Massively on guys playing female toons

A amusing article by Mike Foster at Massively about men playing female toons.  While not strictly about TESO, it a quick funny read.

Great article, thanks for posting.  I often wondered about guys playing female characters.  I was considering rolling a male character (I, myself am a hetero female) just so I could find an appropriate "mate" to share my Mara rings with.  

I just don't think I'd make a very convincing guy.

I didn't think gender mattered for the rings...but I may be wrong. 

I played a female toon once. That was my toon for DAoC. I did it and named her as a tribute to a friend who had recently died.

Mostly

Men

Online

Role

Playing

Girls

I always have trouble gaming female toons.  Which is odd to me, since when I used to game pen and paper rpgs (AD&D etc) I did have a few female characters. - M.

EDIT: @Victor funny acronym but very much a sterotype imo. And a False one in my personal gaming experience (the majority of female players that i've met online have actually been female)... at least in anything recent that i've gamed (lotro, & swtor).

I have no problem playing any gender of toon. for me it's simple, if I don't care how the male version of the toon looks, I roll a female version and edit her appearance to what I find attractive. as for role-playing, I have plenty of experience playing a multiple of genders. male, female, hermaphrodite, you name it I've played it and rather convincingly at all of them. I've even played a multitude of races from human to furry. it's not hard it's just acting. but getting back to the subject, it's primary in the 'erotic' settings of any game were you'll find more men playing females then females playing females.

I almost always play with a female toon.  I think my choice harks back to the days when the default gaming character was always male.  I still recall one of the first times I played something that gave me the choice!  As for the hypersexualisation, female toons can look fairly ridiculous at times - something that ESO doesn't seem to have continued with.

I'm also hopeless at RPing male toons :)

I typically have a pretty even mix of male and female characters. I like alts, and there is no reason I can think of to make them all the same sex.

I mainly play male's b/c as being a male myself it is easier to associate with. And, I don't get distracted by swaying hips every time I play (lol). 

I play whatever has the smallest hitbox... sometimes it means an embarrassingly oversexualized little <cough, cough, Elin> playboy bunny...

On the bright side, when I get ask by someone  if I am hot IRL, I figure that's one less stupid harassing comment directed at female gamers :-)

Guy

In

Real

Life

:B

I usually play with male characters because they have prettier, bulkier and more effective armor than those ugly bikini-mails females get. Also when I play a female character most people think I'm a guy because I don't sound girly enough on the voice channels and I talk about mature topics (not in our guild chat, of course!)

I am definitely guilty of making female toons and putting them in hot outfits. Usually, when the toon has human features (includes norn) I make them female, but make them male when they are less human-like (Charr). I figure, I will spend hundreds of hours looking at this toon. Might as well make her attractive. Probably the reason I am least interested in asura and sylvari. They are just unattractive no matter how you customize them. However, if I make toons I plan to play in tank or front-line melee roles, I make them big, male, and as scary as possible. I have found that when I start running towards solo enemies, they run more often than not. 

Guild Wars 2 was the first time I ever played a male lead character. When the family was created in 2001 I played Foghladha which was shortened from Alexis Foghladha who was created to represent my daughter who had just been born. Ethan Foghladha in story was her husband who was brutally murdered by the Norse. She had 2 children Alaois and Banning.

In Warhammer I created Daghdre and the Danann's (3 of them) who continued the story as a grand daughter of Alexis Foghladha. In RIFT I brought Foghladha back to the fold recreating her in my Daughters image. Even in Guild Wars 2 I have an Alexis Foghladha (Guardian) who is modeled after my daughter.

Why all this devotion to my daughter? Well aside from being her father, there was a period of time in my life where i wanted nothing more than to die to escape my reality. I began having dreams of my daughter and this gave me hope in my darkest times. It pulled me our of being bound by fear and brought me to the understanding that fear is just there to keep us complacent. Once I figured that out life started to change for me. I eventually got married and found out that I was, yes in fact having a daughter. 

