Quote from: vytzka;693452Next installment: cleavage windows.

Like Power Girl?

Quote from: flyerfan1991;693501Like Power Girl?

I am offended!

Wait...no I am not...I like windows.

Quote from: Bill;693503I am offended!

Wait...no I am not...I like windows.

Power Girl looks silly with the "check this out!" boob window, but I don't find it offensive per se.  Starfire, however, is an entirely new level of eye roll.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;693511Power Girl looks silly with the "check this out!" boob window, but I don't find it offensive per se.  Starfire, however, is an entirely new level of eye roll.

One run of a comic book with starfire in it that I saw on the internet recently, was the poster child for 'male fantasy scenario'

The writer and artist dressed her up in essentially nothing, and retconned her personality to one where she was essentially a sex object. Ignoring years of established characterization.

I don't offend easily at this sort of thing but it was glaring in this case.

Quote from: Bill;693515One run of a comic book with starfire in it that I saw on the internet recently, was the poster child for 'male fantasy scenario'

The writer and artist dressed he rup in essentially nothing, and retconned her personality to one where she was essentially a sex object. Ignoring years of established characterization.

I don't offend easily at this sort of thing but it was glaring in this case.

The character as portrayed by George Perez in his 80s run of Teen Titans was rather sweet, as opposed to the cynical man eater that got on peoples' nerves in New 52.

Quote from: Bill;693515One run of a comic book with starfire in it that I saw on the internet recently, was the poster child for 'male fantasy scenario'

The writer and artist dressed her up in essentially nothing, and retconned her personality to one where she was essentially a sex object. Ignoring years of established characterization.

I don't offend easily at this sort of thing but it was glaring in this case.

While I didn't watch Teen Titans on Cartoon Network, I caught enough of it when flipping channels to realize that the Starfire there was going to cause problems with DC comics down the line.  That Starfire simply didn't fit with the male fantasy Starfire that the comics had.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;693595While I didn't watch Teen Titans on Cartoon Network, I caught enough of it when flipping channels to realize that the Starfire there was going to cause problems with DC comics down the line.  That Starfire simply didn't fit with the male fantasy Starfire that the comics had.

Well, the origional comic book Starfire is an adult woman.

The teen titans cartoon has the characters portrayed younger to appeal to kids.

Essentially very different characters.


Robin and Cyborg were somewhat like the comic book versions.

Quote from: Ravenswing;691864One wonders if there's any other legal, valid character choice they ban because they've allegedly "had bad experiences" with people playing them.

In the '80s it was kender. In the '90s it was drow. I've heard lots of people say that they ban Malkavians from their Vampire campaigns.

I tend to take the opposite approach and avoid/ban the ass-hat players rather than trying to cut them off from their primary methods of being ass-hats. But I can understand why people in other circumstances might choose the opposite approach.

While I've never actually experienced a problem with kender, drow, Malkavians, or creepy guys bringing their erotic fan-fiction to the table, I think the people in this thread pretending that these problems don't exist simply because they've never experienced them are just lying to themselves.

And if I found myself in a situation where I felt like I had to play with some white dude who thought playing black characters who ate fried chicken and watermelon while using minstrel-speak was a really great idea, you can rest assured that I'd very quickly be banning white people playing black characters.

Quote from: Bill;693597Well, the origional comic book Starfire is an adult woman.

The teen titans cartoon has the characters portrayed younger to appeal to kids.

Essentially very different characters.


Robin and Cyborg were somewhat like the comic book versions.

Yes, they're different characters, but the girls who watched Teen Titans and said to themselves "Hey, Starfire is cool!" would pick up the New 52 version of Starfire and go "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!"

In a way, this does feed back into RPGs, because for every group that handles cross gender play well, there's always "that one guy" who feels the need to play an oversexed bimbo as a personal fantasy.  I've personally only encountered that guy once, but I also know of a similar type of guy, the one who thinks roleplaying a rape is cool.

