What genders are your characters?

Started by Daydream December 11th, 2015 8:02 AM
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  • 22 replies

Daydream

Boo.

Age 29
Male
That thar Kingdom. The United one.
Seen July 2nd, 2020
Posted June 27th, 2018
702 posts
13.7 Years
The discussion on race and ethnicity brought me to consider this.

Do you usually play characters whose gender identity aligns with your own? Why or why not?
Noble Magic
Courtly intrigue; may contain lightning bolts and necromancy.
Yes.
Out Of My Mind
Seen August 18th, 2021
Posted February 2nd, 2021
399 posts
9.4 Years
While I do occasionally roleplay characters out of my own ethnicity, I never touch this one. As I straight male, I usually roleplay straight males, or straight females. I usually avoid race because its easy to fall into stereotypes, but I feel that stereotypes can be even more prevalent in this area. A lot of it I think is because I don't want to offend people, and seeing as how its such a touchy subject with a lot of people right now.

But honestly a lot of it comes down to whether I even go into any romantic situations in the RP. I'm not really a fan of romance most of the time, so I rarely even think about about my character's sexual orientation. I just write up a personality, and play the character based on the personality that I gave them, making decisions based upon their history.

Judge Mandolore Shepard

Spectre Agent

Age 35
Male
Marysville, Washington State, United States
Seen March 1st, 2018
Posted March 1st, 2018
9,433 posts
9.2 Years
When it comes to this, when it comes to the characters I create, they are always a straight male or a straight female. I will never create a character that is romantically interested in a character that is the same gender as themselves.
Owner of Play Well - The LEGO Fan Club

OSO STRONG

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gimmepie

Age 27
Male
Australia
Seen 7 Hours Ago
Posted 16 Hours Ago
I generally play men who identify as male although I have on occasion played as female identifying women. I'm yet to play a character that is transgender or gender fluid but there's not a real reason for it, those characters just haven't appeared in my head yet.
RPWLA&MVGGaming Journal
Age 32
Male
Seen October 6th, 2022
Posted February 23rd, 2021
2,016 posts
11.6 Years
I find in both of these situations that we tend to play in ways that we can understand.

A great question is this... would you be part of a roleplay that happened in the Netherlands and you had to portray someone who is native to that part of the world? The most common answer would be 'no, I wouldn't'. The reason most have is that they are taken out of their element. They don't know how to roleplay as someone from the Netherlands. What terms do they use over there? What sort of activities do they engage in? Are their sentiments toward religion and general lifestyles the same as here?

Whenever you put an rper in a scenario where he or she has little to no experience, then that will usually cause the awkward levels to rise. How do I portray this character correctly? What sort of backstory do I write to make it seem realistic? The list can go on further and further as rpers generally have no idea as to how to make their character function.

Take for instance even a change of fandoms. Who here knows how Star Trek works? How many would eagerly join such an rp knowing EXACTLY which weapons are used there, knowing EVERY single term that might be used in the rp, knowing EXACTLY the ranks on a ship, etc. It's the same scenario. You're throwing someone into a very alien scene and they have no idea on how to roleplay their character.

The reason pokemon rps are easy to gm here is because we are a pokemon roleplay site. Every singe rper here has some knowledge of pokemon, the anime, the games, and in general how the universe works. It's a nice safe zone, and easy to rp in and understand how to make your character.

Daydream

Boo.

Age 29
Male
That thar Kingdom. The United one.
Seen July 2nd, 2020
Posted June 27th, 2018
702 posts
13.7 Years
I was really only talking about gender identity, not sexuality. That's an entirely different discussion.

Personally, I'm happy playing a character of any gender - though I've only played characters on a binary of male or female. Mostly because I like there to be variety in the characters I play. I think the gender of a character is much less of a radical difference than nationality or being part of a different fandom. If I roleplay as a female or non-binary character I'd likely write them not so differently to how I'd write any male characters.
Noble Magic
Courtly intrigue; may contain lightning bolts and necromancy.

Junier

Fake Friends Forever (´・ω・`)

Female
Seen December 5th, 2019
Posted August 3rd, 2018
1,074 posts
7.9 Years
I've never questioned being anything less than a little lady, and that's reflected in my characters. They're either boy or girl. Transgender characters are just characters I would never feel comfortable in writing.

