08-30, 08:52 AM
My point is that we are accustomed to hearing human men and women voice their respective genders.

Would it surprise you to know that a lot of boys are voiced by women?

Anyway, that's not the point. In games I've seen, DMs have played:

- An imp with a speech impediment
- A hawk familiar
- An awakened crocodile druid
- Numerous characters of both genders

You have to do that if you're the DM, or else explain why you can't talk to the imp or your goddamned familiar (even though it has a class feature feature that lets you do that) and why everyone who's a different gender from you is suddenly mute. So if it's going to break your immersion for that to happen, then that's a pretty major problem, and if it's not, then why enforce restrictions on your players that don't make sense on the DM?

Hyena
2015-08-30, 09:38 AM
That's a very strange question to ask, honestly. Your average role player regularly plays people of different race, different species, diffrenet culture, different religion, diferent moral values, but when the topic comes to playing a different gender, some otherwise reasonable people suddenly begin to ask, if this is an okay thing. The answer to this question is... Well, yes. And it would be very weird, if it wasn't okay. We're role players. Playing people unlike us is pretty much what we do.

There is, of course, That Guy, who wants to play a woman to fulfill his weird fantasies, but that's not a problem of crossplaying specifically - That Guy should be banned from roleplaying in general.


- An awakened crocodile druid
Okay, I just have to know. Did he wildshape into a human?

Jormengand
2015-08-30, 09:56 AM
Okay, I just have to know. Did he wildshape into a human?

Oh no: Caiman-sensei taught others about the ways of the crocodiles. No humans could ever be a match for him.

Hawkstar
2015-08-30, 10:20 AM
There is, of course, That Guy, who wants to play a woman to fulfill his weird fantasies, but that's not a problem of crossplaying specifically - That Guy should be banned from roleplaying in general.If you ban everyone who wants to play characters to fulfill wierd fantasies, all you have left are munchkins and rules lawyers. Some people just happen to have different fantasies they want fulfilled, some not appropriate for a typical D&D table. (Though... I think the fantasies you're calling 'weird' may actually be the normal ones when you consider society/people as a whole)

Knaight
2015-08-30, 10:40 AM
The situation as described sounds like you're considering banning crossplaying for everyone, because a couple of people apparently can't be trusted with it. I've seen players who shouldn't crossplay (though it's been exceedingly rare, and I honestly should have seen it coming after the words "lesbian nymphomaniac" were in the character description, but I figures that because some people could play a character like that in an entirely reasonable way this person could too), I've also seen plenty of very well played characters who were a different gender than the players. You could probably just ban it from the players in question with no problem.

PrincessCupcake
2015-08-30, 01:47 PM
My thoughts on cross-playing have been said more eloquently by others, so I will skip straight to the advice. The people who use their character to act creepy will do so regardless of the character's gender. The unsettling behavior will only stop if you go "Look. I'm not comfortable with the way you guys are behaving. Stop it or find a new DM."

Comet
2015-08-30, 02:01 PM
Do we even have to call it crossplaying like it's some kind of Big Exciting Thing? Why not just say 'playing as the opposite gender' or 'playing a woman' or 'playing a man'.

Nitpicking, sure, but we don't call playing a dwarf interraciality or whatever. Most tabletop games don't get intense enough about gender to justify this label, I feel.

Red Fel
2015-08-30, 02:09 PM
Do we even have to call it crossplaying like it's some kind of Big Exciting Thing? Why not just say 'playing as the opposite gender' or 'playing a woman' or 'playing a man'.

Nitpicking, sure, but we don't call playing a dwarf interraciality or whatever. Most tabletop games don't get intense enough about gender to justify this label, I feel.

We call it that because it's shorthand. Shorthand is not inherently bad. There are some instances (e.g. netspeak abbreviations) where needless shorthand may cause me to sink into a frothing, chair-throwing rage that can only be sated by painting the walls a soothing shade of red through liberal application of the offender's blood, but generally shorthand is fine.

By way of example, "crossdressing" means "dressing as the opposite sex." It's the shorthand way to say that bundle of words; fewer words and fewer syllables. "Crossplaying" means "playing as the opposite sex;" same thing. It's not "intense," it's shorthand.

Comet
2015-08-30, 02:23 PM
We call it that because it's shorthand. Shorthand is not inherently bad. There are some instances (e.g. netspeak abbreviations) where needless shorthand may cause me to sink into a frothing, chair-throwing rage that can only be sated by painting the walls a soothing shade of red through liberal application of the offender's blood, but generally shorthand is fine.

By way of example, "crossdressing" means "dressing as the opposite sex." It's the shorthand way to say that bundle of words; fewer words and fewer syllables. "Crossplaying" means "playing as the opposite sex;" same thing. It's not "intense," it's shorthand.

Yeah, that makes sense. I just personally feel like developing a shorthand for gender play isn't necessary in most tabletop roleplaying. If I sit down at a table and say I'm 'playing as a woman', nobody bats an eye and we probably forget about the character's gender after a couple of hours if we're playing Dungeons & Dragons or other fantasy fighting stuff. If I sit down and say I'm 'crossplaying' then suddenly this is a thing that has an established name to it and as such I might feel that I must do things that justify using that name. And most players then turn to sex because they can't think of anything else that separates men from women in any meaningful fashion.

I'm splitting hairs, I know. I guess what we can all agree to here is that gender doesn't have to be a big deal and if your players don't have anything interesting to say about men or women then just focus on killing orcs or plotting against evil wizards.

Studoku
2015-08-30, 04:20 PM
Do we even have to call it crossplaying like it's some kind of Big Exciting Thing? Why not just say 'playing as the opposite gender' or 'playing a woman' or 'playing a man'.

Nitpicking, sure, but we don't call playing a dwarf interraciality or whatever. Most tabletop games don't get intense enough about gender to justify this label, I feel.
Do we have to call it nitpicking like it's some king of Big Exciting Thing?

Comet
2015-08-30, 04:31 PM
Do we have to call it nitpicking like it's some king of Big Exciting Thing?

Fair enough. Just caught me off guard, I suppose, since I've never heard anyone use this particular term when talking about tabletop RPGs, much less at an actual table. The word itself feels a lot more heavy with additional meaning than most shorthands, to me, since I mostly associate it with cosplay where playing the opposite gender can take a lot of effort and is often a point of much attention. This isn't the case with most roleplaying games, which is where my confusion comes from.

Necroticplague
2015-08-30, 04:56 PM
Neither. It's merely a thing. Most the time, gender is practically irrelevant to most of the character anyway. If you're already a three-headed flying ball of tar who fight 4-armed windsock-leeches, whether your minds are female, male, or anything else along that spectrum is a very pedestrian detail.

Anonymouswizard
2015-08-30, 05:36 PM
I'm a short white man, and my current character is a tall (5'10'') female Chinese dropship pilot. She's the weakest of the party and joint sickliest, but this is due to spending a lot of her life in zero-g. She has a finesse based fighting style, but it's just sport fencing she did in school. She wears black trousers and a dark blouse over boxers and a sports bra for practicality. She loves cats and geeks out over spaceships. Personality-wise she's two of my friends with an extra drinking problem. Nobody has a problem woth it because I'm one of the better crossplayers, only just hitting 'man with boobs'.

CWater
2015-08-30, 06:02 PM
Fair enough. Just caught me off guard, I suppose, since I've never heard anyone use this particular term when talking about tabletop RPGs, much less at an actual table. The word itself feels a lot more heavy with additional meaning than most shorthands, to me, since I mostly associate it with cosplay where playing the opposite gender can take a lot of effort and is often a point of much attention. This isn't the case with most roleplaying games, which is where my confusion comes from.

I had a bit of the same reaction as you. Does this thing really need a word? I get the shorthand explanation, I suppose, though it still sounds a bit jarring to me. Also, what if one is agender? Would they then be 'crossplaying' every character that had a gender, or none?:smalltongue:

Anyway, I second the others in this thread who've said that it's really neither a good or bad thing of itself. It's just another character detail. Actually, it can be an interesting challenge, in which case it is a good thing imo. But there are certainly folks who really are jerks about it, and there might not be other way than to ban this for them, IF they truly can be reasonable players when playing their own gender. (If not, then the only option is just not to play with them at all.) I wouldn't restrict everyone's options though, only those who clearly have a problem with it.

squab
2015-08-30, 09:51 PM
As people have said, it depends on the player. Personally I'd want to hear the character concept, and if it sounded interesting and sane enough (i.e. not a slutty stripper ninja) then go for it.

Anecdote time: my DM won't let me play crossgender characters after that time I played a shapeshifter, we ended up with gender changing belt and had a discussion on the interesting pregnancy dynamics that could happen as a result of this...

goto124
2015-08-30, 10:06 PM
"Not a slutty stripper ninja" would be good enough for me. I personally prefer the word 'bimbo' over 'slut', but the point stands.

And of course, kick the player out if he (or she!) starts acting... weird, if you catch my drift.

Rakoa
2015-08-30, 10:19 PM
Crossplaying can be bad, and not just because the player can be immature.

I once had a DM who had run many games, and he was passable. Not too many complains, nothing special, whatever. He complained that I had never once played a female character. Thinking back, he was right. I figured it couldn't do any harm, so I rolled a female monk.

Lo and behold, my first encounter is with several rapists in an alleyway. Needless to say I was not impressed.

Draconium
2015-08-30, 10:23 PM
Crossplaying can be bad, and not just because the player can be immature.

I once had a DM who had run many games, and he was passable. Not too many complains, nothing special, whatever. He complained that I had never once played a female character. Thinking back, he was right. I figured it couldn't do any harm, so I rolled a female monk.

Lo and behold, my first encounter is with several rapists in an alleyway. Needless to say I was not impressed.

That's more of a problem of the DM than the player, though. The problem wasn't what you were playing, but how the DM in question treated it.

goto124
2015-08-30, 10:32 PM
Crossplaying can be bad, and not just because the player can be immature. The DM can also be just as immature.

Piedmon_Sama
2015-08-31, 02:49 AM
Would it surprise you to know that a lot of boys are voiced by women?

Anyway, that's not the point. In games I've seen, DMs have played:

- An imp with a speech impediment
- A hawk familiar
- An awakened crocodile druid
- Numerous characters of both genders

You have to do that if you're the DM, or else explain why you can't talk to the imp or your goddamned familiar (even though it has a class feature feature that lets you do that) and why everyone who's a different gender from you is suddenly mute. So if it's going to break your immersion for that to happen, then that's a pretty major problem, and if it's not, then why enforce restrictions on your players that don't make sense on the DM?

For my part, when I'm DMing and I have to give voice to an NPC I think is just plain beyond my range as a "voice actor," I just drop into third person (he/she/it says...).

FWIW I have a pretty good Imp voice and I think I could do a crocodile pretty well...

I think my specialty though is "calm detached glowy crystal." Basically I can do a bang on impression of Ignignokt (the green Mooninite from Aqua Teen Hunger Force) and I love to use it for all-wise talking glowing crystals and the like...

Rhaegar14
2015-08-31, 03:18 AM
Basically I agree with what everybody else has said. A good roleplayer will handle it fine. There is no problem with crossplaying, there is a problem with bad roleplayers. However, I would caution you against being overly harsh depending on the age of your players; teenagers may grow out of sexist/discriminatory ideas as they grow older.

However, I disagree on the somewhat tangential point that gender is meaningless in the grand scheme of roleplaying. There are plenty of cultures in plenty of settings where being born male or female would lead an individual to have vastly different life experiences and grow up in a different context. Whether they conformed or rebelled against that is up to the character's creator, but a well-developed character should be informed by their gender where appropriate (though not defined by it). It's the same way that a well-roleplayed Elf character should behave differently from a Human character, rather than just happening to be an Elf. Note, however, that this goes both ways; men are influenced by the expectations and social role of their gender just as much as women are. Look at the Drow in Forgotten Realms for a bit of a role reversal from the default subjugation of women in many medieval fantasy settings.

EnglishKitsune
2015-08-31, 04:28 AM
In my personal experience I play male characters 90+% of the time, I'm male, and feel more comfortable playing male characters. That said, a few times I have had a character where I felt I could do something much more interesting as a female character than a male one, so I did so, and it worked out fairly well. Other players in my group are similar to me in such methods, but we have an understanding that if someone is doing something that makes any of us uncomfortable, we just stop and talk it out. We're all mature adults.

This, so much this, characters should be played according to what works for the character.

The character is dependent on the player, as has been parroted, repeated and echo'd in this thread. While auditioning may seem a bit harsh, a simple why do you want to play X/Y/Z to me is the same as asking what race/class/alignment they are playing. It should be explained and justified by the players on a case by case basis. If a player acts in an offensive manner, their right to play as another gender should be revoked.

However, like some other people have raised, I do kind of have an issue with the term Crossplay. And this is coming from personal experience. Is it bad I expect to get some hate from this? Oh well.

I am a trans-woman, pre-op and pre-hormones, who's genes has cursed her with broad shoulders, bad stubble, and a deep voice. This impacts my daily life quite seriously and regularly. It is one of the reasons I fell in love with RPG's and Roleplaying in general. They are very much an escape for me. They even helped me come out to my gamer friends, by playing a trans character and using it to judge their reactions safely.

Before that the term crossplay was referred to me a lot, due to my preference for playing female characters. Other players (Of both genders) would often joke or make fun of me, assuming it was for lewd reasons. This hurt and still does. (Like many people of this forum have had issues with apparently.)

I avoid Skype or over Microphone game because of this. I rarely play more complex, emotional characters because I don't know how they will be treated by the Gm or other players. I avidly stick to the gender-binary because the last time I tried to bend it the Gm told me after the 1st session they felt uncomfortable with me cross-playing and wanted me to play a straight male. (They had approved the character beforehand mind.) Crossplay and it's implied associations and limitations is to me a term that hinders way more than it helps.


Lastly I want to quote the Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Players Handbook on this matter.

You can play male or female characters without gaining any special benefits or hindrances. Think about how your character does or does not conform to the broader culture's expectations of sex, gender, and sexual behavior. For example, a male Drow Cleric defies the traditional gender divisions of drow society, which could be a reason for your character to leave that society and come to the surface.

You don't need to be confined to binary notions of sex and gender. The Elf god Corellon Larethian is often seen as Androgynous or hermaphroditic, for example, and some elves in the multiverse are made in Corellon's image. You could also play a female who presents herself as a man, a man who feels trapped in a female body, or a bearded female dwarf who hates being mistaken for a male. Likewise, your character's sexual orientation is for you to decide.

Anonymouswizard
2015-08-31, 06:10 AM
This, so much this, characters should be played according to what works for the character.

The character is dependent on the player, as has been parroted, repeated and echo'd in this thread. While auditioning may seem a bit harsh, a simple why do you want to play X/Y/Z to me is the same as asking what race/class/alignment they are playing. It should be explained and justified by the players on a case by case basis. If a player acts in an offensive manner, their right to play as another gender should be revoked.

However, like some other people have raised, I do kind of have an issue with the term Crossplay. And this is coming from personal experience. Is it bad I expect to get some hate from this? Oh well.

I am a trans-woman, pre-op and pre-hormones, who's genes has cursed her with broad shoulders, bad stubble, and a deep voice. This impacts my daily life quite seriously and regularly. It is one of the reasons I fell in love with RPG's and Roleplaying in general. They are very much an escape for me. They even helped me come out to my gamer friends, by playing a trans character and using it to judge their reactions safely.

Before that the term crossplay was referred to me a lot, due to my preference for playing female characters. Other players (Of both genders) would often joke or make fun of me, assuming it was for lewd reasons. This hurt and still does. (Like many people of this forum have had issues with apparently.)

I avoid Skype or over Microphone game because of this. I rarely play more complex, emotional characters because I don't know how they will be treated by the Gm or other players. I avidly stick to the gender-binary because the last time I tried to bend it the Gm told me after the 1st session they felt uncomfortable with me cross-playing and wanted me to play a straight male. (They had approved the character beforehand mind.) Crossplay and it's implied associations and limitations is to me a term that hinders way more than it helps.


