I play more females than males (in the games that give me the option) because I usually make light, sneaky, chaotic evil characters and women are more convincing in this role in my opinion. A sneaky woman in tight thief outfit is very attractive to watch for 100 or 200 hours. A man in the same role and clothes does the very same job indeed, but in real life I kinda hate treacherous slimy men and I tend to bring real life prejudices into my fictional roleplaying as well.

I play pretty much exclusively First Person. Almost always male though I have made a female char in morrowind and oblivion to see if there were changes to dialogue and such. Have yet to do so in Skyrim.

Oh, but that would be excellent if TES had jobcentres, pens and clipboards like in "The League of Gentleman".

Oh, me too. I feel the same way.

I think there are lots of girls here, so this topic is a bit odd in my opinion. I'm a girl as well, and I never played as a guy, mostly because I don't like how guys look in this game and I can't really feel with them or anything. When I RP a guy he ends up being all macho and heroic, and I hate stereotypes lol.

Because of the lack of female khajiit npcs. I NEED MY FIX, MAN.

I do the same thing except i do not follow the game's race... Ex: Morrowind=Dunmer, Oblivion= Imperial, Skyrim= Nord...

I don't really get why guys like playing girls. Honestly, I know this is pretty ignorant, but
i've always just pictured those guys as desperate nerds staring at pixelated boobs. Someone
said its strange to stare at your guy character...its not like i'm admiring his badass tatoos and
cool armor in a sixual way?

Maybe you should read all of this thread then and you'd have plenty of answers. On a side note, why assume we are necessariliy admiring our femal character's badass tatoos and cool armour in a sixual way?

Yes it is.

I think you misunderstood. Someone implied that it seemed gay to admire your male character,
and I'm agreeing with you by saying that I'm not admiring my character in a sixual way. That would
also apply if I had a female character.

Agreed. It's not something I have often thought about, so when it does
cross my mind, my misinformed and heavily biased information is what
creates my visualization of these people. This is due to the fact that
a. I have never explored the topic much, if at all
b. I don't personally know anyone who plays the opposite gender in RPGs.

You made the statement directly after stating you see those with female characters as desperate nerds looking at pixelated boobs. Can you not see the hypocrisy?

Okay, I see. Those were meant to be two unrelated comments, but I understand how they conflict. And I didn't say that I actually
believe that people who play girls in video games are desperate nerds, its just how my biased mind has always visualized such
people due to a lack of information/interest in the topic. My second comment was recognizing that people who play women are
not doing it for sixual purposes, so why would it be sixual to enjoy looking at my male character.

What I want to know is, what's the big [censored] deal if I do enjoy looking at my male character? I can think my character is attractive without drooling over his butt or whatever.

I play both genders for variety's sake. I like the narration and roleplaying elements of the game; sometimes a particular character/race/gender build will just strike my fancy. My favorite Nerevarine was a female Bosmer, while my initial Champion and initial Dovahkiin were both male.

And, of course, it's incredibly fun to make a beautiful, ass-kicking woman every now and then. And it's just as fun to play a terrifying looking one, like my most recent Skyrim character, a female Dunmer necromancer who doesn't take [censored] from anyone.

In the end, they're characters in a story that I'm participating in, if not quite directly telling. I've never felt the need to limit myself to protagonists of a particular gender when writing- why limit myself within a free form game?!

No reason you cannot. I am a lisbian, and I think my female characters look alright. But I do not drool over them either, or use those fetish armor mods that make them look like lingere models.

To roleplay something different then myself.

One thing I can't stand is ridiculous armors that only exist to show
off the female character's body. I don't think there's (m)any of these in
Skyrim, but in games in general its a little ridiculous. Obviously
all those sixy armor mods aren't a problem 'cause you don't have to
download them, but it really shouldn't be core in a game that strives for
realism.

You do understand, don't you, that the sixy armor has been around in Pulp Fiction illustrations going back at least to the 1930s, and that it is as much a part of the Sword & Sorcery genre and tradition as the swords and sorcery are...?

And since that time it's always been cheap fanservice. Skyrim doesn't do too badly, though. I've seen infinitely worse.

Differently gendered characters actually have diffefrent attribute loadouts, thus allowing for optimization. A good example would be the higher Intelligence level of female Altmer in Morrowind, which allows the player to use the Mage class and Apprentice sign to get a starting Magicka of 300 and a starting Destruction and Alteration of 55.

Argh, that bothers me to no end! Yeah, yeah, I know: "The genre's targeted at a male demographic, and that's what guys want to see." I understand the reasoning behind it, but it still bugs me. Why even bother wearing armor when all the vulnerable bits are exposed? Personally, I think a fully armored warrior woman is way more BA than a skinny, scantily-clad supermodel. But, I have a feeling I'm one of the few men who feel that way....

There are a few things in Skyrim that are relatively skimpy (like the Forsworn and Fur stuff) but at least it still looks like an attempt at armor and not like steel-plated underwear. It does seem a little drafty for Skyrim's climate, though.

It isn't just fanservice if it naturally feels like part of the world. The male armors are way more revealing than anything the females wear, because culturally, the nords are less worked up about exposed skin than we are. And they've got natural resistance to cold, so extra layers aren't necessary.

As for protection, well, there's a reason hide and fur are the weakest armors in the game.

Personally, I find it that ANY Shep is the way to go in Mass Effect. Some of the more....extreme FemShep. fans disapointed me with that big freak out over what color her hair should have been for ME3. I find Femshep to have just as monotone acting, and default is rather boring. There's only one Shep for me! Trevor Shepard, with Tali forever! No other shepard's exist to me!

Oh wait....we're talking about Skyrim.

I don't make a female charcter to stare at. I make her if it fits with the roleplay I'm doing. Or bordem. Or fun!