Part 1: Character Creation
The first and best rule of character creation is don't create your character in a vacuum. There are a few simple techniques which you can employ which serve not only to avoid certain pitfalls but which actively work to improve the overall game experience for everyone involved.
1: Create your PC with the DM
When conceptualizing a character it is easy to fall into the mindset of picturing your PC and the heroic deeds he will someday accomplish. However, regardless of whether you are imaging an enlightened monk, a blessed paladin, or a kick-ass fighter, rarely does this picture include sharing loot and playing well with others. Your character and his solo deeds may indeed be the stuff of legend, but 6 players all trying to play solo adventures together is the stuff of nightmares, especially for the DM.
It is obvious that you DM knows a lot more about the game he is about to run than do you, and he doubtless knows more about the setting too, or at least he specific take on it, and so creating your character with DM input will always help the PC fit better into the game. However, one thing that a lot of players overlook is that the DM doesn't know everything. There are probably a lot of areas that the DM simply has not had time to explore or develop and so while creating a PC with DM input will help the PC, it can also help the DM. Elements of the back story that you create together may inspire future quests, NPCs, or even whole areas of the game world. At the very least it will help the DM get a better feel for your PC and where he fits into the world.
2: Create your PC with other players
This speaks directly to the first point and the benefits are largely the same. How many times have you had to try to justify why Luthor the Pure is going tomb-robbing with Greasy Pete Three-Fingers and Dan the Nap Hill Lurker? The problem again lies with PCs which were created solely as individuals rather than as part of a group.
The best way to avoid this pitfall is for all the players to get together and create their PC group as part of the character creation process. This allows for most kinks to be worked out before play begins. One possible problem with this method is that you may run the risk of the individuals coming out a bit flat if too much emphasis is placed on the group. Instead of a tight-knit group of dynamic heroes you end up with Faerun's answer to the Superfriends.
A compromise to this method, and the one that I prefer, still involves the players all creating their characters together, but rather than everyone creating a unified group where you develop the relationships of the entire party, you instead work out only a few relationships to certain other PCs. A perfect example of this "six degrees of separation" method is the Star Wars films: Leia was Luke's sister; Luke's mentor Obi Wan was also the mentor of Luke and Leia's father (who became Darth Vader, the series' BBEG); C3P0 and R2D2 were owned by Luke and Leia's father and mother respectively; Chewbacca owed a life debt to Han Solo; and Han was once an imperial officer who is wanted by the Empire. Everyone is connected to someone - even the villain of the story - leaving room for tension and conflict and fore more relationships to develop over time.
Bear in mind too that when creating interpersonal relations between characters, it is always helpful to forge such relationships with NPCs as well. This helps again both to ground the characters in the DM's world and to forge more relationships which both the players and the DM can make use of later.
3: Do no create a massive back story
You should always come to the table with a character concept before you ever start rolling dice, but the worst thing you can do is lay a 300 page character background document in our DM's lap. Keep it to a page (700 words, single-spaced, 10pt Times) at the most.
First and foremost she is probably way too busy trying to get the game together to read your character novel. Taking time to read your background takes away from her prep time for the game.
Second, a lot of what you have written will undoubtedly conflict with the DM's world and the game's back story. This will lead to difficulties as the DM's and player's vision of the world and it's history come into conflict.
Part and parcel to this is don't get married to a character concept. If you come to the table dead-set on playing a gnome sorcerer and your DM says that there are no gnomes and no sorcerers in this game, then you are going to be pretty damn POed. But again, bear in mind that you DM probably has a very good reason for including or excluding certain races or classes, or even combinations of such.
Also, your character back story should be created after character creation. While it is okay, indeed preferable, to have a thumbnail character background worked out as part of your initial character concept, it can and should change as you create your character and his association with others. Once your groups has worked out the relationship’s between the PCs, then you can work at developing that thumbnail sketch into a full background.
4: Listen to input from others (especially the DM)
One of the best resources for developing creative ideas is the brainstorming session wherein people sit around a table, toss ideas out, and build upon ideas of others. This also holds true for gaming. Another player may have a take on your potential character which may not have occurred to you, and likewise you may see something that could help someone else.
This is particularly true for input from the DM. When she makes a suggestion it is likely something that will serve to better integrate your character either with the party or into the game world as a whole.
While input from others can be an important element of character creation, do not just use this opportunity to run-down the choices that others have made. This is particularly true of players who choose to play characters f the opposite sex. For some reason this seems to get some immature players riled up. No one objects though to anyone playing a character of a different species, so why is gender so important?
I hope you have found something of value in this introductory chapter. Look for Part 2: Playing the Game soon.