Lastly I want to quote the Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Players Handbook on this matter.

You can play male or female characters without gaining any special benefits or hindrances. Think about how your character does or does not conform to the broader culture's expectations of sex, gender, and sexual behavior. For example, a male Drow Cleric defies the traditional gender divisions of drow society, which could be a reason for your character to leave that society and come to the surface.

You don't need to be confined to binary notions of sex and gender. The Elf god Corellon Larethian is often seen as Androgynous or hermaphroditic, for example, and some elves in the multiverse are made in Corellon's image. You could also play a female who presents herself as a man, a man who feels trapped in a female body, or a bearded female dwarf who hates being mistaken for a male. Likewise, your character's sexual orientation is for you to decide.

I understand this, in my groups it's referred to as 'playing a male/female character', and it's rare for me to actually play a male character with the group (I don't really see gender as a thing, I'm bi and have a genderfluid friend who identified as trans when I met them, so your gender is 'meh' until you tell me). I'm sorry so many people have had problems with you not crossplaying, I have been forced to play male characters in one group because a player didn't understand that male and female characters are built from the same blocks.

Lvl 2 Expert
2015-08-31, 08:34 AM
Playing a woman (I'm just going to write this as if it's about me for simplicities sake) is different from playing a dwarf, or a druid, or a werewolf because women exist.

If Johnny Depp was a member of your gaming group (wait, am I implying I'm Johnny Depp here because of what I said between the last set of brackets?) and played a pirate, well, that would be fun. Same thing is he played a dwarf. Now imagine he played a black guy.

(I wanted to illustrate this point by saying how many hits I get on google for 'lone ranger racist', but I get over twice as many for 'pirates of the caribbean racist', so there is definitely some wiggle room in my argument. Maybe old timey Indians have become enough of a role by now separate from modern native American ethnicities?)

Whenever you play something that exists you could end up playing something others think of as insulting (although it mostly seems to work for things people don't really choose about themselves, making fun of professions for instance is much less likely to insult people, despite how big a part of our lives they are). For the purpose of this thread it doesn't even really matter whether you think they were right or wrong to be insulted, it just isn't fun to play at a table where people have issues with each other like that.

I don't think GM's should ban playing another gender or another existing human race for that reason. I've played a Latino woman shortly, nobody complained. Just make sure players understand this difference and know that if they want to do a dumb stereotype character maybe they could pick a dwarf instead of a Scotchman, or maybe an old timey Viking in an all human world. And if they want to play a game where they **** everybody, well, maybe they can just find a group that plays FATAL. Whether you're playing a man or a woman, this may not be the kind of content most players turned to RPG's for.

As for the other side, players having trouble not getting accepted as playing a normal non-stereotyped member of another sex than they are or appear to be: there I can only recommend trying to talk about it like adults. Oh sure, there are plenty of people who will be massive ***** about it, even people who are generally very nice but who just can't seem to get their heads around certain things. (I have good personal friends that I would have a really hard time coming out to if I was transgender, they overlap with the group of friends I try to avoid talking about politics with. You don't have to be able to do everything with everybody, you just need plenty of friends. I just reread this and realized it sounds like I'm suggesting not coming out to your friends and just living a lie while they're around. Somehow that seems like a really bad idea, I did not mean for that sentence to sound like that.) And that's a problem. But unfortunately it's not as easy to solve as the "huhuh boobies" problem, because those boobies people usually understand on some level that they're being immature.

goto124
2015-08-31, 08:45 AM
Also: I'm so sorry, EnglishKitsune, for your experience. It's made worse by bad players who actually do play a opposite-gender characters for non-lewd reasons.

I'm a cis female IRL. I've played a chivalrous knight in shining armor, who has to be male to fit his characterization. I've also played a male elvish swordsmaster, who turned out more femimine than my female characters for some reason.

I'm fortunate enough to not have bad experience with playing opposite-gender (or different-gender, I once played a floating brain whose pronouns kept switching between he, she, and it) characters. Probably because I stuck to 'good' communities such as this forum. -knocks on wood-


And if they want to play a game where they **** everybody, well, maybe they can just find a group that plays FATAL.

ERP (erotic role playing) is a thing. Look for groups (likely online) that explicitly say they're doing this.

Lvl 2 Expert
2015-08-31, 08:56 AM
ERP (erotic role playing) is a thing. Look for groups (likely online) that explicitly say they're doing this.

Nah, I'm good. Some things I do not need to see to believe. :smallwink:

Yora
2015-08-31, 08:58 AM
I have to say I probably would feel quite disturbed by a GM forbidding players from making characters of any gender (with the exceptions of campaigns in which all the PCs are members of a gender restricted organization).
It seems pretty sexist and more than a bit creepy. Not sure I'd feel comfortable playing in such a group.

goto124
2015-08-31, 08:58 AM
Lvl 2 Expert: That was more advice for players who wanted to do... er... that sort of thing. Point taken though.

Yora: Yes, without a very good reason, it does sound rather suspicious. I'll avoid joining that group, and look for better options.

Knaight
2015-08-31, 09:14 AM
Crossplaying can be bad, and not just because the player can be immature.

I once had a DM who had run many games, and he was passable. Not too many complains, nothing special, whatever. He complained that I had never once played a female character. Thinking back, he was right. I figured it couldn't do any harm, so I rolled a female monk.

Lo and behold, my first encounter is with several rapists in an alleyway. Needless to say I was not impressed.

DM lousiness would be another reason there could be problems, sure. That's still pretty much a case of player immaturity, just a player with a different role than the one doing the actual playing - which could come up with non-DM players as well.

Vhaidara
2015-08-31, 10:18 AM
Honestly, I play the two genders generally the same. I seem to have recently developed a bias towards playing female characters, but I don't really know where that sprung from.

I just don't let it be a defining factor to my characters. The only one where it is particularly relevant among my recent majors is Leah, and that's because she knows she needs to have children (her family was wiped out, so if she doesn't have children, the family name dies with her). It warps her perspective significantly, and it wouldn't have played out the same if I'd made her a male character. This is because Leah is a warrior, and a proud one. Bearing children would make her vulnerable and weak, so she refuses to get close to anyone until she finds someone she can trust to be able to champion her while she cannot champion herself.

I do play to stereotypes on occasion: the slutty succubus, the woman warrior who pretends to be an airhead up until she beats the crap out of someone, the mysogonistic rake of a man (works so much better as an NPC), the pure chivalry character who refuses to let a woman fight, no matter how many times she proves she's stronger than him. But those are rarer, and are sometimes fun to invert (if you ever want to weird out players, an incubus can be surprisingly effective)

Coidzor
2015-08-31, 10:19 AM
Crossplay is neither good nor bad intrinsically. You just dealt with some dudes who needed to be reined in or kicked.

goto124
2015-08-31, 10:32 AM
Some dudes and gals.

Also: the equal-opportunity shapeshifting succubus/incubus.

Anonymouswizard
2015-08-31, 10:51 AM
Just going to echo the 'for good crossplayers there are few differences between the genders'.

I still want to play Mirrorshades, a female ork hacker, who has spent so long on the matrix she's forgotten that some women shave more than her legs. The key thing is that she's been built as a character, so her love of classic cyberpunk came first, followed by her hacking skills, and the gender was only set before deciding on a few quirks (she doesn't have a datajack, either using 'trodes or goggles, earbuds and AR gloves). She would be a different character as a male hacker, but less than if she was an elf or human. The main difference would likely be the use of machine pistols instead of heavy pistols (although i now want to give her a machine pistol).

Coidzor
2015-08-31, 10:57 AM
Some dudes and gals.

Also: the equal-opportunity shapeshifting succubus/incubus.

If one of the *players* isn't human, you've got bigger problems than crossplay and people being immature about it.

Like the fact that you've got an entity which is not a person involved somehow.

And an opportunity to make millions by proving the existence of the paranormal.

Deified Data
2015-08-31, 02:37 PM
I think getting into the head of a character that doesn't have terribly much in common with you can be very rewarding, and when it works it can enrich the experience for everyone. So no, crossplaying certainly isn't bad. Normal, well-adjusted people can RP a member of the opposite sex without much trouble. The only ones who find it difficult probably lack empathy, and probably find it hard to RP anything that isn't a bland murderhobo or an extension of themselves.

I think the weirdest thing is how naturally portraying an elf or a half-orc comes to someone, but when it comes to portraying a woman they get cold feet. I don't mean to generalize, but most people probably have more in common with the opposite sex than hey do with their half-orc barbarian.

LibraryOgre
2015-08-31, 06:18 PM
It is never what is being played.

It is always who is doing the playing.

This is fairly true. In my experience, the usual problems are guys who role play women badly... I can't say that I've ever run into a woman who played male characters badly who didn't also play female characters badly.

goto124
2015-08-31, 09:30 PM
Probably because male characters in the media have quite good representation, while female characters... not so much?

As said before, there are females who've played male PCs badly.

I know a male player who played both his male and female characters equally well. Or equally badly, depending on how you see it.

Anonymouswizard
2015-09-01, 04:27 AM
Me and my friends also studying STEM subjects had a discussion about what a female engineer looks like, and the consensus was:

'Like a male engineer, just with a few parts swapped.'

It strikes me that this is how most female characters act, no matter the gender of the player.

TheOOB
2015-09-01, 07:33 PM
Me and my friends also studying STEM subjects had a discussion about what a female engineer looks like, and the consensus was:

'Like a male engineer, just with a few parts swapped.'

It strikes me that this is how most female characters act, no matter the gender of the player.

While it is true that good characters are characters first, and whatever gender they are second, you can't entirely ignore gender. Ignoring biological gender differences, societal expectations of gender to affect someone, whether or not they choose to oppose or abide by those expectations, and a good character will take that into account. That said, adventurers tend to by their nature not care about societal expectations and most RPG settings are way more egalitarian than real world ever was, so this truth is lessened, but it's still relevant. Your characters gender is more than a m or an f (or whatever) in a box on their character sheet, it should help define them, even if it isn't(and shouldn't be) all that defines them.

BootStrapTommy
2015-09-01, 08:41 PM
Crossplay? Someone seriously invented a word for this?

My group crossplays like crazy. It's the norm. We play what we want. Probably because we're all closest trans.

Vhaidara
2015-09-01, 08:48 PM
Crossplay? Someone seriously invented a word for this?

My group crossplays like crazy. It's the norm. We play what we want. Probably because we're all closest trans.

I first heard the term in relationship to cosplay. It's kind of odd, because by my understanding it covers cosplaying as a character of the opposite gender, regardless of if it is you or the character who is having their gender flipped (ie, a man dressing as a female character and a man dressing as the male version of a female character would both count)

Milo v3
2015-09-01, 11:43 PM
The only issues I've ever seen with people playing characters of genders they do not possess is caused by the individual player being bigoted or immature (in which case it's an issue with the player not the crossplaying) and at the start of the campaign other players accidental saying the wrong pronoun every now and then because they're used to using the other pronoun with all other situations involving the crossplaying player.

Templarkommando
2015-09-02, 12:02 AM
In my experience this hasn't been a huge problem. I've got one character in my regular party that cross-plays fairly regularly and I wouldn't say that he's ever really crossed a line regarding my expectations. The game that I run has had players anywhere from around 14 years old to about 30... I take that back dad's played once or twice, but generally around 30 is the top limit. I haven't ever had to have this talk, but I think my party knows that the game that I run is somewhere in the PG-13 area, and if it ever crosses the line into the R area, that it makes me uncomfortable. I'm usually fine with a liberal amount of blood and guts, there are just certain lines that I would prefer weren't crossed. Now, I could see this being different if I weren't close to my gaming group.

Lvl 2 Expert
2015-09-02, 04:20 AM
While it is true that good characters are characters first, and whatever gender they are second, you can't entirely ignore gender. Ignoring biological gender differences, societal expectations of gender to affect someone, whether or not they choose to oppose or abide by those expectations, and a good character will take that into account. That said, adventurers tend to by their nature not care about societal expectations and most RPG settings are way more egalitarian than real world ever was, so this truth is lessened, but it's still relevant. Your characters gender is more than a m or an f (or whatever) in a box on their character sheet, it should help define them, even if it isn't(and shouldn't be) all that defines them.

And to be honest: if there wasn't any difference, none at all, what would be the point of crossplaying? Or of being transsexual in real life? Or of identifying as a gender at all? Because we all do it, even if just in the little things. I don't wear skirts, or ballerina shoes. From time to time I just like to state how much I like eating meat and drinking beer, or better yet, from time to time I just do those things. Preferably while watching a bad action movie. None of those things draw a strong devide between men and women, that'd be ridiculous, a woman doesn't become less feminine by enjoying an evening like that, but take a thousand little things like that together and there is some sort of a difference, a statistical one at least. And I'm not saying too much on romantic or sexual attraction, because hoo boy there's a bee nest to step in, but I guess most of you can draw your conclusions about the difference gender makes to many people.

And I guess that's how I and most people here play female characters, trying to play with the little things. Not thinking along lines like "this character is an engineer/a leader/a cage fighter/not afraid of anything/interested in collecting greasy bugs, so it has to be a man", but more trying to get the overall picture to work with whatever gender you marked on that sheet. And that doesn't mean that every male character has to be manly, more that they should be prepared for some bulging idiot calling them a ***** at some point (if the GM and players like that sort of encounter of course, if they don't or if things simply go another way it means some other little things at some point).

goto124
2015-09-02, 05:13 AM
And I guess that's how I and most people here play female characters, trying to play with the little things.

Sometimes, somehow, being male or female can make a small little (but still significant, at least to me even if it doesn't matter to anyone else,) difference. For example, the difference between a male barbarian and a female barbarian. I suppose that, in this case, it's stereotype vs anti-stereotype? I would say it's useful to explore sexism, but then playing the opposite gender has its place even in games that avoid issues such as sexism.

There's another reason: why should I have a specific reason to play a different gender anyway? It's like how I don't need a reason to play an elf, or dwarf, or rogue, or cleric. It's just *shrugs shoulders* because I want to, and I'm not breaking the game or making it a lot worse or stepping on other players' toes.

Anonymouswizard
2015-09-02, 05:38 AM
And to be honest: if there wasn't any difference, none at all, what would be the point of crossplaying? Or of being transsexual in real life? Or of identifying as a gender at all? Because we all do it, even if just in the little things. I don't wear skirts, or ballerina shoes. From time to time I just like to state how much I like eating meat and drinking beer, or better yet, from time to time I just do those things. Preferably while watching a bad action movie. None of those things draw a strong devide between men and women, that'd be ridiculous, a woman doesn't become less feminine by enjoying an evening like that, but take a thousand little things like that together and there is some sort of a difference, a statistical one at least. And I'm not saying too much on romantic or sexual attraction, because hoo boy there's a bee nest to step in, but I guess most of you can draw your conclusions about the difference gender makes to many people.

And I guess that's how I and most people here play female characters, trying to play with the little things. Not thinking along lines like "this character is an engineer/a leader/a cage fighter/not afraid of anything/interested in collecting greasy bugs, so it has to be a man", but more trying to get the overall picture to work with whatever gender you marked on that sheet. And that doesn't mean that every male character has to be manly, more that they should be prepared for some bulging idiot calling them a ***** at some point (if the GM and players like that sort of encounter of course, if they don't or if things simply go another way it means some other little things at some point).

Just to clarify, this is what I meant by 'a few parts changed', I'm just bad at wording.

Lvl 2 Expert
2015-09-02, 08:30 AM
Just to clarify, this is what I meant by 'a few parts changed', I'm just bad at wording.

On the contrary, you got it down in four words where I needed two paragraphs to support that line of thought. :smallwink:

Absol197
2015-09-02, 11:38 AM
And to be honest: if there wasn't any difference, none at all, what would be the point of crossplaying? Or of being transsexual in real life? Or of identifying as a gender at all?

