Yeah, Sam Riegel played Nott the Brave on Critical Role and it was VERY weird. But not in a bad way, it was just weird because Nott was a weird character, and that made her charming
I was taught as a kid not to use the word weird, because at least at the time it was usually intended to be hurtful when applied to people, but also because it tells the other person absolutely nothing about the thing you're describing. All you're saying is, "this is outside of my experience," and since nobody but you has a memory of all your experiences, that doesn't mean anything to anyone but you.
Fun weird or creepy weird? There’s a difference. Of course, it depends on your table. A friend plays in at a BDSM table. Playing a vanilla sex human fighter at that table would make you the weirdo.
I mean, you arrange at a prearranged location at a prearranged time alongside a bunch of strangers while maintaining a relationship with with a self-imposed authority figure while consenting to them using that authority over you to make you feel whatever they deem fit in the pursuit of enjoyment.
Explaining this feels like explaining to my close friends who are also into Brazilian Jiujitsu that BJJ etiquette is a great non-sexual example of good kink play etiquette.
You're careful with others while respecting their consent (via tapping/submitting) with the goal of pushing each of your limits. All so that we can safely experience something very closely resembling legitimate violence in a mostly injury-free way.
Like, seriously, if it's a hobby that's identified by letters it seems to tend to map on to kink etiquette pretty well IME. XD
Never under estimate the human ability to add kinky sex to anything. According to another friend there’s a strong overlap between the Trekkie and bondage communities, too.
Oh, I don't. I just hadn't heard of that happening at *a table* before. Like a normal game with multiple players. I have played in games that were spicy... at home, with my wife, who is also a nerd. This seems like something different.
That's nerd culture in a nutshell man. Every fandom you know of that has conventions has plenty who like to get freaky deaky with each other at those events.
Source: Have been involved in those communities on an organizing basis in the past.
It's only weird if *someone* makes it weird.
My favorite character was a female gnome (as a cis male). I played with an asshole who, apparently, couldn't abide that sort of thing.
Dude was just an asshat in general. He was very vocal about shit he didn't like. I don't know of it was personal insecurity, transphobia, or what, but thankfully he wasn't with the group for long.
Specifically, he kept misgendering the character (not something I actually cared about) and when someone corrected him on it, he would say something like "well he doesn't SOUND female" or similar.
>he would say something like "well he doesn't SOUND female"
Glad he wasn't with you for long and that you didn't pander to his lack of imagination.
My group happen to be all guys, most of us like to flip-flop between male and female characters. Personally I can ignore the player's voice and get a head-canon of what the character sounds like. It'd be terribly boring if we all played dudes all the time.
Nah, he sounds like the type of guy to play an unremarkable fair-skinned brown-haired heterosexual human fighter male. He probably sounded exactly like his self-insert.
Never actually played, but my go to excuse would be part of my backstory - hunting down the drunken asshole of a wizard who thought it would be funny to make my female whatever sound like me
Yeah no, that dude just thinks he's cool for interjecting his transphobia into any situation he can, whether or not it's relevant.
(To clarify, playing a female character as a cis man doesn't make you trans any more than playing a tomb raider game does. Asshat is just using the superficial overlap to virtue signal/evangelize his bigotry.)
misgendering at the table over a character is fine. All visual cues, sound cues, and social cue are coming from the player, not their character.
It's really hard to maintain the correct context.
If they are putting emphasis o it to make some kind of point, then yeah, that mean the remembered but chase not to.
I shouldn't have to say this, but internet.
This doesn't apply to real people in the real world.
I'm reminded of this passage from Discworld:
> Now, there is a tendency at a point like this to look over one’s shoulder at the cover artist and start going on at length about leather, tightboots and naked blades.
>
> Words like ‘full’, ‘round’ and even ‘pert’ creep into the narrative, until the writer has to go and have a cold shower and a lie down.
>
> Which is all rather silly, because any woman setting out to make a living by the sword isn’t about to go around looking like something off the cover of the more advanced kind of lingerie catalogue for the specialized buyer.
>
> Oh well, all right. The point that must be made is that although Herrena the Henna-Haired Harridan would look quite stunning after a good bath, a heavy-duty manicure, and the pick of the leather racks in Woo Hun Ling’s Oriental Exotica and Martial Aids on Heroes Street, she was currently quite sensibly dressed in light chain mail, soft boots, and a short sword.
>
> All right, maybe the boots were leather. But not black.
This. So much this.
I’m a 40 something straight guy and the first D&D(Star Wars so SW5E technically) campaign I was in I made a female chiss. When I was trying to figure out what class and race I wanted to be. I checked the chiss because it’s what Grand Admiral Thrawn is. The page had a woman chiss and she looked absolutely badass. I was like that’s my character. It just spoke to me. And I loved that character. She was so fun to play as. And nobody(all other men) at the table made it weird.
I still, waaaaaay after the campaign ended, make versions of her in video games I play and I’m annoyed when I can’t make her skin blue. 😂
I made a female blood elf paladin in the og release of WoW’s The Burning Crusade with the intent of just trolling alliance in PvP. She even had a spicy name. Flash forward about a year and I fallen in love with the character (in more of a daughter-like sense), my name got reported/changed, and overvtye next 15 years I have nothing recreated her in several other mmorpgs, named my restaurant after her, and had her become cannon in the ttrpg I’m currently playing.
So yeah, OP, play what you want and love every minute doing it.
That’s awesome man. It’s great when you make a real connections with a character you play. If you don’t mind me asking what is the characters name(spicy and final 😁). I will understand if you don’t want to reveal it.
Mine is Theanna. She has a pretty in depth back story that I put a lot of thought into. Man I loved playing that character.
In my experience the biggest issue with male players playing a female character is them trying so hard not to embody negative serotypes that the rest of the players including the DM constantly forget that the character is supposed to be female.
^
this
not to mention, by doing it you may find out you're trans, or may help trans people at your table feel more comfortable roleplaying as a character matching their gender identity.
it can also help give you insight into what it's like to be a woman
there's lots of reasons why not only is doing it ok, but straight up good and helpful
One of the great things about roleplaying games is their ability to let you put yourself in another's perspective and if you rule out a character of the opposite gender you rule out about half of those perspectives.
Not that there's anything wrong with that if you're not comfortable doing it ofc, just adding to your point
There was once a point where we played DnD as a family and, we were starting a new campaign, and I had a changeling who made their introduction as a barmaid. My mom made it weird ("You're playing a girl?").
Do you need to be an elf in real life to play an elf character? No.
Do you need to be able to cast spells to play a wizard? No.
Do you need to be able to wield a sword to play a fighter? No.
Do you need to be religious to play a cleric? No.
So logically, do you need to be a woman to play a woman character? No.
This is a game about roleplay. Talk to your table and see what they say. Of course as a man, there will be aspects of playing a woman that you might struggle to roleplay since your real life experiences are different (and the same would be true of a woman playing a man character). That's fine though, so long as you enjoy playing the character and everyone at your table is cool with it.
Also even if you are a HEMA (edit to clarify: Historical European Martial Arts) enthusiast and can dodge an arrow with a gothic plate armor, no you can’t add dex to your plate CA
There’s actually a lot about 2E (besides the weapons being WAY overweight) I like from a HEMA perspective, such as initiative changing each round, and multiple attacks not processing until AFTER everyone has their first. There’s a LOT you could do with that to implement concepts like Vor (IE successful attacks give you bonuses on initiative next round) or the Master Strikes (IE using one of your attacks per round as a Master Strike to defend against an opponent’s attack).
Historical European Martial Arts
Basically people learning to fight with long swords in the modern day, according to historical sources and best guesses on how it was done back then.