In Fact this drawing was drawn the year before I met Allie's mother:

It was my best attempt to draw her as she appeared in my dreams. She always had Brown curly hair and blue eyes. In addition I wrote a poem about her several years before I met her mom titled "Who is your mother". If ya don't believe any of this go ahead and have a talk with G-Ma, thats my mom and she was there for the whole thing :).

To me it's more of a tribute to the wonderful being that saved my life even before she was born. For that I am forever grateful and will continue to honor her in everything I do. 

For Guild Wars 2 I started with Alexis Foghladha and then decided I liked the ranger more so I had Benjamin Foghladha. After learning all the cool useful things I could do with a mesmer and never having a portal available I decided to create Ethan Foghladha.

So there you have it, your fearless leader has and will play a girl in MMO's.

As an old pen and paper DnD player myself I play both for many reasons. One of the main reasons is I feel that I'm much better at coming up with interesting and cool sounding female names. Another is I have a better time coming up with back stories of female characters over male ones. And one of the more important ones is in most video games the female models look better than the male models. For example, WoW, I don't like weight lifting in real life. I find it to be aesthetically  displeasing... and even more so in video games and a lot of times game artist make the male avatar look like they are competing for the Mr. Universe title.

I am a female and strictly play female characters.  For me I create toons as alter egos for me or those that I think are representive of traits I have or traits that I aspire to have.

I admit it, I'm a guy that plays mostly female characters for the somewhat standard reason - if I'm going to stare at someone's backside for that many hours I'd rather it be female. I have played male characters, though. My first main in an MMO was male and my main in LotRO (where I spent more time probably than any other MMO) was a male human Guardian. There have been a few others here and there but they typically didn't get a lot of play time.

I'm also pretty much a human or human-like character player. I just don't find myself interested in playing non-human looking races. If I was to play one, though, it would probably be male since I'd be less concerned about the looks of it at that point.

Now after Fog's post I feel silly for posting this comic :B

Oh well, posting the comic it is!

Well Fog did have that dwarf in Warhammer, but wasn't on him much.  He was too short though so that must be why he was forgotten.  For the most part he was always playing on some female toon with some name relating to Foghladha or the irish heritage.  I know we always had multiple toons for warband leading in that game so we could do events in Tier 2 through 4.

I've done both male and female.  Have no issues roleplaying either.  Back in the day of chat RP it actuallyt helped with my writing.  One character was a cranky old ice dragon, who never seemed to get his human form shorter than 7 feet to feel like he fit in better.  I know on AOL I actually was a moderator for the Red Dragon Inn, but the character I used for that was male.  I got so sick of guys trying to hit on women on that service it drove me bonkers.  Hence the start of the cranky old dragon and his nephew the bar tender.  LOL!  Had one of my friends tell me the cranky old dragon was well done and the funniest thing only she and the RDI's knew I was female for the longest time.

Fog has a cool, honorable reason for rolling a female character.

Be nice to say I did too.

But I am just a simple neanderthal man who prefers the female shape on a character I might spend 100x24 hours+ looking at.

I'm a man. My characters have always been male... to me, they are an avatar of who I'd like to be if I were physically in the game. That being said, I've often heard that most men are 'nicer' or more generous with female characters. Maybe because they think they are helping a nice young lass? Maybe to flirt? Who knows? If the character is smoking hot (think of the Norn women in GW2), then that might have something to do with it. I personally try to be a gentleman (perhaps this is the same is with most guys?) and I usually played differently (kinder, more patient, generous, etc.) with female characters - it's wired in my DNA. But what's funny is how I feel when I find out a female character is actually a male player... it throws me off and reminds me I should treat all players/characters in a kinder, patient, generous manner. An awkward (at times) lesson to learn - but one I now live by. Everyone gets my best now.

