Thread: Gender?

(Male IRL) My toons are created with some sense of story/character related to their class and race. I wanted a captain for my first toon, and she turned out female mainly because Rohan was by far my favourite culture in the books and I found Eowyn the most interesting Rohirrim character. I made her a red-head to differentiate her from Eowyn, and a backstory that explains why she's so far from Rohan (waiting/fighting for the expansion so that she can finally get back).

I want to explore both the game, and online role-playing (my first MMO). So I play all races, classes and genders. And I never take offence/get confused when someone says about my cappy: "she'll tank the archer" as they're clearly talking about 'her', not me.

Lotro is time out from being me, so I'm quite happy to blurr out of the picure and have my cappy become the actually present character, or my dwarf minstrel, or my slavering reaver.

Skirmish soliders add another opportunity. I don't yet have a female hobbit character, but my male hobbit burg has a female bannerguard - they're a homely team! My cappy has female heralds and a female archer solider - as a grrl power back-story statement from my cappy's narrative of having had to prove herself worthy of leading in battle. My dwarf mini has a dwarf protector (brothers in arms), and my male elf hunter has a female elf herbalist (as per hobbits, I don't have an active female elf character, so that's balanced here).

Class, race, gender = difference/richness. It keeps it interesting.

MMORPG = Mostly Men Online Role Playing Girls.

Heh. I jest. I'm comfortable with either gender playing as either gender, even in RP roles. It's not something that bothers me since I can differentiate between "a character" and "a player"- which are two entirely different entities. I think it's probably long exposure to a friend of mine, who is a manly man, but plays as dainty female characters. The difference between them is amusing, particularly so when people online refer to him as "her" or "she". After all, your ingame character is just a manifestation of your will ingame. It's completely up to you if the character accurately represents you or not. If you're roleplaying, the chances are that your character will be nothing like you, since people like variety after all.

As for myself, I have both male and female characters since I'm quite fond of variety (I'm male). I've not tried roleplaying in LOTRO yet, but that doesn't mean I'd be unwilling to give it a go.

I can only play guys (guy IRL), i have a male lm and a male burglar. Mostly because thats what i think the classes should look like. Women hobbits seem to be cooking food rather than adventurng, sso that doesn't work for me(my burg is a male hobbit). My male Lm works because i don't see a woman in the sage role. also i refuse to play elf because of stance (only class i think for women i elf lm, woman man captain. women warden elf or man )

as for fantazizing don't do, that go get looked at plz if you feel aroused by pionty eared women. Also lotro has no skimpy dress(lol skimpy wouldn't have thought i'd ever use that word) so.. if that affects you gl with talking a walk anywhre...

I have a tendency to make the main character I play look like me as much as the game allows. Occasionally though as was with the case of Feorhwen, the eye color differentiates as I wish I had blue eyes instead of brown in real life. The personalities of my mains are also inevitably akin to my own. My alts on the other hand are truly characters or eye candy as is the case of my male elf champion. I do think it is important to be honest about your gender if you become friends with other players beyond just roleplaying.

Originally Posted by shaneosd1

the females in LOTRO are diffrent in WOW, in WOW they do those dances but here the girls are much more realistic, so are the guys for that matter

I wouldn't call lotro men realistic, nor females. Maybe more so than WoW, but I don't ever and wont play WoW.

Originally Posted by Peryite

This isnt really a specific Race of Man thing, I was just reading the breasts thread. As a female IRL, I was wondering why men tend to always have at least 1 female character? (not accusing, just wondering =P) - while all of my other females friends and I never have a male character?

The excuse I hear the most, on a bunch of different games, is "Well, if I have to stare at its butt all day, I want it to be female" ....

I never bought this. Because why are you looking at it's butt anyway? The last thing I wanna do is stare at a male or female cartoon butt.

I think it has more to do with the fact female characters can get away with more/get more attention.

Originally Posted by NamelessZombie

The excuse I hear the most, on a bunch of different games, is "Well, if I have to stare at its butt all day, I want it to be female" ....

I never bought this. Because why are you looking at it's butt anyway? The last thing I wanna do is stare at a male or female cartoon butt.

I think it has more to do with the fact female characters can get away with more/get more attention.

Yah, female toons are more likely to get free stuff.