Real quick: this assertion always bugs me, because it simplifies a very complex dynamic in a way that can be very damaging to trans people.

Gender dysphoria has two separate components: social and physical. Even in a society where gender is socially treated 100% congruently, I would still have spent the whole of my life raging against my lot, as even if social dysphoria is taken out of the equation, my body would still not be designed properly, and physical dysphoria would remain.

Now, things might definitely be EASIER, as I wouldn't have to deal with half of the problem I do in reality, but there would still be a problem that needs fixing. And it might actually make it HARDER, if this idea that lots of people have about being trans being a purely social thing is deeply entrenched: "There's no difference, so why does it matter?" Because there IS a difference, and it matters a heck of a lot!

...Sorry, please don't think I'm mad at you personally; I'm just frustrated with all the misinformation that people treat as fact regarding trans people.

Lvl 2 Expert
2015-09-02, 05:31 PM
In my "defense", how your body looks and works (including whether you have a **** or not) is often less relevant in roleplaying (or, you know, governed by skill checks and base stats that are not influenced by gender via the rules of the game), so I focused on the stuff that might come up.

I'm just glad you agree that there is a difference, as no doubt you've done more thinking on this than I did.

goto124
2015-09-03, 06:13 AM
Not thinking along lines like "this character is an engineer/a leader/a cage fighter/not afraid of anything/interested in collecting greasy bugs, so it has to be a man"

For some reason, I'm more likely to think "this character is an engineer/a leader/a cage fighter/not afraid of anything/interested in collecting greasy bugs, so it's masculine, so it has to be an woman". I can also invert the logic: "this character is rather pretty/gentle/physically weak/in tune with emotions/likes sewing/is good at cooking, so it's feminine, so it has to be a man". Anti-stereotypes (which admittingly may have become stereotypes in their own right, much like the Brute Giant/Gentle Giant) and all that.

Yes, I find my own thought process to be weird. It aims to bring gender equality, but it does classify things into 'masculine/feminine'. It's what my thought process goes through before I wonder 'wait, aren't I a funny kind of sexist?'

Luckily, the characters I play pick more more attributes independant of sex/gender as I play them.

GungHo
2015-09-03, 03:18 PM
I've been pretty lucky on this front and haven't seen a lot of derailment because of this. But, then again, I play with people who aren't jerks about stepping on everyone else's fun.

Khaelo
2015-09-03, 05:23 PM
If one of the *players* isn't human, you've got bigger problems than crossplay and people being immature about it.
Humanity isn't required: My dog played a dwarf cleric for a session and caused no problems at all. Even though he didn't speak Common and none of the other characters spoke Dwarven, he was a useful band-aid dispenser addition to the group.

Anonymouswizard
2015-09-03, 05:29 PM
Humanity isn't required: My dog played a dwarf cleric for a session and caused no problems at all. Even though he didn't speak Common and none of the other characters spoke Dwarven, he was a useful band-aid dispenser addition to the group.

I'm fairly certain one of my fellow players was an alien. She was certainly spacey enough.

I've also played with a legal alien, but the non-human one was more interesting. And had to be guided through character creation both times. We at least covered the roles everybody else forgot (combat focused campaign, 3 out of 4 of us made a shrink, a magician, and a magic robot man before we realised a minor shortcoming).

Ruslan
2015-09-03, 05:34 PM
Crossplay? Someone seriously invented a word for this?

Actually, the proper term is transvirtualism.

Hawkstar
2015-09-03, 05:41 PM
Actually, the proper term is transvirtualism.No it isn't. Wreck-it Ralph and Turbo are transvirtuals (Though Ralph later rejected his transvirtualism). People who play others of different genders are not transvirtual.


I've been pretty lucky on this front and haven't seen a lot of derailment because of this. But, then again, I play with people who aren't jerks about stepping on everyone else's fun.
Where do people who put in elements of 'another type' of fantasy into their characters (Such as the Nudist Elf/Catgirl) fall? Is it the group that doesn't want to step on the fun of the crossplayer, or the crossplayer who doesn't want to step on the fun of others by making them uncomfortable with that type of character?

Mr Beer
2015-09-03, 06:07 PM
I recently had a very bad experience with a few male players playing female characters. They played their characters in very disturbing ways and I need your advice should i just straight up ban crossplaying all together or pose some kind of test for people that want to do it? Please share if you have had any bad experiences with crossplaying and how you handled them.

Going to reply without reading the rest of the thread, but this is a problem with the players, not the concept of male playing female.

If you have players who will 'roleplay' a female character as an offensive stereotype, in the manner common to teenage boys and older people who should know better, that's a problem and needs dealing with.

If not, not. Crossplaying is not inherently problematical.

'Very disturbing' is a term which goes beyond typical cultural stereotypes IMO, if you have someone (or multiple players) who exhibit 'very disturbing' behaviour, I would RPG with different people.

Hiro Protagonest
2015-09-03, 06:11 PM
Because we all do it, even if just in the little things. I don't wear skirts, or ballerina shoes.

It's a kilt and slippers. :smalltongue:

Milo v3
2015-09-03, 06:53 PM
I've seen more issues from people playing Rogues than people "Crossplaying".

Aspiration
2015-09-03, 08:15 PM
For the actual question of the title, pretty sure it's neither.

Making a rule against "crossplaying" isn't the solution. There's no way to just make rules banning all the stuff people cause trouble with. Any gender combination/alignment/game mechanic/whatever can be misused. And if you just make a rule whenever a player does a bad thing, soon your games will be full of house rules against doing anything.

I don't see any indication you've talked to the players involved yet. If you haven't already, do so, as frankly and directly as possible. And if you aren't comfortable enough with them to talk about it, then they're probably not very good friends and the solution is to get different players.

As a side note, my thoughts on the difference between "crossplaying" and most of the other kinds of playing a character who is something you're not - gender is actually relevant to our own lives, with all the baggage caused by that. Sure, there are stereotypes about what an orc or a paladin or a worshipper of Lolth might be like, but they're in our own imaginations, mostly based on the same sources, and of relatively little emotional importance to us. None of us have been affected by a disparity in elf and human wages, and if I play an elf as obsessed with hugging every single tree the party passes, nobody at the table is likely to feel personally hurt by my opinion of elves. The female character who flirts with all the NPCs is a statement about the real world, however unintentionally.

squiggit
2015-09-03, 08:55 PM
It is never what is being played.

It is always who is doing the playing.

Times like this I wish you could upvote posts on this forum.

This is basically the answer to any of the "Is X bad?" questions. Context and execution are always the most important things.

Knaight
2015-09-04, 08:19 AM
If you have players who will 'roleplay' a female character as an offensive stereotype, in the manner common to teenage boys and older people who should know better, that's a problem and needs dealing with.

Honestly, the teenage boys should know better too. I started GMing when I was all of 12, and have GMed for a number of teenage boys (most of whom are now adults). Even among that population, there was exactly one person who caused problems.

Vhaidara
2015-09-04, 09:31 AM
Honestly, the teenage boys should know better too. I started GMing when I was all of 12, and have GMed for a number of teenage boys (most of whom are now adults). Even among that population, there was exactly one person who caused problems.

I'm disappointed in them. Don't they know they have a cultural heritage to uphold?

CombatBunny
2015-09-04, 10:27 AM
I always tell players that choose characters from the opposite gender, that by doing so they are commiting themselves to roleplay their characters in a congruent and serious manner (more so than the regular players).

I also ask them to think twice before confirming, because the election of a different gender character means that they are truly interested in rping that kind of character (they will probably be using it in many sessions to come); using it as a pretext for vulgarity, obscenity, parody or mockery will cause their character to be removed from the game.

goto124
2015-09-04, 10:39 AM
... commiting themselves to roleplay their characters in a congruent and serious manner (more so than the regular players)... think twice before confirming ...truly interested in rping that kind of character...

I would give that sort of warnings if it was a case of vampire PC in an undead-hating world, or an elf and an elf-hater in the same party, etc. But playing a different gender?

I shudder to imagine what sort of terrible players you people have encountered before.

I mean... playing someone of the opposite gender isn't much different from playing the same gender, surely? Seems that I'm the wrong one here.

Elderand
2015-09-04, 11:05 AM
I mean... playing someone of the opposite gender isn't much different from playing the same gender, surely? Seems that I'm the wrong one here.

There are differences in outlook and the way some things are done but games in which such differences will ever play a role are few and far between. I think most games tend to skip the details of a character hygiene for exemple.

CombatBunny
2015-09-04, 11:15 AM
I shudder to imagine what sort of terrible players you people have encountered before.

I mean... playing someone of the opposite gender isn't much different from playing the same gender, surely? Seems that I'm the wrong one here.

I didn't used to give those warnings, but I had a couple of male players (at different times) playing female characters, to fulfill their own fantasies. So they played them basically as insatiable prostitutes (touching themselves all the time and things like that).

At first they were having a lot of fun, but I tend to guide my sessions more to self-knowledge, drama and resolving personal conflicts, than to action an adventure; so as sessions passed and they realized that their characters were “trapped” in those bodies, that their actions had lingering physical and psychological consequences and that they couldn’t just throw their own selves as a toy that they have grown bored of, they stopped finding the game as funny and the mood at the table turned a little bit toxic.

goto124
2015-09-04, 11:21 AM
...touching themselves all the time and things like that).... their characters were “trapped” in those bodies, that their actions had lingering physical and psychological consequences...

I'm so confused. What happened here? Since you seem to keep consequences to the IC (I personally find this questionable, but I won't comment further on that), just what happened to the characters? Why did those actions lead to "physical and psychological consequences"?

It's not appropriate to do disgusting* things openly in front of other players, of course. I find the situation rather... weird.

What game system was this, by the way?

* Apply liberal amounts of common sense.

Esprit15
2015-09-04, 12:05 PM
As a guy, I actually feel more comfortable playing a female character. However, I've also played alongside people whose only way of playing a female character involved either having, wanting to have, or discussing having had copious amounts of sex every other time they spoke. It's the person, not the cross playing itself.

Hawkstar
2015-09-04, 12:13 PM
I'm so confused. What happened here? Since you seem to keep consequences to the IC (I personally find this questionable, but I won't comment further on that), just what happened to the characters? Why did those actions lead to "physical and psychological consequences"?I'm kind of curious here as well. Sounds like the DM was trying to impose mental/personality traits on the characters.


It's not appropriate to do disgusting things openly in front of other players, of course. I find the situation rather... weird.

What game system was this, by the way?Who are you to call what disgusting?

CombatBunny
2015-09-04, 12:41 PM
I'm so confused. What happened here? Since you seem to keep consequences to the IC (I personally find this questionable, but I won't comment further on that), just what happened to the characters? Why did those actions lead to "physical and psychological consequences"?

It's not appropriate to do disgusting things openly in front of other players, of course. I find the situation rather... weird.

What game system was this, by the way?

We were playing Vampire: The Victorian Age. Vampires are already very complex and troubled characters that fight each day just to consider themselves sane and keep the beast at bay. The system itself has ways to record how far from humanity you have fallen, moral issues and descend to madness.

The core rulebook tells that the game is intended for mature audiences, as the best way to enjoy it is delving into what it means to be a monster, rather than action or combat. In fact, that’s the way I aim to run most of my RPGs be it Vampire or any other game.

Anyway, being a depraved exhibitionist is fun until you discover that you were the first love of one of your many affairs, a young man with a promising future, a loving family and an ill mother to look for. Now he is obsessed with you and one day as you are having fun with a couple of others, he enters the room and filling betrayed, enraged and destroyed he manages to kill one of your lovers with a gun. Now he is also a murder and a fugitive.

As the sessions keep evolving, you realize all the lives that you have changed in the same manner thanks to your behavior, how many people are now feeling a grudge or looking for revenge against you, how many people you have infected and led to suicide because even as a vampire you still can transmit illness (Not to mention your reputation in mortal society and its consequences).

As a player you simply decide to ignore all of that? That’s okay, because what you are telling me is that the state of mind of your character is beyond guilt and remorse, you are on your way to indulge into even worse behaviors that will feed your beast and it will be very probable that not many sessions will happen before your character develops schizophrenia or double personality. No longer will you know if that which you witness are actual happenings or just the product of a troubled mind that protects itself so that it can keep feeling safe from feeling guilt and shame.

Etc.

Yes, I know that I overacted a little bit with those players, but I won’t go easy with players that are ruining the fun of the others, using their characters as a way to constantly destroy the atmosphere and bring disbelief.

In my experience, those kinds of measures contribute to have a better immersion in your world and enhance the experience of everyone.

I remember a D&D one shot I ran for the RPGFreeDay. The first scene was a tournament in a coliseum. The opponents gave up and fall to the ground in knees and the PCs, accustomed to slash everything they see on sight, decided to finish their lives thrusting their weapons in their chests. All that it took me as a GM was to describe the look of horror and surprise of the victim as it feels the cold steel sliding through his body and his astonishment as he feels his life escaping from his body. All the PCs rushed to restore and cure all of the victims and they in turn showed a lot of gratitude and an enormous applause was heard from the crowd. From that moment on, the characters where more cautious with their actions and learned to see NPCs as humans with lives of their own; the rest of the session was without any other incident worth noting and everyone ended being very engaged. One of the PCs gave me some feedback, telling me that he had enjoyed the session and that I seemed like a GM very used to play with adults and mature people.


I'm kind of curious here as well. Sounds like the DM was trying to impose mental/personality traits on the characters.

Who are you to call what disgusting?

P.S. Sometimes you have no choice but to use the rules to keep the game from going astray. But in most cases (IME) you only need to resort to descriptions and believing your own world, and magically the players will tend to correct themselves. The punishment of giving them a look to the consequences of their actions tends to be far more effective, than just forcing a mechanic or taking away free will from them. I personally have the honor to have cried and made others cry at the table, due to the nature of the story.

Anonymouswizard
2015-09-04, 12:54 PM
I didn't used to give those warnings, but I had a couple of male players (at different times) playing female characters, to fulfill their own fantasies. So they played them basically as insatiable prostitutes (touching themselves all the time and things like that).

I kind of want to create a male character who acts like that.

I think a mage in the oWoD if I ever get to play it. I don't want to bring the Cult of Ecstasy down though so I think I'll make him an orphan who wanted to join the CoE but was denied because he was too weird.

Remedy
2015-09-04, 01:00 PM
This question is a problem on so many levels. Including how people have answered it!

See, one of the biggest things that people have an issue with is that somebody will play the other gender "offensively" and "play into stereotypes that hurt everyone." This despite the fact that 99% of stereotypes do not render a character invalid in any way, shape, or form.

The fact that the "all black people are stupid" stereotype isn't true shouldn't prevent me from playing an unintelligent black character. Those are still valid traits to work in tandem in a character.

Likewise, the fact that the "all women are whores" stereotype isn't true shouldn't invalidate me playing a female whore, and the "all men are stupid brutes" stereotype not being true shouldn't have any bearing on whether a male character I decide to play will or won't be a stupid brute.

Some stereotypes are just completely and utterly wrong in all cases, but something being a stereotype doesn't make it automatically untrue in every and all cases. I can play a valid character for whom some of their traits happen to match given existing stereotypes, even really offensive ones, without it being a statement about that given category of people and my opinion on them.

Frankly, while more people will have a gut reaction of being offended when some guy plays a female character as either super promiscuous or unbelievably sexually uptight, it's not any more sexist than playing a character who is more realistically balanced between these things on the assumption that a promiscuous or uptight female isn't a valid character. The latter is still a problem, even if people don't realize it since it's more of a concern within the mind than a concern on the physical gaming table.

Rater202
2015-09-04, 01:31 PM
You have a point, but if someone is playing a woman who is a whore because she's a woman then that person is plying specifically to an offensive stereotype.

Furthermore, even if they're not a whore because of gender, if "Whore" is the entirety of a female character's... character, then it's still being played to an offensive stereotype.

