Most character sheets actually have a spot where you define the sex of your character. It's a fairly important choice, but what does it mean to you?

Do you feel there are many differences between male and female characters? Do you tend to favor one sex over the other, or only play one sex? Do you feel a roleplay needs to be balanced with its sexes? Are there certain rolls that you feel are better played by a certain sex?

I believe it's simply a part of the character's description.

I'd say the importance of the character's sex mostly depends on the RP setting; something in the (realistic) middle ages are gonna have obvious differences for guys and gals (and everything else), compared to a more (again, realistic) modern setting.

I believe it is a component of identity that helps better define characters and, if properly used, differentiate them from one another. The theme and feeling may change entirely for a character design because of it, but is it always a deciding factor? No. Is gender most often a write-off and unimportant factor to a character's sheet? Yes, it is in many cases, but not all. It might be intentional or even subconscious, but the differences still are there and change what one feels for them or the lack thereof.

I have characters of male and female sorts, but my female characters are better written. Why? They are distorted reflections of real people I knew and know, who I borrow inspiration from. They are nothing alike them, they would never "recognize" one another per say, but it stems from the people I have had around me. Does their real gender, which they share, greatly affect that? In most cases, yes.

But what if we stripped one of my methods away, what am I left with? The reality for me is that, in many cases, even doing my best to avoid clichés and pitfalls, most my male archetypes come too close to comfort with them. To provide an example, one of my characters is a monster by truest definition, but not by choice and struggles constantly with trying to be human and retain humanity; the ride of adrenaline to the crash after, as savage as it can be. Classical concept, nothing new. A female character with the same story? A bit more unusual - her circumstances feel different because the expectation is different, right or wrong. She feels more organic as a concept, because I can toy with what is thought or even desired by a reader.

In my experience with writing with others either gender means nothing or is everything. The former over the latter by and far is what I have witnessed, yet it isn't my point. What it means to me is that most creative writers either set out to make it a point or it changes nothing. To me that is weaker, to make it have no purpose. The character is often lacking in being fleshed out and presented without a total concept in mind; gender at that point means nothing. The other extreme can work for or against a story, in that too often I see "hyper masculine, ultra men who are all badass" or "she is a delicate flower who really has a heart".

It is more novel to see the two changed by gender alone - your results and interaction is almost always different; an emotional, sensitive, thoughtful and caring male is seen as "weak" or "useless" too often, just as a tough, aggressive, no nonsense woman is a "bitch" or "manly" because she isn't the delicate flower. They are still tropes, but they can evolve beyond cliché and expectation much better to be their own identity. It still is about how the writer writes for them, but from the get they are already breaking the mold. Some however, most, are just as content to use those archetypes as their only defining feature which is less about gender again and about a bad or inexperienced author.

In the end, it doesn't matter to me the he, she or otherwise. How good are you at "inventing" other people and their story? Do they feel real, in their context, or are they stock cardboard cutouts you saw and adopted for yourself?

Do you feel there are many differences between male and female characters?

I think @gcold makes a great point. The differences are generally up to the setting and the society in which these characters come from. That, in itself, is up to the GM to explain unless it's already inherent in the lore being used.

As for any other instances, and just stripped of any setting, the only differences are biological and that's rarely written out in fiction, I feel. Anything else is really just a product of the character itself and not reliant on the gender of that character. So, I personally don't think there's a difference between writing for a female or writing for a male when you aren't dependent on anything else in a setting or environment... and if we're restricting this to humans. It's all situational.

Do you tend to favor one sex over the other, or only play one sex?

I do. I play 99% males and that's not because I can't write for a female, or play one. It's simply preference. And, also, I have this big, personal issue regarding leading people on when it comes to romance, so that's always on the forefront of my mind when I make a character - no matter what. I'm a writer and I can write just about any type of relationship, sure, and I intend to in my own works. Uh, however, when it involves a hobby like roleplaying, I'm not going to venture outside of my comfort zone when it comes to... the type of romance I tend to want to personify through my own characters. _{The world needs more homos.}

So, yeah, in a roleplaying setting, I let the possibility, however small, of a romance dictate who I'm gonna play.

But, also, I've had the chance to roleplay plenty of heterosexual romances/characters in my time here and other places, playing both male and female, and my interest plummeted the instant I started writing for them.

If I ever intend to roleplay as a female, it's likely going to be with a group of friends and in a setting where romance is highly unlikely. From experience, I know it's not any different than playing a male, given the setting.

Do you feel a roleplay needs to be balanced with its sexes?

Oh, hell no.

Again, I think this is slightly influenced by the setting. Certain settings may not have an abundance of one or the other and some may bar one gender entirely. That's up to what the plot and the GM dictates.

However, for a setting that has an infinite amount of males and females in the world/universe, then I don't think it's necessary to balance sexes, at all. Unless the situation calls for it. Honestly, my opinion on the matters is that forcing a balanced ratio of sexes reduces the realism of the roleplay. And I also don't like it because it also gives me the implication that the GM's worried more so about people being able to get together in a roleplay than about the characters themselves. If that makes sense? And this is only concerning a setting and a plot that doesn't require a balance in sexes. And for me, an individual whose range of sexualities for his characters goes from homosexual to asexual, it puts me off, a lot.

Are there certain rolls that you feel are better played by a certain sex?

I think that's up to the GM to decide, really. If you don't make it clear in the OOC that certain jobs, roles, or classes are better fit for a certain sex, then I think the default is that both are equally capable as masters of said role.

(End note: i have to apologize for using gender and sex interchangeably. it's something i'm working on, but i do know the differences between both terms.)

Most character sheets actually have a spot where you define the sex of your character. It's a fairly important choice, but what does it mean to you?

Do you feel there are many differences between male and female characters? Do you tend to favor one sex over the other, or only play one sex? Do you feel a roleplay needs to be balanced with its sexes? Are there certain rolls that you feel are better played by a certain sex?

I tend to play female characters as I find them a lot easier to design and portray. Often it feels like I can play around with emotions and dominance/submissive natures a lot more, compared to any male I create as they seem to be a bland and empty shell or someone that is a stupidly over the top. This could be because I'm a hetro-male and I'm not really branching out and exploring other male personalities, but I dunno. I'm happy playing the pretty lady characters and turning them into Sarah Connor, Ripley or Elizabeth Swann.

As for balance... Nah...
I had fun in one RP that turned out to be a 90% female character line up with one male. We joked and called it his harem, but gender diversion doesn't really make a difference in many roleplays. It's mostly the 1x1s where you're after a certain blend for specific stories. Diversity helps, but it's not needed.

While I prefer to play male characters, I actually do think certain roles or concepts are better represented with certain genders -- if you want them portrayed realistically that is. I also don't think a story feels as realistic if there isn't a decent number of male and female characters. This is probably the exact same reason that I tend to avoid watching or reading works of fiction where the cast is composed only of a single gender outside of one character. There's exceptions to a lot of rules, but I don't think a plot works or feels relatable when one sex significantly outweighs the other in terms of the cast -- a lot of writers only do this for the purpose of fanservice.

I'm going to avoid commenting on everything else being brought up here, since this is a topic of discussion that I believe me and my fiancé are in stark disagreement with a lot of other people on (general statement, not aimed at people commenting here) and I really don't need the headache of another debate right now -- as much as I do love exercising my mind, I've got work to do so I'm limiting my response to just answering the original poster. I'd prefer not to possibly open up the wrong sort of debate here.

Okay, this interests me.

First off, what does it mean to me? I'll preface this with that I only play characters that either identify as female or male, though gender doesn't need to relate to sex in that regard. To me, when I pick a sex I pick a certain amount of expectations with that character... y'know, stereotypes. Whether I adhere to those or not happens later down the line, but they're always in the back of my mind. It's not something I think about too hard, however, as it mostly aligns with whatever whims I feel like playing. In a sense, sex is something I more often than not decide on before anything else of the character.

At the core, every human is different. There's differences between everyone and there's always an exception to every rule. In terms of creative writing this means there are no real differences between male and female besides genitalia, even if it's not always explored. Despite me saying that, I still think there's notable differences in males and females, mostly down to how they think. Now, I'm no mind reader nor am I a psychologist so I can't exactly tell you what goes on in someone else's mind, but I'm sure we've all had experiences where we just don't get something about the opposite sex. I play with this sometimes, though not always. I'll never 'think' the same with my male and female characters, even if they're of the same age.

Speaking of my males and females... I'll admit, I have a subconscious bias for playing females over males. I think this comes down to me being a male in real life, which makes me automatically relate more to another male. I'm the kind of writer that likes to feel as detached from their characters' personality as possible to delve deep in how another person might act, even if that goal is more far fetched than a Farfetch'd. That's why I'll always have a bias to those females, I want to craft a human being that's different from me down to the most major of body changes.