I have played both male and female characters, mainly just because I felt one or the other fit the character better.

hey I play female toons for the most part.   My reasons are simply justified.   As a former RPG (pen and paper), I have actually mixxed it up and played both, but actually won a prize in a randome game with premade characters.   This game i told the GM that my preference was a mage, and he only had one mage, I got it and it was a female character.   Turns out, the story arc we RPd was essentially centered around the character I took.  Not only did I have to play a female mage, she was a mother, and her daughter was kidnapped, and the group was basically getting her back.  I had to RP this as a mother who was desperately trying to get her daughter back, on top of that a good friend ended up getting the husband and father, so I went the extra distance and rp'd it up.   I just went intothe mindset of having fun, and I won a prize for best role player in that group.   The GM was surprised and shock.  That being said, I am as straight as you can get, I just have lived in an enviroment that was predominantly women, i was raised in it, so i tend to understand them better.  I get along with the females better than guys.  

However, because of my RPing days, when I play these MMO's, I tend to want to get into character at times.   Not all the time, but it seems when I play males, I find it alot easier to get into character.   It helps protect my marriage some that I don't play the males as often, because well I tend to be a natural flirt whether I try or not, so to some extent its safety.   However the artist in me also has some issues with the characters.  Many games these days, it seems that the dev's have put more love into their female character designs.   The male designs are always too stereotypical, too macho looking.   they tend to have really bad facial designs, and lack any appeal to me, because they are out of proportioned on steroids muscle bound freaks.   The women on the other hand got too much love, and are overly sexualized, given supermodel type bodies and looking like dream girls.   However, when given the choice I go for the overally idealized woman because well she is more pleasing to look at.   Since I spend alot of time also viewing my character from behind, it is just easier to stare at the backside of a woman than the posterior of a man.   It might be cliche, but it is true, especially if your playing 8+ hours a day.   

That being said, ESO has some issues with both genders, the customization options tend to feel inadequate to the way alot of MMO's are going, so I was displeased with both.   However I will still be playing most female characters, because well honestly I want to play a dwarf and in this game, the dwemer are dead, even though apparently their ruins and technology is explored in this game which is 2000 years before skyrim and they were still be explored and used then.  I mean seriosly, how far back do we have to go for them to be playable, and why are their ruins still being discovered for thousands of years after they are gone and yet none of their technology can be replicated.   It doesn't really give me much hope for the people who still remain on Tamriel if they take forever to explore a dead race and still can't understand their technology enough to create something similar in thousands of years.  

Syphon, from what I can remember from Tamriel lore for the most part, very few people are even interested in the Dwemer. Those that are are mages mostly and deal in mostly magic. If you look at present time Tamriel (depending on which game you are playing) Magic and swords are the key to the game. No one does any research into mechanical other than seeing how things work of Dwemer items that are found. And since no mage or anyone for that matter has any clue where to begin in melding mechanical and magic (which is what Dwemer did) there is no place of even remotely plausible way to implement quest, characters, or even playable classes that use Dwemer technology.

As far as discovering the ruins of dewmer people. It's not hard to fathom the idea that not every ruin would be found and explored even 2000 year later. We ourselves are still finding civilizations that are older than 2000 years and some of those civilizations we know about, but discover more ruins all the time.

That being said, it would be nice if they advanced that part of Tamriel and either make it to where the Dwemer find their way back from where ever they sent themselves or make it where someone found a way to recreate Dwemer Technology that players could use. maybe in ES6 they'll finally allow that to happen. I mean they did bring back the Falmer finally... even if they where a shadow of what they once where.

I do make female character too as an alt usually. certain female race would get better look on the armor outfit than the male counterpart. But usually I would start with male character.

@Kitty.

I love that Comic drawing, it's a perfect visual illustration of what we see in Asian MMORPG's (and select American MMO's)

Re-posting the comic image because it's so darn true. 

» Edited on: 2014-03-05 05:37:17

I'm old enough to have had to endure all those years when female gamers were truly rare, and for that reason (and because skimpy armor makes me want to break things) I mostly played male characters. I grew up in a country and a town where gender was seen as a critical measure of intelligence and independence, and you can probably guess which gender got the raw end of that deal.

