Susan's Place Transgender Resources

A few times in recent years as I'm playing an RPG such as Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3/NV or even Mass Effect, my wife has asked me why I am always playing a female character.  I have either deflected the question or just given some obviously unsatisfactory answer. When one of my sons first introduced me to gameing he had installed Oblivion on the custom built PC we had built together.  I honestly tried to play a male character but that didn't even last the length of the tutorial before I had to start all over again with a female character.  I have never played a male character since.  Why should I, I have the option in game and it feels so intolerably unnatural for me to do anything but play as a female.  Does anyone else have a similar experience?  If the option is given in RPGs and FPSs, what gender do you play?

C.

If the option is given to me, I will always choose to play as a male.  The only exception was Smackdown vs Raw 2008 where I created a wrestling woman, but she had facial hair.  In Saints Row 2, I created a male with a female voice.  I hate being a girl in real life so why should I suffer in video games?

Quote from: Malachite on February 11, 2013, 11:48:55 PM
I hate being a girl in real life so why should I suffer in video games?

I agree wholeheartedly,  I may be outwardly male but I see no reason to suffer in game, I play to enjoy the game.  I can't enjoy it if someone is forcing me to play in a way I can't tolerate. although in Minecraft and Tekkit my skin looks like Bender.  I don't really have to see it and I play publicly on servers where people know me and I'm not out too.

Quote from: AwishForXX on February 11, 2013, 11:51:36 PM
I agree wholeheartedly,  I may be outwardly male but I see no reason to suffer in game, I play to enjoy the game.  I can't enjoy it if someone is forcing me to play in a way I can't tolerate.

Exactly, I play video games to escape reality.

Quote from: AwishForXX on February 11, 2013, 11:51:36 PM
I agree wholeheartedly,  I may be outwardly male but I see no reason to suffer in game, I play to enjoy the game.  I can't enjoy it if someone is forcing me to play in a way I can't tolerate. although in Minecraft and Tekkit my skin looks like Bender.  I don't really have to see it and I play publicly on servers where people know me and I'm not out too.

I'll rarely play a game where I'm not female. Minecraft graphics are so crude, and gender is undetectable among the testificates so far as I can tell. But I also share an account with my son, because Mojang refused to take the credit card I used to open his account to make as separate second one for me. I did change skins once but don't mess with many mods there, apart from sometimes playing the snapshots to get the benefit of new features early. 

Then again, I also was out to my spouse with no concealment as long as at least 20 years ago, so I've rarely felt a need to hide, except for personal safety.  I also find I play fewer and fewer games over time. Skyrim was the last one I played extensively, and that was on a PS3.

I will more often than not play as a female character. The exception being in an online game on xbox live where until recently I was in the closet. When I played through Fable 2 I would use a male character but dress him in female attire. I loved the humor written into that game, even though the game itself was okay at best.

On playstation's home I am exclusively female.

I mix it up sometimes, but most of my toons are female. It's rough sometimes. People don't seem to believe that women play those games, so I either get stalked/griefed by some idiot telling me it's wrong for a guy to play a chick toon, or I switch toons to find some peace.

Always. Always, always, always. Skyrim, Oblivion, Morrowind, MMOs... I don't think I ever have male characters - except in Runescape, and that character visited the Makeover Mage as soon as I gathered the gold. Mind, this was when I was very young and surrounded by inquisitive siblings. Had a heck of a time passing that one off.

I absolutely always play as a female character. Before I started actually admitting my transsexualism in real life, playing as female characters in video games was pretty much the only way that I ever really got to feel like my true self. I played as female characters in games like Tony Hawk, female characters in Pokemon, female characters in the lone MMO that I ever played, and a female avatar in Second Life. I pretty much never play as a male. What's the point of living in a fantasy world where you can be absolutely ANYBODY that you want to be, and yet play as the same gender that I hate in real life?

I play characters of either gender, depending on hair choices, whether my gender will change dialogue choices or not, or just the character I'm making up in my head at the time. If There are going to be gender specific sort of things, I tend to go with my preferred gender, but in things like MMO's, where it doesn't matter, I can go either way.

I almost always play a girl, but I don't see myself as being the character or anything. If I'm playing as a human character I frequently play outside my race, and I especially like to make black female characters just because I feel they're underrepresented in video games.

In game series like Dragon Age or Elder Scrolls where every game has a different hero, I try to keep it varied since they all follow the same history with different protagonists, it would just seem kind of dumb if every single one of these warrior peoplez was a woman. (My Warden is a female elf rogue while my Hawke is a male human warrior, or my Dragonborn is a female orc while my Nerevarine is a male dark elf)

I don't mind playing a guy character but I like using a girl character more. It's just more interesting.

Oh and in WoW I never play as a guy, I try and it's just too weird for me. But there's tons of men and women who have no problem doing it.

Always play as a female.  When people ask, I just say if I have to look at a characters rear end for hours on end, a female one is better to look at.  I don't explain why a female is better, I just let peoples assumptions take them where they want to go. =)

In MMOs or single player games I always play females and present exclusively female in MMOs.

When I played tabletop games I always played female characters which tended to get me grief from my friends and other gamers. Every few games someone would make a snarky comment or ask me why and I came close to telling them a few times. I think one or two figured it out but no one ever said anything. I haven't played a pen and paper game in three years now and I miss the release it gave.

Quote from: luna nyan on February 13, 2013, 04:18:08 AM
Always play as a female.  When people ask, I just say if I have to look at a characters rear end for hours on end, a female one is better to look at.  I don't explain why a female is better, I just let peoples assumptions take them where they want to go. =)

This is exactly what I say. I have to look it it, I may as well look at something nice.

It's perfectly honest and don't see why I need to explain myself to anyone.

I always do the same as well,playing the male role.I do this will all mmo's and even do so in roleplay (something i do on another program tho its not a game but 3d program) and i have also tried playing the *female* roles but never ever could get into it,almost like-playing my real self and no..not an option if i can chose otherwise.I play games like WOW,EQ2,some free based ones like battle of the immortals.

Quote from: cheetaking243 on February 12, 2013, 10:12:21 PM
I absolutely always play as a female character. Before I started actually admitting my transsexualism in real life, playing as female characters in video games was pretty much the only way that I ever really got to feel like my true self. I played as female characters in games like Tony Hawk, female characters in Pokemon, female characters in the lone MMO that I ever played, and a female avatar in Second Life. I pretty much never play as a male. What's the point of living in a fantasy world where you can be absolutely ANYBODY that you want to be, and yet play as the same gender that I hate in real life?

Speaking of second life,IMVU is one place i roleplay and do so as male.more of a real 3d experience with real people while enjoying the fantasy (created) life one creates.

I usually play as the male gendered character in any sort of game, really. i think I do it because the male gendered character pleases me more than the female. It sort of mirrors how i feel inside. As weird as that may sound. 

If a game doesn't give me the choice of gender then who cares as long as the game's fun to play with a compeling story.

Before I came out I played mainly male characters, when I did use a female character & get questioned about it i'd respond that i'd rather look at a womans ass for however many hours the game took than a mans ass & everyone bought that line.
Feel free to pinch the excuse if it lets be be yourself on or offline.

Nowdays I always pick a female character, fem-Shep is my fave & i've played Dragon's Dogma repeatedly in a quest to unlock some of the rarer & prettier clothes.

I love Lost Planet 2, my Femme Fatale character is at lvl 97, I love the emotes & whilst playing co-op I wind my mate up by blowing love heart kisses at him or doing the sexy cat woman crawl towards him Lol

Lost Planet 2 Emotes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khIYW8zET4M#)

when I get to choose the gender It has always been female characters. I remember one time one of my friends refused play Mortal combat with me saying that I always use female characters and he didn't wanted beat up a girl even in a game lol. Well I can't blame him for that too. I always used tell them go easy on me coz there are fighting against a girl.  ;D. If only they knew what I was talking about LoL.
Ohhhh... the good old days

Even before letting myself admit I'm trans, I played as male characters if there was the option to choose.

Not that I would feel dysphoric about a character in a game, I just prefer male characters for some reason. Like if I have to name the character myself, I'm completely clueless to name a female one. I'm better at naming males. XD

Then again, the only game where it's kinda obligatory to play as a female character is Okami but that's just because English speaking people just had to give Amaterasu a gender-specific pronoun. Seriously, that character is the sun god's incarnation, does gender really matter THAT much?
And here I can boast about the excellence of Finnish third person pronouns that are NOT gender-specific~

I don't see games, or the main protagonist, as an extension of myself. For me, they're just games and I create male characters just as much as female ones.
x

Depends on how detailed customization is and how I like it. In general I play females when I like the styles presented, but if it's a blank choice between a single male or female I'll choose based on which one looks better.

I'm not really a 'gamer', but I did get quite into Second Life for a while around 06/07.

It was quite an interesting experience from a gender perspective and kind of taught me that if it was physically possible for me to be 'stealth' as female in real life I would probably have issues.

I signed up with a female avatar and found everyone just completely accepted me as female, and I liked that a lot. It was quite a learning experience interacting with people as female without any physical constraints to hold me back (and I don't mean that from a virtual nooky perspective).

I made lots of friends, but, over time, I became good friends (platonically) with a lady there and we used to hang out and chat about everything real and virtual and she used to tell me some quite personal female specific things.

I found though that as much as I was happy, I was also feeling uncomfortable. It didn't feel quite like a proper friendship because I hadn't been fully open about myself. I felt it was unfair to her not to tell her and I felt bad about it. It was like I was being deceptive; which just isn't me.

So, I eventually told her everything. She was very shocked and actually thought I was joking at first... and said she'd never have guessed I was going to tell her that in a million years (as you can probably tell I was flattered!).

She was fine about it and we stayed as good friends as we had been before. Though it did very subtly change the dynamics.

I felt sad that I lost being completely accepted as female by telling her, but happy that I did the right thing and that it was then an honest friendship.

It taught me that even if I could do stealth (impossible from a physical and life point perspective anyway), that I'm too honest to do that and wouldn't be happy hiding part of who I am away.

So, yes... I guess you can learn things from Second Life... 

As others have mentioned for themselves, I play both genders according to aesthetics and storyline stuff. It's a game, and no game I've ever played had characters that looked like me or grew up in my circumstances anyhow.

That said I totally understand the perspective of people who are more careful in their avatar choices.

While I am not an online gamer it is impressive to me that so many are so full on with these created worlds.  A local start up company here is marketing a water cooled system for the cpu as you folks apparently create a lot of real heat while playing those huge programs.

And so brothers and sisters, game on! but keep it cool :-*

hugs from my keyboard to you,

Tessa James

Quote from: girl you look fierce on February 13, 2013, 01:45:12 PM
You should stop worrying about things like this and tell your wife.

I know, and I'm working on that, I can't go on hiding but I need some help to get to that point.  I've seen my GP now for a referral to a therapist and I'm hoping that one of the first things I can achieve is tell my wife.  I'm simply scared ATM and need to work up the courage to do it.  Tactfully and in a manner other than simply blurting.

Give me time, I'm working on it. :)

Usually female where given the choice and if it's my first time playing  but I do make male characters too depending on my mood at the time.

The only game I've played consistently where you choose the gender of your character is Skyrim. I've always chosen a female character. I want to be comfortable as a woman, I'm supposed to be a woman, I should play as a woman. Even know I'm beginning to come to terms with my gender identity and am beginning to realise that I don't need to please other people, only myself, I still pick female when there's any chance of it being public. Like Skyrim (which I talk about with people I'm not out to), or in my writing which I show to people, etc. But when I do play as a male (very occasionally) it feels better.

Quote from: Tossu-sama on February 15, 2013, 05:55:30 AM
Even before letting myself admit I'm trans, I played as male characters if there was the option to choose.

Not that I would feel dysphoric about a character in a game, I just prefer male characters for some reason. Like if I have to name the character myself, I'm completely clueless to name a female one. I'm better at naming males. XD

Then again, the only game where it's kinda obligatory to play as a female character is Okami but that's just because English speaking people just had to give Amaterasu a gender-specific pronoun. Seriously, that character is the sun god's incarnation, does gender really matter THAT much?
And here I can boast about the excellence of Finnish third person pronouns that are NOT gender-specific~

This is EXACTLY how I feel when I play games! And about naming. No female name sounds good for me to play as haha.

And I've always just let people think what they want when they ask why I always play as a guy. Male characters have always made more sense for me to play. It just kinda feels more natural.

Quote from: Malachite on February 11, 2013, 11:53:20 PM
Exactly, I play video games to escape reality.

AMEN. I've played every game that gave me a choice as a girl with a nice sensual voice (if I could choose). I use the same name also with every toon.

I generally keep with female characters in games whenever possible,  I have done this for as long as I can remember..

always playing female, but I dont really care that much unless you often can see yourself like Saints Row

I only ever play male characters. If there's a choice, I pick male. If there's no choice, I won't play the game at all if it has a female lead. That's why I could never play Tomb Raider: it made me feel horribly dysphoric.

There's an interesting mission in Fable II that can be quite triggering for some trans folks: there's a potion that can permanently change the gender of your character after you're quite advanced in the game. When I stumbled across it I basically stopped playing & just stared at the screen for about 10 minutes. If that had been offered to me IRL I would have ripped your arm off to take it... but in Fable I had naturally chosen a male character so I was being offered a potion to change my character into the 'wrong' gender that I've been trying to escape all my life. Very strange feeling. It's good that it's there because it enables people to question gender in a way that isn't usually tackled in games, but I did find it a bit triggering because of what it represented to me.

Oh wow I was just thinking about that!

I played Fable before I ever really knew what was bothering me, even though I had some really bad days.  Or that I really identified as trans.  But I had been playing as a male character (like I always did) and it kinda blew my mind when I got to that mission. I guess I didn't want to go to a female character, so I didn't take the potion.  But it really got me thinking.  I almost thought of it as a 'way out' of playing as a female. Looking back, I guess that was the first time I really thought about how I felt about my gender.  Like really thought about it.  And the thought did cross my mind of what I would do if the potion really existed, but I never let that thought carry all the way through because it scared me :p.

Kinda makes me want to go back and play Fable again. I like that they included something like that, if only to make you think.

If there is an choice, I will always choose or create a female character. I have legions of female Rockband members. I will even choose as many female companions as possible in an RPG or something, although I don't play too many of those anymore.

Quote from: Lrouk on March 07, 2013, 07:02:41 PM
I played Fable before I ever really knew what was bothering me, even though I had some really bad days.  Or that I really identified as trans.  But I had been playing as a male character (like I always did) and it kinda blew my mind when I got to that mission. I guess I didn't want to go to a female character, so I didn't take the potion.  But it really got me thinking.  I almost thought of it as a 'way out' of playing as a female. Looking back, I guess that was the first time I really thought about how I felt about my gender.  Like really thought about it.  And the thought did cross my mind of what I would do if the potion really existed, but I never let that thought carry all the way through because it scared me :p.

Kinda makes me want to go back and play Fable again. I like that they included something like that, if only to make you think.

That's awesome; Fable helped you understand yourself. And to think that some people believe that people who play computer games are just wasting their time. ;)

To be honest, one of the things that made me come out to my family was that my kids noticed that I always pick a male character for Fable. My youngest daughter questioned me on it because she's a hard-core gamer too but she always picks a female character. I wasn't ready to answer her question yet so I just sat there in silence until my hubby said "Mum just likes playing the male characters".

When I came out to my kids, my daughter said "So THAT'S why you always pick a male character in Fable!" ;)

I've been replaying Fable II for about a week now. Even though I know that potion is there, it is still my favourite incarnation of Fable and I tend to replay it at least twice a year.

I have always played both male and female characters, but I prefer the latter. They always look better and since I'm usually playing either a spellcaster or some stealthy character it is more fitting to play female than some bulky male (which they usually are). I remember in World of Warcraft I once paid for a sex change. Then I really began to feel attachment to my character, haha. In that game I have also noted that players will generally treat you better when you play a female character (especially if you're healer) than a male character. I always liked it when they said 'her' or 'she' when it was about me in the chat. It kinda feels more magical, being a male character is boring!

I always play as a woman, as it gives me the chance to create an avatar that more accuratly represents how I feel inside, and wished I looked like on the outside.

I always do a first playthrough as a male PC, without really thinking about it... sometimes I'll go back and replay a game as a female character, but the first run/primary character is always a dude. I just identify with male characters more easily in general. Getting the opportunity to be treated like a guy, even if it's imaginary, is something I've always jumped at. I always played male PCs in tabletop RPGs unless I was going out of my way to make a female character, wanted to read male parts aloud in plays in English class, played pretend as male "characters", etc.

Oddly, though, for the Mass Effect series FemShep is canon for me, even though I've only played ManSheps so far. :P Maybe it's because Jennifer Hale is an outstanding voice actor and Mark Meer is just above-average.

