Exactly the same here. I never made a female char, not even once. I have to endure enough women in my private life :biggrin:

How strange. :confused:

Woooow, some of you are REALLY looking way too in to this. A lot... like, a whole damn ton too much in to it.

So what if a guy wants to play a female? Big deal.

My mage is a female Breton. Wanna know why? Cause the one I saw in one of the loading screens looked really cool, so I based my mage off her.


Some people...

Yes, of course. By misogynistic, I meant mostly that maybe Bethesda is perhaps afraid that the game should be perceived as such, and ends up making games gender-neutral, or close, everytime.

Anyway, it'd add some interesting variations. Joining a Fighter's guild as a woman should be more difficult, getting you some sneers or at least patronizing glances until you prove yourself ; Mages wouldn't raise an eyebrow ; whereas a Thieves or Assassin guild would value your lighter built, and recognize instinctively females can be twice as vicious with the ole knive. A random gruff NPC might provoke a male character to a fight, while as a female, you could wheedle more info with a smile. And vice-versa : he might offer burly camaraderie to another male fighter, while answer "go home and marry" to the female equivalent.

The point for me is having as much diverse scenarios as possible according to the gender, race, faction of your char ; and, of course, realistic reactions.

It's the internet, where everyone has a degree in psychology :teehee:

hm mabye we are over thinking this a bit idk :shrug:....then again its simple human curiosity which i dont mind

Hahaha that reminds me of a funny quote I read once.

"The internet, where men are men, women are men and children are the FBI"



Curiosity is one thing, some of the talk here goes far beyond that if you ask me. :shrug:

I don't know , I picked male for 2 out of 2 characters so far

I am thinking a chick mage for the 3rd to change things up though , if you gonna wear dresses you may as well be a girl right?

In Oblivion I think I made 2 female characters out of 15 or so total. Once in a while I think it'd be interesting to roleplay a female character, or because a certain sort of appearance I'm aiming for would work better on a female.

All male cast here. I don't understand the allure of women--on any level. Color me Sheldon Cooper, but I just don't get it. =P

sigh

What, may I ask, are you role-playing, given that there is no other person around to role-play with? Are you trying to role-play a relationship solo? What? As I said, I understand the concept of some sort of minimal role-playing, like:

-- "My character is an aggressive warrior."
-- "My character is a thief with few morals, but isn't a murderer."
-- "My character is a mage-scholar, primarily interested in learning."
-- "My character is a Nord partisan, and wants to join the Stormcloaks."
-- "My character is a war-weary Imperial veteran, who might or might not get drawn back into the war on the Imperial side."

I can understand that sort of roleplaying, even in a computer game with no other ACTUAL, REAL-WORLD PEOPLE AROUND to role-play with. But beyond that, what do you roleplay? Do you add random quirks, like:

-- "My aggressive warrior character is an arachnophobe who screams like a little and runs whenever he sees those giant spiders."
-- "My thief character had a crappy dad who beat his mother, and so he can't ever steal from women."
-- "My mage-scholar character is an OCD neat freak and must have a broom in every room, and always travels with an iron in order to iron his clothes every morning when he wakes up at precisely 6:42 AM."
-- "My Nord partisan character has a compulsion that he MUST eat every single cabbage he can get his hands on, legally or not."
-- "My war-weary Imperial veteran character collects wooden plates, with an eye to quantity, not quality."

What's left? Once you've essentially described your character with the first class of minimal role-playing decisions, and declined to bother with the second class of bizarre, pointless, quirks, and realized that the third class of relationship role-playing simply doesn't exist in almost any computer game, what is there left to role-play?



Ah, now we have a recursive ad hominem post about use of the term ad hominem. If this continues does the universe collapse into a black hole or what? Also, how am I trogolodytic? Or troglodytish, or troglodytian, or whatever the appropriate adjective is? Calling me a "caveman" isn't an argument, it's an evasion of argument by means of name-calling.



No, I stated why I think role-playing exists and can only exist at a very low level in a computer RPG, and it has nothing to do with some supposed inability on my part to role-play. I used to play pen-and-paper role-playing games, remember? That's actual role-playing, and I don't say that in some attempt to knock computer RPGs. I say it in order to be clear: the appeal of Skyrim isn't in role-playing, because the role-playing is and can only be minimal; the appeal of Skyrim is the world, the lore describing that world's history, the open-ness of the world, the epic feel of running around fighting giants and dragons, and so forth.



No, I explicitly said the opposite, but you go on believing what you need to believe in order to evade the debate.



I use the strip because the strip made a valid point through humor. Is the point to be dismissed because it was expressed humorously?

And I have no problem at all with anybody playing Argonians. I thought about rolling one for my first character. But yes, anybody that says "boy, that lizard-woman sure is hot" - YES, THAT'S ABSOLUTELY @&$*%# BIZARRE. IT'S A LIZARD THAT WALKS UPRIGHT AND HAS SCALES AND A TAIL AND A REPTILIAN HEAD BUT ALSO HAS BOOBS. THAT IS NOT sixY TO NORMAL HUMAN BEINGS.

