Advice on playing a female [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

streakster

2008-03-21, 06:45 PM

This seems a bit much - the poor poster never said that all women are alike. He just wanted some help on how one would go about roleplaying a character of a different gender. That can be a tough challenge - after all, he certainly has no experience. What potential pitfalls are there that he might not know about that we, in our wisdom, do? What advice can we offer to help him make a good, solid character that isn't offensively stereotypical?

"Just play a normal person" is all well and good - and, if you limit yourself to a 1-dimensional character, will work well. "I blast stuff with fire!" isn't all that gender-dependent. Real-roleplaying - as I assume he's going to try, given that he took the trouble to ask how to do it well - is closer to acting. I could no more roleplay a female well now than I could a minotaur. I have no experience with either. I could either try, fail, and get a flat, lifeless copy of myself in a different body - or I could try asking for help.

That being said, my advice would be to keep the character simple at first. Makes it easier, and you can add more to her character as you get better.

Human Paragon 3

2008-03-21, 06:49 PM

"I start with a man, then I remove all reason and accountabillity."

The above is a sexist (if humorous) quote, but what ISN'T sexist, is admitting that men and women are different. Unfortunately, I have no meaningful advice. I've NPCd female characters but never PCd one. In DnD I doubt there would be much practical difference. Just consider motives and act accordingly. There isn't much I can think of that falls in the catagory of "A girl would never do that" or "A girl would react like this." Just use your imagination. I think once you have some other PCs and NPCs interacting with you, you'll be able to figure out how to react to the way they treat you.

Toliudar

2008-03-21, 06:49 PM

From a theatre guy:

Start with what she wants. You can bias those goals based on perceived norms for the women around you as desired, or not. If you're clear on what's important to the character, and how they pursue it, the rest usually kind of falls into place.

Avoid a falsetto voice or fluttery hand gestures at all costs. Unless you're actually playing a drag queen.

snoopy13a

2008-03-21, 06:51 PM

From As Good As It Gets:

Secretary: How do you write women so well?

Melvin Udall: I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.

*Note before people get mad*: I'm joking :smallredface:

Seriously, just play this character like any other character. There isn't really a stereotypical "female character" unless you think stereotyping 50% of the world's population is a good idea.

Actually, a good idea may be to copy a personality from a female character that you liked from a TV show, movie, novel, etc.

Rutee

2008-03-21, 06:51 PM

Starsinger

2008-03-21, 06:52 PM

But men and women aren't really that different. What you do is you take a personality, maybe throw in some stereotypical elements (like being a kind, nurturing person) and then add girl parts.

Rachel Lorelei

2008-03-21, 06:52 PM

"I start with a man, then I remove all reason and accountabillity."

The above is a sexist (if humorous) quote, but what ISN'T sexist, is admitting that men and women are different.

Sure, they are. Men and other men and women and other women are different, too, and to the same degree.

While we're at it, I know plenty of ladies with no nurturing instincts whatsoever, and plenty of guys who snuggle kittens and coo over babies.

Avoid a falsetto voice or fluttery hand gestures at all costs. Unless you're actually playing a drag queen.

I still need to play a fabulous half-elven drag-queen "sorceress".

Starsinger

2008-03-21, 06:55 PM

I still need to play a fabulous half-elven drag-queen "sorceress".

May I recommend as inspiration, Flea the Magician, who is just that?

Zincorium

2008-03-21, 06:55 PM

I think a few general pointers are in order:

1. Avoid the falsetto, even if you're good at it. It's one of those things that just automatically breaks immersion for most groups.

2. Practice a few conversations by writing them down. Look for anything that would enable someone to determine the gender of the participants and see if you can try and avoid them when you talk. You probably won't find many if any at all, but it's worth a try.

3. Relax. The 51% of the population that are female are just as diverse as the 49% who are male. There's nothing wrong with playing a masculine woman if you happen to come off that way. Since the usual adventurer aggression and risk-taking are traditionally viewed as 'male' characteristics, most female adventurers get tagged with that brush to some degree anyway.

Edit:
Ninja'd on the falsetto. But I think that just further emphasizes you shouldn't do it.

Hunter Noventa

2008-03-21, 07:03 PM

Be sure to remember your class as well, as this will affect how you play the character regardless of gender. I only bring this up because the Wu Jen is a curious class with it's taboos, which mostly provide interesting RP avenues.

Rutee

2008-03-21, 07:10 PM

May I recommend as inspiration, Flea the Magician, who is just that?

Normally, that suggestion would be worth 3 Respect Points. Combined with the bifau/shounen avatar and sig, however, that's worth double :3

Out of curiosity to the OP, this is at a table, right? If your group heavily favors actual acting, then just speak normally, or speak normally with an accent. Unless you have an unusually high voice, it won't come off right.

kamikasei

2008-03-21, 07:11 PM

You may want to have a look at this thread on the Wizards boards: Advice on playing female characters (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=916297). Not necessarily going to give you answers, but there's a lot of pre-existing discussion there.

I would second Rutee's comment and suggest that you give us a description of the character concept and people can suggest ways in which being female may influence the character's development.

Starsinger

2008-03-21, 07:13 PM

Normally, that suggestion would be worth 3 Respect Points. Combined with the bifau/shounen avatar and sig, however, that's worth double :3

Before you came around my avatar was Flea.

Chronos

2008-03-21, 07:13 PM

From a theatre guy:

Start with what she wants. You can bias those goals based on perceived norms for the women around you as desired, or not. If you're clear on what's important to the character, and how they pursue it, the rest usually kind of falls into place.
Good advice... But note, of course, that it's also good advice for playing a male character. I don't know the second thing about women, but I do know the first thing, which is that women are people. So just play a person.

Admiral Squish

2008-03-21, 07:18 PM

Simple: Don't. Look, they say to write what you know, and the same applies to games. Either you're going to come off as sexist, or you're just not going to pull it off right and it's going to be awkward and weird.

However, I spent most of my life surrounded by friends-who-are-girls, so I have at least a basic insight into how to portray feminine quirks and traits. I still try to avoid it, though.

Starsinger

2008-03-21, 07:19 PM

Simple: Don't. Look, they say to write what you know, and the same applies to games. Either you're going to come off as sexist, or you're just not going to pull it off right and it's going to be awkward and weird.

Really? Despite not being a girl, I'm told I RP an extremely good girl, infact.. I was once told that I RP a girl better than I do a guy.

Arakune

2008-03-21, 07:28 PM

Try to know about the world you are about to play, it might help you in order to cut of some ridiculous scenarios.

As an example, what the parents of her think about it? Normally a father would freak out if his son run from his farm and go adventuring, with all those low life expectation and one less worker, if his DAUGHTER are going adventuring he will have a heart attack!.. or not.

For example, if the kingdom you are is highly militaristic and all men from 8~14th years are forced to join the military, then most of the 'manly' jobs are done by females and no one would say anything from your character wanting to be a ranger for instance.

Thiel

2008-03-21, 07:38 PM

Thanks for all the replies. (Seems like I found a touchy subject:smallsmile: )
Just to be on the safe side I'll underline what I'm trying to achieve with this thread.
I've played a lot of characters by now. I've played most of the races and classes in the PHB and a few from other sources and every time I try something new, I try to get some advice on how to make my idea work. Normally I'd do this with my RL gaming group but none of us has any experience with playing a female character.
So, how do I make a female Wu Jen who isn't just a male with boobs and a socket instead of a plug? Because that's what's going to happen if I "just" make person.

Be sure to remember your class as well, as this will affect how you play the character regardless of gender. I only bring this up because the Wu Jen is a curious class with it's taboos, which mostly provide interesting RP avenues.
I actually got the idea while I was reading the taboo's.

Simple: Don't. Look, they say to write what you know, and the same applies to games. Either you're going to come off as sexist, or you're just not going to pull it off right and it's going to be awkward and weird. That may be so, but I'd like to try it anyway. I have the advantage that it's a PbP game and not a RL one though so I should be able to think up a way to steer clear of the worst situations.

Bleen

2008-03-21, 07:41 PM

For the love of (deity), no falsetto or fluttery hand gestures.

Other than that, you mostly just have to worry about societal implications and..that's about it. Female characters, to me, have always invoked a very different mental image than male ones, but in the end you play 'em all in much of the same ways.

...Also, I thought Flea was kind of attractive. *awkward cough*

Cubey

2008-03-21, 07:45 PM

Avoid traps. Most first-time female roleplayers create their characters as a mix of one or more of the below:
-Slutty, barely-clad skank, willing to get into everyone's pants for little or no reason
-Bitchy ice queen, intolerable of everyone and especially men (doubly men who want to hit on her)
-Shallow bimbo who only talks and/or cares about her appearance, clothes, makeup and boys
-Crazy lesbian

Do not make your character like any of the above and you're already halfway there on creating a non-insulting female character. I was tempted to add "meek and gentle damsel in distress" (sort of a Moe (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoeMoe) character), but that doesn't turn up that often, isn't even remotely as annoying as examples above and isn't universally hated but only a peeve of mine.

Starsinger

2008-03-21, 07:45 PM

...Also, I thought Flea was kind of attractive. *awkward cough*

It's okay.. someone had to do that before Bridgette :smallsmile:

Bleen

2008-03-21, 07:55 PM

It's okay.. someone had to do that before Bridgette :smallsmile:
Point taken. <3 Bridget. I want to pinch his little cheeks sometimes.
Not like that. You freaks.

Anyway, yeah. Avoid the stereotypes. I would say that some of them are fun if done well (except the skanky/bimbo ones), but it's not worth the risk of dumping yourself into sexist-stereotype-land.

