Have You Ever/Do You Reverse(d) Gender In Games?

[Vlosanar]

When the choice is available I always play a male main but my alts are almost always female. I am male.

[Zeke]

I'm male.

I'm a roleplayer, so I tend to make a character for both sexes.

In MMO's I tend to play only female, because the male models tend to be ugly as fuck.

[Demonwise]

I think this has been said before but I'll say it again...

 

I'm a guy who has to live each and every day as a guy. Why would I play as a guy that's boring its just a continuation of normality. Playing as a girl or an alien or something entirely different, now there is the spice that makes a good rpg that much better.

 

Besides its not like I'm ever going to fap off to my hulking male character.

[SquallPT]

Play as Male on all games. If the main character is female, of course i have to play as female. But only in that situation.

[Cezul]

When I was younger, I pretty much always played a male character. Long hair, slender, heroic as fuck with a two handed sword ( if the game had such a weapon ).

  Thing is, as I got older, well I sort of became that! Long haired, slender, actually versed in weaponry and outdoors, climbing mountains and crossing fallen trees over rivers.

I remember playing Male pretty much the entire time I played Morrowind, and for a short while ( Probably a year or so? ) in Oblivion. Pretty much playing what I already was got kind of boring after a while, that's when I decided I was going to hit up the Nexus and get some mods to make a neat  Female Sword Dancer type character ( I was never one for magic anyways, just not really my style I suppose ) that had a lot of charisma, and it was a slippery slope from there. Generally though, I've always felt it to be good practice to be your own gender in multiplayer games, especially an MMO where your gender might actually matter.

 

  ....In the end, I ended up just making beautiful, two-handed sword wielding battle maidens. Huh, go figure.

 

EDIT: Also, I'd like to add, that generally with Lovers Mods ( You know, with Oblivion ), for most of them a female player character is pretty much essential.

[LukeDuke]

Play as Male on all games. If the main character is female, of course i have to play as female. But only in that situation.

Same here. Only one exception is when I play Tomb Raider series/type games ;-)

[Koko.Hekmatyar]

It depends a great deal on the type of game I am playing. Single players you don't get much choice if the MC is male you play male and vise versa. However, with Multiplayer games like MMOs it is a different matter and comes down to how the game is set up, an example would be the Korean made games who just love to gender lock classes on games like those if I want to play a certain class that is male only I play a male because I have no choice one the flip side of that there are games that let you choose gender then class with those I generally always play females.

[Kaz Aanh]

Basicaly if I wanted to be a cleric or mage I've picked a female character. If i was going to be a warrior or some kind of paladin then male.

 

But now I preffer to play as females , maybe its just a attractiveness of them but most of the time females have a better armour design than males and improved character creation kit compated to males or maybe I just got bored for staring at male butt in my younger days.

[Mumin]

I got really baffled when I played an MMO and some players seemed to assume that the gender of the character was the same as the gender of the player. I like to play characters of both genders for variety, with a bias towards females for the nicer looks but it's usually a secondary thing unless the game is in butt-view mode. 

 

"No I'm not a woman in real life. Neither am I an elf nor a mage. You'll have to cook your own food. Sorry."

[sora3]

I think what it really boils down to the two question I pose. Do you want to play a character in order to see the difference in opinions (either from you or the NPCs in game)? Or is it because you want to play a character that you want to experience the physical difference? That's how I see it. Then you also have to consider what Mumin said, the avatar tends to mimic who we are or who we want to be in a sense.

 

If you want my opinion, I say rarely the opposite gender. As I said in the Oblivion thread about this question, I have only done this once in the Mass Effect games. However, I do want to see developers to actually make the distinction between male and female in regards to the gaming world. The problem I see with gaming today is that there is no distinction if you're a brawny male with a steel six pack or a woman that is graceful and beautiful. That's irritates me since I want games to be pushing the boundaries in a sense.

 

TL:DR, rarely I play females.

[Nonsense667]

However, I do want to see developers to actually make the distinction between male and female in regards to the gaming world. The problem I see with gaming today is that there is no distinction if you're a brawny male with a steel six pack or a woman that is graceful and beautiful. That's irritates me since I want games to be pushing the boundaries in a sense.

 

TL:DR, rarely I play females.

 

Not to get into an argument. The last thing I want to do is have a debate. Besides, I suck at them, hah. So, with all the goodwill in the world, I say:

 

I deal enough in the real world, with all of the issues gender gives me. I have enough rage, and hate, and anger that boils inside of me when the world looks at me and says "you're X, so you're Y" and I shudder and shake and scream "NO!" from the very bottom of my soul. I am so very glad that games do not have any real distinctions between male and female. So very, very glad. 

[Nev4r]

In Skyrim and Oblivion I mostly play as female. Make her as beautiful as I can then roleplay as an adventurer.

The main reason why I do it is because of mods and her looks.

 

So yes, I do reverse gender. Most of the time, only in games like Skyrim and Oblivion.
 

Maybe I should think of a background for my next female character. To be honest, I've never done that before. I mostly kill, wander, and enjoy the scenery.

[Lexi SubZero]

Well..I stated my reasons in the other thread so I just throw in a pic of my beautiful Sith Marauder ... 

[TheoryoftheDead]

I'm a male(surprise, surprise!)

