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

[busterkeatonrules]

Male here, and I always play as a female if I can. Partly for eye candy purposes, partly out of habit.

(Incidentally, am I a weirdo for extending said habit to include khajiit / argonians and retro-style six-pixel sprites?)

 

[The Ditz]

As a Y chromosomed individual, depends on the situation. In a single player game, the only time I'll even consider playing male is if he can be lithe, none of that meat-brick nonsense. In MMO's usually male to avoid certain attention by some people (I'm here to grind content, not grind on you... this is a game, not a dating site Q_Q)

 

[DementedSheep]

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".

This whole thread isn't "constructive". Might as well ask if guys like porn. I don't see how you could possibly think playing wank bait makes you weird or special with how often this sentiment pops up

 

[Zhukov]

Once before when this subject came up, as it regularly does, I did a gender tally of every character I'd ever made. It worked out exactly 50/50.

So apparently I'm a fucking robot. That or I'm flipping a coin.

For online games I always make a male since in those games the avatar kinda represents the player in the eyes of other players, plus I don't need to do the omg-r-u-a-gurl-irl dance.

In some games the character model(s) of one gender will look a lot better than the other. For example, I remember in a game called Kingdoms of Amalur I was able to make an awesome looking female character but my male ones all looked off.

If it's a single player game and I have an actual character I want to role play rather than just doing whatever seems like a good idea (which always ends up being a super goody-two-shoes who steals everything) then I'll make a female. It gives a sense of disconnection along the lines of, "That's isn't what I'd do though!" "Well no shit, this isn't you, it's her." Er... if that makes sense.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Well I've started every Soulsborne game with a redhead female melee class, and my main Commander Shepard was also female. Those are perhaps the most prominent ones, since I play rather few games with character creation these days.

 

[Michel Henzel]

Female all the way for MMO's, as female armours tend to look so much nicer than male ones. And I make sure she's looking as cute and sexy as she can look.

 

[happyninja42]

If I have a choice of gender, I will almost always pick male, because I like to insert myself in the role of the protagonist, and pretend it's me. So it's easier to do that if it's male.

One of my friends though, always rocks a female character, pretty much for the above mentioned "If I have to look at an ass all day..." reason.

My wife always rocks female characters, and will go to great lengths to make her look super cute/pretty.

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

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.

I quite often do the opposite just for the sake of perversity. When I made a Death Knight tank in WoW, I thought, "what is the least macho tanks looking race/gender combination possible?" Since I was playing Horde at the time, I went with a female Blood Elf; the idea of a skinny, waiflike elf going toe to toe with giant hulking monsters was (to me at least) delightfully absurd.

That's kind of why my warrior-tank was a female undead. I liked the idea of this tiny little barely held-together bag of bones holding off waves of monsters.

OT: Sorry to bring up the 'we need more' thing, but because there are so many games where I don't get a choice, whenever I do have a choice- I'm playing a woman. I think perhaps if every game had a choice or there was a more even spread of game protagonists I'd maybe roll a dude more often (I occasionally do on multiple playthroughs). Until then it's all-ladies all the time.

The issue of character gender choice came up recently in relation to the upcoming game The Technomancer; apparently although it's an RPG, you can only play as a male, and the devs said that due to the tremendous cost of hiring voice actors, they couldn't afford to do male and female VO recording, so the PC is male only (Ref: http://segmentnext.com/2015/08/25/the-technomancer-interview-with-spiders-ceo-combat-customization-and-more/). While the cost factor is probably not so much of a deal breaker for big studios with AAA budgets, it's a limiting factor for smaller studios.

There is also still the perception (real or imagined) that having a female protagonist will result in lost sales. I think games like Assassin's Creed Syndicate's approach of dual protagonists is a good way of bridging this divide, assuming the game's budget can take the added expense of more voice actors.

 

[Phasmal]

The issue of character gender choice came up recently in relation to the upcoming game The Technomancer; apparently although it's an RPG, you can only play as a male, and the devs said that due to the tremendous cost of hiring voice actors, they couldn't afford to do male and female VO recording, so the PC is male only (Ref: http://segmentnext.com/2015/08/25/the-technomancer-interview-with-spiders-ceo-combat-customization-and-more/). While the cost factor is probably not so much of a deal breaker for big studios with AAA budgets, it's a limiting factor for smaller studios.

