Remember though, there are rules to properly play male characters too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQjYXyJ5bOE

Truer words have NEVER been spoken. And now you ladies out there (all 2-4 of you) will know how to play a male character when you decide to try a different gender! :v

Wait... what's the opposite gender of Pikachu?

So the answer is either: yes, all the time or no, not particularly much.   Seen it all the time, certainly, and quite frankly I've given up on the idea of the question being all that facinating.   A male player playing a female character typically falls into a few obvious catagories with varying strengths.

Lesbianstripperninja: the half naked wish fulfilment adolescent fantasy, almost always a straight man, and usually single, though some partnered males do it out of old habit, or to a lesser degree.

'Perfected me': the poor man's sex change and, honestly, the most obnoxious of the bunch, as there is alway a strong degree of mary-sueism, and frankly its more creepy than the LSN by some measure.

Method Woman: only by Serious Role Players attempting to show how capable they are of taking on 'challenging roles', and of course the most challenging role is obviously... a member of the same species only with different bits.


Most curiously I rare see female humans playing males, though it does occur from time to time, though they are more likely to fall into the 'method' catagory than others.

Incidental instances, that is one off's and pregen 'run with its' are less interesting and essentially are 'man with boobs' in many cases, where gender is about as important as hair color.

Note that I HAVE seen a rare and disgusting variation of the LSN, that being a hybrid of the 'Perfected Me LSN' played by a female with body issues in Real Life (tm).  I will leave the details to your imagination to save your fragile sanity (things man was not meant to know, indeed. Thankfully there is no such thing a 'things Pika were not meant to know' and our psyches are suitably tougher as a consequence...).

Quote from: Spike;297702Wait... what's the opposite gender of Pikachu?

Dinner.

-clash

Ah yes.... well, then I think I can safely say I've never played a character of the opposite gender.


All thanks to Clash for reminding me of the little things...

Never played a female, although I doubt I'd have too much a problem with it; none of my games include any real sexual content, so it wouldn't get creepy.

I have played androgynous characters (a Verpine, SW game), if that counts at all. There's also the strong possibility of playing a female in an upcoming campaign, which involves a race of beetle-folk with the females being more like human males than anything else (modeled after the sterile female "worker" ants).

I'm honestly puzzled by the question. It makes as much sense as asking if we've ever played a character who had a different profession to us, was a different race or religion, spoke a different language, had a different sexuality, and so on.

Yes, gender is a profound part of a person's identity, whereas hair colour and so on aren't. But professions can also be profound parts of people's identities, and certainly race and religion, sexuality and language are, too.

Have you ever played a character with a different profession?
Have you ever played a character with a different race?
Have you ever played a character with a different religion?
Have you ever played a character with a different sexuality?

Yes, of course I have. Did I do a bad job roleplaying the women? Sure, often. Likewise, I do a bad job playing dwarves or Moslems or pacifists or people who lack confidence. So what? It's just a game, not professional theatre.

Like I said, I'm happy to play me as a character, but most people aren't. Given that, we'll roleplay people different to ourselves. Sometimes those differences will include gender.

What makes gender such a profound difference compared to all the others?

Why is it normal and okay for someone to roleplay a whole heap of characters of different genders as GM, but then as soon as they have just one character as player, it becomes impossible and/or weird?

None of this makes any sense. I've a feeling someone will pop up to say that roleplaying a different sexuality is weird, too. My instinct is that this is really a cultural thing, this wacky thing we have in the West about gender and sexuality, we have this strange mixture of prudishness and porn.

Exactly, Kyle! I just don't see the big deal either.

-clash

For fuck's sake people, it was a god damn curious question.  Sorry for trying to start a fucking conversation on a forum dedicated to talking.

Quote from: Drohem;297763For fuck's sake people, it was a god damn curious question.  Sorry for trying to start a fucking conversation on a forum dedicated to talking.

It's not you, Drohem.

-clash

You know, I never thought about it much, but I think I have only played female player characters in games where each player controlled more than one character.

Otherwise I think I have only played male player characters.

But major female NPCs? I have done lots of those as a GM, but I'm assuming this thread is about player characters.

Quote from: Drohem;297763For fuck's sake people, it was a god damn curious question.  Sorry for trying to start a fucking conversation on a forum dedicated to talking.

We have, and I think its just you don't like the answers you are getting.

Well, as a GM I have to portray female NPCs all the time. When I play (which isn't nearly as often) I tend to play men.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Drohem;297573Have you ever created and played a character of the opposite sex of you, the player?

How often do you do this?  Was only one time?  Do you do it all the time?

What's the attraction?  Is it the challenge of trying to get into the mind of the opposite sex?  Or is it trying to get in tune with the yin or yang in you?

Yes, several times, though more online than face to face. It's not my preferred mode of play. However, if the character seems best suited to be a particular sex so be it, say due to the character concept, profession or personality.

Also it can be a challenge, a change of pace, and/or just sheer fun. I see it little different than writing where the premise calls for a main character of a particular type. Which reminds me, that's another reason to try playing "different" characters, to stretch your range and get a better feel of how such characters handle situations.

If face to face is problematic for this, I suggest trying online, such as IRC chat play. It may be easier for you to get into and stay in character. Just make sure you're with a good group who are aware of the sitch and make sure to set any needed boundaries beforehand as much as possible.

Above all else, remember that male or female, we're talking about *people* here. Both are human, and human first. Keep that in mind and that will be a good guideline to steer your play. Don't think "what would women do in this situation", think "what would *my character* do in this situation?".

Quote from: Sigmund;297610Nanny Og.

Is it time to start singing songs about wizards' staves yet?

I have had a semi-recurring NPC archetype inspired by characters such as Nanny Og, Babushka / Jewish-Grandma stock types and Asian Mother (in Law) Quite a change from the normal patron yet it seems there's always a place for one of the sort somewhere :cool:

Quote from: flyingmice;297658No special reason other than half the world's population is female, and I figure they ought to be half the characters.

I've read of people who roll a dice to determine their pc's sex during chargen, 50% each. Personally face to face most people almost exclusively play their own sex and tend to view "going across the aisle" as weird if not wrong. There's from what I've seen a correlation between this and groups that are exclusively male and play RPGs as a boy's night activity, which are the standard in my experience. (shrugs)

QuoteMy wife is the same - she runs males as often as she runs female characters. The rest of the group lean more towards running the same sex, but not heavily

The wife in a gaming couple I know tends to play male characters. I'm not sure about the husband's preference. It was a note of accomplishment when as GM I got the wife of that couple to play a female character in a long running campaign. I think one reason was that the setting (Tekumel) offers a non-standard role for women in a fantasy setting which provided both a challenge and increased opportunity than say a more historical based or some literary based fantasy settings.