I tried making a female hobbit, but I couldn't get her out of the starter area. It just didn't feel right. I don't care whether other people make opposite-sex characters, but for me my avatar is the virtual representation of myself. I am roleplaying a Man of the Riddermark so of course he has his "own" identity, but it is very much me at the same time. Other people feel a greater degree of separation from their avatars; that's OK. Everyone comes to the game with a different mentality.

I've played both male and female characters in many of my MMO games and in my online play-by-post gaming. While I don't really have a main in many of my games (because I am a SERIOUS altaholic, as my abundance of characters in this game should make clear), at least one of my mains is female, and usually a warrior because I have a preference for the archetype in general. One of my two mains in this game (the other one being the guy who shares my username, both of them on the Imladris server) is a female Guardian and a shield-maiden of Rohan, who I mainly created because I wanted to play that kind of character.

I don't have any female characters. Why? Simple. No beards!

As for why people do it, it's been answered several times by now - to get ahead. Female characters are statistically less likely to get ganked, have their stuff stolen, insulted etc, and more likely to get gifts, free help and so on. And then I guess there actually are people who spend all their gaming time looking at their character's ####. But I'd rather not think too much about that.

Originally Posted by disco_volante

Its all about the view.

Pretty much sums it up

I got a female elf, but there's no hidden agenda behind it. I made it when I was going to duo with my sister. She wanted us to be elves, and since I'm a bit creeped out by male elves I went with a female one. First time I've played with a female character in a game where I have the option to choose gender.

Also assumed my sister was going to make a female elf, since she doesn't play male characters, but of course she decided to torment me by making a male char. x.x

I play female characters for a reason. I don't identify myself as male, and even tho I have been able to roleplay in rl, I don't want to in a virtual environment where I can escape. I am transitioning to being female so I like to play with the gender I identify the most.

I have played females in every game that I have an option to.

Elf women know how to shake what their mothers gave them! Plus, who wants to look at a manly man while playing the game? I'd rather look at the backside of a fictional female while I play anyways.

I never, ever, EVER will play a female character on any MMORPG, being male.
Why?
I won't list reasons, as i'd insult those who do.

It doesn't really matter to me which gender I choose when making a character. I usually just make whatever looks good to me. I'm female irl, and I currently have two male characters, and one female (all Race of Man).

I don't like the look of the male hobbits and elves, although the dwarfs are okay. As for females, they all look okay to me. I just prefer the Race of Man for now. When I have more character slots, I'll probably make a female elf and hobbit one day.

I'm female and all 3 of my characters are likewise. This the first MMO I've ever played and I thought I'd stick with what I know. Even when I buy an additional slot (likely so I can help a friend get started) - still female. I love having these clearly feminine characters decked out in amazing armor and huge weapons.

I do wish the more chivalrous men would stop trying to "bail" me out in battles where I'm taking on multiple or higher level mobs though. I'm not in peril and I can take care of myself thanks. Check out my morale/power and you'll see that I'm just fine on my own!

My husband, who's been playing MMOs a lot longer and LOTRO for years, has mostly female characters. His thought: If I'm going to be watching my character on the screen for hours I want to be looking at a woman not a man. As someone earlier in the thread said, "it's all about the view."

Hmm. Well, i'm sure guys play female characters for the same reason that I mostly play male characters. The view.

Plain and simple, here. If i'm gonna spend my whole game time looking at the back-end of a character, I at least want it to be attractive. That being said, I do have a few female characters.... the earlier statement still applies to them.

Because female characters are more pleasing to the eye. Armour that looks ######## on a male character looks sexy on a female. However, even though I'm a dude I don't tend to roll female characters. I just don't think Tolkien intended for women to be venturing beyond the safety of the town walls. I don't hold those views, but in the time period of ME not many women would be running around slaying orcs and brigands.

Eowyn would tell you otherwise

I only play male characters, because

1) it's a role playing game

2) i'm playing together with my wife

Nevertheless, my wife's got a male hobbit character, but she does not play with it, often.

The truth is, I don't really know, why I'm only playing male characters. I'm not making my mind, when I'm clicking on "male", it happens coincidentally.

I'm female, but have more male than female alts in the game. It's a character in the game and doesn't really have anything to do with real life. When I create a new character, I usually have a backstory in mind, and that usually dictates what the character looks like and their gender. It's just what I feel like playing at the time.