But you're right though. I'm even a little guilty of this myself, but when you're on the player side of the DM screen, people forget what it's like on the other side of the screen. This turns DM'ing into a 'voluntary sacrifice’ like doing the dishes, whereas it should be just as much fun as playing, perhaps even more so.
I first created the character as a backup character for another campaign, should my other char be killed. That campaign died a natural death last December when we had exams, but I was still exited about my new character concept. So, the next time we decided to play a new campaign (with a new DM), I told him I was going to use this character, and most of the background of the first time (he had helped me with the concept originally), and while I waited for the campaign to start, I added detail and a character history, keeping my DM informed (we're good friends) and he would simply change things if they didn't fit his idea of Faerun
Rather than encourage or discourage either style I tell my players this:
Background / Depth: You're encouraged to flesh out a character, but remember that this is DnD, where you can get shot by an Elf or killed in a rock slide on the way to the first adventure (lost my first DnD PC in a rock slide on the way to module B2 back in 82)... Get yourself involved in the world and the drama, but don't sweat the individual characters too much.
From that, any other conflicts from a long background will be adressed by your first point: work with the DM.
The second point is a decent idea, though not always practical and sometimes not even desired. That said, all players should be told that even where characters disagree and don't get along they have to do it in a team like manner - such as the conflict between Cyclops and Wolverine in the X-Men.
1) You say sex is like race. I disagree. The D&D races are made-up, and they represent our stereotypes: humans are the most varied of all races, in terms of alignment, culture, class, professions, environments, etc., etc., while other races are much more pigeonholed. In this case, our self-centered stereotypes are reality, because we made them that way. Sex actually exists in real life--you're not pretending to be something made-up, and you don't actually know what it's like to be a member of the opposite sex. You'll get it wrong.
2) Sex is more defining of a character's personality than race. This is an arguable statement, but I stand by it. Try going to a social gathering of any type where there's a fair variety of people there. You'll find that people tend to socialize and "take sides" based more on sex than on anything else. This should be true even when dealing with non-humans; a female dwarf is more like a female human than like a male dwarf.
3) The cognitive differences between men and women are profound. This isn't the forum for me to give a lecture on those differences, but suffice it to say that they exist, and they dramatically influence personality. Someone who spends their prenatal months exposed to larger amounts of testosterone (actually, estradiol) is going to develop a brain that works in a certain way, whereas someone exposed to less prenatal masculinizing hormone will have a brain that works in a different way. Now, no one is saying that hormones necessarily work the same way in non-humans, but it's probable, since other humanoids have the same reproductive organs and, mostly, secondary sex characteristics, as humans do.
4) Some of those cognitive differences happen so fast and so automatically that you can't control them. Your gut reaction to meeting a female NPC is going to be different depending on if you're male or female (and if you're homosexual or heterosexual, but that's another argument). It takes cognitive effort to change that reaction, and that effort will diminish the amount of cognitive resources you have to spend on other things, like role-playing.
5) Most of the time, people choose to play a member of the opposite sex to be silly. That's okay in some games, but not in others.
My point is, this is not just the reaction of the immature. There are reasons why I never allow it in my games. I'm not saying you have to ban it--it creates an interesting role-playing challenge, and in a combat-heavy game it doesn't really matter--but it's a valid choice either way.
5) Most of the time, people choose to play a member of the opposite sex to be silly. That's okay in some games, but not in others.
My point is, this is not just the reaction of the immature. There are reasons why I never allow it in my games.
In my opinion, that's a real pity. Have you tried it? If not, I suggest you reconsider. Using the reasons you listed, I conclude that disallowing cross-gender playing isn't much different from disallowing cross-religion playing -- and if you did that, you wouldn't have a game to run.
I recently played a game in which most of our party of 6 ended up doing cross-gender roles. Nobody planned it that way. It wasn't deliberate. Nobody did it to be silly. Each and every one of us happened to conceive our character a certain way -- and for that particular game, most of us coincidentally invented characters of the opposite sex to ourselves. The game didn't start out with the majority of us playing cross-gender: characters got killed, they got replaced, and at one point four or five of us found ourselves simultaneously playing the opposite sex.
This caused NO problems. If the DM had chosen to disallow it, we would all have been worse off, I think -- including the DM.
You see, you get more attached to a character if all the personal features come together into a complete picture, without artificial restrictions on things like gender.
I'm male in real life, but a novel I happened to read at the time caused me to envision a beautiful and charismatic female bard who inspires erotic dreams in everyone she meets, is famous for her beauty and musical talent, but she's a primadonna whose fiery temper makes her hard to get along with. In my mind, that personality fit best with a female. She was difficult enough for me to role-play, but I couldn't have pulled it off, had I been forced to make her male.
Another male player in the group had this vision of "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle" for his druid. Even though he was the youngest of us (15-year-old son of one of our other players, the rest of us being 1 or 2 decades older), a Sheena-like character interested him. He wasn't being silly.