There is also still the perception (real or imagined) that having a female protagonist will result in lost sales. I think games like Assassin's Creed Syndicate's approach of dual protagonists is a good way of bridging this divide, assuming the game's budget can take the added expense of more voice actors.

That link you put in is a dead one.
I'm aware that some smaller studios may have trouble with that sort of thing, and while I'd question it a little, fine. I'm not hounding anyone about it.
I'm well aware of the long long list of reasons and excuses, some of which I'm like "Okay, fine" and others make me raise an eyebrow a little. I've been playing games for over 20 years, and wanting more ladies this whole time. I'm up to date with all the arguments against.

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

The issue of character gender choice came up recently in relation to the upcoming game The Technomancer; apparently although it's an RPG, you can only play as a male, and the devs said that due to the tremendous cost of hiring voice actors, they couldn't afford to do male and female VO recording, so the PC is male only (Ref: http://segmentnext.com/2015/08/25/the-technomancer-interview-with-spiders-ceo-combat-customization-and-more/). While the cost factor is probably not so much of a deal breaker for big studios with AAA budgets, it's a limiting factor for smaller studios.

There is also still the perception (real or imagined) that having a female protagonist will result in lost sales. I think games like Assassin's Creed Syndicate's approach of dual protagonists is a good way of bridging this divide, assuming the game's budget can take the added expense of more voice actors.

That link you put in is a dead one.
I'm aware that some smaller studios may have trouble with that sort of thing, and while I'd question it a little, fine. I'm not hounding anyone about it.
I'm well aware of the long long list of reasons and excuses, some of which I'm like "Okay, fine" and others make me raise an eyebrow a little. I've been playing games for over 20 years, and wanting more ladies this whole time. I'm up to date with all the arguments against.

Hmm, not sure why that link didn't work. If you google "the Technomancer female character", the article pops up as the first result and the link works from there. Weird.

As for the excuses, I'm certainly not defending their validity or lack thereof, just making an observation about what has been said.

 

[Adamantium93]

Typically, the character that is supposed to be me will be male (so, my canon playthroughs of Mass Effect and Dragon Age, for example), while subsequent playthroughs will typically be female because I find it easier to roll play distinct characters as women. If I play a guy, I tend to make the guy as much like myself as possible.

 

[Fallow]

I do mostly female chars if I know I'll be looking at the character (which is almost all MMOs) if the models are sexy.
I prefer to look at a woman over a man, but if they're gonna be ugly I'd rather look like a hardcore dude.

 

[Phasmal]

Hmm, not sure why that link didn't work. If you google "the Technomancer female character", the article pops up as the first result and the link works from there. Weird.

As for the excuses, I'm certainly not defending their validity or lack thereof, just making an observation about what has been said.

Yeah, I know. But trust me, any woman who has been in the gaming community for more than five minutes and expressed an opinion about the amount of female characters has already heard what's been said a thousand times.

Spoiler: Heard it all before

 

[Zenja]

I tend to roll 50/50 I guess. Sometimes I roll a guy, sometimes I roll a girl depending on what I decide in character creation. I don't think I really favor one or the other. If I do, I probably favor rolling male as I am male and sometimes I make myself.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Can I play a female character?

If yes? I will.

If no? I won't.

That about sums it up.

 

[CaitSeith]

I roll female usually in my second playthrough. It was worth it in Mass Effect 2 just to watch Mordin preemptively friend-zoning you (if you have no love interests at that point).

 

[Ronald Nand]

I always roll a female character on my first playthrough, I roll a male character on my second playthough if I do one. I do it because it makes my character as far removed from myself, I don't like roleplaying myself in a game, whether its getting into the fantasy or me not liking myself is another question. Other reasons I do it is because it gives me something good to look at, and I can play more games with a female PC, since predetermined PCs are usually male for the AAA space atleast.

Does anyone else like keeping the same character through all you're games? For all the Souls and Souls-like games I always play a female called 'Illaya', its nice to have a set character you can play for all the games you play.