..Granted, sometimes playing a total and utter bi-yatch can be fun. At least, sometimes I get a kick with it. But most of my male characters are jerks, too, so I don't feel like I'm discriminating or anything..

Tequila Sunrise

2008-03-21, 08:00 PM

Terraoblivion

2008-03-21, 08:04 PM

Absolutely the only thing you need to concern yourself with is the gender roles of the country in question, as well as any possible exceptions to those that might exist. That might be tricky, however, as most GMs and published settings never seem to mention this at all, despite how central a part of the culture in question it is. There are two reasons for this, one is that it will influence how the character feels about their own relationship with said gender roles, the other being what expectations she has learned to encounter. Other than that just look into the general culture of the setting. That is really the central aspect of creating any character i think, what is their culture from? Gender roles is just a part of it that becomes more relevant when playing the gender you are not accustomed to and especially when it is the gender most likely to be expected to stay at home and not go adventuring.

Saph

2008-03-21, 08:17 PM

Well, I'll try to give you some "do" advice rather than some "don'ts". :P

Men and women are different; it's hard to go into detail about the difference, as there are so many exceptions. But just saying that generalisations have exceptions (while true) isn't all that helpful, so, a few ideas:

1) Women generally have a lower tolerance for risk than men, especially risk of violent death. Given that adventurers practically make a career of risking violent death, it means you should give more thought to exactly why your character's an adventurer in the first place. What's her motivation?

2) Men are generally more interested in things; women are generally more interested in people. So a female character is more likely to solve a problem in a social way, rather than a mechanical one.

3) Women have a different style of speaking than men. This one's partly cultural, but it's distinct enough that (if you know what you're doing) you can tell someone's sex with a fairly high degree of accuracy just by reading their message board posts. This is worth looking at if you're playing PbP. Not essential, but it makes a character feel more distinct if you learn to talk in a different 'voice'.

As always, generalisations, exceptions, yadda yadda yadda, but hope that's of some help.

- Saph

Azerian Kelimon

2008-03-21, 08:23 PM

Also, I recommend you go and check the Always Female (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlwaysFemale) section of TvTropes for some nifty ideas to use. A skillful use of subversion, deconstruction, and straight uses of tropes can help make a very interesting character.

Also, if you think you could actually do a womanly voice, I'd recommend listening to Jon Anderson, particularly on The Friends of Mr. Cairo. Something like that could pass as a womanly voice, or actually be one if pushed one octave higher.

Triaxx

2008-03-21, 09:51 PM

A note to Saph's third point: That's not a fool proof method of being able to tell the difference between male and female. I know of at least one author, who none of his readers knew was male until we recieved outside proof, even the Male/Female difference engines that are around on the 'Net, pegged him as female, as did all but a few of his readers.

---

Take one of those stereo-types, and twist it. Be the Crazy Lesbian, play it to the hilt, right until the end where you throw yourself into the arms of the BBEG. (Hopefully so you can stab him in the back. Bonus points if the BBEG is a lady, and it's believable.)

Or the Ice Bitch, chastising men left and right, berating all who want to help you, only to be found in a tender embrace with the exact sort of person you hate most. (Bonus points if you can get away with chasing the discoverer out with a windy speech. Extra points if the entire party bursts in assuming 'you're'... in pain. Have a cookie if 'you' are.)

SilverSheriff

2008-03-21, 10:11 PM

the advice my DM gave me when I asked him how to play a woman was:
"Don't."
Alternatively he told me just to play a "man with tits".

Ascension

2008-03-21, 10:13 PM

Personally, I'd go with the don't do it crowd here. I've RPed two women in PbP before, and I've regretted it both times. One was thankfully only a minor character, and so after a few failed attempts to develop her as a dramatic character I just shifted her to an occasional comic relief role. The other one I ended up killing off because I felt I couldn't write her character in any way that could possibly do her justice.

I think to write someone believably long-term they need to be a fragment of your own personality. Not a transparent author insert character, mind you, but still a little piece of you. Sharing a gender helps.

I wish I could write a good female character, but I know from experience I can't. Maybe you can, but if you try, I'm warning you that you've got quite a job ahead of you, and you may find yourself wishing you hadn't tried after only a couple of weeks.

Chronos

2008-03-21, 10:48 PM

So, how do I make a female Wu Jen who isn't just a male with boobs and a socket instead of a plug? Because that's what's going to happen if I "just" make person.In your previous experiences role-playing male characters, has it ever once been relevant that you had a... ahem... plug? If it hasn't, then why should it ever be relevant that your female character has a socket?

In fact, have you ever done anything with any of your characters specifically because that character was male? If the answer is yes, then just don't do that same thing, or do the opposite of it. If no, then do the same things you did before, because what you were doing before is gender-irrelevant.

Saph--
1) Women generally have a lower tolerance for risk than men, especially risk of violent death. Given that adventurers practically make a career of risking violent death, it means you should give more thought to exactly why your character's an adventurer in the first place. What's her motivation?Then again, adventurers have a much higher tolerance for risk than your typical commoner of either sex. You can't really extrapolate things like this from normal folks to adventurers.

dyslexicfaser

2008-03-21, 11:08 PM

I'd have to go with the "Women are People Too" crowd. I play mostly males, but I do like to switch it up now and again and in my experience, as long as you stay away from the four cliches outlined above, you'll do okay. A female can be a burly warrior woman, or a sophisticated socialite, or a wielder of arcane magicks as well as any man. Hell, there are women out there - usually those who grow up with lots of brothers - who seems just like "one of the guys," personality-wise.

Wish I could help you out more, but I'm not familiar enough with the Wu Jen to feel comfortable spouting off advice.

Cubey

2008-03-21, 11:09 PM

Some people can roleplay females convincingly, some don't. So if you want to have a female character, don't give up only because others tell you not to because it'll suck - you never know.

Fiery Diamond

2008-03-21, 11:36 PM

Well, what exactly do you want? There's no way to give advice on how to roleplay 'as a woman'. We're a diverse lot due to a variety of factors, and it may just be how we're raised that makes us act the way we do, not any biological differences (Except for mothering, nurturing instincts. *Those* I will give you are biological; But unless you make a Mother hen, it won't pop up much in RP). Seriously, I'd recommend mostly looking at how the character was raised, and going from there. Aside from that mothering instinct, there's very little difference. And honestly that may not be biological either.

Hear! Hear!

Sure, they are. Men and other men and women and other women are different, too, and to the same degree.

While we're at it, I know plenty of ladies with no nurturing instincts whatsoever, and plenty of guys who snuggle kittens and coo over babies.

Statement supported wholeheartedly.

Absolutely the only thing you need to concern yourself with is the gender roles of the country in question, as well as any possible exceptions to those that might exist. That might be tricky, however, as most GMs and published settings never seem to mention this at all, despite how central a part of the culture in question it is. There are two reasons for this, one is that it will influence how the character feels about their own relationship with said gender roles, the other being what expectations she has learned to encounter. Other than that just look into the general culture of the setting. That is really the central aspect of creating any character i think, what is their culture from? Gender roles is just a part of it that becomes more relevant when playing the gender you are not accustomed to and especially when it is the gender most likely to be expected to stay at home and not go adventuring.

Very much agreed.

1) Women generally have a lower tolerance for risk than men, especially risk of violent death. Given that adventurers practically make a career of risking violent death, it means you should give more thought to exactly why your character's an adventurer in the first place. What's her motivation?

This is a "generally" statement. In my *ahem* personal experience, I've found that "generally statements are not all that good to go off of. I have a lower tolerance for risk than most girls I know, for example.

2) Men are generally more interested in things; women are generally more interested in people. So a female character is more likely to solve a problem in a social way, rather than a mechanical one.

This "generally" statement is even worse, as it is true of males/females to a much smaller percentage. I have a plethora of examples to the contrary of this one (including, again, myself).

3) Women have a different style of speaking than men. This one's partly cultural, but it's distinct enough that (if you know what you're doing) you can tell someone's sex with a fairly high degree of accuracy just by reading their message board posts. This is worth looking at if you're playing PbP. Not essential, but it makes a character feel more distinct if you learn to talk in a different 'voice'.

Really? I'm an avid reader, and I talk with both males and females in real life with great regularity. The only difference I noticed is that males tend to be cruder, which is entirely societal (in my opinion). For most of the posters here who don't have gender labeled, I have no idea whether they are male or female unless posting on a gender-related topic (like this one).

Basically, this is my advice - if you are insecure enough about it to consider asking advice, don't do it, because it indicates a lack of understanding.

-Fiery Diamond

TheThan

2008-03-21, 11:45 PM

I find it ironic that I’m going to be playing a female orc bar wench in an upcoming campaign. Sure she’s aggressive, stands 7 ft tall and could punch out Bruce Lee (but not Chuck Noris, he’s immune). But she’s still a woman so it should prove interesting.

Another idea (that might be impossible depending on your level of nerdness, and a few other factors) is to meet some girls and start hanging around then. If you have a girlfriend with a lot of friends, spend some time with them (and your GF, don’t want to risk her getting jealous). The more you do it the more you’ll “get” a woman’s general mannerisms.

A second idea is the old actor’s advice “don’t act like your acting”. Try to make it natural, combine this with the above and you should be doing well.

edit
but then again, the above is pretty right on, if you need advice about it, you probably shouldn't do it yet.

Ascension

2008-03-21, 11:51 PM

Catch

2008-03-22, 12:10 AM

As someone who frequently plays female characters--usually about half the time, often more--I really can't say there's a significant, glaring difference or any single trait that will make roleplaying a woman more authentic, though I can promise you that the harder you work at playing a "real" girl, the farther you'll probably stray from the mark. One of the nice facets of heroic fantasy settings is that the adventuring profession is relatively gender non-specific, which allows for women and men to fill the same roles without any real conflict, so it's the nuances that make the difference, and in that regard, less is more.

As far as the dirty details are concerned, let me offer a brief psychological rundown for a starting point. Women tend to be more subtle, more perceptive, and more in-tune to both their own emotions and others'. They're usually more expressive, less confrontational, and more cooperative than men, and often more willing to admit failure. Men identify with tasks or things and fear failure, whereas women identify more with people and fear abandonment. Overall, women communicate and deal with their emotions better, which leads to more and broader scopes of feelings and social interaction. None of this is ironclad and is certainly subject to varying degrees, just like all men aren't exactly as hard-headed, sexually frustrated and emotionally monochromatic as they're made out to be.

Well, mostly.

Cubey

2008-03-22, 12:12 AM

If you are going to go through with it after all, a good question to ask yourself would be... "Why did I decide this character has to be female in the first place?"

Is it something about her backstory? Is it because your party wouldn't be a proper five-man band without The Chick? Is it because you're trying to (to use the overly cliched phrase) "get in touch with your feminine side?" (Ugh. I can't believe I typed that. :smalleek: ) WHY?

If you can't come up with a good answer to that question, you'd probably be better off just playing a male Wu-Jen.
Huh? By that logic, you should ask yourself "Why do I want to play a wu-jen?" and, if you can't find a REALLY good answer for it, play a wizard. Or "Why do I want to play a [insert race here]", and play a human if I don't have a good answer. But I'm just speculating here, as "Because I WANT to!" should be a good answer. It's not that playing a female character when you're a guy is something controversial, like say playing a drow rape-priestess or a guy who tortures little children (graphically!) for a living - no one should have a problem with that, unless you're playing with close-minded people who think crossplaying is the best way of catching "teh ghey" (I don't have anything against homosexuals, I only point how such stupid people may think).

Yes, it pre-emptively means that I respect less people who don't let guys play female characters, and vice versa. As I do with every kind of people who tries to force their way of playing games unto others, instead of letting others play as they want.

EDIT: Oh, also, since you're playing a caster... Try not to be the Staff Chick (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StaffChick).

Although I have to agree with this. Staff Chicks are useless and annoying.

Collin152

2008-03-22, 12:22 AM

Bleen

2008-03-22, 12:30 AM

If you are going to go through with it after all, a good question to ask yourself would be... "Why did I decide this character has to be female in the first place?"

I would just like to note my personal motivation for this.

A lot of times, a female character can conjure up a drastically different mental image than a male one. A female swordsage (to use a somewhat-drastic example to put my point across) could be an agile and graceful combatant, whereas a male one, whenever I think of them, tends to ooze an amount of Sephiroth Syndrome I'm not willing to partake in.

Yes, it's a silly, shallow reason. Yes, it stems largely from a couple of small inadequacies I bear in the "Roleplaying" department. But I mean, it's still my character, y'know?

Then again, I tend to keep online groups because most of the ones in my town suck. (:\) So it might be seen differently from an in-person-group standpoint.

My two CP.

TheOOB

2008-03-22, 12:31 AM

The simple fact that you are an adventurer will eliminate (or at least mitagate) many of the common female sterotypes in your character, especially if your world(like most D&D worlds) follows a psuedo western/northern European middle ages theme. An adventurer is going to be powerful, strong willed, risk taking, martial minded warrior. It comes with the territory when you have the most dangerous profession in the multiverse. These traits are generally considered positive traits for males, but for females they are (usually) considered rare and even negative(once again, setting dependent).

So while female adventurers are different from male ones, they still will possess some masculine traits. Just something to keep in mind.

Anyways, the most important thing to remember when playing the opposite gender is that being the opposite gender alone doesn't make your character interesting. Don't treat your character like the female fighter, treat your character like Tennenial Kai, last of the white dragon clan and axe-maiden of highridge. Make your character unique on their own notes. Every female is different, so just playing a female isn't enough to make your character interesting(and usually just ends up being offensive).

Dervag

2008-03-22, 01:33 AM

Saph--Then again, adventurers have a much higher tolerance for risk than your typical commoner of either sex. You can't really extrapolate things like this from normal folks to adventurers.
Yeah. I mean, look at female fighter pilots. Some of them are crazy risk-taking. And so are male fighter pilots. It's practically part of the job description: "Must be willing to travel far faster than any natural object on God's green Earth in a hurtling needle-nosed assembly consisting of many thousands of parts, all built by the lowest builder, while subjecting oneself to forces several times greater than any your body was designed to withstand. Oh, and people will be firing heat-seeking missiles at your very hot engines, and aiming radar-guided guns at your solid metal aircraft."

A female adventurer might be like a female fighter pilot.

Kizara

2008-03-22, 02:25 AM

Read Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" novels; reading them all in order reveals the secret of the difference between men and women.

TS

...Just kidding. As others have suggested, just play a character.

Seconded.

Well having some flaws, his writting generally gives a pretty strong ideas about how to RP various female character types.

Between Nynaeve, Egwene, Elyane, Morriane, (SP), Faile, Bridget (SP) and the first of mayene (what was her name? the slutty one?) you have a pretty wide variety of examples. And that's just MAIN characters, saying nothing about the horde of supporting characters that have enough detail to give you some insight. Such as Vera, Lanfear, Suin, etc.

SoD

2008-03-22, 04:50 AM

But yeah, like they said, girls are exactly like people.

But not real people themselves?

Throwing in a coupling quote or two:

Patrick: No, I think of women as being people. And in many ways, they are.

Sally: Then what do you call a friend who you hang out with, but don't want to have sex with?
Patrick: A guy?

My appologies if this post offends anyone, that was not the intention. I was just poking fun at a slightly poor word choice, which reminded me of one of my favorite TV shows. The statements I have made in paragraphs apart from this one, do not show my true opinion on this matter.

Diamondeye

2008-03-22, 01:53 PM

I like to play female characters myself, and I like to think I do a good job of avoiding making them annoying.

The "Wu Jen" thing sounds like it would be a far more dominating part of your roleplay than the character's sex. I have to agree with those who have said avoiding stereotypes like the characters who are bitches or sluts for no apparent reason.

Generally I try to model my characters after female action movie characters; Jessica Biel's character in Blade Trinity and Alice from Resident Evil are two of my favorites. From Books, Cattie Brie and Honor Harrington would have to be tops.

Overall, I try to go for the "captain of the girl's basketball team" effect with female characters. I find it makes them easy to play as just everyday people rather than trying to manage a bizarre personality on top of another sex.

Anukuta

2008-03-22, 02:15 PM

#1-Start worrying about how others see you (physically and your personality). Women will stress about this and sometimes voice their fears about someone they *think* might not like them to other women (and/or their closest friend)

#2-Start thinking about how your actions will affect other's feelings and be retiscent to do anything that might upset someone. Even if it would help yourself if you did.

#3- Plan ahead. Often and way waaaay waaaay in advance about things(mostly items and supplies) you will need for an adventure, or others in your party, might need. Often, a women (especially if she is the only member or player in the party), will take up responsibility for item-sorting and planning supplies. Even when no one asked them to take it up.

I don't know why... traditional housekeeping jobs have gotten to our heads or something?

Fret about supplies and your planning and ask everyone their opinion about it.
You could alternatively do that with any detail: color of items, types of arrows the archer would want, food ration types.

#4-Make a big deal on little inconsequential things you might think will affect you (or others you care about) in the far far faaaaaaar futur. Even if it wouldn't be all that bad.

#5- If you don't like someone (especially another female) role-play bash/gossip that person behind their backs to make your character feel better about herself (usually about their appearence or manners).

I've done (and seen other women do) in their lifetime these things often, repeatedly and in varying degrees. I once got mad at my BF for trying to help me when he missunderstood me, I went berserk about it... real wierd when I thought about it afterwards.
------------------------------------------

In moderation please. We aren't lunatics. We do these things subconsciously but not like psychos (unless that's what men perceive us as).

I personally hate being talked about in my back and never do it to other... but I do fret alot about things my party will need and ask their opinion all the time about it (even if it's not my job). I keep item inventory and keep track of gold alot.

I also keep all the nice pretty gems :smalltongue: in a small purple bag as an alternate form of money (yeah right... mmmm shinnies)

PS
I read a book once: 'Why women always remember and men always forget.' And it was about the physiological and psychological differences between women and men's reaction to the same events and things. And ways for each of them to understand how the other perceived events differently by explaining the phenomenon.

Very interesting work by a female doctor that I forget the name of...

Talya

2008-03-22, 02:41 PM

Sure, they are. Men and other men and women and other women are different, too, and to the same degree.

While we're at it, I know plenty of ladies with no nurturing instincts whatsoever, and plenty of guys who snuggle kittens and coo over babies.

This implies there are no consistent differences, that men and women are just a random hodge-podge of personality traits, with sex not playing any role in your personality. This is untrue. While feminism correctly tried to get equality between the sexes, where they failed is in trying to paint us as "exactly the same as men." We're not. Men and Women have different trends, different ways of thinking. Yes, different from each other...but also entirely alien to the way men tend to think. There is some overlap, but people are not just people. The differences are very real, and very significant. That doesn't mean we can't learn to understand each other.

Kizara

2008-03-22, 03:11 PM

This implies there are no consistent differences, that men and women are just a random hodge-podge of personality traits, with sex not playing any role in your personality. This is untrue. While feminism correctly tried to get equality between the sexes, where they failed is in trying to paint us as "exactly the same as men." We're not. Men and Women have different trends, different ways of thinking. Yes, different from each other...but also entirely alien to the way men tend to think. There is some overlap, but people are not just people. The differences are very real, and very significant. That doesn't mean we can't learn to understand each other.

I certinally agree with you.

Would you care to elaborate on what you see some of those differences are and how a guy might go about RPing them?

Silkenfist

2008-03-22, 03:12 PM

Simple: Don't. Look, they say to write what you know, and the same applies to games. Either you're going to come off as sexist, or you're just not going to pull it off right and it's going to be awkward and weird.

I disagree 150% with that. Maybe more.

Roleplaying is NOT just about playing yourself in a fantasy world. One of the most rewarding experiences of roleplaying (at least to me) is creating a certain character in your mind and trying to determine what that chracter would do in the unforseen situations thrown at you by the DM. What's so bad if your roleplay as a female is not perfectly representative of the RL female population? As long as you are not blatantly sexist, everyone will shrug it off as that certain character being strange (just like you are free to create strange characters of your own gender).

The real intriguing point about your statement is, that it might just as well be applied to other traits. For example, I am born and raised atheist and am about as spiritual as Richard Dawkins. However, I have played numerous Clerics and Paladins, devoted to countless spiritual entities even though I do not know how religious/spiritual people feel. So far nobody has complained. And I have played Rogues. And assassins. And chaotic evil dudes. Even though I have never committed a serious crime and never had to flee from the law. And what about attributes? I have (very delightfully) played low-Int Barbarians or High-Cha Bards even though these are qualities I don't share. I have played orphans, widowers, traumatized people or even characters with serious mentall illnesses (Hellooooo Malkavians). Never EVER I had heard a complaint about me playing a group stereotypical and unrealistic. This is fantasy. This IS our playground to be someone else. And inexperience is NO reason not to try a certain role.

Now back to the actual question:

- Don't do the falsetoo but softening your voice a little bit might help. I use that as a DM when I want to indicate the gender of a NPC before describing it in detail.

- Don't try to think of female traits to put into a character. Create the character in your mind with all of its traits, then ask yourself whether it would be playable as a realistic person, then adjust a bit if there is need.

- I recommend not to choose the gender of a character first. You shouldn't play a female character just to prove a point to someone. I recommend creating the character first, then decide whether its background, concept and personality would fit better as a male or female.

- Last but not least a tip if you have absolutely no idea: Look for a role model. Search for a certain real or (better) fictional person whose characteristics are very close to the character you want to build. Use that character as the model for the one you are playing and play/act as you think, that character would. Then, step by step, you can alter small aspects of the character to make it uniquely yours.

And that's just it. Do whatever makes the game fun for you and your group. And don't worry if you need a few sessions to get a feel for your new character.

Tokiko Mima

2008-03-22, 03:16 PM

I think the easiest and most simple advice that guys get wrong when they try to play females is that they make being female their characters "hook." The fact that a particular character is female should never be the most interesting thing about her. It's like creating a vampire character and emphasizing that it 'drinks blood and is undead' as the most important and interesting part of it's psychology and behavior.

Femininity should play a factor and influence some or all of your characters traits, but it should never be so important that you say: "She does/acts this way because she's a girl." That's playing to a stereotype you have, and may not have realized you had.

Talya

2008-03-22, 03:17 PM

I certinally agree with you.

Would you care to elaborate on what you see some of those differences are and how a guy might go about RPing them?

I have never tried to roleplay a male, nor am I a psychologist, so I am not sure I'd be the one to ask.

(Actually, that's not true. I roleplayed a male once...but he was gay.)

Here's a good paper that discusses some of the differences, but it's just a starting point. It's good to understand them though. Reading a few things like this is a good start.
http://www.oregoncounseling.org/ArticlesPapers/Documents/DifferencesMenWomen.htm

Anukuta

2008-03-22, 03:53 PM

Read the book I mentioned in my post (or at least take a peek at it at your book store): Why women always remember and men always forget.

Seriously I can't tell you how insightful it is. I got a trick to make my BF remember whatever I tell him now. Used to get frustrated when he would always respond: 'You never told me that' or 'we never had that conversation, you must be inventing stuff'.

Helped me better understand how 'he thought' and I'm thinking it could help you with how a 'she' thinks.

Collin152

2008-03-22, 04:03 PM

I have never tried to roleplay a male, nor am I a psychologist, so I am not sure I'd be the one to ask.

(Actually, that's not true. I roleplayed a male once...but he was gay.)

And that makes a differance?
Okay, it does.
But still! Gay males are still significantly differant from females! In all ways!

Saph

2008-03-22, 05:38 PM

This is a "generally" statement. In my *ahem* personal experience, I've found that "generally statements are not all that good to go off of.

Like I said, there are exceptions. I do think it's generally true, though.

Really? I'm an avid reader, and I talk with both males and females in real life with great regularity. The only difference I noticed is that males tend to be cruder, which is entirely societal (in my opinion). For most of the posters here who don't have gender labeled, I have no idea whether they are male or female unless posting on a gender-related topic (like this one).

Oh, it's definitely possible. I don't even pay that much attention to it and can guess whether a poster's a guy or a girl more often than not, and I know people who are much better at it than I am. (I'd guess that you're a guy from how you write, for instance.)

- Saph

Kizara

2008-03-22, 06:03 PM

One thing that I have noticed is that men generally prefer things to be simple, straightforward and structured.

Women, conversely, enjoy things that are more complicated, layered and/or ever-changing.

Vuzzmop

2008-03-22, 06:16 PM

Dude, just play a female the way you see the character, with you know, character traits.

some pointers:

1: sexuality doesn't matter in a fantasy/combat style game. It just doesn't.

2: Wear as much clothes as makes sense.

3: A big issue in RPGs is the tropes associated with female characters, either they are floozies, or raving militant feminists. don't fall into this trap.

and 4: Don't play a female just 'cause, actually have a character idea, rather than just "its a girl".

I've played females before, and beleive me, if you're roe playing at all, its no different to playing a male.

Dark Knight Renee

2008-03-22, 10:12 PM

Many good suggestions in this thread, on both sides of the "generalization" divide. I have nothing to add to those, except to emphasize that unless you really want to play it up, the character's gender (and any resulting roleplay aspects) should only be a minor aspect of the character.

I think the easiest and most simple advice that guys get wrong when they try to play females is that they make being female their characters "hook." The fact that a particular character is female should never be the most interesting thing about her. It's like creating a vampire character and emphasizing that it 'drinks blood and is undead' as the most important and interesting part of it's psychology and behavior.

Femininity should play a factor and influence some or all of your characters traits, but it should never be so important that you say: "She does/acts this way because she's a girl." That's playing to a stereotype you have, and may not have realized you had.
This applies whether you're playing a hack-and-slash combat game or a roleplay-heavy game, and it also applies to playing gay characters. (It also applies to alignments, species, and other traits, as anyone who's ever heard the "becuase I'm chaotic" excuse should know.)

Avoid traps. Most first-time female roleplayers create their characters as a mix of one or more of the below:
-Slutty, barely-clad skank, willing to get into everyone's pants for little or no reason
-Bitchy ice queen, intolerable of everyone and especially men (doubly men who want to hit on her)
-Shallow bimbo who only talks and/or cares about her appearance, clothes, makeup and boys
-Crazy lesbian

Do not make your character like any of the above and you're already halfway there on creating a non-insulting female character. I was tempted to add "meek and gentle damsel in distress" (sort of a Moe (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoeMoe) character), but that doesn't turn up that often, isn't even remotely as annoying as examples above and isn't universally hated but only a peeve of mine.
Also, while I second the advice to avoid the clichés mentioned above, and to avoid stereotyping in general, don't worry too much about avoiding them. I had issues with certain female stereotypes when I was younger, and went much too far in avoiding them, and to this day I still have difficulty roleplaying convincing female characters.

I can't help much with the Wu Jen aspect of the character, because my familiarity with the class is limited and the fluff/crunch confuses me (IMHO, the fluff describes a lawful character better than it does a chaotic character, yet Wu Jen cannot be lawful. WTF?). However, should you choose to use something related to your character's gender as a taboo, be careful not to over-emphasize it. The taboo looks like dangerous ground for a first-time-gender-bender.

LibraryOgre

2008-03-22, 11:07 PM

Not going to bother reading the full article.

1) The advice "Girls are people too" is useless. If the OP didn't think girls were people, he wouldn't be trying to play one.

2) Yes, there is a difference. I would suggest reading this (http://www.tasteslikephoenix.com/articles/women.html), which has a good group of suggestions for it.

GoC

2008-03-22, 11:26 PM

I'd go for three things:
1. Up emotions a bit. Girls are naturaly more emotional.
2. Focus more on indirect methods of getting things. Girls normaly prefer emotional manipulation to physical confrontation.
3. Get better at understanding how other people work. This one's very hard. Girls normaly have a better grasp at how the social world works compared to the male enphasis on understanding the physical.
Apart from that just roleplay as you would a guy.

Disclaimer: The above is how things work in the culture I live in. It may not be the norm elsewhere.

Raroy

2008-03-23, 12:10 AM

After reading all the posts that aren't just "Girls are people too" I know realize that I am exactly like a girl! (Hehe). Really, gender is still part of a person's personality no matter what you keep squealing at.

Anyway, quick advise. Up emotional and social focus a level form the character's concept(start with character concept, always). There, now your more psychological in tune. Now if you excuse me, I'm going to clean my brothers room then complain about my weight!

Dr Bwaa

2008-03-23, 01:07 AM

I agree with the last couple posts, especially the social suggestion. My personal observations on the matter follow; all of them obviously have numerous exceptions; I'm just stating broad generalizations:

Girls are WAY better at complicated social interaction, even from a very young age. (I think this was proven in a couple psych studies somewhere)
Often, girls will have a more immediate emotional response than guys. This (I think) is largely cultural.
In almost every culture, girls and guys are raised at least somewhat differently. Learn the differences in the culture you'll be playing in.
Girls mature emotionally much faster than guys (also proven someplace, I believe). What I mean by this is that, at the same age, girls are often capable of a much wider array of emotions, and those emotions are deeper, than guys.
In the case of indirect confrontation, girls are much more likely to respond in kind (aka. through social networks, blackmail, etc), whereas guys are more likely to respond directly (aka. marching up to the palace with a sword and an adventuring party and slapping his offender with a glove).

Again, I am intentionally making broad generalizations here, so no need to tell me I am :)

Nerd-o-rama

2008-03-23, 02:20 AM

I'm playing a girl in one game right now. I copped out a bit by making her abrasive and tomboyish (and a Changeling, so I can just take a mulligan on her gender if I want to), but I still think I've got a handle on a basically feminine character.

I haven't really analyzed my playing style until now, but I guess the only real difference between this character and a male adolescent with the same backstory is how I prioritize motivations; when I play a guy, his main priority is usually self-gratification or consciously set goals, and then immediate emotional reactions. When I play this girl, it's flipped. It's a difference in priorities rather than the presence or absence of something, so it's pretty subtle, but it's there. And of course, this has as much to do with my character being a seventeen-year-old orphanage kid from a discriminated minority as it does her being female. So in summary, this probably isn't quite as helpful.

Oh, and the way I started this character was taking aspects from a couple of characters elsewhere in fiction as a basis. That's a good general policy to get a feel for a character of any background, as long as he or she doesn't end up too similar to any one source of inspiration. I think I've avoided it...and even if I haven't, it's a largely comedy game so I can get away with it.

This has been me rambling at 2 am. Advice may not actually be useful.

Kompera

2008-03-23, 06:03 AM

Simple: Don't. Look, they say to write what you know, and the same applies to games. Either you're going to come off as sexist, or you're just not going to pull it off right and it's going to be awkward and weird.

However, I spent most of my life surrounded by friends-who-are-girls, so I have at least a basic insight into how to portray feminine quirks and traits. I still try to avoid it, though.

To address your points in reverse order:
What is role play, if not the opportunity to play a few roles new to you?

There are numerous examples of authors who have written very successful novels with protagonists of the opposite gender. To name only one, check out David Webers excellent series of novels following Honor Harrington, Naval (space navy) Officer of the star kingdom of Manticore.

To those who suggested that the OPs request for advice disqualifies him as being ready to take on such a role, I refer you to my first point. Do it now, OP, rather than later. If you find that you can't handle it without awkwardness, that'll be your indication that you weren't ready. I'd bet that if anyone it'll be your GM who is the one who isn't ready to handle the (supposed, but I'd debate against that assumption) additional challenges of your choice to role play a character of a different gender.

Overlord

2008-03-23, 01:30 PM

Unless you're planning on RP'ing a woman's complex emotional challenges and differing viewpoints, all while taking the world head-on with a smile on your face and a dozen shades of lipstick in your purse...I don't really see the problem here.

Yeah, females are different than males. The circumstances in which this difference comes into play do not often occur in dungeon crawl, or most other situations found in D&D.

This is Dungeons and Dragons, not Dating and Dilemmas.

Of course, if you want to play a game where your main challenges are forcing people to take you seriously, and struggling to gain respect in a male-dominated society...you go girl.

Might I suggest you name your character Captain PMS. Maybe she could be the leader of the Women's Liberation Army? I highly recommend the lipstick pistol.

Because I'm sure that's what you're group will be expecting if the most in-depth description of your character you can provide is "she's a girl."

In summary, I highly recommend that you rethink your decision if the only reason you're making your next character a female is the sheer novelty of playing a woman.

Reinboom

2008-03-23, 01:39 PM

In summary, I highly recommend that you rethink your decision if the only reason you're making your next character a female is the sheer novelty of playing a woman.

How's this any different than playing a.. say.. catfolk for the sheer novelty of playing a catfolk?

Aquillion

2008-03-23, 02:44 PM

How's this any different than playing a.. say.. catfolk for the sheer novelty of playing a catfolk?Because there are actual women in the world. If you play a Dwarf and turn him into DwarfyMcDwarf, nobody's going to care; you might even make a joke out of it. If you play a female and turn her into GirlyMcGirl or a black man and play him as BlackyMcBlackface, though, some of your friends might start rolling their eyes (although it depends on your group and how exactly you do it, I suppose.)

I wouldn't say that that's a reason to never do it, but it's hard to appear ignorant about a dwarf or a catfolk when those don't exist in the real world... it's quite possible to appear ignorant (or sophomoric) about playing a different gender or a real-world race other than your own.

I don't think there's likely to be a problem in this case, since the OP bothered to ask. But there's a definite difference between trying to RP a fantasy race and trying to RP something real -- there is a way to get something real "wrong", or at least two-dimensionally stupid stereotypical, while it's much harder (and generally much less grating) if you make the same mistake with something fantastical.

Tura

2008-03-23, 02:52 PM

It has been said before, but only once or twice in three pages, so it bears repeating. It depends on the setting.

Is it a gritty setting, which acknowledges social factors, and does gender restrict one's way of life? (Well, one's expected way of life, adventurers don't often do that...) Are there predefined roles for men and women? In your case, are female Wu Jen common? Are they respected or feared in their community? Would their families reject them or be proud of them? If you start giving answers to those questions (your DM will probably provide the specifics about the setting), then the rest will fall into place. And if you want to add your own spice, you can make up something along the lines of "decided to start adventuring to avoid a forced marriage" or something.

On the other hand, your DM may have made a "generic fantasy setting", without bothering with social differences between genders, where female adventurers are as common as male adventurers, and nobody even blinks if he sees a woman in full plate with a huge sword over her shoulder. In that case, you don't have to make a big production. When brought up the exact same way, men and women tend to behave the same way. (Which is of course impossible due to that "survival of the species via pregnancy" thingy, but thankfully that's not something that comes up in a DnD game. Usually.)

In short: Don't make your character thinking of her gender, make your character thinking of her background. And if gender does play a significant role in the background, it will just show. And you don't have to squeeze your brain to think "what would women do". :smallsmile:

Quietus

2008-03-23, 02:58 PM

Well, let's start by repeating this - avoid the falsetto. Having to go to linked sound files in a play by post game would be annoying and distracting. :smalltongue:

Now, rather than trying to give advice, since there's been plenty of that here, I'm going to try to show by example. I play female characters on a more or less regular basis - about a quarter of the characters I roll up are female. For example, there's Nalani, and you can read a couple threads I did with her in play by post HERE (http://vethedar.proboards25.com/index.cgi?board=tranquility&action=display&thread=1195668536) and Here (http://vethedar.proboards25.com/index.cgi?board=tranquility&action=display&thread=1202427075).

Whether you want to read them or not is up to you - I suggest at least glancing at them so that you can decide for yourself whether I played a feminine character well enough to take my advice. When I created her, my thought process was the following.

A) I want to play a dancer. This immediately brought female to mind.
B) I want her to be very interested in nature, and she wants to share the beauty she's seen with others. She does this through her dancing. Instant bard!
C) She wants people to focus on the beauty of the dance, rather than herself, so she wears the mask in her avatar to hide her face, giving less for people to focus on.

The mask has since faded away, as all characters change over time, but from these sets of guidelines, I came up with a believable base for a character. Dancers inherently come across as being feminine, and her desire to share the beauty of the natural world with people can also be seen as a feminine trait. In order to share MORE of the natural world with people and indulge her own curiosity, she goes adventuring, but she hasn't actually done much adventuring yet - in fact, aside from doing some travelling with merchant caravans, she's spent the latter portion of her life under the tutelage of an aged elven wizard, because her mother was a spellcaster and wanted her daughter to learn, too. So things I keep in mind when roleplaying her are :

1) Curiosity. She's very curious about things she doesn't understand.
2) She wants to share the beauty of the world with everyone she can.
3) The majority of the interaction she's had was with other children's merchants, and studious elves. As such, she hasn't quite learned to recognize when people are flirting, or worse, with her, so when it comes to a situation that would involve things like that, I can play her off as being entirely naive.

That last serves several purposes... for one, I know I'm not comfortable getting Nalani into a romantic situation right now, so it gives me an out. If anyone tries to be ... forward, with her, I'll play her off as being shocked, getting silent, and needing to be somewhere else, *fast*. Also, blushing will be involved. Second, it ensures that I don't fall into the flirting/slutty/whatever trap that some people do with female characters. I know I have the skill to not do so on my own merits, but it's still nice to be able to back that up. And third, it lets me put in a little bit of comic relief, because while *Nalani* knows nothing of the ways of the world, *I* do. And from a metagame perspective, I intend to occasionally slip in things into the writing that could be misconstrued inside the game world, where Nalani may seem like she's flirting, but isn't really.

That last one is really the hardest thing to balance - too much and it becomes obvious, too little and it doesn't matter. So far I've done fairly well at keeping it subtle; When Whisp (Account name DruidCrea, his character is a halfling) helped her out by lending a few gold at the Adventurer's Guild for entry fees, she kissed him on the cheek. When she was speaking with the straw-haired stable boy at the Tranquility Inn, she was all pleasant and smiling, despite the fact that he was thoroughly embarassed to be in the presence of an attractive woman.

If you're a good writer, then it'll be easy enough to pick a few major character traits, include some that are distinctly feminine, and play them off well. Plus, since you're doing play by post, you have a MASSIVE advantage, because you can reread your post before putting it up. Always do so, and if your post strikes you as being distinctly masculine, try and figure out why. Before long, it'll become second nature to you.

::Edit:: Oh, one last thing that just occurred to me. Avoid bothering with "feminine problems". I may know more about such things than men in general do, but I could NEVER bring them up in a roleplay in a believable way that would add to what's going on. It would really just end up being me going "Hey guys, check it out, I'm a chick! *Bleeds*", and that's not fun for anyone.

Aquillion

2008-03-23, 03:06 PM

(Which is of course impossible due to that "survival of the species via pregnancy" thingy, but thankfully that's not something that comes up in a DnD game. Usually.)I know of at least one fantasy setting -- Twelve Kingdoms -- that had humans grow on trees to avoid this issue. Seriously. On trees, in little peoplefruits.

Tengu

2008-03-23, 04:13 PM

Wow, someone else is familiar with Twelve Kingdoms!

As for the actual topic, the advice I can give you was already given already - play your character's personality first, don't ask yourself "what would a woman do?" but rather "what would my character do?", don't make your character's gender her most important element.

Bleh, that sounded awfully generic, even though it came from a guy who plays female characters roughly 60% of the time and makes a (judging from what others say) good and believable job at that... I guess that if you have the right attitude, it will just come naturally to you.

lumberofdabeast

2008-03-23, 04:38 PM

Quincunx

2008-03-23, 04:56 PM

Seconded! I'd like to see whether those are gender-detectors or cross-gender detectors. The two can be exclusive. (I've known people who can detect when a man is writing as a man or a woman is writing as a woman, yet utterly fail to realize when a man is writing as a woman. Fun times for everyone watching!) And to haul this marginally back on topic, if your own radar is out of order, probably people will see through what you write. I can't instruct you how to write in one distinctive style or the other.

Terraoblivion

2008-03-23, 05:03 PM

The gender detectors i have seen appears to also work partially on topic, given that object oriented and spatially oriented words detects as male, whether you are writing about engineering or knitting. On the other hand terms relating to interpersonal relationships detect as female in those i have seen, so a description of a corporate hierarchy would rank as female just like high school gossip would. So all in all i have found them to not be very good.

Overlord

2008-03-23, 07:39 PM

Because there are actual women in the world. If you play a Dwarf and turn him into DwarfyMcDwarf, nobody's going to care; you might even make a joke out of it. If you play a female and turn her into GirlyMcGirl or a black man and play him as BlackyMcBlackface, though, some of your friends might start rolling their eyes (although it depends on your group and how exactly you do it, I suppose.)

Pretty much. I didn't say never RP a girl for that reason, I just said you should really rethink your choice of character.

If you roleplay a female with "WOOOH! I'm a chick!" in mind, you're either going to A: offend someone, or B: end up playing a shallow, unmemorable character.

Note that when playing a Catgirl for no other reason than "WOOOOH! I'm a Catgirl!" you're a lot less likely to cause A, but B is still very likely. The high probability of ending up with a shallow, uninteresting character is the main reason I also recommend you don't play unique races for no other reason than because you can.

Again, I'm not saying you shouldn't play a cool race if you want to. Usually, if you're picking a nonstandard race, it is simply because that race is cool. But it always needs to be an additional trait, not the defining trait. It's more or less the same thing with female characters. "Female" shouldn't be the primary descriptor of your character, it needs to be a supporting characteristic that adds to character's identity, and doesn't dominate it.

Grommen

2008-03-23, 09:54 PM

I've DM'ed a lot of Women characters. Played many myself as well.

I've based characters off friends personalities and quirks. Fictional characters, even my own sense of what it must be like to be a chick. Like many have said it's the persona, not the gender that will make the character.

Adventures are a bit easer to play. They have to be a bit loony, and rugged, to adventure in the first place. So any female that wants the job will most likely be a tad tomboyish to begin with. That is just the nature of the beast as I see it. Does not mean that you can't have a silk covered vixen. Just means that wile she might complain about being covered in cobwebs and mudd in the middle of a dungeon, she still went in, and for the very same reasons her male comrades did. Fame, fortune, and glory! At the very core she is still a crazy adventure willing to go places where most fear too. Mom and dad are no more liking the fact that their offspring went out into the gods know what with whom.

I don't agree with avoiding some of the common womanly quirks. People play sex crazed male characters all the time and their reputation grows with each women they rack up. So why then can't a women do the same thing. Same with the typical butch ice queen. So they are a bit tough on the outside. Good role players will find ways to express that and not wreck the game.

Haily from the comic strip is a good example of a female character. Your aware that she is a chick, and at times she acts like it. Most of the time she is the party thief and acts just like every stereotypical thief I've ever known, greedy, self centered, and sneaky.

Little tip on the voice. It's more of the cadence and diction, than the tone and pitch. Meaning it's what they say and how it's said rather than how high a voice they say it in. I have a friend that can pull off a perfect "Valley Girl" voice without speaking higher. It's one of the most hysterical things you will ever see as he is a six foot tall 300 pound manly man.

O ya and unless your friends are very secure with you. I would avoid hitting on them in character. If they are good with that it can be one of the most fun things ever.

Cuddly

2008-03-24, 12:43 AM

Because there are actual women in the world. If you play a Dwarf and turn him into DwarfyMcDwarf, nobody's going to care; you might even make a joke out of it. If you play a female and turn her into GirlyMcGirl or a black man and play him as BlackyMcBlackface, though, some of your friends might start rolling their eyes (although it depends on your group and how exactly you do it, I suppose.)

I wouldn't say that that's a reason to never do it, but it's hard to appear ignorant about a dwarf or a catfolk when those don't exist in the real world... it's quite possible to appear ignorant (or sophomoric) about playing a different gender or a real-world race other than your own.

I don't think there's likely to be a problem in this case, since the OP bothered to ask. But there's a definite difference between trying to RP a fantasy race and trying to RP something real -- there is a way to get something real "wrong", or at least two-dimensionally stupid stereotypical, while it's much harder (and generally much less grating) if you make the same mistake with something fantastical.

So my the same logic, we shouldn't play SwordyMcSword Swordfighter, or Gunner Gunnery since both of those also exist in the real world?

Or even playing Mr. Person Human Person, since those also exist?

Dervag

2008-03-24, 03:26 AM

Because I'm sure that's what you're group will be expecting if the most in-depth description of your character you can provide is "she's a girl."

In summary, I highly recommend that you rethink your decision if the only reason you're making your next character a female is the sheer novelty of playing a woman.OK, maybe I haven't been reading the original poster closely enough, but when did he say that this was all there was to his character concept?

I mean, for all I know the guy has a very well developed concept for the character... which happens to be female. And he wants some advice on how to play Jill the Woman, and not Jill the [insert description here] Man with Breasts.

In which case the fact that Jill is a woman is all we really ought to need to know to give the advice he's looking for.

I don't agree with avoiding some of the common womanly quirks. People play sex crazed male characters all the time and their reputation grows with each women they rack up.Trouble is, there's a good chance that neither the players nor the characters will react the same way to a female with a growing reputation for promiscuity as to a male with a growing reputation for promiscuity. Whether or not you consider that to be a problem is a separate question, as is whether or not you can make it work as opposed to ending up with a monstrosity like this (http://goblinscomic.com/d/20050819.html) (last three panels).

I suspect that trying to make it work on one's [i]first try playing a female character would be straining one's acting skills.

Aquillion

2008-03-24, 04:46 AM

So my the same logic, we shouldn't play SwordyMcSword Swordfighter, or Gunner Gunnery since both of those also exist in the real world?

Or even playing Mr. Person Human Person, since those also exist?
Well, I wasn't advising that you play any NounyMcNounguy characters, not unless you really want a game with silly characterization (which some people like). I was explaining why the danger of playing a caricature of a woman is more dangerous than playing (say) the caricature of a catfolk or dwarf.

As far as swordfighters and gunners go, though, there are several things to keep in mind. First, no, they have never existed in the real world -- not in a way that even closely approximates what those terms tend to describe in D&D. D&D's classes and class roles are absolutely fake constructs based around novels and fiction. Nobody expects you to try and play a 'real' swordfighter or gunner -- they expect, consciously or otherwise, the hollywood/fantasy versions of those, broad archtypes that lend themselves easily to caricatures. You don't hurt your character's image any by playing them as a silly, caricatured swordsman because the real-world adventurer-swordsmen you're thinking of are already so far removed from our world and anything related to D&D that they might as well have never existed. The same is not true for gender.

It's not likely anyone you're gaming with has any real experience with SwordyMcSwordfighter or Gunner Gunnery, even if they wanted to complain. If someone did, though, don't you think it could sort of be a problem? I mean, playing D&D with your typical gaming buddies George, Steve, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser would probably be a little awkward at times. And would you want to be playing the stereotypical dumb barbarian in a game with Conan at the table?

I'm not sure what you mean by bringing up "Person Human Person". How would you even begin to play that?

Tengu

2008-03-24, 05:14 AM

I'm not sure what you mean by bringing up "Person Human Person". How would you even begin to play that?

By being a human, obviously. You know that by suggesting that this short line is everything that describes a character's personality, you are also stating that being a woman is the most important characteristic of a female character?

toysailor

2008-03-24, 06:08 AM

Hmmm... I'm going to go with most of the other posters here and suggest that you play "normally". Afterall, there can be uncouth/insensitive/aggressive/*insert stereotypical male trait* too.

I think the key is consistency - decide what kind of personality you would like to play and stick to it. Its not any different from role-playing Smart Wizard Vs Dumb Barbarian.

This thread brings back memories of when I was 13 and playing my first platemail corset-clad female paladin...

*Chortles Childishly*

Tengu

2008-03-24, 06:58 AM

This thread brings back memories of when I was 13 and playing my first platemail corset-clad female paladin...

*Chortles Childishly*

Heh, like Aribeth?

http://www.joystiq.com/media/2006/05/NWN_aribeth.jpg

That armor just screams "put your sword here, after you finish doing so with your eyes!"

Which leads to another point - make your female character dress reasonably. It's okay if she shows a bit of flesh, but remember that armor that doesn't cover is not armor at all, and parading around scantily-clad in some places will result in cold.

Meschaelene

2008-03-24, 08:36 AM

Avoid traps. Most first-time female roleplayers create their characters as a mix of one or more of the below:
-Slutty, barely-clad skank, willing to get into everyone's pants for little or no reason
-Bitchy ice queen, intolerable of everyone and especially men (doubly men who want to hit on her)
-Shallow bimbo who only talks and/or cares about her appearance, clothes, makeup and boys
-Crazy lesbian

Do not make your character like any of the above and you're already halfway there on creating a non-insulting female character. I was tempted to add "meek and gentle damsel in distress".

Yeah -- start with why your character is adventuring. If the reason is "to find boys to flirt with" and "pretend we are in a 'Sorcerette's Gone Wild' video", there are better and easier ways to do it than fighting dragons. Adventurers have more in common with each other, regardless of gender, than the rest of the population.

Aquillion

2008-03-24, 03:22 PM

By being a human, obviously. You know that by suggesting that this short line is everything that describes a character's personality, you are also stating that being a woman is the most important characteristic of a female character?No, actually... I'm confused why you'd make such an out-of-the-blue statement.

As I clearly said, I was explaining why, if you're going to play a character as a caricature of one defining attribute, it is more problematic to do that with a "real-world" attribute like gender than it is to play one defined by, say, dwarfiness, catfolkness, or fantasy-swordmasterness.

And it is (needless to say) difficult if not impossible to do so with "human-ness." I think the person who posted that was probably trying to make the same snarky comment you went for, but, again... it isn't applicable.

Tengu

2008-03-24, 04:50 PM

No, actually... I'm confused why you'd make such an out-of-the-blue statement.

As I clearly said, I was explaining why, if you're going to play a character as a caricature of one defining attribute, it is more problematic to do that with a "real-world" attribute like gender than it is to play one defined by, say, dwarfiness, catfolkness, or fantasy-swordmasterness.

And it is (needless to say) difficult if not impossible to do so with "human-ness." I think the person who posted that was probably trying to make the same snarky comment you went for, but, again... it isn't applicable.

So every character who's not the same as its player is going to end up as a caricature? I think you're putting too little faith in various people's ability to roleplay.

Frosty

2008-03-24, 04:56 PM

Heh, like Aribeth?

http://www.joystiq.com/media/2006/05/NWN_aribeth.jpg

That armor just screams "put your sword here, after you finish doing so with your eyes!"

Which leads to another point - make your female character dress reasonably. It's okay if she shows a bit of flesh, but remember that armor that doesn't cover is not armor at all, and parading around scantily-clad in some places will result in cold.

Or, at least cast Endure Elements on yourself even if you don't wear armor.

Tokiko Mima

2008-03-24, 05:10 PM

...I don't agree with avoiding some of the common womanly quirks. People play sex crazed male characters all the time and their reputation grows with each women they rack up. So why then can't a women do the same thing...

See, here's a situation that's entirely different from a male/female perspective. A sex crazy man who 'racks up many women' is applauded for his charisma and masculinity in doing so. A women doing the same thing is looked at in a much, much less positive light and is seen as less feminine somehow for doing so. So when you add a trait like that to a female character, you have to be aware that it won't be treated in the same light as a male, even if it's the exact same behavior.

I agree with the sentiment that female adventurers are going to be a lot like male adventurers. In a dungeon or hack-n-slash adventure they will be virtually identical. In this situation the admonishment to play your female character like a male character is great advice to get someone playing without worrying that he'll play his character badly.

In a political or very long social campaign, there could be huge differences, however. It depends on how the campaign setting treats the different genders. Here's where the psychological and social differences between men and women come into play and where you have to take the most care with developing your cross-gender character to make it realistic and well played. This is also where you want to be most careful that your own private stereotypes aren't woven into your character for all to see.

sonofzeal

2008-03-24, 06:04 PM

I may as well chime in here, but rather than lecturing I'll just give examples of what I've played. I'm male, btw.

Male characters
Quicksilver Rat - retired (venerable) legendary thief, generally plays a passive role at the back of the group unless he feels they need him to bail them out of trouble.
Lockhart - dominant orc barbarian. Treats the party like his tribe, with him as alpha. Has a history of inviting female PCs to his bed after major victories, but is never offended when they (invariably) turn him down.
Tankli - bitter Dwarven Defender. Seething ball of hatred through and through, but also profoundly good at his job. Aspires to be the best Dwarven Defender ever, merely to spite the dwarves back home who rejected him. Tortures small animals.

Female characters
Zenia - Grey Elf Psion. Travels with her adopted brother, a Wild Elf Warlock (played by my ex-girlfriend, actually). Wants everything to be clean and nice and simple, and tends to go into panic attacks when things go fubar (after nuking everything with Energy Missile first, of course).
Y'G - Poison Dusk Lizardfolk Rogue. Not evil, but just without any sense of pity (or much of any emotion, really). Believes strongly in etiquette though, and plays quite a proper Hostess to her friends and allies when she can.

...so of my characters, Lockhart and Tankli are strongly male, while Sam would come off somewhat differently as a female, imo. Zenia could be either (although she is a bit on the delicate side either way), while Y'G is somewhat androgynous by virtue of not being a mammal, but does fit better as a Hostess than as a Host for what that's worth.

In all cases, their gender is part of their character but not really the defining trait (except possibly Lockhart, but he's just too much fun and everyone loves playing with him for it). They could all be re-envisioned in the other gender, but "gender" is such a loaded concept that it would mean a significant change to the feel of most of them. In most cases, I chose their gender as a tool to help capture the particular flavour I was going for, or because it "felt right" for that character. And I tried to let the character evolve naturally from there, without attempting to force it along or against gender assumptions.

Alyosha

2008-03-24, 07:01 PM

In a medieval setting, remember that women were usually doing indoor things.

As an adventurer, you're stepping out of the norm.

If the character has been thrust into the adventuring world when all she's known is the kitchen, she might be easily frightened, disgusted, or discomforted. She's not going to cower in fear mind you, but a goblin suddenly bursting out at her from around a corner is probably going to make her jump. And possibly stab him in the face out of reflex.

Or if she is more experienced she would probably very confident. If you're playing in a non-traditional medieval setting, women adventurers are normal. So she would be confident.

One of the things I think a lot of male writers have a hard time creating in a female warrior/adventurer is the feminine side. Either the woman warrior is incredibly butch, or oversexed and made into a kind of fetish piece.

When I try to create a female adventurer, I try to add small things to the quality of her character. She still likes to be beautiful and have compliments paid her. She might still like a young gentleman to buy her a dinner or take her to the theatre.

She might have a dress she keeps in her backpack that she wears when she's not in the dungeon, wearing her armor, and slaying orcs. Something simple and comfortable.

I figure even a warrior woman needs to feel more like a woman and less like a warrior once in a while.

Aquillion

2008-03-24, 07:43 PM

So every character who's not the same as its player is going to end up as a caricature? I think you're putting too little faith in various people's ability to roleplay.You've misinterpreted the situation; someone asked why it is different than playing a dwarf or catfolk, so I explained how a separate danger exists, and why people are concerned about that. As I said, it doesn't seem likely to be an issue in this case, if they took the time to worry about it and ask; but it has the potential to be more problematic than playing a catfolk, if it is done badly.

None of that matters if it is done well, but playing the other gender or a real-world race does have the potential to be dicier than playing a completely fantastical role.

You seem to have something you need to get off your chest. Why not just say it? I'm not sure it really relates to what you're trying to project into my posts, but it could add to the discussion.

Tengu

2008-03-24, 07:57 PM

Nah, I don't have anything like that. I guess that I just mistook you for one of the "don't play female characters because you won't do it well and it's wierd!!1" crowd.

Frosty

2008-03-24, 08:01 PM

It's not that hard to rp a female if you treat it as a complex 3-dimensional character with her own strong points, weaknesses, and an interesting personality. If this character is one you'd want to read about in a novel no matter if it's male or female, you've done your job.

I mena, how do you make you *male* characters interesting? Do the same kinda thing for your female characters.

Terraoblivion

2008-03-24, 08:34 PM

I guess that i too could give some examples of characters i have played. However, some things will be glossed over a bit as they were played in other systems and settings and thus based on different assumptions.

Joachim:The last male character i played was a wolf-born werewolf in Werewolf: The Apocalypse. Apart from stuttering and being almost completely oblivious about human society he was insanely curious and over time learned the ways of magic and werewolf religion. While not asexual, he never worked out how human courting worked leading to intense confusion whenever anybody flirted with him. Also surprisingly much the lone wolf, though the fact that each and everyone of the people he was traveling with were clinically insane might have had a part of that. This dysfunctionality also meant that he frequently had to adopt the leadership role for anything to happen.

Vidya: My personal favorite character. While studying in one of the few universities of the Exalted setting she got involved with various groups advocating human emancipation from the gods and exalted. She kept this view after the Sun, the king of the gods, chose him as one of his Exalted and bid her to rule the world in his name. Was a noble from a rich family and quite used to her comforts, especially pot which she had developed an addiction to while in the university. She wanted to help the poor and the weak and subconsciously oozed a sense of noblesse oblige towards them. Throughout the game she was in a relationship with a girl she had met while studying in said city. In general she was somewhat of a mix of an academic and a hippie, except that she wasn't completely ineffectual at getting her political views through.

Pearl: Another Exalted character. Compelled by her destiny she felt a strong sense of wanderlust as a child, which was rather big a problem given that she lived in a culture where women traveling was an extremely strong taboo. In the end her desire to travel compelled her to ritually adopt a male role in society and join the sisterhood of others who had felt the same need. She didn't like the rather masculine culture among those traveling in her part of the world, so when her destiny came and brought her to heaven to work (what can i say, Exalted has a strange setting) she welcomed it. Now her goal in life is to eradicate the taboos and cultural oppression found all over the world and out of loathing of what she had to go through herself. This has also caused her to try her hardest to be as feminine and girly as she can, even as most of her interests are athletic and she is a highly accomplished martial artist. In general these attempts come off rather weird and not fully succesful at being feminine, even if she dresses the part. Despite her past she also still loves traveling.

The only one of these characters for whom gender is truly important is Pearl and both of the others could truly be the opposite gender without any part of the character being lost. They still gave off different vibes due to the chosen gender and functioned quite differently socially than they would have otherwise. In any case for none of them ideas of how "real" men or "real" girls behave was a guiding principle, even if Pearl tried to follow her own world's ideals for female behavior.

Khanderas

2008-03-25, 08:15 AM

My take, is to approach it from the other end.

What are the PC's surroundings reactions to an adventuring woman (or women in general in the setting... we are all a product of our environments) ?
and
What is the PC's reaction to her environments reactions ?

Could be that noone takes her seriously, replying to the male party members when she asks a question (just because statwise man = woman in DnD since edition 3 doesn't mean there is no such thing as sexism)... and does she accept that or a) resents it, b) verbally lectures on manners or c) punch his lights out (adventurers = lotta violence).

Could she be reckless, trying to prove herself to be equal or more then her fellow male adventurers ? Or playing it cool, as the "level headed" one ?

and so on.
Also women are people too and so on, but in finding intresting angles to Roleplay with perhaps alittle extrapolating is needed. No point in "playing like a man with tits" as somones DM suggested on page 2.

Dausuul

2008-03-25, 09:52 AM

:smalltongue: But yeah, like they said, girls are exactly like people.

A lesson that so many, many Golden Age science fiction writers never learned...

Anyway.

First thing is, don't sweat it. Most of the time there won't be any need to do anything differently. A female character in the dungeon, or in most adventuring scenarios, plays just the same as a male character.

Where differences do crop up, it's apt to be in a social setting, and will have as much to do with how people treat your character (and have treated her in the past) as with any innate biological difference. In most societies I know of, women are seen as more nurturing; more passive; more cooperative and less competitive; and, depending on circumstances and appearance, as sex objects. Assuming the game world is similar, your character will have been dealing with those stereotypes throughout her life. She may fulfill those stereotypes, or she may push strongly against them, but either way they'll have an impact on her personality.

The role of women in the dominant culture of the game world is also something to think about. In a strongly patriarchal society where women are little more than chattel, your character will have had to deal with it and it will have had a tremendous effect on her. In a largely egalitarian society, it's less of an issue.

Grommen

2008-03-25, 05:17 PM

Hay Tokiko Mima (sorry I don't know how to do that quote thing)

Good point you make about the stereotypes (sorry I'm smarter than a 5th grader but I spell worse). Yes a women will be treated very differently for doing the same things. Does not mean that you should not explore them. In a very odd way I gained incite into that very problem from playing women. I got ragged on a lot from my male gaming bros cause I was playing a slut they though. Fact is she hardly ever slept around, just got the baggage anyway. The debate rages on to this day.

Jynx, my personal favorite character to play, has had that reputation from day one. And all I did was play her as a female version of the "James Bond" like persona. Womeniseing, drinking, smart alic, spy. One day the party needed information from the main bad guy, so she played to her strengths. Men are pigs, and they view good looking women as dumb sex objects (I'm making a sweeping generalizations here not all but most men is all I'm saying.). He fell for it of coarse. She had the information we needed without shedding any blood what so ever. The players never knew exactly what she did to gain the information, just jumped to the conclusion that Jynx did the deed. Truth be told she gained his trust and charmed his sorry but and he sung like a canarie. I've done this over and over and over.

Every time I did that her "Reputation" grew. It got to the point that I used even that to gain advantages. At least in the right circles. The character evolved from a two bit charalitian, to the magistrate of a kingdom, where she has at her command the entire thieves guild and the local law enforcement. Nothing, I mean nothing slips by her web of information. And no one dares question her rep. (very long story, over ten years of playing the same character)

It's what I like about Role playing. You hardly ever end up where you thought you would, and it's always one hell of a ride.

Grommen

2008-03-25, 05:24 PM

Cade Shadow

2008-03-25, 06:55 PM

Or, at least cast Endure Elements on yourself even if you don't wear armor.

Hopefully, shes a wizard, 'cuz its a touch spell.

I play girl's often, most of the time it isn't with DnD but with entirely free-form game. The choice of playing a girl for me matters as little as grabbing a female miniature from the container. Just act like your male characters. IF there is a girl in your group, ask her if she'd like to experiment in playing a guy and the two of you can work together. Also, if the two of you want to get into the romance part of your character's genders, you can do it to each other to make it a little easier to go across, knowing that the real person on the receiving end is of the opposite gender (if that is your preferred, if not, disregard that sentence).

There's some stuff that might seem a bit like something a girl might do and something that a girl wouldn't do. Trust your intuition. Unless you're more of a nerd than I am, you probably have spent a lot of time with girls (at least as friends) and have probably subconsciously picked up on their mannerisms.

Grommen

2008-03-26, 05:15 PM

Sorry about the double post. I'm havening a lot of trouble posting on this board. Don't know if it's me or the host, but last night all she did was clock for 30 minutes, I didn't even get to see if my post went up or not cause it would not connect back.

Devils_Advocate

2008-04-23, 12:33 AM

This implies there are no consistent differences,
Tell me one personality trait found in all women but no men, or vice versa. Or pattern of traits, or whatever. Anything.

Statistical differences between the respective demographics of the group of all men and the group of all women? Hell yes. Obviously gender correlates with personality. But a mental characteristic that's absent from every member of one gender, but present in every member of the other one? I find that extremely doubtful.

that men and women are just a random hodge-podge of personality traits, with sex not playing any role in your personality.
Or that maybe, y'know, the role that sex plays in personality differs from person to person, precisely because all of the elements that make up a person are interrelated and effect each other.

In other words,

In which case the fact that Jill is a woman is all we really ought to need to know to give the advice he's looking for.
is wrong.

It's always struck me as pretty weird that some people react to OotS strip #58 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0058.html) with "OWL'S WISDOM DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!" Their reasoning is that because people with high Wisdom scores can be jerks, becoming wiser shouldn't make Belkar any nicer. But that just doesn't follow. Just because an insightful person can be Evil doesn't mean that Belkar's Evil isn't due to a lack of awareness (in the sense that he wouldn't be Evil if he were more aware). He's just Evil for different reasons than, say, Redcloak is. The parts/attributes/functions of a mind -- thoughts, memories, desires, emotions, etc. -- aren't independent elements; they influence each other. But the influence that one element has on another is itself something that depends on the makeup of the particular mind, and varies from person to person!

Sure, women are different from men. Men are different from men, too! Seriously. Jack and Joe, two soldiers stationed in Iraq, are totally different people from Bob and Tom, two white-collar workers at an accounting firm. They've got different backgrounds, different goals, different perspectives. A clear case of men being different from men. Women are different from women, too.

I wouldn't say, as Rachel Lorelei did, that men are different from other men, and women are different from other women, to the same degree that men and women are different from each other. Rather, I would say that the degree of difference depends on the men and women under consideration in each case. Doy.

If you randomly selected one man from the set of all men on Earth, and randomly selected two women from the set of all women on Earth, one of the women would probably have more in common with the other woman, mentally, than she did with the man, because gender does correlate with other things. But she still might easily have more in common with the man. And in any case, so what?

No, people aren't just people, but they aren't just men or just women either. In fact, as a rule, nothing is ever just anything.

Yes, different from each other...but also entirely alien to the way men tend to think.
What do you mean by "entirely alien"? Obviously, it's more than just "different", but you also clarify that it doesn't mean incomprehensible, since it "doesn't mean we can't learn to understand each other." Could you give an example of what you're talking about?

It generally unnerves me when someone says "Men and women are different" or "Men and women are the same". It sounds to me like someone is coming from a perspective that assumes that the members of a given gender are basically interchangeable with each other, and the only question is whether they're interchangeable with members of the other gender as well.

Talking about the feats performed by an army of your nationality before you were born as things that "we" did? Unnerving for the same reason. I find this to be one of the more creepy human tendencies. Just because something was done by or to a group of people who share your nationality/race/sex/religion/sexual orientation/whatever, that doesn't mean that it was done by or to you! So don't talk about things, or hold grudges, or feel guilt, as if that were the case! And for that matter, don't like or dislike or side with people based on how similar they are to you, especially not when the similarities are things that are unchosen and involuntary! Holy crap would it solve a lot of problems if people would just stop doing that.