My wife (also playing) created a neutral undead tiefling wizard; she just felt more comfortable role-playing an unfeeling, emotionless, undead character as male instead of female.
Another male player was intrigued by the possibilities of a tiny-size fairy creature. He kept thinking "Tinkerbell" combined with an anime series called Snow Fairy Sugar -- so the character simply had be female. Finding no suitable race that fit his vision, he created a pixie with permanent reduce person to make her tiny, and played her as a flighty, easily-distracted rogue archer. (She turned out to be the party's "tank." She dealt more damage than anyone else in an encounter, and no enemy could hit her... but that's a story for a min/max thread. After a few sessions with her, the player and the DM agreed to degrade her abilities somewhat to keep her from unbalancing the game.)
My point is, I strongly disagree with the attitude that a character's gender should be restricted to the gender of the player. Such a restriction is so unnecessary! Gender is a degree of freedom that makes for more diverse role playing situations.
I felt nervous about playing a female at first (partly due to my sense of "manhood" and partly due to fear of treading new ground), but now that I've had the experience, I'd do it again. A DM may be nervous about having a player's character being opposite gender of the player, for similar reasons. But once you have the experience, you won't mind, and you'll probably be the better for it.
-Alex
I hope you have found something of value in this introductory chapter. Look for Part 2: Playing the Game soon.
I look forward to it!
Point of interest - I know a guy who almost always plays girl characters. Says it helps him "get into chicks' heads" (by that he meant pants). On a serious note, in the rare times I was able to play with the gentleman, he played vastly different character types: mage, warrior, good, evil, smart, stupid, human, outsider. He was very much into experimenting with personalities.
1) You say sex is like race. I disagree. The D&D races are made-up, and they represent our stereotypes: humans are the most varied of all races, in terms of alignment, culture, class, professions, environments, etc., etc., while other races are much more pigeonholed. In this case, our self-centered stereotypes are reality, because we made them that way. Sex actually exists in real life--you're not pretending to be something made-up, and you don't actually know what it's like to be a member of the opposite sex. You'll get it wrong.
This is actually a fairly good argument, and you'd have done well to stick with it. My one concern here is, what do you say to intersex persons? They do exist in reality, and give us good reason to think that sex (unlike gender) isn't binary; Moreover, as many of these people are assigned a gender despite their biology (and surgically altered so as to better fit the gender ideals), speaking to gender rather than sex in this case seems more reasonable.
2) Sex is more defining of a character's personality than race. This is an arguable statement, but I stand by it. Try going to a social gathering of any type where there's a fair variety of people there. You'll find that people tend to socialize and "take sides" based more on sex than on anything else. This should be true even when dealing with non-humans; a female dwarf is more like a female human than like a male dwarf.
This is only going to stand up in your campaign. It's not supported in the rules, or by real-world experience.
3) The cognitive differences between men and women are profound. This isn't the forum for me to give a lecture on those differences, but suffice it to say that they exist, and they dramatically influence personality. Someone who spends their prenatal months exposed to larger amounts of testosterone (actually, estradiol) is going to develop a brain that works in a certain way, whereas someone exposed to less prenatal masculinizing hormone will have a brain that works in a different way.
On the other hand, it's been found that the range across a gender for given traits is generally greater than the range between genders.
4) Some of those cognitive differences happen so fast and so automatically that you can't control them. Your gut reaction to meeting a female NPC is going to be different depending on if you're male or female (and if you're homosexual or heterosexual, but that's another argument). It takes cognitive effort to change that reaction, and that effort will diminish the amount of cognitive resources you have to spend on other things, like role-playing.
I'm not quite sure what your argument is here. Are you saying that, if John, a heterosexual man, is playing a character who is a heterosexual woman, then he won't be able to react 'naturally' to NPCs when his character meets them? That doesn't seem like a problem to me... he's never going to actually meet them, so why worry? John has to imagine the NPCs, and then react.
5) Most of the time, people choose to play a member of the opposite sex to be silly. That's okay in some games, but not in others.
Sure. But people can be silly in all sorts of ways, can't they?
My point is, this is not just the reaction of the immature. There are reasons why I never allow it in my games. I'm not saying you have to ban it--it creates an interesting role-playing challenge, and in a combat-heavy game it doesn't really matter--but it's a valid choice either way.
It seems to me that this is a reaction to the immature - IYG, players have been silly while playing across gender lines, and so you've banned the practice, right?
I'm male in real life, but a novel I happened to read at the time caused me to envision a beautiful and charismatic female bard who inspires erotic dreams in everyone she meets, is famous for her beauty and musical talent, but she's a primadonna whose fiery temper makes her hard to get along with. In my mind, that personality fit best with a female. She was difficult enough for me to role-play, but I couldn't have pulled it off, had I been forced to make her male.
