Happens all the time. As far as I can tell the local group around where I live considers it fairly normal at least once in a while, though there's one person in the group who the practice is generally associated with and who's considered pretty good at it so other people tend to avoid it lest they be held to the same standards.
Personally I consider it an extension of Rule 63, which automatically makes it cool.
It generally doesn't bother me in most cases, but I've been in campaigns with players who make opposite-gender characters that are blatant Fetish Fuel... for themselves. Which is really Squicky.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Listen to this wo/man, He knows what he is talking about.
If you decide to crossplay, Don't make it creepy. A few hints on how to do this:
- Don't make your character a Whore
- Don't make your character a Slut
- Don't make your character homosexual
- Not hating, its just that it is the lamest thing in the world and sounds really desperate.
- Try to think about how your character might view things differently because of their sex
- You probably already knew that. But this one time with a crazy GM... (insert Long winded anecdote here)
- And make sure people at your table (real or otherwise) are OK with it
Have fun, You venture into a Great mysterious spot on my RP map, With only a label on it written in some unknown language. May the Force be with you.
CAPS LOCK IS RAGE!!!I've done it badly once in the past- I think I was relatively good for a 15-year-old male, but still probably below the "Yeah, that was OK" threshold. I've done rather better more recently in an IRC game.
I say go for it if you think you can do it reasonably well. Sometimes I think of concepts that work better as female than male, or just feel female in my head, so I play 'em that way.
I'm making it, somehow, as a Tsundere Nosferatu Wrench Wench. And somehow she's less loopy than my werewolf commando.
"what the complete, unabridged, 4k ultra HD fuck with bonus features" - Mark Von LewisSo, I'm surprised there were no people violently against it.
So, more background on the character to see how people feel. The GM wants to do a pastiche of typical JRPG plots within the D&D setting. As a result, he wants us all to be of the teenage years. There was only one girl playing, and I suggested the idea of playing the young-ish 'wacky' one. She's a shifter (basically werewolves) warden (basically can command the elements). I definitely had no intention of doing anything sexual as in a tabletop setting I'm uncomfortable doing it as a male.
"Everyone wants an answer, don't they?... I hate things with answers." — Grant MorrisonThe only time I've ever seen problems with it in games I've been in have been when the crossplayer:
- Is playing a stereotype
- Makes the gender purely cosmetic—the fact that a character is a man/woman should not be their defining trait (see above), but it does subtly (or not so subtly, in certain settings) affect how he/she sees the world and how other people react to him/her
- Makes personal Fetish Fuel
I have noticed that some of my players think less of a man playing a woman but have no problems with a woman playing a man. Fortunately, they've never been in a game with my players who crossplay.
I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.As a GM the situation that made me feel okay about all crossplay was when I managed to portray a male PC's rich yandere client in a manner that all players appreciated and the game's one female player seemed to be looking to her as an example to follow.
There again I did put a lot of Zsa Zsa Gabor into the characterization. Including the scene where she met someone for the first time and spontaneously claimed she could tell that they were pregnant.
I've never actually crossplayed myself, though I did run my fair share of female NP Cs as a GM. I did make a crossed PC for a game once, but it never happened.
( Bright-er Technocracy game, done anime style, set in Japan, using M&M rules. I was going to be a female It-X technician/operative )
Home of CBR Rumbles-in-Exile: rumbles.fr.yuku.comI was going to do this one time and discussed it with the GM, who had ideas involved in a planned campaign that would have made my character more fanservicey than I would have proposed, but the nature of his campaigns meant it was a good idea to go along. Then we never played it because of time constraints and because I graduated from college and left.
For me crossplaying tends to involve Purely Cosmetic Gender, but that's largely because I don't roleplay more intimate stuff period, even if I'm playing my own gender.
I tend to try and use concepts that will carry themselves if my roleplaying fails to because I don't have a lot of confidence in my abilities. I think next time I play a female character, I'm going to make her a Sweet Polly Oliver, and also a spy-type. With the historically successful gimmick of impersonating actresses.
So I'll be a man playing a woman pretending to be a man disguised as a woman.
If that doesn't lead to an I Know You Know I Know situation I will be disappointed.
I was going to make a female changeling rouge for a game I just joined, but I was having trouble putting together a rouge built and abandoned it for a dwarf slayer instead. I'll take some time to learn more about rouges and use that character then.
Here's a question. Is it bad if you're crossplaying to make your character Fanservice-y? (wearing leather/etc)
Not unless you start fawning over her mid-game or insist that other players or NP Cs do that.
That's gray area at best, especially considering how easy it is to have a Fanservice character of your own gender.
edited 13th Mar '11 9:19:31 PM by Ironeye
I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.I was in one game where a character was essentially an anticipation of Paris Hilton before anyone had ever heard of her. She was mostly about honour and duty and impressing people, with a massive dose of Innocent Fanservice Girl. She was as likely to be wearing a pirate outfit as a bodystocking which is probably why it worked.

I'm asking because I recently had a discussion with a friend of mine about a skype D&D game and the possibility of me playing a girl came up. (My idea)
I was wondering what people's thoughts on guys playing girls (and vice versa) in tabletops was.
"Everyone wants an answer, don't they?... I hate things with answers." — Grant Morrison