Yeah, worst part of reading the wheel of time books was how men and women pretty much treated each other as enemies so often. Most of it was because of stereotypes and preset notions each of the characters had about the other gender!

Then again he could be making fun of gender stereo types, idk.

When I play members of other genders, orientations, races, and religions, I try to base them off real people I know.     That way I know any two dimensional seeming traits are generally balanced out by three dimensional qualities.

Interestingly, any statistical variance between men and women on anything mental or psychological is proportional to the social status difference.

To rephrase, women have more differences from men in societies where women have very different social status from men.

So social status basically equals mental and psychological status.

Of course that is only the general case.

Don't pay too much attention to people warning you off stereotypes. There is nothing wrong with a stereotype or archetype used as a base and then a character built around it. I love "owning" stereotypes, but then again I nearly exclusively play male characters and 2D character of any kind will annoy people.

That said if you're taking over a pre-existing character you don't need to worry about building the character. You just need to follow what's been established for her.

The only thing I would mention as a specific gender perspective is what roles and stereotypes exist in the character's world and how she percieves men. Deciding how a character's personality is informed by their cultural background (whether they conform or reject it) always adds some depth to them.

Stereotypes are just shorthand for common cultural perceptions (right or wrong).

Stereotypes can be helpful or harmful (imagine you are tagged by a hit-and-run driver in an intersection which, for whatever reason, has a bunch of 'gangsta thug' types on one corner and opposite from them what is obviously some kind of Christian rally...You can't find your wallet and something is gravely wrong with your leg...Which direction do you limp? Surprise, it's actually an extremely hostile and xenophobic church on one corner and a bunch of perfectly nice and helpful inner city kids wearing the cultural fashions they grew up around on the other).

For gender roleplay, when I play a guy, it depends on who the guy is. My default fantasy RPG guy may be a barbarian or a somewhat effete and prissy seeming noble. But hey, my default fantasy RPG woman may be a barbarian or a somewhat effete and prissy seeming noble. Or a barbarian noble. Or a somewhat prissy barbarian. In science fiction settings, all bets are off...And in every case how I play the character will relate mostly to who they are in their society.

Tileira nailed the root of it. Focusing first on who they are, and what culture they come from may be a better starting point than initially focusing on gender itself. Does that culture have gender roles? If so, what are they? Does that character transgress against those standard roles? If so, in which direction(s) and how far?

If the character comes from a culture with strongly divided gender roles, and they are conformists, they will probably exhibit those roles. If they are non-conformists they may well exhibit roles from a subculture or a neighboring culture which is poorly thought of by the dominant majority in their culture. Then again, they might come from a culture with very weakly defined gender roles (or none!) and be non-conformists because they have acquired any ideas about gender at all from some external culture!

Another thing to be aware of is that some cultures have more than two genders. I'm not talking biological sex, here, for a reason (and if we define biological sex by number and type of chromosomes in a human being, guess what...There are more than two configurations!). I'm talking about culturally recognized/assigned gender.

Historically, a LOT of cultures have recognized more than two genders. This PBS map shows the locations of some of the better documented ones: http://www.pbs.org/independent...two-spirits/map.html

However, I am a little concerned. A thought occurred to me and I went and chased after it. It might be that this topic is brushing up a bit against an RPOL 'limit':



That is from the RPOL Community Chat forum, but it probably applies in a broader sense.

I think we're okay here because we're discussing roleplaying a fictitious character in a fictitious setting? And I believe that it is being handled respectfully, rather than as any kind of a political statement, debate or argument. In the same way we might be discussing Taoism or any other religious world-view in relation to a game setting. Are we cool doing that in this subforum? It primarily seems geared to helping GMs with game systems/concepts/worldbuilding.

If not, my apologies, and if a wrist-slap is required I understand.

I think we're okay. We're not debating the issues of gender equality ro identity or anything. We're answering a question about roleplaying a character - which more encompasses world-building than a political discussion.

I have no idea. Her opinions on men are not in the information I have. Then again it is a 15 year old girl. So I will be winging it I guess.

In my opinion you are ok, maybe a little overshoot on the supplied info, but you do raise a valid point. If a little of topic in some ways. It still seems the best advice is to more or less take gender out of the equation. Admittedly yes, it does have value for some areas of the character, cultural values, gender roles(if valid) ect, but the point was not to focus on gender. Focus on the character.

Honestly from my experience with people, it seems more and more the differences, other then... biology... is shrinking. Aside from, say women tend to be more worried about looks, and that does not always apply, its just a tendency.

