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Underground > Games & Gameplay >

Postal/email RPGs, fantasies and transgender

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15:25 / 10.09.05

Erisian, if the problem is the tendency of other (male, heterosexual) online RPGers to blur fantasy and reality, surely the way to avoid difficulties is to be absolutely clear in terms of enforcing boundaries? For example, rather than avoiding any out-of-character dialogue, one might counter out-of-character emails, etc. with a restatement of the fact that you're a Real Life male playing a fictional female character, and have no interest in interacting outwith the game environment. And then don't interact outwith the game environment. Don't engage in protracted discussion, don't give out your 'phone number, don't meet.

Wouldn't this suffice, rather than a self-imposed veto on playing female characters?

16:32 / 10.09.05

Wouldn't this suffice, rather than a self-imposed veto on playing female characters?

Probably, but there's also a fair amount of people like me, and presumably you, Ganesh, and most of the other 'lithers: reasonably well adjusted people who ARE capable of online interaction in a non-creepy way.

A lot of the people on my IM contact list are there from various MUDS and javachats (RPGchats) and suchlike, and I am glad I know them.

Look, here's the long and skinny: I am pretty sure that the number of people who have had unhealthy relationships with me on the internet has been kept, even to the smallest extent, smaller due to my not playing female characters. There are plenty of other ways to explore my female side, *I* don't suffer from not playing female characters, and I don't think anyone else in the world suffers from me NOT playing a chica (my awesome RP skills notwithstanding).

I encourage anyone who wants to play a char of the opposite gender to do so, for whatever good or stupid-ass reason they can come up with, but it's just not something I do.

16:35 / 10.09.05

When did this thread become all about you?

*

16:48 / 10.09.05

Ms Trip, it's my fault. I was curious. Now I've pretty much talked it to death.

So what about roleplaying universes where there is a different kind of gender system? (Are there any such? Surely there must be.) Does anyone have experience playing a distance game in such a setting, and if so, did you pick a gender close to the one you live as in real life, or one that was different? Or if there was no gender, how did that affect your connection to your character?

I'm tempted to start a game in such a setting, but I know better; I've no time.

18:20 / 10.09.05

Look, here's the long and skinny: I am pretty sure that the number of people who have had unhealthy relationships with me on the internet has been kept, even to the smallest extent, smaller due to my not playing female characters.

Possibly but, again, a simpler way to avoid having unhealthy relationships with people online is to avoid having unhealthy relationships with people online. Firm, clear boundaries and unequivocal statements. I've ve-e-ery occasionally had people begin to fixate on characters of mine, but a single reminder that I am not actually Princess Clitora and, as such, have no interest in any sort of Real Life relationship with them has always knocked potential problems on the head. I'd respectfully suggest that if you've not managed this basic level of boundary-setting, you're not quite as socially accomplished as you claim to be.

18:56 / 10.09.05

So what about roleplaying universes where there is a different kind of gender system? (Are there any such? Surely there must be.) Does anyone have experience playing a distance game in such a setting, and if so, did you pick a gender close to the one you live as in real life, or one that was different? Or if there was no gender, how did that affect your connection to your character?

Good question. I once took part in a postal science-fictiony game in which it was possible to play 'genderless' characters. It didn't reaaally work: players tended to have their characters wander around making a feature of their genderlessness (which often seemed to tranlate into playing them as shag-anything - but usually women - nymphomaniacs). I didn't think I could do a genderless character justice, and played a male. At the time, I was tentatively experimenting with attracted-to-same-sex characters, so I guess this was my focus rather than gender.

I suppose vampire games are re-e-elatively genderless, in that sucking replaces fucking, and Anne Rice's stuff established a history of bisexual vampires. Having said which, when I joined a vampire PBM with such a character, he was apparently the only 'non-hetero' bloodsucker; the GM nervously apologised in advance for his lack of experience in writing male-male scenes.

It seems gender's always an issue.

19:59 / 10.09.05

I was looking at this thread as I've recently started with Second Life, which is a 3D graphical MUSH. I've not got much experience with it yet but my initial observations on the gender thing...

1. The game (toy? I'll call it a game for want of a better word, even if there are no more goals than you set yourself) enables you to change your avatar to look like anything at a moment's notice - editing avatars takes time but you can save configurations - which would suggest a fluid attitude to gender identity. Yet the editing process is based around male and female options, and unless you're fairly experienced in hacking the game about (more than I am after a couple of days) it appears to be difficult to change this. I've seen avatars that are furries, robots and so on but the majority are clearly male or female. I'll be interested to see how people really do change their avatar gender for more than just the odd party.

2. Many of the female avatars I've seen are hypersexualised, as are the clothes available (players can create clothes, which they then sell or give away). One of the first things I did was collect some "starter packs", objects offered for minimal cost for the use of newbies. These contain large quantities of lingerie, high heels, lace, "sexy walk" animations etc. I'm vaguely aware of the fact that some people use the game for virtual sex activities, with brothels, BDSM groups and so on, but that doesn't seem to quite explain it.

The game creators claim that actual players are 60/40 male/female so it seems likely that a lot of these avatars aren't just teenage boys doing the Weird Science thing (there *is* a "breast size" slider...). One thing I'm interested in is the difference between old and new players here, whether as time goes on people are less interested in sexualisation and more concerned about other factors, novelty, recognisability, or something else.

(Does anybody else play this here? I sort of remember reading about it on Barbelith at some point....)

Our Lady Has Left the Building

14:26 / 28.09.07

A Chinese game company is freezing the accounts of male players who are playing female characters in their games. It seems that anyone, either male or female, can only play female characters by proving via webcam that they have ladybits. Does anyone else think this will work?

11:10 / 29.09.07

I think that's more about them sucking up to the authorities than if it will have any practical effect. Either the gamers will work out a way to fool it or they will move to other games which don't enforce this policy, which I don't think is 'official' just yet.

I think it's illustrative of the self censorship which the Chinese Internet laws encourage. I can't find the reference but there was a story on the BBC recently with evidence that the 'great firewall' was very spotty in it's implementation. But what it did encourage was self-censorship from individuals and corporations. This strikes me as a MMO company attempting to curry favor with the authorities.

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