Is it weird for female players to play male characters?

[Genlog.4983]

am male play female but you can see what problems it can give lets say a lot off nasty pmyour cute i wanna marie you and so on

for the younger females under us i can understand how painfull that is for themso yea they play male and i think its a good thing for them to do that it give them a little bit protection

[Torolan.5816]

@Chorne.8195 said:

@Crab Fear.1624 said:The male norn voice actor for the commander sounds cool to me. Sounds a bit forced, but manly.I was referring to the female one. She sounds extremely obnoxious and it makes me want to strangle her through the screen. But somehow she still seems to come across as dull to me. Much more so than what I've heard of the male Norn voice actor. I only have one lightly used Norn character.@Donari.5237 said:I'm glad you've decided to try a change! It's no odder than a fiction writer doing a main character who isn't the same gender as the author....I don't feel weird because I play and write these male characters. I have plenty of females too. Not one of my characters is me, though some will incorporate aspects of my personality.

Enjoy seeing Tyria through other eyes, Chorne. It should extend the game's lifespan for you quite a bit.I'm really into creative writing, but I have a hard time writing from male viewpoints. It might be because I just haven't read much fiction with male protagonists. I mostly read fantasy, and the only really relatable male protagonist I've ever come across is Harry Potter. The Chronicles of Narnia are a bit aged, and so is LotR. The language they use makes it hard to empathize with the characters. I also have a hard time understanding the 'bromance' or whatever it's called in LotR with Sam and Frodo, it's extremely hard to write...It might just be from a lack of experience. Not writing or reading-wise but life-wise. I'm only turning fifteen in a couple months...Hopefully trying out a male character and playing the story with it will help out with that.

No offense, but I always thought the Harry Potter novels are creepy and teribly cliche after the first two books. There is also way too much singing and rhyming in lotr for me, although the books themselves are supremely heroic.

If you want something heroic, dramatic and bromance stuff look for the Dragonlance books and look no further. You will find the moving relationship of a grumpy old veteran and a snotnosed kid of two different races, the true love of a brother who risks everything for his younger but much more powerful brother who turns back from the brink of total destruction in the eleventh hour, the rise of the apprentice of said powerful brother which rises to fame, the story of a Paladinking whose fall kills everyone he loves and curses him for eternity but still he refuses to atone when offered the chance and some parents who desperately try to turn back their children from the side of the evil dragonqueen and are in the end forced to slay them.And probably the story I cried both sad through loss and moved by heroism tears over, a noble hero who finds his love, loses it because of a terrible secret, reunites with his love and against all odds rides into battle with a powerful artifact to banish or slay the five headed queen of evil dragons.

Or if you are into Sci fi I would advise you to the early Dune and Duncan Idaho. He is a true bro.^^

[Tsakhi.8124]

@Torolan.5816 said:

@Chorne.8195 said:

@Crab Fear.1624 said:The male norn voice actor for the commander sounds cool to me. Sounds a bit forced, but manly.I was referring to the female one. She sounds extremely obnoxious and it makes me want to strangle her through the screen. But somehow she still seems to come across as dull to me. Much more so than what I've heard of the male Norn voice actor. I only have one lightly used Norn character.@Donari.5237 said:I'm glad you've decided to try a change! It's no odder than a fiction writer doing a main character who isn't the same gender as the author....I don't feel weird because I play and write these male characters. I have plenty of females too. Not one of my characters is me, though some will incorporate aspects of my personality.

Enjoy seeing Tyria through other eyes, Chorne. It should extend the game's lifespan for you quite a bit.I'm really into creative writing, but I have a hard time writing from male viewpoints. It might be because I just haven't read much fiction with male protagonists. I mostly read fantasy, and the only really relatable male protagonist I've ever come across is Harry Potter. The Chronicles of Narnia are a bit aged, and so is LotR. The language they use makes it hard to empathize with the characters. I also have a hard time understanding the 'bromance' or whatever it's called in LotR with Sam and Frodo, it's extremely hard to write...It might just be from a lack of experience. Not writing or reading-wise but life-wise. I'm only turning fifteen in a couple months...Hopefully trying out a male character and playing the story with it will help out with that.

No offense, but I always thought the Harry Potter novels are creepy and teribly cliche after the first two books. There is also way too much singing and rhyming in lotr for me, although the books themselves are supremely heroic.

If you want something heroic, dramatic and bromance stuff look for the Dragonlance books and look no further. You will find the moving relationship of a grumpy old veteran and a snotnosed kid of two different races, the true love of a brother who risks everything for his younger but much more powerful brother who turns back from the brink of total destruction in the eleventh hour, the rise of the apprentice of said powerful brother which rises to fame, the story of a Paladinking whose fall kills everyone he loves and curses him for eternity but still he refuses to atone when offered the chance and some parents who desperately try to turn back their children from the side of the evil dragonqueen and are in the end forced to slay them.And probably the story I cried both sad through loss and moved by heroism tears over, a noble hero who finds his love, loses it because of a terrible secret, reunites with his love and against all odds rides into battle with a powerful artifact to banish or slay the five headed queen of evil dragons.

