This is something been considering to write about for a while. It's also reflects on me truthfully as often in most cases I prefer going females characters rather than male. The question is why is this so?

My thoughts on this are so:

1. Originally many roleplays whether early computer games or boardgames often had only male characters. I'm not fully sure but I think the first was Aethra Chronicles (This is according to Ala'sund, don't quote me). I say this because many people now had chance to play as female characters and it was new, so since males were the main demographic at this point many chose to instead play females as it was new.

2. In my experience I've found I can write better for females than males. I'm not fully sure why, but I found this writing my unfinished novel, Chasing Rainbows, the female characters had more personality than the males. I've also found when I write males I tend to make characters shall I say too much like myself. This point more my experience, won't apply to everyone.

3. Many games differ experience of playing a male or female. Fallout 3 comes to mind as you have the 'Ladykiller Perk' which the males can't get. And some perks only the male can get. Thus making it rewarding to play both as male and female. Another example is Dragon Age where first played through as male and then female which changed experience for me.

4. There are some people who claim and believe that males only go females in roleplay because they like looking at female ass while playing. This sort of thinking I don't apply to.

So what's everyone else thoughts on this?

Remember keep opinions respectful.

I normally play Males and am a guy. But i have played Femlaes here and there and i fell they allow you to get a different view on things since you have to put your selfs in a womans shoes to understand the mbetter. It may lead to new perspectives espically in some roleplays or even when you look back

I would say that there is a general acceptance here on the site and online in general to female writers RPing as male characters but an aversion and ill-will toward male writers RPing female characters.

Oh this might be interesting.

I'm (what I like to believe) notorious for being a female who not only goes by a male screenname, but playing what might be an unhealthy amount of males. My reasons are this:

1) I am a heterosexual female. Since I use roleplay to enact some of my fantasies (not necessarily sexual), I like to have control over the male character, to make him do as I want him to do, whether he's a domineering slut or a touchy feely loving boyfriend. Most of the time I don't trust other people to play their men the way I want to.

2) Men are stereotypically the dominant sex. Seeing my online persona as dominant, it only makes sense to channel that through a male, gay or straight. Likewise, my female characters are rather submissive.

And...that's about it. Wanting to have control.

I have no problem with males playing female characters, as long as they're not grossly oversexualized. Other chats I've been to, this has been the case 9 times out of 10. At least here, with the limitations on romance and sexual content, you don't see that as much. And actually, the more blatantly sexist posts for female characters I've seen are by FEMALE players.

This sounded stupid. Sorry.

I am currently working on a book. To me, Playing as Both Male and Female allows me to see the view of both genders of a same angle. By roleplaying through the eyes of both an an accurate situation, my perspective writing has increased said book's quality. Well, according to my english teacher, and she's rather smart.

The trick is balancing the two, and it can get quite hard. I am male, and I attempt, without my knowing, to make my male charters take charge of the story, and try to the make the female sit in the background. That's a view of a lot of males, wether we know it or not. As I reread a character sketch, I slap myself for doing this. I simply change my perspective, and ask 'How would the female look at my character?" From there, I realize what I must change.

Is it easier to play as a Male? For me, definatly.After all. I know what I think about, beacuse I myself am Male. Playing as a female is educational. Really hard to do perfectly. In fact, I CANNOT play it perfectly. Reading Female posts by Female people shelps slightly, as long as they don't exxagerate. To learn, and to increase my writing quality, I play as females often.

Sorry If I'm simply rambling.

MisterMars wrote:Oh this might be interesting.

I'm (what I like to believe) notorious for being a female who not only goes by a male screenname, but playing what might be an unhealthy amount of males.

Oh, darling, trust me, I feel that way too. Everywhere I go on here someone will refer to me as "he" and one of my friends will step in and say, "You know Jeff's a girl, right?" And then everyone will be all shocked and maybe slightly awkward for a moment...Anyways.

I prefer to play male characters because of this, and it may be a stupid reason but please just bear with me: I'm a major nerd, I've always loved superheros and Star Wars and such, so, naturally, as a kid I liked to play such games with my friends. My group of friends was predominately male and they never let me be Captain America, I had to be a girl superhero. Thing was: I didn't like any of the girl superheros they would let me bring into the story (why they hated She-Hulk so much, I will never know) And I didn't want to be dependent on them in our little stories, so I simply made them let me pretend to be one of the "cool" heros...Until I got bored of pretending to be someone else's hero and started to make my own, which, because of my experiences, were largely male. Though, I did make some female heros, too.

Now, that attitude continued when I began to rp on another website, I was told that girls just couldn't role play for male characters because they wouldn't do it right. Being twelve and still as stubborn as ever, I set out to prove them wrong, and in the end found that I just like playing male characters more. There really is a difference in certain things, not how they act or anything, but the way men think and a few other things can be different from the way women think.

So, basically, I play male characters because I like to. Don't mind guys that play female characters because they like to, either. One of my best rpg friends is like that, we have a blast together, too.

...Gah, this turned into a rant. Sorry about that.

Unless I feel some sort of divine inspiration and simply MUST make a certain character, I usually make the gender I think the RP is lacking for my character.

Often I look at what I think the RP is missing- what personality, gender, age, etc. would be new and different. I can play (I think anyway) a male character as well as I play a female character, though my males are usually gay or feminine. Not because I can't play a masculine or heterosexual male well, per se, but because there are already usually so many in the RP that I feel like I need to mix it up.

I can play both genders quite easily. I tend to play male roles because people rarely want to take them in many cases.

I'm a male and I usually will play my RP's with a male character.
I usually do my own sci-fi RP's and generally only join ones where they let in basically any type of character. I'm new to this site, but I've done a LOT of RP in the past, especially on the Spore forums.
Anyhow, I have a number of characters, but only four main characters that I use on a regular basis. One is female, two are male and one is a robot.
M5000: Male. Intelligent, toned body, fast and agile, but still relatively strong.
Rex: Good ol' boy. Gigantic tank. Was a shock trooper. Slow, not too bright, but nice and calm generally, unless provoked.
Mina: Female, very sexy, sleek, quick and agile, spy/sniper. Charismatic and kind normally except when in the line of duty, then is very determined and cold.
IGD-75: Robot. No real personality, doesn't really talk.

I'll often make up more "disposable" characters as I go along without real names for the sake of having continuity. This method has worked well for me. I enjoy playing as both male and female characters though. I don't think I write either way "better" and I don't just play them because they're new. There are certain things I like about each gender. Though, there are some sexuality reasons why I play as females, but the same applies to males, I don't know, I guess I'm sort of bisexual in a sense, but the main reason I play as either is just for more realistic balance of genders, that's about all.

Its good to open yourself to new ways of writing. I suck at being a guy in stories but its still fun to try. =)

I have been discussing this manner a lot lately with friends of mine.

In RP forums and in RPGs where the gender difference doesn't really matter, i strongly support people to play both the same and the oppossite sex. The differences are minimal and only for the "how my character looks like" thing.

In Pen and Paper RPGs i organize, at least those based on reality as much as possible, i do not allow males roleplaying females and vice versa. Whatever many people may say no man can understand how a woman see the world and no woman can understand how a man sees the world.

Males will never understand why females paint their faces and nails, why they react with fear in some weird cases, why they don't just get in bed to earn easy money and partners, why most of them prefer not to learn to fight, etc.

Females will never understand why a male gets extra angry when a female doesn't complement him, the pain to have something in your groin, the reasons a man would and wouldn't become homosexual, the reason why a male wants to be the "Alpha male", etc.

Most women i encountered playing in active RPGs or PnP games are either roleplaying a female feminist or a male "alphamalish" who likes to beat up people.

I personally am a male STing for seven years. All this time i have only managed to create 2-3 completely (as far as people, both males and females, tell me) normal women. All others are either kind of male-like or too female-like.

So, to end the monologue, i personally prefer to roleplay male characters as i can understand them better, but i can say easily that i have created a female character once that i admire the same as much as i do my favourite male characters.

While I can see the point you're making and respect your opinion, I completely disagree. I concede that men will never completely understand what it means to be inherently female and vice versa, but that doesn't mean they can't accurately and wonderfully portray them as characters through an expressive medium. Authors of novels, plays, movies, short stories, and many other forms of expression write deep, wonderful and intriguing characters of both sexes when the author is mostly definitely only one gender and often the opposite of the best characters in that work of art.