Edit:

Quote from: Leo. on April 17, 2013, 10:45:23 AM
I get better recognition too for what I am, Im playing as a male character so to everyone else I am too. People online tend to recognise you by the character you portray (I would always see someone as a female character being female rather than a guy playing as a female) so depends what you want to do.

This is a good point, too... When I play as a male character in an MMORPG, people just assume I'm a guy and treat me as such.

I will only play as a male character, I wont want to play otherwise. Can be annoying when playing multiplayer online where player 1 is male and player 2 is female or whatever (like Resident Evil 5 I have to be the host in order to play as the male character Chris rather than the female Sheva) and my partner ends up with who I wanted and Im stuck being them I just end up in a bad mood and dont want to play. I know it sounds stupid but Im stuck in the wrong body as it is and hate it, why would I want to play as one too? I get better recognition too for what I am, Im playing as a male character so to everyone else I am too. People online tend to recognise you by the character you portray (I would always see someone as a female character being female rather than a guy playing as a female) so depends what you want to do. Only exception is a game where there is no choice of gender character thats different and wont bother me at all. I love the Tomb Raider games and dont mind at all playing as Lara

Quote from: Dovahkiin on February 19, 2013, 05:11:35 PM
The only game I've played consistently where you choose the gender of your character is Skyrim. I've always chosen a female character. I want to be comfortable as a woman, I'm supposed to be a woman, I should play as a woman. Even know I'm beginning to come to terms with my gender identity and am beginning to realise that I don't need to please other people, only myself, I still pick female when there's any chance of it being public. Like Skyrim (which I talk about with people I'm not out to), or in my writing which I show to people, etc. But when I do play as a male (very occasionally) it feels better.

This is how I started online. When I'd play rpg's alone (mainly console) I'd pick male characters (though really most don't let you choose anyhow) but I always tried very hard to get used to being a girl and figure out how to do it right. So now I am much more comfortable irl as male but half my gaming history is interesting female characters that were often as close to myself as I could figure out how to get.

Let me clarify it if it hasnt already been said

Mmorpg == many men online role playing girls

When I have the choice, I choose male unless it's a game on a social networking site, which my family is on, then I'll deal with a female character. I don't particularly like it, but I'm not explaining to every single family member why I'm playing as male. There are exceptions like when the females are stupidly clothed on a social networking game, then my family understand why I play as male (the clothing of female characters has been the subject of many rants in this house).

 My choice of online games Is
                                =EVE Online=

Omg dont get me started!!!!

To late....I have been playing eve almost a half decade
I am NGresonance and carrier alt Resonance Storm

ISN elite Fc. For incursions.....
And fc for small PvP gangs fast shields

Of course I played a girl...and rp it so heavy I always got
Free drakes from corpies.. lol....

Resurrecting a dead thread because having two threads on the same subject on one page is... unnecessary.

Most games I'll play based on who I want to create. I think about the character, not just the gender, though I do tend towards female characters, especially in 3rd person games, for aesthetic and system-oriented reasons. First off, I do find females more pleasing to look at, and secondly people with a smaller frame take up less screen space.

This extends to tabletop rpgs as well. If the character as it develops seems to be more useful as a male or female, they'll be a male or a female. Though this time I tend towards males because I tend to be a pretty all-out actor in roleplay, and I don't trust myself to act out as a female well enough. I'd just rather be better at being before doing this.

And then we follow that with online games. I play EVE Online as Lily Shahn, acting in-character and in-role. I explain my inability to speak in comms as an "embarrassing vocal issue" - this will save having to force people listen to me transition. I've had someone try to call me out as a boy before, which was fun.

So, to those who are worried about passing or coming out, how do you portray yourself in social games?

Even though I didn't have thoughts about being female until I was fifteen I had started picking the female option long before that. At first when games started really letting you customize appearance I'd try to make the male characters look like me and that helped a little and was usually enough to get me through the game as a male but I also enjoyed playing as a female more. When they started giving voices to your character I could no longer play as a guy if the choice was present. I've also had to make excuses over the years because I do it online as well. I've pretty much used them all: the Tomb Raider Philosophy, they have funnier special dialogue, the hit box is smaller, I can't get into playing as a guy because he doesn't sound like me. I guess the truth of the matter though is that must have always bothered me on some level.

Which this was really awkward when I started playing pathfinder with my friends because I'm always female.

It always depended on the game. In denial i always picked males, except for Saints Row, where much time was spent dressing them up and customising. :D

Edit: Still unusual playing a female character in a game. Weird.

Even before I came to the conclusion that I was transgender, I would almost always play as a male in video games instead of my actual sex if given the choice. Which is a bit strange, I suppose, because I'm bi-gender, which means I sometimes identify as a girl, too. Yet the times that I've played as a girl in video games have been very few and far between.

I think part of it is because certain factors influence whether I identify as a guy or a girl and when I'm playing on the computer or playing video games, I tend to identify as a guy more often. I'm not entirely sure why. I guess it's because it's one of the few opportunities I have to be a guy since I'm not out to any more than two people about being transgender and so always dress as a girl when I go out places in real life.

When I was younger while playing D&D another player took a female character and no one seemed to think anything of it. So I to started to do so as soon as I needed another character.

These days I'll play with either but with games like FallOut and Mass Effect I feel that when I play a female character my choices better reflect my feelings.

Quote from: Christine167 on June 05, 2013, 02:44:47 PM
When I was younger while playing D&D another player took a female character and no one seemed to think anything of it. So I to started to do so as soon as I needed another character.

These days I'll play with either but with games like FallOut and Mass Effect I feel that when I play a female character my choices better reflect my feelings.

Lucky, my friends all think it's strange. :P

Quote from: Naomi on June 05, 2013, 02:47:38 PM
Lucky, my friends all think it's strange. :P

Try playing different demographics first. It's how our fellow player started it. Play an old man or a rock monster, etc and then choose something like a class that can only be female. Then suddenly it's okay. At that point your just acting and not playing make believe.

Then again if your group is hack and slash only then things will be difficult. Personally there is a limit to how often I can hear guys in a group talk about an in game brothel or slutty NPC before I want to barf.

Quote from: Christine167 on June 05, 2013, 03:16:51 PM
Try playing different demographics first. It's how our fellow player started it. Play an old man or a rock monster, etc and then choose something like a class that can only be female. Then suddenly it's okay. At that point your just acting and not playing make believe.

Then again if your group is hack and slash only then things will be difficult. Personally there is a limit to how often I can hear guys in a group talk about an in game brothel or slutty NPC before I want to barf.

Well it's too late for that XD, I'm on my fourth female character now, and yeah typically the campaigns being run are all combat heavy. I think the funny part though is that I'm the only one comfortable with  a brothel/slutty npc/me seducing people to find clues or just rob them. I guess the guys in my group want to just beat stuff up but I want to play "house"  in addition to beating stuff up lol .

I totally agree. Even trying to be a guy among guys I would plan out castles and family and events. I wanted to know why the villain was the he was and more than "he's just evil".

Politics, treachery, subterfuge all my favs.

Sometimes I actually get a little pissed because of how trigger happy to the point of stupidity they can be. The next girl that I'm playing is actually a combat type though so I'll see how I like that but so far I've always really enjoyed the skill based areas of pathfinder and handling things through diplomacy and generally just doing more role playing type stuff than combat. Especially because combat is usually unsatisfyingly quick or everyone complains because they almost die.

I've always chosen the female option when presented with it. I've got a pretty consistent look for them whenever I'm allowed to customize. The first time I ever deviated from that was in Pokemon Black 2, because I was worried my friend would think it was weird. Once I came out, he went behind my back, gamesharked my file, and changed my character to female, and left it for me to discover. It was actually pretty sweet of him. :p

I'll play either or, it really doesn't matter to me. I'm the same way in life. Even though I was born as and identify as female, I'm not particularly girly and sometimes I enjoy leaning toward being more masculine.

I'll be honest. I STILL pick female characters, if given the option. I like how most of them look and some games give bonuses to them or female exclusive stuff. However, there are times, in older games that punishes you for picking female characters. Some stats get significantly lowered or they just get screwed in terms of equipment.

One example of a female character getting screwed without me realizing it until it was happening, was in an old Gameboy Harvest Moon game. If you picked the female character and married the male co-protagonist, your game would end and you would have to start over. Male characters could continue indefinitely if they married the female co-protagonist and even have 2 children with her.

That's just a bunch of bull.

Honestly I've played male characters as long as I remember. Even as a little kid just starting with games. I was the only one of my friends having a character different than my birth sex, NO one asked ANY questions (and yes, my parents knew of this, my friends knew of it, and I did NO effort to hide it whatsoever), so I didn't question it. It was just natural, better, I didn't know why...
I never played a female, unless not given the option (which is rarely. The chance of the main character being a male is larger than it being a female (sadly. For all the gaming females and MtF's))

Quote from: Dovahkiin on February 19, 2013, 05:11:35 PM
The only game I've played consistently where you choose the gender of your character is Skyrim. I've always chosen a female character. I want to be comfortable as a woman, I'm supposed to be a woman, I should play as a woman. Even know I'm beginning to come to terms with my gender identity and am beginning to realise that I don't need to please other people, only myself, I still pick female when there's any chance of it being public. Like Skyrim (which I talk about with people I'm not out to), or in my writing which I show to people, etc. But when I do play as a male (very occasionally) it feels better.

In Skyrim it kinda pays off to play as a female, especially with one Speech skill perk "Allure" which gives 10% better prices with the opposite sex and most of the merchants in Skyrim are male. :P That is, if Speech is an important skill to the character.

And now I'll go away before I start nerding over Skyrim more than I should.

I find it rather interesting now, that even when I started playing in table-top rpgs, I played female characters if the option was available. Even in video games, I preferred playing female characters.  I was very much in denial at the time and this apparently was one of my "tells". Once in a Shadowrun game, I distracted a clerk (this was part of the mission) by having a detailed conversation about makeup with her (said clerk worked cosmetics).  4 gentlemen and 1 woman looked at me with considerable confusion at this point. "I'm a method actor!" was my feeble defense.

This led me to doing a statistical analysis of ALL  my characters and their mortality. Interestingly enough, some stereotypes hold true even in an RP setting. My female characters had a significantly lower rate of dying, either due to GM bias or more often than not players risking themselves to save me if I was in a dangerous position. My male characters would have heroic deaths, but everyone would rally to save the girl. (I can't even remember how many times and with how many groups I was labeled as "Princess" because of this!)

In MMORPGs this was less of a problem, but came with new ones. I was still very closeted then and was very up front about being "male".  More often than not, this was actually disbelieved and I was accused of lying about my gender to avoid unwanted advances from other players (I never had ventrillo or the like). This is also where I discovered being a language arts instructor immediately implies female to some people (when I started nursing school this only got worse!)

All in all though, everyone should just play what they want to play what they want to. It can be incredibly beneficial to help form empathy or express yourself in a safe environment. My first therapist even postulated my doing this kept me in a relatively healthy mental state all things considered. I'm inclined to agree.

I noticed that I got better treatment if I played a female character in MMOs, especially a female caster (female in dress/robe has a kinder appearance than a female with blades and heavy armor). My first choice used to be male characters, but once I got high lvl female characters this changed and I now find it harder to play a male character. Maybe it's also got to do with my playstyle (usually caster-oriented) and female characters usually don't look as silly and bulky. And when it comes to collecting gear and sets, it just gets addictive to play female characters.

I love this question! My characters are always femme, but plumbing varies wildly.

Quote from: Feather on June 28, 2013, 02:04:13 PM
I noticed that I got better treatment if I played a female character in MMOs, especially a female caster (female in dress/robe has a kinder appearance than a female with blades and heavy armor).

I noticed this too in DAoC, but then it started getting weird. I had a few years in there where I'd have an even split of male and female characters so I could switch to male when I got creeped out. It started with people being mean to me about how wrong it is to play a girl when I'm not. After some time, they were convinced that I was indeed a woman and started being really nice. I got invited to more groups. People were giving me random armor and gold gifts. It was amazing! Then the cybering attempts started and that was when the male characters started being created to provide an out. I'd "lose my internet connection" for a few hours (like I actually pulled the network cable out of the computer so I'd go link dead) while I was on a male toon, then come back when everybody was gone.

Interesting question, I used to play male characters when I first started gaming, but when I got on Star Wars Galaxies, I started playing as a female character. I thought at that time that I was just a freak for wishing I was born a girl, so I told everyone I met that I was a guy in real life.

But it got interesting near shut down, people started telling my that I was lying. Since I did a lot of roleplay, it got really interesting, until I decided to use voice chat during a guild event :)

Anyways, now I understand why I really seemed like a girl, I have a feminine personality, and just am good at watching what girls do and add them to what I do(probably explains why I sit with crossed legs now, without meaning to).

Skyrim was interesting as well, first time my family saw me playing a female character, was probably weird since the character looked like a real girl, too bad I started losing interest in video games.

Quote from: Feather on June 28, 2013, 02:04:13 PM
I noticed that I got better treatment if I played a female character in MMOs, especially a female caster (female in dress/robe has a kinder appearance than a female with blades and heavy armor). My first choice used to be male characters, but once I got high lvl female characters this changed and I now find it harder to play a male character. Maybe it's also got to do with my playstyle (usually caster-oriented) and female characters usually don't look as silly and bulky. And when it comes to collecting gear and sets, it just gets addictive to play female characters.

So true :). But my first choice always is female character specialised in ranged damage :). Kinda archer-girl :) - You can see it from my avi. I dont like the look of heavy armor, but some light armor here and there, curvy bows and sword, and those outfits with cloaks, hoods, pirate boots and such... :)

Quote from: Sammy on June 29, 2013, 06:02:30 AM
So true :). But my first choice always is female character specialised in ranged damage :). Kinda archer-girl :) - You can see it from my avi. I dont like the look of heavy armor, but some light armor here and there, curvy bows and sword, and those outfits with cloaks, hoods, pirate boots and such... :)

hey, I like your style  ;) I love all things curvy and I dislike heavy armor as well.
Bows always go great with a female character  ;)

Quote from: Feather on July 01, 2013, 01:18:22 PM
hey, I like your style  ;) I love all things curvy and I dislike heavy armor as well.
Bows always go great with a female character  ;)

I like the style of Your avi too ;). Exactly my type :) And if I can modify the color of my outfits... I would change them once or twice per week until I got a new set :P. But I do not play anymore as I am losing interest in video games as I go further into my transition... :(

Quote from: Sammy on July 01, 2013, 04:18:53 PMI like the style of Your avi too ;). Exactly my type :) And if I can modify the color of my outfits... I would change them once or twice per week until I got a new set :P. But I do not play anymore as I am losing interest in video games as I go further into my transition... :(

When I played WoW I was obsessed with transmogrification. I could not stop working on my female characters. I did not care about competitive achievements, I wanted pretty characters.. In GW2 it is even more intense. ;D

I was lucky to stay out of the WoW - but I was into Warhammer: Age of Reckoning for some good 6 months :) I kinda very much enjoyed the WAR dynamics and how it is very much PvP and group-cooperation oriented. It is not as apparent in Tier 1 when basically everyone is just getting their grips to the game and newbies and free-account owners from Order and Destruction are getting at each other at Festenplatz :P, but it gets very party-game in T2 and in T4 You can only survive in group because Tier 4 is only about competitively taking zones from the other faction, while defending Your own, ambushing their attempts to take base objectives, taking them instead and laying seiges on their castles to unlock enemy capital. Just to say what a good group can do - once in T3 we had a warband which consisted of two pug-s, but somehow we managed to get cooperating at extremely intuitive level - nobody was doing stupid things and all players were essentially doing what their classes were supposed to do. So we lost our outer wall to Destruction, there were more of them than us and they managed to put down 2 siege engines (cannons) and battering ram in our courtyard... We managed  to knock their battering ram down and kick them out. We proceeded to destroy their cannons, when they respawned and came back from their camp - but we did not escape into our castle, but instead kicked them out again :). Then we continued to kill their cannons and as soon as we did so, they came back for the third time, even in greater numbers - but we felt soooo invincible that we charged them instead of getting charged and then they finally realised that they are not getting this zone :)!

Funnily enough it was one of my tells too (@yukari).  I realised I did not cross dress, as it was womens clothes on a mans body... but in a game I could put on a womans ROLE- body and clothes.

I played a female elf hacker in shadowrun, which the lads felt a bit strange... especially when I did a really good job at it.  I was in denial you see.

My last dnd character before I figured it out was, ironically a male paladin trapped in the body of the female witch who killed his family- unable to control her body or magic, or leverage his muscle memory  he was forced into a level 1 ranger class.  A girl brain in a guys body, playing a guy, playing a guys brain in a girls body.  How meta is that?

I have always picked female avatars, and actually got in a huge arguement with my boss when he refused to put female characters into multiplayer of the game I was working on.  I understand why I got so riled up now.  It was the third game this happened on and it irked me considerably more than I could logicslly justify.  Denial.  Wonderful thing.

