Hey, guys. I’m a male, but I really want to continue to play a female character. I have done some light RP in the past, but never as a female. Due to our brains being wired differently, I am struggling to write out my character as the opposite sex. Does anybody have advice? I really want to get back into RP, but I don’t want to give up having a physically attractive character. Should I try to play a MtF character? Is that a thing in lore? I feel that may be an easier starting point since she would be biologically similar to me.
The best way to play a character of a gender not your own is to remember that there is very little difference between them. Men and women are not wired differently enough in how their brains are set up to cause any actual distinction in all but the most techy of people.
Every personality commonly associated with men is found in women and vice-versa. And with a few exceptions wow doesn’t have strict gender roles that would effect how your character is precieved in a setting.
To the physical, same as above. Females in wow are shown having the same capacity for every physical attribute, strength, dexterity, constitution, as male characters. To the point that the only actual difference would be your center of gravity (barring even that potentially since the actual biology of things like trolls and orcs are an unknown.)
In short the best way to play a female character as a male player is to play a character. Your gender should be a part of your character but not even close to the defining character attribute.
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We aren’t wired differently, bud. Write her as a person first, a woman second.
Forget trying to make her something you think a woman should be, and just treat her as a living breathing (unless she’s undead) person with her own life, emotions, wants, fears, talents, etc. Don’t overthink it.
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Well for one thing you may wanna cast that sexist mentality aside, if you write a good character be they man or woman then all you have to do is figure out how they are as a human being and from there, you’re good. Look at Studio Ghibli films done by Hayao Miyazaki as an example of great films with great lady leads who are amazing in their own right and fantastically written. Write a character around their drive and their soul,not what’s in their pants.
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How well do you know women? Have you ever spent time with women? And I mean outside of the bed sheets. Have you ever worked with one as a boss, or subordinate? Shared a hobby, worked with women on a volunteer effort? Stood on line with them at the grocery?
Men and women are different, but they DO have a lot in common. Work on that as a basis.
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I suppose finding the common ground is a good start. I don’t see how it is sexist of me to struggle writing this character. I don’t think women are any less capable than men, but the fact is that in general, men and women react differently to a lot of different situations due to biological differences. Being different doesn’t make one better than the other, but it can make it hard for a man to put himself in a woman’s shoes, or vice versa.
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I mean, I agree with what’s been said. I’ve RPed female and male characters for years, and honestly… It’s pretty surface level. There’s been several times (mostly NPCs, but occasionally full characters), where I’ve rolled a dice (or flipped a coin) to determine gender/sex, just like I do height, weight, eye color, skin tone, etc.
In a fantasy setting like WoW, gender/sex is more-or-less the coat of paint: surface-level aesthetic. Sure, any of my male characters might be, on average, more likely to swagger up to the bartender, and my female characters might be. on average, more likely to stroll up to the bartender, but the engine underneath is nearly entirely independent of gender/sex. (In truth, IRL is much more messy, more due to societal expectations than biology, but WoW doesn’t really have those.)
However, you aren’t the first person to like… be offput by RPing the opposite gender/sex. In truth, people will change species, profession, personality, almost anything about their character, but… Gender/sex is one of the last things people change. I know tons of very talented RPers, and, in the instances where I know their OOC sex/gender, I can’t think of one whose main RP character is a different gender/sex than the player. I know plenty of guys who have said they can’t play women, and I know plenty of women who say they can’t play guys, even though they’re very good at RPing the characters they prefer to RP.
And yes, despite the fact that, for the most part, male and female characters operate with similar underlying mechanisms, there have definitely been complaints lodged at characters for being “a male character that just looks female”, because the external aesthetic of masculinity/femininity wasn’t changed enough. That, of course, excludes characters which are supposed to be trans. Instead, it’s directed at characters that are designed to be a “badass cis-woman”, but don’t have enough “woman”.
So, here’s some “quick and dirty cheats” to make a character seem “effeminate”.
First, design the character independent of gender. Just make the character you want to RP. Then, abide by these two aesthetic rules.
- Women are obsessed with how smooth their legs feel after they shave them. This is a fact, don’t @me. If, once a month-ish, your character randomly mentions in casual RP with her friends how smooth her legs are after she shaved them, it will come off as so realistic it will hurt.
- Every now and then, all women want to be a princess. They want a charming partner, someone with whom they’re comfortable, to woo them, call them beautiful, and ask them to a dance. They want to get dressed to the nines, then indulge in a night designed by that partner to be all about them. It’s “Wedding Day” syndrome but to a smaller extent. Just tailor the partner and “perfect night” to the character. A noble might want to get in a sequined gown and go to a ball, but a weathered soldier might just want a home-cooked meal and dancing around the house like an idiot.
And, in truth, those rules boil down to “they want to treat themselves and feel good” and “they want people they care about to return that affection”, and… Who doesn’t? Like I said, those are “quick and dirty cheats” to be applied at the tail-end of designing a character to make them feel effeminate.