And, as someone else said, Tolkien himself was born and raised in the later part of the Victorian period and in his stories, very few women ventured out in battle. Middle Earth society appears to have had clearly delineated roles for men and women such as you see when you study cultural history of the last few hundred years. If you want to stay within Tolkien's framework, then there really would have been very few independent minded females running around killing orcs and such. Of course, this is a MMO and most definitely not strictly canon, so we can stretch the rules on that one, but for myself, if I'm going to create a female character who is going to do more than simply stay in town and craft, I have to have a good background story in mind to explain why she's so unusual.

And you can't really use Eowyn as an example, because she was truly an anomaly--and she too had to pretend to be a guy to get to the battlefield.

I just find that when you are trying to stay within Tolkien's framework and if you are creating a toon that is quasi-RP, then its much easier to play a guy than a girl.

Chicks look better. No different than why I do all my AH and Vault stuff in the Shire as opposed to Thorins (yuk) or choose an impressive looking mount. My girls wear nice dresses instead of rags or chunky armour. Women are beautiful - pixels or not (none of us would have put up with Natalya in GoldenEye if she was a guy) - yet to meet a guy I find pretty....yet to, I'm sure he's out there somewhere!
End of story.

Originally Posted by disco_volante

Its all about the view.

Amen. Look, it takes a thousand hours to get an avatar to L75 and twinked up. (I have 2 and 2 more in 70s getting close).

Half are male, half are female. In 3rd person, which would you rather spend your 1,000 hours watching?
It's just a bit easier on the eyes...

Jammermon

Interesting - this thread is still alive

I have both, though I prefer male characters - I'm male in RL, happily married longer than some of you have been alive. But I started playing RPGs when there weren't ANY. I mean, I was role playing before there were "role playing games". I predate the Original D&D. And I have always played a "character", and gender was just an attribute in the story. Still is, for me.

That said, the people on the other side of the table knew me and it wasn't ever even an issue.

This is my first MMO, and I see that it is an issue for some because they can't "see" the other player. However, it appears there are a wide variety of reasons for playing an opposite-gender character, and all are valid for that individual person. Though most don't apply to me I could care less what pixilated butt is onscreen - I'm looking for mobs.

Still, on my primary server, my one female character has definitely been treated different - both bad and good. Advice has been flamed, and at least one gentlemen seemed to go a bit out of his way to be nice to her I never have had it get any further, but I don't "flirt" - it's not a "roleplaying" server anyway, and the advice issue seems to have been gender biased, because I had similar conversations using my other characters on that server (all seven males), and they were all positive. On the other servers where I have female characters, there isn't enough traffic to judge if there's a gender issue. Still, I have to agree that there is an age issue to how people see characters online, and that is where the real differences are.

My choice of gender depends entirely upon my character concept. Generally, I don't play female champions/guardians/etc. Not because I think females CAN'T serve in those roles, but because they are not prevalent in Middle-Earth lore. I tend to play female Burglars, Loremasters, or Minstrels.

Character concepts, for me, tend to spring up when I'm thinking about names. If I can come up with a good name, then, my logic tells me, a good character will follow, and some names lend themselves better to certain genders.

Across all the MMOs I play or have played, about half my characters are female. As for other people, it usually comes down to concept, but I will admit it sometimes has to do with appearance. Not in the "if I'm gonna stare at a pixellated butt for 3 hours" way, but in the "wow, the male avatars look like carp" way.

Case in point, I created Bauglin as a male elf way back when, but I kept rerolling the character before he ever got to 20. He never looked quite right, I couldn't figure out why, and it bugged the heck out of me to the point where I'd restart. Finally I realized it was the combination of face, hair, and stance - every time I tried for a savage or deadly look, I'd end up creating a poncy emo anime vampire wannabe. Couldn't avoid it with the options available.

On a whim, I mucked around with the female elf options and found a combo that worked well enough. She's not perfect - the stance still bugs me a little and I'm not crazy about the combat vocalizations - but to my eye she looks a lot more badarse and borderline psycho than any male elf I've ever seen.

The term you might be looking for in this thread is gender bending. There is some quite interesting literature about that, bringing some gender studies into games-studies. http://www.eludamos.org/index.php/el...view/vol2no1-5

Just wanted to throw that in.

I'm a female IRL, and in every MMO I've played, I roll both male and female characters. I sometimes enjoy creating a new toon just as much as playing it, and try to give each new toon a certain "look".