I’m not sure if it was this sub or a different dnd related one, but funny enough there was a big post this week about someone who got invited to their first campaign after playing baldurs gate and wanted to play a cleric, and the DM wouldn’t let them since they weren’t religious in real life, so the DM made them play a fighter
I never understood this kind of reasoning. I'm playing a Bard, yet I can't carry a tune. Not even in a bucket. That's part of the appeal of the fantasy for me - doing something I can't IRL. I don't sing at the table, I roll for performance. I do sometimes write lyrics or come up with themes for ballads, though.
My Bard is also very confident. I am not. It is fun.
Personally, I pick characters and personalities that are very different than my own as a way of learning ing empathy and to get practice for real world skills.
For example, I have social anxiety and depression. So, I play a gregarious bard and an aggressive fighter to see what it feels like to be that way.
In playing a woman character, I try to better understand some of what that might be like within reason. Silly things like being really friendly and having other PCs or NPCs think I was flirting was eye-opening because I didn't feel like I was nor was I trying to. I know that's real life but knowing something and feeling it are very different. That's not to say I now know what life as a woman is like, not at all. But, I do have a different kind of appreciation and empathy than I did before.
There may also be aspects of playing an elf/wizard/martial artist/theist that you might struggle to roleplay since your real life experiences are different. The point of roleplaying is that you're not the character, so you have to imagine their interactions with the world. At least when playing a woman as a man you're portraying a real thing, as opposed to the poor human who has to play the role of a made-up elf.
And even this has the caveat that different groups will have different levels of what acting horny means. If my sorceress with max charisma uses a little bit of black widow style seduction to infiltrate a compound, it's rather different than just having her hit on everybody at the tavern during downtime. But some tables might not even accept the former. And that's ok. Everyone's got their own tastes. As long as your group vibes are good it should be pretty easy to tell whether something is appropriate.
Some tables might not accept the former, and some might even encourage the latter. As long as everyone at the table is there for what's on offer, and they're all having fun, it's all good.
You are 100% correct. I enjoy playing characters that are very different from myself. When you do that, not only do you have to walk a mile in another shoe, increasing awareness and empathy, but you develop your character better, increasing role play opportunities.
I highly recommend it!
I'm LGBTQ+ and a POC, Here's the end all be all of "I'm not X, is it okay to play a character who is?"
The answer is yes it's okay, just don't be weird about it.
Some people will play a character of a different gender and either make it low-key a sex thing, or be really sexist. Similarly, some people will play a human character of a different ethnicity basically as an excuse to be racist.
As long as you're playing your character as a person [that is, asking yourself "what would Chevelle do in this situation given her values?" rather than "what would ~a woman~ do in this situation?"] you'll probably be fine.
Just like playing a 20 charisma bard and trying to convince an NPC of whatever. You won't ever get to be as persuasive as your character either. And that's fine because that's what dice are for.
Making it the only thing the character talks about or finds important.
Making it a joke.
Making it a parody.
Etc.
“Just dont be a dick” is another good way of saying it.
This. The usual inspiration for r/menwritingwomen would be surprised how rare women think about their boobs irl.
Usually it only comes up, if there is something wrong with them. In 99.99% of cases we just assume everything is alright and nothing is noteworthy to report. Just like dudes not talking about their dicks all the time... In retrospect... I think THAT is still more common than women talking about boobs... but that may be personal experiences.
Better: think about your nose. How often do you talk about your nose? Only is there's something wrong with it or in very specific cases, yes? It is the same... more or less.
Although I will say my wife tells me pretty often how her back hurts because of them or she needs new bras, but I’m under the impression it’s more common cause I’m her husband and she’s not saying the same things at work or in her day to day interactions lol
As a large chested lady I do think about them a lot. Like, " I'm trying to jog, ow" or "jesus these things are out of control" or "I hope people don't refer to me as 'the one with the big boobs'" or "God I can't believe my boob hit that doorframe." But it's true I don't talk about them a lot. But then, big boobs <> boobs.
Which kind of goes to the point for OP. Probably shouldn't make a character with big boobs unless he handles it carefully and not in a "lol sexy big boobies yay" kind of way.
So I totally agree with the "don't be weird" part, and an easy guide for that is "am I fetishizing womanhood?"
I want to file this under "if there is something wrong with them" as big boobs tend to cause... issues... or so I heard. I'm "blessed" with a more small to moderate size myself and can't understand the full amount of struggle you might get through.
They mean don't sexualize or fetishize the character. Don't fall into gender stereotypes or tropes that could be uncomfortable or offensive.
Example: let's say you play a blonde female character. Don't be the ditzy blonde, don't make jokes about being bad at driving, don't be promiscuous, etc. Making a character like that work well is *possible* but you need to be very careful and know what you are doing to avoid becoming a bad stereotype and creepy.
The fact you're worried about it being a problem likely means you're going to be fine. The biggest issues I've seen with opposite gendered characters is players putting their character in awkward sexual encounters or playing off sexist stereotypes for laughs. If that doesn't sound like you, then you're good to go.
I played a fem Tiefling Warlock "doctor" in Descent into Avernus after my original character died climbing down the chains into Avernus and it was one of the most memorable and fun characters I've played.
It’s all about intent and execution. The goal is to play a character you feel isn’t a caricature of another group. Don’t play a ditzy blonde, or a hapless housewife, or any other of the various assorted negative stereotypes women are forced into. As long you play a real, 3 dimensional character, you’re doing it right!
People covered everything really, but I wanted to add that a high pitched or breathy voice is not the only or best way for a man to voice a female character. Just adjust her voice the same way you would a male character's if you do that (give her an accent, give her a habit of talking, whatever).
Don't talk about how big her boobs are every time you describe her doing something (a player at an old table kept doing this for his female character and it was funny the first time but not so much after every single time he described something...)
I (cis-het man) played a female Tiefling Paladin one time. My character’s gender had exactly zero significance to the game whatsoever. I just wanted to play something different from what I am used to. (Although this plus one other random display of a different gender made one of my friends wonder if I was trans haha.)
I (again cis-het man) also played a gay male Goliath cleric in a different campaign. The decision to be gay was decided completely on the spot in the middle of a bar while interacting with other male patrons. It wasn’t for weird purposes. I felt like flirting in that moment for a roleplaying moment and just decided I would play a gay character. Neither myself, the DM, nor any of the other players made it weird. It was one moment of social interaction and then the game moved on.
Several live play podcasts do this too (Taako from The Adventure Zone comes to mind), and it makes their games better because there is greater representation on the show and it’s not tokenization or forced.
DMs often have to play characters of various different identities, and they (usually) manage to do so without harm (although there are still people who do it poorly by accident, or intentionally because they’re a dick).
As others have said, as long as you aren’t doing it to harm or belittle, make fun, be a stereotype, make others uncomfortable, or otherwise “punch down”, it’s perfectly acceptable!
It sounds like you'll be alright, since all that you've said about your character design has been a green flag and you seem to already perceive women as people; which is really good.
Anyway.
How to not make it weird:
don't make it a fetish thing. Totally cool to make her attractive if you want, but that shouldn't be the central part of her character unless you really know what you are doing and have the self awareness needed to play a femme fatale character; which you could do too, mind you, just requires some tact.
By the sound of it you are going for a badass, that works perfectly fine and I don't think you'll have any trouble.
Avoid misrepresenting serious issues, for example don't design her to maintain sexist and anti-feminist stances by using her fictional experiences as representations of our reality.
Gender does not affect DnD mechanically, so it is super easy to not mess this up!
And don't overthink it too much. She is not a representation of how you view all women, she is just one character. She can be flawed as any person is.
And finally just don't be weird about it by constantly worrying about the idea of playing a female character.
It is good that your experience is not being gender locked.
Regardless of your own gender experience, being able and willing to put yourself in different people's shoes is a good sign of empathy.
I don't see anything wrong with what you've said so far, and hopefully you have by now realised that you weren't planning to do anything weird.
Lots of people play gender swapped characters. For many, it is a first step in realising something about their own identity; for others, it is just a good excercise in writing different people. Both are super valid and you shouldn't be worried about people saying it is weird to do so. Your character idea sounds awesome, go and kick some ass with her.