Quote from: emmaline on July 06, 2013, 01:02:01 AM
Funnily enough it was one of my tells too (@yukari).  I realised I did not cross dress, as it was womens clothes on a mans body... but in a game I could put on a womans ROLE- body and clothes.

I played a female elf hacker in shadowrun, which the lads felt a bit strange... especially when I did a really good job at it.  I was in denial you see.

My last dnd character before I figured it out was, ironically a male paladin trapped in the body of the female witch who killed his family- unable to control her body or magic, or leverage his muscle memory  he was forced into a level 1 ranger class.  A girl brain in a guys body, playing a guy, playing a guys brain in a girls body.  How meta is that?

I have always picked female avatars, and actually got in a huge arguement with my boss when he refused to put female characters into multiplayer of the game I was working on.  I understand why I got so riled up now.  It was the third game this happened on and it irked me considerably more than I could logicslly justify.  Denial.  Wonderful thing.

Tell me about it.  :) Although it's gotten funnier now. I am forbidden from participating in the board game "Battle of the Sexes", because I give an "unnatural advantage" to whichever side I  play for.

As to the DND character, it's no more meta than I and my sex-changed rogue...  Seeking a "cure" for "his" "curse" by swindling the easiest prey...  which happened to be dim witted men.

To make matters worse my kid sister was playing a male character, trying to catch me for swindling his best friend! Oh what fun!

Lol.  Advantage.

I always play females in games, well ever since I first realized I was a girl, that was when I was 18 or about 11 years ago. Just a month after that realization I made my first female character. It was on FFXI and I still play her to this day. I love that game.

Most of my life I played male characters.  I was paranoid about anyone discovering my dysphoria, so I just avoided anyone asking why I chose to play as female.  Nowadays I'm much more comfortable and confident about myself and getting to play as female is a nice escape  :)

I always used the Lara Croft argument.  If I am going to spend any time looking at an ass it better be a girls.
Useful tip if your still in closet ;)

Hah, that was my exact excuse while in the closet. Being a lesbian however made it somewhat true. Who wants to look a flat piece of meat when there's a curvy-licious option?

Lol... me too  ;D

I must confess I loved playing females in quake 3 just to hear them grunt and moan as you jumped and got hit.  Very sexy.  *Blush*

I guess I am strange. Games are one of the few places I dont have this problem too much. I will play as either. I generally defacto to male, but that is because I game with a lot of people I know and I dont want to have to explain myself all of the time. I also dont really care. I mean I cant play what might be a female game and that does suck. Like sims are my all time least favorite game because of the gender dysphoria. Other games where the default is male not too bad. I just cant get behind a male sim. -shrug-

My wife always commented on my choice of sim.  Female, emo, short hair and lesbian.

It was meeeeeeeee all along!!!!!!!

Worringly she always plays crazy cat ladies.... hmmm...

I'm glad I found this thread, because I experience playing female characters all the time, and I'm physically male.

Ever since I was in my teens, in my early days of playing World of Warcraft I'd play a female character and at first I got stick for it from friends, but you can smoothly dismiss it considering plenty of men play females anyway (MMORPG = Many Men Online Role Playing Girls ;))

But it went much beyond that for me, it feels comfortable. I cannot and will not play male characters now with a few rare exceptions. At first I thought it was simply because devs tend to put more effort into the female characters? Or perhaps it just felt right.

But I have shared experiences with a few here where they've been questioned continually. My friends girlfriend asked me why I chose to play female characters on games like Dragon Age II, and I replied because I'd just watched said friend practically complete the game as a male. Also on Tekken 6 I always play Ling Xiaoyu and I was able to justify that by saying her move set feels comfortable to me (which is true, but I also feel comfortable playing her). But yeah, I don't think anybody suspects anything. They'd probably jump to the conclusion that I'm just sad and lonely rather than having an identity crisis lol.

I don't play all too many video games, but I did play F2P WoW and on private servers for about a year. Sometimes I would create a female character and just do some beginning quests for the sole purpose of being a female, and then I would delete the character.
Also, I go to a friends house with a group of guy friends once a week to play Halo - I've been doing so for years now. I would always play as an elite, but about 5 months ago I started playing as a female spartan once in a while. For about two months now that's all I play as, and I love it. It's crazy how simply selecting "female" in a video game can make you feel so free and "right".

Quote from: mwandishi on July 23, 2013, 01:16:35 PM
I don't play all too many video games, but I did play F2P WoW and on private servers for about a year. Sometimes I would create a female character and just do some beginning quests for the sole purpose of being a female, and then I would delete the character.
Also, I go to a friends house with a group of guy friends once a week to play Halo - I've been doing so for years now. I would always play as an elite, but about 5 months ago I started playing as a female spartan once in a while. For about two months now that's all I play as, and I love it. It's crazy how simply selecting "female" in a video game can make you feel so free and "right".

Did you delete the female character because you felt ashamed? If so you need not worry, plenty of people gender bend on MMO's. You think all those females running around are actually females? ;)

I wouldn't say shame... I just wanted to avoid questioning from peers :P

Quote from: mwandishi on July 23, 2013, 01:59:00 PM
I wouldn't say shame... I just wanted to avoid questioning from peers :P

I rarely found I was questioned, in fact I often found that people assumed all avatars were male until proven otherwise xD

While I think these days I tend to go more for male characters, I usually think of the character I'm playing as being a whole separate person from me, so in most cases the character's sex doesn't bother me. In Dragon Age: Origins, for instance, the first character I created was male, but I ended up with an equal number of male and female characters. If the character is actually meant to represent me, however (like a self-Sim or something), I'd rather them be male.

I play male characters.  As I kid I picked what I'd been told to pick my whole life, so chose female ones, but since then... nope.  Even before I put a name to this feeling.  It's funny thinking how I always restarted pokemon to play for a while as a male character, but never saved it because I didn't want to lose my progress on my female one.  At college there was a bit of a craze of playing pokemon on emulators on our phones, and it felt so good to be able to have the male character with "Alex" in the menu thing.  Fortunately my parents don't realise it's an option in most games, or that my Skyrim character's name is Maðuri, which I got from the Icelandic word for man, "maður".

It >-bleeped-<s me where games change powers on female options and they are not as powerful to play.
Take the classic Golden Axe... play the red amazon?  Hell no... her weapon reach is like 8 pixels.  Play the blue barbarian and his weapons longer.... but thats moot as the green dwarf is the best one to play.
I hated that chunlis attacks needed hold-press-release when I could do two circle+button attacks in that time.

Many years ago I worked at a game company and got into a huge fight with the producer because he refused to put females into multiplayer...  or as enemies... or anything beyond something hot to rescue or give medpacks.  Frustrating. I didnt realise wh y exactly it upset me so much.  Lol.

When I played EQ I used a male toon as having guys hit on me was a bit disturbing.
With WoW and SWTOR I used exclusively female toons
I have only played a fps once and it was default male

oh my god this is me everytime XD

I even go out of my way to try and be a girl character and i may even star teh game with a girl character then give up and eventually switch to a male one in an mmo. and especially recently as i find out just how much i really dislike the female body. i would much rather be a stronger male character or hell a femme looking elf dude than play as a girl.

i remember one time, long ago when Virtual magic kingdom was a thing, i played around as agirl then switched to a guy character and didn't tell anyone i was a girl in real ife. mind you i was like 11. to think that even at that age, when i was hardly thinking about my gender, i was all swapped XD

and now with ff15 coming out, i have no problem at all with them all being guys in the main party. hell i'd prefer it. i love playing games with a male protagonist...go figure.

Quote from: BeefxCake on July 31, 2013, 03:05:23 AM
oh my god this is me everytime XD

I even go out of my way to try and be a girl character and i may even star teh game with a girl character then give up and eventually switch to a male one in an mmo. and especially recently as i find out just how much i really dislike the female body. i would much rather be a stronger male character or hell a femme looking elf dude than play as a girl.

i remember one time, long ago when Virtual magic kingdom was a thing, i played around as agirl then switched to a guy character and didn't tell anyone i was a girl in real ife. mind you i was like 11. to think that even at that age, when i was hardly thinking about my gender, i was all swapped XD

and now with ff15 coming out, i have no problem at all with them all being guys in the main party. hell i'd prefer it. i love playing games with a male protagonist...go figure.

I'm gutted that FFXV looks to be a sausage fest :(

I will play female characters in games 100% unless of course the female characters are marketed entirely to horny teenage boys. Which is why I love Bethesda games so much they represent women for the culture in the worlds really well.

Quote from: mwandishi on July 23, 2013, 01:16:35 PM
I don't play all too many video games, but I did play F2P WoW and on private servers for about a year. Sometimes I would create a female character and just do some beginning quests for the sole purpose of being a female, and then I would delete the character.
Also, I go to a friends house with a group of guy friends once a week to play Halo - I've been doing so for years now. I would always play as an elite, but about 5 months ago I started playing as a female spartan once in a while. For about two months now that's all I play as, and I love it. It's crazy how simply selecting "female" in a video game can make you feel so free and "right".

I completely feel you; when I played WoW forever ago my friends would always ask why I played female characters and I told them it just felt right. (At this time I wish I was born female but didnt even know being transsexual was a thing so I just used games to be female for a change). I am currently leveling my second wizard to 60 on Diablo 3 so I can trade my male Wizard's gear to my Females <3

I've pretty much always played female characters, given the choice. This started with Pokemon Crystal, which was the first one to offer gender choice. As soon as Prof. Oak said "Are you a boy, or a girl?" I hit girl. And because I'm super original, I named her Kristal. Kristal looked super cool, tough and hardcore. She let me know that girls didn't have to be pink and frilly, they could be BADASS! (No offense to pink and frilly girls)

Later on I played Diablo II, and I played as the Assassin, a female only character. (Not that that would dissuade me.) I named her Kris, in honor of the coolest girl ever. Kris the Assassin basically codified the character of Kris for me, and in every game I played since then, the first character I create is always her. I've been playing Kris for over a decade now, and she's been in more alternate universes than Spiderman.

This came to a head in Mass Effect, where Renegade Fem!Shep became the true voice of Kris, and by extension, myself. She's the kind of woman I want to be. I wish I could get her voice down, but alas, even my considerable vocal talents cannot replicate that beautiful tone. Oh Jennifer Hale, why do you mock me so?

In games with no choice, I don't really care who I play as. Cole McGrath? Sure, whatever. Prince of Persia? Yeah, he's pretty cool. Mario? I'd rather play as Luigi, myself. But you give me a choice between "M" and "F", and I'll pick "F" every time.

Thankfully most of the game I play have the option to be female or have females as the main character. However When I am stuck playing a male character it does make me feel really weird. Right now I'm close beta testing for Warface, right now they only have male characters. I'm pretty good at that game, so when I see my male toon (the games shows the top 5 players at the end of the game) like idk I feel like it's chipping away at my heart. I don't know if I can really explain why. Even before I came out as mtf I always enjoyed/wanted to play female characters. Maybe that was just another clue that I should have been born female.... Now, when it comes to customization when possible I am so self conscious of both how I look and toon looks like. I find my self battling a line between how I really look and how I wish/or think I should look like.

On guild wars 2 I managed to only make one human character so I didn't have to battle customizing all my toons. But my one human just happened to be a light armor class, and of course just like any other fantasy mmo they wear more revealing armor vs the other armor classes. I believe I spent 2 hours customizing her before even hitting the intro mission. Even after I think I used 2
full makeover kits. Luckily because of the play styles I enjoy playing my guardian and mesmer the most, so I don't play my human much. My mesmer is of course a light armor class as well, but she's a really short asura so she really doesn't have human traits to them to worry about. My main toon which is the guardian is norn. The norns are pretty much bigger versions of humans, but because their lore and background is summed up like... a viking feel to em but they live in the snow (but they prey to the 4 animal spirits rather then pillage villages). Knowing that I just rank with a white and black color scheme and it turned out to work just fine. Sorry for all the info about gw2 I probably could have left out ( i just really like the game lol ), but you get my point.

After thinking about it for a bit I think the only to game I can stand playing male characters are splintercell and Assassin's Creed games. The reason why I don't mind it on those those games is because I think they are so cute/sexy toons and epicly badass. I can't believe I forgot this male charactor but Sora on Kingdom hearts, I loves the story line so much I didn't care that the main toon was male.

yeah, even before i realized I was a girl, I always picked female avatars when available. not only did they feel more relatable(gee i wonder why), but often times, if the characters are different rather than just being skins, the girls tend towards my preferred methods - magey types, or sneak-thieves.i played through threads of fate three times as mint before finally getting around to the boy to complete my save file. heh.

the only big exception in recent years was borderlands 1 - i don't really like the siren's skills that much but i adore sniping, so mordy was more up my alley.
and then in borderlands 2 they have gaige, whom as something as a powergamer i absolutely adore even aside from the fact that she's adorable. fat stacks on anarchy and a good shotgun is bliss.

I've recently reactivated my WoW account and looked over my characters. Most my males are either feminine or at least small or squishy or treehuggery. Most of my females are rather masculine.

My main is a female night elf priest, from back when I wanted very hard to live in the body I was given (and priest/cleric is closest to doctor/healer I wanted to be irl) but I don't play her much because my garbage computer means an average framerate of 6 or 7 fps and standing in fire kills her before I see it. My other characters at max level are a male gnome mage, a female orc rogue, and a male pandaren warrior who I made because my guild asked me to so we could get an achievement. He's kinda useless. I love how fat he is and how he moves but I can't figure out his story. And his tail looks stupid.

I've got a girl gnome warlock who I like because she's all hardcore and evil and girls aren't supposed to be. I've got a tauren druid who picks flowers and is basically Ferdinand. Lately I've been playing a female dwarf hunter.

I have a number of mid-level male blood elves. It goes without saying they're all pretty, um, well lol they're all pretty. Caricatures of well dressed gay men.

Gender only seems to be mentioned explicitly much in pvp, and it's almost always abusive. People assume all healers are girls, and "female" gets thrown around as an insult no matter what role you play. The extent of it depends on server or battle cluster or whatever.

I generally keep my mouth shut when people are being nasty in that way, but if in trade chat or any other place that lots of people might be listening, I gently argue with those who use fag or dyke as a casual insult. I can't imagine being a gay teenager and seeing that kind of thing as the norm. I'm not brave enough or ambitious enough to try to ask strangers to stop calling each other retard. Not yet.

Lol now I'm rambling and my gosh I'm glad I didn't have to come of age with the internet the way kids do nowadays.

I'll always play as a female in a game provided no one that i know face to face knows about it, i am still in the closet and am for good reason.

I always play as a female. I have tried to make a male character to set some people's mind at ease or to simply try something new. But I prefer to be female and to act as such. Problem is with the guys to seem to think that you are there for their amusement and want to demand to see your body. I have once received from a couple guys demands to see naked pictures to prove I was male, cause they believed I was too good at playing the female.

Totally agree with all who don't like to play male characters because it just feels weird/different, it just feels more natural to play a female character. In GTA V's case you can only play as males... kinda bummed (still a 100% satisfying game) older grand theft autos allowed you to enter a cheat code to play the game with civilian character models. I used to run around in a bikini sporting a minigun mowing down pigs fwahahaha!! >:-) I hear there will be more codes soon so hopefully the switch character models will exist

I always play as a male character, it just seems like the only choice tbh. When I was trying to feel comfortable with my body I attempted to make a female character in Fallout: New Vegas. I did the first few missions in Goodsprings then was leaving the area when that prompt came up asking if I was sure about my character. I ended up changing it to my default male character/alter ego. Hell, I even tried to play as a female in Oblivion but as soon as I got out of the sewers I gave up and went to my male Dunmer character.

I think the only game I played a female character in was Baldur's Gate. Not sure which one... It was on PS2? But the elf was a female, and in some alternate reality I'm an elf so I had to go with my true race. XD

I always pick a female on RPGs.   One of my faves is to customize and accessorize.  Esp in games like fallout where I can throw on a nice 50s dress and hat w/godmode and go explore.

Recently in online games I've gotten daring and presented as female which is incredibly liberating from the normal trapped feeling I always have.  It actually gave me the courage to kinda let myself go at work yesterday.  (And in a van full of ggs,  they were pretty confused haha)

I've pretty much always played male characters if given the choice, it just feels right for me. As far as I can tell I've always felt not at ease playing with females - then again I'm FtM and playing a male character is a way to escape reality for me. It just feels a bit more freeing and comfortable somehow.

But yeah, in some games you can't choose and that's when I don't care. Also, in some games you get different options/dialogues/story paths/whatever depending on what gender you choose and in those cases I will either take whichever gender gives me more of the game experience (story, choices etc) that I want or play through it with both genders if the game is good enough for another playthrough.