In a long-running D&D game, I played a character much like that as a man. Gender might as well be a coin-toss.
While input from others can be an important element of character creation, do not just use this opportunity to run-down the choices that others have made. This is particularly true of players who choose to play characters of the opposite sex. For some reason this seems to get some immature players riled up. No one objects though to anyone playing a character of a different species, so why is gender so important?
I have an issue regarding your last point: playing characters of the opposite sex.
I think that this needs to be looked at in context. Sulaco is writing an article titled "The Player's Guide to Better Games." This means it's the player's guide to increase enjoyment for both him/herself and others.
This means he's attempting to explain how to empower players, and not restrict them. Role playing another gender is one of the very possible things you can do in D&D and it can be quite enjoyable for the person doing so.
There are two sides two the story:
The person the opposite gender character needs to be mature enough to play that character without bias. This means no playing a lesbian or gay character just because you want to have a fantasy of being one. Keep your sexual desires to yourself, and out of the game. Also, there are some people who think people of the opposite gender are almost alien in thinking. They view them as lesser worth, lesser willed or just plain have no respect for people of the opposite sex based entirely on gender. In addition to being a fallacy, this causes issues with anyone who does not share your view of the gender, especially those who are of that gender. If you stay within reasonable bounds of that gender, then you'll be fine. In fact, the best way to play a character of opposite gender, is play it as if you would play it of your gender. Many of the gender differences are socialized into the individual, and if you're playing a character, he or she can have any personality you want. The player of an opposite gendered character should play one because that's the character, as opposed to for some sexual reason.
Likewise, the group with a opposite gendered character from the player needs to be mature enough to not see a problem with the roleplaying of the opposite gender. Common people that are not mature enough to accept it, may attack the person's sexuality or sexual orientation, may be a homophobe, or have a veiw of the opposite sex in such a way that they may think someone else could ever play someone of the opposite gender. Perhaps the homophobe will extrapolate that the person is actually playing the opposite gender because that person really wants to do something with the same gender, as opposed to taking it at face value. It's perfectly possible for a straight person to play a straight character of opposite gender (or a homosexual or bisexual person to play a straight character). Whatever the case, the group isn't mature enough to accept that the opposite gender character is not a perversion of the player playing the character. Whatever the reasons, most have a double standard when a DM has opposite gendered NPCs.
Being that Sulaco is writing a guide for the "ideal" situation, gender should not be a problem. This doesn't mean that every group is mature enough for opposite gender characters, but in a mature group that is there to have some fun roleplaying with a group of friends, sex should not matter. As such, I believe that Sulaco's example is perfectly valid.
I always preach this in my group, but we never do it because the rest of the group feels that creating characters together stifles creativity. In other words: One player *really* wants to play a scheming, Chaotic Neutral Wizard. They would not have fun if the rest of us decided we wanted lawful characters who want to crusade against evil. So either we all have to try hard to justify being together, or the person who wants the CN wizard has to play something else, which results in her becoming bored after a few sessions because it's not what she really wanted to play. On the flipside, if the rest of us change our characters to be scheming mercenaries out for money, then at least one other person will feel similar in that they cannot play what they *want* because it doesn't fit into the rest of the group.
As a result, ALL of our games begin with us having concepts thought out, showing up to the first session with them already ingrained, and once we start to play seems to fit your example of trying to justify why "Luthor the Pure" is adventuring with "Greasy Pete"; in our case it's because Greasy Pete's player really wanted a thief (or whatever), and wouldn't have fun playing if he had to create "Peter the Honorable" instead.
Still a very enjoyable and true read; I just wish sometimes it worked with my group
Just ask the women in the game if you're doing ok (and women, ask the men). They'll set you straight if you're doing a really bad job (assuming they're actually your friends).
Also I'm not convinced that human sex-roles transcend species. Spider females, for example, exhibit different relationships with the male than primates. Depending on the campaign, all nonhuman PC races could be interfertile and culturally very similar or they could be alien and strange (with even things like half-elves and half-orcs being like mules, unable to breed).
Finally, adventurers are unique individuals and play against type. In the real world, both armies in the USA Civil war had women combatants who dressed as men and sometimes weren't discovered to be female until after they were killed or injured badly enough to get exposed by medical care. Near where I live, we had a stagecoach driver in the 19th century that was only discovered to be female when she was autopsied. Her personality, demeanor and appearance fit what everyone assumed was male.
