Discussion Topic - Cross-playing

I've played with two cross-gender characters and I found both men did a pretty decent job of it, though the second came across a bit generic (easily forgiven as it was a first foray into cross-playing and he's a new gamer to boot). I don't have any particular objections to it, though it makes for one hell of a workout trying to keep your pronouns straight. I don't really mind cross-playing. I think of it as comparable to writing: you don't have to belong a certain group to have permission to write it, and it is (hopefully) something you get better at with time and practice.

I was actually going to cross-play at a LARP this summer and squeak around my rather feminine body (which is at best poorly disguised, even with cross-casting theatre experience and researching FTM passing tips) by playing a castrato. Didn't pan out, but maybe in the winter I'll think about trying it again, since the whole notion of trying to fabricate a completely different set of gender signals is a fascinating and challenging idea.

I crosplayed a guy in LARP before.... it involved a reeally tight bodice and lots of loose clothes, and make up for scruff. It was fun, but I only ever did it for minor characters because my boobs objected after a few hours of game.

I have also played a female dwarf in Larp, complete with full luxuriant beard! I had the longest prettiest beard of all the dwarves ^-^

That's awesome.

Do you think having a costume helps you to better portray a male compared to regular rp?

some gms refuse to allow cross-gender rping because it confuses their widdle bwains.

I find it hard to rp a guy - I don't know why, but I do. I think that each person experiences it in their own way. If you get the go-ahead, leap into it and enjoy it, but if you find yourself not being able to cope with the idea, keep an eye out for interesting girdles & mirrors. ;)

I mean, i don't know that the few times I've rp'ed a guy I've done "guys" in general justice, but it's a fun way to deconstruct gender... You know, like how you roleplay a man is your constructed view of what "men" are supposed to be.

I've played as guys before, mainly just for something different. I've never had a GM that hasn't allowed it though so I'm not sure why they wouldn't. It was a lot of fun playing a guy because of the difference in interaction with NPC's. I'd do it again any day!

I never have, though some of my good friends have done so, to great effect.

In the first campaign I was in where a woman played a male character, I eventually took that campaign and turned it into a novel. I ended up adding a scene where that character came within a hair of raping another PC. I'd already stopped thinking of the character as my friend wearing a mask, but some of the players hadn't, and my husband in particular was creeped out by the scene (which was totally in character for both of them, btw.)

I think that's probably at the root of it. Role-playing calls for a suspension of disbelief, but when the macho noble guy is being played by a woman with curly red hair, it's harder than usual to achieve that suspension of disbelief.

I've played both, and I've played with guys whose characters were female - I've never had a GM disallow it just on principle. I would suspect that either they were uncomfortable with it, or just wanted to operate on the KISS theory.

There was some confusion in our L5R campaign over the gender pronouns - anytime someone referenced my character as 'she', I'd speak right up & insist, "HE!" By the end of it, everyone was comfy with my character as a man. 'Suspension of disbelief', exactly, thank you velvetpage.

At one point, I'd made a joke about not gettin' any love from the NPC wife. That carried on, and snowballed, until by the end of our campaign (wherein I died a heroically noble death, thank you very much!) the other PCs were quite indignant that my wife didn't properly appreciate me (in fact, she felt she'd married beneath her station - what can you expect from a Scorpion, yadda yadda). There was some talk of duelling when she didn't even show up to my funeral. The cliché had become a tragic relationship...

We weren't LARPing, but I thought it helped that I changed my body language when I played Danjuro - I played him as a stoic man of few words. I also consciously tried to stay away from any gender stereotypes, I don't imagine guys like them any better than we do...

;)

I played in an all-guy game when I was in North Carolina, and I played a guy as well. They all had issues with it and kept calling my character 'she'. I kept threatening to wear a big false mustache to the next game ^-^

I like the option of cross-playing. There are sometimes you come up with a great character concept that's male. The most fun I've had is crossplaying at LARPS. I'm a costume nut, so I get really into it. I bind down my breasts, experiment with some facial hair, and stick a sock in my pants. My latest effort received several double-takes from normal folks not in the game, hehehe.

It's funny you mention that, I was just pondering what gender my character will be in the next variant of our weekly Thursday night game (the game changes periodically, but the group has been together for years). The biggest problem I've found with cross-gender gaming is pronoun trouble - I even do this (one of the other players tends to switch genders from one character to the next). It probably becomes less of an issue with more role-playing-intensive games.

I'm curious about why your first DM was against cross-RPing, as I've never heard of anyone having a problem with it before (but then again I live in the bubble known as Boston). Can you ask him?

But the Dm does it all the time

Dms, Gms and Storytellers are cross gender npcs. Everyone at the game table accepts the male Dm playing a frightended tavernwench hiding under the table. Why should a player playing an opposite gender be different.

I tend to run a lot of games. It seems natural when I want to play a character to consider the gender just like I'd concider race or background. A lot depends on the game we are playing and what visions I have with the character in miind. The male characters I played would not have worked as females.

There are lines and veils and things we don't talk about (but should) that go one at game tables when gender comes up. Homosexual characters and rape cross a line at sometables and are perfectly acceptable at others. Possibly you playing a male touches on one of these lines and veils indirectly with your old gm.