JukeboxTheGhoul

Rocking Round the Clock

He/him
England
Seen September 4th, 2022
Posted December 1st, 2020
737 posts
12.1 Years
I once attempted to create a character who was raised as a boy but was a girl, they realised they were a girl and became a girl. Although this became complicated and didn't impact the story I told. I think it should be expressed fully, if you look at my Western Psycho in Gunpowder, his developement comes about from his inner struggle. A character of this should have their story explored in detail. I think I may revisit this character concept, it's a very hard thing to tag on. But I think it's hard to have something that is impacted by a difference in gender.

I think you shouldn't guilt anyone in exploring this if they don't want to, it's a hot topic and they don't know how to play it. To be honest, I'm straight Male, but I've got a non-binary girlfriend. I think it just seems rather imposing. Additionally, depending on your views, it could not impact the roleplay at all, or it could a great deal, depending on if you play the male identified character as if they were male or if you make them different.

All in all, it needs to be done proper. And it's hard with no experience.
I play Anima in Powder Keg: Gunpowder Part II Roleplay : : : Sign Up Post | Gunpowder

Daydream

Boo.

Age 29
Male
That thar Kingdom. The United one.
Seen July 2nd, 2020
Posted June 27th, 2018
702 posts
13.7 Years
I agree. No one should play a character that makes them feel uncomfortable! But all I was really asking is whether people play characters that aren't the gender that they are, and in my asking that I wanted to incorporate the idea of genders that are not male or female. I was trying to be inclusive in my asking, and not trying to start a debate about gender identity as a whole.
Noble Magic
Courtly intrigue; may contain lightning bolts and necromancy.
Seen May 29th, 2017
Posted March 12th, 2017
357 posts
7.5 Years
When I did RP, most of my characters were manifestations of the "void". Kind of hard to make a manifestation of a void look human at all. A multi-dimensional creature, if you'd will. Normally if in a human manifestation, it will almost always be extremely pale (because of no sun in a dark, near inhospitable empty space) and have yellow eyes.
Yes.
Out Of My Mind
Seen August 18th, 2021
Posted February 2nd, 2021
399 posts
9.4 Years
I agree. No one should play a character that makes them feel uncomfortable! But all I was really asking is whether people play characters that aren't the gender that they are, and in my asking that I wanted to incorporate the idea of genders that are not male or female. I was trying to be inclusive in my asking, and not trying to start a debate about gender identity as a whole.
Haha, that actually makes a bit of sense. It does make the thread title a bit misleading though. As for playing both male and female characters, I actually do it quite a bit. I don't really know how I chose between a male or female character when signing up for a roleplay and creating a character, I just kind of get an idea of who and what I want my character to be, and gender just kind of happens.

I can understand that some people only play the gender that they are, and that's fine. It can be hard to understand how some a character would act in certain situations based on their gender, but I think that can be altered a whole lot based on the personality. For example, just because a character is male, doesn't mean you have to always play them as a male, after all, not all guys are stereotypical body building Arnold Schwarzenegger types. Same thing with girls, roleplaying a tom girl is a lot like playing a guy in some cases.

A lot of it comes down to what you feel comfortable with though. As a male roleplayer, I like experimenting with both genders. Playing a female sometimes helps me understand the opposite gender sometimes, and the same goes for when playing a male.

moon

they/them
Seen 11 Hours Ago
Posted 23 Hours Ago
37,443 posts
15.5 Years
I am a girl but I play boys and girls in a somewhat even ratio. At least I try to, but sometimes the RPs are unbalanced when I join and I shrug and make a char of the gender that is in minority, even if my other active characters are mostly that too. Such as now, when I play Ash (girl) in Astra, Karix (girl) in Redux and hopefully can play Xyra (girl) in Dust. I also have Aberdeen (boy) in Crossroads of course, but he got lost in a forest... 8)

I never found it hard to play a boy, but I'm not sure I have actually played a grown up man well. Not as a protagonist anyways, but plenty of times as side characters when I think about it. So yeah, gender isn't a problem for me, I can even create a SU and then say "nah" and just switch all the pronouns but keep the char as it is, if I feel like it.

I can understand that some people only play the gender that they are, and that's fine. It can be hard to understand how some a character would act in certain situations based on their gender, but I think that can be altered a whole lot based on the personality. For example, just because a character is male, doesn't mean you have to always play them as a male, after all, not all guys are stereotypical body building Arnold Schwarzenegger types. Same thing with girls, roleplaying a tom girl is a lot like playing a guy in some cases.