So, even if somebody does the cross-gender thing "wrong" it may not be breaking character. Maybe the big burly 300lb male with a greataxe was raised by someone who wanted a girl and inside he wishes he was dexterous and delicate. Heck, I've got a half-orc monk male whose definition of his low charisma in orcish social encounters is because he uses feminine mannerisms. (His shaman mother raised him as a girl to hide the fact that he was undersized for an orc male...the chief didn't know she'd gone off and slept with a human to try to get a smart successor for her position).
One thing my wife does sometimes is take behavior patterns associated with male adventurers and puts them on female characters. She's got a rogue/paladin diplomat and undead-killer who sleeps with pretty much every attractive male she sees on every opportunity - just like a male swashbuckler-type character or James T. Kirk's of the world. In a fantasy world where she's immune to disease by class, where contraception is not an issue because she's a paladin of the god of death (it is very unclear whether she can ever generate life even if she wanted to), and where the ethos isn't Judeo-Christian "sex is a sin" mentality, it's a perfectly reasonable choice.
Just ask the women in the game if you're doing ok (and women, ask the men). They'll set you straight if you're doing a really bad job (assuming they're actually your friends).
I think the assumption that women understand the behavior of women better then men is incorrect. Women don't have a clue about what "female" qualities are. I would know, I've asked them. "I don't get chicks" is probably the most common response I've gotten.
Ask anyone. Better yet, ask everyone. We've all spent time around the opposite gender and we all tend to focus on different things.
Over the years, particularly since the advent of the internet, I have seen a number of lists with titles such as Player's Bill of Rights detailing what a player should expect to get from a game, but rarely have I seen the issue of a player's responsibilities discussed. To that end I present the first installment of The Player's Guide to Better Games .
I hope you have found something of value in this introductory chapter. Look for Part 2: Playing the Game soon.
Great stuff, and obviously a little inspiring too, given the number of responses concerning gender.
I am waiting eagerly for Parts 2, 3, 4, etc.
2) Sex is more defining of a character's personality than race. This is an arguable statement, but I stand by it. Try going to a social gathering of any type where there's a fair variety of people there. You'll find that people tend to socialize and "take sides" based more on sex than on anything else. This should be true even when dealing with non-humans; a female dwarf is more like a female human than like a male dwarf.
D&D "races" have the equivalent of an adolescent gang mentality, in that, unlike cultural groups in the real world, fantasy races often have pre-defined default emotional state. Dwarves are greedy. Drow are bitter. Gnomes are pranksters. Orcs get mad all the time. That kind of thing. As such, fantasy races exist to make it easier to play characters with certain mindsets, particularly ones that would be perceived as negatives (gamers will accept a rage-aholic half-orc more than they'll accept a rage-aholic human because it's kinda written into the race).
As such, race should definitely be a bigger deal than sex here.
PC#1 is a straight man and always will play straight man. He feels anything different stretches his credibility and that of others.
PC#2 is a straight man and always plays a straight man, though he doesn't care about the other's choices whatsoever.
PC#3 is yet another straight man who always plays female lesbian elven wizards who'll eventually become a lich... Morbid and sickening as the mental image may be, usually he dies before he gets there.
Our group can be serious yet this doesn't outrule silly. These differences in outlooks and reasons no longer matter once the game starts, whatever the type. PC#1 tends to ignore the "fact" that PC#3 is a dead lesbian looking for her next, often living, concubine. That's fine, if he wants to, he can. His choice and we have no right to meddle just as he doesn't get to decide what we want to be. This understanding by itself is enough to make sure it doesn't matter at all what others chose to be. Selfishness really can go a very long way, as long as you remember the right of freedom and choice in others and don't encroach.
I think the assumption that women understand the behavior of women better then men is incorrect. Women don't have a clue about what "female" qualities are. I would know, I've asked them. "I don't get chicks" is probably the most common response I've gotten.
Ask anyone. Better yet, ask everyone. We've all spent time around the opposite gender and we all tend to focus on different things.
Men probably don't have much of a clue either, or at best, might be able to say how women act around men. People often behave differently when in the presence of people of the opposite sex, especially when they're outnumbered.
Sulcao makes a good point in asking why gender is important. Frankly, why is it? Rather than playing according to sex, just play according to gender. Characters may be more masculine or more feminine or some balance thereof. There is no "wrong" way to do it. If women didn't act like men sometimes we wouldn't have Tomboys, and if men didn't behave like women, effeminate wouldn't be in the dictionary. I'm female, and of my active characters five are female and three are male, and much of the time the sex issue is purely for appearances. My female characters rage from masculine to very feminine, and the same goes for my male characters. Personalities and attitudes are more reflective of experience and socialization than sex and biology.
This is particularly true of players who choose to play characters f the opposite sex. For some reason this seems to get some immature players riled up. No one objects though to anyone playing a character of a different species, so why is gender so important?