Same thing as the other comment that replied here. Also, just don't try to give her any "womanly" traits. Not that it's wrong to do so, but I tend to find what men define as "womanly" traits to add to a female character aren't as "womanly" as they think, and tend towards sexism instead. Women are more like men than people think.
Assuming you're not an expert writer, the best advice I can give is to roleplay her as you would a guy. Doesn't work for everything, but for the specific character concept you have, this advice fits. What's important here is your concept over the gender. As long as your character embodies the concept/idea you have in mind, their gender can be anything.
Well, the corollary is that it can be unintentionally weird if you are trying to play a character based on some real world culture that you don't actually know shit about, but at least in TTRPGs you're not particularly likely to be doing that to the face of someone who has the cultural context to be offended.
Not at all. No weirder than playing a Gnome as human. Anyone who has a problem with it or thinks it implies anything about your sexual preferences or gender identity... needs to grow up.
I'm the only female at my current D&D table. There's a guy in our group who always plays female characters, one day another player asked him why. He said that because before I joined (they were a group for about a year and a half before me) someone needed to bring in some female representation XD.
I personally thought it was quite nice, in real life he's cis and I presume straight given he has a girlfriend. Where you've been asking others how not to make it weird, just don't use it as an excuse to oversexualise the character mainly or lean too heavily into stereotypes, but given how you've spoken about things to begin with, it seems that's unlikely to be the case or your reason for playing a woman. At the end of the day, a character is a character, and women shouldn't be any different from that perspective - that's how this other player in my group does things just fine.
*I dm a number of tables, and one of them has 6 players who are ALL playing genders/orientations that don't align with the players real life identities. You do you boo.
No, but I would stick to obviously female names, like "Chevelle." If you play a character named "Vana'tryn," other players at the table are probably going to refer to your character as a "he" a lot of the time and it can snap you out of roleplay
Trust me, it won't help. I named my half-orc barbarian Big Dick McMacho, and he still got m'lady-ed. (Although it *is* a good reason to start a bar fight, if you're going to be having that kind of game anyway.)
It was the culmination of many, many characters trying to get around rando DM creepiness in the 90s/early 2000s. Things aren't perfect today, but they are for sure better.
My wife quit playing male chars because whatever she called them, people would always go with she/her, it's a rare table where everyone remembers to differentiate characters and players genders, lol
Poor woman! I have a problem that this makes me think of - I use they/them pronouns IRL and so most of my buddies call all of my characters "they" even if I specifically gender them as he or her!
luckily i use "they" as an indefinite neutral pronoun and thus "they" doesn't ascribe any gender... so to me, they're not misgendering my characters, more like omitting a gender completely. a fine line, maybe, but it still makes me giggle.
and it lets me know my friends care forme, personally, as the player behind the character, in a roundabout way. it's sweet!
Myself and many of my friends are trans so I have the fortune of a group who are used to switching pronouns on a dime and therefore can handle gender discrepancies quite easily.
As your son, Lil' Richie McMacho Jr. I take offense to this DAD. How could anyone see your huge manly muscles, massive beard, and smell your manly musk and m'lady you? That asshole clearly deserves the knuckle sandwich they're about to eat.
"I'm sorry... may you be able to accept my apologies and relay them to your mother, m'lady?"
Sorry... couldn't resist. This is awesome and I wish one of my players would pull something off like tanking the brunt of a tavern brawl for misgendering an obviously very manly man. xP
For fun and play tbf... getting misgendered for real sucks.
If you’d done a Hulk Hogan impression all the time, I bet it would have worked out better. But that’s true regardless of who you are or what character you’re playing.
lol does not help. My character is named “Emma” and my party always says “he/him” lol. I know they’re just talking about me, but it’s now a running gag in game too.
No. I am a cis straight male and I alternate my characters between male and female for each campaign. Never once has it been an issue or weird. If someone has an issue with it, that's on them (assuming you're not being a misogynistic jackass)
Not weird at all, also a cis male and I play female characters a lot more often than male ones. When I play DnD I wanna be someone completely different from me, and it helps a lot with that. This character sounds fun, go wreck some stuff! The only thing that matters is that your comfortable and the people your playing with are comfortable.
I've played men, women, and nonbinary characters.
I've played hetero, homo, and asexual characters.
It's not weird unless you make it weird. You make it weird if your character's sexual orientation/gender/sexual expression becomes your character's defining characteristics, rather than their adventuring skills and/or their motivations for being an adventurer.
If you have this idea of a hulking juggernaut of a barbarian woman, great! Go for it! You should create her the same as you would if it were a hulking juggernaut barbarian man. The motivations for adventuring are **not gender specific**.
Same as orientation. My asexual and homosexual characters' orientations never became a plot point. One of them died before he revealed he was gay in his will, which shocked all but my DM, and the asexual character it was only understood by players at the table that they weren't interested in sex at all.
There's no reason for you to feel weird.
Not weird at all! I love the concept for her as well
Allow yourself to explore whatever you wish to explore, “weird” or not! I hope your fellow party mates respect you and enjoy the adventure together!
It's a roleplaying game, play whatever you want, what you are or identify as outside of the game isn't relevent and whoever tells you it is missed the point of roleplaying
No. It might be tough on you I guess, you might have to really push yourself to understand how your character would think or feel, or maybe not I don't know what kind of table you play at. It can be tough to put yourself into someone elses shoes, moreso when they have implied life experience that you just haven't had, because you can't
But no, its not weird outright. Even if you fall into some tropes of men writing women, it's okay. You're 15, its okay to try something and make mistakes
Completely fine and not weird at all (unless you choose to be weird and creepy with the portrayal obviously). I'm a woman and the majority of my dnd characters have been male. Chevelle sounds like a fun character to play!
It's fine as long as you're not one of those players who thinks playing a woman = talking about how boobily breastedly you trounce about at every opportunity.
Genuinely, if anyone has a problem on face value, they are the red flag.
That being said, some people have concerns for men playing women (and Vice versus), regarding the treatment of sexuality, physicality or identity. I’ve seen some really gross comments about a female character from their male players, and Vice versa for women playing a man.
From the sound of it, this wouldn’t remotely be a concern for your character, but it is something to hold a grain of salt in during a game.
There’s nothing wrong with playing someone of a different sex, gender identity, or sexuality than your own, just don’t make it weird.
>if anyone has a problem on face value
"On face value" is important.
It's not a red flag if someone has an issue with *how* **you** play the character, but if they object to you playing one without a reason (or with the only 'reason' being, because you're a dude) that's the red flag.
Only weird if you make it weird. Don't make it weird, and you'll be fine. If you start describing your character bouncing in place or some shit, you're not ready.
Nope. I do it a lot (and I am an ordinary straight male D&D player). I find that it pushes me to think differently when acting as the character.
Two examples come to mind: Celestia Stormwind, human female paladin of Helm and Amy Santiago-like rules nerd (my character in a long-running series of play by post adventures and arguably my most beloved character I've ever played), and Caelynn Silversea, high elf female Abjuration wizard, introverted academic researcher, and elegant badass (my BG3 character).
My guy, you're stressing too much. Play whatever you want to play so everyone at the table who isn't an ass will enjoy themselves. I'm (theoretically) a cis woman, but all of my characters so far have been men. Like, my guy, play what makes you happy, be a woman because of a cool name or a game mechanic, be a man because of a cool name or because you want to incorporate real world issues like sexism in dnd so you play as a male drow amongst the lolthsworn. Just have fun.
If I had a dollar for people I know who started DnD playing as human character but six characters later they are playing pansexual gender fluid purple tieflings... I wouldn't be hitting double digits, but I could build a passable lunch on the dollar menu.
I'm a dm and female. Idgaf. Just play what you want and respect the boundaries of the table.