A lot of it comes down to what you feel comfortable with though. As a male roleplayer, I like experimenting with both genders. Playing a female sometimes helps me understand the opposite gender sometimes, and the same goes for when playing a male.
*relives last night's skype discussion*

"how a character would act in certain situations based on their gender" is a sentence that belongs in the dark ages. I'm so tired of seeing this **** haha. We are people, our brains might have a little different wiring, but that's not even 100% connected to gender from what I've heard, so I wish people could just stop thinking "okay now I'll make a girl, she needs to act like this and that here and there" and just think "ok now I'll make a char who likes this and is afraid of this" etc, and then decide on gender on a whim or what you feel like at the moment. We live in a modern world now, not in a world where women should be mysterious enigmas to males and where men are played as dirty brutes by females.

/me ends preaching
paired with Ivysaur

Loki

x

Seen March 23rd, 2022
Posted June 14th, 2020
6,822 posts
17.8 Years
I've always played a mixture of male and female characters in a rather even balance- Especially because I tend to do most of my roleplaying through art and comics. It would really suck to draw girls 24/7 hahaha. For art based RPs I tend to favor male OCs, and may use them more than my female ones-- but for written RPs like the ones on PC, it's usually the opposite.

edit: Also, holla at Pikachu's assertions above. I can't help but cringe when someone goes "how would a girl react in this situation?" or "how would a guy react in this situation?"-- it's really ridiculous LOL

JukeboxTheGhoul

Rocking Round the Clock

He/him
England
Seen September 4th, 2022
Posted December 1st, 2020
737 posts
12.1 Years
"how a character would act in certain situations based on their gender" is a sentence that belongs in the dark ages. I'm so tired of seeing this **** haha. We are people, our brains might have a little different wiring, but that's not even 100% connected to gender from what I've heard, so I wish people could just stop thinking "okay now I'll make a girl, she needs to act like this and that here and there" and just think "ok now I'll make a char who likes this and is afraid of this" etc, and then decide on gender on a whim or what you feel like at the moment. We live in a modern world now, not in a world where women should be mysterious enigmas to males and where men are played as dirty brutes by females.

/me ends preaching
I've already put forward my views so I am ready to play opposition a little. Although there is the problem of setting, you assert this while in a modern train of thought. Go back a few decades and you have signs of people fighting for equality and go back pre-1914 and you're in an era akin to victorian where there is a show of difference in gender status. I myself do believe gender doesn't make a difference to how someone thinks, but it is more the gender reflects how a society thinks someone of that gender ought to act. Even now, do you expect to see men in pink skirts and women bare chested without getting disapproval from the people around? We might be progressively thinking roleplayers but we don't represent each and everyone, and a lot of our roleplays don't take place in our world. Especially when a setting uses inequality to a specific effect. For example, in the fantasy setting of Skyrim Nords (A human race) are racist towards Argonians (A humanoid lizard looking race), in this setting it is exploring the ideas and the question of Racism, something we won't immeaditately recoil at because it doesn't remind us of real world racism. I am a little off topic but I don't have a specific example. I want to get across that Men and Women may think the same, but the society has expectations on them (if you want to look at pokemon, it's set in almost a utopian society.) and I am a bit advocate of Nurture vs Nature. A lot of the time, Women are raised in different ways to Men, the other side of this is the purely biological difference with different levels of oestrogen and testostorone. Additionally, due to the difference in reproductive systems, there are different times in which someone may be more irritated or more happy.

My point here is,
"how a character would act in certain situations based on their gender" is a sentence that belongs in the dark ages.
and
"okay now I'll make a girl, she needs to act like this and that here and there"
It's not as an old thought as you think. Depending on the setting there might be a difference in what someone would do. Just to add on, Masculinity and Feminity have a large part in symbolism also, an example could be Ying and Yang.

It is difficult to think of solid enough example for what someone would do based on their gender entirely, since there are so many different variables, one of them being the society.

To sum up the entire point I'm making: The gender of the character might not affect how they think or act but the society changes how people act towards someone depending on gender in consequence that might change the likelihood of an action (or thought) being taken by a specific gender.

Disclaimer:
Spoiler:
This is not entirely representative of my views, this is me taking the opposition to defend to side of the argument that has the least support. I am playing Devil's Advocate and in most cases it entails someone defending a view point which may conflict or oppose their own view or the accepted norm.

Definition: Devil's Advocate: a person who expresses a contentious opinion in order to provoke debate or test the strength of the opposing arguments.
I play Anima in Powder Keg: Gunpowder Part II Roleplay : : : Sign Up Post | Gunpowder

Daydream

Boo.