Now that I've seen it done poorly--and not the usual "pervy adolescent" poorly but "no theory of mind" poorly--I'd have to say that you shouldn't let anyone who thinks that men and women are exactly the same engage in cross-gender play. What you get is... not a woman. It's just this weird amorphous void where a character should be. Stilted and kinda horrific.
Finally, there is no 'right' way to play either gender. If your female character quaffs ale, belches hugely, and really likes to hit people with her greatsword, then these are attributes of your character. She's probably not typical (unless you're playing an all-orcish party), but as addressed above, if that's the way she is, than that's the way she is. Claims of "But women aren't like that!" should be met of "Some of them are. My character is one such."
This applies, sadly, even to those teenage boys who think it's clever to play excessively-pissy promiscuous bisexual elven valley-girls. If they want to portray the worst of a stereotype, that is their liberty. It can be annoying as hell if someone insists on portraying all women as overly-emotional or all men as horn-dogs just because some are. But recognize that characters in D&D, like people in reality, sometimes conform to type, and often do not.
I guess it's much the same problem as thinking yourself into someone else's shoes for any reason. You can only go by your interpretation of that person's motivations. Since you're not them, and don't have that life experience you're just guessing.
In the case of pervy teenage boys, horrifically wrong guesses I might add. I personally have never woken up consumed with the drunken power of having breasts.
Thevail
Finally, there is no 'right' way to play either gender. If your female character quaffs ale, belches hugely, and really likes to hit people with her greatsword, then these are attributes of your character. She's probably not typical (unless you're playing an all-orcish party), but as addressed above, if that's the way she is, than that's the way she is. Claims of "But women aren't like that!" should be met of "Some of them are. My character is one such."
But the core that people miss is that a woman with a set of certain traits is different from a man with very similar traits.
For example, in a vaguely-but-not-cripplingly-misogynistic fantasy society, being a female surly hard-drinkin' hard-screwin' sword-bearing grave robber with a sword is still quite different from being a male surly hard-drinkin' hard-screwin' sword-bearing grave robber. As far as society is concerned, the woman is "playing against type" much more strongly than the man in this example, which will color the way people react to her and, consequently, her own life experiences. You've gotta think about that kind of stuff when you think about gender. Heck, even in today's mildly-egalitarian society, it still means a lot to be a man and it means a lot to be a woman.
It's like stick figures. I mean, they're freakin' stick figures, but they still have discernable gender based on how you draw them. It's subtle. Almost ephemeral. But you have to bring it in somehow. (And, consequently, if a female character is "just like a man" to you, don't play one. What you're gonna get out is just a mannish stick figure with a few extra circles slapped on in a lewd place.)
This is one of the reason my DM insists on backgrounds at least 7 pages long, and with some powerful races with LA they insist on 14 pages. This is a roleplay game so you need to have a good idea of what your character is and how he/she will act in any given situation. If you have enough of a background to make your character 3-dimensional (i.e., a BELIEVABLE and interesting character), you're probably ok.
Finally, there is no 'right' way to play either gender. If your female character quaffs ale, belches hugely, and really likes to hit people with her greatsword, then these are attributes of your character. She's probably not typical (unless you're playing an all-orcish party), but as addressed above, if that's the way she is, than that's the way she is. Claims of "But women aren't like that!" should be met of "Some of them are. My character is one such."
It’s kinda funny, we have a female player playing a female warrior... that quaffs ale, belches, and likes hitting things with her greatsword. One does not have to be in a cross-gender role to play such. :D
For example: One of my recent characters, a female human cleric, was incredibly sensual visually. She always dressed in revealing gowns and clothes (actually a suit of glamered armor) and walked with a seductive sway. She was very haughty and prim. Of course, she was a noblewoman and had many of those mannerisms. She was a cleric of Wee Jas and was incredibly fascinated with the application of necromancy without killing. However, she had a weakness for young men (ages 16-25, and she was about 35 years old) and she would use some (admittedly stereotypically male horn dog) lines and blunders around such people in a social setting. This made the character more interesting, and it also kept her from becoming too important in local politics, to keep her from her adventures.
On the other hand, I also played a gruff dwarf that was obsessive about his hair. He was constantly combing it, braiding it, washing it. I took that trait from my Sister. It really made him stand out from other gruff dwarves - as it was a trait not normally associated with males.
Of course, that also leads to racial differences. Different races generally come with a certain set of characteristics, however, as a society, we still tend to attach certain characteristics and behaviors to gender as well. Because of this, we tend to play characters as a stereotyped character. There is not a trait in this world that generally applies to women that I cannot find in AT LEAST one male, and vice versa.
Character traits are simply that, traits. Create the character however you like and have fun playing him/her. If others at the gaming table enjoy the character and enjoy the game, then you are doing it right.