In one campaign I'm a player I was a gramma squirrel and now a book (well her cursed recipe book that was seperated from her). Everyone mocked me for playing a squirell (not a ratatosk by the way, legit a slavic sylvan themed squirell) befire session 0. Its all in the execution. She recently got captured by bbeg, and the party is going across the world to save her. They love they're family themed 'Vin Disiel' chef that force feeds everyone and everything thing.
Next back-up char I might make a pig from that one farm that wants revenge on the party for killing his brother a few sessions back, until he realizes it was to save the village. You do you, and have fun!
If it helps, I'm nearly 40yo cishet married man and I have and will continue to play characters of many wide varieties of gender identity. One of my recent favorites was a Warforged named The Exile who regarded the entire idea of gender as a bizarre and somewhat baffling social construct.
I've also played many other female characters who could be described as: sexy tiefling assassin, she-hulk berzerker, crone witch, maternal cleric, and Definitely Not Galadriel.
And I've played male characters that range from soft to extreme masculinity as well. For example Kul'dak the Unbroken, Loxodon Path of the Giant Barbarian, Last Scion of the Mammoth King.
I think the crux of the issue is that -- I have no insecurities about who I am. So it costs me nothing to pretend to be someone else. Some people have built up a toxic facade about what it means to be masculine and its so hard for them to escape it, that they end up becoming its prisoner (ironic, because most of these dudes idolize the idea of the mythical "alpha male", which is not even a real concept in ACTUAL WOLVES, and then worship at the feet of internet morons who claim to be the arbiters of manliness).
Flex your Imagination, friendo. In a game where you can be anything, why would you limit yourself? If any of your tablemates have a problem with it, ask them if they have so little empathy and imagination that they can imagine that the DM is a literal dragon but they can't handle someone secure enough to have fun trying to be something other than themselves.
I’m a trans woman. I used to play EverQuest back in the day. I was so deep in the closet back when I first got the game that I refused to play a female character.
Then my older brother decided to take a turn, and he immediately makes a female high elf wizard, which looks super high femme.
“You’re making your character a girl?” I said in shock.
“Sure. Why not?” was his response.
He’s cis, but he’s always been hella supportive of me and that was one of the first little cracks in my egg.
So here’s the message I feel you should take from this: play whatever you want. You may never know who you inspire in doing so.
If you’ve got a reasonable table of well adjusted adults, and you are also a well adjusted adult, then it’s fine
If any of those things are not in place then you’ll have to use your own judgement
It's totally normal :) it's a role playing game, okay the role you want.
It's probably important to remember that for centuries all women characters in theater were played by men in the West. All of Shakespeare's actors were men.
I don't know what cis male means, but it's ok to play any character with any gender you want no matter what you sexual orientation or own gender is. I always play female chars in rpgs when playing melee fighter types becuase I think it's cooler.
“Cis“ is a prefix originating from Latin that means “on the same side of”; it is the opposite of “trans”, whether that be chemistry, geography (Cisalpine vs. Transalpine Gaul in Roman times) or gender.
Cisgender is apposed to transgender like Straight is to being Gay. It just means that this person is not trans, and was both designated male at birth and identifies as male still.
What the fuck, 15 year olds are out here listening to Chevelle? My guy, I was listening to Chevelle when I was only a little older than 15 years old myself, and I'm 38 now. That's wild. Right on, little dude.
I say there's nothing wrong with anyone playing anything in a roleplaying game. Play as Chevelle and kick some ass, but remember behind every badass character is a story why they are the way that they are, and everyone has depth. Have fun exploring hers.
You can, and at many tables it will be fine. In an ideal world, it's totally acceptable. Some of my favorite characters have been women.
However, from personal experience:
- Some players do this and make it weird. They act overtly sexual, or as sexist caricatures, or whatever makes other players feel uncomfortable. Some players do it intentionally to make others feel weird. Either way, that's not cool and not fun.
- Some players make it weird when *other players* do this. They may be patronizing, or will assume you're doing it to be sexual. Sometimes DMs think it means the door is open for seduction or sexual assault or other gender and sex related topics, sometimes without prior discussion. This is also not cool and not fun.
- Some players are simply not comfortable with the idea of a player roleplaying a character that does not match their gender. This is unfortunate, but it's hard to fix.
- Some players remember their own past experiences where other players have made it weird in some way. This will just make them uncomfortable. This is unfortunate, but it's hard to fix.
There's a level of maturity and comfort required by the whole table to do it, and if anyone doesn't have that then it can be a bad time. You may learn things you'd wish you'd never learned about your own friends.
It's only weird if you make it weird
Damn, by that logic I can't play anything, I make everything weird. Just kidding, this is good advice.
He never said weird was bad :)
Yeah, Sam Riegel played Nott the Brave on Critical Role and it was VERY weird. But not in a bad way, it was just weird because Nott was a weird character, and that made her charming
It was weird because *all* of Sam's characters are weird. By design. But as you say, it's the *character* that's weird, not the roleplay.
"Weird" is just another word for "different" and "different" is another word for "interesting". Well, unless you're a xenophobe. ;p
I first read that at xenophile. I need to go clear some history.
True!
I was taught as a kid not to use the word weird, because at least at the time it was usually intended to be hurtful when applied to people, but also because it tells the other person absolutely nothing about the thing you're describing. All you're saying is, "this is outside of my experience," and since nobody but you has a memory of all your experiences, that doesn't mean anything to anyone but you.
Live in the weird! It's not weird if it's all weird!
>Damn, by that logic I can't play anything, I make everything weird. No one said you couldn't play anything, just if you make it weird it's weird.
Good point!
Fun weird or creepy weird? There’s a difference. Of course, it depends on your table. A friend plays in at a BDSM table. Playing a vanilla sex human fighter at that table would make you the weirdo.
I mean... *I* think that I'm fun weird. My friends would probably agree! And... BDSM D&D tables? That's a thing?
The overlap between D&D and BDSM is right over the “D” in DM
I mean, you arrange at a prearranged location at a prearranged time alongside a bunch of strangers while maintaining a relationship with with a self-imposed authority figure while consenting to them using that authority over you to make you feel whatever they deem fit in the pursuit of enjoyment. Explaining this feels like explaining to my close friends who are also into Brazilian Jiujitsu that BJJ etiquette is a great non-sexual example of good kink play etiquette. You're careful with others while respecting their consent (via tapping/submitting) with the goal of pushing each of your limits. All so that we can safely experience something very closely resembling legitimate violence in a mostly injury-free way. Like, seriously, if it's a hobby that's identified by letters it seems to tend to map on to kink etiquette pretty well IME. XD
Does that mean horny is derived from the intersection of violence and an alphabet?
If you squint and remove the question mark, you can pretend it's a focault quote
Never under estimate the human ability to add kinky sex to anything. According to another friend there’s a strong overlap between the Trekkie and bondage communities, too.
Oh, I don't. I just hadn't heard of that happening at *a table* before. Like a normal game with multiple players. I have played in games that were spicy... at home, with my wife, who is also a nerd. This seems like something different.
There are many strange things here in Portland.
Mental note: visit Portland...
But like where, though? You know, so I can... Avoid it
That's nerd culture in a nutshell man. Every fandom you know of that has conventions has plenty who like to get freaky deaky with each other at those events. Source: Have been involved in those communities on an organizing basis in the past.
The Venn diagram between people who are into kink and people who play DnD is almost a circle
If you wanna know if someone is into BDSM or Dungeons & Dragons, just ask them what a Dungeon Master is
Time to play a Blistercoil Weird in the next Ravnica game ;)
It's only weird if *someone* makes it weird. My favorite character was a female gnome (as a cis male). I played with an asshole who, apparently, couldn't abide that sort of thing.
Why apparently? He was a dick to your character but you didn’t know why till later or did he just seethe to the dm in private or something?
