Every Sunday there is a tabletop role-playing game discussion on Twitter under the hashtag #rpglifeuk. They’re often interesting, and one of those rare things on Twitter, a discussion that manages to elevate beyond the medium of its delivery and they also remain civil. A recent one was about playing different genders to your own.
As I was contributing to the discussion I realised, in that moment, I’d taken my thoughts on this subject on a step and they were worth writing down. So here we are.
The Obligatory Disclaimer
I’m going to try and write this article about playing different genders without focusing on men playing women and women playing men. Despite this, I will occasionally fall into using binary genders as examples just because it’s my frame of reference. Since I’m old. It also keeps the writing simpler on some occasions. I’m well aware of gender as a spectrum and I’m sure people can contextualise the examples for themselves as the imaginative souls that we are.
Do I Play Different Genders?
It’s interesting that I didn’t used to. This wasn’t a conscious decision. I never really thought about it. This was true all the way through my journey with role-playing games from the early 80’s right through until the new millennium. It was at this point we decided to play the Buffy: The Vampire Slayer game and it needed a slayer analogue.
I went with that and due to the nature of the game that meant the character was female. Since this worked out fine, I’ve happily done it a few times purely on the principle that when I put the whole package of a character together sometimes it just feels right that they’re female (which is always my different gender, I did warn you I’m old).
Considering I was often the primary GM, serially running games in pre-millennium groups, which involves playing numerous characters of a different gender, it is a bit odd I’d never thought of doing it as a player.
It’s About Story Stupid
It’s inevitable that my thoughts on these things are focused around story as I believe that is the key lens to look through when considering playing a character of another gender. I also believe the view of role-playing games as acting is what makes people nervous about playing another gender.
If your view of role-playing is very actor focused it’s inevitable that playing another gender might feel uncomfortable for you or those around you. It brings up the issue many people have: they can’t see the different gender because the person sat around the table clearly isn’t of said genre. It can also conjure up worries of people having to put on voices, mannerisms or other affections of said other gender which can feel uncomfortable in imagining what those might be or cringe-worthy experiences of people trying it.
But ask yourself this: could you tell the story of a character of a different gender?
That sounds like a different proposition. It’s a different proposition because you have numerous role-models for it in fiction, you’re not creating a real person but a member of homo fictitious and it is the story that has to be authentic and honest and many stories aren’t uniquely tied to a gender so there isn’t that psychic disconnect.
The Fictional Role Models
Since all role-players tend to consume a lot of fictional media we are blessed with a lot of fictional examples. This means we are plenty of role models to base our characters of a different gender on. This makes the process substantially more comfortable.
I was nervous when playing the slayer in our Buffy game but I soon acclimatised to the idea when I accepted the fact I wasn’t trying to authentically represent what it was truly like to be a real woman. I wouldn’t even go there as I fully realise there are many things I don’t have to deal with or think about much in life due to being male. What I was doing was authentically playing a heroine with super-powers in a genre-based piece of fiction.
This is not the same thing as trying to authentically play someone of a different gender in the real-world by a significant margin and plenty of role-models exist. This is true of bringing many stories to the gaming table we’ve not personally experienced. We use the many fictional examples we’ve absorbed as a foundation and a shortcut.
It’s worth providing another example. I’d have never considered playing a character uncomfortable with their birth gender (if that’s the way to describe, I’m sure you know what I mean!) because mine is a very natural fit for me. Then I watched the excellent Chilling Adventures of Sabrina which had the character of Susie / Theo Putnam. While I’d still don’t have a need to play such a character that fictional character did provide an excellent fictional role-model for such a character and in turn fosters the necessary connection. It also shows why representation in fiction is good.
The Fiction And Gender
Since we’re all about author focused play we are less concerned about acting a character of another gender and are more focused on telling the story of a character that is another gender. This makes things a lot easier.
While many people may feel nervous ‘acting’ the part of a different gender it feels different writing the story of one. As an example, as a man I don’t find it particularly daunting to play a female character in a science fiction action game were said character has recently lost her daughter but finds herself by engaging with a child she ‘adopts’ while surviving an infestation of aliens on a distant world. We’re basically talking about Ellen Ripley in Aliens.
This is because you can empathise with that story and as a result, you can authentically tell it.
Some people might suggest that picking characters of a different gender from genre fiction is the easy option. True, I do get that characters in genre fiction have their gender as less of a focus in favour of, hopefully cool, genre-based narratives. We can look at non-genre fiction and see that the exact same philosophy holds true.
Let’s take the recent film Marriage Story which tells the story of two people going through a divorce. It’s raw, heartbreaking and disturbingly accurate in terms of the feelings you go through. It also is specifically about two people of two different genders in a collapsing relationship. Could I play the character of the woman if this was a role-playing game? Yes.
The reason for this is the premise of that character is entirely understandable. She is someone who has made choices she actively participated in because she thought it would be enough only to figure out some years later it didn’t leave enough for her creatively. She became an adjunct to someone else. That I can understand. That I can empathise with. That is a story I can tell and create scenes to resolve and progress.
You could say the same thing about Yennifer in the series The Witcher. Some might say making a choice that removes your ability to have children is a uniquely female narrative. I do get that, but I firmly believe a man can long for children to and can empathise with a premise based on a character dealing with a choice that took that option away from them.
If you focus on the story the character is designed to tell, the whole process becomes considerably easier to envisage.
Homo Fictitious And Gender
Remember, you’re not trying to play someone of a different gender in the real-world, but someone who is a member of homo fictitious and that makes it a whole different exercise. Homo fictitious is simpler and more focused. Every element of their being exists to tell a specific story. You’re not trying to accurately portray someone of a different gender in the real-world with all those multi-layered complexities, but one designed to tell a specific story.
This makes life substantially simpler.
In many ways, the focus of the character becomes their premise as that’s the story they exist to tell. The gender of the character may be wrapped up in that premise but it’s almost always secondary to it. Let’s go with the Ellen Ripley character again in Aliens. Yes, the whole issue of motherhood is baked into the premise of that character and the film due to the presence of the Alien Queen. But it’s not entirely beyond imagination to envisage a story in which it was a man with a premise about a lost daughter as the loss of a child and finding a way through that is universal (degrees of having experienced it in real-life aside).
It’s All About Empathy
While focusing on author focused play removes a lot of the concerns about acting the part of a different gender, as the acting element is not the primary lens of the game, what is ultimately going on is the ability to empathise.
Can you empathise with the story the character is designed to tell? Can you empathise with this member of homo fictitious and the premise they have which drives the story that will unfold as the game progresses?
My view on playing a character of a different gender is if you can empathise with the character’s story you can authentically tell it and you should go for it.