I do believe that one or both of those scenarios is what's being referred to when people are talking about playing as an offensive stereotype.

sovin_ndore
2015-09-04, 02:03 PM
I apologise for this wall of text, but I felt like there were multiple things I wanted to respond to in this thread.

First of all, I am a male and I actually do alot of crossplay. I play males and females, and have even played hermaphorditic characters. I do find it sometimes runs smoother to play cross-gender in formats that are more indirect. This is due to sucessful roleplaying sometimes hitting close enough to reality that sometimes visual queues (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UncannyValley) can cause a disconnect with the illusion (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief) you are trying to create. Thus I am more likely to crossplay in a text based online roleplay (on one extreme) than I would in a LARP format (on the other extreme). That said, I have been successful in nearly all formats with this sort of roleplay.

I am also familiar with the term 'crossplay' primarily relative to its cosplay associations, but have certainly encountered it used in this sense also. Within cosplay culture the term has very serious associations due to the complexity of such role assignments. Successfully executing genderbending is one of the most difficult things to achieve as a cosplayer. Japanese cultural influences actually graduate some of this behavior to an art form as evidenced by subcultures like Visual kei (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_kei). As such, I find it surprising how it seems some are offended by the flippant use of such a term in this context. I find it extremely fitting.

I also definitely believe that the sexes are not equal and that gender identity can contribue alot to dynamics at the tabletop. Sometimes concepts that are not founded in sexual identity can lead naturally toward certain identity associations. Even if the rules don't discriminate, when playing up a Knight archetype the patriarchal history of the European history makes it most natural to play this as a male. Playing the 'Lady Knight' will be in opposition to this iconic description, leading more often than not to a rebellious characterization, defiant and feminist. Many other roles have gendered tropes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenderDynamicsIndex) which manifest in our culture and there is nothing wrong with playing these up. Tropes and steriotypes are an important tool in being able to quickly define and flesh out a character in the minds of your fellow storytellers (PCs, DMs, or otherwise) without elaborate descriptions and detailed litany.

I have also experienced issues where the players around me have had issues with maturity regarding my crossplayed characters. I do find that solid and serious roleplay can often counter immature roleplay. This story actually goes all the way back to my very first game of D&D...
Storytelling Time

My first D&D game was in the period of 3.25 and I walked into a level 39 Epic game which was being run by what I now identify as some fairly immature players in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek format. I played a multi-classed character that amounted essentially to a Drow Swordfighter/Assassin religiously devoted to Eilistraee. This was, of course, a female character.

Lo and behold, my first encounter is with several rapists in an alleyway. Needless to say I was not impressed.
Yep, essentially the same thing. I entered game after spending a few hours building a character (first time + epic level). Introductions were made and the game retired to the tavern in a city which was somewhat analagous to the Dragonlance city 'Nexus'. My character then decided to take a walk through the streets at night having not really done anything yet in the game and figuring that a Drow would probably be a bit of a night owl anyhow. And lo and behold, some epic level mook decided to grapple my character, drag her off into an alley, and rape her.
Now my first reaction was surprise that there was gutter trash capable of taking down a character at this level, then this translated to anger at the occurance. Pretty much incapable of succeeding at the Grapple checks and having not taken Escape Artist, the action itself was just storyboarded through to the point that the act was complete.
At this point, I told the DM I was going to follow the escaped rapist. He then reciprocated by telling me that I would be incapable due to mental trauma. He also proceeded to explain to me that it was stupid to have an attractive female walk streets at night and that at least I would know better moving forward.
At this point I looked down at my Assassin spells I had prepped and told him that my character was going to write herself a quick direction on the back of her hand and proceeded to cast Forgetful Mind on herself (hard to be mentally traumatized by something you don't remember). I made some Epic hide checks, used Track to follow the fellow, and quite succinctly removed him from existance with an overkill of sneak attack and a failed save vs death attack.
My Drow then proceeded to take his finger bone as a trophy and loot his corpse, disguising it with a Silent Image so that guards would not be alterted immediately. She said a prayer in Undercommon commending his soul to divine justice and her intelligent item cast Prestidigitation (which I had at this point been described as a cleaning spell) purging her of the writing on her hand, acting as an improvised contraceptive, and removing any sign that she might have had to dirty her hands before walking back to the tavern as if nothing had happened.
The joking about the rape scene was quickly quelled. The table was silent. My drow ordered a cup of wine from the tavernkeep.

Hawkstar
2015-09-04, 02:54 PM
P.S. Sometimes you have no choice but to use the rules to keep the game from going astray. But in most cases (IME) you only need to resort to descriptions and believing your own world, and magically the players will tend to correct themselves. The punishment of giving them a look to the consequences of their actions tends to be far more effective, than just forcing a mechanic or taking away free will from them. I personally have the honor to have cried and made others cry at the table, due to the nature of the story.
I'm glad you elaborated! That's a really cool way to handle it (Though I find the forced mental illness aspect sketchy, but the showing fallout of their actions is definitely cool). The way you first described it gave too many hypothetical situations of 'And now your character feels bad"

Rater202
2015-09-04, 03:32 PM
(Though I find the forced mental illness aspect sketchy, but the showing fallout of their actions is definitely cool).

That's actually a mechanic of the game

PersonMan
2015-09-04, 04:00 PM
That's actually a mechanic of the game

Though 'ah, you're continuing to be totally debauched and ignore social mores, this leads to an advancement of the You're Going Crazy chart' is pretty different from 'stop sleeping with everyone goddamnit, you know what fine, you're now insane'.

EccentricCircle
2015-09-04, 05:02 PM
It's worth noting that when you GM, you play all the NPCs regardless of whether they share your gender.
Once you are used to doing that then playing against gender for your PC really isn't that great of a stretch. I think almost all of the players in our current group have played both genders at one point or another. There are a handful who always play their own gender, and a couple who always play the opposite. But we are a mature group who are very into the acting side of the game, so its not surprising that we've not had any problem players in this regard.

goto124
2015-09-05, 12:01 AM
Ah, I understand now Combatbunny. It's much to do with the intended tone of the game. That was why I'd asked what game system it was.

It seems that it's not sexuality itself, but the way the sexuality was carried out that was wrong. Your description involved sleeping with a married man, and infecting people (are there no contraceptives?).


All that it took me as a GM was to describe the look of horror and surprise of the victim as it feels the cold steel sliding through his body and his astonishment as he feels his life escaping from his body.

Out of curiousity: what if the player continues her behavior because she likes the descriptive outcome?

Dire Moose
2015-09-05, 12:26 AM
I've played a female character in a number of Pathfinder Society games. I figured if I could play an elf or a dwarf without any problems despite not being one, playing a woman wouldn't be all that more out there. And honestly, nobody gave me any odd reactions. I did have to remind them that my character was female occasionally though.

ThinkMinty
2015-09-05, 12:39 AM
Depends on how you crossplay, exactly.

Fellas, don't play a half-naked slutty Drow princess, it's just creepy. Don't be that guy.

Ladies, don't play a half-naked man-Barbarian who can't even keep his loincloth on. Don't be that girl.

Now, those are just hypothetical examples of how it'd be gross, but the general idea is don't be weird about it.

Of course, if the group is okay with you playing a parody of that kind of character for the purposes of humor (rather than wish fulfillment), go ahead.

Personally, if I crossplay, it won't make much of a difference between how I play the game. I'mma still try the exact same stuff, decisions-wise, and relative character skankiness would be a constant regardless of character gender, so the Bard's gonna be flirty either way if I'm a Bard, as that is a moral obligation for Bards. 's similar to how Monks can't get hugs and Paladins need to keep a stick up their butt for safekeeping.

Remedy
2015-09-05, 01:42 AM
See, I disagree even more with the "don't be that guy/girl" than I do with the more general idea of "don't play a character whose traits happen to match offensive stereotypes." There isn't anything that makes crossplaying inherently worse than normal playing, and even if we accept the premise that playing a character matching negative stereotypes is always harmful (which I don't), it would still be sexist to say that only guys are being offensive if they play a scantily-clad promiscuous female while girls playing the same character aren't. And vice versa. If it's considered offensive for a player of one gender to play, it should be considered offensive for a character of any gender to play, be they man, woman, something in between, or somewhere off to the side.

It's one thing to have different opinions than me about what's too offensive to bring to a gaming table, but when you start discriminating against your players by saying that it's more offensive for one person to play an exactly identical concept than it would be for another player based entirely on gender, that's just flat-out wrong.

Anonymouswizard
2015-09-05, 03:48 AM
There's nothing wrong with playing a half-dressed character, of either gender.

There is nothing wrong with playing a slut, of either gender.

If you intend to do both with a character that doesn't share your gender make sure the group is fine with it. Just try to not be worse than James Bond.

Coidzor
2015-09-05, 04:00 AM
Remedy: The rest of the group isn't there to enable anyone else's sexual fantasies.

Unless that's explicitly what the game is about.

goto124
2015-09-05, 04:04 AM
It does depend on what you mean by 'slut', to be honest.

When people say "don't play a slut", they mean more along the lines of "this game is not meant for 'sexy' things, please respect our wishes and go to another place if you really want to do those things". Or "some amount of sensible sexuality is alright, but please don't display disruptive, over-the-top behavior that doesn't respect the other players or GM".

Where exactly the lines are drawn does differ from group to group. Ask the GM.

Remedy
2015-09-05, 10:04 AM
Remedy: The rest of the group isn't there to enable anyone else's sexual fantasies.

Unless that's explicitly what the game is about.
I agree completely. So it would be appropriate to leave the scantily-clad promiscuous character home regardless of if your gender matches the character's, no? My problem is with people saying it's a problem primarily because of the crossplaying involved (and thus, oh, it just must be sexist bigotry) rather than having it be unacceptable no matter the relationship between character and player gender. If the guys at the table can't play your average succubus, the women shouldn't be allowed to either. That's the argument I was presenting in my previous post, not that such in-character promiscuity should be allowed in every game, far from it in fact.

goto124
2015-09-05, 10:26 AM
I understand that your point was that 'gender shouldn't matter'. Although, statements such as "If the guys at the table can't play your average succubus, the women shouldn't be allowed to either" imply "this one person cannot play a certain type of character, therefore no one else is allowed to play that type either".

It's more reasonable if there's a long history of horrible gameplay with that character type though.

CombatBunny
2015-09-05, 12:33 PM
Ah, I understand now Combatbunny. It's much to do with the intended tone of the game. That was why I'd asked what game system it was.

It seems that it's not sexuality itself, but the way the sexuality was carried out that was wrong. Your description involved sleeping with a married man, and infecting people (are there no contraceptives?).



Out of curiousity: what if the player continues her behavior because she likes the descriptive outcome?

Oh! In that case I change the tone of the game to one more bloody and brutal =) I like to please my players and I try to give them what they want, but if we are going to kill everything on sight, we are going to do it right.

I don't mind doing an effort to making them feel the sound of the bones crushing, the warmth of the blood spilling in their faces, the beautiful and symphonic screams of their victims.

I just want that whatever we are going to play, we are going to do an investment to make it feel vivid. I don’t want my players to feel that their killings are just as dull as killing a chess pawn.

P.S. Thank you very much for your questions and showing interest * bunny nuzzles *

Honest Tiefling
2015-09-05, 02:56 PM
See, I disagree even more with the "don't be that guy/girl" than I do with the more general idea of "don't play a character whose traits happen to match offensive stereotypes." There isn't anything that makes crossplaying inherently worse than normal playing, and even if we accept the premise that playing a character matching negative stereotypes is always harmful (which I don't), it would still be sexist to say that only guys are being offensive if they play a scantily-clad promiscuous female while girls playing the same character aren't. And vice versa. If it's considered offensive for a player of one gender to play, it should be considered offensive for a character of any gender to play, be they man, woman, something in between, or somewhere off to the side.

It's one thing to have different opinions than me about what's too offensive to bring to a gaming table, but when you start discriminating against your players by saying that it's more offensive for one person to play an exactly identical concept than it would be for another player based entirely on gender, that's just flat-out wrong.

I dunno if anyone is really saying this. Personally, from my experience, men are going to play the insatiable and quite ridiculous succubus more often then ladies. I've seen women do it, but I don't know if others have. But men who play women are either more likely to indulge in such asinine behavior, or are perceived as such. The topic was dealing with men doing it and if stopping them from crossplaying will stop the issue of such. Women doing such isn't appreciated anymore then the menfolk doing it, it just isn't in the scope of the conversation.

Knaight
2015-09-05, 08:40 PM
I agree completely. So it would be appropriate to leave the scantily-clad promiscuous character home regardless of if your gender matches the character's, no? My problem is with people saying it's a problem primarily because of the crossplaying involved (and thus, oh, it just must be sexist bigotry) rather than having it be unacceptable no matter the relationship between character and player gender. If the guys at the table can't play your average succubus, the women shouldn't be allowed to either. That's the argument I was presenting in my previous post, not that such in-character promiscuity should be allowed in every game, far from it in fact.

With that said, there's also a very big difference between characters who happen to have certain traits, and characters that are one dimensional cardboard cut outs of certain traits. I used this example earlier in this thread, but at one point I had a male character playing a lesbian nyphomaniac. The reason this was ever allowed is that I have had players who could do a good job with a character for whom that is an integral part of their concept. After all, there are real people who could be accurately described by the term, and being real people they obviously aren't cardboard cut outs.

ThinkMinty
2015-09-17, 07:57 PM
My point in the earlier post was that it shouldn't significantly change the way you'd play the character. If your crossplayed characters are suddenly a lot more...libidinous, that turns into a different kind of escapism, and it can make the table uncomfortable.

I really wasn't tryin' to slut-shame there, although I can see how my admittedly mediocre word choice had me all misconstrued. Mea culpa, mea culpa.


There's nothing wrong with playing a half-dressed character, of either gender.

There is nothing wrong with playing a slut, of either gender.

If you intend to do both with a character that doesn't share your gender make sure the group is fine with it. Just try to not be worse than James Bond.

This is what I meant to say, I just mangled it because I'm not a Wizard.


I dunno if anyone is really saying this. Personally, from my experience, men are going to play the insatiable and quite ridiculous succubus more often then ladies. I've seen women do it, but I don't know if others have. But men who play women are either more likely to indulge in such asinine behavior, or are perceived as such. The topic was dealing with men doing it and if stopping them from crossplaying will stop the issue of such. Women doing such isn't appreciated anymore then the menfolk doing it, it just isn't in the scope of the conversation.

I think if I played a Succubus, she'd be all about matchmaking rather than trying to get some for herself. Maybe a little over-indulgent on the hugging, a handful of innocent fanservice girl moments, but that's as far as I'd take it 'cuz there's a point where you can weird yourself out and I don't want to wake up on the wrong side of that line.

Garimeth
2015-09-18, 11:54 AM
I'm about to throw an SJW grenade here but since it was asked...

I DO NOT ALLOW crossplay as a DM. It has only come up one time, told the player I was not that comfortable with it, and they respected it. End of story. I'm sure many people here would say my games are sexist, because I over-represent men, and the entire party is usually male, but w/e my game is more like Middle Earth or the Three Musketeers. Bunch of bros running around trying to save the world. There's no misogyny, women are just not in the forefront of the adventure. I don't consider my gaming to be an outlet for my political or social views.

I also don't allow or pursue any kind of sex other than an off-screen. "It happens" . No RP'ed romance. Bunch of bros saving the world.

PersonMan
2015-09-18, 12:36 PM
I'm about to throw an SJW grenade here but since it was asked...

I DO NOT ALLOW crossplay as a DM. It has only come up one time, told the player I was not that comfortable with it, and they respected it.

Mind if I ask why? I'm just curious.

Garimeth
2015-09-18, 01:20 PM
Mind if I ask why? I'm just curious.

Don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole, but its a couple of reasons.