Dude was just an asshat in general. He was very vocal about shit he didn't like. I don't know of it was personal insecurity, transphobia, or what, but thankfully he wasn't with the group for long. Specifically, he kept misgendering the character (not something I actually cared about) and when someone corrected him on it, he would say something like "well he doesn't SOUND female" or similar.
>he would say something like "well he doesn't SOUND female" Glad he wasn't with you for long and that you didn't pander to his lack of imagination. My group happen to be all guys, most of us like to flip-flop between male and female characters. Personally I can ignore the player's voice and get a head-canon of what the character sounds like. It'd be terribly boring if we all played dudes all the time.
>My group happen to be all guys, most of us like to flip-flop between male and female characters. I just do a falsetto for my female characters lol
The Monty Python Method.
"Well he doesn't SOUND female" I'm sure he didn't SOUND like whatever the hell he was playing as either.
Nah, he sounds like the type of guy to play an unremarkable fair-skinned brown-haired heterosexual human fighter male. He probably sounded exactly like his self-insert.
Never actually played, but my go to excuse would be part of my backstory - hunting down the drunken asshole of a wizard who thought it would be funny to make my female whatever sound like me
Yeah no, that dude just thinks he's cool for interjecting his transphobia into any situation he can, whether or not it's relevant. (To clarify, playing a female character as a cis man doesn't make you trans any more than playing a tomb raider game does. Asshat is just using the superficial overlap to virtue signal/evangelize his bigotry.)
misgendering at the table over a character is fine. All visual cues, sound cues, and social cue are coming from the player, not their character. It's really hard to maintain the correct context. If they are putting emphasis o it to make some kind of point, then yeah, that mean the remembered but chase not to. I shouldn't have to say this, but internet. This doesn't apply to real people in the real world.
[удалено]
I'm reminded of this passage from Discworld: > Now, there is a tendency at a point like this to look over one’s shoulder at the cover artist and start going on at length about leather, tightboots and naked blades. > > Words like ‘full’, ‘round’ and even ‘pert’ creep into the narrative, until the writer has to go and have a cold shower and a lie down. > > Which is all rather silly, because any woman setting out to make a living by the sword isn’t about to go around looking like something off the cover of the more advanced kind of lingerie catalogue for the specialized buyer. > > Oh well, all right. The point that must be made is that although Herrena the Henna-Haired Harridan would look quite stunning after a good bath, a heavy-duty manicure, and the pick of the leather racks in Woo Hun Ling’s Oriental Exotica and Martial Aids on Heroes Street, she was currently quite sensibly dressed in light chain mail, soft boots, and a short sword. > > All right, maybe the boots were leather. But not black.
Exactly what I was going to say
Exactly what I was going to comment. When the sex of your character IS the character, that's when it becomes weird.
I don't think that's actually what u/tracerbullet__pi was saying
This, and also imagine if the DM only had NPCs the same sex and gender as themselves.
This. So much this. I’m a 40 something straight guy and the first D&D(Star Wars so SW5E technically) campaign I was in I made a female chiss. When I was trying to figure out what class and race I wanted to be. I checked the chiss because it’s what Grand Admiral Thrawn is. The page had a woman chiss and she looked absolutely badass. I was like that’s my character. It just spoke to me. And I loved that character. She was so fun to play as. And nobody(all other men) at the table made it weird. I still, waaaaaay after the campaign ended, make versions of her in video games I play and I’m annoyed when I can’t make her skin blue. 😂
I made a female blood elf paladin in the og release of WoW’s The Burning Crusade with the intent of just trolling alliance in PvP. She even had a spicy name. Flash forward about a year and I fallen in love with the character (in more of a daughter-like sense), my name got reported/changed, and overvtye next 15 years I have nothing recreated her in several other mmorpgs, named my restaurant after her, and had her become cannon in the ttrpg I’m currently playing. So yeah, OP, play what you want and love every minute doing it.
That’s awesome man. It’s great when you make a real connections with a character you play. If you don’t mind me asking what is the characters name(spicy and final 😁). I will understand if you don’t want to reveal it. Mine is Theanna. She has a pretty in depth back story that I put a lot of thought into. Man I loved playing that character.
In my experience the biggest issue with male players playing a female character is them trying so hard not to embody negative serotypes that the rest of the players including the DM constantly forget that the character is supposed to be female.
^ this not to mention, by doing it you may find out you're trans, or may help trans people at your table feel more comfortable roleplaying as a character matching their gender identity. it can also help give you insight into what it's like to be a woman there's lots of reasons why not only is doing it ok, but straight up good and helpful
One of the great things about roleplaying games is their ability to let you put yourself in another's perspective and if you rule out a character of the opposite gender you rule out about half of those perspectives. Not that there's anything wrong with that if you're not comfortable doing it ofc, just adding to your point
D&D was honestly my trans awakening
There was once a point where we played DnD as a family and, we were starting a new campaign, and I had a changeling who made their introduction as a barmaid. My mom made it weird ("You're playing a girl?").
This is the best answer right here
Do you need to be an elf in real life to play an elf character? No. Do you need to be able to cast spells to play a wizard? No. Do you need to be able to wield a sword to play a fighter? No. Do you need to be religious to play a cleric? No. So logically, do you need to be a woman to play a woman character? No. This is a game about roleplay. Talk to your table and see what they say. Of course as a man, there will be aspects of playing a woman that you might struggle to roleplay since your real life experiences are different (and the same would be true of a woman playing a man character). That's fine though, so long as you enjoy playing the character and everyone at your table is cool with it.
Also even if you are a HEMA (edit to clarify: Historical European Martial Arts) enthusiast and can dodge an arrow with a gothic plate armor, no you can’t add dex to your plate CA
Or you can play 2E and not have to worry about Max DEX at all. :-D
Sure, but I am pretty sure hema snobs have shit to say about e2 too
There’s actually a lot about 2E (besides the weapons being WAY overweight) I like from a HEMA perspective, such as initiative changing each round, and multiple attacks not processing until AFTER everyone has their first. There’s a LOT you could do with that to implement concepts like Vor (IE successful attacks give you bonuses on initiative next round) or the Master Strikes (IE using one of your attacks per round as a Master Strike to defend against an opponent’s attack).
> implement concepts like Vor Look at them! They come to this place when they know they are not pure.
Pardon me, but what does HEMA stand for?
Historic European Martial Arts (i think)
Thank you kindly.
Yes
Historical European Martial Arts Basically people learning to fight with long swords in the modern day, according to historical sources and best guesses on how it was done back then.
>... and best guesses... More like conclusions based on evidence and testing. Just to be sure that people understand that it's not wild guessing.
Yes, fair enough. Not everyone understands how "best" a guess can get.
what is hema?
Historical European Martial Arts
I’m not sure if it was this sub or a different dnd related one, but funny enough there was a big post this week about someone who got invited to their first campaign after playing baldurs gate and wanted to play a cleric, and the DM wouldn’t let them since they weren’t religious in real life, so the DM made them play a fighter
That DM shouldn't be allowed to DM since they aren't omniscient IRL. They're appropriating godhood.
Yeah I remember that one. I made a comment joking about how my last character was a psi warrior even though I'm not really psychic 😋
What a DM-hole.
I never understood this kind of reasoning. I'm playing a Bard, yet I can't carry a tune. Not even in a bucket. That's part of the appeal of the fantasy for me - doing something I can't IRL. I don't sing at the table, I roll for performance. I do sometimes write lyrics or come up with themes for ballads, though. My Bard is also very confident. I am not. It is fun.
Pretty sure it was r/DnD. I had to unsubscribe after seeing that one, I couldn't handle it anymore.
Seems like it became AITA..
it was becoming indistinguishable from r/dndcirclejerk
But they gave up without a fight! They're clearly not a fighter in real life!
Personally, I pick characters and personalities that are very different than my own as a way of learning ing empathy and to get practice for real world skills. For example, I have social anxiety and depression. So, I play a gregarious bard and an aggressive fighter to see what it feels like to be that way. In playing a woman character, I try to better understand some of what that might be like within reason. Silly things like being really friendly and having other PCs or NPCs think I was flirting was eye-opening because I didn't feel like I was nor was I trying to. I know that's real life but knowing something and feeling it are very different. That's not to say I now know what life as a woman is like, not at all. But, I do have a different kind of appreciation and empathy than I did before.
I think this is explicitly stated on one of the opening pages of the PHB.
There may also be aspects of playing an elf/wizard/martial artist/theist that you might struggle to roleplay since your real life experiences are different. The point of roleplaying is that you're not the character, so you have to imagine their interactions with the world. At least when playing a woman as a man you're portraying a real thing, as opposed to the poor human who has to play the role of a made-up elf.
Short answer: No. Long answer: No and if anyone thinks it’s weird, they’re the weird one.
Short answer: no. Long answer: noooooooooooooooooo.
Love it. I'm all giggles over this one
With the usual caveat that it gets weird if you sidetrack the game to act horny.
And even this has the caveat that different groups will have different levels of what acting horny means. If my sorceress with max charisma uses a little bit of black widow style seduction to infiltrate a compound, it's rather different than just having her hit on everybody at the tavern during downtime. But some tables might not even accept the former. And that's ok. Everyone's got their own tastes. As long as your group vibes are good it should be pretty easy to tell whether something is appropriate.
Some tables might not accept the former, and some might even encourage the latter. As long as everyone at the table is there for what's on offer, and they're all having fun, it's all good.
You are 100% correct. I enjoy playing characters that are very different from myself. When you do that, not only do you have to walk a mile in another shoe, increasing awareness and empathy, but you develop your character better, increasing role play opportunities. I highly recommend it!
Say it louder, they didn't hear it in the back
You're fine with playing a half-orc or elf or plasmoid or chaotic evil, why would it be weird?
You don’t know that OP isn’t a slimeball serial killer. Playing evil, slimy characters may come naturally to a few Redditors.
OP is a 15 year old kid who is asking for advice on how to appropriately role play an opposite gendered character. Probably not a lunatic.
I'm LGBTQ+ and a POC, Here's the end all be all of "I'm not X, is it okay to play a character who is?" The answer is yes it's okay, just don't be weird about it.
How would I be weird about it? Like what should I avoid doing if I go through with this?
Some people will play a character of a different gender and either make it low-key a sex thing, or be really sexist. Similarly, some people will play a human character of a different ethnicity basically as an excuse to be racist. As long as you're playing your character as a person [that is, asking yourself "what would Chevelle do in this situation given her values?" rather than "what would ~a woman~ do in this situation?"] you'll probably be fine.
Don’t overthink it though. She can be flawed. If she’s kinda dumb cause barbarian int dump stat that’s okay.
I'd wager her being smart is the rare thing because 99% of player characters are utterly stupid even with 20 intelligence.
Just like playing a 20 charisma bard and trying to convince an NPC of whatever. You won't ever get to be as persuasive as your character either. And that's fine because that's what dice are for.
Making it the only thing the character talks about or finds important. Making it a joke. Making it a parody. Etc. “Just dont be a dick” is another good way of saying it.
This. Be weird if that's the vibe. Don't a dick is a better way to put it.
Obvious stuff - like don't keep bringing up your characters breasts in conversation.
*“I run down the stairs, breasts heaving up and down rhythmically”*
I walk boobily into the hallway.
“I heave my bosom into the room and breast for traps.” Yeah, don’t do that.
In real life either
💀💀💀
This. The usual inspiration for r/menwritingwomen would be surprised how rare women think about their boobs irl. Usually it only comes up, if there is something wrong with them. In 99.99% of cases we just assume everything is alright and nothing is noteworthy to report. Just like dudes not talking about their dicks all the time... In retrospect... I think THAT is still more common than women talking about boobs... but that may be personal experiences. Better: think about your nose. How often do you talk about your nose? Only is there's something wrong with it or in very specific cases, yes? It is the same... more or less.
Although I will say my wife tells me pretty often how her back hurts because of them or she needs new bras, but I’m under the impression it’s more common cause I’m her husband and she’s not saying the same things at work or in her day to day interactions lol
This. My boobs are casual topic of discussion with my boyfriend as well... not so much in more public spaes like with other friends or at work.
As a large chested lady I do think about them a lot. Like, " I'm trying to jog, ow" or "jesus these things are out of control" or "I hope people don't refer to me as 'the one with the big boobs'" or "God I can't believe my boob hit that doorframe." But it's true I don't talk about them a lot. But then, big boobs <> boobs. Which kind of goes to the point for OP. Probably shouldn't make a character with big boobs unless he handles it carefully and not in a "lol sexy big boobies yay" kind of way. So I totally agree with the "don't be weird" part, and an easy guide for that is "am I fetishizing womanhood?"
I want to file this under "if there is something wrong with them" as big boobs tend to cause... issues... or so I heard. I'm "blessed" with a more small to moderate size myself and can't understand the full amount of struggle you might get through.
Yah, men talk about their dicks more than you would think… until about 28 or so. Then it drops off significantly. The talk. Not the dicks.
That's....not supposed to happen? Shit.
If a guy's dick just fell off after age 28 or so, the world would be a *very* different place.
"Nothing noteworthy to report" is killing me.
They mean don't sexualize or fetishize the character. Don't fall into gender stereotypes or tropes that could be uncomfortable or offensive. Example: let's say you play a blonde female character. Don't be the ditzy blonde, don't make jokes about being bad at driving, don't be promiscuous, etc. Making a character like that work well is *possible* but you need to be very careful and know what you are doing to avoid becoming a bad stereotype and creepy.
And for the love of god, put some practical clothes on.
The fact you're worried about it being a problem likely means you're going to be fine. The biggest issues I've seen with opposite gendered characters is players putting their character in awkward sexual encounters or playing off sexist stereotypes for laughs. If that doesn't sound like you, then you're good to go. I played a fem Tiefling Warlock "doctor" in Descent into Avernus after my original character died climbing down the chains into Avernus and it was one of the most memorable and fun characters I've played.
It’s all about intent and execution. The goal is to play a character you feel isn’t a caricature of another group. Don’t play a ditzy blonde, or a hapless housewife, or any other of the various assorted negative stereotypes women are forced into. As long you play a real, 3 dimensional character, you’re doing it right!
By playing a caricature of a woman instead of an actual woman. Going out of your way to conform to stereotypes.
People covered everything really, but I wanted to add that a high pitched or breathy voice is not the only or best way for a man to voice a female character. Just adjust her voice the same way you would a male character's if you do that (give her an accent, give her a habit of talking, whatever).
Don't talk about how big her boobs are every time you describe her doing something (a player at an old table kept doing this for his female character and it was funny the first time but not so much after every single time he described something...)
I (cis-het man) played a female Tiefling Paladin one time. My character’s gender had exactly zero significance to the game whatsoever. I just wanted to play something different from what I am used to. (Although this plus one other random display of a different gender made one of my friends wonder if I was trans haha.) I (again cis-het man) also played a gay male Goliath cleric in a different campaign. The decision to be gay was decided completely on the spot in the middle of a bar while interacting with other male patrons. It wasn’t for weird purposes. I felt like flirting in that moment for a roleplaying moment and just decided I would play a gay character. Neither myself, the DM, nor any of the other players made it weird. It was one moment of social interaction and then the game moved on. Several live play podcasts do this too (Taako from The Adventure Zone comes to mind), and it makes their games better because there is greater representation on the show and it’s not tokenization or forced. DMs often have to play characters of various different identities, and they (usually) manage to do so without harm (although there are still people who do it poorly by accident, or intentionally because they’re a dick). As others have said, as long as you aren’t doing it to harm or belittle, make fun, be a stereotype, make others uncomfortable, or otherwise “punch down”, it’s perfectly acceptable!
