So, how many dudes here roll a female character? Also vice versa?

[Extra-Ordinary]

Nope, I like being a dude, but I do prefer playing as Evie in Assassin's Creed: Syndicate.
Maybe it's because she's an established character rather than one I make myself because I like her more than Jacob so I want to play as her more.

Anyway.

Nah, when it comes to create-a-character, I'm gonna be a dude. Character creation means you can make yourself as you are or who you want to be or whatever but between all the options, I prefer it to be me.

 

[Maximum Bert]

It really depends on what I am playing but I suppose my choice usually comes down to which character looks the best and it is rarely a male character its usually either some weird design or/possibly and a female.

I have just usually had more fun playing female than male although that is just me painting with a broad brush as I have had fun playing plenty of male characters as well.

 

[Saelune]

Well, it depends. In MMOs, or games where making multiple characters is recommended, I am likely to make half my characters male, and half female. In games that allows for RPing, even with just myself, like The Elder Scrolls, I will make many varied characters of different races and sexes. Games where just one character is allowed/encouraged, and RPing is minimal or absent, I will likely make a female character, like in Dark Souls, unless I do multiple runs, in which I may switch around. But my first such character is usually female.

Now, if I can be a very feminine male who isn't restricted by gender-specific clothing, then that is what I will be. Such are few though, but it happens, like in Fable, and the latest Animal Crossing.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Depends on the game for me.

For tabletop games (and the one LARP I've ever done, still ongoing), I've always rolled male and for world of Darkness, I always make someone who is either literally me, or someone similar, since part of the appeal of WoD is that it's the world we know, broken down into all sorts of horrors beneath the surface.

The only future "kinda" exception is if I ever have the opportunity to be a player in a particular World of Darkness fan-mod called Princess the Hopeful, which is essentially "What if there were Magical girls/guys in the World of Darkness, with all the "oh crap this world is SCREWED" that the setting implies, but give you juuust enough tools to have a desperate drawn out war to keep it going. It hits a lot of the same themes as Changeling the Dreaming, only you actually have a chance to delay or prevent the end of the world instead of it being inevitable. I'd still play a guy based on me, but I'd totally be down for my transformed self being female (probably based on a Valkyrie). Seems like it would have a LOT of fun role play potential.

Seriously, though, the fan mod sounds AWESOME. Like, just check out the TVtropes page for it, it's packed with awesome stuff! http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TabletopGame/PrincessTheHopeful

-

For video games where there is a choice, or a character creator, it's a mix. I usually play a guy, but once in a while I'll play a woman, especially on second runs.

Like, I've played Skyrim 3 times now (My third character isn't done, I keep coming back to her), and only my first character was a guy (goofy brain damaged kahjiit thief), and the other two have been women.

And I actually role play them out, and decide what they do and where they go based on what I think makes sense for them to do.

Now, the only thing is that both of the women I made turned out to be lesbians, or at least Bi. I'm not sure if this is just how the characters are, or if my straight-male-cis bias is showing. XD

Like, the first woman I made was a former Thalmor High Elf who was dancing on the edge of being truly evil the whole game, after failing to be redeemed by Mara (The Live another Life mod that gives you more starting place options has Mara ask you where you want to start) and deciding that "love is for idiots" eventually fell for a character in a Dark Brotherhood Extension mod and had to use her latent feelings for her to save her from something, and her story ended after getting married to her and finishing the last epic (and incredibly hard) quest in that mod. It just worked for her. She basically had a hold over most of skyrim in some way and finally accomplished the task she had been saved in order to do. Save someone only she could save.

And the current one is a Kahjiit woman who I spent the first few hours avoiding heroism with. I played her as "just a miner", trying to get by with minimal violence and conflict, before things kept escalating and I started the main quest and she finally had to become the badass 2-handed Hammer champion she is now. I was on the lookout for whoever might hook up with her and for a while I considered Farkas, but he's actually kinda boring. Then she kinda started falling for one of the Interesting NPC mod characters, Amun-La the swamp knight (a dry and sarcastic Argonian woman who hides her past pains under dry humor and unrelenting heroism), and then for a bit she was interested in another modded NPC Rumarin (an elf mage who is REALLY damn funny). For a while I was torn between which one was best for her, and last I left off, it was decidedly tilted in favor of Amun-La. Rumarin is fun to be around, but he refuses to talk about any difficult subjects, and isn't really that heroic. Compare to Amun-La, who openly talks about her past pains despite how tragic it is, and who will jump at the chance to help you, no matter how suicidal it is.

Anyway, all this to say that it's a mix for me. I might generally prefer playin guys, but I'm totally cool with role-playing women too.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

I always roll female, but that's because I'm shallow and like having a (hot) badass chick at my command.

Yeah, I'm much the same. So throw another tick in the shallow prick column for me . Although this is usually restricted to WoW and BioWare RPGs since for my money in WoW the armours are varied enough that you can do either tarty look or badass (God bless Transmog) depending on how YOU think the character would be and for some reason BioWare can never hire a good voice actor for their male player characters, aside from Nicholas Boulton, and their armour designs are almost all uniform across player gender so that's not an issue.

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

I tend to choose characters based on what I feel fits the story, or what looks and animates better. A good example is WoW, where the male Draenei look awkward and animate poorly, while the females look great. Worgen are the opposite, the males look excellent, and the females just look weird. If I am going to be looking at a character model for many hours, I'd like it not to irritate me. I may also be influenced by things like voice actors for characters; I never liked Fem Sheps voice, so I always played as male Shepherd. However, it's a game with multiple story paths I will usually play through a few times and play as both.

 

[DementedSheep]

Que a bunch comments about how they play play female characters so they can perv on their ass.