Or if you are into Sci fi I would advise you to the early Dune and Duncan Idaho. He is a true bro.^^

No, stop kicking me in the feels! (feels bad, man, feels bad). I'm already a sympathetic crier and then there's a good story and I'm INTRIGUED. I'd also suggest reading either the omnibus of the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander or getting them somewhere. I never felt such rage one minute and utterly crushing depression the next. (Aadon! <3) But, yeah, since books were mentioned, I'd figure I'd chip in (with chocolate chip cookies) and add to Torolan. 5816 already awesome post. (I'm sorry if I messed up.)Edit: Because I'm a derp with a healthy dose of herp...

[Willhart.8230]

I've made both male and female characters just to add more variety to my playing. I don't find it weird at all, and having 9 different profession characters to all be same gender would be kinda boring imo.

[sorudo.9054]

i don't really play just a character, i play a character within it's own lore and adventures.despite the limited choice in GW2, i try and make my own story for characters so they fit no matter how GW2 threats them.it just happens to be mostly female, the ones who are male have a reason for it.my charr is a veteran warrior (in my lore charr can live about 3X longer then humans but die earlier because of their war hunger nature), he has survived huge battles, but winning and losing ones.my human ranger is me in GW2, kinda inspired by LOTR.

and i can go on and on but the point is, the gender doesn't matter at all, just make one because it feels good not because of prejudice.

[Crab Fear.1624]

Look at it this way:

When you play any of your characters, you do no become them, you just take over their lives for a little bit and force them to do things. After you log out they go back to their regular lives with a few hours of time time lost. Yes, they are traumatized.

[Adenin.5973]

I play both, since I play GW2 somewhat casual and I do no longer care really about "immersion" or any heavy RP element.

With other games, where I do care about these things, where I am constantly in TS/Discord and ppl hear constantly your voice and see your character up close, I would find it weird if a male plays a female or vice versa.

But not in GW2. I do not "identify" with my ingame characters, I chose to take control over them. I chose them based on looks.I also like diversity and like to theme them a little. I got a plant themed Sylvari female, a super spiky badass looking charr male, a super evil looking asura male, the usual hot female mesmer/ele.

I play GW2 more like some Moba. I don't see myself as the character but as its commander, like in a strategy game.

[Danikat.8537]

Strangely enough the one thing I can't do is play a male character I find attractive. I can make an attractive man in GW2 but then playing that character just seems weird. Somehow it seems more artificial and contrived and ruins my immersion, even when I make up a back story and personality for him like I normally do.

Maybe that's why human male is the last race/gender combination I'm making. My first male character was a charr, made on day 1 (along with 3 females) and now I'm up to 10: 1 of each except human male, and 1 extra Sylvari female. I'm planning a bit of a reshuffle and want to end up with at least 1 of each, but I haven't decided exactly how to do it yet. I suspect it's going to end up with 12 characters, but that might be too many for me.

[Cobrakon.3108]

Define Weird....

So I'd say most people wouldn't find it weird if you played male characters. There can be a lot of different reasons....If i am going to be honest though, I find it weird when some guys play nothing but female characters. Many times they are super picky with outfits and things..... I could imagine some people having like a doll collection in their basement and they comb their hair. Or they are effeminate for whatever reason. I find that a bit weird sometimes. There must be an equivalent (girls like to play male characters.) but this is in extreme cases and is sorta based on what is weird in society whether right or wrong to look at it that way.

I think its pretty normal though to have a mix of male and female characters.

[PyrateSilly.4710]

I am female and I have been online gaming since, well a very long time. My first char online was female and at that point in time the female char was getting harassed so much 'hey give me a ..' 'hey you wanna go over here and pretend we are..' well you get the idea so from then on I just started playing male chars and I am not sure when the last time I played a female was.My wife on the other hand plays only female chars and has never had a problem. I think she may have a male or 2 char in there somewhere but most are female. It's all her preference.

I still hear in the chat sometimes while I am out running around "There are no females here, only guys playing girls. Girls don't play games" and if someone tries to correct them they will cuss them out and just won't believe them. Even thou at least half of the gamers out there are female and half are male.

