Guys Playing Female Characters And The Reverse

[† poetictragedy]

True most rpg's do force you to play a male character, I haven't seen many that have a female protagonist

I love a game that has a good female protagonist. Portal is a prime example. <3

[Dark_Angel13]

I enjoy playing a female protagonist too because it's so rare, that's why with Skyrim I chose to make a fem and male character and I made up little stories for each too. Ah I love rpgs like Skyrim, you can play around with them so much

[† Emotional Outlet]

Buuuut if I have a choice or can create a character, I usually go with a lady. On the other hand, that doesn't mean that Marth isn't my choice SSB character. I guess I'm just whatever. XD

I like Roy over Marth (Roy's our boy), but I usually end up using Zelda/Sheik. Not that I know how to fight as her very well or have any control over whether I'm Sheik or Zelda, but I sure like to try.

The only game I can think of off-hand with a female lead I really liked is Digital, which is more a kinetic novel than anything else, but you can't just click through the screens and expect it to advance, haha. It doesn't say specifically in the game whether your silent protagonist is male or female, but the dev has stated she wrote it with a female protagonist in mind, despite the lack of identifying pronouns when used in-game to refer to your character.

(Obviously you have games like Metroid and Tomb Raider with female leads, but I haven't played any of those games and haven't much input on them. They seem to be rather controversial at this time.)

Edited August 30, 2012 by Emotional Outlet

[Dark_Angel13]

Tomb Raider is quite a good game actually, I enjoyed it a lot and bought the newest one for ps3 which I find enjoyable. Metroid was a curious game and I remember playing the first super smash brothers, I hadnt played metroid before so I thought Samus was actually a man haha. I use Link when I play SSB, he's got a lot of good moves and his sword spin thing is great for getting back up after being knocked off the map.

That's something I find quite strange now that you've mentioned it, it's quite a double standard too. If you play a game where you get to choose your gender and a male chooses a female he tends to be mocked by most other males and some females BUT if you play a game like tomb raider where you have no choice you don't get mocked or told you're insecure about your sexuality (which is a load of garbage because if you can't play a female character just because she's female you have problems)

[idl12]

I play female characters all the time..even on mmos..I also run around with the least amount of armor I can get away with..sure it makes the game super hard since I have to depend on item and spell buffs..but it makes me super hard to....ahem.(mild exaggeration there) Nothing wrong with it imo.

[Hupla]

Not really my thing to switch sexes. Just because I like to put myself into the character. But whatever floats your boat.

[coffeeNiK]

I almost always play a girl if I get the option to.

There were two exceptions, Persona 3 FES for the PSP. I just liked how the guy looked too much and Dragon Age 1, I wanted to be a male mage partly because I didn't like how the Female models looked.

[Owen]

As some others have posted, if I am going to be forced to stare at a character for long periods of time, it might as well be a hot female rather then a burly male. And for anyone that is trying to pick up on chicks in these games, they should realize 99% of the female characters are guys controlling them.

[madzero5]

the only one i've seen latly is FF13 but to be honest that was a BIG dissapointment still kinda a good game but a bad rpg

and when i play games that allow you to choose gender i normally go for female cuz theres just to many male (main chars.) as it is

[CRCGamer]

By default most of the characters I play are female. Don't really think about it much while playing to be honest. Partly because the game developers actually put more effort into the models. Partly because I don't identify with big burly beefsteak jock. And oh, because when I started playing games the girl characters were usually the more survivable. Had to do with a lot of the rogue-like games and whatnot giving girl characters a higher DEX or whatever increasing their dodge, speed, and accuracy.

[Rideout89]

I'm male, and I almost always make my primary character female if I have the option.

Especially if they can be a lesbian (Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Fable), but not if females can only look ugly (Elder Scrolls 4: Unmodded), then I'm a guy cause guys are usually ugly anyway. ^.^

It does seem to make my male friends uncomfortable, but I don't care, and girls don't seem to care either, probably due to their generally higher maturity levels.

[† Emotional Outlet]

Well, if they aren't gamers, they probably won't care regardless, haha. You'd likely have to play a completely ridiculous character to garner any scorn.