Re: But the Dm does it all the time

it is interesting - I have noticed that with one of my male gm's in particular, if I don't harass him about it on occasion, all the generic one-time appearance NPCs (random people, like soldiers or people in bars etc) are pretty much always men. There are still important female NPC's, but if they don't already have a name when they are introduced or aren't filling a role that is clearly a female one, or what have you, they default to men.

I've definitely noticed this with him, but I think it is true in some of my other games as well. Sometimes it can be explained by the gender conventions of the world, but not always...

Re: But the Dm does it all the time

Well, this is true, but it's different than playing a PC because the NPC doesn't really have a whole game to interact and develop and so on.

My last DM was fairly liberal about most things, so I don't think it was the squick factor for him. It might have had to do with the fact that I was a new player and it may have been even harder for me (I've only now started to RP a lot more). It also may have had something to do with the fact that one of his young daughters was a player. I'm still not sure

I play men alllll the time. My regular group pretty much all cross gender from time to time, with some of us doing it more regularly than others. When I'm making a character, I usually start with a general idea and see what gender it develops as I think about it more. I have on occasion changed the gender before I started playing to give the group a better balance, but sometimes that feels forced. Generally it is a matter of backstory circumstances and personality that help me pick.

I have noticed definite patterns in the way my characters think about certain things, by gender, though. For example, my male characters are more likely to be firmly monogamous than females. Not that I haven't played sluttier (or more open ;) boys as well, but my women tend to have less romantic souls! I think this is part because I'm not a huge romantic myself, so maybe it is easier to project that on to the opposite gender. Which ultimately may be a more interesting commentary on how I play women than men :p

I should clarify that I don't really tend to play slutty women, they just aren't always interested in relationships, or in long term committed ones. In fact I think that if I am designing a character with 'slutty' as a primary character trait they are more likely to sway me into being a boy. Though course there are exceptions both ways!

There are other things as well, but that is the bit that has always stood out in my mind.

I like to play characters that are unusual, that go against convention; maybe that's a part of it, so that no matter what gender you play you are flouting the conventional norm (therefore, males are firmly monogamous, while females live it up!!). The split for me is very close to 50-50 (female vs. male characters).

I tend to choose the gender as part of character creation, and then develop a backstory from there. Whatever floats yer boat!

Come to think on it, I don't currently have a game going... *snif*

I hear that Joel has been thinking of running something in F'ton - I can poke him in your direction if he is looking for people!

Assuming he actually does it. Joel is often 'going to run a campaign' ;p

My main GM is my husband, and he's all over cross-playing, as long as you do it well. There are a couple of guys in our group who he absolutely will not allow to play female characters, but he's constantly pushing me to play them because apparently I do them well.

Really, I don't think its any different. I just play the character traits and change up pronouns. I think the problem comes in when people who try to play the opposite gender wind up playing CARTOONS of the opposite gender because they don't really get that male/female, we're all people. If you think of men as some mysterious other species, you will probably have trouble realistically playing one. And the same goes for guys (especially for guys) I find.

Generally, I find women better at cross-gender gaming, although I do have one member of my Girl Game who was just as guilty of playing a MAN-CARTOON as any guy I've ever seen play a female character badly.

That said, female characters are still my comfort zone.

The end of that second sentence should read "but he's constantly pushing me to play MALE characters because apparently I do them well."

I blame not enough coffee.

Well...Some GMs just have an especial squick factor with men playing women. Many GMs don't have a problem with women playing men, but if they want to be fair...

That said, in one game I'm in, we have a longstanding character (male Dwarf) played by a woman, in another game I play a woman passing as a man.

There is often pronoun confusion, which annoys me, because I almost never have a problem in my head that Dwallin is a man, or that (to everyone's knowledge except for the GM and 2 PCs) Numbers is a man. A slightly effeminate man, possibly even gay, but still chromosomally male.

I've played several male characters, though on the whole I default to playing females unless I have a specific concept in mind that suggests a male character would work better.

Like anything else, it can be done well and done poorly, and I've seen both in about equal measures. I play online a fair amount, and in general I've found it works better there, maybe because you don't have the visual distraction of the player sitting in front of you, or the voice and body language hurdles to get over. Even though I'm playing with people I know well, know what they look and sound like, etc., I find it's easier to forget about that stuff and just imagine the character online.

As for when it's done poorly... enh. I've watched a male try to play a female described as high-charisma and attractive, and fail miserably, though that was at least partly due to the difficulties that always arise when someone with a naturally low charisma themself tries to roleplay higher. He was most uncomfortable when the (male) GM would have (male) NPCs hit on his character, and eventually 'discovered' that she was a lesbian, presumably so as to try and avoid any further roleplaying in that vein. I couldn't help wondering if the situation would have been different if a female had been running the game...

I've never played with a GM who didn't allow people to play characters of either sex, but I assume that for some people it would just make them uncomfortable. *shrugs*

Part of it has to do with the maturity of the players. I'd work with any player on any character that they couldn't pull off well, such as someone playing a character as a bad stereotype, as I think immature cross-gender players would. Unfortunately, I've also known and played with just the sort of male players that would play a female chacter just to explore that characters sexuality in a way that gratifies him . . . and I SO don't want to be party to someone else's verbal masturbation.