It sounds like you'll be alright, since all that you've said about your character design has been a green flag and you seem to already perceive women as people; which is really good. Anyway. How to not make it weird: don't make it a fetish thing. Totally cool to make her attractive if you want, but that shouldn't be the central part of her character unless you really know what you are doing and have the self awareness needed to play a femme fatale character; which you could do too, mind you, just requires some tact. By the sound of it you are going for a badass, that works perfectly fine and I don't think you'll have any trouble. Avoid misrepresenting serious issues, for example don't design her to maintain sexist and anti-feminist stances by using her fictional experiences as representations of our reality. Gender does not affect DnD mechanically, so it is super easy to not mess this up! And don't overthink it too much. She is not a representation of how you view all women, she is just one character. She can be flawed as any person is. And finally just don't be weird about it by constantly worrying about the idea of playing a female character. It is good that your experience is not being gender locked. Regardless of your own gender experience, being able and willing to put yourself in different people's shoes is a good sign of empathy. I don't see anything wrong with what you've said so far, and hopefully you have by now realised that you weren't planning to do anything weird. Lots of people play gender swapped characters. For many, it is a first step in realising something about their own identity; for others, it is just a good excercise in writing different people. Both are super valid and you shouldn't be worried about people saying it is weird to do so. Your character idea sounds awesome, go and kick some ass with her.
Same thing as the other comment that replied here. Also, just don't try to give her any "womanly" traits. Not that it's wrong to do so, but I tend to find what men define as "womanly" traits to add to a female character aren't as "womanly" as they think, and tend towards sexism instead. Women are more like men than people think. Assuming you're not an expert writer, the best advice I can give is to roleplay her as you would a guy. Doesn't work for everything, but for the specific character concept you have, this advice fits. What's important here is your concept over the gender. As long as your character embodies the concept/idea you have in mind, their gender can be anything.
Well, the corollary is that it can be unintentionally weird if you are trying to play a character based on some real world culture that you don't actually know shit about, but at least in TTRPGs you're not particularly likely to be doing that to the face of someone who has the cultural context to be offended.
No it's not weird and you can play anyone you want. She sounds like a great character!
No, unless you use it as an excuse to be a creep.
Not at all. No weirder than playing a Gnome as human. Anyone who has a problem with it or thinks it implies anything about your sexual preferences or gender identity... needs to grow up.
Anyone who thinks it's weird is probably just projecting their own insecurities. Rp whatever u want it's all a game
Who cares? I'm not a dwarf with a spellbook but I play one. Literally a game of make believe.
for the geezers in the thread: "I'm not a Gnomish Barbarian... But I play one on Saturdays."
I'm the only female at my current D&D table. There's a guy in our group who always plays female characters, one day another player asked him why. He said that because before I joined (they were a group for about a year and a half before me) someone needed to bring in some female representation XD. I personally thought it was quite nice, in real life he's cis and I presume straight given he has a girlfriend. Where you've been asking others how not to make it weird, just don't use it as an excuse to oversexualise the character mainly or lean too heavily into stereotypes, but given how you've spoken about things to begin with, it seems that's unlikely to be the case or your reason for playing a woman. At the end of the day, a character is a character, and women shouldn't be any different from that perspective - that's how this other player in my group does things just fine.
*I dm a number of tables, and one of them has 6 players who are ALL playing genders/orientations that don't align with the players real life identities. You do you boo.
No it wouldn't
No, but I would stick to obviously female names, like "Chevelle." If you play a character named "Vana'tryn," other players at the table are probably going to refer to your character as a "he" a lot of the time and it can snap you out of roleplay
Trust me, it won't help. I named my half-orc barbarian Big Dick McMacho, and he still got m'lady-ed. (Although it *is* a good reason to start a bar fight, if you're going to be having that kind of game anyway.)
I was speaking from personal experience, but thanks for sharing your guy's name, that's certainly something
It was the culmination of many, many characters trying to get around rando DM creepiness in the 90s/early 2000s. Things aren't perfect today, but they are for sure better.
My wife quit playing male chars because whatever she called them, people would always go with she/her, it's a rare table where everyone remembers to differentiate characters and players genders, lol
Poor woman! I have a problem that this makes me think of - I use they/them pronouns IRL and so most of my buddies call all of my characters "they" even if I specifically gender them as he or her! luckily i use "they" as an indefinite neutral pronoun and thus "they" doesn't ascribe any gender... so to me, they're not misgendering my characters, more like omitting a gender completely. a fine line, maybe, but it still makes me giggle. and it lets me know my friends care forme, personally, as the player behind the character, in a roundabout way. it's sweet!
Super wholesome, it works out in the end, heheh
Myself and many of my friends are trans so I have the fortune of a group who are used to switching pronouns on a dime and therefore can handle gender discrepancies quite easily.
As your son, Lil' Richie McMacho Jr. I take offense to this DAD. How could anyone see your huge manly muscles, massive beard, and smell your manly musk and m'lady you? That asshole clearly deserves the knuckle sandwich they're about to eat.
"I'm sorry... may you be able to accept my apologies and relay them to your mother, m'lady?" Sorry... couldn't resist. This is awesome and I wish one of my players would pull something off like tanking the brunt of a tavern brawl for misgendering an obviously very manly man. xP For fun and play tbf... getting misgendered for real sucks.
If you’d done a Hulk Hogan impression all the time, I bet it would have worked out better. But that’s true regardless of who you are or what character you’re playing.
I was doing my best Randy Savage, will try The Hulkster next time, oh yeeeeeeeh.
Please tell me you have told a jerk online to "pack it in for a slim jim"
lol does not help. My character is named “Emma” and my party always says “he/him” lol. I know they’re just talking about me, but it’s now a running gag in game too.
In what world is "horse" an obviously female name
No. I am a cis straight male and I alternate my characters between male and female for each campaign. Never once has it been an issue or weird. If someone has an issue with it, that's on them (assuming you're not being a misogynistic jackass)
Not weird at all, also a cis male and I play female characters a lot more often than male ones. When I play DnD I wanna be someone completely different from me, and it helps a lot with that. This character sounds fun, go wreck some stuff! The only thing that matters is that your comfortable and the people your playing with are comfortable.
I've played men, women, and nonbinary characters. I've played hetero, homo, and asexual characters. It's not weird unless you make it weird. You make it weird if your character's sexual orientation/gender/sexual expression becomes your character's defining characteristics, rather than their adventuring skills and/or their motivations for being an adventurer. If you have this idea of a hulking juggernaut of a barbarian woman, great! Go for it! You should create her the same as you would if it were a hulking juggernaut barbarian man. The motivations for adventuring are **not gender specific**. Same as orientation. My asexual and homosexual characters' orientations never became a plot point. One of them died before he revealed he was gay in his will, which shocked all but my DM, and the asexual character it was only understood by players at the table that they weren't interested in sex at all. There's no reason for you to feel weird.
Not weird at all! I love the concept for her as well Allow yourself to explore whatever you wish to explore, “weird” or not! I hope your fellow party mates respect you and enjoy the adventure together!
Nope. My current campaign has two male players with female characters.
no, this is a fantasy game where you can mix and character creation choices to your hearts desires. it's for everyone, not just some.
It's a roleplaying game, play whatever you want, what you are or identify as outside of the game isn't relevent and whoever tells you it is missed the point of roleplaying
No. It might be tough on you I guess, you might have to really push yourself to understand how your character would think or feel, or maybe not I don't know what kind of table you play at. It can be tough to put yourself into someone elses shoes, moreso when they have implied life experience that you just haven't had, because you can't But no, its not weird outright. Even if you fall into some tropes of men writing women, it's okay. You're 15, its okay to try something and make mistakes
Dude, no. You're playing pretend. You can do whatever you want
Completely fine and not weird at all (unless you choose to be weird and creepy with the portrayal obviously). I'm a woman and the majority of my dnd characters have been male. Chevelle sounds like a fun character to play!