That's why this opinion of mine goes only for active RPGs and PnP. I know a great bunch of authors, but a book is a one way story that is written by one person portraying his own ideas and beliefs. Same thing goes for forum RPGs, where you are actually not only controlling your character, but his surroundings mostly too.

In an active roleplaying going on it is completely different. While a forum RPG and a book are made of, practically, cool scenes following one another, an active RPG has more "backscene" story going on, where the PCs interact with each other and where bad and uncool things may happen.

I myself can efficiently write a story of a female or create a female npc etc, but those are not 24/7 live and only appear to brief/interact/fight with the PCs. I know how a female character would react to the great war of Ancients, how she will react if she falls in love with one of the player characters (or at least partly), how she will react if she is attacked, how she will react if a red dragon appears.

But i surely cannot feel how a woman feels when she wants to go to the toilet or when the Russians come down (with all do respect). I haven't had a single experience on the subjects and most women react differently. Not only to these two subjects, i'm just mentioning the most usual ones.

DM I've found during times you claim having trouble. You study and research the idea. This is what most authors do when they have troubles, find out as much as they can about it. This often helps give idea if not the full experience you're looking for, but honestly where would it be pertinent to write in detail about needing to go to the loo? Research was made for cases for like this.

I find it boggling how much problems have writting people of the opposite sex, thing is you must remember that your character before being a male or a female is a person.

A person that depending on you, can be heavily influenced by their gender, maybe thats why I dont find troubles with my characters you could easily swap their sexes and the core of the character would not be heavily affected.

When I make a character its either because I was just itching to try out a concept (vampire orcs, mech fantasy golem, homosexual knight that tries to hide it etc.) or because I wonder what would benefit more the story with the introduction of a new character to the cast.

For example if the cast has 3 males and no females, then yes... maybe a woman would be a good balance to the 3 man gang, what I do find annoying is that people find it somehow as an obligation to try to get into a female`s pants or start a romance, is it so weird for a woman and a man to just hang around withouth a romantical involvement for a shared interest? (in real life... it kind of is but in the RP if their interest is saving the world or killing a king or younameit, then theyre just helping each other)

But to each their own I guess, gender isnt the core of the characters I write certainly some genders to lean more to a side than the other with men being more interested in honor, martial prowess and glory (which are my male arquetypes for characters) while the women are much more emotional and in touch with their feelings, that however does not mean that they cry for slipped milk, just that they are generally more troubled by actions and dwell on them

I'm a male that usually plays females because I find it less tempting to try and powergame with them.
Because if I play a male, usually they are all the same, and I usually try to make them an overly macho hardass.
If I play a chick, it's easier for me to make a more rounded and unique character concept.
Then again, half my female characters are just my male characters with a genderswap, so mileage may vary on how effective a tactic that is.

I'm a guy, and I almost always play as a male. The reason I do so is because I simply feel like I can play em' better. Whenever I make a female character they almost always end up feeling very generic to me; or reflective of a character I've seen somewhere before. So yeah, I play males because of my own limitation as a writer I guess. <shrug>

Well, I am a female who (overly) enjoys playing males characters; some online friends even going as far as saying that I might have been a guy in a past life. Though, its not as if I want to be the male character, more as though I see myself imagining him easier. Rather than creating a girl, who I have yet to try. But, I often see my myself starting to love my male character since I know so much about him and such, even if he isn't the best guy on the planet. However, with creating males I can develop a background story with them, unlike when I try to with creating a female one. For me, when I even try to make a female I sub-consciously make my own persona, which is boring since I RP to be someone else.

And there it is, even as weird as it sounds.

It depends on what platform you're using. A third-person platform... yeah, I know a lot of guys who play female just to watch her butt the whole time. But that's in 3-D gaming. If you're speaking to RPing, I find that most people are able to write for the other gender. Many people find writing for female is easier, and I definitely think that males are underappreciated. Personally, I tend to RP females, but that doesn't mean my male characters suffer - in truth, sometimes, they are even more detailed than some of their female peers.