That is 100% culturally taught. :)

Similarly men tend to worry about their masculinity: their identity is less about their image than about how attractive they are to women, whether they are more or less than the men around them. How they measure their success and worth as a man is culturally taught.

Yep, I was being to lazy to point out a whole lot of things like that lol.

You will be fine.  A fifteen-year-old girl might sound like a bad choice for learning to play the opposite gender, but actually it's a great age.  A fifteen-year-old is learning her own gender identity in new ways and can be inconsistent.  The only bad female character roleplaying is really a subset of bad roleplaying in general:  not acknowledging the cultural setting.  You can play a character who doesn't fit the mold, but at least acknowledge that mold.  It's a form of "yes, and."

Welp apparently the point of this thread is mute. I lost the character because I worked today... woot?????

So I asked the GM to remove me from the game entirely if they are going to boot me even partially for having a job.

What? Just what?

Idk I am far to annoyed to read the gm's response right now I will look at it later.

Misunderstandings and accidents happen.

What I find amusing is that this thread is all about men playing women and the tone seems to assume no women are reading :) Lots of us on this forum now you know it's not 1990 any more :)

I personally don't like to play male characters. But I have rarely seen a male play a female character well. My characters tend to vary a lot more than than I have seen women played by men. Many men either assume women are angels or the less mature players play them like teenagers on hormone supplements (probably because they are teenagers themselves).

The truth is I have played my characters as ruthless, murderous, coarse, sexually aggressive (in a mature way not as a silly teenager) and I have very rarely seen a man able to encompass the true breadth of a woman's possible personality.

Even the silly notion that men are more logical as suggested at the start of this thread still seems to stick. That is also a stereotype. Very often, the 'logical' accusation is simply a gender disagreement. 'If you like/want/agree with me/what i want, then you are logical otherwise you are emotional'. For example men often consider women to be obssessed with clothes and see that as irrational. Quite so, but bear in mind that men are very often obsessed with sports, which is from an objective perspective just as silly and irrational as a clothing obsession. Men and women have slightly different perspectives and priorities and consider each other silly for the differences.

I think though that the best way to think about it isn't so much that we have different attitudes to things, we have a different texture to our interactions and to the way we relate to others and express things. Women tend to be more communicative and network better than men. We tend to be more receptive to talking communication but that doesn't mean the opinions inside are all that different. If you thought about yourself in real life and then overlay a female body and think of what matters to you, and how you would express it as a female, then you might get a little closer.

That said, I feel uncomfortable playing male characters. I tend to overdo the uncomunicativeness, or if I make them very communicative I tend to make them rogues or con men, so I'm not a good example of good cross gender play.

Another thing to resist, that I have noticed in both men and women, is the tendency of making someone you would really like to date :) I've seen women make the 'strong but tender' type of male character way too often, and men making their idea of their perfect woman far too often too. This is bad as what you notice happens then is that they don't engage in relationships in game because their real 'partner' is their player who is too jealous to let them interact with other romantic interests :) That strips away a good portion of a characters personality.

Anyway not sure any of this was helpful, but it is part of my take on the subject.

Aur

You say that, but if I have my count correct 5 women (including myself) contributed this thread before you did :P

I'd also like to ask you to think about whether you can recognise the gender of a player with convincing female character. It's easy to spot a guy who's not playing agirl very well - but is that because they are a guy or because they're not a very good roleplayer?

Frankly my girls suck. They might as well be made from cardboard. I dislike doing it (which might be the main problem) and play male characters instead 90% of the time.

I've seen men play good women, women play men badly, men play men badly, and all sorts. Trust me: you wouldn't notice someone doing a convincing cross unless they took time out to tell you.


If someone wants to play a girl who is obsessed with clothes, is quick to get envious or jealous, and has temper fits, then they can do that: So long as that's who the character is. Don't make a character and then add 'girl stuff'.

The reverse of this is true for the males I play. I build on an overall concept and 'feel'. I don't make a character and then add manly things like a love for football and a motor bike.

The way to play any convincing character is to play true to them as an individual. If you're going to build on a stereotype or archetype, understand why that idea exists. Otherwise you're doing stuff because you're 'supposed to' instead of because the character believes it.

I know a few guys who've played believable female characters -- and according to them, I do a pretty good job of playing believable male characters. ;)

Largely I ignore gender on my characters, sometimes using it to balance a team (really, sausage-fest?). My female characters have been described as great, awful, psychotic, and everything in between by people who have at least met women if not been one the entirety of their lives.

