Females Playing Males and Males Playing Females...

[Gunnyr]

My GF and I were talking about this a few nights back. In many games I've played players play gender-bending characters, sometimes for rp purposes, sometime for scamming or even sometimes just for the variety in characters.

Have you ever played characters of the opposite gender on either HZ or any other games?

[Custard]

It's good RP fun.

Your post made me think of this episode of "The noob".

[ThunderZtorm]

I regular play female chars in RP games - dunno why actually. In NWN it's because the females have cooler portraits tho :p

[Tryagain]

I have always played male characters myself. But ever since I started noting this issue in MMO's I always make it a point to ask why.

The male who playes a female ... two general reponses other than its good RP fun.

" Why would I want to look at an ugly male avatar when I can have something nicer to look at as I game "

" I am more inclined to get stuff from true male avatars if I play the helpless female Noob " -- not meaning to insult females here but I have actually been told this a number of times.

I have encountered a few females playing male avatars but those are few and far between.

The only answer I have ever recieved is..

" It saves me from getting hit on by every horny 16 to 45 year old male in the game " That they would like to play the game rather than being continually bombarded with more than friendly in game chats.

I didn't think it was that big of an issue till I watched my wife play a couple of times. Needless to say the online world removes most inhibitions LOL.

[Foxfire]

*Note left male icon and female avatar*

I'm in the "if I have to look at my char all day, I'd rather they were pleasant looking" school. I don't hide the fact in game / in guild that I'm a guy playing a gal, and have had very few incidents of ...ummm... unfortunate confusions. Makes for some good laughs, really - there's usually at least some teasing going on.

There is also the roleplaying aspect, I've always viewed and tried to play Fox as an Ice Queen with a fiery golden heart. I usually play male chars, but Fox has become my fav.

[Aamer Khan]

I personally have always played Male characters. ( Am Male )

But there is one more interesting and funny aspect to this subject.

Because of the widespread nature of cross-dressing characters, players often get confused... or just make assumptions.

My wife playes a female character with the same last name as my character. So, many thought it was just me playing a female character.

We have one member of my guild that as far as I can tell is male. Talks about his wife, always speaks from a male perspective, says HE is male, plays a male character... and yet, many think he is a female playing a male character.

Funny actually. How easy we become confused...

[HratLi]

Hah... since I started mudding, I have made a general rule of thumb that I refer to characters as their avatar's gender unless they specifically tell me they prefer one gender over another. :D Helps keep the game consistant for me, and doesn't confuse folks who don't know the Player of the character.

But the phenomena does exist where female avatars seem to get away with a lot more in terms of getting 'help' and also with behaviour from what I've seen.

-HratLi

[Levity]

My HZ characters are all female. I had some DaoC male alts. In RL LARP I have played many "pants" roles, ie I have done gangster thugs, Horatio Hornblower, Athos, a militiaman .. I was even a reenactor pikeman in Hampden's Regiment of Foot (English Civil War) back when my hair was a lot shorter. Mostly I play female though -- it's easier, and my voice is a dead giveaway that I'm a woman, along with my knee length hair, lol.

A good character is fun to play regardless of gender. I've done rogues and heroes, ditzes and schemers, and gender has sometimes been a core part of the character, sometimes irrelevant. Many LARP characters are written to be gender neutral.E.g., last March Iwas a canine alien starship pilot with a romance subplot, pronouns inserted by the GMs after casting.

But yes, confusion is easy in MMO's. My Levity character is *very* female (not to be confused with weak or simpering), yet I still get /tells addressing me as sir or even milord. My dragon, Mythwynn .. well, the "wynn" suffix means "woman." Though I understand why that is not so clear to many.

And, bottom line, while it is interesting to know what gender is behind the toon, it doesn't really matter. RP lets us write stories, and the author need not be the same as the character. To paraphrase the sig I occasionally used in Tazoon.com, taken from SMStirling's preface to _Conquistador_, Niven's law states there is a precise, technical term for readers who confuse the opinions of a novel's characters with those of the author. That term is "idiot." [:D]

-Levity Merrel, Crai Aisling, Sans AoP by Aiya's pad
92 Blacksmith/63 Fitter/45 Mason/40 Carpenter/75 Reaver

[thefatone]

well, this is my first mmrpg, so I dont have a lot to go on. But, I am a guy playing a female. I picked her cause I think the male elves look gay. so, I play a chick.
Kinda funny if you think about it.

[Demelza Flameclaw]

im a male playing female chars, i always have i just seem to find hem fun to play the character i play in game (Demelza) is my gfs name, if i had noticed the red hair option for elves i woulda chose that but i just as a whole prefer playing female chars

[LaughingOtter]

Have you ever played characters of the opposite gender on either HZ or any other games?