From a RP stand-point... Most dwarf RP is going to revolve either around dwarf stereo-types either playing them or playing a character that rejects them. A person RP'ing a different gender is going to, sometimes, have the tendency to make the "gender" the focus of their character, this will probably vary based off of individual maturity level. In a novel or scripted entertainment, this is usually done with varying degrees of success, but they have the advantage of being written out in advance, edited several times, proofread, and usually *written* by one person. This is not the case for a TTRPG and I do not have a high level of confidence in people to do this in an appropriate or mature manner. Rather than take the chance, I just disallow it. Now a counter argument could be made that I should only disallow it for the players I am reserved about, but I'd rather not divide my table by allowing John to play an Elf and not Tom. Elf in this situation could be substituted by "opposite gender", but it would NOT be analogous to say "woman", because I would allow Sue to play a woman.

In a similar vein I don't RP romance or sex or have it in my game. If the player want to have a broad brushed courtship with the princess it all happens off screen, I'm not RP'ing their dates or their sexual escapades. Not only do I not want to have that interaction with you, not everybody is capable of doing it in a tasteful or good fashion and I'd just rather avoid Pandora's Box altogether. The only person I'm talking about sex in any detail with, is people IRL I'm having sex with. I also don't subscribe to water cooler talk, "a gentleman does not kiss and tell" and all that.

Hell the only reason most NPCs are by default male in my games is because as a male I can simulate other male voices more easily. Most of the time gender in my games is a non-factor of any kind, and I like it that way. "This is the monster's AC, did you hit?" By singling out gender as the defining thing about your character, unless its done really well, its just not going to be enjoyable, and rather than subject myself to that potentiality I just ban it.

Swaoeaeieu
2015-09-18, 01:52 PM
I may have not read the entire thread, so if this has already come up i appologize. But the picture below kinda sums up my thought on the matter. Crossplaying can go wrong, but it can also go perfectly right.

http://i.imgur.com/Lc8p4b3.jpg

Exediron
2015-09-18, 02:29 PM
This is fairly true. In my experience, the usual problems are guys who role play women badly... I can't say that I've ever run into a woman who played male characters badly who didn't also play female characters badly.

I have, but generally nobody cares when they do...

Anyway, this thread is one of those bugbears that crops up on GitP every six months or so. It baffles and annoys me that there are people who believe 'crossplaying' is inherently bad - or even special, since if you restrict yourself to only playing your own sex you're instantly cutting yourself off from a vast range of characters that you could otherwise have fun exploring.

I currently play roughly 65% female characters, 30% male characters and 5% who aren't either. Every good role-player I know is capable of playing both without trouble. In my own experience, poor playing of the opposite sex causes nowhere near as many problems as poor reactions to reasonable playing. I'm always nervous in a new group if I decide to play a female character, because I don't know how that particular group will receive it. However, if they don't receive it well then they're probably not the group for me, so it's good to know anyway.

This thread makes me morbidly curious how many real life differences are considered acceptable by the average gamer to have in your character. If you can't play as a different sex, can you play as a different ethnicity? If you can't do that, can you play as a different socioeconomic background? Is a middle class gamer role-playing a homeless person automatically unbelievable? How about playing as a soldier who saw active combat when you never did? Your life experience is going to have been different, and you can't really know what it was like. Isn't that what they're always saying about the opposite sex?

And if you can't do all of that if you want to, what's the point of role-playing after all?

Silus
2015-09-18, 02:35 PM
Personally I just go with what is more cinematically appropriate.

Dex-based fighter with a gypsy motif? Female.
Young paladin wielding a swird as big as they are? Female.
Plague doctor with good tendancies but questionable motives? Male.
Retired military individual hunting down thenpeople that killed their family? Male.

As sex and gender in games is generally cosmetic, I just gravitate towards those that have a bigger punch story or character-wise.

Dimers
2015-09-18, 04:22 PM
I think if I played a Succubus, she'd be all about matchmaking rather than trying to get some for herself.

If I played a succubus, I'd go with the classic, tempting people to do evil things through their illicit desires. I haven't yet wanted to run a character who tries to make other people worse*, so I don't see much succubus in my future. Given the inherent magic capabilities of an incubus/succubus in essentially any game system, if offering my own body were a way to accomplish that temptation, I'd necessarily end up playing male, female, animal and 'other'. A succubus that sticks to one sex of one species is tying a hand behind her back ... and I don't mean in a bondage scene. :smallwink:


* excluding the many who consider it their job to make people dead, of course

GungHo
2015-09-21, 01:50 PM
Where do people who put in elements of 'another type' of fantasy into their characters (Such as the Nudist Elf/Catgirl) fall? Is it the group that doesn't want to step on the fun of the crossplayer, or the crossplayer who doesn't want to step on the fun of others by making them uncomfortable with that type of character?
I didn't see this because I stopped watching this thread, but since you replied to me, I am replying back.

In our case, it's a little bit of both. Crossplaying isn't really something we think about a lot... in that if I am going to play a female character (I am a guy), we don't really think too much about it. It's just another character. There may be flirting with other PCs/NPCs as part of play, but we don't really play out anything sexual, so it never really comes up since that's not the game we play. If someone came along and started to play it out, we'd probably be more thrown than offended, because we weren't playing that game, and we're not sure why you'd decide that we were. Disruptive is disruptive. If we meet the king at the end of the adventure and one of the PCs suddenly starts either doing him or stabbing him for no reason, you're gonna stop the game.

So, if you wanna play a catgirl... go for it. Find a catperson character race, check female, and roll it up. You're going to be expected to be a high-functioning cat person capable of pulling their weight, but otherwise have fun. However, generally we do war games or high-stakes cloak-n-dagger politics, so, if you try to curl up in my lap in the middle of the game and say "mew mew" just to get some attention, you probably read the room wrong and we will ask you to re-read the campaign welcome one-pager. Also, we are likely to simply kill anything with Kender DNA.

veti
2015-09-21, 04:12 PM
Some stereotypes are just completely and utterly wrong in all cases, but something being a stereotype doesn't make it automatically untrue in every and all cases. I can play a valid character for whom some of their traits happen to match given existing stereotypes, even really offensive ones, without it being a statement about that given category of people and my opinion on them.

This.

Honestly, it disturbs me that there's even a word for "crossplaying". Do we have special words for playing a character who's not human? Or a different age, or profession, or family background, from one's own? Well yes, we do, it's called 'roleplaying'.

If someone's idea of roleplaying is disturbing you, then that's something you need to talk to them about. But to ban an entire category of character just because someone played it "badly" (in your eyes, at least), is so far overkill that you might as well just nuke the entire campaign from orbit.

genderlich
2015-09-21, 04:20 PM
If someone's idea of roleplaying is disturbing you, then that's something you need to talk to them about. But to ban an entire category of character just because someone played it "badly" (in your eyes, at least), is so far overkill that you might as well just nuke the entire campaign from orbit.

+1. The kind of person who would make me uncomfortable by playing up a weird offensive stereotype like a sex-crazed hooker is not the kind of person I want to be roleplaying with even if they do their own gender just fine.

ThinkMinty
2015-09-21, 06:04 PM
So, if you wanna play a catgirl... go for it. Find a catperson character race, check female, and roll it up. You're going to be expected to be a high-functioning cat person capable of pulling their weight, but otherwise have fun. However, generally we do war games or high-stakes cloak-n-dagger politics, so, if you try to curl up in my lap in the middle of the game and say "mew mew" just to get some attention, you probably read the room wrong and we will ask you to re-read the campaign welcome one-pager. Also, we are likely to simply kill anything with Kender DNA.

Catpeople are more fun as an excuse to indulge my ADHD to the fullest extent rather than always rubbin' on people or whatever else the cat fanservice is. Flighty-yet-effective catperson is a fun thing to be.

goto124
2015-09-21, 09:48 PM
Young paladin wielding a sword as big as they are? Female.
Plague doctor with good tendancies but questionable motives? Male.
Retired military individual hunting down thenpeople that killed their family? Male.

As sex and gender in games is generally cosmetic, I just gravitate towards those that have a bigger punch story or character-wise.


In our case, it's a little bit of both. Crossplaying isn't really something we think about a lot... in that if I am going to play a female character (I am a guy), we don't really think too much about it. It's just another character.

For me, some combination of both. If a character is written around a certain idea of sexuality and/or gender roles, that person's sex and gender have already been decided (e.g. masculine woman/feminine man). As a cis female IRL, I default to 'female' when playing a character concept not related to sex/gender, and go male only when the concept asks for it (e.g. chivalry).

It's interesting to hear how GMs have been horrified by bad opposite sex roleplaying, to the point of banning it.

Amechra
2015-09-21, 10:38 PM
If I played a succubus, I'd go with the classic, tempting people to do evil things through their illicit desires. I haven't yet wanted to run a character who tries to make other people worse*, so I don't see much succubus in my future. Given the inherent magic capabilities of an incubus/succubus in essentially any game system, if offering my own body were a way to accomplish that temptation, I'd necessarily end up playing male, female, animal and 'other'. A succubus that sticks to one sex of one species is tying a hand behind her back ... and I don't mean in a bondage scene. :smallwink:


* excluding the many who consider it their job to make people dead, of course

I've kinda always wanted to play a "Succubus" as an ultimately amoral spirit of self-knowledge. That's how I've got them in any setting I run, anyway. To an outside observer, they look like they are tempting people into depravity, but they really are just demonstrating their prey's boundaries to them.

As for crossplay - the one time I played a woman IRL, the DM needed reminding that my character was a woman. I haven't run into that issue online, where people can ignore my luxurious beard and generally seem to catch on to the fact that I'm... I think the term is agender? That one where your gender doesn't actually matter to you?

So, yeah - just talk to the dukes and duchesses and ask them to not be creeps.

goto124
2015-09-21, 11:29 PM
I once played a male character a long, long time ago. His gender was decided on a mental coin toss.

After a while, everyone including myself forgot this character was male. A straight male PC flirted with my male char, and no one noticed my PC's maleness. Not even me.

http://i.imgur.com/Efp8vho.webm

Garimeth
2015-09-22, 08:49 AM
For me, some combination of both. If a character is written around a certain idea of sexuality and/or gender roles, that person's sex and gender have already been decided (e.g. masculine woman/feminine man). As a cis female IRL, I default to 'female' when playing a character concept not related to sex/gender, and go male only when the concept asks for it (e.g. chivalry).

It's interesting to hear how GMs have been horrified by bad opposite sex roleplaying, to the point of banning it.

See for us its even one step past that, sexuality isn't a thing in our games, and if it is it is all minor off screen background info.

Solaris
2015-09-22, 09:07 AM
See for us its even one step past that, sexuality isn't a thing in our games, and if it is it is all minor off screen background info.

If it's irrelevant, then, why ban it? Sexuality never enters into my games (because eww), so I don't care what sorts of naughty bits their characters have.

PersonMan
2015-09-22, 09:35 AM
If it's irrelevant, then, why ban it? Sexuality never enters into my games (because eww), so I don't care what sorts of naughty bits their characters have.

From his earlier post:


A person RP'ing a different gender is going to, sometimes, have the tendency to make the "gender" the focus of their character, this will probably vary based off of individual maturity level. In a novel or scripted entertainment, this is usually done with varying degrees of success, but they have the advantage of being written out in advance, edited several times, proofread, and usually *written* by one person. This is not the case for a TTRPG and I do not have a high level of confidence in people to do this in an appropriate or mature manner. Rather than take the chance, I just disallow it.

Basically, he doesn't allow it because he's not sure his table can do it well.

Garimeth
2015-09-22, 10:05 AM
From his earlier post:



Basically, he doesn't allow it because he's not sure his table can do it well.

Exactly, and also to quote you:


...(because eww)...

Didn't matter in The Hobbit, doesn't matter at my table. Nobody cared whether or not Bilbo was gay. (Never married!)

Honest Tiefling
2015-09-22, 03:08 PM
Catpeople are more fun as an excuse to indulge my ADHD to the fullest extent rather than always rubbin' on people or whatever else the cat fanservice is. Flighty-yet-effective catperson is a fun thing to be.

...Good to know I am not the only one. I made a female catgirl with absolutely no combat ability outside healing who wore a nurse outfit. Her outfit was an ACTUAL nurse's uniform (plus adorable hat), and she spent the entire session running away and sleeping in the engine room curled up into a little nook.

I can see sexuality not being a thing, but I don't think I could easily imagine a game where gender wasn't. Heck, I once played a game where my character was from a female dominated culture, so he was aggressively macho to the max. He was really bad at it, mind you, but he still did it. I also think my players would get pretty upset if no ladies were present among the NPCs. Would also seem pretty dang strange.

Roderick_BR
2015-09-22, 03:39 PM
Depends largely on the group. I played many games with male players player female ones, ranging from properly RP to abusing stereotypes. On the other hand, a girl that used to play with us also liked to play male characters and load on the stereotpes from her point of view, and no one in the group ever got bothered.
Then again we take everything lightly and at face value, and don't let excessive immersion cause discussions.

ThinkMinty
2015-09-22, 04:50 PM
...Good to know I am not the only one. I made a female catgirl with absolutely no combat ability outside healing who wore a nurse outfit. Her outfit was an ACTUAL nurse's uniform (plus adorable hat), and she spent the entire session running away and sleeping in the engine room curled up into a little nook.

...female catgirl? Sounds kinda redundant. Also, I did mention I like being effective, just...loopy. Cat puns, disregard for humanoid notions of modesty, that kinda stuff. I'll still go elbow-deep into killin' an Ogre that's trying to eat, kill, or eatkill my party, and make efforts to contribute to noncombat challenges. I'm just going to indulge in the loonier parts of my reflexes if I'm playing a Catfolk, because cats. It's a fun way to play an alien perspective.


I can see sexuality not being a thing, but I don't think I could easily imagine a game where gender wasn't. Heck, I once played a game where my character was from a female dominated culture, so he was aggressively macho to the max. He was really bad at it, mind you, but he still did it. I also think my players would get pretty upset if no ladies were present among the NPCs. Would also seem pretty dang strange.

They'll still have a gender, it just doesn't inform how I'd play the character much. High Cha means they're pretty, high Int makes them a smartass, etc.

Solaris
2015-09-22, 05:29 PM
From his earlier post:



Basically, he doesn't allow it because he's not sure his table can do it well.

I read that. A blanket ban just seems silly. Why ban something outright because of what someone might do, instead of telling them not to do it if they try to do it? Being oblique about a problem is a good way to make sure it continues. There are better and more direct ways to make a problematic player stop being a pain.


Exactly, and also to quote you:

Yes, because sexuality really has no place in my games.
Gender and sexuality are two different concepts. Having boobs does not make someone a sex object, and their presence does not automatically equate to sex. My gaming group consists of my brother, a few buddies, and my wife. I don't want to RP sex scenes with my buddies, and I don't have to RP them with my wife. Doing them with my brother is straight up nightmare fuel. That's why nobody gets to play a sexual character in my games, but I have no more problems with them playing a woman any more than I do with them playing an elf or a dwarf.


Didn't matter in The Hobbit, doesn't matter at my table. Nobody cared whether or not Bilbo was gay. (Never married!)

Oh, look, there's my point right there.
Nobody cared about Bilbo's bumping uglies or lack thereof, because it had no place in the story, but Tolkien sure as heck cared that Eowyn was a woman. The presence of women doesn't automatically equate to sexy-times.

Honest Tiefling
2015-09-22, 06:17 PM
...female catgirl? Sounds kinda redundant.

...Yes it is. That is my bad.


They'll still have a gender, it just doesn't inform how I'd play the character much. High Cha means they're pretty, high Int makes them a smartass, etc.

That part wasn't directed at you, another example of my inability to communicate. Before, others have said that gender isn't terribly important to their games, but I have difficulties imagining a society or a game like that.

Hawkstar
2015-09-22, 06:20 PM
I read that. A blanket ban just seems silly. Why ban something outright because of what someone might do, instead of telling them not to do it if they try to do it? Being oblique about a problem is a good way to make sure it continues. There are better and more direct ways to make a problematic player stop being a pain.
Because this prevents a player from being problematic in the first place, saving an incredible amount of time, which is incredibly valuable in a gaming session.

goto124
2015-09-22, 08:23 PM
My personal opinion on the gender ban leans towards Solaris's, but that may be due to me hanging around the safer parts of the internet such as GitP.