As much as I think people ought to be mature enough to handle relationships in RPGs, I can sympathize with those who perform some bannings at the table.  I myself would have issues with romance in game, unless the people involved are able to handle it in a mature manner, and that's based on personal experience watching game groups implode from the romance induced drama.

Quote from: Mailanka;692907And even if you're not trying to be offensive, people might fail to understand, say, the culture and language/accent of the Frenchman they're playing, or the Russian, or the Chinese fellow, or the Japanese fellow.  This is especially true if you know these cultures.  The flaws stand starkly out and ruin your suspension of disbelief.

If you take this to its logical conclusion, doesnt it ultimately limit people to playing themselves. I mean if you try to take on any roll ouptside your own experience, you might get something wrong. To me the point in making a character is it isn't me. But if we place heavy limits on how far outside yourself and your direct experience of the world you can go with that, it seems like it might make for some dull choices. Can a non-catholic play a catholic character? Can play someone from Ohio, even though I only lived in Boston and California? Can I play a yankee whose family came over on the mayflower even though my family were all immigrants in the last hundred century? Can someone from the middle class play a character born inti poverty or born a silver spoon in his mouth? Can a white guy play a black guym or a black guy play a white guy? Can I ever play anyone fom a foreign country?

At the end of the day, you make the character and do your best to play it. If people want to be overly analytical of other folk's characterization or allow innacuracies in portrayal to ruin their suspension of disbelief, I dont know, i think that is their problem.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;693617I tend to take the opposite approach and avoid/ban the ass-hat players rather than trying to cut them off from their primary methods of being ass-hats. But I can understand why people in other circumstances might choose the opposite approach.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;693617And if I found myself in a situation where I felt like I had to play with some white dude who thought playing black characters who ate fried chicken and watermelon while using minstrel-speak was a really great idea, you can rest assured that I'd very quickly be banning white people playing black characters.

I believe that such ass-hat players exist, but I don't see why the example of a black character would change your approach. Personally, I would still use your first stated approach - not invite that player back, but still allow everyone else to play a character other than their own race.

Quote from: Mailanka;692983I think the problem really boils down to immersion.  When they say "You're playing your character wrong," and the risk of irritating Benoist and suggesting I have empathic powers, I think they're often saying "I can't see your character anymore."

Consider a LARP.  If you argue that you should be allowed to play any character, nothing stops a guy from playing a woman in a LARP.  You can plan an orc, or a vampire, or an elf, why not a woman?  Part of it, I'm sure, comes from how our culture views gender, and we could get into quite a dicussion about THAT, because women do something dress up as and play guys in LARPs, and the reverse seems to be very rare to me (I've never, ever seen a guy play a woman in a LARP). But a lot of it comes down to the fact that you need to physically portray your character.  I'm a big man, and I would just never try to play a child or a slim, delicate man. I just don't think I could pull it off.  People looking at me would never know I had an effete build "in reality."  They will treat me as I am, as I appear.  There are limits to imagination.

I've seen plenty of men play women in larps - along with playing aliens, robots, ghosts, monsters, and more. This might be related to living in the San Francisco Bay area, where men dressing up as women is not as shocking as elsewhere. This is exactly why I view reactions against cross-gender play with suspicion, though, because it tends to come across as related to the homophobia that is common in many other parts of the world.

I believe that some players genuinely are distracted and dragged out of their immersion because they can imagine a short man with a grey vest as the character of a dwarf in armor, but they couldn't possibly imagine a man as the character of a woman. However, I feel that this is mostly related to their own hang-ups, and I don't feel like I have to cater to them.

I've had players of both gender play across gender lines.

There's never been a problem with it.

RPGPundit

Two of the players in my Beyond the Frontier - Traveller campaign on obsidian portal are men playing women, no issues so far.

Yeah, there can be various reasons for doing this, but playing it for sophomoric laughs doesn't tend to be one of them if the player is anywhere over the age of 15.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;695052Yeah, there can be various reasons for doing this, but playing it for sophomoric laughs doesn't tend to be one of them if the player is anywhere over the age of 15.

RPGPundit

Agreed.