Like most characters I play I recommend finding at least one central motivation and a few minor ones and running amok using them. Sometimes this results in relationships, sometimes in blowing things up, and it even sometimes results in getting taxes filed on time. What it rarely results in is a poorly defined and uninteresting character.

While I do suggest avoiding stereotypes those exist for a reason. Some women truly act violent all the time and perhaps would benefit from interactions best left to adult games. Others are gooey and sentimental and would love nothing more than to make someone a metaphorical or literal sandwich. The important thing is to understand where these actions come from and not get bogged down in what they do but why they do it.

Often I look at motivations as constructs of the characters background and not an element of X or Y. Do all men like to blow things up? Of course not. Some men would like nothing more than to find a good person to settle down with, have a few kids, and write webcomics. This doesn't make them any less of a man than a woman that favors bullets will have a leg fall of her X chromosome.

To get back to the central question though of whether a character is convincing as a woman or not asks us another question: how can we tell when a character is convincing?

It might be possible to say something like, "you couldn't tell I was playing against gender, therefor I'm convincing." That seems to work online. That one, however, stumps me. Not sure how well that works and I'd think is the main issue.

Hmmm, oh to have notes from the previous player of this Kaneko.

The last Female character I played... was Crystal, an infamous thief so skilled she stole from the gods and got smacked down for it. Turned into some plant vampire thing... She was cocky, smug, aggressive, and frankly I remember little else about her... it was... 15 year ago I think... Then again I was only 13 so that might have something to do with it.

That is why I ask advice. Thanks for the help!

The last female character I ever actually got to play (as I made two others who never hit the table due to RL taking away the GM) was an elf rogue. She was a pregen, but I was committed to playing her as represented. However, her personality wasn't explained much on the sheet I was handed, so I had to fill in some gaps.

Every time she walked down a hall, I said, "I check for traps." That's normal.
Every time she left a battle, I said, "I retrieve my daggers." Maybe a bit strange.
Every time she walked into a room, I yelled, "I check the ceiling!" So... yeah.

The only time her gender ever changed the way I played her (as I was perfectly content playing an extremely vengeful paranoid elf rogue) was the time that she was attacked by a goblin alchemist. Everyone took a lot of damage from that fight. After the fight was over and the other members of the party exacted their vengeance with a coup de grace, I felt that my character wasn't quite satisfied. Had she been male, I might have said "I desecrate the body." I put such an emphasis on might as I'm not really sure how the next part would have gone down in that situation. As soon as the thought popped into my head, I realized that there are certain people who synonymize "desecrate" with "pee on." I didn't like the mental image that left me with and I decided not to say anything.

I entirely agree with brother_1. One of the most important things to do when playing outside of your comfort zone is finding a few things that concretely define your character. I usually find that if I try to play "a character," my brain makes them develop their own personal brand of crazy. (By the way, there needs to be more rain in roleplaying games. Just because it's not important to the plot doesn't mean it never happens.) From that point on, their personal brand of crazy is what defines them and I go from there.

The OP specifically wanted to know about being a man playing a woman.  Feel free to add any new directions you like.

No intent for an argument here but:
I did call it cross gender game play. Not just: Guy wanting tips to play as girl. After some thought, if I were to give advice for a non guy to rp a guy, it would be much the same as the advice given to me to play a girl. And honestly, if I was playing a herm or some other gender, I would likely still have asked the question.

Though this discussion does make me want to play more non male characters just for the experience and to see how well I can do.

That's proper rogue protocol regardless of gender! ;)

OP, something you could do is some research on female to male transsexuals.  Often they discuss how their feelings and behavior changed through the course of hormone therapy.  The before and after contrast might give you some useful insights.

Once you've figured out who the character is, figure out the why for each quality.

Example: Mary Read, historical female pirate.

Who: accomplished soldier, sailor, adventurer and pirate.
Why: her mother dressed her as a boy from childhood through her teens to continue receiving money from the grandmother of her son, who died years earlier.  She simply continued to live as a man and entered military service.  Her life was defined by violence from then on.

Figure out the cultural norms for your character's society, which of them she conforms with and those she doesn't, and have a reason for each.  Except in unusual cases, societies, especially low-tech societies, have different roles and expectations for men and women.  Figure out what those are for your character's society.

Example: Findariel, Drow fighter.
Who: Professional mercenary and adventurer.
Cultural norms she doesn't adhere to: she can't have a career as a priestess and she seeks to free herself from the Drow tradition of being beholden to one matriarch or another.
Why: She's not pure Drow, which makes her ineligible for priestesshood.  This embittered her and she rejects the Drow paradigm because of it.

Anyway, good luck.