Character is Only the Domain of Man/Woman/Imaginary Being

The topics surrounding character gender in games with user created avatars have existed since before the beginning of the Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game genre, floating around in the realm of the Pen and Paper RPGs. Of all the topics in this area the most widely discussed is that of cross-gender character creation. That is to say, male players playing female characters and female players playing male characters.

I personally have played a lot of MMOs and, as a male, have played a large number of female characters. At least seventy percent of the characters that I actually put time into are female. However, my quick acceptance and seeming preference for playing female characters puts me among a small group of people. In my experience most male players might have the occasional female character, but the large majority of their characters are still male. In addition to my large amount of experience with MMOs, I have also played various Pen and Paper RPGs for many years. Having for a long time always been the Game Master in almost all the Pen and Paper gaming groups I have been in, I have acted for an innumerable number of female NPCs. This might partially explain my comfort with playing characters of the opposite gender, but more interestingly is the number of different kinds of players I have encountered in these groups.

I will be concentrating on just the relationship of male players playing female characters for now because I have more experience in that area and the reverse relationship will come later. I have met people with several different personal views on this subject, determined through my observation of their play. First comes people who prefer to play female characters for whatever personal reason and play them almost exclusively. There are people who, like me, are comfortable with playing characters of the opposite gender and will play whatever they feel fits best with the concept they’ve come up with. Then there are the players who have played female characters a few times, but only as experimentation or a change of pace, they largely play male characters. The next kind of player plays male characters almost to exclusivity and the reason can range from that’s just what they feel comfortable with to coincidence to that’s their natural choice and they don’t ever think about why. Then the last type that I have met on occasion feels very uncomfortable with the idea of playing a character of the opposite gender. They don’t necessarily view it in the same way as they might view cross-dressing, but they still treat it with a sort of light awkward laughter.

Although it is to a lesser degree because of the anonymity of playing a character in an MMO versus playing a character at a table of people and then having to speak that character’s actions and words, these types of views can still be seen in the world of MMOs. It is likely that any uncomfortable feelings or stigma attached to this process is due to views in culture as a whole. Men who wear women’s clothing are odd at best and men who act in any sort of feminine way are assumed to be homosexual. So how might someone who wishes to place themselves into the role of a female character be viewed?

This brings us to female players playing male characters. It seems to be a more common and more widely accepted practice. From what I’ve heard of people discussing the topic and from what I’ve observed of people’s reactions, female players who play male characters are not seen as different and female players who don’t want to play male characters are not viewed as “silly”. It’s likely that this also stems from cultural views. A woman doing “men” things is more readily accepted than vice-versa, even the term ‘tomboy’ is used less nowadays. A man wearing women’s clothing is weird, whereas a woman wearing what is seen or used to be seen as “men’s” clothing is an everyday occurence. This isn’t a reprimand on the unfairness of society or anything, just an observation on how the culture is.

This reflection of real life into the virtual world may offer an explanation for at least one reason why the male to female and the female to male player to character relationships are viewed in so many different ways. There is also the fact that there are people who just want to play their gender merely because it is what they are used to and those who want to play the opposite gender because when imagining themselves as someone else they might as well be as far from themselves as possible. There are any number of reasons for both kinds of character choices and this just scratches the surface of the topic.

My MMO character history (Only those characters who were played past the first few levels adjusted according the leveling system of the game. I have made too many characters in CoH and CoV.):

Guild Wars: Name Forgotten – Female Assassin

Final Fantasy XI: Name Forgotten – Female Elvaan Red Mage

Star Wars Galaxies: Skizzix – Male Trandoshan Smuggler

EVE: Lenai – Female Gallente (Smuggler/Drone User)

City of Heroes: Lenai – Female Defender (main)

Remade and forgot new name – Female Scrapper (other main)

RocknRollMartian – Male Ass Kicking Band Leader

Tiddlywinks – Robot Scrapper

City of Villains: Lenai – Female Stalker

World of Warcraft: Searniz – Male Troll Rogue (main)

Roury – Female Night Elf Rogue

Lenai – Female Blood Elf Rogue (other main)

Male:Female:Genderless Robot ratio - 3:8:1