I can imagine why playing with strangers + particularly bad :smalleek: experiences with *cough* bad RPers *cough* can cause one to apply a ban that's a bit on the harsh side

Temperjoke
2015-09-22, 08:48 PM
I'm not big on outright bans, but it also depends on the group. If you know for a fact that you've got that one player who won't be mature regarding certain subjects, characters, etc., then it doesn't hurt to try stop any shenanigans outright. Like, in the last 3 games you've GMed, he's made female barbarian who doesn't believe in clothing in a steampunk-esque world/game, then you might want to make a rule about that.

Garimeth
2015-09-23, 07:21 AM
I read that. A blanket ban just seems silly. Why ban something outright because of what someone might do, instead of telling them not to do it if they try to do it? Being oblique about a problem is a good way to make sure it continues. There are better and more direct ways to make a problematic player stop being a pain.



Yes, because sexuality really has no place in my games.
Gender and sexuality are two different concepts. Having boobs does not make someone a sex object, and their presence does not automatically equate to sex. My gaming group consists of my brother, a few buddies, and my wife. I don't want to RP sex scenes with my buddies, and I don't have to RP them with my wife. Doing them with my brother is straight up nightmare fuel. That's why nobody gets to play a sexual character in my games, but I have no more problems with them playing a woman any more than I do with them playing an elf or a dwarf.



Oh, look, there's my point right there.
Nobody cared about Bilbo's bumping uglies or lack thereof, because it had no place in the story, but Tolkien sure as heck cared that Eowyn was a woman. The presence of women doesn't automatically equate to sexy-times.

Eowyn wasn't being written by a 22 year old unmarried Marine. Nor were any of the other characters in the fellowship.


Because this prevents a player from being problematic in the first place, saving an incredible amount of time, which is incredibly valuable in a gaming session.

THIS. ^^^

To give a story. We were playing on Roll20 after I had moved and one of our members lived in the barracks. One weekend he was not paying much attention to the game and I asked him what was up. He responded that his girlfriend had locked herself in the bathroom and was crying. AND HE WAS STILL ON THE GAME WITH US. I asked him what was going on and he mentioned that she felt neglected because he came over and spent the whole evening gaming with us. Yes, he had gone to HER HOUSE, gotten on HER INTERNET, and proceeded to ignore her for the next 4-6 hours. We told him that he was being a douche and needed to go not be a ****ty human being. We eventually dropped him from the group.

Now here is my point, I COULD allow crossplay, but that guy is not going to deal well with it: the female presence IS going to be sex object or at the very least the cause of a ton of inappropriate jokes (which also waste time). So why allow something that my group is only nominally interested in that has potential to waste a ton of time and create division? Remember only one player has ever asked, and after a 30 second conversation conceded the point. So its not like my table is chomping at the bit to do this anyway. I've just done my due diligence as the DM and decided on my position ahead of time. Could my position change? It could, but probably not with my current group, who I plan on gaming with for years barring any changes.

GungHo
2015-09-23, 10:18 AM
I read that. A blanket ban just seems silly. Why ban something outright because of what someone might do, instead of telling them not to do it if they try to do it? Being oblique about a problem is a good way to make sure it continues. There are better and more direct ways to make a problematic player stop being a pain.
Like spraying them with a water spritzer and firmly saying "NO."

goto124
2015-09-23, 10:30 AM
Wait, are the players catgirls, catfolk, or cats?

Not the characters.

The players.

Temperjoke
2015-09-23, 11:11 AM
Wait, are the players catgirls, catfolk, or cats?

Not the characters.

The players.

It's hard to say when you play online, but they really do seem like cats at times.

goto124
2015-09-23, 11:17 AM
It does explain the internet's fascination with cats...

Garimeth
2015-09-23, 11:37 AM
...Good to know I am not the only one. I made a female catgirl with absolutely no combat ability outside healing who wore a nurse outfit. Her outfit was an ACTUAL nurse's uniform (plus adorable hat), and she spent the entire session running away and sleeping in the engine room curled up into a little nook.


Also, I did mention I like being effective, just...loopy. Cat puns, disregard for humanoid notions of modesty, that kinda stuff.

So by way of example. Neither one of these would be wanted or appreciated by either myself or any of my players at my table.


...I also think my players would get pretty upset if no ladies were present among the NPCs. Would also seem pretty dang strange.

See why is it even an issue? I don't see why this is a thing unless sexuality or romance is a portion of your game, even the above mention about "human notions of modesty" sounds like an excuse to play an exhibitionist female cat person to me. And the character in the nurses outfit hiding in the engine room...? What?

This strikes me as the type of game that has: "are there chicks at the bar? Cause if so I wanna DO them~~!" I'm making some assumptions of course, but what is not an assumption is that your group and my group, and my campaigns vs. yours are two VERY different types of games. I mean to each their own, I'm not into One True Way-ism, but never in all my years of gaming have I run into a group of adult gamers (I'm 30) that has any desire for these kinds of things.

Kalmageddon
2015-09-23, 12:28 PM
It is never what is being played.

It is always who is doing the playing.

I tend to agree.
However: going by broad generalization, I'd say crossplaying is usually a bad idea. I've never, ever met someone capable of doing it without making it creepy or inappropriate or just a caricature. There isn't anything that logically prevents a male from playing a good female PC or vice versa, but when you look at the facts, it simply doesn't go well as often as it goes horribly wrong.
Probably a matter of demographics.

And honestly, I didn't read the thread beyond the OP but I expect people going up in arms over their right to play a PC of the opposite gender. My answer, if I was the GM, would be: "not before I get to know you and your views of the opposite sex a little better, because I don't want to put myself and my players in awkward situations". Some character concepts are harder than others to pull off and should be carefully monitored by the GM. And unfortunately, at least in my experience, crossplaying is one of these.

After 14 years of men-hating psycho lesbians, slut shaming stereotypes, emo yaoi fetish characters and MUCH worse crossplaying concepts*, I won't let anyone come near it before I am absolutely sure he won't add a notch to my "awful characters I had to ban" counter.

*which would be NSFW but include players making defensless female characters in wildly inappropriate settings (like a male prison) with the only objective being putting them in the position where the GM could "reasonably" rule that they get sexually assaulted. Oh, yes, I've seen it happen. I wasn't the GM by the way, otherwise such a concept would't have made it into the actual game.

Honest Tiefling
2015-09-23, 12:31 PM
I think having no famel NPCs bugs people for the same reason that only having white dudes in videogames and other media tends to bug people. It's either a sign of extreme laziness, or a sign of...Well, something really bad in one's DM. I guess it is also the matter that automatically assuming people have lady bits so those lady bits can be used for the ba-donk-a-donk is strange. Can't a lady or even a gent be in a game, with the gender mattering but it not related to sex?

Admittedly, I did play up the cute of the catgirl (it amused the DM and other players). But I really don't get how a modestly dressed female = I wanna do all of the chicks at the bar?

Garimeth
2015-09-23, 01:01 PM
I think having no famel NPCs bugs people for the same reason that only having white dudes in videogames and other media tends to bug people. It's either a sign of extreme laziness, or a sign of...Well, something really bad in one's DM. I guess it is also the matter that automatically assuming people have lady bits so those lady bits can be used for the ba-donk-a-donk is strange. Can't a lady or even a gent be in a game, with the gender mattering but it not related to sex?

Admittedly, I did play up the cute of the catgirl (it amused the DM and other players). But I really don't get how a modestly dressed female = I wanna do all of the chicks at the bar?

The chicks at the bar was a reference to a skit about DnD ("Dungeons and Dragons, Satan's Game!). I incorrectly assumed you would know what I was referencing. I don't think its a sign of laziness or something weird on the DM's part, if my game is assumed to take place in a semi-Europeanesque setting, why would it be weird that everybody is white? If my game is in a semi Chinese or Japanese setting would it be weird that everyone is assumed to look Asian? When people go to my region that is modeled off of Spain, everybody looks Spanish, when they go north, everybody looks Norse. None of this is strange or the sign of laziness or something bad, even more so if I have a setting where it is extremely difficult to travel from region to region. My setting has no/limited teleportation, lacks the ability for sea-going cutltures to travel across the ocean, and in addition to the same barriers to travel in the real world, there's also the monsters and undead that plague the land. Seems like a pretty good rationale for things to be localized.

In the example you gave about the catgirl, what purpose does throwing out human notions of modesty serve? In the other posters example of the person with no combat ability and wearing the nurse's outfit, what purpose does it serve? In both cases it strikes me as some kind of fan service thing. Either way neither would be ok at my table. This strikes me as more of a teenager/young adult thing anyway... if any of the other men I play RPGs with wanted to do this I would be surprised and slightly weirded out, but probably not so much or at all, if I was 16-19. Again not to make assumptions about you or your table, the hobby is big enough for all of us.


I tend to agree.
However: going by broad generalization, I'd say crossplaying is usually a bad idea. I've never, ever met someone capable of doing it without making it creepy or inappropriate or just a caricature. There isn't anything that logically prevents a male from playing a good female PC or vice versa, but when you look at the facts, it simply doesn't go well as often as it goes horribly wrong.
Probably a matter of demographics.

And honestly, I didn't read the thread beyond the OP but I expect people going up in arms over their right to play a PC of the opposite gender. My answer, if I was the GM, would be: "not before I get to know you and your views of the opposite sex a little better, because I don't want to put myself and my players in awkward situations". Some character concepts are harder than others to pull off and should be carefully monitored by the GM. And unfortunately, at least in my experience, crossplaying is one of these.

After 14 years of men-hating psycho lesbians, slut shaming stereotypes, emo yaoi fetish characters and MUCH worse crossplaying concepts*, I won't let anyone come near it before I am absolutely sure he won't add a notch to my "awful characters I had to ban" counter.

*which would be NSFW but include players making defensless female characters in wildly inappropriate settings (like a male prison) with the only objective being putting them in the position where the GM could "reasonably" rule that they get sexually assaulted. Oh, yes, I've seen it happen. I wasn't the GM by the way, otherwise such a concept would't have made it into the actual game.

THIS is EXACTLY why I just don't allow it.

sovin_ndore
2015-09-23, 02:37 PM
I don't think its a sign of laziness or something weird on the DM's part, if my game is assumed to take place in a semi-Europeanesque setting, why would it be weird that everybody is white? If my game is in a semi Chinese or Japanese setting would it be weird that everyone is assumed to look Asian? When people go to my region that is modeled off of Spain, everybody looks Spanish, when they go north, everybody looks Norse. None of this is strange or the sign of laziness or something bad, even more so if I have a setting where it is extremely difficult to travel from region to region. My setting has no/limited teleportation, lacks the ability for sea-going cutltures to travel across the ocean, and in addition to the same barriers to travel in the real world, there's also the monsters and undead that plague the land. Seems like a pretty good rationale for things to be localized.
Localization of racial coloration makes sense, absolutely in agreement with you on that. If you were to have an appropriate setting though, such as the exampled videogame (likely set in a modern urban American setting) there would be an expectation of racial diversity. And purging that from the setting does deviate from expectations of reality.

This same sort of setting/expectaiton would apply to the fantasy equivilant cosmopolitan trade hub, where I would expect dwarves and elves in greater abundance than the more human-centric population I might see elsewhere in the world. If I were in a tabletop game and was not getting that sort of description it would immediately throw up red flags for possible political turmoil (read: plot-hooks).

I believe this is what HT was trying to get at...


I think having no famel NPCs bugs people for the same reason that only having white dudes in videogames and other media tends to bug people. It's either a sign of extreme laziness, or a sign of...Well, something really bad in one's DM.

Purging females from a society is alot harder to justify. The TV show 'Once Upon a Time' rationalized this with dwarves, explaining they are all male and born from magical eggs. Occasional sites such as military outposts could also be exceptions to the expectation of seeing women and children. Elsewhere though? I would have an expectation of seeing diversity of sexes. Not seeing that would once again make me start wondering about the nature of the society ... are women kept out of sight for some reason? Are women being repressed? (aka. Is this a plot hook?)

I wonder if Kalmageddon may have nailed this one as being a matter of demographics. I have personally never had any issues but I also game with a group that is very LBGT friendly and sexually diverse. My gaming group also overlaps with my LARP and theater circles, meaning that most all of them have some level of more intensive acting experience.

Temperjoke
2015-09-23, 02:47 PM
I have personally never had any issues but I also game with a group that is very LBGT friendly and sexually diverse. My gaming group also overlaps with my LARP and theater circles, meaning that most all of them have some level of more intensive acting experience.

I think that you've had groups that could handle crossplay characters very well, given this background of a group you're describing. Like I mentioned, a lot of it depends on the group you've got.

Garimeth
2015-09-23, 02:49 PM
I wonder if Kalmageddon may have nailed this one as being a matter of demographics. I have personally never had any issues but I also game with a group that is very LBGT friendly and sexually diverse. My gaming group also overlaps with my LARP and theater circles, meaning that most all of them have some level of more intensive acting experience.

Conversely, the acting experience of my group mostly consists of dressing up like the Taliban, throwing paint rounds in an M4 or M9, and pretending to be terrorists trying to kill their fellow Marines for training purposes. Sometimes they pretend to be casualties for Combat Life Saver courses. LOL. Bit of a divergence.

Honest Tiefling
2015-09-23, 03:56 PM
The chicks at the bar was a reference to a skit about DnD ("Dungeons and Dragons, Satan's Game!). I incorrectly assumed you would know what I was referencing.
I know of it (And seen it multiple times), but the relevance still evades me.


I don't think its a sign of laziness or something weird on the DM's part, if my game is assumed to take place in a semi-Europeanesque setting, why would it be weird that everybody is white? If my game is in a semi Chinese or Japanese setting would it be weird that everyone is assumed to look Asian?

Absolutely nothing...But that doesn't make sense in all settings.


When people go to my region that is modeled off of Spain, everybody looks Spanish, when they go north, everybody looks Norse. None of this is strange or the sign of laziness or something bad, even more so if I have a setting where it is extremely difficult to travel from region to region. My setting has no/limited teleportation, lacks the ability for sea-going cutltures to travel across the ocean, and in addition to the same barriers to travel in the real world, there's also the monsters and undead that plague the land. Seems like a pretty good rationale for things to be localized.

That it does, but again, not going to work for all settings. In more modern settings, it can get very...Weird. Also gets highly weird when the party is 90% female, but the army is 90% male unless there is a very good explanation.


In the example you gave about the catgirl, what purpose does throwing out human notions of modesty serve?

That was the other guy. My catgirl was perfectly modest, hence an actual nurse's uniform, not a slutty one.


In the other posters example of the person with no combat ability and wearing the nurse's outfit, what purpose does it serve? In both cases it strikes me as some kind of fan service thing.

She was a non-combatant forced into an combat situation, hence the lack of proper armor or the skills to use it. She was a healer, but the lack of combat ability was an interesting experiment and forced her, storywise, to rely on the more combat capable party. Since the party was so combat focused, I felt I had an easy way to let her shine in a different way without stepping on the rest of the party's toes. She was also ****ing adorable in a sillier, light-hearted game. (Yes, yes, I milked the fact that the DM loved the cute widdle cat for all that I could, heh.)

I do have to ask how making a female character automatically makes it fan service. I mean, I don't object to looking at women, but I don't really think covered up women...Count?

Lvl 2 Expert
2015-09-23, 04:38 PM
That it does, but again, not going to work for all settings. In more modern settings, it can get very...Weird. Also gets highly weird when the party is 90% female, but the army is 90% male unless there is a very good explanation.