[TwilightSoul.9048]

Nope, not weird! I'm male and I have a wild mix of male and female characters for various reasons.For example: I absolutely hate Human males because to me they all look like 14-16 Year olds with terrible beards available for Humans and it gets even worse for light armor on males, so whenever I make a human or a lightarmor class it'll likely be female. My Norns were originally all Male because I love the voice acting on Male Norns and they have decent hair and beards available but after a while I realized I had never tried to make a female norn so I switched my Warrior's gender and I'm very happy with my female warrior Norn now (looks somewhat like a Valkyrie).On Asura I feel like gender really doesn't matter at all so I chose Female because the male Asuran voice sounds too arrogant to me and on Sylvarie I have two females as well because they have some very nice cultural Armor available :) When I get another char slot I'll make a male Sylvari as well.Actually now that I think about it I have a lot of female characters... I think the main reason is that I prefer the female voice lines in most cases, Norn and Char have great male voices, Sylvari are okay the rest is rather meh with Asuran beeing incredibly annoying to me.One smaller reason is that my favorite character name is Elenia, so I'm often drawn towards the female characters because I always have a name at hand for them :)

Either way, you shouldn't worry about the gender of your character, play whatever you enjoy playing!And merry Wintersday to you all :)

[Danikat.8537]

Bear in mind they might be joking. Or is it just me and my friends who will make the "there are no girls on the Internet" joke when some/all of us are female?

Either way we find it amusing because it's so obviously absurd.

[Witch of Doom.5739]

I play both genders and all races, because FASHION WARS. I don't care a flip what gender my toons are nor what other players' are. It's a game, have fun!

[Alga.6498]

Its similar to this question, which gender do you play as for each profession?

I mean, most of all thinks right away whenever we hear a "Warrior" or any other typical melee classes a male.Mesmer or other casters are mostly typical female, Engineer is classical male profession etc.

Its nice to change things up, I have atleast 1 profession of each gender.

Who cares what you play, as long you enjoy it.

[ReaverKane.7598]

I'm male, and i tend to pick male characters, but i also play female characters, not really to wear a bra, but because it fits the class.So for example, my mesmer is a female human Noble (Anise, the queen and Kas are all mesmers and human female nobles, so it made sense to me), my Revenant is a Female Norn (because their Havrouns reportedly can travel the mists, and all the havrouns i remembered were female, and i already had my main character as a male norn guard, so i made her a female), and finally my Elementalist is a female asura, mostly just because my engineer was a male one, so i made a female one to get different VO.The only race i have two of and one isn't a female is Charr... I just don't like the Horns on Charr females...

So my answer to you is, make the character that makes sense for you. If you want to make a "boy toy" character or just play it to see how different armors look on males, or just listen to different VO than you're used to, it's your prerogative. Its your character, and if people judge you for what you play... You need to find new people ^_^

[TheOrlyFactor.8341]

Nothing weird about it. I'm a dude and I have female characters.

[Menadena.7482]

After creating nothing but female characters since I started in 2014 one of these threads came up and I decided to roll a male character. I see it as no different than staying with one race then deciding to create a different one.

[Anchoku.8142]

I play one of everything. After a while, I ignore the genders, for the most part.

However, human male idle actions are rather annoying.

[Silencio.2604]

I only have 1 female in this game and I feel weird playing it. Had more than 1 in other mmos. Maybe it's because your character actually talks in this game, instead of just grunting and other combat sounds.Wonder if any short people play asuras, I'm 6 feet and I get tired of hearing I'm 6 feel tall.. love asura though.

[Ayakaru.6583]

Only as strange as male having female characters.Honestly, i made a female warrior on day 1. I played it mostly to get a feel for the game. But then i became so invested on that character i ended up it being my main, decking about 65-70% of total hours played. So yes, i play a lot on a female character. But its the character I've mostly prepped for "story mode".I have 13 characters more but i only play occasionally on them

[Palador.2170]

You know, with the right face and hair, it's possible to make a human male that could actually pass for female. Maybe go for that?

[Vavume.8065]

@Palador.2170 said:You know, with the right face and hair, it's possible to make a human male that could actually pass for female. Maybe go for that?

Seem's you forgot they talk...

[finkle.9513]

Think most people come from games that where gender locked, so a healer would always be a female character, a warrior is male charterer.... i think we are all used to different sexes playing different genders, i really dont see what bearing in life a character you play in a game has.. I started off playing Mario, but when i played the mushroom it didnt make me drug dealer...

[Palador.2170]

@Vavume.8065 said:

@Palador.2170 said:You know, with the right face and hair, it's possible to make a human male that could actually pass for female. Maybe go for that?

Seem's you forgot they talk...

Sure, they talk. What I'm saying is that you can make a male character without it being very ... well... masculine. That it's not black and white, but you can make a character with some shades of grey. Maybe that will make it easier for the OP.

[Danikat.8537]

@finkle.9513 said:Think most people come from games that where gender locked, so a healer would always be a female character, a warrior is male charterer.... i think we are all used to different sexes playing different genders, i really dont see what bearing in life a character you play in a game has.. I started off playing Mario, but when i played the mushroom it didnt make me drug dealer...

I've never played a game with gender locked classes, I didn't realise they were that common. Unless you count the ones where you always play the same character, like Zelda.