Age 29
Male
That thar Kingdom. The United one.
Seen July 2nd, 2020
Posted June 27th, 2018
702 posts
13.7 Years
Societal expectations/stereotypes of gender are just that really. You recognise that in your response. Because one is expected to behave in a certain way, doesn't mean one will. It's fair enough to point out that we still struggle to find equality in modern day life, and even more so in the past. That said, even if your roleplay is close to life in its treatment of gender, that doesn't necessarily affect the way you play a character. It may just affect the way others react to their actions.
Noble Magic
Courtly intrigue; may contain lightning bolts and necromancy.

Ice

Seen October 16th, 2022
Posted February 3rd, 2020
3,448 posts
8.8 Years
Yeah, I have a very similar sentiment as to what Pikachu has. Gender does not dictate any decision making at all, personality does. If you remove the words that signify gender from a sign-up, it would be very hard to guess which gender a character is supposed to be in a lot of cases. And even if a character has a lot of masculine or feminine traits, they aren't basing their gender on that. One could play a very effeminate male character, and that character would still be male, just with stereotypical female characteristics. The only thing that gender strongly dictates is how big you can make your characters boobs.

Having said that, I feel like there are some characteristics that you do need to account for with gender. If I'd play my Dust character as female, there would be a very different character standing there, with exactly the same description. I also feel like in such a case, of a female overly masculine, buff, barbarian, there would be some mental gender stuff at play. Let's ignore that for a second, and just go about the characters interaction. They would interact with the world the same way their male equivalent would, but the world would react differently to them. I don't think this should be a reason to not play female, though.

I've played both genders and I'm fine with either. The only thing I wouldn't play is someone that is transgender, as I don't think I'd be able to do those issues justice with my writing.

Sonata

Don't let me disappear

Age 27
Male
Indiana
Seen 7 Hours Ago
Posted March 25th, 2023
13,619 posts
10.2 Years
I used to be 100% against playing as anything other than a guy, but obviously I eventually got over that. Probably from jping so much with Sophia in gunpowder. Now it doesn't really matter what I play. Decision making is slightly different when thinking as a female v male character, but there's not been any too big problems yet.

Sopheria

響け〜 響け!

深き海の彼方
Seen July 19th, 2022
Posted December 17th, 2017
4,904 posts
9.5 Years
I've been female in all my RPs and I think that's what I'd be most inclined to in future RPs, but I'd like to try playing as a guy sometimes just for a change. It'll probably all depend on what role I want my character to play in the story and in some cases a male would fit into certain roles better than a female.
Paired with Dragon and Koakuma

Geras

Roleplayer

Age 27
Male
Everything's bigger here, apparently.
Seen 2 Weeks Ago
Posted March 28th, 2023
957 posts
12.2 Years
Taking a look at my list, it looks like out of all my characters 11/25 have been female. So the majority have been male, same as me, but not by much.
I'll put something cool here eventually.

SV

See You Space Cowboy

Male
Seen February 7th, 2022
Posted June 26th, 2019
3,393 posts
12.1 Years
I used to typecast, but I've been branching out now more than ever. It's more interesting playing someone more unlike you so I'll be giving it a shot more often.

My name's SV and I approve of this message.


A Legend once told me that roleplaying is about bringing people together and celebrating creative vision.
Paired with the Artsy Infinite and the Spectacular Shak

Quest

Veteran Roleplayer

Male
Seen January 6th, 2023
Posted May 3rd, 2020
984 posts
14 Years
Back when I first started roleplaying a few years ago, I always found myself playing a white, male teenager. It was always really hard for me to imagine writing a character different than that because that was what I was.

Fortunately, I have grown over that as the years went by. Nowadays, you're more likely to find me playing the gender that has a lower number of participants.
// Bae'd to Kikpanther //

Winter

KAMISATO ART: SOUMETSU

Age 26
they/them/she/her
Kamisato Estate
Seen December 2nd, 2022
Posted September 29th, 2022
8,320 posts
8.2 Years
I usually play female characters as evident by my record of characters here, but I also play male (Ludger is my first male character on this account) or non-binary characters. In fact I like diversity in my character portfolio.

vampiricrogue

skydemonairpirates

Female
St.Louis
Seen July 24th, 2018
Posted June 28th, 2018
53 posts
7.4 Years
I normally play males, but it also depends on the story. I can play either gender fairly well, but i normally make the personality first, then picture the gender second. ^_^;;

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream by night... the fog is rising.
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