And when we get around to the balance... eh, this one's simple. It's down to the roleplay. Some settings are more interesting with a varied cast, others do well with one sex. Something like Magical girl wouldn't throw a guy in there, likewise, if there's a guy-heavy setting you wouldn't toss a girl in there. Then there's things like... say, a locked room mystery. A certain number of people are trapped and need to get out. I think these do well with a somewhat equal balance, simply because it opens up for more drama in my opinion.

And the final question, are certain roles better suited to one sex? My answer: Yes. Of course there's an exception to every rule, but knights in the medieval times would more often than not be male over female for example. Or, if we take a fandom example, Pegasus Knights in Fire Emblem are always female. An assassin that's meant to seduce powerful warriors could be a male, but the easier option is a female. Things like these favor one sex over another. Could the other sex fill that role? Yes, but not as effectively in-universe. If we're talking on how interesting subversions of these kinds are, well, we're having a different discussion.

Well, that's that I suppose. There's me being overly analytical of something that gets decided in like, five seconds and I never look back on it.

This is something I think about from time to time. When you get down to it, all personality is really unisex. I realized that many of my characters base personalities can be applied to the opposite sex and still work. But, even then, you'd also have to consider that males and females are exposed to different things, and have different standards to live up to given their culture - but, again every person has different experiences... and I should probably stop myself there before I start rambling.

I tend to play whatever character I get inspired to play - which tends to be more girls, but I've been trying to break that habit lately. But, I also think that even gender ratios are only good depending on the setting. Probably a big manly WW2 RP would make more sense to be comprised only of dudes than be only made of girls (Unless it's a weird anime-styled AU lol). It'd probably make sense for slice of life RPs to have a balanced (or remotely balanced) cast than anything tbh.

I feel that sex is a pretty important attribute. Even if the character could function the exact same way as the opposite sex, they won't likely be treated the same way by the other characters. So while the character may not change, their interactions with other characters will.

The main difference I see between the sexes are how they are perceived by society and the reader. @The Harbinger of Ferocity and @Mr Allen J touched on the former. I like to use double standards as a tool to draw attention to what a character is doing. No one would bat an eye at a man leering at girls at the dance club. We'd write him off as a perv and be done with it. But what if it was a woman looking at a group of dudes?

I feel that balancing the sexes is a good idea, because it creates diversity. But I do agree with what everyone else brought up. a magical girl squad won't have any men in it, and a WW2 themed RP will contain all dudes most likely. This kind of ties into certain sexes being better at certain rolls.

My characters tend to pop up in my head fully formed, gender and all. Most are men, a few women, although I rarely have any difficulty reversing the genders if necessary.

I always make sure in my more recent roleplays to specify sex rather than gender. While I'm pretty liberal minded when it comes to LGBT stuff, for the purposes of roleplay and quick visual identification, male or female is pretty much necessary because telling me something like androgynous or one of the 50ish other Tumblr-made genders won't really help out in that regard, especially depending on setting.

As so far as roles either sex play in a roleplay, honestly depends on the setting. As others have mentioned, historical real world settings are probably going to be majority male if it's combat oriented, and that goes in for some fantasy or otherwise fictional settings, as well... although that depends entirely on what setting we're talking about. Let's say you're doing a roleplay based around let's say Wonder Woman and the Amazons. Pretty big No Boys Allowed club there, or you're playing a high fantasy setting based around an elven culture that is more or less matriarchal or whatever.

But exempting all of that and say you're playing in a more or less egalitarian setting where males and females are on equal footing, I honestly go either way. I get an idea for a character in my mind, and I decide pretty early on if they're going to be male or female based more on feel rather than ability; the character could be either sex and still work.

I've found that so far, my female characters tended to have a harder upbringing or history than most of my male characters and are largely shaped by those events and how they overcame them. Two of my most played characters are female, one who is a ruthless, untrusting and determined warrior grew up in a broken home that didn't love her and she found a surrogate father figure in a mentor figure that taught her a lot of the skills she'd need to survive out in the world to find her brother, the other an idealistic young woman with brilliant mechanical skills who joined the military, saw combat and became traumatized from the experience and witnessing war crimes, and couldn't cope with life back home so she became a mercenary to try and figure her life out in a life that's somewhat familiar. While both have the whole broken family thing going on, that's pretty much par the course for most of my characters (male or female) and I am genuinely trying to write more characters with perfectly happy and mundane upbringings because the broken home thing is par the course for most roleplayers.

Here's a drinking game for you; go through any RP's character tab and take a drink for each one that features dead or abusive parents and surrogate parental figures and a drink of water for every normal childhood. I'll see you in the morgue.

