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.

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.

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

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. 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.