Nowadays I play female characters almost exclusively, mainly because the "skimpy outfit" stereotypes are shifting (GW2's charr and asura are very dear to my heart for that reason). I have no issue with anyone else playing them, but if there isn't an option to create a non-stereotypical female character, then I'll either switch to male or find another game.

I'm still in WoW, and some of the old stereotypes are still perpetuated there, which is why I turn off /trade chat, and anyone there who repeats the tired old memes for MMORPG or GIRL makes my ignore list. It's hard to find it funny when the exact same behavior - not malicious, just the unthinking repetition of gender stereotypes - has shaped your whole life.

I'm fairly happy with the models we've seen for ESO, and the options for character customization. I'd like to see more armor options, but it's early days and customization of models and armor take time to implement. At worst, I can roll an Argonian while I'm waiting. ;)

My daughter (13, and 2nd gen gamer girl in our family) and I got a huge kick out of the cartoon.  

My characters are always an extension of myself, so I always play a female toon.  I've made male toons before, but they always make me feel like I have a female brain in a male body, which I guess is just what it is.  Even though I've been a "tomboy" all my life and generally dislike and distrust women (weird, right?), I'm still pretty much a girl to the core.

That said, I have to admit I've found quite a few like-minded girl gamers and my circle of female friends continues to grow--I think I have 3 female friends now.

Just curious.  How many women do we have in the Family?

I don't think anyone is saying that playing a gender opposite of your RL gender is wrong, but the reasons behind it are interesting.

You are absolutely right, the beauty of playing an RPG allows you to be just about anything you want to be.  I believe that's why many of us play them vs. an FSP.

What kind of character do you like to play, Soulshine?  I've tried playing as many race/class combinations as possible during the beta.

@Ezsme

We have:

Source!

Tasty Demographics data!

@Ezsme

80% male, 20% female.  This number is based of who chose to disclose this information.

...........

The beauty of this guild/family and RPGs are that you can play like you want (See rules for limitations), this play style may or may not reflect anything in real life, nor does it matter.   Nobody has to legitimize their charecter that they create, if they don't want too.

I personally like playing male dwarfs or female dark elfs.

Wow, what an interesting demographic.  When I joined an FC in FF14, the first comment I heard when I jumped on to Teamspeak was someone whispering, "Guys, it's a real girl."  There were eventually three of us in an FC of 100+.  

The three of us have been getting together during the ESO beta as well and I've invited them to check out our website.

Way back in DAoC, my husband had a female bard and I played a male warden. Talk about confusing people. 

Most of our eldership are women. We also have quite a few women event leaders. :)

Never could get into playing a guy; guess I'm just that gender-locked. Heh. Female, playing female... always have.

I play both probably equally.  All depends on if a race looks better as either female or male, if the class I'm playing feels more maleish or femalish...or especially back in DAOC days if I didn't want to be bothered by the males, I would play male. The last has changed a lot over the years.

I still remember when I was a kid and was in Best Buy looking at computer games - I got all sorts of odd looks being a girl in the computer game section.  I remember playing games in Basic, very few girls played on computers back then.

My main is usually a guy but I often have girl alts to mix things up. It also depends on whether the make character for a given class looks either too brutish or too emo (aka some of the human models  in GW 2).

I was looking at 3D magazine recently and there was a 3D female pirate character that had been posted there.  The character was scarred from battle and had small ta tas believe it or not.  The Clothing was verywell done, pirate with a slightly feminine bais.  The comments were largely how refreshing it was to see a real representation of what a female pirate would probably have looked like.  Not your typical playboy bunny version of a pirate. 

Certainly many women would love to have the ideal figure, unfortunately we dont. That doesnt mean we dont appreciate the idealized figure of most men, however. 

That being said I prefer the more realistic view in game.  I try to identify with the characters I play. I'm like Kitty, but with even a more decidely unfemale voice that I have dealt with over the course of my life.  I am often times accused of being a man playing a female character.  But I got over that a long time ago, smile.  