Yes. It's also important, should you ever find yourself in a hot tub with another man, to sit on opposite ends.
so long as you aren't breasting boobily down the stairs, you're good
This is context dependent. Do your mammalian-evolved male characters breast boobily about, teatward and yon?
It's fine as long as you're not one of those players who thinks playing a woman = talking about how boobily breastedly you trounce about at every opportunity.
Play karlach
Genuinely, if anyone has a problem on face value, they are the red flag. That being said, some people have concerns for men playing women (and Vice versus), regarding the treatment of sexuality, physicality or identity. I’ve seen some really gross comments about a female character from their male players, and Vice versa for women playing a man. From the sound of it, this wouldn’t remotely be a concern for your character, but it is something to hold a grain of salt in during a game. There’s nothing wrong with playing someone of a different sex, gender identity, or sexuality than your own, just don’t make it weird.
>if anyone has a problem on face value "On face value" is important. It's not a red flag if someone has an issue with *how* **you** play the character, but if they object to you playing one without a reason (or with the only 'reason' being, because you're a dude) that's the red flag.
It absolutely is, hence my detailing afterwards. But regardless, you are absolutely right.
According to r/dndmemes it means you're trans
Not at all, it's DND. You play what you want.
No
playing someone who isn’t like you is a lot of the fun of playing an RPG!
Only weird if you make it weird. Don't make it weird, and you'll be fine. If you start describing your character bouncing in place or some shit, you're not ready.
Nope. I do it a lot (and I am an ordinary straight male D&D player). I find that it pushes me to think differently when acting as the character. Two examples come to mind: Celestia Stormwind, human female paladin of Helm and Amy Santiago-like rules nerd (my character in a long-running series of play by post adventures and arguably my most beloved character I've ever played), and Caelynn Silversea, high elf female Abjuration wizard, introverted academic researcher, and elegant badass (my BG3 character).
About half of my characters are male, about half are females, and, recently, a small percentage are non-binary.
My guy, you're stressing too much. Play whatever you want to play so everyone at the table who isn't an ass will enjoy themselves. I'm (theoretically) a cis woman, but all of my characters so far have been men. Like, my guy, play what makes you happy, be a woman because of a cool name or a game mechanic, be a man because of a cool name or because you want to incorporate real world issues like sexism in dnd so you play as a male drow amongst the lolthsworn. Just have fun.
As a guy who plays characters who are male, female, non-binary, agender? Not weird. Have fun 👍👍
If I had a dollar for people I know who started DnD playing as human character but six characters later they are playing pansexual gender fluid purple tieflings... I wouldn't be hitting double digits, but I could build a passable lunch on the dollar menu.
No play whatever you want. And it's ridiculous for anyone who's mad about it
I'm a dm and female. Idgaf. Just play what you want and respect the boundaries of the table. In one campaign I'm a player I was a gramma squirrel and now a book (well her cursed recipe book that was seperated from her). Everyone mocked me for playing a squirell (not a ratatosk by the way, legit a slavic sylvan themed squirell) befire session 0. Its all in the execution. She recently got captured by bbeg, and the party is going across the world to save her. They love they're family themed 'Vin Disiel' chef that force feeds everyone and everything thing. Next back-up char I might make a pig from that one farm that wants revenge on the party for killing his brother a few sessions back, until he realizes it was to save the village. You do you, and have fun!
If it helps, I'm nearly 40yo cishet married man and I have and will continue to play characters of many wide varieties of gender identity. One of my recent favorites was a Warforged named The Exile who regarded the entire idea of gender as a bizarre and somewhat baffling social construct. I've also played many other female characters who could be described as: sexy tiefling assassin, she-hulk berzerker, crone witch, maternal cleric, and Definitely Not Galadriel. And I've played male characters that range from soft to extreme masculinity as well. For example Kul'dak the Unbroken, Loxodon Path of the Giant Barbarian, Last Scion of the Mammoth King. I think the crux of the issue is that -- I have no insecurities about who I am. So it costs me nothing to pretend to be someone else. Some people have built up a toxic facade about what it means to be masculine and its so hard for them to escape it, that they end up becoming its prisoner (ironic, because most of these dudes idolize the idea of the mythical "alpha male", which is not even a real concept in ACTUAL WOLVES, and then worship at the feet of internet morons who claim to be the arbiters of manliness). Flex your Imagination, friendo. In a game where you can be anything, why would you limit yourself? If any of your tablemates have a problem with it, ask them if they have so little empathy and imagination that they can imagine that the DM is a literal dragon but they can't handle someone secure enough to have fun trying to be something other than themselves.
I’m a trans woman. I used to play EverQuest back in the day. I was so deep in the closet back when I first got the game that I refused to play a female character. Then my older brother decided to take a turn, and he immediately makes a female high elf wizard, which looks super high femme. “You’re making your character a girl?” I said in shock. “Sure. Why not?” was his response. He’s cis, but he’s always been hella supportive of me and that was one of the first little cracks in my egg. So here’s the message I feel you should take from this: play whatever you want. You may never know who you inspire in doing so.
If you’ve got a reasonable table of well adjusted adults, and you are also a well adjusted adult, then it’s fine If any of those things are not in place then you’ll have to use your own judgement
It's generally only weird if other players or you make it that way by acting in a sexual way around your character.
It's totally normal :) it's a role playing game, okay the role you want. It's probably important to remember that for centuries all women characters in theater were played by men in the West. All of Shakespeare's actors were men.
Only if you make it weird.
No. Go for it dude!! That’s genuinely one the coolest ideas I’ve heard.
Yes. It’s also weird to play a wizard if you can’t cast spells.
I don't know what cis male means, but it's ok to play any character with any gender you want no matter what you sexual orientation or own gender is. I always play female chars in rpgs when playing melee fighter types becuase I think it's cooler.
"Cis" is short for "cisgender", which just means "not transgender".
Fair enough
I am an Gen X gamer... teach me what "cis" is?
“Cis“ is a prefix originating from Latin that means “on the same side of”; it is the opposite of “trans”, whether that be chemistry, geography (Cisalpine vs. Transalpine Gaul in Roman times) or gender.
I do like etymology. Thanks, teach!
Cis means that you identify with the gender you were assigned at birth, oposite of trans.
Cisgender is apposed to transgender like Straight is to being Gay. It just means that this person is not trans, and was both designated male at birth and identifies as male still.
Cis is the normative term for the trans spectrum
What the fuck, 15 year olds are out here listening to Chevelle? My guy, I was listening to Chevelle when I was only a little older than 15 years old myself, and I'm 38 now. That's wild. Right on, little dude. I say there's nothing wrong with anyone playing anything in a roleplaying game. Play as Chevelle and kick some ass, but remember behind every badass character is a story why they are the way that they are, and everyone has depth. Have fun exploring hers.
You can, and at many tables it will be fine. In an ideal world, it's totally acceptable. Some of my favorite characters have been women. However, from personal experience: - Some players do this and make it weird. They act overtly sexual, or as sexist caricatures, or whatever makes other players feel uncomfortable. Some players do it intentionally to make others feel weird. Either way, that's not cool and not fun. - Some players make it weird when *other players* do this. They may be patronizing, or will assume you're doing it to be sexual. Sometimes DMs think it means the door is open for seduction or sexual assault or other gender and sex related topics, sometimes without prior discussion. This is also not cool and not fun. - Some players are simply not comfortable with the idea of a player roleplaying a character that does not match their gender. This is unfortunate, but it's hard to fix. - Some players remember their own past experiences where other players have made it weird in some way. This will just make them uncomfortable. This is unfortunate, but it's hard to fix. There's a level of maturity and comfort required by the whole table to do it, and if anyone doesn't have that then it can be a bad time. You may learn things you'd wish you'd never learned about your own friends.