I decided early on that I wanted each of the seven gender/race combinations for variety. I have nine characters, one for each class (doubled up on women and male elves). I ended up with one more male than female, but I make up for that disparity by having the fifth male cross-dress with the most recent festival dress (and after I started doing this, it started to feel very appropriate for a rune-keeper). I also tried to balance out the gender roles so as not to fit everyone into the dominant cultural stereotype, so, for example, I rolled a female hobbit as a tanking class (warden).

I'm male IRL, but my current main is a woman hunter, which I chose as my main primarily because I liked the hunter class for the ranged fighting and all the Guide to skills; it was just random that what I found to be a fun and useful class turned out to have been a female.

FWIW, in addition, I gave my captain as dark of skin as I could make, since frankly there are too many white people walking around middle earth. I also tried to make an old-looking elf to have variety in age, but lotro's options don't really allow for that--even grey-haired elves tend to look young to me.

Originally Posted by Ambariel

FWIW, in addition, I gave my captain as dark of skin as I could make, since frankly there are too many white people walking around middle earth.

Oddly enough, there are all those white people because it's based on Northern European myth and legend and set in a sort-of-Europe, and so they belong there; they live there, they're from there. You can't have 'too many' white people in a setting which is intended to be culturally European in character, any more than you could have 'too many' Chinese if the tale was culturally Chinese. The same would go if it were culturally Indian or African. What's this imaginary balance you're trying to set right?

Male offline; slightly more male characters than female characters (so far) (in LOTRO). (Other games have different balances.) I create a concept before I roll a character, with any and all details of that character determined solely by that concept. I try to make the character's appearance attractive (to me) while still conforming to the concept.

I am a man, but most of my characters in Lotro are female. Why? Because they look better!

Of my 5 main characters over 2 servers, 3 are Hobbits, 1 is an Elf and 1 a Dwarf. Discounting the Dwarf (for obvious reasons), male Hobbit characters tend to look like total bumpkins, while male Eves Look like supercilious pratts. Hence my preference for using female characters, because since I am playing them and have to look at them, I want them to look nice obviously.

It does have its interesting side playing a female character though, as I found when a male Elf player spent over an hour 'chatting me up' whilst under the assumption that since I was playing a female, I must BE a female. I admit that I never let on that I am actually a grumpy old grandfather rather than a pretty young maiden, but it certainly caused me to reconsider how I speak to young ladies. I think I am a little more respectful of them now and not as condescending as I must have been previously. At least I hope I am!

Im a Male Irl, and in the many MMO's I've played I mostly choose to make Male characters unless their, animations for their skills and such are abysmal, then ill use Females.

Skill Animations are what makes and breaks it for me

Male.
95% of my characters are male.
90% are Elves.
10% are human 1 male 1 female.

I dislike the Human male jawline ... you can't adjust it at all except to take a face that you don't want.
I dislike the bodies of dwarves. Legs should not be smaller than a torso. This disturbs me to no end.
Hobbits are okay but I have made two and deleted them both ... not because of race but because the characters weren't going anywhere.
Aesthetically, I think Elves are my favorite. Attractive, slender, good posture, awesome lore, great architecture ... gender-wise, I'll almost always play male unless I just don't like the look.

Originally Posted by Valmarill

Aesthetically, I think Elves are my favorite. Attractive, slender, good posture, awesome lore, great architecture ... gender-wise, I'll almost always play male unless I just don't like the look.

Wow, I guess we have widely different standards of beauty... I think male elf is the most bizarre looking model in the game. Their arms are incredibly long, almost ape-like. Their posture is strange and unnatural and their animations are weird and look clumsy. The faces are okay, if a bit too cartoonish for my taste. Elves are supposed to be proud, beautiful and noble. I don't think the male elf model reflects any of these traits. They did an okay job on the female model, but I think the male is very poorly done.

Originally Posted by MannyCalavera

Wow, I guess we have widely different standards of beauty... I think male elf is the most bizarre looking model in the game. Their arms are incredibly long, almost ape-like. Their posture is strange and unnatural and their animations are weird and look clumsy. The faces are okay, if a bit too cartoonish for my taste. Elves are supposed to be proud, beautiful and noble. I don't think the male elf model reflects any of these traits. They did an okay job on the female model, but I think the male is very poorly done.