Now that i think about it. In my animal crossing ds game, the only reason i kept my boy character was so i could keep that purple cat around. I liked that purple cat. :)
But after a few months hiatus i came back to the game and he had moved away. :'(
So i started over with my female character. Then i forgot about the game completely until a few more months later, when my friend and i wanted to play together. So we booted up our games and lo and behold i die of embaracement because it was the female character.
Annd being as cool and smooth as i am, i say,"oh... Whoops..." *facepalm*

Since early age Id pick girl characters on games like tekken,,,at first I didnt really know why I just wanted to admire them
my mom would notice and she was like "arent you too young to look at girls like that " ...wieeeeeeeeeeeerd

Then I started playng rpg with a male character , but for some strange reason it felt boring , blunt , empty i dunno, so I started using female characters and I loved it so much , dressing them up experiecing the story as a girl...so fun...

also I introduce as a girl in online games , liberating and fun...

thank god for video games actually...

@princess
Hmm... Cant seem to find the like button...

its in your heart

lol ;)

I guess I am a real creep. I am FTM and I will almost always play as a girl when I am playing shooter games. I play Uncharted 3 (love when I get one in the last of us). I just LOVE the noises they make when they are running and jumping and getting shot. That moan you know...If I am playing a fighting game, I think I would probably play as a male. If I am playing the sims, 9 out of 10 times I will make a boy sim. If I am playing an RPG I will play as a guy too. Maybe, I am only a creep in shooter games. Yep that's it for me. 

I think that this choice is somewath linked to real life. I Always liked more to play with female characters (Unless they was poorly made), they ever was more like "me". I think that I always wanted to be a girl inside and in games we can be watherer we want right?? So why not?? And.. if we don't like our born gender in real life, I think it would be something that we avoid subconsciously in games.

Playing video games has actually helped my dysphoria. In video games, pretty much all of them have a playable male character in them. Even before I knew I was transgender, I would always play as the male character.

I always play as a male character, video games help me escape and feel like who I really am, I think I tried once making a female character and I couldn't get through it, ended up starting over as male

I play a lot rpgs and mostly i choose male. Even thought id like to be female in the game most rpgs dont do a good job at how armor and weapons, etc. get displayed on female characters. I did run a female in skyrim up to level 52 or so. It was great character

I tend to play female characters, myself, not that I don't occasionally play a male one.

I've always been pretty open about playing female characters, too. Where I lived last year, we had a 360 with Fallout New Vegas, which I'd play a lot. My character was female on it, and I played it in front of my roommates all the time. They didn't care. Neither has anyone on any of the MMOs I've played. To me at least, it seems like people don't care too much. At least not anybody I've ran into.

before i "knew" i was trans* male i always made male characters XD and ofc still do.  Everyone would always ask me why well ya i found out why;)

Yeah, I always played male characters too. Even as a kid/teen before I 'knew' I was trans. I was open about it too, I didn't think of it as odd or weird at all. I didn't really know why I did it though, it just felt right. Whenever someone asked me about it I either said I just liked it better or "just because" or because I hated the uber-feminised outfits and characters in games. (but even in games with 'normal' females I always played a guy. I'd just reply "I start playing girls as soon as they get a 'facial hair' and 'no boobs' option" lol)

Even in LARP I now finally play a guy. Which is truly liberating for me. I don't have to worry about people not accepting me as male, because it's a CHARACTER and cross-gender play is perfectly accepted. So even if they don't see me as a guy, they will still treat me as one in-game, which gives me great confidence to portray myself more as male in real life too.

Heyy, a gaming section, this works well for me since I'm a pretty hardcore gamer ^^ YES a thousand times to playing as my true gender. My entire life I always chose female characters if the option was there, from my preteens (Mortal Combat 3, Sonja!) right through my teens (Lara Croft) and beyond (Skyrim, Saints Row, Fallout, Mass Effect, etc). Even recently in Stick of Truth, where you are a male, but they don't seem to care if you avoid being a male, as there's heaps of wigs and makeup and I played through as a female, pretty much. I've avoided games because they were male only (even though games are kind of my job, so its risky to avoid them at all, but I really dislike playing as a male) even though I only recently came to terms with my gender dysphoria.

I've been pretty open about my preference for female characters, and although some people have considered it weird, I never cared much. I used the reason that many people have stated to deflect the question (if I'm going to stare at a character for 60 hours, I want something pretty to look at) and that seems to satisfy most friends (and myself, whilst in denial, though I always knew deep down it was much more than that). My openness about it actually made a friend 'come out' to me that they were mtf (not transitioning) and I was asked if I was too, but I was in severe denial at that point so said no. The results of this poll are interesting though, I wonder if it's common for people withOUT gender dysphoria to play as the opposite sex, and how one could go about researching that.

QuoteI wonder if it's common for people withOUT gender dysphoria to play as the opposite sex, and how one could go about researching that.

YES! I wonder that a lot too! I think it's not all that UNcommon, but most (cis)people I know play a character of their birth sex, but do not have big issues with playing a guy/girl once in a while (like in AC where you can't chose. I have plenty of girl friends who love the game, even though you are obliged to play a guy)
Another female friend of mine plays D&D and has a male character. Usually she picks female too, but 'it fits the character better' she said. And in LARP cross-gender play also exists but is VERY VERY VERY rare.
Sometimes people also just want to see what it's like to be a guy/girl, and play the opposite sex out of curiosity.

Quote from: Erik Ezrin on April 03, 2014, 03:47:15 AM
YES! I wonder that a lot too! I think it's not all that UNcommon, but most (cis)people I know play a character of their birth sex, but do not have big issues with playing a guy/girl once in a while (like in AC where you can't chose. I have plenty of girl friends who love the game, even though you are obliged to play a guy)
Another female friend of mine plays D&D and has a male character. Usually she picks female too, but 'it fits the character better' she said. And in LARP cross-gender play also exists but is VERY VERY VERY rare.
Sometimes people also just want to see what it's like to be a guy/girl, and play the opposite sex out of curiosity.

Oh, I get playing when being forced to (I play a lot of games, so often HAVE to play a guy *sigh*), or the occasional curiosity, but I wonder if it's ever consistent like it seems to be for a lot of us? If not, it sounds like games have opened up a somewhat clear marker for GID haha.

QuoteOh, I get playing when being forced to (I play a lot of games, so often HAVE to play a guy *sigh*), or the occasional curiosity, but I wonder if it's ever consistent like it seems to be for a lot of us? If not, it sounds like games have opened up a somewhat clear marker for GID haha.

Let's say... I do not KNOW any cis identifying people who CONSISTENTLY play the other sex. I know a lot who do it occasionally, but that's it. But they might be out there for sure... if I were a scientist I'd research it. Cause now I am getting curious as well.

I always play female characters, 100% of the time, any time I have a choice. Even in Borderlands, like, I remember picking the Soldier class initially. I gave it two playthroughs, but once I didn't need to concentrate as much on the gameplay, I switched over to Lilith. Her playstyle is much more fun, you actually get a 'feel' for the size and sex of your character in that game, I just plain enjoyed Lilith a lot more. Also, she's not nearly as campy or anything as Roland is. Now, if your character's sex impacts your playstyle like in Borderlands, or if I just don't get a choice like in most action games like Devil May Cry, I absolutely need the gameplay to be so complex and involving that I don't even think about it. I can stand to play as characters like Dante, Raiden, Samuel, or like, Death in Darksiders 2, because I'm so focused on the combat, and then focused on 'what secret will I go for next?' If it's an MMO or something a lot less involving, I just can't do that. I don't feel like it's legitimate discomfort most of the time, I just lose interest a lot more quickly.

I also play Pathfinder from time to time. It's a pen-and-paper game where ultimately the sex of your character doesn't matter. I STILL always play female characters, and my GM was a bit confused by that. He told me something like, I should play a male character next. I don't remember telling him that it was unlikely I would ever role-play a male character... but I did have some initial plans for my next character to be male. Threw those out when I found the perfect name for her.
If anybody asks about it, which people usually don't, I usually just use the 'eye candy' excuse as untrue as it is. It usually gets people to not talk about it. Well, unless you happen to be playing a game without graphics like Pathfinder.

Hehe, yeh using the 'eye candy' excuse for a pen and paper would be a bit strange, haha. I'm not sure what excuse I'd use in that circumstance >_<

I can't think of a very good excuse myself, no... I'm pretty sure I just never gave an excuse.
I'm not very subtle.

As a kid I generally preferred female characters but growing up between two brothers I got a lot of crap so I could really only get away with it when I had an excuse.

"I like peach because she can float. duh."

Nowadays I frequently play both genders. Generally I see myself as playing a character and not me, and sometimes the character I have in my mind plays better as male, sometimes as female. That being said I do tend to like my female characters more, and feel more in-tune with them.

Also, female or male, dressing them up in awesome/adorable outfits and hair is often as much fun as playing them  :D

Oh, I remember SMB2 as well! I always picked Peach myself, but to me it was legitimately because she could float. Either I was in a lot of denial or I just thought very practically back then... Either way, once game characters broke the more abstract look, and got to be 3d and real-ish looking, I couldn't do male characters anymore. I never realized until then that it actually did bother me.

Quote from: LThesaurus on April 14, 2014, 11:31:30 PM
Oh, I remember SMB2 as well! I always picked Peach myself, but to me it was legitimately because she could float. Either I was in a lot of denial or I just thought very practically back then...

Yeah, honestly it was probably a bit of both for me; as much as I enjoy gaming I have never been good at it. I can always use as much help as I can get!   :laugh:

I am a pirate at heart, and spent 7yrs playing several female characters, freeing my soul on Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean Online as Kat Heartbreaker, or Anne Bonny.. Created another female player, Samantha Firerage a month before The Rat shut the game down on.. wait for it... Talk Like A Pirate Day!  Many of my online friends moved to SWTOR, or WOW or LOTR, I moved to Pirates of the Burning Seas but it was a lot tougher.. So I only go on to chat with friends now, -always- in my proper gender, not my born one.  I just can not play someone I'm not.

My kids asked why, my nephew asked why, my wife too.. I told them (covering), I always get helped more  with the harder quests, as a girl. :/

Still, I can't play, what I'm not.  I'm on FB the same way.  I'm am female on FB.

^ oh my gosh i loved that game it was so fun....i wish it didn't close down :c

Quote from: Malachite on February 11, 2013, 11:48:55 PM
If the option is given to me, I will always choose to play as a male.  The only exception was Smackdown vs Raw 2008 where I created a wrestling woman, but she had facial hair.  In Saints Row 2, I created a male with a female voice.  I hate being a girl in real life so why should I suffer in video games?

you hit the nail on the head. My Skyrim female darkelf is a lot of fun to play

also, respect for the Kairi display picture. Love Street Fighter

I almost always play female characters in games when the option is there. Previously, it was "always" but after son asked me why I always played girls I started up some male toons to play while he's around. Not the best solution, but there's some places I'm just not prepared to go yet.

Hmm very good topic. Ever since I was little I would choose the male character instantly. I never questioned it because it just felt so right. But whenever I played with my brother he would accost me for it and make me play as the girl character, or not play at all. I once tried, but it just felt so wrong and unnatural. It was so life changing when I found out I was trans because everything just "clicked" all of the sudden, after I had been so confused and depressed as a child. I still play as a male character, but sometimes if there is a part where I have to run around bare chested (Dead Rising) it makes me jealous and a little bit angry.

I have played, the last, almost 8yrs now, as my true gender, in, of all things, a Disney game... Pirates Of the Caribbean Online (sadly, it's gone now), I played, I talked, I laughed, I cried, I joked, I fought, like a girl, and never felt free-er.   Now that it's gone, I moved to Pirates of the Burning Seas, another MMO,.. A lot harder to play, but still, I am Anne Bonney.  A retreat, an escape, to my real life while I play, and live, online for now, as myself.  I die, each time I sign off.

The first group, (better graphics) I am playing now.. The second, is the Disney game, not so good an engine, but it's closed now, so, awesome clothes, lots less dysphoria, and more calming effect... But I can not live on board the ship. :(

http://s1370.photobucket.com/user/PaulaC1958/library/?sort=3&page=3

I've always felt a boy so I chose male characters since I was a kid playing video games. Now I really like Animal Crossing for Nintendo 3ds because you can speak and interact with people of all countries and they only see the male character, so you can't be misgendered :) I like role games where you can customize your character.

When I'm playing 2D games, I almost always play a male character.  In 3D games, it really depends on the graphics.  Like in some games the only way to create an attractive character (from my perspective at least) is to make the character female so I'll play female characters then but otherwise I play male characters.

I've always played girl characters in games. I will rarely play a game if I cannot be a girl character. The only game I actually actively play in which I cannot play a girl character is the Assassin's Creed series and that is because I love the story, other than that I occasionally play Far Cry 3 and soon 4, I do not play games unless I can play as a girl.

Quote from: Nami on July 22, 2014, 10:31:05 AM
I've always played girl characters in games. I will rarely play a game if I cannot be a girl character. The only game I actually actively play in which I cannot play a girl character is the Assassin's Creed series and that is because I love the story, other than that I occasionally play Far Cry 3 and soon 4, I do not play games unless I can play as a girl.

I actually feel the exact same way about AC ^^. I just picked up Brotherhood the other day.

The only other games with male characters I've been able to play for any length of time are the Legacy of Kain series, again because I love the story.

I've always liked playing female characters if they're available just because they're SO underrepresented. To me a badass female is way more fun to play than a badass dude lol  ;D

This is another case of denial on my part. I used to say why the hell would I want to look at some dude's nasty ass for hours when I can look at a cute girl's butt instead. I ended up FEELING like I was a part of the game as the female character in many cases. Oh I'm just taking on that character, its not me. Denial, Denial, Denial. I know the real reason now.

Wait that indicates one other problem. If there is an option to put slutty caked on non flesh tone makeup on your character, I always do it. Does that say something about me?

Before I knew I was trans I was always playing male characters in video games. I must have played four different MMO's over a 15 year span and never once created a female character until a little while ago and that's just because I had a concept that amused me :) In RP I've always had male characters as well.

Quote from: Jera on July 22, 2014, 05:42:39 PM
I actually feel the exact same way about AC ^^. I just picked up Brotherhood the other day.

The only other games with male characters I've been able to play for any length of time are the Legacy of Kain series, again because I love the story.

I like all of the games but AC: Brotherhood is by far my favourite. Ezio is also my favourite character in the series of games.

I've always wanted to see a character with gender dysphoria go through Silent Hill. Because the monsters are manifestations of one's inner demons. I always thought that would be cool to do. Plus I absolutely love the series.

Playing Wildstar now so my character is a small, cute, furry (I am NOT a furry) but Aurin are too cute not to love. Any race that has "being really mean" as a capital crime is too cute to pass up on.

Yup. I have never played a video game before as a male character. Surprisingly I've never been asked why. But especially playing RPG's like Skyrim, I imagine myself as the character playing as most probably do, so It's to hard to do it being a guy, when that's not what I imagine on the inside. And my High Elf Archmage, looks oh so good if I don't say so myself XD
I'm also an elf on WoW. I like elves, a really cool fictional race to me. Would be so cool to actually be one.

Quote from: Sam314 on July 25, 2014, 11:40:47 AM
Yup. I have never played a video game before as a male character. Surprisingly I've never been asked why. But especially playing RPG's like Skyrim, I imagine myself as the character playing as most probably do, so It's to hard to do it being a guy, when that's not what I imagine on the inside. And my High Elf Archmage, looks oh so good if I don't say so myself XD
I'm also an elf on WoW. I like elves, a really cool fictional race to me. Would be so cool to actually be one.

Blood Elves for me on WoW and nothing else. OK, I do have one Space Goat (/waggle) but that's it.

Oh I do love the draenei chicks. Especially with the Russian accent.

Quote from: awilliams1701 on July 25, 2014, 01:34:27 PM
Oh I do love the draenei chicks. Especially with the Russian accent.

It was the accent that sold me on them, despite them being filthy Alliance.

Quote from: Wynternight on July 25, 2014, 11:43:11 AM
Blood Elves for me on WoW and nothing else. OK, I do have one Space Goat (/waggle) but that's it.

I only have 2 characters on WoW since I'm a little more new to it, but both are blood elves-mages.

I posted here earlier tonight and it seems to have disappeared. I shall repeat myself and hope it won't go through as two similar attempts to make the same comment like I often see on other sites.

I said in the past that I play both male and female characters, but I've had a massive temporary downgrade in my computing power so I've returned to old games. Two online ones display account gender in addition to character gender, and I've had trouble with other players' reactions to my display name and gender changing. The initial assumption is usually that I've been hacked, and if I can convince people that I'm the same person then they're often still uneasy and don't want to interact anymore.

In WoW, my mains are on a small server (even after merging) and it has been hard navigating when and to what extent to shake off my old identity and who to tell, and I can't control gossip. And I have certain in-game behaviors that often flag me as female, but that I don't want to change. Luckily vent/mumble balances a lot of that out for me personally.

In games where I only get one character, I usually choose male, but that still depends a lot on the available storylines and character models.

Which games display account gender so I know what to avoid??

Quote from: Felix on July 26, 2014, 01:47:27 AM
I posted here earlier tonight and it seems to have disappeared. I shall repeat myself and hope it won't go through as two similar attempts to make the same comment like I often see on other sites.

I said in the past that I play both male and female characters, but I've had a massive temporary downgrade in my computing power so I've returned to old games. Two online ones display account gender in addition to character gender, and I've had trouble with other players' reactions to my display name and gender changing. The initial assumption is usually that I've been hacked, and if I can convince people that I'm the same person then they're often still uneasy and don't want to interact anymore.

In WoW, my mains are on a small server (even after merging) and it has been hard navigating when and to what extent to shake off my old identity and who to tell, and I can't control gossip. And I have certain in-game behaviors that often flag me as female, but that I don't want to change. Luckily vent/mumble balances a lot of that out for me personally.

In games where I only get one character, I usually choose male, but that still depends a lot on the available storylines and character models.

I can't get immersed with female characters, so I pick males when possible. When there's no choice, it's not an issue, but I do feel somewhat disconnected from the experience.

I would always pick the female character at a young age, but I started to worry that people around me were picking up, and opted for the male... it always felt awkward, and it got to a point where I would be making female characters and tabbing out of the game so that people didn't see.

I think that video games were important for me at a young age, as it was one of the only ways I had to express myself when it came to my gender, in an MMO, you could be whoever you like, and (usually) people wouldn't question you.

As far as pen and paper (AD&D) I like to play a dwarven male.  Then came the age of mmos.
Played star wars galaxies first toon was male then made a second and it was female at which I barely played the male.  Then I moved to WoW which I started with a male dwarf then next was female o heck I had 8 toons 3 male 5 female.  Then I played star wars old republic at which I had about a 50/50 mix.  Now I have star trek online with first character is male and another that is Klingon male (Klingon females just never seemed like captains) and then 4 other toons all female.  Aswell as a female toon in Second Life which I play as saying I am Transgendered.  To be honest I didn't fully consider I may be transgender till second life made me go hey and I had then found this wonderful place.  Am I TG well open but still confused state at the moment and how far that goes is anyones guess.  Now that I look back maybe I am truly female on the inside yet male on the outside as the pattern seems like I made females more often then male:)  Sorry long post older (42 year old) gamer.

I like playing both, or either, or in-between.

In games like the Saints Row series, I tend to play male characters (and then occasionally put bras and dresses on them). Once I played a female character, but dressed very masculine and with one of the male voices. I love the level of gender-bending that's allowed in those games.

In World of Warcraft, most of the male character models look really fake and over-bulky to me, so I tend to play females because they look pretty.

Sometimes I like to play the female character (like in the Mass Effect series) simply because I want to defy defaults and norms. Other times I prefer to play male characters because it just feels more normal and natural to me.

I also tend to be more willing to identify as female in MMO spaces (with random strangers), just because I like to snap at people who claim there are no girls in WoW, or start making sexist comments in the raid finder.

Quote from: Wynternight on July 26, 2014, 02:07:20 AM
Which games display account gender so I know what to avoid??

Again, these are the games I can run on my very low power old machine, but Kingdom of Loathing and Neopets both display account gender. KoL at some point changed so you don't have to answer certain questions, so the default gender is "unspecified," which is nice. Neither site asks questions if you change your gender, but other players do.

As for WoW races yes elves are nice but no one chose Gnomes I mean they are just to cute!:)
By the way I have not played it since Mists but did a lot before including vanilla.

I chose many races 3 male 5 female horde and alliance and sorry nothing compares to gnomes or even trolls pretty funny too:)

Quote from: Jen72 on August 02, 2014, 12:57:44 AM
As for WoW races yes elves are nice but no one chose Gnomes I mean they are just to cute!:)
By the way I have not played it since Mists but did a lot before including vanilla.

I chose many races 3 male 5 female horde and alliance and sorry nothing compares to gnomes or even trolls pretty funny too:)

My favorite characters after my elf main are a male gnome, a female orc, and a female dwarf, but I've always loved the troll models. I could main one if they could make the male shoulders or entire female bodies less stiff when they walk and run and jump. Humans are the only races I don't like to look at and don't usually make characters for. The standardization is harder to accept with models that are supposed to look like things that exist in real life.

Quote from: Felix on August 03, 2014, 12:03:00 AM
Humans are the only races I don't like to look at and don't usually make characters for. The standardization is harder to accept with models that are supposed to look like things that exist in real life.

Interesting. I hate playing humans in any game where other options are available.

I used to choose mainly female characters when I was worried about being noticed (mostly by the guys I dated or by people who might make fun of me). This made it hard for me to concentrate on the game, and when people talked about how my character looked it made  me cringe horribly.

I just recently started playing WoW (the trial version for now) and the first thing I did was pick the human male. I feel so much better in my "online" skin so to speak!

I always picked either female characters or monsters that didn't seem to have a gender. The one exception is ACNL where I made a male character and got a feminine haircut and dressed in female clothes.

I play as both, but I think I tend to play female characters more than male.. despite being male myself. lol

But honestly, most male character models aren't any more "me" than the female ones.. I mean, many male character models are made to be big, macho buff guys.

And I am neither big, macho nor buff. :P

I do like "cute" and "pretty" things, though, so I usually go for the gals. (I'm in the closet, anyway, so it's probably for the best)

Before I knew I was transgender, I always played as a male character for reasons unknown to me at the time.

Other >

I'll be honest, for most I do pick female... But in certain games with a rather clear image of who the main character is, I kinda rather go for originality instead of customization.... Saint's Row, and Mass Effect to name a couple... The main aspect I appreciate in games (and the reason why I love story driven FPSes like Bioshock and Half Life, as well as RPGS like Dragon Age: Origins... Not 2, I hated 2..) is storyline.. And sometimes  by going custom you can loose some of it.... I tend to leave that later for when I play about with mods and such.

Always my true gender, female. <3

People who know me irl and see my avatar are like "Dude. Wtf.", but I've come up with some lame excuse for it every time. xD My brother, on the other hand, used to ask me daily, since we play this one game together. Fortunately, he stopped asking and now just accepts it. I've even insisted he refer to me as "she", "her", and his "sister" in-game. This he has also just accepted, but I haven't come out to him yet. (I did all of this BEFORE I even knew I was trans... xD And I still proudly do it)

iiMTF

I do play some male characters, mainly to throw my wife off, but I have a set name and female set of characters I like to make up. My default Mass Effect run though was a female Shepard, my default Dragon Age and Dragon Age II runs were both female leads, same with Skyrim.  While I do like Uncharted I prefer Tomb Raider mainly for the lead I get to play. I loved Remember Me for that reason despite kind of middling gameplay.  MMO's are where I end up with some male characters just to appease my wife, but my favorites and go to characters are always female.  She has noticed.  A few weeks ago she made a comment on it that I need to play some guys which actually sent me on a bit of self-discovery that led me here.  So of course since she's not playing Destiny and I haven't talked ot her about it yet, all my Guardians are females. 

I usually always play through first as a woman, but if I play the game again I'll runthrough with a male character (though I will play the male character the complete opposite as my female character). An example would be Skyrim. First run through was as female and I did everything good. Second run through I went as an orc or something, and did everything evil. I usually do this with games like this. I noticed I had a liking for creating female characters long ago and identified with them more than male characters.

Being a huge gamer myself, I frequent both  mmos and rpgs, among tons of other games.  I primarily play male characters, thats what feels natural.  If I play as a female character then it doesn't feel like that character represents me. I'd see her as a lovely character, but the connection and immersion just wouldn't be there. Its a bit like cosplay to me, I suppose.

I'm sure I'm not really explaining it right, but hopefully you get the gist!:)

Honestly online experience and interaction is what helped solidify things in my head. I had started questioning and went to Second Life to "try the fit". Male avi quickly became accepted and the dysphoria began to rear its head RL. I think because physically there is no way I can pass RL it became more important to me. I have a female alt n she is the one that doesn't feel like fits

Funny, I also figured a lot out trough Second Life :P. In other games I play as a female but single player I don't mind if it is a guy. Online it just feels.. weird x_x.

Glad I'm not the only one Kiery. BTW hun you look fantastic

I've always played female characters almost exclusively, even as far back as old games like Streets of Rage. About 15 years ago I got my start in multiplayer, where I could anonymously present as my true gender, and did take advantage of the opportunity to be a flirt :)

Curiously, I find a lot of guys play female characters, too. I think for them it's a sexual thing - either they think she's attractive, or in the case of 3rd-person point of view for instance they just dislike staring at a guy's butt too long.

I absolutely have to play as both genders.  I'll choose my birth gender (male) first but I must play as a female for at least one game.

Quote from: luna nyan on February 13, 2013, 04:18:08 AM
Always play as a female.  When people ask, I just say if I have to look at a characters rear end for hours on end, a female one is better to look at.  I don't explain why a female is better, I just let peoples assumptions take them where they want to go. =)

lol that pretty much sums me up... I always play female and when asked I tell them "since I'm attracted to females... I'd rather watch them run around on screen then some guy"

If the option comes up to make my own character, I usually use the gender I identify as.

I don't feel dysphoria over not being able to play as female characters.

But I almost always play as female characters when I can, unless the male character is really really cute.
I'm always so excited to play as a female character. It's always so wonderful.

There should be more games with female protagonists. Female protagonists are great!

Almost always female character.  It's always been a connection issue with me, even before I figured out I am trans. I felt more in sync w/ females, male characters mostly felt clunky when I played them (caused by subtle dysphoria mayhaps?). 

I do tend to enjoy games less when I'm stuck as a male now that I think about it.

I voted but not sure if I replied, so in case I didn't:

I've played female characters pretty much exclusively ever since the games I played started having a gender choice.  Like many others here, I've come up with many excuses, both to my friends and myself, as to why I play female characters.  I think WoW was the first game we played where gender was a choice, and the first character I created was a girl.  Oddly, I didn't even think about the decision, it just seemed normal to to play female.  All my friends had created big butch male characters, and teased me about picking female.  In a rare blast of wit, I said to them "pft, you're the ones running arround staring at a dude's arse for 8 hours at a time, and you have the gaul to call me gay?" :P they all changed to female characters by the next day lol.  Obviously at that time, I was still labouring under the myth that "a guy who wants to be a girl = homosexual", which obviously I know now isn't correct.  It wasn't said in a nasty or homophobic way either (we've always been a pretty liberal bunch), it was just that none of us identified that way.

Since then, I've played female characters exclusively whenever it's been a choice.  When it's not and I'm forced to play a male character for whatever reason, I do feel dysphoric - particularly when it comes to connection to the character.  The female characters I create / play feel like a part of me, like a true extension of myself and my personality.  Male characters just feel like a tool that I'm manipulating in my hand.  No connection what-so-ever.  Not that I don't feel empathy for well-written ones, but my brain just registers them as "someone else", whereas with female characters, my brain registers them as "a part of me", if that makes sense?  I always give my female characters a rich backstory too, whereas my male characters are "just there".

Incidentally, these feelings are one of the three big things that clued me in to the possibility that I might be trans*.  I feel so normal being a female in the virtual world (particularly including when it comes to social interactions), it's frankly mind-boggling that I managed to deny that this existed in me for so damn long.  And that's without even taking into account all the non-videogame role-play fantasies that used to swirl around in my head in the years before that lol :P

<3

Quote from: KiraD on October 04, 2014, 03:20:08 PM
The female characters I create / play feel like a part of me, like a true extension of myself and my personality. Male characters just feel like a tool that I'm manipulating in my hand.  No connection what-so-ever.  Not that I don't feel empathy for well-written ones, but my brain just registers them as "someone else", whereas with female characters, my brain registers them as "a part of me", if that makes sense?  I always give my female characters a rich backstory too, whereas my male characters are "just there".

Incidentally, these feelings are one of the three big things that clued me in to the possibility that I might be trans*.  I feel so normal being a female in the virtual world (particularly including when it comes to social interactions), it's frankly mind-boggling that I managed to deny that this existed in me for so damn long. And that's without even taking into account all the non-videogame role-play fantasies that used to swirl around in my head in the years before that lol :P

<3

I used near verbatim phrasing like that once when talking about why I played a female Dwarven hunter.   And like you I also find myself dumbstruck that I was in denial/completely didn't catch what was going on with me.  But then I do remind myself that it's hard to see how big a forest is when you're only looking at one tree at a time.

Quote from: KiraD on October 04, 2014, 03:20:08 PM
Incidentally, these feelings are one of the three big things that clued me in to the possibility that I might be trans*.  I feel so normal being a female in the virtual world (particularly including when it comes to social interactions), it's frankly mind-boggling that I managed to deny that this existed in me for so damn long.  And that's without even taking into account all the non-videogame role-play fantasies that used to swirl around in my head in the years before that lol :P

<3

^this^

Myself and my two best friends in online gaming almost exclusively play female characters. Until a few months ago we had never met in person, well, they had, they're roommates.

When we did finally meet we were all surprised that we were MAAB. They were sure I was female and I was sure they were. In June I came out to them and they were really supportive. A week later, one of them came out to me. She hadn't been hiding it, she was as clueless as me until she heard my story. The other is asexual and doesn't identify as trans. Funny, huh? The stereo type is that most female characters are really "male", and I can attest that some are, but maybe more than we know, or even they know, are trans.

Quote from: ElDudette on October 05, 2014, 06:43:01 AM
I used near verbatim phrasing like that once when talking about why I played a female Dwarven hunter.   And like you I also find myself dumbstruck that I was in denial/completely didn't catch what was going on with me.  But then I do remind myself that it's hard to see how big a forest is when you're only looking at one tree at a time.

Aww, is that her in your avatar?  She's (or should I say - *YOU'RE* :P ) really cute! :D

And yeh, I guess the whole "wood through the trees" thing does apply.  Still, I have a degree in Astrophysics for christ's sake, I'm *supposed* to be smart lmao! :D ♥︎

Quote from: Dee Walker on October 05, 2014, 10:18:31 AM

^this^

Myself and my two best friends in online gaming almost exclusively play female characters. Until a few months ago we had never met in person, well, they had, they're roommates.

When we did finally meet we were all surprised that we were MAAB. They were sure I was female and I was sure they were. In June I came out to them and they were really supportive. A week later, one of them came out to me. She hadn't been hiding it, she was as clueless as me until she heard my story. The other is asexual and doesn't identify as trans. Funny, huh? The stereo type is that most female characters are really "male", and I can attest that some are, but maybe more than we know, or even they know, are trans.

Wow that's a really great thing to hear hun!  And yeh, I've suspected that more people who play opposite-gendered characters are in fact trans* than we're all lead to believe.  I'd like to point out too that the gaming community as a whole has been rather vocal over the past few years regarding gender issues.  It makes me feel really proud when I see gamers tearing a big company like EA apart when they over-sexualise women, or fail to offer sufficient gender and/or sexuality choice.  I've seen tonnes of conversations on gaming forums about non-binary genders and sexualities, and there's constant talk against the under-representation of LGBT.  Sure, trolls do make the community look like misogynists, but I've come to realise that those people are just a vocal minority of morons.  The majority of the gaming community seems to me to be quite pro LGBT and anti-misogyny.  All in all, I'm proud to be a gamer :)

I've said it before and I'll say it again - those of us starting out on our journey now are very lucky to have online gaming and the internet as platforms to experiment with our self-expression and gender identity.  Older transitioners didn't have that, and I'm personally very very grateful that this technology exists :) ♥︎

Quote from: KiraD on October 05, 2014, 12:11:54 PM
Aww, is that her in your avatar?  She's (or should I say - *YOU'RE* :P ) really cute! :D

And yeh, I guess the whole "wood through the trees" thing does apply.  Still, I have a degree in Astrophysics for christ's sake, I'm *supposed* to be smart lmao! :D ♥︎

*blushes fiercely* Thank you :)   

It's actually a pic by an artist named Fredrik K.T. Andersson

But I use it since it's near spot on to how I look in game (and mentally how I see myself these days) + close to one of the casual attire RP clothing set (which I was going to log in and take a cap of but I forgot I mothballed my account again starting this month to save money >.< )
But here is one of my semi-formal party attire :)  which I was probably drunk at this party since I don't have my sandals on XD XD XD
(https://38.media.tumblr.com/2d8f12f1088bb52f9c2a0603083534d2/tumblr_nczm8rw3jv1tlcxllo1_400.jpg)

As I tell customers at work when I point out that they walked right by what they were looking for
"One of my favourite quotes is a military proverb that goes ' The easiest place to hide something is in plain sight. ' This is why when you're 30min late for an appointment and you can't find your car keys, you spend another 30min looking for them, miss the appointment, turn around and the keys are on the counter thumbing their nose at you. "

As a nonbinary person, it's rare for me to find sprite options other than "male" and "female" in games, so I usually pick the "male" sprite just to be contrary xD Makes me feel sneaky, I guess. Like, "haha, I don't play by your gender rules!".