If others do not enjoy it, they are not having fun because of your character, and your character is disruptive to the game in general - then you are doing it wrong. The purpose of the game is to have fun. If people are not having fun, then someone is doing something wrong. If your character is the cause, then you should consider another character. Only you know your group and what they prefer. If you have a group that thinks less of you for playing a female character, than don't. If your group doesn't care, than it doesn't matter.
Keep on gaming!!!!
My group and I have realised some of pitfalls and difficulties you mentioned, so I guess this set of guidelines might be a good reference for us. Though I am intrigued by the different takes on playing characters of the other sex, I will not engage in the discussion. Should this thread derail and get locked, or moved to the mature boards, the purpose of this thread will be lost or diminished.
I think players also need to mix it up a bit sometimes. I've been playing some form of D&D since the eighties and after a while you can really fall into a rut, where you might as well start naming your character Thief 3.5 version 8. Or Barbarian 409 NEW and Improved!
Sometimes if you've played that particular type of character for a long time it gets hard to bring a fresh perspective to the game, or at least that's one of the things our group found out.
Thevail
I have one question though, and forgive me if I sound like I question your knowledge or experience on this subject. I don't intend to, it's just that English isn't my first language.
Anyway! What is your experience as a player? Is this a DM's thoughts on what a player should do, or is this a players experience of what works best? Or both?
Thanks again for a great read.
I think the assumption that women understand the behavior of women better then men is incorrect. Women don't have a clue about what "female" qualities are. I would know, I've asked them. "I don't get chicks" is probably the most common response I've gotten.
Ask anyone. Better yet, ask everyone. We've all spent time around the opposite gender and we all tend to focus on different things.
We understand just as much as men understand about men. Perhaps every woman doesn't get everything about a particular woman, but I know what makes me feminine. Women do go through some experiences that men cannot have, and those things shape them in some way. To say that women don't "understand" a large part of who they are is offensive. Just consider it.
I want to comment on point 2. While it can be very inspiring to create characters together with the group and it will amplify group cohesion, I actually prefer not to do so for the following reason. While you can (hopefully easily) keep yourself from metagaming in the sense that you do not use the knowledge about the other characters gained during character creation during the game, you will not be able to forget it. I find it to be more fun if every character has at least a few features/traits/secrets... that only he and the DM know about at the beginning of a game. This makes the interaction between the players and the game as a whole more interesting (for example when the group meats some NPC and one of the characters to the surprise of all the others seems to know the guy). This is not to say, that you should keep everything secret from all players and not listen to good ideas about your character concept, but starting with a group of characters where everyone is familiar with the others characters to nearly the same degree as with his own does not improve the game it only makes it "easier".
On the gender thing (although this actually should be discussed in another thread): It is actually somewhat similar to the alignment problems. There are so many different opinions about how a female/male character should behave in any given situation in order to be credible that it is hard to appear credible to everyone. This usually poses no problem if you play a character of your own sex since people then do not focus on how you should behave. However, often if someone plays a character of the opposite sex people start to focus their attention on how he/she behaves. It is kind of similar to playing a paladin, where people pay much more attention on alignment than for a character who is just as good (by alignment), but not paladin. And, as in the case of the paladin, it gives easy opportunity to an infinite number of cheap jokes, which will of course all be taken ...
The other thing I just shook my head at was how you had to imply that anyone who has a problem with playing a character of the opposite sex is immature. That's quite a generalization, and it's also true to say that some players with limited social skills play the opposite sex just to get a reaction.
You derailed what could have been a great thread into a traditional vs liberal values about gender, which is especially sensitive considering that there is definitely an ongoing effort to tear down traditional values in the country (for example, a law in New York City that allows a person without an operation to change the sex on their birth certificate). My wife asked me if she could change her height on her driver's license so that she could start reaching items on the higher shelves in our house. :-)
Why derail your own wonderful post by bitterly suggesting that anyone who has a problem with opposite gender RP is immature? Even if you'd done a scientific study, and could define maturity, and prove this, why derail one of the best posts ever presented in a forum?
I honestly mean this reply with a great mixture of respect (for the post) and bewilderment.
I always preach this in my group, but we never do it because the rest of the group feels that creating characters together stifles creativity. In other words: One player *really* wants to play a scheming, Chaotic Neutral Wizard. They would not have fun if the rest of us decided we wanted lawful characters who want to crusade against evil. So either we all have to try hard to justify being together, or the person who wants the CN wizard has to play something else, which results in her becoming bored after a few sessions because it's not what she really wanted to play. On the flipside, if the rest of us change our characters to be scheming mercenaries out for money, then at least one other person will feel similar in that they cannot play what they *want* because it doesn't fit into the rest of the group.
That stifling of creativity is there for a better game. Personally, I'd rather play in a group where the characters interacted nicely then one were everyone was pulling and pushing to different directions.
