Comments on: XX and XY in RP

By: Venthos

Venthos — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:04:26 +0000

I think the easiest way to RP the other gender would be to just use the same thought process you would for your own gender, and let their perception of it do the rest. A guy and a girl could do exactly the same thing, but it would be viewed as for a different reason. So, I think RPing the other gender could be easier than it seems, at least to start. Plus, there are ’soft’ guys and ‘hard’ women in real life. I would think that healer classes likely would be more mellow, and tanks more stable and grounded. Of course, those are just stereotypes as well.

If your character seems like they aren’t following the general trend, then you’re just the exception! It’s more interesting to play that way though, don’t you think?

By: Prydion

Prydion — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:26:07 +0000

I’m male and I RP characters of both genders. When I rolled my first female character, I had to overcome some hang-ups concerning “what it meant and why I’m doing this” before the realization came that imagination isn’t something that conforms to a set of easily understandable conventions. Still, I felt it was an important process to at least check it out with myself beforehand so that I would be comfortable playing the character, else I might not enjoy it.
I decided I would level my lady in anonymity – at least for a chunk of her levels – to assuage my worry that WoW friends would innocently make this project harder on me. I imagined them assigning her a nickname like “Pryd-chick” that, while definitely amusing to me, could hamper roleplay and development of the character. And not only because they knew I was male IRL but because they might subconsciously associate her with my established main character. I wanted her to be perceived without prejudices, even if that meant social starvation for a while. To this end, I even eschewed some of the trappings of my other character’s successes – crafted items – in order to ensure I wouldn’t be “outed”. So Atrahasis, some random warlock, began her journeys in Azeroth.
It wasn’t an easy start. From the onset, I was too obsessed with giving her gender credibility and wondered how I might portray her feminine side without resorting to stereotypes that didn’t fit her persona. By borrowing traits from females in my real life and fictional characters, I found ones that I believed fit so well that they would feel – therefore hopefully seem – natural when I RP’d her. This worked out well for me. My “audience” was willing enough to accept her as being female and so it it seemed that credibility wasn’t something I had to work on so damn hard. But perhaps more importantly, I got to realizing that I did not need to try to impress MYSELF with just “how female” Atra is in order to satisfy my standards for how well I RP my character. By not putting her gender front and center, I could set my imagination free from yet another tether.
The final hang-up for me was the social engineering questions of playing a differently-gendered character in an MMO. Was I okay if someone assumed I was zomg-a-gurl IRL? How would I handle OOC questions? If I allowed myself to be perceived as female IRL by someone, would this mean I was necessarily deceiving a human being in a manner very different from and less agreeable than actors – who’s audience volunteers to be mislead by costumes and masks and makeup? What I desired was to avoid ANY establishment of my RL gender so that Atrahasis would be perceived only as what she appears to be. But who can pretend that MMOs aren’t social communities and it’s almost impossible to roleplay with someone for very long before OOC selves pop their heads through the curtain. We’re naturally curious creatures. I decided that I would not volunteer my RL gender, defer answering leading questions, allow the other player(s) to make up their own minds if they felt imagining the puppet master’s identity was so important. However, if it ever became a big deal for my RP partner(s) to know then I would never lie about my RL gender for the sake of securing my character’s identity.

By: Zuckerdachs

Zuckerdachs — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 19:35:06 +0000

I’m female, and I have never been able to roleplay a female character effectively regardless of game format. In WoW, for example, my first and longest-running character was a male Draenei, for whom I had an extremely long, complicated backstory that I RP’ed easily and enthusiastically. I recently got him a gender change out of curiosity, and even though most of the story wasn’t gender-specific, it hasn’t felt right and the backstory died.

I honestly do not think I could even RP myself if I had to.

By: Anna

Anna — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:07:03 +0000

@Styopa – I am well and particularly aware of all of your points, was not in any way attempting to be dismissive to what is, in fact, my own culture, and was only referring to it as my own frame of reference. I’ve never lived in a non-western culture (though I’ve lived in several different ones on both sides of the atlantic), and as such I don’t pretend to label or have in-depth understanding of those cultures or their gender roles.

I also warn you that your post is just a hair past what I generally allow as “civil discourse” on this site, and request that in the future, should you like to comment, that you consider possibly having a slightly more equitable way of responding without descending into barely concealed insults and (to use your word) pejorative assumptions about anyone who is involved in the conversation. Thanks.

By: Anna

Anna — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:03:11 +0000

@Lansiron –

I think you’ve probably got a really valid point there. Your characters all have very forthright, developed personalities and such – which isn’t always the case for mine when they’re first rolled. I tend to let characters kind of flesh themselves out through situations and RP – which has worked really well for some, but might not be the best way to go about it when I feel like I’m on so-called “unfamiliar” territory.