Well, not that weird. You have to imagine you're going where the story is. You could probably imagine a movie about a group of male nurses in a hospital, or a mostly female project group in the math department of a university, or a group of white folks sold into slavery in the cotton-era confederacy. The movie retroactively justifies focusing on them because the story happens to them. And sometimes their being different can even help the plot along. The female project group totally wants to win some competition because the group of math-jocks (that is a thing right?) told them to just quit their education because they weren't smart enough for math.

Your campaign is about a group of people to who something interesting happened, and they happen to be a weird group.

It's something different if the NPC's wildly differ from the norm. When you're in a school on a normal weekday and you only see adult males you know that a) the game is not very realistic b) the DM is squeamish about bad things happening to women and children and c) you should take cover right about now. When the whole world is weird, that's less realistic than if a small part of it is weird. Can still be justifiable, I think most of us don't like wading through exploded toddlers, but unrealistic nonetheless. Next time I'm blowing up a factory, those are always manned by grown men and a single woman (and often a few more in accounting and cleaning and stuff, but a single one who's "one of the guys").

goto124
2015-09-24, 01:12 AM
I've never, ever met someone capable of doing it without making it creepy or inappropriate or just a caricature... it simply doesn't go well as often as it goes horribly wrong.... Probably a matter of demographics.

After 14 years of men-hating psycho lesbians, slut shaming stereotypes, emo yaoi fetish characters and MUCH worse crossplaying concepts...


I have personally never had any issues but I also game with a group that is very LBGT friendly and sexually diverse. My gaming group also overlaps with my LARP and theater circles, meaning that most all of them have some level of more intensive acting experience.

It does look like this is the main reason behind (not) banning the RP of an opposite-sex character.


The TV show 'Once Upon a Time' rationalized this with dwarves, explaining they are all male and born from magical eggs... are women kept out of sight for some reason? Are women being repressed? (aka. Is this a plot hook?)

Or 'the females look just like the males' :smallbiggrin:

ThinkMinty
2015-09-24, 02:02 AM
I do have to ask how making a female character automatically makes it fan service.

Seconded.


After 14 years of men-hating psycho lesbians, slut shaming stereotypes, emo yaoi fetish characters and MUCH worse crossplaying concepts*, I won't let anyone come near it before I am absolutely sure he won't add a notch to my "awful characters I had to ban" counter.

...is it bad that I want to hear all the horrible concepts for a laugh or three? Emo yaoi fetish characters for a tabletop game sounds hilarious.


See why is it even an issue? I don't see why this is a thing unless sexuality or romance is a portion of your game, even the above mention about "human notions of modesty" sounds like an excuse to play an exhibitionist female cat person to me.

The assumption that I wouldn't be a male nudist is kinda...something; I don't have the right word. I'd be much more comfortable playing the nudism aspect in my own gender rather than out of it, mostly because it'll more likely retain the wackiness (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0025.html) I'd be aiming for. Nakedness in tabletop gaming is first and foremost for shenanigans and other assorted hijinks, rather than titillation. Naked people are funny.

I'm not saying people can't be disturbingly underclothed as characters. I'm saying that a lack of clothing isn't the problem.

Kalmageddon
2015-09-24, 03:46 AM
Seconded.
...is it bad that I want to hear all the horrible concepts for a laugh or three? Emo yaoi fetish characters for a tabletop game sounds hilarious.


That one in particular was from the girlfriend of the GM. She, as a person, was allright, but apparently had a huge fetish for yaoi manga and set off to recreate her favourite characters from them.
Turned out that the perfect incarnation of all things yaoi was a bishonen emo jerk that aggressively tried to seduce every young man in the campaign, getting a bit rapey in the process, while purposefully not contribuiting to fights and quests in general because we were all playing characters that were "too manly"* and therefore probably ruined the mood.
And yes, he dressed like the 3.5 sorcerer.

*a dwarf, an elf and a half-orc, but none of us was going for a testosterone filled action hero vibe. Not that it wouldn't have been a poor excuse regardless.

Garimeth
2015-09-24, 07:39 AM
That was the other guy. My catgirl was perfectly modest, hence an actual nurse's uniform, not a slutty one.

...She was also ****ing adorable in a sillier, light-hearted game. (Yes, yes, I milked the fact that the DM loved the cute widdle cat for all that I could, heh.)

I do have to ask how making a female character automatically makes it fan service. I mean, I don't object to looking at women, but I don't really think covered up women...Count?

Sorry for the mix up. The fact that you had to first specify that she even wore a nurse's outfit, and then clarify that it wasn't a slutty one implies that you understand how it could be interpreted as fan service, and even anticipated it, which makes your closing statement seem a bit disingenuous.


The assumption that I wouldn't be a male nudist is kinda...something; I don't have the right word. I'd be much more comfortable playing the nudism aspect in my own gender rather than out of it, mostly because it'll more likely retain the wackiness (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0025.html) I'd be aiming for. Nakedness in tabletop gaming is first and foremost for shenanigans and other assorted hijinks, rather than titillation. Naked people are funny.

I'm not saying people can't be disturbingly underclothed as characters. I'm saying that a lack of clothing isn't the problem.

I didn't make an assumption about you playing or not playing a male nudist - I'm remarking on the one character you told me about, your other characters are irrelevant to the discussion. You're trying to paint me in some kind of negative light based off of something I didn't even say. lol. I see no appreciable difference between your character and the character above, you're still playing the ditzy, clueless, hapless catgirl.



JOOC, how old are you two? Also HT, the reference to that skit was to imply a certain level of non-seriousness or levity present in your games, that would be starkly out of place with ours.


It does look like this is the main reason behind (not) banning the RP of an opposite-sex character.

I think its more so that these are themes his group wants to explore in their game. This implies that my table is UN-friendly, when in reality we just don't play games that explore those themes about gender or sexuality, and this was equally true in high school when my gaming group consisted of nothing but friends from marching band - one of whom was gay and is now in theater.


Emo yaoi fetish characters for a tabletop game sounds hilarious.
I could not more strongly disagree. I wouldn't even stay past character creation, nor would any of my players.


That one in particular was from the girlfriend of the GM. She, as a person, was allright, but apparently had a huge fetish for yaoi manga and set off to recreate her favourite characters from them.
Turned out that the perfect incarnation of all things yaoi was a bishonen emo jerk that aggressively tried to seduce every young man in the campaign, getting a bit rapey in the process, while purposefully not contribuiting to fights and quests in general because we were all playing characters that were "too manly"* and therefore probably ruined the mood.
And yes, he dressed like the 3.5 sorcerer.

*a dwarf, an elf and a half-orc, but none of us was going for a testosterone filled action hero vibe. Not that it wouldn't have been a poor excuse regardless.

Again, I wouldn't even stay past character creation.

In general, and again there is nothing necessarily wrong with this if everyone is on board, this is fan service, just like the catgirl thing. If you're running some kind of anime themed light hearted game where everybody is on board then rock on, but just don't look askance at us because that's not something we're interested in.

Kal, in addition to my asking HT and TM their age, I'm curious what age the girlfriend was. I told my players about this thread and they were curious.

JusticeZero
2015-09-24, 09:00 AM
I always am worried to hear about what the "no cross play" GMs do about people who aren't a good fit to the genders people expect.

Garimeth
2015-09-24, 09:05 AM
I always am worried to hear about what the "no cross play" GMs do about people who aren't a good fit to the genders people expect.

I'm not even sure what you mean, can you rephrase?

Jormengand
2015-09-24, 10:39 AM
I'm not even sure what you mean, can you rephrase?

What would you do if one of your players was nonbinary, I think is the question.

GungHo
2015-09-24, 10:59 AM
I'm not even sure what you mean, can you rephrase?

He/She's wondering if you'd be uncomfortable with someone who is gender queer/cisnormative/non-binary, or whatever the preferred term de jour is. I think it's kind of a leap to assume that someone's entertainment preferences necessarily informs of someone's personal beliefs, but I think that's a topic for a different board and I think we've probably skirted the rules as much as we can.

And, regarding the demographics statements above... my players are all male former military, police, or oilfield workers and occasionally maybe a wife or two as a special guest star. We don't care about the race, ethnicity, gender or sexuality of your character. We just want you to know what game you're showing up to play. We know we're all nerds, but we also know not to show up to a Star Trek convention with lightsabers.

sovin_ndore
2015-09-24, 11:32 AM
And, regarding the demographics statements above... my players are all male former military, police, or oilfield workers and occasionally maybe a wife or two as a special guest star. We don't care about the race, ethnicity, gender or sexuality of your character. We just want you to know what game you're showing up to play. We know we're all nerds, but we also know not to show up to a Star Trek convention with lightsabers.

Perhaps the term demographics implies a level of steriotyping that is also inappropriate to this discussion. I don't say this to be politically correct, but differing levels of maturity and insecurity regarding sexuality could be driven by more than just the population you associate with.

We definitely have some widely varied opinions on this issue, with opinions strong enough that sitting some from each side of this discussion at the same table would obviously drive discomfort and likely cause participants to walk. This is one of those issues that may define groups that you play with and we may not even be aware of the implications.

Kalmageddon
2015-09-24, 11:36 AM
Kal, in addition to my asking HT and TM their age, I'm curious what age the girlfriend was. I told my players about this thread and they were curious.
Mid twenties, but I don't think it's relevant. I've met people that crossplay badly from all age groups.

What would you do if one of your players was nonbinary, I think is the question.
The same thing I would do for someone that wasn't nonbinary. I'd monitor carefully what kind of character they were going for.
Though to be honest, there's such an incredibly small chance that I'd ever have a nonbinary player in my group that I haven't even considered the possibility. And since it's not something I do professionally and my gaming group isn't some kind of public organization, I feel perfectly justified in not getting a headache over it.

We are talking about broad generalizations here. It's not something without exceptions, but me and quite a few other people feel safer by at least restricting and monitorning crossplaying characters. This is not because we don't like it, it's because we had a multitude of experiences with bad crossplaying, at least in my case far more than the positive ones, if there ever was one.
It's easy to be open minded and carefree when you haven't been hurt by it in any way. I have, and yet I still manage to say "maybe" instead of outright "no". I feel that's more than enough and that asking more would be unreasonable and disrespectful of my own experiences, like saying "it doesn't matter how many awful games you had, how many times you've been made uncomfortable, my desire to play this particular character is worth more".

Garimeth
2015-09-24, 11:37 AM
What would you do if one of your players was nonbinary, I think is the question.

Statistically speaking this is not likely to ever occur in my group, but if it did I would ask them to play whatever they themselves are - in keeping with my current trend of females play females and males play males. That or if there is a genderless race in the setting, like warforged, or changelings, or something then they would be welcome to play one of those if that was preferable. "Gender" is not really a thing in our games, it is presumed your gender = sex, and we don't really care about your sex as the game is not going to be focusing on themes that really relate to that in any way, shape, or form. Which again has never been an issue at my table.


He/She's wondering if you'd be uncomfortable with someone who is gender queer/cisnormative/non-binary, or whatever the preferred term de jour is. I think it's kind of a leap to assume that someone's entertainment preferences necessarily informs of someone's personal beliefs, but I think that's a topic for a different board and I think we've probably skirted the rules as much as we can.

And, regarding the demographics statements above... my players are all male former military, police, or oilfield workers and occasionally maybe a wife or two as a special guest star. We don't care about the race, ethnicity, gender or sexuality of your character. We just want you to know what game you're showing up to play. We know we're all nerds, but we also know not to show up to a Star Trek convention with lightsabers.

I agree, and for me you hit the nail on the head with "We don't care about the race, ethnicity, gender or sexuality of your character." Except for race or ethnicity as maybe it relates to the verisimilitude of the game world. I.E. The dwarves and giants had a long and bloody war, and now hate each other.

The more I think about it the less I feel it is a "demographic" thing and more of a "what kind of game are you playing" thing. I run gritty mid grade fantasy epics with long drawn out campaigns. Hell I don't even allow for all of the stock PC races in the PHB half the time, because it just becomes cumbersome to deal with from a world-building standpoint (and I only use small portions of the monsters listed). Never mind having to potentially deal with things like what Kalmageddon described above.

Again though, the odds of this occurring are slim. I only game with friends who I know, and occasionally allow them to recommend new players to our group when we lose people to life schedules. None of my friends are non-binary as I met them all in the Marine Corps, and as far as I am aware none of their friends are non-binary. Because of this the odds of this occurring is very small, and has never been an issue. If said issue did occur later on I may feel the need to reconsider it because only FRIENDS or friends of theirs play in my game, and you make special considerations for your friends.


Mid twenties, but I don't think it's relevant. I've met people that crossplay badly from all age groups.
Not really I'm honestly just curious, because I want to compare with the age of the catgirl players at the time they played the catgirls. I'm actually more interested in the age as it pertains to the anime portion than the age as is pertains to crossplay.


The same thing I would do for someone that wasn't nonbinary. I'd monitor carefully what kind of character they were going for.
Though to be honest, there's such an incredibly small chance that I'd ever have a nonbinary player in my group that I haven't even considered the possibility. And since it's not something I do professionally and my gaming group isn't some kind of public organization, I feel perfectly justified in not getting a headache over it.

We are talking about broad generalizations here. It's not something without exceptions, but me and quite a few other people feel safer by at least restricting and monitorning crossplaying characters. This is not because we don't like it, it's because we had a multitude of experiences with bad crossplaying, at least in my case far more than the positive ones, if there ever was one.
It's easy to be open minded and carefree when you haven't been hurt by it in any way. I have, and yet I still manage to say "maybe" instead of outright "no". I feel that's more than enough and that asking more would be unreasonable and disrespectful of my own experiences, like saying "it doesn't matter how many awful games you had, how many times you've been made uncomfortable, my desire to play this particular character is worth more".

Well said.

Honest Tiefling
2015-09-24, 12:33 PM
Sorry for the mix up. The fact that you had to first specify that she even wore a nurse's outfit, and then clarify that it wasn't a slutty one implies that you understand how it could be interpreted as fan service, and even anticipated it, which makes your closing statement seem a bit disingenuous.

Eh no, it implies that I think that if most people saw the words 'nurse outfit' and 'catgirl' together, I assume they would assume a fetish outfit, not the real deal. No intention of being disingenuous, just trying to clarify.

I am 30-ish, but I was probably 16-17 at the time of the catgirl campaign. Were I to redo the character, I think I would consider making the concept male purely on the basis that a weak, non-combatant, cowardly female can...Well, make for problems let's just say. I think it didn't occur to me at the time because the main combat character, the player of the main combat character, and the DM were all female.

And certainly, such a concept would be entirely inappropriate for a more serious campaign, and that would be a good enough reason to ban it if the group did entirely serious games. I guess I just don't get the idea that such is automatically fan service, especially when her physical attractiveness was never mentioned nor important to the concept.

Also, gender =/= sex. In your example of Eowyn, the expectation that a woman would stay at home and not be a warrior is a matter of gender, or the expectations society places on her for being female. Sex is the fact she has lady bits.

Garimeth
2015-09-24, 12:48 PM
Eh no, it implies that I think that if most people saw the words 'nurse outfit' and 'catgirl' together, I assume they would assume a fetish outfit, not the real deal. No intention of being disingenuous, just trying to clarify.
This is more or less a rewording of what I said.


I am 30-ish, but I was probably 16-17 at the time of the catgirl campaign.
This is about what I expected, this doesn't seem like a game that people are running in their late 20s and on, IN GENERAL. Exceptions will always abound.


And certainly, such a concept would be entirely inappropriate for a more serious campaign, and that would be a good enough reason to ban it if the group did entirely serious games. I guess I just don't get the idea that such is automatically fan service, especially when her physical attractiveness was never mentioned nor important to the concept.
I find it surprising that the counters to my position mostly are about comic, non-serious, and/or anime based games when I have indicated these are not what I run. If you come to my game expect pseudo European, and to fight hordes of enemies bent on your civilization's destruction, with a strong likelihood that if you play poorly the undead will devour your corpse. Not bringing a non-combatant catgirl to this game.