My main is male, my dragon is male, my other alts are female. Between having fun with the endowment slider and the difficulty getting a decent looking male satyr, saris, and half-giant, female characters seemed to be the way to go.

[Vahrokh]

I have a female alt that is very similar to Tigris (may she rest in peace [:'(]).

She can't stop having interminable people being "gentle" with her.

Once I thought perma-horny 9-89 old people were confined to MUDs.

Now I see MMOs are full too of them.

Some of my friends sometimes get harassed by wishing males and have to log off to stop them. Expecially because they want to pass "from game to reality" and want their real life name, address etc.

[Gunnyr]

Back in UO I had 1 female character and over 30 male ones. I was heavily into RP in those days. Now here in HZ I have 3 male, 1 female and a little neuter (dragon). I'm pretty much in the mind of male fiends not looking good at all here. So I made a female one. In game I let any mistaken players know my true gender [;)]

[imported_Ssilmath]

I play several characters, some male, some female...I'm a male myself, and find that playing Travara and Frost, my two females, is great fun, especially since one is a snobby ******, and the other doesn't really know how to behave as a female...

I also play two males, and that is great fun as well, but none of them are as fun as Sslimath, who I play as very male and very aggressive. All in all, it's fun to play bothmale, femaleand genderless.

[Akuluxtraxas]

I enjoy playing both geders and do on Horizons. I have ober 10 characters currently and of my main 5 i have 3 Females and 2 males. out of my 14 total i have 8 females and 6 males not too uneven and i enjoy the varying aspects of both mostly for RP purposes but some also had to do with using avatars from my older gaming some as far back as 20 years ago.

As far as begging etc i dont look at gender just sat no.

Im off cyas in game

[gopher65]

My dragon is male (well.... you know what I mean:(), but I always make ALL my humanoid characters female. Why you ask? Because I play third person PoV. And staring at some guy's butt for 5 hours at a time isn't fun imo:P. Besides, the endowment slider is very fun hehe. Although I don't really like the results in HZ. Bodies look very artifcial in this game, allchunky and blocky (male, female, and neuter).

[gusi]

I play a female in-game. But everybody who has grouped with me, or had a private convo with me, they would know I'm male.

The reason why I play a female is because Elves are my favoured race, in any game, and all the male elves weren't really pleasing to the eye. It alsoopens upsome interesting RP convos =]. I've been in too many situations where people have 'talked me up' or 'hit on me'.. But I make sure that we're on the same page before it gets out of control [:P].

[imported_Eileen Mavourneen]

My own original characters are all female, a hold-over from long years of non-computer RPGs. (That's not counting NPCs in games I've run --obviously about 49% of those needed to be male[;)])Players ofopposite-gendered characters that I've seen over the years were never really convincing, so sticking to my own gender seemed the best thing for me.

However, in the only possible scenario that could have changed my stance on the topic, I inherited a HZaccountwith several characterswhen one of the best men who ever graced this world passed out of it, and all his characters were male. After awhile I began playing his secondary alts (I don't play the primary, obviously) since his special touch went into their creaton even though he never put much time into playing them while he was alive.

It's been an interesting experience. Don't know how convincingly I portray them, but the gnome found himself the target of a young femalesaris' flirtations one day, so must be doing something right genderwise, if not racially... [:)] These will probablyremain my only gender-crossing characters, ever, however.

[Vindra]

<-- male (dirty old bastard in fact) playing 3 male (human, Pixie, Gnome) and two female (elf, fiendess) toons.

In UO the ratio was about the same, in Anarchy Online it was2 male, 1 neuter, 5 females (due to the fact, that I had started a Guild in which my male was supposed to be the only male toon and head honcho - there were even some female players playing female toons in that guild [;)] )

Why do I play females?
1) when crafting I like to see something nice..
2) it's called ROLEPLAY, isn't it?
3) I just LOVE to give fresh remarks to all those folks trying to cyber with my toons.. ("uhm - you know there could be a 6'5" 300 pound male be on this side of the I-Net, right?" - "ah, well.. you're not, are you?" - "Well.. no.. it's only 295 pounds I guess..")

The weirdest thing is, that a RL (female) friend playing the (female) lover of my (female) fiendess is thought to be male in RL by 9 of 10people - while about the same number of people think of me being female in RL.. What does hat tell us about the usual RP'er?Right, he spends way too much time in front of the'puter andaway from real people [6]

[Jazmyn]

I'm a female IRL, but I play both male and female characters. I started playing male characters when I was playing a game that made males mechanically better than females (bigger, stronger, sturdier.. etc.. etc)

My choice of which character I play at any given time is dependant on my mood. If I'm feeling less sociable, I'll play a male character, since they almost never get tells from people they don't know. If I'm feeling nice, patient and helpful, I'll play my female character. If I'm really feeling like a beast (PMS), I pull out my Dragon! Mwuahhahahaha!