I play females, because I'm uncomfortable gender-swapping. I play 'first person' style, and I don't mean that in a 'camera PoV' way. I mean it as in I become the character, and I just can't get into a guy's head, so I never get comfortable with it.

I'm at least grateful certain games allow me to choose my gender, because as much as I've enjoyed and even loved Geralt and Adam Jensen and Garrett and Altair/Ezio (and on, and on and on) I am just so damn tired of the whole 'protagonist = male' thing. So very tired.

I'm a guy...my main is a female Khajiit assassin.

My wife sat with me for about 20 minutes in Helgen and together we created her.

If my wife doesn't have an issue with it...why would any of you?

alright i just want to say leave the female argonains alone their scally tail and skin is just sixy nuf said.

Hey, everyone has their own ways of role-playing. Just because you can't or don't understand it, doesn't mean that others can't as well or have to feel the same way.

It's the internet.

'Nuff said.

So, I just accidentally overwrote one of my female characters. Luckily she was only level eight, and had about five hours of playtime. But now I feel like an idiot. But, on the bright side, I have the opportunity to remake her as an Argonian, to piss everybody off.

Dude...just because you can't grasp or understand how others might RP in this game doesn't mean that it can't happen.
I RP in this game....and I'm not going to explain it to you because you won't get it. And that's okay.

Just don't get all bent just because some others do get it.

This is news to me.

I usually play females because I'm better at making them look good (probably because I know what I like with regards to females) But I can't make an attractive female in Skyrim (they all look like they're 40+!) so i'm sticking with guys for now.

Look at it this way: We aren't saying people should make their characters in conformity with these attitudes, we're saying it's more plausible to recognize that these attitudes would likely exist. I find the varying attitude toward the Dunmer in Skyrim to be entirely realistic and believable. Same thing with the reluctance to let the Khajiit in the city walls. There's no reason at all you can't or shouldn't make a female warrior, it just makes more sense if the society around you finds it a bit unusual.




And that's cool. I'm not saying every dude that plays a female character is doing so one-handed, I'm just saying that seems to be driving at least some of it...not least because quite a number of people have posted in here saying that yeah, they made their character a chick because they looked hot.



I agree. Even if the more unusual groups like the Companions, who are by definition somewhat outside normal society and pursuing an unusual profession, decided that they weren't all that surprised by a female warrior-adventurer, it just seems odd that the salt-of-the-Earth, every-day NPCs like the merchants and guards - especially the guards - are so gender-neutral. It just applies modern attitudes to a (fictional, of course) pre-modern society in a way that defies plausibility.

And even then, modern attitudes... *cough* I very much doubt that most females in professions like cops or army didn't have at some point have to fight harder to get recognized.

I mean, even for our society, that much gender neutrality isn't all that realistic.

Okay, here's the thing: I don't actually get irritated or "bent out of shape" or knock anybody because of role-playing a character. I just don't get what anybody is roleplaying, at least beyond those minimal sorts of basic-level character descriptors I described. A basic morality (or lack of it) and preference for certain goals? Yeah, I get that. I'm playing a Nord Warrior who's out there to roam the world and see what he can see, and have adventures, with no strings tying him to anything. Hence, no joining the Imperials or Stormcloaks. He isn't a bandit, so no finding random people in the wilderness and gutting them for their handful of wealth. He isn't a creepy Daedra-worshipper, so no going on Daedric quests - he wouldn't trust them at all. He prefers the direct approach, although he can use a bow reasonably well, and has little interest in or need of magic beyond healing.

So yes, there is some role-playing there. But what else, I ask, is there to role-play? Some pretend relationship with a woman, even though there isn't any sort of actual person on the other end like there is with pen-and-paper role-playing? Or should I add in some of those oddball quirks I mentioned earlier, and maybe insist on always being gloved, or diving into the minutia of the fun-for-thirty-seconds-and-no-more cooking system, scouring Skyrim for different ingredients so I can see more options on my cooking list?

This is what I'm asking you: Apart from that minimal, initial bit that I agree can be role-played, what more can be role-played? I'm not asking to ridicule, I'm asking out of curiosity.

Haha, that was more a general response to the thread but I agree. I find it a little immature or whatever that a lot of guys play cause "dem pixels" :tongue:



Honestly, if that's what floats their boat, all the more power to them. I couldn't explain it to you because, personally, I don't get REALLY in to role-playing my character. I do some things like having apprentice robes for when I'm not actively adventuring as I like how they look better than my archmage robes. There's a few more things as well, but they are along the same lines as my example.

If people get way in to their character, good for them. It's a game, that's how they have fun, I wouldn't put any more thought into it than that.

I've never chosen a female character in any game. Odd.

I guess my suspension of disbelief is just more developed than yours. I don't even notice stuff like that.

Look, female guards and adventurers! Yeah, and? :shrug: