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So, in an upcoming L5R game, I'm going to be playing my first serious cross-gender character.

In previous games, I've alway seen a pretty strict 'no cross-gendering characters' policy. (With an exception made for Pendragon.)

How about you guys?

I've never had a problem with it - in games I've run or games in which I've played... It's role-playing. A male player is no more an assassin than he is a woman (one hopes). And female gamers aren't as rare as stereotypes make them out to be, but if your only female PCs are female players, your party isn't as rounded out as it could be. (and vice-versa... there are game settings where men are taken more seriously than women, so why not give women players the opportunity to play as men?)

I certainly allow it in the case of Pendragon, where female PCs are pretty much not a viable option.

I've played in dozens of games (both long term and one off's at conventions) and I've never seen it be an issue. I've seen friends make a few jokes the first time a female character is used by a male player in long running campaigns but they're light hearted jokes that don't continue past a minute or two.

Yeah, think it's pretty dumb, never had an issue with it.

The entire point of rpgs is to be someone different for a while. I have absolutely no issue with men playing women and women playing men (or people playing as orcs or elves or dwarves etc ).

I would be pretty pissed off if I joined a group where I could not play a character of whatever sex I wished to.

I've done so as a player and allowed it as a GM,

The only issues I've seen in the past is that cross gender character are more prone to being stereotypes that might just offend the sensitive

(although players who run them this way tend to be the ones who run stereotypes for their own gender too)

I've got no problem with it, though I've always found it difficult to roleplay a female in tabletop RPGs, yet easy in MMOs. I guess it's because I've been a lot more self-conscious around a table with friends than online with strangers. Also, I guess, being younger when having played tabletop RPGs (mostly at tourneys in cons, playtesting, etc - I've never rolled my own female) and not actually having bothered to especially "roleplay" a female in MMOs - just being myself and not presenting as a female, or male - simply not being an asshat with a (sometimes) female avatar. And having the odd guy freak out into homophobia-land when I said I'm actually a guy.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I've done so as a player and allowed it as a GM,

The only issues I've seen in the past is that cross gender character are more prone to being stereotypes that might just offend the sensitive

(although players who run them this way tend to be the ones who run stereotypes for their own gender too)

I've seen this.

I've also seen people play characters where the cross-gender aspect crossed into the creepy.

I played in a game with a two hundred pound neckbeard who wanted to play a sixteen year old asian girl. He spent a great deal of time describing what she was wearing in graphic detail (especially when she was going to bed). I think people should be able to play what they want, but it was nearly impossible to interact with him and suspend your disbelief THAT far.

I think that when the character is too far divorced from the player, it can create problems for other players, especially if the instigator isn't a good enough actor to get everyone's disbelief off the ground. You might have players who can handle it, but at that point, some GMs just find it more equitable to create a blanket rule against it.

Kinda surprised to see like, NO one that doesn't allow it. Almost every gaming group I have ever been part of has banned cross-gendering characters in some fashion or another. Intriguing.

I think there is a certain level of maturity required to play cross gendered characters well, but if you don't meet that standard you generally aren't someone I invite to my games.

No issue with it.

My Slaaneshi Priestess from Black Crusade is probably one of the most fun characters I've ever played.

 Jimsolo wrote:

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I've done so as a player and allowed it as a GM,

The only issues I've seen in the past is that cross gender character are more prone to being stereotypes that might just offend the sensitive

(although players who run them this way tend to be the ones who run stereotypes for their own gender too)

I've seen this.

I've also seen people play characters where the cross-gender aspect crossed into the creepy.

I played in a game with a two hundred pound neckbeard who wanted to play a sixteen year old asian girl. He spent a great deal of time describing what she was wearing in graphic detail (especially when she was going to bed). I think people should be able to play what they want, but it was nearly impossible to interact with him and suspend your disbelief THAT far.

I think that when the character is too far divorced from the player, it can create problems for other players, especially if the instigator isn't a good enough actor to get everyone's disbelief off the ground. You might have players who can handle it, but at that point, some GMs just find it more equitable to create a blanket rule against it.

Kinda surprised to see like, NO one that doesn't allow it. Almost every gaming group I have ever been part of has banned cross-gendering characters in some fashion or another. Intriguing.

I've never met an orc or an assassin yet people play plenty of different characters that they could never be in real life and who are far different to their every day self. That is the point of rpgs. If some is being creepy in how they play a character, that is an issue with moderating the player, not about banning cross gender rping. You can have a male playing a male and being horrifically greasy or creepy. You can have a female playing a female doing exactly the same as your player above and it still going a bit too far... why does anyone need to know what characters are sleeping in unless they are sleeping in armour?

So again, the issue is moderation to prevent people being "creepy" not banning people playing characters who are not them in real life

Aura's been playing a guy with multiple marriages and acting like a fantasy equivalent of Lothario for about a year now.. I'd say I have no issue with it.

Heh, but yeah its not even a eyebrow raiser, many of my groups have had a 50-50 gender split even when the groups where mostly male players and I prefer to run female characters in almost everything, even my LIVE avatar is female..

I got a male player who plays a female assassin in a Dark Heresy game, and really, there never was any problem with that, and as he plays her as a cold hearted assassin there was no real problem into turning this into a stereotype or a running joke..thought I think once or twice he decided to unzip his bodyglove juuust a little to show cleavage to help his charm tests, but apart from that, business as usual.

My former Rogue Trader/D&D 3.5 GM on the other hand was adamant about it, stating that a man couldn't act or think as a woman so he refused to see us play a woman character...Silly if you ask me, but yet again he wasn't the GM with the most RP-oriented gameplay...

I have always been happy to play and allow cross-gender characters and that is what I have experienced in playing in other people's campaigns too.

I don't see the difference between playing a boy/girl and playing an alien or an elf or a dragon. You have to think yourself into a different psychology.

I've seen it done a few times, males playing as female, I have never once seen it done well, instead falling into all the very worst stereotypes and tropes. Then I went online to a RP server for an MMORPG and it was even worse, you could smell a G.I.R.L. a mile away by how ridiculously slutty and over the top they'd be.

An unwholesome mix of cliches, insult and demonstration of the player's lack of idea about the opposite sex. Often with quite creepy results.

I would not be too eager for someone to rp the opposite gender in a game I ran, unless they were a seriously good rper with maturity and the capacity to roleplay it without the usual pitfalls I've seen.

I have a similar, but lesser, reservation about playing insanity, from my WW VtM days of seeing so many Malkavians played terribly. Only ever saw two played well, the rest were fething awful 'comic relief' that would totally destroy carefully constructed scenes by the storytellers.

In my experience, bad role-players and immature role-players are going to be bad and immature, regardless, and good role-players and reasonably mature role-players are going to be good and reasonably mature. It has little or nothing to do with the gender of the character. Though I have to ask, that GM who stated a man couldn't act or think as a woman... did he let humans play other races?

Great post, zbg97. But I think I see where you are going with this:

zbg97 wrote:
... did he let humans play other races?

And I think it's a different topic. Stereotyping about fantasy races is nothing like stereotyping about real world categories.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@MGS - Sounds like you have been RPGing with schnucks. One of my favorite characters of all time was not only female but also insane. She was compelling enough to become one of the main anatgonists of the campaign after I stopped playing her. I also have seen guys play female characters very well even in their first RPG session.

Manchu wrote:
Great post, zbg97. But I think I see where you are going with this:

zbg97 wrote:
... did he let humans play other races?

And I think it's a different topic. Stereotyping about fantasy races is nothing like stereotyping about real world categories.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Fair enough, but I was referring to the fact that the GM in question (in Inquisitor Jex's post) apparently stated specifically that cross-gender role-playing was forbidden because a man couldn't act or think as a woman, so I was genuinely wondering if the same GM thought a human could act and think like an Elf.

To some degree, the answer's always going to be no, which is why it's "role playing" - acting and thinking like I already do would make one incredibly boring game (or one crazy awesome meta-game). It's a little weird, to me, that the opposite gender is considered a foreign, unknowable thing, all the moreso in settings that actually incorporate foreign, unknowable things. Men and women are equally capable of almost all of the same thoughts and behaviors (though, of course, not all of the same actions). Thinking otherwise is what gave rise to those stereotypes in the first place.

And my point was that anyone can act and think like a fictional species because the only reality there is to a fictional species's experience is what we make up when playing them.

This is 7 minutes probably worth watching on the topic. No answers for you, though!

Definitely worth watching, and the bottom line definitely is that there are no universal answers to this topic, to begin with.

For myself, I grew up role playing with pen and paper games. I'm not old enough to remember a time before Dungeons and Dragons, but I played the red box D&D when it was still the newest D&D, and I played 1st Ed. AD&D for many years, when it was still the only AD&D. I've played Shadowrun, World of Darkness, Star Wars, and a host of other pen-and-paper RPGs as well as everything from the days of Zork through Baldur's Gate to Mass Effect 3 and Old Repulic as an MMORPG. I've also RPGed with a lot of people who are both trained and experienced in stage acting. My philosophy is that it doesn't really make a difference what your gender, ethnicity, or orientation is - if you can create a fleshed out and (in-game) realistic character and be respectful of your character and the other players (though your character may not be respectful of himself or herself or the other characters), there's a pretty good chance I'll want to keep gaming with you. If you, as a player, can't be respectful of the other players or your character, I probably won't. But I'm well aware that a lot of people are in it for escapism, or tons of murder-death-kill, or a host of other reasons, all of which are equally valid ways of gaming and reasons for gaming. This is an area where YMMV doesn't come close to cutting it. Your mileage will definitely vary. A lot.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

I have a similar, but lesser, reservation about playing insanity, from my WW VtM days of seeing so many Malkavians played terribly. Only ever saw two played well, the rest were fething awful 'comic relief' that would totally destroy carefully constructed scenes by the storytellers.

On a side note, this, this, a thousand times this.

You guys need to stop RPGing with schnooks!

The only time I have a problem with it is when someone attempts to use their roleplaying as a political statement against the gender they're roleplaying. But I always have that problem with certain players I've known...

No real issue with it. I have a player who often plays female historical expys. His recent rogue trader captain was julie d'aubigny for example (which he played straight). Only time he strays from that is to play his scooby doo Daphney style waitress for Call of Cthulhu (complete with "jinkies" I may add).

zbg97 wrote:
Though I have to ask, that GM who stated a man couldn't act or think as a woman... did he let humans play other races?

Yup, Dwarves, Elves, Half-Orcs even..Satyrs. I never asked and he never went into details, but I suspect it was to stop players to sleeping your way into where ever or trying to seduce every/any thing the party comes across, or merely not to turn into the party whore and having to service every other party members when camping.

It looks out of this world to think like that, but if you saw what I was playing with, you would not be surprised...RP was out of the window and they acted more in a "Oh the GM does that, I know" than what the story enthralls and planning..ha! I started to see it tactically, but it always ended up with someone charging into the battle (see previous comment about "the GM does that"), then having to duke it out, and seeing that was what we were supposed to do; charge in kill everything without any plan or hope the dice is on our favour...Twice I managed to squeeze in an RP element: first, when the rogue died and my Half-Orc Fighter/Cleric did a service for him (My char and his were the only original members from the campaign start), despite the bitching of the Satyr player (who indirectly suicide his elf during a previous battle because he got bored of it), which by they way was the one who killed him by shooting/using a staff of fireball into the melee (his reason for doing that: "Hey, I'm chaotic Neutral, I don't care!")

Second time was later in the camping, my Half-Orc tackled a daemon of sorts (the one with the scorpion-like tail) to buy some time while the rest of the party made their escape via some warphole. I managed to survive, and even demanded a reward for sticking to my character concept (contrary to the rest o the lot)...The GM had to obliged

Inquisitor Jex wrote:
I suspect it was to stop players to sleeping your way into where ever or trying to seduce every/any thing the party comes across, or merely not to turn into the party whore and having to service every other party members when camping.

Again, more of a problem with the player than people playing different genders.

As the rest of your post indicates, if you are playing with idots, you get idiotic RP's, regardless of what artificial limits you attempt to set on what people can or cannot play.

Well, I stopped playing with them a couple of years ago, mostly because when I decided to deliver the same medicine to one of the player, turns out it wasn't as acceptable as when he did it to me.

I mostly played with them because well, I played! I GM (and GM'ed) WHRFP, Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, Only War, Hunter: The Reckoning, Shadowrun...I can count the number of times I've actually been a player in a game on my hands, being generous here, and 3 of those fingers are with those guys (D&D 3.5, Rogue Trader, Star Wars d6). Now I play in one game, GM the rest, and I'm quite satisfied with my players that GMing suffice.

I've played a few female characters in my time period, simply to throw a bit of variety into the party. I have no problem playing another gender and I learned early on that if I were to play a different gender that I couldn't just play a slut or some other boring female characteristic that male gamers tend to fall into (hey! I was 14). Most recently I've played a female rogue, pirate captain. Because of the whole "women are cursed on ships" thing, my character had to work harder than the male characters, and after winning a heave (some weird fighting game amongst the crew), she won their respect. Behind the scenes, she was more feminine, though far from a good example of a dude roleplaying as a female. I tried to create a person, and if it seemed natural enough then gender didn't really matter.

Though my DM was slightly immature and tried to make my character a concubine of the pirate while we were press-ganged on his ship... I got up from my seat at the table, say on the DM's lap, tickled his chin, and then slapped him and said, "If you ever think I'm willing to anything like that, you've got another thing coming." I then got up walked back to my seat and sat down. The captain locked me in the sweatbox for a few days. Totally worth it