Speaking of lesbians, I find it interesting that when you're given homosexual options in a game, it's usually because the game is "blind" to these kinds of things, thus allowing you to pursue same sex characters at the cost of depth. Here's an article from 1Up on the phenomenon.

In the case of, say, Dragon Age, Isabella just treats the woman player character the same as she would the man player character. This is not radical. But it's a romance I can actually empathize with, instead of being forced to accept the weird dissonance of you being interested in her, but the flirting being directed towards a man.

[Dark_Angel13]

On the matter of gay characters it quite annoys me when people complain about Skyrim having the options to persue another male or another female. They say that it wouldnt be accepted during that time blah blah, 1. its a game. 2. dragons, skeletons, magic and giant blue fucking energy balls! Who gives a fuck about who you marry, all you use them for is for a shop anyway haha.

[decknine]

It's not that weird, sometimes they just seem better suited for the role.

[† Emotional Outlet]

On the matter of gay characters it quite annoys me when people complain about Skyrim having the options to persue another male or another female. They say that it wouldnt be accepted during that time blah blah, 1. its a game. 2. dragons, skeletons, magic and giant blue fucking energy balls! Who gives a fuck about who you marry, all you use them for is for a shop anyway haha.

Yeah, for real. I haven't married anyone yet in the game, but I adopted two brats who always ask me for allowances and allow wild animals into the house. Do they not realise that Skyrim isn't based on real life or real history, but is it's own universe entirely? I mean really. People complain about realism for the weirdest things.

There are a couple wannabe indie developers on Tumblr that I follow because I find the drama amusing and one of them wants to make a game where the main cast is primarily PoC and queer--queue nine billion people complaining that set-up is unrealistic, PoC and queers are the minority in the world and whine whine whine. Except it's not based on Earth??? And people tend to hang out with friends who are similar to them so you do end up with roving groups of gay people??

People are weird about that stuff. I just want to make potions with butterfly wings.

[dante15324]

I can understand a girl playing as a guy, especially in mmorpgs. There are a lot of people out there who pester female characters like crazy, or at least they have in the games I have played.

I once chose to play a female character in Knights of the Old Republic 2, just to see how things change, as well as to get different characters. It definitely changed the way the game was played.

[Dark_Angel13]

On the matter of gay characters it quite annoys me when people complain about Skyrim having the options to persue another male or another female. They say that it wouldnt be accepted during that time blah blah, 1. its a game. 2. dragons, skeletons, magic and giant blue fucking energy balls! Who gives a fuck about who you marry, all you use them for is for a shop anyway haha.

Yeah, for real. I haven't married anyone yet in the game, but I adopted two brats who always ask me for allowances and allow wild animals into the house. Do they not realise that Skyrim isn't based on real life or real history, but is it's own universe entirely? I mean really. People complain about realism for the weirdest things.

There are a couple wannabe indie developers on Tumblr that I follow because I find the drama amusing and one of them wants to make a game where the main cast is primarily PoC and queer--queue nine billion people complaining that set-up is unrealistic, PoC and queers are the minority in the world and whine whine whine. Except it's not based on Earth??? And people tend to hang out with friends who are similar to them so you do end up with roving groups of gay people??

People are weird about that stuff. I just want to make potions with butterfly wings.

Lol you can adopt ppl in skyrim? i didnt know that...-runs off to look up skyrim adoption- I hate ppl who bitch about realism too, I don't think they know the meaning of the words IT'S A GAME. It simply means, this is fake! I don't think I've ever seen a game state it was based off true events before so you cant bitch about realism when it is its own world etc.

[† Emotional Outlet]

You can adopt kids in Hearthfire. Like I said, they don't really do anything besides bother you and ruin your furniture by swinging their stupid wooden swords around. (I gave them the swords.)

I think what's important in a game is immersion. A game can be completely unrealistic as long as it's logical and doesn't break the immersion factor.

It definitely changed the way the game was played.

How did it change for you?

[Dark_Angel13]

Hmm will have to find these children and give them pretty swords to ruin my furniture lol

[body569]

its ok if u want to play a female character well i dont play female characters just because i want to customize my male character look except for s4league where i had to make a female character for a better gameplay iam not against male playing with female characters iam against male who pretend to be a female player