 

[conmag9]

More female characters than male in my case, as they tend to have nicer in-game models and (where applicable) more tolerable voices. I think my total balance is something like 80%/20% in their favor for single player games, maybe closer to 50/50 for tabletop RPGs.

 

[the December King]

Male, almost always, unless I get to use a really archaic race or monster, where I can decide the importance of sex and what gender roles are.

That goes for MMOS and Table Tops (assuming I am given a choice in the character for my Table Top session- on rare occasion we are forced to adopt specific characters, and that can be, well, a change of pace, but is still an exception.

As a DM, on the other hand, I include, and happily play, the parts of all sorts of NPC characters, and sexes, and situations, in a very wide range of loosely conceived, fantasy cultures. I think it's because I treat the perceived authority of the position as a sort of shield or allowance that gives me the confidence to make any character act as I see fit.

 

[someguy1231]

Pretty much the same for me. I'll almost always roll female in games with a third-person view and if I can make them sexy. TERA and WoW are two good examples.

Que a bunch comments about how they play play female characters so they can perv on their ass.

*sigh*

First of all, several posts already effectively said this before you made your comment, so your comment is a bit "late to the party", so to speak. Second of all, who cares if that's why people play female characters? Are there "right" or "wrong" reasons for people to play what they play?

Your comment comes off as arrogant and unconstructive, and adds absolutely nothing to this discussion.

Oh, by the way, the word you want is "cue", not "que". That's Spanish for "what".

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

It's pretty even for me, since my ultimate goal for a good RPG is to experience everything over multiple playthroughs. Assuming the storylines are roughly even for the genders, I'll probably play men and women about the same amount.

Though I always start by playing a male, since I want my first experience of a new game to be a roleplay of myself facing those situations and choices. After that I play female with the intention of seeing a lot of the content I missed, and from there it's just up to whatever character ideas come to me next.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

I tend to alternate per character within games; usual I go male first, then female, then male, then female, etc.

 

[Trunkage]

I honestly don't because I have no idea how a woman would realistically react in any given scenario. I know how I do, and I role characters as similar to myself as I can get, especially if romance is ever involved. It almost seems...I dunno, voyeuristic or even masturbatory to role the opposite gender and do the sexy times. Like I always picture one of those nerd guys from South Park just holding the controller and whispering "and then to two sexy ladies totally made out and had sex!"

Outside of that, I usually don't. It just feels off to me. Even if no one is around to watch me play, I'll always feel like every choice I make is either offensive or stereotypical.

I almost always roll female. As to role playing female, I work in a female dominated industry. Like out of a hundred in the company, there are two males. I still wouldn't know what a 'female' would do in any situation. I think that's a misrepresentation, like all females are all one way. But you might be able to imagine what a specific female would do.

E.g. My current assistant is seen as blunt, truthful, loyal, angry and loves DC, Arkham and Bloodbourne/ Dark Souls games. I would imagine her as the heroic thief stereotype.

My last assistant loves Battlefield, insulting people, sarcasm, does things her own way, is dedicated but doesn't like people knowing about who she is or how good she is. So sarcasm as every turn, but helpful and shows initiative.

So if I'm not playing myself (as a female), I might blend a couple of women I know. As to sexy times, I'm pan so all my characters act the same way in that regard. MaleShep got some Cortez action. So did Traynor and FemShep

 

[infohippie]

Every game that gives me the option to play a female character, I play a female character. I just enjoy it a lot more than playing men, plus I find something creepy and off-putting about the usual over-muscled ridiculous male designs. Supposedly they're a "male power fantasy" but that sounds like bullshit to me. Who on earth would want to look like that? Oddly enough, Geralt of Rivia was about the only male character I've felt comfortable playing. Plus it helps that for the many hours of play time I have something cute and/or sexy to admire rather than (bleh) an expanse of rippling muscles and a stern gaze.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I usually go with the male option, unless there's a significant gameplay upside (like Jill getting more inventory space in RE1).

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

I tend to roll females, for similar reasons to the OP. On second playthroughs, or when I want to make a big tanky damage-absorbing character, I'll use a male. Females just seem more interesting in the roles that I use them usually - long range sniper, sneaky assassin, mage, hi-dex ranger.

There is another reason that I do use them, and that's to see if the dialog significantly changes based on possible different perspective - sadly, this is rarely the case (that I've seen) and the dialog is the same word for word. I have yet to replay Fallout 4 as a guy though and see if the reactions are different from a motherly or fatherly point of view.

Spoiler: Fallout 4 spoilers

The part where you realize your son is the boss of the Institute and everything they've done, I kind of had a feeling that a mother would take it a bit harder than a dad to go against them. And since I had already resolved to annihilate the Institute in my first playthrough, kinda threw me off. But then again huge disclaimer, I'm not even a parent! so it's all just wild speculation really....

 

[Skatalite]

I pretty much always pick male, mostly because I think females don't fit with the classes I usually go for (melee, especially tanks). To me they fit more as mages, archers or support characters.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

I don't really go one way or the other with any intention to do so. Instead, I just think of a character concept, and decide whether a male or female "feels" right for my concept.

 

[Odbarc]

Depends on the skills and playstyle I intend to use.
With skyrim and fallout, if I'm going to sneak around and use my charisma, I tend to play female.
It helps with the immersion.
With Diablo 3, I flip back and forth.

I don't really understand why a person would only choose their own gender as a character. None of these characters are ourselves. I don't name them after myself. They don't look like me.

 

[List]

I also have no issue playing female. I almost always roll female, given the choice, as well.

From my experience with people, the general correlation I see is there are two types of players. People who play their character and those that play "as" their character. Normally players that see the characters as a different entity as themselves consider gender of the character a non-issue. While those that self-inserts themselves into the characters have a harder time doing so.