Edit: Legitimately, right after I posted this, one of my women friends said her profile picture was actually a guy character, but wearing a hood. STILL, most people main their own gender/sex.
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Thank you. This was the most inciteful advice here. I will probably just swap to being a male in prepatch and start up my story then. Thinking on it, I also don’t know many people who can successfully RP the opposite sex without coming across as someone who is doing so. Best to stick to what I know, I suppose.
I generally agree, although one quibble: women are assumed to be content (and expected to be content) consuming media written from a male perspective and to understand the male perspective, while men are assumed to be unwilling to consume media from a female perspective and often seem to get their knowledge of a female perspective from other men, so I think women often have an easier time writing a male character than you assume.
But what’s been said is also true - there’s no real need to think of writing “as a woman” because while many women may typically react to things differently than many men would typically react, there’s no need to write the “typical.” You can write a woman character pretty much the way you would a male character unless you’re gonna have sexytiems that go all the way past the fade-to-black.
Let me recommend a couple of books to you: God’s War by Kameron Hurley, and The Way Of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. Both have terrific women characters in a very wide range of characterizations. (They’re also really, REALLY freakin good stories told by awesome storytellers.)
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Actually the majority of RPers whose gender I know are men RPing women, and I didn’t know it until they told me or we got into voice.
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Gotta stop you there. “Most women” maybe, but not “all women” or “all” anybody, really, for most things ever.
This, I’ll agree with. It’s just, what makes people feel that way isn’t an “all.”
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Like I said, cheap and dirty rules. I wasn’t trying to be precise. Just… “Broad strokes”.
It’s not really that hard to RP as the opposite sex, i’m a woman irl and this is my RP main. You just need to stop worrying, you’ll do fine if you think first about the character’s story and treat their gender as an inconsequential characteristic
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Hey, not here for to offer advice, but wanted to thank everyone for the advice. Wasn’t for me but I still found it useful!
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…Well… If a mage can turn someone into a sheep, what makes you think they can’t turn someone into the opposite sex? It should be easier, if anything. So yeah, I’d say yeah. It’s a thing implied to exist in lore.
Though I urge you to consider body dysmorphia and hormonal changes before you jump into that. Playing a MtF character doesn’t mean playing a girl who just acts like a boy. It means playing someone trapped in a body slightly alien to them and under the effects of feminizing drugs.
And if you meant MtF as in trans, that won’t help because it’s normal for post-transition trans people to adopt the mannerisms and thinking patterns of their chosen gender, putting you right back where you started.
Yeah I struggle a bit with writing boys myself… Like, I can write really weird boys or very effeminate boys because I can relate to being weird and I can relate to being effeminate, but I have a hard time writing ‘normal’ boys because it’s just hard for me to put myself in those shoes.
I think that’s what it comes down to. The difficulty writing the opposite gender comes from not knowing the unique societal pressures they face first-hand or the unique perspectives they have on certain things. Which is unfortunately a hard thing to fix with a bit of advice.
My advice? Find a woman that’s willing to helpfully nitpick your writing and just spend some time roleplaying with her specifically so that she can help mold you. It has to be someone who is observant enough to notice these things and confrontational enough to point them out, which actually rules a lot of people out, but I’m sure someone could handle it.
My second advice? A lot of people lie to themselves and pretend men and women aren’t different. There’s a surprisingly large middle ground between writing women well and writing women badly enough that people notice. It might not be as big of a deal as you feel it is.
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Speaking as a male with female characters that he writes about, my advice is to just RP to the best of your ability. As other have said, make a good character first then worry about that character being female second. The key to writing in any form is that there is no real formula that’s etched in stone to be followed.
Your female character can have some traditionally male characteristics (like overconfidence or stoicism, etc). Male characters can have some traditionally female ones (like a nurturing instinct or need for security/minimizing risk, etc). My advice is to simply make her a tomboyish character if you REALLY don’t know what to do. Like, she can enjoy doing rough-and-tumble hands-on stuff and getting dirty one moment, then later be obsessing over breaking a fingernail and/or preening herself for the cute guy (or girl!) that caught her eye from across the tavern.
I’d avoid doing the whole MtF thing as it’s new to lore (there’s a character in bastion that’s trans and that’s about it, to my understanding) and that it’s a rather sensitive issue with lots of people, both progressive and conservative. It also lends itself too easily to tokenism or novelty at this point in popular culture, which in turn will make the character feel not genuine.
But yeah, focus on a good character first, and worry about reproductive anatomy second.
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So much this! I’ve been playing Ralinna here since BC. It’s been a learning experience but, well worth it. Best advice I can give about RPing as a female is to be affectionate towards friends. Waves and hugs abound.
As the saying goes… “Write what you know.”
What your’e essentially saying is that you need to know women better as people as opposed to strange beings of the opposite gender.
We don’t bite… much.
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I’ll leave this here…
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