I'll pick female sprites occasionally though, if they're cuter than the male ones. Alas, I am a shallow gamer; I choose my Pokemon by appearance rather than functionality or team balance.

Quote from: D.N. on October 12, 2014, 07:31:38 PM
Alas, I am a shallow gamer; I choose my Pokemon by appearance rather than functionality or team balance.

Lol, I do the same thing on Pokemon... My little Fennekin is just so darn cute!!!! <3

Im kind of weird, I usually choose the girls in games if im only given two character options as some of the guy characters in those games have kind of silly designs. However, If im playing a game where you can customize your character, I will almost exclusively choose male as I can have the chance to create a character that fits with me. So I am usually found on games with high custom creativity content (particularly the sims, I get to play as me basically in there as the guy I am)

Funny topic!

I almost always create a female character when I play a RPG like Skyrim, and my RuneScape character is usually a female too (if only there would be a make-over mage in real life...). When I am doing a Skyrim playthrough I usually marry a female character as well (yay for homosexual marriage in games!). Sometimes I do play a male character however, and I don't mind doing so.

It is a shame that there is no option to be a female soldier in games like MW3. I mean, women are still heavily outnumbered in the armed forces but they are definitely out there.

I wish my PlayStation didn't brake down, I'd be playing oblivion right now as a female character as always,  ,every game where there's a choice I choose a female character, even back before HRT when I had friends I'd play as female, they use to hate it because I would kick their but on tekken playing as asuka.

Well... I play MMORPG and have every sort of toons...

I draw my guys matching a reference male, a hero. I do get compliments for doing it right but I tend to be rather shy while playing a guy. Mostly I avoid talking about myself (especially regarding name/gender) but every once in a blue moon when there's only 1 female in a squad of males I just say I'm a female.

With my girls however I let my imagination go loose. Last time I rolled a female I eventually spotted some similar traits to my own... I think I'm more sociable/helpful as a female. However I end up telling my name/gender quite often in order to avoid stalkers and marriage proposals lol

I almost always play female characters unless its a racing game and i have no choice, or for some reason the male model actually looks better (to my eyes). When i was asked about that I used to say "I play this game for several hours a day, why would I want to stare at a man's ass the whole time when I could stare at a cute butt?" In truth i'm a bisexual mtf, but when your not out to someone and they ask you something to fish for an answer, little white lies tend to form!

I always create Female characters, the only exception is when I have to present that character(in vs. or games where they could see me) to others or have multiple files (ie Pokemon)

Video games were part of the force that lead to the knowledge of myself being a transgendered person. On a subconscious level of my mind I always picked female, and when I did pick make, the experience grew stale. I played a lot of Oblivion and even some Skyrim around when I figured this out(though personally I have now come to the conclusion that I really didn't like Skyrim all that much it bored me quickly it felt much more empty than Oblivion, but whatever) I play a lot of Minecraft, but that doesn't really count because until VERY recently I have been using an albino ferret skin that I had to handcraft myself everytime.

SIDENOTE: when I play terraria I technically play as the male model with femine hair just because it still looks like a female and the actual female model looks derpy and really hard to fight monsters in...

I usually play a male character, but every now and then I play female because of the design or the play-style or what have you. But "my" characters are pretty much all male. If I have an option for multiple characters (EG: Sims, Miis, Animal Crossing...) I sometimes have 1 female character, but that's really it.

I play male characters more in computer games but do also switch it up between male and female characters somewhat. In table top RPGs, I play about evenly male and female characters as well as a lot of nonbinary characters.
I usually imagine my tabletop characters to be trans or gender nonconforming to some degree, and several of them have been within game canon. My fave character I've ever played was a MtF druidess, and I might actually write a book about her some day.

Don't remember if I posted in this thread before....

But, I find I mostly play as a female, at least while I am on the PC, if I am playing on a console I most likely will play as a male to avoid my family asking about it(my brother for whatever reason thinks it is wrong for you to play as the opposite gender in a game, then again for me I guess it technically is the same gender?). In all honesty, if I am playing as a male in an MMORPG, I find that I am very shy or just have a lack of motivation to play the character... If for whatever reasons the male models look better, or the classes are gender locked, I will usually make a somewhat androgynous male character.

For singleplayer games I most likely just play whatever the character was officially.

If the game doesn't offer a female character I find it really hard to get into, that is the reason why I have spent like ten minutes in the Witcher 2 yet have spent forty plus hours on Dragon Age 2 despite being widely considered a worse game.

This usually doesn't effect me much because I don't do that much gaming in general. Though when I do I usually pick the boy.

But tonight I was at a friends house playing some Wii games that used a Mii she had made for me a year ago. The Mii was female and it bothered me SO MUCH. I was getting to angry because my character was wearing a dress and a bikini. And I couldn't tell my friend why because I'm not out to her. And it was so frustrating...so yeah. I get this.

Quote from: Hikari on January 07, 2015, 02:58:19 PM
If the game doesn't offer a female character I find it really hard to get into, that is the reason why I have spent like ten minutes in the Witcher 2 yet have spent forty plus hours on Dragon Age 2 despite being widely considered a worse game.

I bought Far Cry 3 yesterday, and I could not pick a female character :(. Oh well, I am enjoying the game... wish I had bought it months earlier haha.

My wife came in the other day while I was playing Saints Row 3rd and I was playing pretty much as the person I truly feel like and she said "wow, you can dress in drag in that game"?  I was actually insulted on my character's behalf because I thought she was gorgeous.  I just thought it was funny how it was a blow to me as she wasn't in drag at all.

I've almost always played as a woman except for online for obvious reasons.  It's all starting to make waaaay more sense now.

What I find unfair is when you get specific bonuses as a certain sex, I find those games typically aren't suited for me because I obviously want to have an easier gameplay experience, but if it's unfairly balanced toward male, then I might not play. I typically play as a female on every game that has the option, and if a voice chat is part of the experience, act like it doesn't mean anything that I'm playing as a female or I don't use the voice chat itself. Sometimes listening is better than participating in the speaking cause people say good stuff.

My Runescape character was Vulynn way before I chose that name as my own. She has been female ever since I excepted my gender years ago, in the days of the Makeover Mage. I had 3 accounts on RS, and they all ended up being female at one point.

Skyrim, Oblivion, Bordelands 1 &2 (I chose CL4PTRP in The Pre Sequel, I love that little bot enough toskip out on Nisha or Athena), Perfect World, AOTTG, Lost Saga, Euro Truck Simulator 2, Elsword, MapleStory, Sims (all of them), really any game where gender is of your choice. It's been this way for years, I believe close to 9 years. I don't like playing a game with a guy as my avatar unless there is something worth it like story.

I generally only played male characters until a few years ago, when I decided I would no longer be afraid to play what I wanted. Since then, I can't stand playing male -- it just doesn't feel right. My friends (they don't know about me) often give me a hard time about it, but I'm cool with it. I do prefer when the female body types aren't so... exaggerated, however.

I used to play male characters when I was 12, 13 years old. Even at 16, I believe I played some male characters. I began playing female only characters at age 16-17 and never stopped since then.

I often infuriate my friends because I refuse to play any game where male is the only option.

As it was said before in this topic : being a male is already a pain everyday, I don't see why I should play a male in the game on top of that.

I play on MUCKS as a femme character.  Funny, since it's text based and you cant actually -see- anything.  I get to describe how the character looks, which means I have full control over it.
However, on this game, Terraria, I have male chars. Prevents fights that way.

I always play a female character. It was interesting to explain to my parents...

Dad: Why are you a woman in that game?
Me: *immediately dons skimpiest armour I can find* Because eye candy.
Dad: Mmm. I see. *nods approvingly and walks away*

Mom: Why are you female?
Me: Because it's not reality?
Mom: Fair enough. *walks away scratching head*

And then there was my sister..."Why are you - oh holy crap that is hot nevermind I don't even care. Can I watch?"

The only game where I wasn't female was an experimental pen-and-paper game a friend of mine was trying to develop back in middle school, because there were just too many dudes playing for me to try the usual route. I knew what'd happen.

Haha, that would have been an awkward game to sit through. I've always wanted to design my own game like that. Pen/paper, cards, video games, text based video games, I love designing stuff.  Thanks for sharing!

I like to play wrestling games.  I don't really game much, but of what I do, it's mostly superhero stuff and wrestling.  For the most part, WWE games will let you play as characters of both genders, as well as create players of either gender.  However, if you choose to play as or create a Diva, you're limited as to what you can do as far as clothing options, body shapes, and game modes.  Earlier versions of the games would allow for intergender play, or to make CAWs as a third gender that could compete in both divisions and could take a male or female body type.  But current versions don't allow for that, nor any sort of intergender play, so if you're a hardcore fan like me, you can't play as your preferred gender and take on or team with the guys.  So, if I want to play against Seth Rollins, for instance, I have to play as a male character or CAW.  But if I want to take on AJ Lee, I can be Daria all I want.  I can't be WWE Champ, but I can be Divas champ, which is fine, but to play other modes, you have to play as a guy.  Which is fine if I want to play as Sami Zayn in a career mode, but not so much if I want to play as me... or any other girl for that matter.  Well, I CAN play as me, but it'd have to be male me, which... eh... kind want to stop doing, really.  I can't even really pretty my male CAW up enough to be androgynous or whatever.  So I can't even really Shane myself up enough to make it work.  Bleh...

However, most other wrestling games don't even have that option.  CAW modes are limited, and almost always male-only.  So the AAA Heroes of Lucha, TNA, or anything like that, no dice.  Fire Pro Wrestling let you make women CAWs, but they'd balk at the intergender play. 

It's because they want to be all family-friendly and crap, but it's like, there's maybe 10 divas in any WWE game, and half of them are crap wrestlers no one want to play as/against anyway.  I'd LOVE to have a SHIMMER game with a full roster and a deep CAW mode, like a WWE game or better, but they're so low on the totem poll that it'd almost never happen.

But that's just me, transgender fangirl lamenting how she can't use her real CAW up against Seth Rollins and kick his teeth in with his own finisher....  She has to use a guy.  Bleh.

I play female characters like 80% of the time. The rest I play male because a nagging voice in my mind says I should want to play them :/

i used to play male characters back at the day before understanding my own feelings as to why i was miserable at the time but ever since then i only and every single time i can [when i can choose if a female or male character except for times when the female character is showing too much and leaves a taste of body objectifying in such case i prefer to play a male character because those are usualy more covered
but my skyrim player.. dark souls 2 player.. titanfall all of them are female characters because i can choose what they would wear

You know, I play male characters a good 95% of the time. The only time I don't is when I have a specific roleplay character I want to play in an MMORPG, or when I can't play as a male.

Pretty much always done that, preferred male avatars vastly, but it wasn't until I came out that I realized exactly WHY it was so prominent. Before I thought I was just really really into hot guy butt?

...Well. I still am. LOL

Quote from: Taius on February 17, 2015, 11:36:17 AM
You know, I play male characters a good 95% of the time. The only time I don't is when I have a specific roleplay character I want to play in an MMORPG, or when I can't play as a male.

Pretty much always done that, preferred male avatars vastly, but it wasn't until I came out that I realized exactly WHY it was so prominent. Before I thought I was just really really into hot guy butt?

...Well. I still am. LOL

Lol That is what I would say when my friends would ask me why I make female characters in WoW. "If I'm going to stare at an ass for hundreds of hours it might as well be an attractive one!" :P

I really don't play games nowadays.... pc is from 2010 so can't handle new games well.  But when I played it was mostly stealth. .. lume Splinter Cell, and was quite OK with Sam Fisher.

When I was like, 7-10 years old I mostly just played fighting games with friends and felt that I always had to use a feminine character because my friends would pick on me if I didn't. When I got into other genres and played alone more I figure out I was more comfortable playing as a man and then started playing as male characters more and more to the point I was doing it exclusively. I started feeling really uncomfortable playing as female characters when I had my choice so I avoided it as much as I could. I never really gave it much thought until I was 15 and picked up Fable III. My second playthrough I was a bearded cross-dressing woman, which finally got me seriously thinking about my gender issues.

I still play predominantly as male, but I have a lot of alternate profiles/saves that are female characters.

I think you who love the games might enjoy a book about a transgender character in "Just Girls" By Rachel Gold.  It is her second book with the first "Being Emily" another coming out trans story.

When I was getting my hair done, I realized it was going to be the same color as my game preference. Apparently I've been making my true self in game form all these years. Maybe that means I need to start wearing nuclear green makeup in insane amounts. lol (probably not)

Discovering the online RPG world when I was 17 is what really started to make things click for me. Playing a female character felt so natural and the more and more time I spent doing it the more I realized I enjoyed it so much because I was able to be my true self. It was eye opening but also caused me no small amount of pain. I felt until recently that being myself online was the only option which was devastating. I pulled away from everything in real life (Friends, family, and even working.)

I met people along the way and came out to a few of them. There were times they would react badly but most were surprisingly understanding. A few even suggested things like GRS but the concept of that seemed so extreme and out of my reach that I just pushed it aside. I've spent the last 12 years living my life in MMO's. It for me has taken the loss of two parents and confronting the fact that unless I make big changes to ensure my happiness and that I have a reason to keep living that I wouldn't have survived another year.

I may never have come to the conclusion that the dismay I had felt with myself all my life was due to feeling like I was trapped in the wrong body if not for video games.

Oh and my characters over the years have all sort of shared a similar look. I think it was my subconscious shaping the characters to follow what I felt the true me would resemble. Except for in WoW at least, my true self is definitely not a Blood Elf.  :laugh:

I have a lot of issues with playing RPG games and the like, because they're so often very binary. I end up having to pick between only two genders, neither of which fit me. I used to flip a coin to pick one, but it's reached a point now that when I say "does anyone have a coin", my friends will pick one at random or make up a silly 'pick a number' game or something. I have a roughly equal number of male and female characters, and in LOTRO I even have a non-binary one (RP-wise only, but dwarves are all coded male for some reason?).

Quote from: Aearon on March 27, 2015, 06:49:00 PM
I have a lot of issues with playing RPG games and the like, because they're so often very binary. I end up having to pick between only two genders, neither of which fit me. I used to flip a coin to pick one, but it's reached a point now that when I say "does anyone have a coin", my friends will pick one at random or make up a silly 'pick a number' game or something. I have a roughly equal number of male and female characters, and in LOTRO I even have a non-binary one (RP-wise only, but dwarves are all coded male for some reason?).

Because in the books no one ever saw female dwarves. There were two theories among fans, either the dwarves keep their women deep in their delves, or female dwarves look exactly like male dwarves.

Quote from: Dee Walker on March 27, 2015, 10:10:03 PM
Because in the books no one ever saw female dwarves. There were two theories among fans, either the dwarves keep their women deep in their delves, or female dwarves look exactly like male dwarves.

Tolkien did explicitly state the existence of female dwarves, and included the named character of Dís. Plus there are plenty of fan theories about non-binary dwarves and dwarves with different constructions of gender than humans.

Quote from: Aearon on March 27, 2015, 10:46:15 PM
Tolkien did explicitly state the existence of female dwarves, and included the named character of Dís. Plus there are plenty of fan theories about non-binary dwarves and dwarves with different constructions of gender than humans.

I missed that one, thanks! Which book?

Quote from: Dee Walker on March 28, 2015, 07:20:40 AM
I missed that one, thanks! Which book?

Because this is Tolkien, Lord of the Rings: "Appendix A: Durin's Folk", and A History of Middle Earth: Volume XI: The War of the Jewels, "Part Two. The Later Quenta Silmarillion: Concerning the Dwarves (Chapter 13)"  ;D
There are also female dwarves in some of the films: mentioned in Two Towers and shown in An Unexpected Journey.

I am not sure where I seen this but the explanation I got why you don't see female dwarves is that so few are born therefor to preserve the race they are kept save in the mountains at home basically.

Most of the time I play the female unless it's somthing like Borderlands where a male might fit my style. Even though that never happened XD

I could go both ways. I write a lot so I don't have the game character represent me, rather represents other characters of mine. In Saints Row, I had fun making different people and listening to the different dialogue options. And then Dragon Age came in to my life and I'm just all "I MUST PLAY ALL OF THESE PEOPLE". I marvel at how much detail they put in to the different reactions from race and sex.

I've been gaming for most of my life, though I was a casual player right up until 2007. In 2007 I started playing RuneScape, and at first my character was female with short hair, but I eventually changed it to a male character. At first I put it down to not wanting people to flirt with me, which sometimes happens if you have a female character. Then I moved to Mabinogi, where most of my characters were male, except the one. I couldn't put down the reason why, though my excuse was always "I don't want to be hit on" for online games and "I'd rather look at a male character" for offline games. This continued to Vindictus, Assassin's Creed Multiplayer, Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning, Halo, Saints Row, Borderlands, Destiny, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Dragon Age, Mass Effect and whatever else I'm missing where most, if not all, of my characters were male.

