Gender

[Jetfire]

I've always wondered, why do some individuals pick characters outside their gender? I see it all the time. In Pokemon, in Destiny, and in various of other games too. I've also noticed a few members putting one gender on their forum profile but they're in reality the other.

I'm in no way saying that they're not allowed to do so, but I am curious on their reason behind it. So, what's up guys? What am I missing out on lol

 

[Her]

expression of gender isn't rigid and all-defining of a person's 'true' gender lol

 

[OuterTsuchinoko]

Ever since I was little I always liked picking a girl in games, and girls in various media usually were my favorite characters. I like female characters a lot. Maybe it's also because I have liked a lot of girly things since I was a kid too, irl I like to dress as a chick too sometimes. It's hard to explain exactly why I like picking the opposite gender, I just do.

 

[Cay]

Because characters don't have to be reflections of one's own self. They're characters.

 

[Sir Codin]

Sometimes I like a change of pace. I'm not going to be one of those people who calls themselves gender-fluid simply because despite occasionally loving things that are primarily target towards women (RWBY, Sailor Moon, etc), I tend to gravitate towards things that have more masculine tones (Metal music, shonen anime, DOOM, etc.)

That being said, sometimes I choose the opposite gender because I either a) want a change of pace or b) want something I like looking at. Take Skyrim or Fallout for example: third person view often makes you look at the back part of a character, including their ass....so if I'm going to be staring at someone's ass for hours on end, might as well be the ass of something I'm attracted to.

Fallout 4, as much as I haven't given it much of a chance because of certain gameplay changes, I picked the female character because a) the game seemed to be railroading me to pick the guy so I decided LOLNO and b) I just think the female character was better acted.

 

[Universe]

to avoid echoing anyone else i'll say: because gender and sex are two different things.

 

[miragespot]

Because in some games I don't have the option to play as a girl.

 

[Jetfire]

Because characters dont have to be reflections of one's own self. They're characters.

I got that much. I'm curious behind one's reasons.

 

[noa]

Because sometimes I want to see my cute male character run around and do stuff? It means nothing to me, lol. Like people said before, it's a character, not me.
I choose male characters sometimes because 1. My gender isn't exactly binary 2. I prefer the male character 3. I just.... feel like it. No reason.

 

[Spherical Ice]

To test if the ROM hacker used checkgender properly.

 

[Ivysaur]

A couple days ago, I picked up Xenoblade X. In the character selection screen, I looked at the male options and I didn't find any of them aesthetically pleasing, so I checked the girls instead. If I'm going to be controlling a character for the entirety of the game, I'm going to pick one I don't find ugly. How is my IRL gender supposed to matter here, exactly?

 

[kendypls]

I like to play as a girl on most games, girls usually look better and I know for sure in runescape that people speak to you with a nicer tone. Plus, I'm a guy IRL, video games give me a chance to play a new role, and I find role-playing really fun!

 

[Margaery Tyrell]

Universe made a very good point in their post, because while I do identify with the binary male sex I often feel much more feminine in my gender - games allow me to express that, which I don't really get to do irl.

And because the girl's armor and equipment is usually more cute so that factors in as well.

 

[NinjaRaichu]

I always pick male characters in games, female characters tend to be very stereotypically feminine and kinda lame, ive always been a bit of a "tom boy" so I dont really identify with them too much, plus when theres customisation i'm way better at making good looking guys than women.

 

[Alex]

so i can see the booty in 3rd person

#gamergate

 

[PastelPhoenix]

Ehh, I'll play female characters just kind of to mix things up. Sometimes I just want to play a female character, especially in things like RPGs. Plus sometimes a certain gender gets the short end of the stick in customization options (Pokemon X and Y come to mind).

 

[Palamon]

Because gender =/= sex.

 

[Jetfire]

to avoid echoing anyone else i'll say: because gender and sex are two different things.

Because gender =/= sex.

I suppose I get where you two are coming from but let's try to avoid the whole "sex and gender" talk. I was just asking what are people's reasons. Nothing serious or in depth.

 

[Keiran]

When it comes to MMORPGs I usually always chose which ever gender had the most aesthetically pleasing animations and looked best in whatever armor was appropriate for the character. Back in the days of WoW, almost all of my characters were male. Female humans had fantastic casting animations that were vastly superior to the males, so my casters were female humans while my melee characters were all male. I couldn't stand the male night elf casting animations AT ALL, so my Druid had to be female.

I never really thought of characters as male or female. If each gender had 10 different body type selections, you might as well just combine them into 1 gender with 20 body type selections because that's how I think.

The only reason I choose male characters most of the time is because I prefer to play characters that look like me so I'll almost always play human races as well. If I can't play human, then I choose the next best thing. I'm pretty boring when it comes to character customization; cause the more I feel the character represents me the more immersed I feel. Maybe that's why other people choose what they choose.

 

[Universe]

I suppose I get where you two are coming from but let's try to avoid the whole "sex and gender" talk. I was just asking what are people's reasons. Nothing serious or in depth.

I've also noticed a few members putting one gender on their forum profile but they're in reality the other.

but you used gender synonymously with sex, so i was correcting you. nothing 'serious' goin on here.