The physical attractiveness was not a thing because you were in an all-female group, I would hazard a guess that in a group of all straight males, this would have been very different, ESPECIALLY at 16.


Also, gender =/= sex. In your example of Eowyn, the expectation that a woman would stay at home and not be a warrior is a matter of gender, or the expectations society places on her for being female. Sex is the fact she has lady bits.

Valid point, but in my game I would expect Eowyn's player to be a girl herself.

JusticeZero
2015-09-24, 02:01 PM
"They", thanks. There's more enbys out there than you'd think, and aren't always obvious. People would think I was cross playing a lot - really, it was just that I wanted a change of pace from the cross playing I end up doing every day.

sovin_ndore
2015-09-24, 02:29 PM
Garimeth, I feel like you are hellbent on assumptions regarding peoples ability to roleplay. Even your assumptions regarding 16 year olds sexualizing gender roles strikes me as neither fair or reasonable, even given the hormones involved. Many people that age can be very mature about roleplaying. The whole line about expecting never to deal with anyone that was not mono-gendered and discounting it offhand... I can't really stress enough how disconcerting this entire line of thought is to me.

Despite this, I am trying to come at it with an open mind and have tried to meet halfway on the logic of this. Admittedly, I am starting to flag on that task.

Very young children will cast each other to crossgender roles when playing house or choosing a superhero role to play on the playground; and I don't see anything wrong with that. In a more controlled environment with more mature players (teens or adults), I feel like the gender roles thing should be even less of an issue. If you are concerned with sexualizing roles, that should be a part of the implicit compact that people sitting down to the game agree to, not a blanket restriction on the types of characters someone could play.

Shakespeare wrote the best known plays of all time for all male actors, half of them cross-playing. I don't see why the assumption now should be that acting at a tabletop is no place for that sort of thing.


"They", thanks. There's more enbys out there than you'd think, and aren't always obvious. People would think I was cross playing a lot - really, it was just that I wanted a change of pace from the cross playing I end up doing every day.
I will also mention that I do have an enby in my gaming circle. She is pretty cool and despite identifying herself as a female does, of course, vary in the roles that she plays... pretty much just like the rest of us.

ThinkMinty
2015-09-24, 02:35 PM
JOOC, how old are you two?

The song was right! Nobody likes you when you're 23.


I didn't make an assumption about you playing or not playing a male nudist - I'm remarking on the one character you told me about, your other characters are irrelevant to the discussion.

I wasn't the one talkin' about a catgirl, I was offering a hypothetical "this is how I'd be a cat". Which would involve comedic nudity if male, and would most likely not involve the nudity if female, as previously stated.


I'd be much more comfortable playing the nudism aspect in my own gender rather than out of it, mostly because it'll more likely retain the wackiness (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0025.html) I'd be aiming for. Nakedness in tabletop gaming is first and foremost for shenanigans and other assorted hijinks, rather than titillation. Naked people are funny.

Emphasis added.


Catpeople are more fun as an excuse to indulge my ADHD to the fullest extent rather than always rubbin' on people or whatever else the cat fanservice is. Flighty-yet-effective catperson is a fun thing to be.

Also, I did mention I like being effective, just...loopy. Cat puns, disregard for humanoid notions of modesty, that kinda stuff. I'll still go elbow-deep into killin' an Ogre that's trying to eat, kill, or eatkill my party, and make efforts to contribute to noncombat challenges. I'm just going to indulge in the loonier parts of my reflexes if I'm playing a Catfolk, because cats. It's a fun way to play an alien perspective.

...Good to know I am not the only one. I made a female catgirl with absolutely no combat ability outside healing who wore a nurse outfit. Her outfit was an ACTUAL nurse's uniform (plus adorable hat), and she spent the entire session running away and sleeping in the engine room curled up into a little nook.

Honest Tiefling was the one with the catgirl nurse. He mentioned a silly catgirl character he played. I was hypothesizing how to play a catperson without gender being a variable until you mixed our statements up.


I see no appreciable difference between your character and the character above, you're still playing the ditzy, clueless, hapless catgirl.

Ya keep mixin' us up.


You're trying to paint me in some kind of negative light based off of something I didn't even say. lol.

If I was, I'm sorry. It must really suck when people do that.

Kalmageddon
2015-09-24, 02:40 PM
"They", thanks. There's more enbys out there than you'd think, and aren't always obvious.

... Therefore, it's not always possibile to accomodate them or even simply plan accordingly. :smallconfused:

If you want understanding and compromise, you need dialogue first.
Just saying "we exist but we might not feel like telling you who we are, so accomodate our needs by default, just in case" is unbelievably arrogant.

Jormengand
2015-09-24, 03:15 PM
... Therefore, it's not always possibile to accomodate them or even simply plan accordingly. :smallconfused:

If you want understanding and compromise, you need dialogue first.
Just saying "we exist but we might not feel like telling you who we are, so accomodate our needs by default, just in case" is unbelievably arrogant.

I think you may share Tarquin's problem. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0933.html) I'm assuming they were talking to the person who referred to them as "He/she" and calling someone arrogant because you assume they must be talking to you, who else could they possibly want to talk to, smacks of irony.

Garimeth
2015-09-24, 03:15 PM
Garimeth, I feel like you are hellbent on assumptions regarding peoples ability to roleplay. Even your assumptions regarding 16 year olds sexualizing gender roles strikes me as neither fair or reasonable, even given the hormones involved. Many people that age can be very mature about roleplaying. The whole line about expecting never to deal with anyone that was not mono-gendered and discounting it offhand... I can't really stress enough how disconcerting this entire line of thought is to me.

Despite this, I am trying to come at it with an open mind and have tried to meet halfway on the logic of this. Admittedly, I am starting to flag on that task.

Very young children will cast each other to crossgender roles when playing house or choosing a superhero role to play on the playground; and I don't see anything wrong with that. In a more controlled environment with more mature players (teens or adults), I feel like the gender roles thing should be even less of an issue. If you are concerned with sexualizing roles, that should be a part of the implicit compact that people sitting down to the game agree to, not a blanket restriction on the types of characters someone could play.

Shakespeare wrote the best known plays of all time for all male actors, half of them cross-playing. I don't see why the assumption now should be that acting at a tabletop is no place for that sort of thing.
Less than 4% of the populations is LGBT, and less than 1% of that is going to be non-binary. In addition I work in a career where until recently it was considered illegal to be openly LGBT. Every person I game with has come from this group of people within the past 3 years, only one of them is retired. All my potential players come from this group of people and their close friends. I stand by my statement the odds are against it, I also said that if I did play with them that means they are a friend, and you make concessions for friends. I fail to see how any of this is disconcerting.

As far as my assumptions... I'll let the anecdotal evidence presented in this thread by others represent itself, there are several examples of things that other people find entertaining in this thread that neither I nor my fellow players would want in our game. I'll also repeat that this is fine, the hobby is big enough for all of us.

As far as the maturity of 16 year olds, I will simply say that yes there are mature teenagers, but from a purely scientific standpoint the brain is not done developing until your mid-20s, and your life experience is what determines a lot of who you are. Who you are even at 20, is not who you will be at 25, or 40. Unless the teenager in question was a child of one of my friends, they probably would not be at my table. Does that mean I think they can't RP? Not at all, I started when I was 12. But the game they want, and the game we want, are probably not the same.


that should be a part of the implicit compact that people sitting down to the game agree to, not a blanket restriction on the types of characters someone could play

It is, by virtue of the fact of the setting I tell them I am running. If I tell them there are no gnomes, which there aren't, then that is that. If you agree to play in the game I am running, then that is the compact, ban included. Its not like I'm passive aggressive about this, I tell people what the themes of the game will be, and what is allowed in the game.

I think it is a mistake to assume that the character writing or acting at the table is going to be remotely on par with Shakespeare, unless you are playing with actors and authors. Not to mention he did that because there were no women allowed on stage to begin with, so there is that.


Despite this, I am trying to come at it with an open mind and have tried to meet halfway on the logic of this. Admittedly, I am starting to flag on that task.

That's fine, I don't feel the need to convince you of my logic, and I'm sure you feel no need to convince me of yours - we don't know each other, will never meet, and will never game together. I mostly am astonished by the fact that despite that my position is probably the norm for most of society, IE don't care and aren't interested in having it in their games, my position is being responded to by people implying that I am a bigot. Actually, I'm not that astonished:


I'm sure many people here would say my games are sexist, because I over-represent men, and the entire party is usually male, but w/e my game is more like Middle Earth or the Three Musketeers. Bunch of bros running around trying to save the world. There's no misogyny, women are just not in the forefront of the adventure. I don't consider my gaming to be an outlet for my political or social views.

I kind of saw this coming, though not the catgirl thing - THAT was a shocker. But since I felt like my entire gaming group's position on the topic was not represented in the discussion, I figured I'd post - plus, hey I'm bored at work.

Anyway, on that note, I'm done for the week, I don't check this board at home and I'm off until Monday. Enjoy your weekends and if anybody responds I will reply on Monday!

veti
2015-09-24, 04:21 PM
I've only just remembered, but I also played a catgirl once. She was a pilot, and could aim the meanest photon torpedo in Star Fleet in her day. And although she was kinda cute, she was also immensely dignified, and the topic of sex never came up.

I've seen it argued (above) that "bad" RP and "inappropriate" joking around "wastes time". I'm not sure I understand this concept. When I'm playing a game, "wasting time" is pretty much the whole purpose of the exercise. Sure there's some kind of underlying quest, but if you seriously care how much, if any, progress is going to be made towards that goal in any given session? - well, let's just say that if you're playing with any group I've ever even seen, then you're in for a world of frustration.

The only meaningful definition of an "inappropriate" joke is "one that people don't enjoy". The only meaningful definition of "bad roleplaying" is "roleplaying that you or others don't enjoy". The purpose of the game is to have fun.

And if some group is being "inappropriate" - that's called being young, let them enjoy it while they can. They'll grow out of it in their own time. The only way it's any concern of yours is if one of the group happens to be your responsibility, and even then it's only that one's behaviour that has anything to do with you.

goto124
2015-09-24, 11:27 PM
It's wasting time only if the other players weren't there for that kind of game. Which can be the case quite often, as stated above.

If one is starting out and DMing for the first time (or at least DMing with a newly met group of people), should that person ban crossplaying? Does it matter if it's a circle of friends, or strangers from a gaming society, or an online game?

Hawkstar
2015-09-25, 12:09 AM
The 5e PHB actually prohibits the banning of crossplay, sort of.

goto124
2015-09-25, 12:19 AM
Which section of the 5e PHB? So that I can check (there're online PDFs from the DnD official website).

Millstone85
2015-09-25, 06:05 AM
I believe Hawkstar is talking about this:
You can play a male or female character without gaining any special benefits or hindrances. Think about how your character does or does not conform to the broader culture's expectations of sex, gender, and sexual behavior. For example, a make drow cleric defies the traditional gender division of drow society, which could be a reason for your character to leave that society and come to the surface.

You don't need to be confined to binary notions of sex and gender. The elf god Corellon Larethian is often seen as androgynous or hermaphroditic, for example, and some elves in the multiverse are made in Corellon's image. You could also play a female character who presents herself as a man, a man who feels trapped in a female body, or a bearded female dwarf who hates being mistaken for a male. Likewise, your character sexual orientation is for you to decide.

Milo v3
2015-09-25, 06:06 AM
The 5e PHB actually prohibits the banning of crossplay, sort of.

Where? I don't see that in the section on choosing your characters gender, sex, and sexual orientation.

goto124
2015-09-25, 09:19 AM
It didn't even mention the player's RL sex/gender/orientation.

Millstone85
2015-09-25, 10:46 AM
The way they wrote this, it looks like the player's sex, gender and orientation are irrelevant to the character's.
Rather, people are invited to play whatever they want.

Lvl 2 Expert
2015-09-25, 11:07 AM
The 5e PHB actually prohibits the banning of crossplay, sort of.

The DM is still always right of course, but yes, as Millstone quoted, the RAW go out of their way to emphasize that you can play any gender and orientation.

Tzi
2015-09-25, 02:38 PM
I recently had a very bad experience with a few male players playing female characters. They played their characters in very disturbing ways and I need your advice should i just straight up ban crossplaying all together or pose some kind of test for people that want to do it? Please share if you have had any bad experiences with crossplaying and how you handled them.

It is a tough call, because crossplaying shouldn't be an issue. It mainly becomes an issue when players play like really ****ty stereotypes or "my magical realm," type stuff were the character say is a female character played by a male and is obviously just a hyper sexualized fantasy.

Idk, my best judgement is sit down and talking to the player and just say "Dude... wtf?"

Comet
2015-09-25, 04:01 PM
Idk, my best judgement is sit down and talking to the player and just say "Dude... wtf?"

This is really great, simple advice and pretty much the key to solving any problem at a roleplaying table.

I know this hobby is sometimes advertised as a "live in a different world, be whatever you want" kind of deal but in my experience that expectation can only lead to bad things. Roleplaying is not Narnia, you are not magically transported away from this realm of flesh and concrete. Everything "your character" says and does is on you, the player.

Players harassing other players? "Dude...wtf?"
Players talking about uncomfortable subjects? "Dude...wtf?"
Players being dumb in general? "Dude...wtf?"

Metagaming is king, the fiction can only ever reflect the real people creating it. Don't let people hide behind a veneer of fantasy.

Garimeth
2015-09-28, 07:00 AM
I've only just remembered, but I also played a catgirl once. She was a pilot, and could aim the meanest photon torpedo in Star Fleet in her day. And although she was kinda cute, she was also immensely dignified, and the topic of sex never came up.

I've seen it argued (above) that "bad" RP and "inappropriate" joking around "wastes time". I'm not sure I understand this concept. When I'm playing a game, "wasting time" is pretty much the whole purpose of the exercise. Sure there's some kind of underlying quest, but if you seriously care how much, if any, progress is going to be made towards that goal in any given session? - well, let's just say that if you're playing with any group I've ever even seen, then you're in for a world of frustration.

The only meaningful definition of an "inappropriate" joke is "one that people don't enjoy". The only meaningful definition of "bad roleplaying" is "roleplaying that you or others don't enjoy". The purpose of the game is to have fun.

And if some group is being "inappropriate" - that's called being young, let them enjoy it while they can. They'll grow out of it in their own time. The only way it's any concern of yours is if one of the group happens to be your responsibility, and even then it's only that one's behaviour that has anything to do with you.


Well, of course. I've mentioned several times that I think the hobby is big enough for everybody. Not everybody plays anime themed games, not everybody power games, not everybody plays sci-fi, and not everybody plays games where gender is a theme.



I recently had a very bad experience with a few male players playing female characters. They played their characters in very disturbing ways and I need your advice should i just straight up ban crossplaying all together or pose some kind of test for people that want to do it? Please share if you have had any bad experiences with crossplaying and how you handled them.

As a reminder (not necessarily you, but the thread) that was the OP.

Much of the advice being given did not reflect my group's position, and I had something to contribute to the discussion. Not like I'm going around policing anybody else's group or telling the anime catgirl groups their doing fun wrong. What they consider fun though, would not be considered fun by my group - who DO get upset if they don't make progress in their adventure each time we play.


It's wasting time only if the other players weren't there for that kind of game. Which can be the case quite often, as stated above.

If one is starting out and DMing for the first time (or at least DMing with a newly met group of people), should that person ban crossplaying? Does it matter if it's a circle of friends, or strangers from a gaming society, or an online game?

That's a tough call. Kind of one of those case by case things I think. I personally don't trend towards the kitchen sink approach with anything with a new group of people, I use a setting I know well (probably a home brew) I limit the splatbooks, classes, and races... I feel like at the end of the day the DM is the one creating the content for everyone to else to play, so if its their call what kind of game they want to run, and then the players decide if its the type of game they want to play in.

As far as strangers vice friends... I'm a firm believer that you make special concessions for your friends at times, obligatory caveat for unrelated toxic behavior you would tolerate nowhere else in your life, lol.