It wasn't until last year that I had that Aha! moment regarding my preference for male characters. I felt like I identified more with the male protagonists or characters than any of the female characters I made. It was easier to settle into the story, and was a more enjoyable experience for me overall. I don't regret choosing a female character when there's an option, and still enjoy the story with a female character. I just don't connect as well with them, and now I understand why.

With games that don't have a choice, I'm lucky in that most games have male protagonists, so identifying with them is easier. However for the few that have female protagonists, I can identify with them in aspects like personality.

First off, something to understand about me is that prior to my initial feelings of wanting to be a girl at 13 there were not female character options in most of the games I played, and from then up until about 6-7 years ago I was pretty firmly in the grip of Evangelical Christianity, so acting on those thoughts was "wrong" to me.

So I played mostly male characters up until shortly after I started breaking ties with that particular brand of religion. At that point, my curiosity about switching sexes started getting the better of me and I started using the female option in Pokémon. I couldn't really explain why I liked it better than being male, and was really embarrassed any time someone saw me playing and noticed. I would usually stammer out something like "I wanted to change things up a bit."

And starting last year, I found myself taking things to the next level and roleplaying a female character in Pathfinder. I still maintained male characters for the one-off Pathfinder Society games, but for some reason when I wanted a character to invest myself in long-term I mostly went with female. Again, I didn't know why, it just felt very nice and kind of exciting to roleplay a female character and interact with others as such. Since I first started realizing that I might be trans back in October (and with it, the reason why I seemed to gravitate towards playing female characters), I have ditched the male characters I played and have gone with a female character in the one-off games as well.

Quote from: AwishForXX on February 11, 2013, 11:45:12 PM
A few times in recent years as I'm playing an RPG such as Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3/NV or even Mass Effect, my wife has asked me why I am always playing a female character.  I have either deflected the question or just given some obviously unsatisfactory answer. When one of my sons first introduced me to gameing he had installed Oblivion on the custom built PC we had built together.  I honestly tried to play a male character but that didn't even last the length of the tutorial before I had to start all over again with a female character.  I have never played a male character since.  Why should I, I have the option in game and it feels so intolerably unnatural for me to do anything but play as a female.  Does anyone else have a similar experience?  If the option is given in RPGs and FPSs, what gender do you play?

C.

Hm, Yes I get this alot. I generally choose female by default but if its an RPG It'll depends on the type of character I want to build. Most of the time I have separate save files for the two genders and which ever character I get attached to the most will become my main. I used to get grief off my friends before coming out to them, before then my go-to deflect was "Well, why not?". But I got into gaming to escape, from my GD and other things somy GD in games doesn't really bother me too much I suppose.

I don't generally bother with which characer since i'm focusing on Roleplay, Outfit & PvP anyhow and sometimes the garments look better on female or male haha
buuuut...
In general?

Whenever I write guides or give feedback it's girlmode that gets me somewhere
So then I feel i'm not living up to my full potential...

I don't play a lot of RPG games. One I do play is Toontown. Back when the original game was available, before I started thinking about my gender identity, I played female characters just out of habit. Today, I have three male characters; two of them even have "Mr." in their names :D Toons can wear clothes, so I get the chance to express myself on there too; like in real life, I wear everything from tailored vests to hair bows.

One game that I can remember playing a male character in my childhood was the Harry Potter games. Granted, who doesn't want to be Harry Potter, regardless of their gender identity?!

Given the choice i always play female. I've been doing so since i played Everquest on the PC. I tried some male characters and hated them. The excemption is my Iksar monk. I will always make that a him :). Mass Effect 1 & 2 I make a male renegade. My normal character in Mass Effect is female :). My avatar on my 360 has been female since i got on back in May 2008 lol. When i'm asked why i just say for a few reasones my main one being, i hate looking at male butts lol. Which is true lol.

I always play as male characters when given the choice, save for one or two exceptions. Feels so much more natural and I feel so much more happy. Especially on mmo's or online games I like the anonymity and the fact that I don't have to worry about passing or anything and I just get to be who I am being.


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Another thing I only recently realized:

Nearly every guy playing female characters in tabletop RPGs has had his character misgendered at some point. I usually point this out, either in or out of character. I have never noticed anyone else doing this, just me. And this was before I started questioning my gender identity too.

Quote from: Jamie_06 on December 21, 2015, 01:37:32 AM
Another thing I only recently realized:

Nearly every guy playing female characters in tabletop RPGs has had his character misgendered at some point. I usually point this out, either in or out of character. I have never noticed anyone else doing this, just me. And this was before I started questioning my gender identity too.

I'm lucky now to have understanding and supportive tabletop groups. All of my gamer friends know I'm transgender and transitioning and no longer bat an eye that every character I play is female.

My friends don't know but i've told them i will play female characters if i want to. All my characters are almost always female :)

Quote from: Chloëjade on December 23, 2015, 12:30:10 PM
My friends don't know but i've told them i will play female characters if i want to. All my characters are almost always female :)

I did the same before coming out to them. I told them to get over it and stop making a big deal over something so trivial. When I did come out it wasn't to a lot of surprise.

I've played both... in first person games like fallout and the elder scrolls i tend to forget what my character even looks like. even if i spend ages carefully designing them i never look at them again after the creation screen lol. the gender of your character doesn't really affect gameplay with those particular games.

i would say I don't struggle to associate with fictional avatars regardless of gender, but i do creative writing and it's definitely easier and more instinctive to write male characters... i'm not going to over-analyse tho

I'm always playing as a guy in the games. Even before I knew I'm a trans guy, I always played as a guy character. I thought playing a girl character was wrong. I felt it wasn't me and even it was a game, I wanted the character to remind a bit about myself. Every time I played a game, my character was always a guy with black hair and brown eyes. I have black hair and brown eyes in real life too. For me it was important the character were similar to me, it's still today.

I play both. I kinda have some image in mind with every game and class. Create a bit of bio (I'm always roleplayer).

In one of the latest MMO I made a girl character. A strong type girl (goddess) but feminine. It's just a game and I don't identify with the character. But I've been thinking of changing her sex. The name was gender neutral. I made a girl also because at that time the clothes were better for female toons.

In another game I made another girl because 1. It was genderlocked class, 2. I love a character from a book that goes well with the class. I was reading that book at the time when I was starting to play this game. I still would like to make another male character.

Kinda feminist outlook showing in game. ;)

I have some stereotypical characters with sex, race, class and name. When I was trying to live as a woman (which was until 1 month ago) having male characters was suspicious. It's always "prove you're a girl". And let's face the truth women still have better in online games so I started to use that. And since many relate characters toon to the player...

I'm quite sure that before I decided to be the woman, I played with male toons only.

Quote from: Amy85 on February 17, 2015, 08:50:09 AM
I play female characters like 80% of the time. The rest I play male because a nagging voice in my mind says I should want to play them :/

I can sort of relate to that feeling, but I think it might be due to me being kind of OCD. I'm not sure if I feel it towards gender like you do, but, if I have multiple characters in a specific game, I feel almost obligated to have them distributed amongst each race... if I don't do it,  I'll have a niggling itch reminding me that I'm not making use of all the options available to me, lol... I think the lore of humans in WoW is generic and I'm not particularly captivated by their aesthetic either, but sometimes I feel I "should" create one, because I don't have any... I guess that's what it's like for you?

There's a ton of games where I prefer the male characters over the female ones in the cast. In reality I think I don't care about the gender of characters, but I do become more aware of their gender in online environments, where social interactions are a thing and I see my character as sort of an "avatar" of myself... Just want to avoid feeling certain things, I guess =/

I want to have an Orc character in WoW because I like them, and I think the males are much cooler... but I feel "afraid" to create one, just because I know I'm not playing by myself and will run into other people...

While on the subject, I wish less male characters in videogames were portrayed as rugged meatheads (even if I like Orcs!)... I think it's silly. Wish more characters were like Soma Cruz in Castlevania, for example... He felt really cool to play as :3

I chose 'other' as my answer, so I'll explain.
I don't think I've ever had the option to play as my 'true' gender, as I'm non binary. I also tend to make many characters in games that have character creation, so I'm happy to make characters of any gender really.
However, recently I often make characters who I intend to be non binary, regardless of the fact that I have to choose 'male' or 'female' when creating them. This is fine for the most part, until other characters in game start referring to them with gendered language. Since that tends to remind me of myself being misgendered in real life, that can be a bit painful. But I enjoy creating characters who are 'like me' despite this, and find it comforting despite it not being ideal.

If you have enough time on your hands and want to play or create your "true gender" characters I would suggest Second Life online, or any of the Sims games. I used to regularly play Sims 3 for the pc. I haven't played it in awhile though. These games are time consuming.

Depend on what account I'm playing on: My male one (Hated but have most of my games on there, because male side things -_-) or my female (My favorite account!)

                                                                 Love, Sarina!

Amazing how many people play the gender that they want to be, and a few even have said the same thing I've said to my wife about looking at the backside of a female character is better than looking at the backside of a male one.  I am now starting to wonder just how far back my feelings that I know I've buried actually go.

Quote from: lordvalantis on May 10, 2016, 10:35:28 PM
Amazing how many people play the gender that they want to be, and a few even have said the same thing I've said to my wife about looking at the backside of a female character is better than looking at the backside of a male one.  I am now starting to wonder just how far back my feelings that I know I've buried actually go.

I find the backside part very funny everytime I see it. XD

                                       Love,  Sarina!

Similar to Hunchdebunch, I'm non-binary so it's not really an option to pick my ideal character's gender.
I tend to play "fluffier" games these days due to stress headaches from fighting games that would last for days.
So games like Sims, I will aim for my main character to be as neutral as possible (usually starting out with a female base as the male body editing disturbs me for some reason, mods can usually fix the female clothes ).
In other video games though, I almost always play a guy character. For example, in Mario Bros, I play Mario :) Hyrule Warriors (a headache game), I play Link. Every once in a while I will play as a female character in a game, but usually will default back to a male character/usually the lead character of the series I am playing.

Referencing the gender dysphoria in games, that would have to be the Sims as this is where I create a character most similar to my life. I just try to ignore the annoying gender references if I make the Sims socialize. I tend to get a bit too wrapped up in building of the houses of my towns though. ::)

I identify as genderqueer or non-binary, so for me it is not truly about choosing a character that represents my true gender. I just prefer picking women characters for a few reasons though. It's still annoying that the vast majority of games star men and don't offer any choice of character customization, so a change of pace is always wonderful. Women avatars generally have better exclusive plot lines or romances, voice actors, and clothing options too—I love customizing my characters to the ends of the earth, and this all makes role-playing way more immersive for me.

Perhaps a little off topic, but I have been playing a lot of The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth / Afterbirth lately. It is definitely not for everyone, but it has a very interesting—if not scarily dark—exploration of gender identity in the main character and possible gender dysphoria.

I often play as a male character but i like character creation and if i feel there is more creative options inside the other clothing or items then i often pick the gender i am not instead. So in other words i often play both :) 

For those who are non-binary or genderqueer, can you please send me some PMs on what you think a non-binary character should look like acordding to you. I want to add a male, female and non-binary character option in my games

                                       Love,  Sarina!

I first ran into this problem when I tried to play through Saints Row IV with a male character. Saints Row: The Third and Saints Row IV let you customize the protagonist to your liking, including whether the character is male or female. I didn't even get half way through the game before I had to reset and play as a female character. Even now when I'm playing Grand Theft Auto V in online mode, I play with a female character. I also have the habit of empathizing with said characters when it comes to their fashion choices, particularly with respect to their shoe collections. I don't like buying heels when putting together an outfit for one of my characters. I suppose I have a hard time understanding how someone runs in heels without breaking either their ankles or their shoes. I'm also not sure that heels are a good idea in a gun fight.

Absolutely always female characters! It's one of the best ways I deal with dysphoria. I've always used games to escape in that way. Before I even realised I was trans.

I go back and forth. The male options are often way too beefy and just feel weird to me, so I end up playing women a lot. If I can make a less blocky guy, I will. Sometimes one gender model has hair or clothing options I like better, or if they're voiced, I'll usually play the gender associated with whatever voice I like better.

Basically, neither option feels like me, so I go with the one that feels closer to right or looks more interesting.

Quote from: MelloYellowSurge on June 11, 2016, 07:05:46 AM
I first ran into this problem when I tried to play through Saints Row IV with a male character. Saints Row: The Third and Saints Row IV let you customize the protagonist to your liking, including whether the character is male or female. I didn't even get half way through the game before I had to reset and play as a female character. Even now when I'm playing Grand Theft Auto V in online mode, I play with a female character. I also have the habit of empathizing with said characters when it comes to their fashion choices, particularly with respect to their shoe collections. I don't like buying heels when putting together an outfit for one of my characters. I suppose I have a hard time understanding how someone runs in heels without breaking either their ankles or their shoes. I'm also not sure that heels are a good idea in a gun fight.

You know Saints Row IV has a plastic surgeon that allows you to change your character's sex right, so you don't have to reset the game and start over.

That's also what I do in SR IV, I start as a male and eventually switch to female, to represent me as a trans person.

Quote from: Sadephanie on June 11, 2016, 09:42:11 PM
You know Saints Row IV has a plastic surgeon that allows you to change your character's sex right, so you don't have to reset the game and start over.

That's also what I do in SR IV, I start as a male and eventually switch to female, to represent me as a trans person.

Not when I did it. It's only in hindsight that I remember that I could have visited Image As Designed and made the changes without losing my progress. I actually thought of making the change midway through in order to get the "Switch Hitter" achievement on Steam. Not that it matters now, I have spent an unhealthy amount of time on GTA V as of late anyway. Needless to say, I haven't played SR III or SR IV since I got GTA V.

Well, it's there if you decide to get back into it :P

Always played females, always ahve done, always will do. It's my preference because I'm not a boy.

My partner on the other hand, she likes nothing better than to create some Kratos/Orc male hybrid.  Usually because she get's left alone. Unless we're using some kinda VOIP.

For me the dysphoria hits really hard and is sometimes hard to cope with even during my transition. I usually play female characters, but it depends on the game. If it's online most of the time it's a female, but if the MMO has a reputation for >-bleeped-< male players. I play a male character then. Some games have very androgynous characters and is very hard from me to choose which is male or female.

I usually play as male characters. Dragon Age was the only game where I went back and forth and played as different characters of different genders, due to the different story lines. Also with the DA series I enjoy making characters based off my favorite fictional characters. For example, I made different female gray wardens based off of each of the main characters from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic (my favorite was probably R.D [Rainbow Dash] the casteless dwarf who was a total badass). I wouldn't play their files for too long at a time though cause of the dysphoria. My favorite warden I ever made was WarGrowlmon the mage. I made multiple mistakes with that one though cause it was my first playthrough.

Quote from: WarGrowlmon1990 on July 05, 2016, 11:03:31 AM
I usually play as male characters. Dragon Age was the only game where I went back and forth and played as different characters of different genders, due to the different story lines. Also with the DA series I enjoy making characters based off my favorite fictional characters. For example, I made different female gray wardens based off of each of the main characters from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic (my favorite was probably R.D [Rainbow Dash] the casteless dwarf who was a total badass). I wouldn't play their files for too long at a time though cause of the dysphoria. My favorite warden I ever made was WarGrowlmon the mage. I made multiple mistakes with that one though cause it was my first playthrough.

I ended up playing a Mage first time too. I ended up making a male character as well just for the heck of it. I managed to get through with dysphoria 'barely'. He was pretty androgynous as much as I could make him. On top of that he ended up becoming a Death Knight. Dual Wielding, full plate, + so many active buffs. HP + Mana were Balanced not one was higher. I killed off the Arch Demon with his own dead subordinates with Waking Bombs. It was pretty funny. And I could tank any boss with or without a living party.

It doesn't bother me when i play with a male char but most of the time i play with a female one.

For me, it depends... most of the time, I'll actually have two or more separate savegames, especially when you can do a lot of customisation. Otherwise, it's whatever is more pleasant to look at. Yes, it's shallow... but hey, gaming is for fun.