I guess it just comes down to what people find attractive and those differences make for a good mix of variety in race and sex in this game. Certainly, you have a tactful way of presenting your point of view which I appreciate. Personally, I don't see any of the things you are mentioning about Elf males. I see differences in animations more on class than race ... though there are the weird things they all do when they are just standing there or running. Human males do this weird thing with their mouth that I could never quite figure out. On the whole the models in this game are not the best anyway ... not to mention they are also not very customizable. I think people might hold a different view if they had more control over the features, hair, body etc. City of Heroes was excellent in this regard and I wish more games would adopt that level of customization.

Female player here; with two male and three female characters.

Even if I don't RP as such, I still create characters with a story in mind, finding certain background/skill/class combinations more logical (to me) than others, and from that deciding gender. Come to think of it, all my females are hunters, and my males are heavy armour types Just seem to suit them better in a way.

It's fun to Roleplay, even if it's just an internal story going on

Originally Posted by StarryP

Female player here; with two male and three female characters.

Even if I don't RP as such, I still create characters with a story in mind, finding certain background/skill/class combinations more logical (to me) than others, and from that deciding gender. Come to think of it, all my females are hunters, and my males are heavy armour types Just seem to suit them better in a way.

It's fun to Roleplay, even if it's just an internal story going on

I don't Rp at all but I think up a back-story for all of my characters. How strange is that?

Female in RL: two female characters, and the third is a dwarf. I don't usually role play on mmos, but I will have a character concept/inspiration in mind, and I'll let that decide gender.

Male in RL. Two female chars, three men, and a Dwarf.

When i started this game, it never crossed my mind to roll a female.

However, i wanted to play an Elf, and one look at the Elf male model made me realise i'd rather roll female than have to play as a ugly, stuck-up , transgendered freak. At least i'd get to look at something nice for the next few thousand hours.

Once i started playing i noticed other benefits to being female :

1) Elves were supposed to be more resilient than humans in lore. In game, it's the other way round, so having my melee character as a female helps to excuse the relative weakness. (This falls apart when i run into a female man guardian with better stats on the same gear, or a male elf guard who is also a weakling.)

2) It also explains why my class can't punch their way out of a paper bag, and makes a captain pet look like a heavy hitter - she's a girl, what do you expect?

3) My male characters all went race of man, and to maintain consistency with my view of the world, are higher dps - lower survivability classes than the elf females.

5) As well as the obvious eye candy effect, it makes my character's acheivements seem more heroic. Big bloke in heavy armour defeats a giant orc in melee combat? Meh. Elf caster chick blows up some big orc with spells before it can get close to her? Meh. Elf chick goes toe to toe with same and grinds it down in a war of attrition? Respect!

6) I found that i ended up caring a lot more for my character's wellbeing than if they were a male. I want her to be protected by the best possible gear and have the best possible stats, and when solo, avoid harm. Unlike the male characters, who i sometimes get killed in gruesome ways out of sheer boredoom.

The desire for them "to be protected by the best possible gear and have the best possible stats" is a dangerous one. It meant that despite having more male chars than females, the female is the main and the one i spend the vast majority of my time on. The males end up existing for little other than to support my main.

Now, i've seen people complain on the forums about males playing female characters. It was a while ago, and maybe they were only trolling, but they were arguing that it should be against the terms of service :

1) "the crying game effect"

It's shocking, and immersion breaking, to discover that attractive elf female you've been making friends with/chatting up/following around/stalking for the last week is actually a guy IRL.

Maybe as well as the RP servers, we need to set up a few "cyber" servers as well? Or even a RP + Cyber server, for the really freaky types.

Alternatively, in social options, you can select a "female IRL" flag, so all the lonely/cyber/internet grooming types know who to glom onto.

2) "they use it to get free stuff"

Can imagine this happens, though in my case the only stuff that is better than what i'm likely to be wearing , is going to be BoA. That has been true since level 7!

3) those guys who have female characters "because of the view" should just "get a girlfreind"

Sound advice, but the credit card is maxed out and with all the skirmish mark farming I don't have time to learn Russian. I do suspect you could turn this one around , however.

If you're honest, what you're really attracted to is the pixellated avatar, not the player, who you've never seen or even heard. Get your own attractive female character, and you won't feel compelled to hang around Celondim six hours a day offering "help" to all those scantily clad huntresses and lore mistress's.


OK I didn't intend to write such a long and snarky post, looks like i've managed to insult about every category of person that uses the internet, prescription for Prozac ran out a few weeks ago I'm bitter like this coffee i'm drinking.