Rollplaying defended, gender examined, REAL MEN ROLL PLAY! RAARRHHH! Options

[SL James]

If she's ugly, then sure. Life's not fair that way.

[hyzmarca]

There is one imporant reason why men should not play hot lesbians in most shadowrun games.

Roleplaying is all about the vicarious thrill of pretending you are someone else. However, roleplaying is a group experience. Therefore, it is important that the entire group is seeking a similar type of vicarious thrill.

Most often, in Shadowrun, this thrill involves commiting crimes and/or performing horrificly brutal acts of violence for money. The lesbian angle, however, suggests that a player is looking for a completely different type of thrill, one that the other players may not be comfortable with. A perfect example of this can be found here. Notice how everyone derrides Shadowdragon for sexually molesting the stuffer shack girl.

There are plenty of chatrooms what men can pretend to be hot teenage lesbians and women can pretend to be gay men. Many, if not most, SR players don't want their games to be dominated by other players' sexual fantasies. It simply isn't the place. If you are in the type of game that welcomes sexual roleplaying, then that is fine. Otherwise, go seek out one of the forementioned chatrooms instead.

It is perfectly fine for a man to play a character that is a lesbian or a woman to play a character that is homosexual, so long as it doesn't menifest itself in random gropings of NPCs. Most people in real life have a sexual orientation of some sort. Most people in real life don't randomly grope people on the street. And, 'its okay for her she can finger-rape random women because she's a woman too' doesn't fly in real life. It shouldn't fly in a roleplaying game, especially when it is only a thin veneer.

[SL James]

[mfb]

it depends on the player, though. unfortunately, any random sample of players who have played hot lesbians are going to turn up exactly the kind of player you don't want playing one--the kind that's going to play a charicature pr0n stereotype, spend at least one paragraph per post (if you play online) describing how hot their character is, getting their character into sexually compromising situations (if not just fucking the brains out of anything that moves), etcetera. even if those players were a minority in the sample, they'd likely have an effect far out of proportion with their representation. i mean, jesus, MAKE ME FORGET happened, what, six or seven years ago (in a private rp session on SL, for those who are wondering), and we still laugh about it because laughing is better than screaming and clawing out our own eyes.

[SL James]

This stuff about roleplaying is just ridonculous (yes, that is spelled correctly) because you know what? We get better sometimes. But sometimes some self-important jerk makes it harder to improve, or even to bother caring. I can only imagine my shock if I took a poll of how many people even tried to help make one of these PCs better, or the next one better, or the one after that. How many GMs did (not) do their jobs or just signed off, hoping for a good story to tell online when the player wasn't looking. And I'd be even more shocked if I asked how many people just mocked, insulted, ignored, or ran to a SLGS or DS or some other forum to bitch about them (especially if they do it behind the player's back).

If most of the people playing the game are to immature or otherwise lacking in understanding, then the majority is likely to be completely incapable of playing the more ridiculous caricatures. But that's not limited to gender. It's applicable to everything. I'm still learning how to RP better after 14 years of gaming. Some people are just good at RP and pick it up sooner, some people couldn't ever do it to save their lives, and some just ought to be beaten with a large dildo because they don't even try.

To me, it's the last group that is the biggest problem.

It's the ones who don't care, don't try to become better, or even think beyond some self-important conception who suck. And you know who else sucks; the GMs and co-players who put up with them, encourage them, or worst of all, do what SL did to that specific player and just disencourage them away. Groups like that are why I sometimes wish murder wasn't illegal, because there is no group anywhere, nor has there ever been or ever will be, that can actually back up any collective hubris pointed at one player to force them out.

Edit: Specific references to Shadowland politics were omitted because they aren't anyone else's business, and have no place being discussed on Dumpshock.

This post has been edited by SL James: Mar 5 2006, 11:55 AM

[mfb]

i... dunno. i mean, yeah, to a certain extent--a large extent--the GM and players ought to work with players in order to better their rp, especially if rp is important to the group. but continuing efforts are dependent on two things: whether or not the group can have fun while bringing a player or players out of whatever phase they're going through (whether it's playing lesbians with big tits or playing personality-free gunbunnies or simply breaking the fourth wall at inappropriate times), and whether or not that player is showing any potential for improvement.

and let's be honest. if some guy is trying to play out his sexual fantasies in a game, be it tabletop or online, i don't want to associate with him. i just... ew, man, gross. because i like getting pretty involved in my rp, these days, i might bite the bullet and have a sit-down with a guy who's doing something like that. but somebody who's just a casual rp'er, just there to have fun in between other hobbies? i'm not going to blame 'em if they just disassociate completely from that type of player, or even talk about them behind their backs. that's the price that type of player pays for acting inappropriately in public, same as the chick who always ends up puking on the rug at parties, or the guy who doesn't shower often enough.

[Vegas]

[mfb]

there's no solid line. but if it's all a player does, then what little line there is has probably been crossed, y'know?

lemme amend:

[hyzmarca]

When the adjective "glistening" is used in referance to a body part. When the term "member" is used to referance a body part.

There is nothing wrong with writing a background that includes sex so long as it doesn't read like a lemon fanfic. "We had sex" is always acceptable. A 20 page thesis on which rock-hard organs were inserted into which quivering orafices is usually not acceptable.

[TinkerGnome]

It's all about the way it's done. If the character's sexual orientation is included in the character concept, then that's definitely wrong. If it's just a part of the background and doesn't come up during play within the first several sessions, then it's fine. I mean, imagine the roleplay potential if you've got a heavy weapon expert troll on the team. Macho beyond macho. Then, for whatever reason, the team has to crash at his place and the troll has to explain to his ork boyfriend what's going on. Like on the tenth session.

That's just fun.

However, if you know he's gay within ten seconds of meeting him... the character probably isn't going to be much fun to run with.

[MaxHunter]

Where to draw the line between perversion and good RP?

It's a matter of good taste and common sense, not the two most common traits.

It ends up being a matter of group dynamics. The group, the gaming community, this forum, etc. end up setting the standards of the genre.

.. I had something to say about women playing RPGs, but just now I can't remember what it was... (Has this topic gotten sidetracked?)

cheers,

Max

[SL James]

Yes, but only because the original topic seems to have run its course and slammed into the wall at 200mph.

[TinkerGnome]

[Wounded Ronin]

[SL James]

Well, then here's my question: If the group dynamics are such that they are perfectly capable or willling to tolerate it, then where's the problem? That is, unless it's some outside third party who's got some hair up their ass about it, in which case: Eff 'em.

Screw it. This no longer has anything to do with the topic from my end.

[Wounded Ronin]

Well, I just wrote a story for Tisoz's fiction contest that's from a female perspective, so maybe later people who read it can tell me if it has t3h r34l or not. Um, unfortunately, I submitted it under the "Back To School Special" category so I guess it will be many moons before it ever sees the light of day.

[Kyoto Kid]

Wow, This thread has certainly taken more turns than the streets of Laurelhurst in Portland TT.

I do agree, sexual orientation should mainly be relegated to character story and rarely appear during gaming sessions. Only one SR character I have run was 'openly' lesbian, and then only because it was forced into out by the GM when the non-contact NPC friend of the PC became directly involved in the active adventure plot.

Because of this, and one character from and off and on D&D campaign. the GM in question has typecast every female character I design. To tell the truth, a good number of my characters simply have little or romantic interest whatsoever, and several were actually celibate. Just because they don't drool over every Chrisma 8 elf male that comes along, doesn't mean they are all lesbians.

A character's orientation does affect to a degree how they react in everyday life, but for the most part it should not enter actual game play unless, as in the example of the Troll wit the Orc boyfriend mentioned above, it is used to add a bit of levity to the situation.

[Wounded Ronin]

[warrior_allanon]

I'm not saying that Ronin, in fact one of the players/characters in our current SR3 game has kinda made it a trademark of his in that even with the "Liar" Flaw and "Uncouth" he has managed to score more than almost any other team member. Now we dont necesarily go into specifics except for one gloriously hilarious interlude that turned out to be a wolf shapeshifter. But usually he has used that "Liar" flaw to his advantage and managed to get the group into places we normally wouldnt go while he takes the occasional secretary or nurse into the supply closet for a quickie. The other thing that has happened is that the GM has the characters end up getting "involved" with our contacts. Our electronics whiz burned his reporter contact by not "getting serious" with her, while i managed to score a free luxury lifestyle by bedding down with my fixer.

This has also led to serious ability for backstory for my SR4 characters which are the children of this pairing. And though i go out of the SR4 cannon by giving an ED reference because my SR3 character's last run will be HQ's back, this gives a hell of a background for their training and abilities.

My one female character is the daughter of the older character and is a complete and total B17ch. her drive is to prepare for the "upcoming storm" as her father taught her and being totally straight is not going to become intimate with the rest of the team and though she has the ability to dress up, because she is the mechanic and driver of the group, she usually dresses in BDU's and leather. she's a battle axe and i play her that way, completely hardcore and not to be messed with. This is the third way most men play female characters i've found.

[mfb]

it basically comes down to why gender and sexual orientation are coming up in a given game. if they're coming up because the player(s and the GM) believes it will add an interesting element to the rp, fantastic. go for it. if it's coming up because one player is so horny that every character they make is a raging nymphomaniac with huge tits, then for chrissake, that player needs to perform a manual override before sitting down to do chargen. now, that assumes that the rest of the gaming group is uninterested in playing out sex fantasies at the gaming table. if they are, woohoo. create all the large-breasted night one lesbians you like.

[Vegas]

[Arethusa]

It doesn't happen just with sexual fantasies. I've seen people turn their personal insecurities into characters they were fiercely defensive of. I consider the night one lesbian nymphomaniac to essentially be a subset of this phenomenon; in this case, it tends to be an expression of sexual frustration and fucking ridiculous immaturity.

Admittedly, just as mfb's expressed interest in seeing someone play the archetypal loner hero realistically, I'd sort of be interested in briefly seeing the night one lesbian nympho played with real consequences and character. I'd probably take that right back if I ever had, though.

[mfb]

true. had/having a problem like that with a player i interact with fairly frequently. huge leaps in progress were made when the player finally confessed that the reason his characters act in certain ways is because he himself can't.

[Wounded Ronin]

[Arethusa]

Messed up in some way or killed? If that's all you've gotten away with so far, consider yourself lucky. In my experience, it's more along the lines of throwing a fit when their characters make any sort of bad decision (which, considering the type of people who do this sort of thing, is basically every decision).