(Hi, everybody, I just discovered this community via Jade Reporting. )

I have been gaming for ~15 years, and in that time about 1/3 of my characters have been male (I am female). In fact, my favorite character of all time is male.

I don't approach playing a male character different than I do playing a female character. When I create a character for a game, I invent a person who I would like to tell an interesting story about. The gender of the character comes with the rest of their attributes and depends on how I want them to see their world, and how I want other characters to see them, and since I've never played a game in a genderless setting, whether or not a character is male or female makes a difference.

For example, people are going to see Maeris, daughter of Corwin of Amber in a different light than they would see Mark, son of Corwin. A male hard-boiled detective character plays to and fits comfortably within certain literary and cultural archetypes, while a female hard-boiled detective transgresses those same norms.

I have noticed that my gaming friends who frequently cross-play tend to take a similar storytelling approach to character creation. Friends who always play their own gender, OTOH, seem to create characters who are more obviously alter-egos for themselves in the game setting. I wouldn't want to generalize that to all gamers, though.

I have never had a GM who would "disallow" it (that is kind of a tautology--I would not play with such a GM, I refuse to allow my creativity to be stifled), although I did once have a GM who was frequently confused and forgot that my character (whose name was "Brian," for Pete's sake) was male. So, that might be a reason? Other reason being a GM is a horrible control freak? XP

Hm, I can think of a legitimate reason why a GM would not allow players to play opposite-gender, which is if they had reason to believe a specific player or players would make a complete hash of it and ruin the game for everybody else. Like if a guy wanted to play a woman character who was a complete cliche which would offend female players. Or vice versa.

Cross Character gaming

Well if female wants to play as male and a male wants to play as a female. It should be allowed assuming that the player can act apparently with that character. I have seen guys play girls only to sleep with every male or female NPC or Character they come across.

That maybe way some GMs are unsure about people playing different genders. How ever the GM needs to to take a stand and if they are in a way that make ruins the game for other people as well as the GM. The GM and players need to sit this person down and tell them the problems they are having. And if things don't change give them a new character sheet, and say "Write up a new one, or get out."

Gaming is fun time with friends, and if you have people abusing thing it doesn't make if fun the rest of the party.

As for Gender switching, sure. I've seen it done well and seen it done badly.

The Puck

Re: But the GM does it all the time

Thanks for pointing this out!

My wife and I are both (fortunately) of the same mind on this matter - an NPC is just a PC with no player. In one of our games, you can't treat NPCs as a cardboard cutout behind the bar, only there to serve PCs drinks and info. That's a big mistake in one of our games.

Because of this, when an NPC is created (and players create them also, by stopping to talk to them on the street, or going in their shop), we quickly imagine what is this NPC's goals? Fears? Hopes / Dreams? Who might their family be? Whom might they hang out with in town? It doesn't take long to answer these questions and jot the answers down, and it makes your town much richer in detail.

It tends to throw off players who aren't used to us (and that's fun too), who assume that if an NPC has a name, then they're important to the quest at hand in some way. Not necessarily, but they ARE important to THEIR quest, which might have nothing to do with yours.


OK, now why did I say all that? It wasn't really off-topic, I promise.

As a GM, if you want to make your world believable, you not only must play cross-gender, but cross-race and cross-culture as well. It's not easy, but it's worth it.

A good GM cross-gender roleplays several times a game session, so why shouldn't players? If they think they're up to it, I say, 'go for it!' This is almost assumed for players who are also GMs.

It is true that many players can't do it well - something about lack of exposure to the opposite sex in all too many cases, I'm thinking... But I've seen it in both directions. I've seen nymphomaniac kleptomaniac females being played by males (and my game is not the place to act out your fantasies), but I've also seen man-hating psychopathic females being played by females.

I try to tell people who are new to cross-gender that the best way to do it is to imagine that their female illusionist is vey much like a male illusionist with breasts, and just play them the way they'd play normally. Sure, it's more than that, but most often, the differences are subtle, not obvious (except from a visual standpoint). There is a tendency to overact gender stereotypes, and my suggestion is just to put something on the other side to balance out their play.

I have been accused of playing more female characters than male, but a survey of character sheets (PCs only) showed that I had more than half male (not quite 60%, though). I was also accused of having homosexual females more than males - this was proven true (2 females, 1 male), but the defense would like to state for the record that one of those females is a shapechanger with a memory flaw... (and my wife was stunned by the revelation of the male character, she wondered why he always resisted her character's advances so well and yet was such a good and valuable friend... all the pieces fell into place - "why didn't I see that before?")

I guess I didn't really need to tell all that... But I cross-gender roleplay a LOT, and it's not for tittilation. There are certain character concepts that just work better as female, and I can't always say exactly why.

Someone else said they just work on the concept, and it just kind of sorts out as male / female somewhere along the way (paraphasing, sorry if I didn't get it right). This is exactly the way I see it. I rarely assume that a given character will be a particular gender before I create it (the concept, that is).