That said, have you tried: "The premise of this game that everyone is a shady character with underground contacts and hunger for power. The game starts when the previous informal leader has been killed. The power is up for grabs. Go!"
You then play that one situation until someone or some group gets to the top of the food chain. After that has happened, you decide, as a group, what you will play next. It might be the same characters, some of them, entirely new ones. But the situation will be novel, in any case, because the previous was dealt with.
I want to comment on point 2. While it can be very inspiring to create characters together with the group and it will amplify group cohesion, I actually prefer not to do so for the following reason. While you can (hopefully easily) keep yourself from metagaming in the sense that you do not use the knowledge about the other characters gained during character creation during the game, you will not be able to forget it. I find it to be more fun if every character has at least a few features/traits/secrets... that only he and the DM know about at the beginning of a game. This makes the interaction between the players and the game as a whole more interesting (for example when the group meats some NPC and one of the characters to the surprise of all the others seems to know the guy). This is not to say, that you should keep everything secret from all players and not listen to good ideas about your character concept, but starting with a group of characters where everyone is familiar with the others characters to nearly the same degree as with his own does not improve the game it only makes it "easier".
On the gender thing (although this actually should be discussed in another thread): It is actually somewhat similar to the alignment problems. There are so many different opinions about how a female/male character should behave in any given situation in order to be credible that it is hard to appear credible to everyone. This usually poses no problem if you play a character of your own sex since people then do not focus on how you should behave. However, often if someone plays a character of the opposite sex people start to focus their attention on how he/she behaves. It is kind of similar to playing a paladin, where people pay much more attention on alignment than for a character who is just as good (by alignment), but not paladin. And, as in the case of the paladin, it gives easy opportunity to an infinite number of cheap jokes, which will of course all be taken ...
In response to the first part of your post...
While creating characters together might give other players at the table some knowledge of the feats and skills of your character, it should in no way give them knowledge about where your character comes from or where you learned your skills. It should be the DM's job, once character creation is done, to take each player aside and talk with them about where they came from and what might have driven the character along the path that is represented on paper. This allows a little bit of both worlds. You have the cohesion of a group designed together, with abilities that can added together to form a powerful whole. Yet, each character still might have their "little skeletons", or might be a total boy (or girl) scout. As a DM myself, I know that a well thought out back story can go a long way to forming how a character acts.
What will it take away? A tone of seriousness to the game, regardless of the way they play acting cross gender is funny almost everywhere you go, a certain amount of comfortability from other players, a level of suspension of disbelief.
I've done it before as a player and I’ve DMed it, and I would not do it again as a player, for the above reasons.
But anyway just my 2 platinum pieces.
Lohos
Finally, there is no 'right' way to play either gender. If your female character quaffs ale, belches hugely, and really likes to hit people with her greatsword, then these are attributes of your character. She's probably not typical (unless you're playing an all-orcish party), but as addressed above, if that's the way she is, than that's the way she is. Claims of "But women aren't like that!" should be met of "Some of them are. My character is one such."
I agree with this, and I have something to say for myself. There is no way to play a character of the opposite gender incorrectly, as long as it fits a possible character concept or personality. You can have guys that are soft spoken, feeling, delicate, graceful, and such. You can have hard-drinking, crude, aggressive, and monster-smashing women as well. But neither is correct or incorrect. If a guy plays a female character, she can have whatever personality he darn wants her to have. He can make it more realistic, and give her less strength, more dexterity, and play her to be more feminine. If the effect (because the sample player is a male) is not actually a typical (or even especially feminine) female, then that's fine. It is just that female character's personality.
Also cultures vary and cultural roles vary. In Ancient Briton society was matriarchal; women ruled and rode around on chariots, swilled beer, and hit people with greatswords and other sharp objects. In Roman society men ruled, and only men fought. Boudica, the Queen of the Mycene tribe and ruler of the Britons was offered the Roman peace if she handed power to her daughters, She refused and the Romans raped her daughters to show how little women counted. Boudica razed London to the ground and slaughtered to or three whole legions of Roman soldiers in revenge.
In a campaign you could have different gender roles in different parts of the world. Maybe the barbarian tribes are matriarchal which is why they don't understand chivalry. (Why defend maidens? Shouldn't they be defending themselves and their tribes?) Maybe another nation is rigidly patriarchal, like ancient Rome or medieval Europe and women are expected to stay at home. Elves probably don't expect people to conform to gender roles and any human society they influence might treat genders equally (as in the baseline D&D). This could also be a cause for conflict and adventure...
As far as playing the opposite gender, I may not know how a woman thinks, but then again I probably don’t know how a elf with 1000 year lifespan thinks either. I guess I'll just roleplay it and the women and elves will correct me if I stray off track...