I appreciate those males who play female characters.  In a way it is acknowledging a respect of women.  For others, perhaps it is looking for the ideal woman they wish they could find. For others it is perhaps exploiting women, thankfully the latter are few and far inbetween, largely created by preadolescent males.

I think most women would agree it is farily easy to spot a male playing a female character simply by the way they dress their characters.  More skin for them the better, the larger the chest, the better. Smile it is comical sometimes to see the number of extremely well endowed women running around in game.   

Game designers are also largely responsible for the way females are portrayed in game.  I think sometimes they are largely pre-adolescent males, lol.  Honestly do you think a woman warrior would run around with a bikini top, and littly tiny arm guards? 

I do think ESO has done a good job at designing the costumes for the females in the game. From the limited exposure I have seen so far, they are much more realistic in nature that the ones we see typically in MMO's.  Just another reason to spend a little more time in Cyrodiil for me.

Hope to see you all in game, either in GW2 or ESO.

Caitlin

I exclusively play female characters and its simply because I'm a dirty old man.

I'm a guy and almost exclusively play male characters. I'm really not sure why. I thought maybe it's because I try to play as a sort of a version of myself, tossed into the game world. Then I thought about it some more and before GW2, if dwarves were available. Then that's what I played. Hmm, short, round, hairy guys, usually out of their head on something. Yep, that's a character I can identify with.

I did try creating a female Norn necro, named Thudann Bluhndr. I had a backstory as Thudden's strange little sister and everything. But, then I spent some time going through the various cloth armors, both for leveling and lvl 80 gear. I didn't think I could keep enough Transmutation Stones on hand to keep her from looking like a Vegas showgirl, trying to put together a work outfit that would also fit in at Carnival in Rio, Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and Bike Week in Sturgis. :) There was no way Thudden's little sister was gonna dress like that. (He's a very protective big brother.) And GW2 is mild compared to some games.

So, I guess I'm stuck playing a short, bearded, plastered guy in game...  and in real life, hehe(or a tall, bearded, plastered guy in the case of GW2)

Good hunting

I have a sneaky suspicion that sexes won't matter when it comes to the rings of Mara.  Not just because of the desire not to alienate same sex couples, but because I ran across a quest where a man was dying and his partner, another man, wanted your help to give him a good send off.  The voice-acting was male as well, so I don't think that it was an accidental thing by the developers, which is really cool.

I like to play beefy warrior slash em up tank types as females and more mage spellcasting finesse types as males to combat gender roles, also i like playing a female in games like sims 3 that offer a ton more customizing options for females, get my moneys worth LOL

I do it all the time. I got used to it playing City of Heroes with my daughter. It just seems normal to me now. I find it odd that people run around as a giant cat or a lizard but freak out about a guy playing a female toon. I dont RP though. I can see how that may be a bit difficult to pull off. I think it cuts down on the sexist comments  too. No guy likes hearing "Dude, I'm  a Dude!"

Based on all of the games I have played my characters could be human, furry, gnome, undead, etc, but I'm usually playing a male.  Every now and then I might create a female character just for fun, but I stick to playing my main.  The one time I did play a female character for a bit I had guys hit on me and it was kind of odd.  I usually just ignored them though because I'd rather play then pay attention to them.

I always play a female character.  I tried male characters in the past, and I found that the other characters in the game were rude to me.  I suspect they were treating me like they would treat a male.  The surprising thing is that despite my being a staunch feminist and ardent defender of women's rights, I rather like sexy toons in skimpy, cute outfits.  I think this is because I want to play a toon that makes me feel good and I am now at an age and point in life where I do what I want to do.

Fym  :)

Funny yet true - the other night in ESO I was asked by a guild member in guild chat "So why you playing a female?"

I was like, "Errr - because I'm female - and almost 63 with 4 grand kids".

He responded... "Oh - that's cool - I only asked since most female toons are really men".