I usually start out with a male character while I'm playing the game properly, and if it's a game like Fallout 3/NV/4 or The Elder Scrolls 3/4/5/Online where you can have multiple saves then I might go back later for roleplaying purposes and make a female character. I'm doing that with FO4 at the moment, I have my main one, Ed, who did the main stuff in the game, and I have a woman done with the Alternate Start mod called Hellcat (yep) who works as Nick Valentine's assistant. I'll probably do the Railroad questline with her since I couldn't with Ed q:

My answer used to always be, "I just get so tired of following a dude and felt like following a female around the game was more to my liking. 'Cause which one would you want to see more? The dude or the girl?" But, even when I would play male characters, I would eventually make them more feminine and they ended up looking gender neutral or like a brawny female, anyway. I just choose female characters, now, because I identify with them more than the male ones. I'm already out to my wife, so she understands. Haven't told the kiddos yet, but they've asked about it and I tell them that I just like the female characters more. They seem to take it for what it is.

i play and assign any character in my games to the true character/gender that i feel, most of my games use to be on computer years ago as i felt gaming consoles to be pointless if i could get the game for my PC, i now find my self with a PC and a PS3, (PS3 was only brought to play PlayStation exclusive games primarily) both my PC and PS3 have user accounts best reflected to my self, some games i find difficult as there are only a male option like GTA 5 only having Michael, Trevor, and Franklin to choose from i don't really play the game much now anyway, i also play juiced 2 as i love cars (not the factory stock ones) and i also play a game called OMSI Bus Simulator, you can mod buses change repaints and finally drive them can be fun and till you hit a lamp post like me  ;D, both of these games allow me to choose a female characters, games like Gran Turismo, Forza and others i have all have the option of male or female character rolls, i play other games but if i dislike them i uninstall them off my system or in a PS3 scenario i would trade the game for something else of interest.

Glad I came across this thread as I was wondering if others used video games as a sort of coping mechanism. When it comes down to the video games where you get to create your own character, for years I would always play a male character, but I never really liked how any of the character models would look, especially since I personally don't like having short hair. So either I was always unsatisfied with their appearance, or I'd try to make them as androgynous as possible. Then later I got over the phobia of playing a female character. Certainly helped when a friend would justify his reasoning by saying "if I have to stare at a character's butt all day, I'd rather it be a woman" and ever since I started doing so, it feels comfortable to me.

So nowadays, I almost always play female characters. Slight exceptions would be games like Fire Emblem where there's no same-sex romance options (I know Fates does, but it's only 1 character for each gender) or Dragon Age: Inquisition because Cassandra is <3 and you can only romance her as a male :/ ...there was also a fairly recent stint where I was playing male characters more in games like The Old Republic and FFXIV because an ex-girlfriend would keep asking me why I played female characters and she wanted me to play male characters to suit her characters.. yeah it was dumb. But games like Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Fallout, Skyrim, etc. female all day, ev'r day!

Apologies for the rambling towards the end.

In MMORPGs I've always chosen either female characters or the huge gross monsters. (Not sure what if anything that says about me or how I 'see myself' as far as the monsters go lol) It was very rare for me to play a male character that matched my assigned gender and when I did I was always in character 100% of the time as this snide, bitter over confident, roguish, yet charming thief, Drakken. (I use this character in DnD as well because he's awesome when he makes his rare appearances.) I feel really bad for doing it, (but not at all) but I've gone so far as to sometimes use female voice modulation in VOIP in games because I *HATE* the way I sound.. And if not that, I just refuse to speak or pretend I don't have a microphone.. =(

Quote from: SiobhánF on September 28, 2016, 12:27:15 PM
My answer used to always be, "I just get so tired of following a dude and felt like following a female around the game was more to my liking. 'Cause which one would you want to see more? The dude or the girl?" But, even when I would play male characters, I would eventually make them more feminine and they ended up looking gender neutral or like a brawny female, anyway. I just choose female characters, now, because I identify with them more than the male ones. I'm already out to my wife, so she understands. Haven't told the kiddos yet, but they've asked about it and I tell them that I just like the female characters more. They seem to take it for what it is.

I *HATED* having to make excuses for it. All the feels for you =(

Quote from: Angela Drakken on November 26, 2016, 09:22:40 AM
but I've gone so far as to sometimes use female voice modulation in VOIP in games because I *HATE* the way I sound..

Is that actually convincing?

Quote from: Ellement_of_Freedom on November 26, 2016, 07:27:08 PM
Is that actually convincing?

YUPPERS. :3 The default modulation sucks, but there are ways to 'tweak' it for a more clear and natural sound.

from as far back as 16 ive always played as a girl character.  playing as a guy made me feel uncomfortable which I now realize was dysphoria. playing as a girl character woukd feel right and comfortable.

There are very, very few games in which I would play through the game as a male character. Very few. Off the top of my head I can think of only six : Uncharted 4 and The Last Of Us, because Naughty Dog put so much heart and soul into their characters that you know from the outset that you're a spectator, playing someone else. There's really no vestige of yourself that you can inject into Nathan Drake or Joel, because they're so beautifully written and well rounded.

Then there are Cloud, Squall and Tidus from Final Fantasy VII, VIII and X respectively. This is more of a grey area, and I only would play them because of the strong female characters in those games I could more readily identify with. Most notably Aerith/Aeris Gainsborough, Rinoa Heartily and Lulu. One of the reasons I am so disappointed with Final Fantasy XV and have not bought it is because of the Bromance they have going on in that game. It doesn't appeal to me, at all.

And finally Isaac Clarke, from the original Dead Space game. Because... well, because that game is just so amazing it's more about the game than the character.

Pretty much every other game I tend to pass over unless there is some sort of character creator where I can spend an unhealthy amount of time creating an avatar more closely resembling myself. Partly out of a need for self expression, but also because in a lot of games with a male protagonist, I do not like the stereotypical way they see the world and interact with other characters within it. Games where you can create your own character tend to be a lot more careful in the way your character reacts to the world. Because the developers have to be a lot more neutral since they do not have the time to code different male and female responses. This is not perfect, but it's better than walking around sounding like you just had a steroid shake and a session at the nearest lap dancing club.

I've always played as a female. I don't really play multi-player so I can do whatever I want without having to justify anything. I only play male when I am playing a game where male is the only choice (IE deep storyline like Final Fantasy), or when I want to do male only storyline points (romance dialogues). It doesn't really bother me to play as a male in a game, but when given the option, I will choose female.

I'm not sure if it's been posted in this thread, but one of the most interesting items I've ever found in a video game was the "Belt of Feminity/Masculinity" in Baldurs gate. When you put it on it changes the gender of your character. Everything else stays the same. 10 year old me became obsessed with making male characters and seeking out the belt in every playthrough. Looking back, it makes a lot of sense.

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Quote from: AwishForXX on February 11, 2013, 11:45:12 PM
what gender do you play?

C.

Whichever looks cooler if I'm going to be staring at this character's back for 60 hours.

In Mass Effect I usually go femShep. In Skyrim I usually play a dude, etc.

The only game I play is world of warcraft, and I mostly play as male characters (maybe 80% of the time), but occasionally a female one. It does feel a bit uncomfortable as a female character for me, but as Victor said, depends on which one looks cooler. I tend to get bored quickly with my characters and need the variation. But a male character is like "default" for me.

Reminds me of when I just started playing that game and my bf at the time introduced me to it, before I realised I'm trans, and he was cis. He played as female characters and I played as male ones. I still smile at that memory.

Quote from: SeptagonScars on October 02, 2017, 06:05:07 PM
The only game I play is world of warcraft, and I mostly play as male characters (maybe 80% of the time), but occasionally a female one. It does feel a bit uncomfortable as a female character for me, but as Victor said, depends on which one looks cooler. I tend to get bored quickly with my characters and need the variation. But a male character is like "default" for me.

Reminds me of when I just started playing that game and my bf at the time introduced me to it, before I realised I'm trans, and he was cis. He played as female characters and I played as male ones. I still smile at that memory.

I've felt as though playing a male character was my way of shielding myself from the pain that I experienced with dysphoria, in WoW. When I played as a female, I felt more open and free. I did the same in Guildwars and Fable. Great. Now I want to play WoW again. XD

Quote from: SiobhánF on October 03, 2017, 07:04:51 PM
I've felt as though playing a male character was my way of shielding myself from the pain that I experienced with dysphoria, in WoW. When I played as a female, I felt more open and free. I did the same in Guildwars and Fable. Great. Now I want to play WoW again. XD

I had that thought not too long ago. Then I remembered the waiting around for 40 people to show up late, inevitable slide into OCD achievement/rare mob/unique item/etc. hunting, and eventual burn out. :D What I really think I do miss though is the Secret World, at least when it was new. I loved playing detective. In Rift I had the super-ultra-rare Detective title from this little forum scavenger hunt they occasionally ran, and I stuck it on every alt without fail. Then when moved to the Secret World (yay for mmo hopping!), I straight up just named my character Detective McDetective, which really worked for that game given the nature of questing. Well, worked in an "I just want you to know I'm insane, LETS SOLVE MYSTERIES" sort of way at least.

But to answer the original topic, even though this is an old thread (wish the gaming forum wasn't dead :/), I always made female characters. Well, 99% of the time. In Mass Effect or Dragon Age type games I would usually have one male character playthrough just to do the male-only romance options (plus I thought Tali was the cutest). Unfortunately in ME this wound up being my primary for the harder difficulties since he was my soldier in ME1 and invincible shotgun rocket setup was the way to go for clearing it out post haste. Also wasn't generally happy with the female Shephard romance options, didn't find Kaidan attractive and was never sold on the Asari. In Dragon Age I was all about Alistair though, because I got to become a freakin' princess! :D (Fine, fine, Queen. Same thing. ;D)

Games that you play a specific character never really bothered me, though I was never impressed in the slightest with the uber masculine types such as Kratos that people seemed to love so much.

Growing up with Mortal Kombat, Streets of Rage, and related RPGs, I always picked female if given the opportunity. Even if creating a party of 4 characters, it would be at least 3 out of 4 female. And when playing The Sims, I'd always 'control' the female sim(s) I identified with the most.

For curiosity in how this lingering dysphoria has panned out long-term, I looked at my Overwatch heroes list. Some interesting facts stood out:

157 hours played
125 of those are between 3 main female heroes.
I have 3 hours on one male hero, purely because he's strong.
I've played no other male character for longer than an hour.
I've literally never even touched the majority of male heroes(!)

Voted play a female toon.

Did so in every game. In WoW I always told people I was a girl IRL, and eventually abandoned WoW for years once friends started playing with me and I didn't like the fact I had to tell people I was a guy or have them hear my voice in VOIP.

I'm out now to everyone though, and now they all pick apart everything I've ever said and done IRL and online  :D to catch all the signs after the fact.

Quote from: OU812 on October 04, 2017, 08:54:58 AM
Growing up with Mortal Kombat, Streets of Rage, and related RPGs, I always picked female if given the opportunity. Even if creating a party of 4 characters, it would be at least 3 out of 4 female. And when playing The Sims, I'd always 'control' the female sim(s) I identified with the most.

Haha, Blaze in Streets of Rage! Yes! And in any fighting games, it was the women 99% of the time. In King of Fighters my go to teams were always composed of Athena, Blue Mary, Leona, Mai, and Yuri. For Street Fighter it was always Cammy, all the time. Even as recently as Street Fighter 4 I would go out of my way to practice with the lower tiered Sakura over playing the other Ryu and semi-Ryu clones. My usual excuse? Female characters are faster, I prefer the faster characters.

Quote from: IzzyC on October 04, 2017, 09:11:46 AM
Voted play a female toon.

Did so in every game. In WoW I always told people I was a girl IRL, and eventually abandoned WoW for years once friends started playing with me and I didn't like the fact I had to tell people I was a guy or have them hear my voice in VOIP.

I had a ton of people just assume I was female because of the way I acted and spoke in game (pre-voice chat centric era). In retrospect those memories make me supremely happy. Well, except for about the one guy I was semi-friends with who got creepy hitting on my alt. That I could have done without. I never even purposefully told people I was female or anything, they just assumed even though they didn't make the assumption about other female characters.

Quote
I'm out now to everyone though, and now they all pick apart everything I've ever said and done IRL and online  :D to catch all the signs after the fact.

I'm pretty sure if I told my friends I played MMOs with I was transgender there would be a round of shrugs and "yeah, that makes sense". So many questions about the all female characters over the years, so many lame excuses. Always the healer, always the peacemaker.

Quote from: Roll on October 04, 2017, 10:28:07 AM


I had a ton of people just assume I was female because of the way I acted and spoke in game (pre-voice chat centric era). In retrospect those memories make me supremely happy. Well, except for about the one guy I was semi-friends with who got creepy hitting on my alt. That I could have done without. I never even purposefully told people I was female or anything, they just assumed even though they didn't make the assumption about other female characters.

I did too I suppose. I mean that, if people asked for "clarification" that I was a girl, I would say that I was. It was also one of the happier times in my life, it's what got me super into RP for a while. I've been told before that I used to write and type/talk like a girl. I've lost that now, but that's because I went to Uni for History and Philosophy/Theology so I write like a man now.  :-\

Quote from: Roll on October 04, 2017, 10:28:07 AM
I'm pretty sure if I told my friends I played MMOs with I was transgender there would be a round of shrugs and "yeah, that makes sense". So many questions about the all female characters over the years, so many lame excuses. Always the healer, always the peacemaker.

;D

I forwarded a twitter post once to all my friends IRL and online that said: LGBT culture is looking back on your life and realizing how #@%* gay you were as a kid.

They all thought it was hilarious and started messaging me about how its so true, and how they all were confused as to why I didn't care about cars and sports and stuff, and that they all secretly thought that something was different about me but just never said anything; and that they were all surprised when I somehow ended up with a gf at like 18 "finally."

Playing as a girl online is something extremely cathartic to me. I have always played female characters during my RP whether it was in Guild Wars or World of Warcraft. At this point of my life I were quite denying my dysphoria and people were always astonished to learn I weren't a girl. One of my ex-friends even told me once she was incapable of not seeing myself as a woman. ^^^

I've got a mixture of male and female characters in WoW and Guild Wars 2, but I really enjoyed making female characters in Black Desert - the character options are enormous - the only downside is - you can spend ages getting your look just how you want it!

I've had female characters in WoW. Nobody believed me I was AFAB though.

In SWTOR I play male characters and sometime female. Same there. Noone believes I'm AFAB. When playing with my oldest son, I'm a friend of his, no gender assigned.

Totally gone. I've even since deleted/stopped using female voice modulation to alter the sound of my voice in VoIPs ect because my voice is THERE finally. *little dork dance!*

I always make female avatars so I can have 'a life' as a woman.

Quote from: jaybutterfly on January 07, 2018, 02:18:25 PM
I always make female avatars so I can have 'a life' as a woman.

I did that for years then, when I began to internalize (and externalize) that I'm a woman I lost interest in MMORPGs. I played a bit this weekend only because I'm alone with nothing to do.

The spy who came in from the cold in the War Between the Sexes.

I was playing WoW recently and alchemists can actually make a potion that switches your gender! - alas it only lasts 15 min so you have to keep popping them to stay. I made 40 of them and went on my first raid as Female night elf druid! it felt great.

Sonja.

Quote from: Sonja on March 01, 2018, 10:59:40 PM
I was playing WoW recently and alchemists can actually make a potion that switches your gender! - alas it only lasts 15 min so you have to keep popping them to stay. I made 40 of them and went on my first raid as Female night elf druid! it felt great.

Sonja.

My first Molten Core clears so, so long ago were as a Female Night Elf Druid. Now I'm feeling nostalgic.

Quote from: Roll on March 02, 2018, 09:39:01 AM
My first Molten Core clears so, so long ago were as a Female Night Elf Druid. Now I'm feeling nostalgic.

Do you still play?  I played through Legion - loved the demon hunter class. Have got my druid maxed out and now trying to get some of the new appearances for cat and bear forms.

Sonja.

Quote from: Sonja on March 02, 2018, 08:09:19 PM
Do you still play?  I played through Legion - loved the demon hunter class. Have got my druid maxed out and now trying to get some of the new appearances for cat and bear forms.

Sonja.

I don't, I moved off of wow after Lich King shortly before pandas I think? Wait, or was cata first? Jumped through a few other mmos, Secret World and Rift mostly. I did recently recover my old account and may check out the new expansion with friends.

Quote from: Roll on March 03, 2018, 12:23:57 AM
I don't, I moved off of wow after Lich King shortly before pandas I think? Wait, or was cata first? Jumped through a few other mmos, Secret World and Rift mostly. I did recently recover my old account and may check out the new expansion with friends.

If you do decide to play WoW again, feel free to pm me your server, who knows we may be in the same cluster. My original main is on Bronzebeard US, I have new characters on Nagrand Aus server.

Sonja.

Quote from: Sonja on March 01, 2018, 10:59:40 PM
I was playing WoW recently and alchemists can actually make a potion that switches your gender! - alas it only lasts 15 min so you have to keep popping them to stay. I made 40 of them and went on my first raid as Female night elf druid! it felt great.

Sonja.

I'm curious which potion that is, if you remember what it's called? I play WoW too and have a few alchemist characters on my account. Would be nice to test it out :)

Quote from: SeptagonScars on March 08, 2018, 10:50:06 PM
I'm curious which potion that is, if you remember what it's called? I play WoW too and have a few alchemist characters on my account. Would be nice to test it out :)

Hi
Its called Transmorphic Tincture  see the link
http://www.wowhead.com/item=112090/transmorphic-tincture

Sonja