Back in the day, I played Dark Age of Camelot for a while, and set up a female bard character named Skold, and when I was killing newbie monsters, a couple of kobolds came up to me and started flirting with me. I started acting like a couple of girls I know, and made a few sassy comments back at them. After the encounter, I felt like slime and deleted the character.
Yet, I know several guys who played only female characters in EQ. One friend said he was roleplaying his wife, and he always got free stuff from guy characters whenever he played a girl, so he didn’t see any reason to do otherwise. Another friend was a huge fan of the Power Puff girls, so the three characters he played most were named after them.
Of course, me and my other friends gave them unholy hell for this.
So did any of you RPG dudes play girls? If so, why?
A long, long time ago, when I was writing for Gamespy, I played a female character on the Nexon MMORPG Dark Ages (not to be confused with DAoC). I never claimed to be female, just picked that character skin and went with it.
Yup. I have, currently am not, but will in the future.
One perspective is that playing an alternate-gender character is no different from playing a dwarf or a magic-user—it’s roleplaying, and part of the fun is in playing someone or something different from what you are. However, given that the in the majority of games, gender is merely cosmetic and offers no in-game benefits, the incentive to play an opposite gender can usually be distilled to one of a few reasons:[ul][li]Because it fits the character. I currently play City of Heroes, and some of my male friends are playing as female superheroes modeled loosely on existing female superhero archetypes. In some games, female characters get a bonus to certain abilities, whereas male characters get a bonus to others.[]Admittedly, some play because they can expect in-game benefits from other characters. A female newbie tends to get more offers of help (and more free gold/items/etc) than J. Random Male newbie. There’s an entire spectrum within this reason of how far someone takes it - do they just play the game, treating the gifts as bonuses, or do they “flutter their eyelashes” to try to get it, or do they go further?[]Or, as is obviously the case in 99.999% of female characters on online games, they’re creepy men living in their parents’ basements whose pr0n fix has gone on the fritz. Clearly.[/ul]But when you get right down to it, why does it matter? Women play male characters too. I can’t find the article with a brief search, but I recall reading (it may have been on salon.com, for ye enterprising hunter) an analysis of the “unexpected” female gamer phenomenon, and some comments in there of how some female gamers play male characters specifically to avoid the harassment that female characters receive.[/li]
As to the future? I expect to make Brunhilde, She-Soldier of the SS in City of Heroes as the genetically-engineered Nazi soldier bred to be the consort of Captain Axis, who rejected the mad scientists who created her and has sworn to end the reign of evil in the world. Why? ‘cos it’ll be effin’ fun to play. I envision her as about 6’5", muscular, long blonde braids, leiderhosen and stockings, and horribly mis-applied makeup. Now all I need to do is learn enough German to get some stock phrases for her battle cries.
I’m a male, and I always play female characters (though I do not pretend to actually BE female).
If I’m going to spend 3 hours a night watching the rear end of my character run around virtual worlds, I can assure you it will be a FEMALE rear end I am watching.
This is especially enjoyable in LineageII (except for Dwarves–anyone getting too much enjoyment out of watching their female dwarf is the kind of person that probably has to report in to the local police station when they move).
Just checking in as a female player who almost always plays male characters. The “free stuff” might seem like fun at first, but it’s not worth it, especially in games where other characters can interfere in battle. It’s pretty obnoxious when a guy tries to ‘come to the rescue’ of your higher-level female character and just gets in the way or steals experience/items/whatever.
I have two or three female characters in City Of Heroes, but I don’t actually role-play them. I will speak in character from time to time just for kicks, but I never actively attempt to lead anyone to believe I’m female. However 3 members of the supergroup I joined the other day assumed I was…until I brought out Max Carnage to join up for one mission.
I’ve never done an MMORPG, but I have done tabletop and single-player computer RPGs, and I don’t see any particular reason why a player should choose a character of the same gender. Your character is not you. Like lno was saying, you also can’t cast spells, you’re more than four feet tall, etc. Why should a different geder be any more remarkable? And I see no reason this should not also extend to online games. Sure, some folks will be obnoxious, but that’s inevitable. Just ignore them (or take advantage of them, if you prefer).
I play females (as well as males) in City of Heroes and in Everquest. Nothing seedy about it, I just get a character idea and it’s either male or female. My defender (healer) in City of Heroes has his powers because he’s a descendent of the Grigori (the angels in Genesis who have children with mortal women). It “fit” better in my mind to have a quasi-angelic being be male. Likewise, I have an assault rifle blaster hero who is female because her story is that she was kidnapped by one of the game’s gangs, escaped and is doing the whole vengance thing. Obviously, that works better with a female. I haven’t tried to hide from the folks in CECIL that I’m a guy
Same in EQ. I’m thinking of a backstory and I find a young lady who is manipulated through her vanity and petty selfishness by the evil cult of Bertoxxolous into becoming a shadowknight more intriguing than a male in the same role.
I don’t really role-play online, but I do like to have a background for my characters which makes them more interesting (to me) to play.
My main character back when I used to play EQ was female, although I jumped ship on the whole game when she was about 25th level. I’d occasionally role-play her as female, when I was in a group that was interested in role-playing (which was approximatly never, which is one big reason I don’t do MMORPGs), but never pretended to be a woman myself.
When it comes to table-top gaming or single-player video games that let you create your own character, my characters are about 50/50 male/female. I used to think there was something wierd about wanting to roleplay a girl, but then I turned fourteen.