On one hand I understand why he asked - on the other hand I hope for a world where it doesn't matter "who" is behind the pixels just whether you enjoy gaming with them or not.  I seldom ask if someone is male or female since I am only gaming with you - voices over RC lie sometimes since connections aren't always the best - some men sound like women - some women sound like men - just watch the Voice (singing competition) that does blind auditions and at least 2 or 3 times every season you see the shock on the judges faces as they turn around and exclaim "Oh my god - your a dude" or "No Way! - you're a woman!" 

How many of you remember Bea Arthur - or Susan St. James - both of these actresses had very husky, male voices... Then listen to Adam Levine from Maroon 5 sing - first time I heard him I swore it was a lady.

Life is a mixed up muddled up shook up world - and I like it that way.  MMORPG's are designed for us to care about the pixels - not the man, or the woman, behind the curtain.  This isn't to say that we don't start believing in and even caring for those pixels as we get to know the people as we play - but that usually comes after gaming with them for awhile - reading their comments in game and on the guild site or talking to them in RC ... that is why is so very important to always take the high road with your words, actions, and deeds.  Then it realy doesn't matter if you are male or female - or what you have your character in the game look like.

Safe Journ!

Well said, Morgiana!

I'm an altaholic.  I'll always have male and female characters.

Doesn't bother me in the least to have a female character even though I'm a guy. 

I use voice in any case, so there will never be a question anyway.

I'm with Raf on this - altaholic, so I try to spread my characters across gender and races.  I confess to enjoying playing female alts because they are more pleasant to look at for hours on end, but that is by no means the exclusive reason: looking back at my gaming history, I have thorougly enjoyed popping people's preconceptions (I often do this in real life as well; I used to go to my local karaoke pub every week & frequently wore my ripped jeans, sleeveless Harley denim jacket and a bandana.  Then proceeded to get up and sing "Wonderful Tonight" by Eric Clapton.  As a former member of Mensa as well, and hence quite able to hold my own in an intellectual conversation, I managed to make lots of people do a double-take, and always enjoyed seeing the wheels turning in their heads *grin*).

I have RPed a male character who married a female character that I knew was (very well) played by another guy.  However, it is also very interesting to play a female character and see how things have altered over the years - perhaps simply _because_ there are a lot of guys doing the same; used to be (y'know, back in the day...) that I would get hit on quite frequently, which was amusing because I knew that I was a guy but I could absolutely see how annoying that would be for a girl.  That does happen less often these days, or at least they ask first.  The thing is that, while I honestly believe that the computer gaming industry is wider in scope and appeal than it used to be, there is still a disproportionate ratio of socially-dysfunctional males with little or no experience of 'correct' social interaction with members of the opposite sex.  And because of both the anonymity of being behind a computer screen and the excuse of 'roleplaying', that sometimes leads to inappropriate behaviour which can border on harrassment (yes, I have also had a female character harrassed by a guy in the past).

In Neverwinter, two of my three max-level characters were female.  SWTOR was split pretty much down the middle.  I had planned to have a female nightblade on ESO but, as I have now changed my build to Khajit (and because I can't get the voice modulator sounding right for changing me to a _female_ Russian cat), I think that I will be going male with my main.  But a female Breton Sorc is definitely on the cards as an alt.  The facial makeup is too cool to not make a Goth :-D

When I was super hard core most people assumed I was a guy until they got into vent with me, then they are like O.O wut?!? - Always made me laugh...  Still does occasionally, though I will say there are a LOT more women in MMO's now-a-days.

In real life I play a human with amazing powers of ... mundane.

The leap to female doesn't strike me as greater than the leap to non-human, magical, or whatnot. At least I know females in real life. No Dragonlords.

Wait - whoa - what.... you mean I'm not a Dragonlord???  ohhh, you just don't know me :)

I don't mind choosing either Gender as i plan on making a few characters and  having all males would make it pretty boring n abit weird, So i have no problems with it : )

I play an assortment of toons .. It all depends on how I like the graphics of the races. In ESO the wood elf males are really bad graphically, but the females look much better so if i made a wood elf, I would make a female. Doesn't change my play style.