Personally I enjoy doing roleplaying, so I play both of the sexes - nothing is quite as enjoyable as getting outside of your own head for a couple of hours. I've never felt "uncomfortable" or "strange", playing on a male character after playing as female. Could be the RP aspect of it all, I guess, as there's usually more to the character than the pixels on the screen. That's my take on it, anyhow.

[xartom]

All the time, games are supposed to be fantasy and w/e, so it's nice to explore a different side of things closed off IRL.

[Kidaen]

However, I do want to see developers to actually make the distinction between male and female in regards to the gaming world. The problem I see with gaming today is that there is no distinction if you're a brawny male with a steel six pack or a woman that is graceful and beautiful. That's irritates me since I want games to be pushing the boundaries in a sense.

 

There's kind of annoying problem with that: standardization of non-standard individuals. I mean you could build a game where female characters had better manual dexterity, and suffered less penalties from pain to male's better strength and physical endurance out of the box, but that's applying a generalization to characters that due to the nature of gaming do not fit the generalizations being made. The kind of people who adventure around in the various realms of Planescape, or The Forgotten Realms, or who hunt down ancient treasures across the breadth of Tamriel for fame and glory really don't fit into the kind of expectations of normal people, otherwise they'd be normal people wouldn't they? What's worse is that the more meaningful and impactful these distinctions are, the less they actually make sense to impose on these non-standard characters.

 

This is actually kind of the great weakness of TES games, they're designed to make standard members of their races into heroes, but they always start with the assumption, nay the demand, that your character up until a camera replaced his face he was a perfectly typical man/woman of his race in every way.

[Ponygirl]

Ever since i started playing online UO/wow and so on i have always been playing as a female character "if there was a choice to pick"

Its just simple for me, as i think the female toons are always more "good looking" and more well made/drawn

 

[Seryuu12]

For me i play both male and female, it depends on the game and how i fell.

I played Dragon Age 1 as a Human male because it felt more appropriate, on the other side i played Dragon Age 2 as a female for the same reason.

I played Oblivion as a female because they looked far better then the males, the Oblivion males were fucking ugly.

As for Skyrim my first character was a male Argonian , and now that we have mods i play as a Succubus because i simply love Succubuses.

In Fallout 3 and new Vegas I always played as female and i will probably play a female in Dragon age 3 as well.

 

So for me it really depends on the game and the mods and also for some games i like to play as both male and female.

But if the game or a mod gives you the option to play as a Succubus i will always go for it.

[sen4mi]

I do not know why this should matter, but many games do only let you play pre-picked characters (Devil may cry, Tomb raider, ...) while other games offer so many possibilities that I've never tried all of the possible character/gender/race possibilities (Morrowind, ...). 

 

 

[ReMeDy]

The first thing I always do is research who the protagonist can romance. For example, in Star Wars: KoToR I, I believe a female could not romance Bastila, who I desperately wanted to romance, so I went with a male. After seeing the awesome evil sith ending, I'm glad I did!

 

If a female protagonist can romance other females, then yea, I'll play a female. As the game goes on, in some rare circumstances, my female may romance a guy if I think he and the main char are hitting it off well, but that's rare.

 

In a game with no romance, but uses voice/mic communication, I play as a male. GTA Online comes to mind. It's too startling for other players seeing a female avatar with a deep man's voice, lol.

 

In a game with no romance that does not use mic communication, I play as a female.

[Lexi SubZero]

The first thing I always do is research who the protagonist can romance. For example, in Star Wars: KoToR I, I believe a female could not romance Bastila, who I desperately wanted to romance, so I went with a male. After seeing the awesome evil sith ending, I'm glad I did!

 

*snip*

Nothing that a mod couldn't fix: http://knightsoftheoldrepublic.filefront.com/file/The_Romancing_of_Bastila;98669 

[FallenWarrior]

 

The first thing I always do is research who the protagonist can romance. For example, in Star Wars: KoToR I, I believe a female could not romance Bastila, who I desperately wanted to romance, so I went with a male. After seeing the awesome evil sith ending, I'm glad I did!

 

*snip*

Nothing that a mod couldn't fix: http://knightsoftheoldrepublic.filefront.com/file/The_Romancing_of_Bastila;98669 

 

There was/is a similar mod for KOTOR II: The Sith Lords where a female character could romance Brianna (Handmaiden). Unfortunately it's not compatible with the restoration mod.

[youngfool]

 

 

And it's developed to the point where playing as a male character, and watching him, seems.., well.., wrong.., and I even avoid several popular titles because there's no 'female protaganist' option(and therefore no ass or breasts to look at).

 

I can totally relate myself to that

[Scramagon]

I very rarely play my real gender.  I just prefer adding more chicks to whatever game world I'm playing in.  

[Shaelle]

Well, in many games you playing as given character, and simple have no choice. I don't think that many players put protagonist sex/gender as highest priority then they choose games for play - and hence answer to you question will be "yes" in vast majority of cases.   I think you actually mean "when you have a choice"?

 

As for me, though a few years ago i played different characters, now I am playing  mainly as female.

 

Is female gender "reversed" for me? No.

Is my biological sex female? I feel a bit shy to say. Maybe, yes. Maybe, no.