For everyone who says they don't feel comfortable writing a character of the opposite sex because they don't feel comfortable with it, I highly encourage you to give it a try sometime. I put it off for so long because I honestly felt the same way, that I'd fuck it up or create a character that was more of a stereotype than a real person. I took the chance and ended up with one of my most rounded, fleshed out and believable characters that I love enough to have had art commissioned of her. Thing is, writing for guys and girls is pretty much the same process, just with minor differences here and there that make sense when you come across them.

Quoting George RR Martin in an interview,

'Yes, you're right I've never been an eight year old girl,' he says, 'but I've also never been an exiled princess, or a dwarf or bastard. What I have been is human. I just write human characters.'

‘Some women hate the female characters,' he says. 'But importantly they hate them as people, because of things that they've done, not because the character is underdeveloped... Male or female, I believe in painting in shades of grey, all of the characters should be flawed; they should all have good and bad, because that's what I see. Yes, it’s fantasy, but the characters still need to be real.’

It's honestly a pretty handy metric to follow. If you can write a real feeling male character, you're able to write a real feeling female character. Just treat them like they're a real person with independent hopes and dreams and what not and the rest will fall into place. Just don't emphasize the fact they're a female; they just are. Hopefully your mother doesn't go around affirming to everyone that she is in fact a woman doing woman things.

This is part of the reason I am not a fan of when roleplays put a sexuality section in the character sheet... why should it matter? Sexuality is just a part of who a person is, and that's something that should come up naturally in a roleplay through context, not hanging a sign around your neck saying "I prefer these kinds of genitals". I mean, unless your roleplay is sexual or romantic oriented to begin with, it shouldn't be a thing that's front and center. I'm all for romance in roleplays, but I rather see it unfold naturally between characters rather than being an advertised feature.

Likewise, it's the same thing for your character's sex. Last thing you probably want to do is emphasize ultra-feminine characteristics to try and convince the reader you are in fact playing a real woman who enjoys putting on lots of make up and is super proud of her breasts and cooking skills while fighting in high heels and so on so forth. It's not to say that kind of character can't exist or even be played well, but either the author is deliberately making a sexualized character who fully embraces stereotypical feminine traits or they're an alien who never had a mother, sister, or female human friend to relate to.

Honestly, if you like wearing sneakers, worn out jeans, eating pizza and playing video games and having fantasies of murdering boatloads of goblins with a claymore, chances are there's quite a few women out there who think the exact same thing. If you're worried about being offensive with playing a female character and coming across a situation where she'd probably like to put on make up, dress up nice, and head out... that isn't offensive or stereotypical. It's a part of who the character is. Likewise, maybe your character is really a nurturing sort with a soft spot for kids and small animals. Once again, it's a character trait that could go either way. If you want to play a badass warrior woman... well, what do badass warriors like and do? Chances are, it applies to either sex.

Point is, don't be afraid to try it. Obviously, the advice applies for women who are hesitant to play men, as well; just the specific stuff is interchangeable. Hell, the previously mentioned female character I had art commissioned of? One of her defining traits is she's an incredible mechanic who feels more at home in the guts of some machine covered in oil and grease than talking about overly personal stuff with the people she lives with and she pretty much is a high functioning alcoholic who swears a lot, keeps her hair short but styled, and listens to alien metal music for the sole purpose of keeping people away from her work area. Doesn't mean she doesn't enjoy cleaning up, wearing nice dresses, and heading out on the town, just her job and most of her interests happen to align with skills and career choices that society sees as typically male dominated.

Anyways, sorry for the wall-o-text, had a lot of opinions on the matter.

I was planning on replying to this thread again days ago, mostly offering my thoughts about a few things while not going into the more controversial elements I mentioned - in my last post - that I plan to avoid going into here (it might come up slightly, but I won't be making a thing out of it and anyone who decides to read too heavily into my words and start an argument will simply be getting ignored -- I've got better things to do). Things have been taking a bad turn for me lately and time isn't my ally, so I'm going to get this out of the way and respond to the things I wanted to without going into the detail I had planned, and I won't be addressing everything.

I like to use double standards as a tool to draw attention to what a character is doing. No one would bat an eye at a man leering at girls at the dance club. We'd write him off as a perv and be done with it. But what if it was a woman looking at a group of dudes?

I feel that balancing the sexes is a good idea, because it creates diversity. But I do agree with what everyone else brought up. a magical girl squad won't have any men in it, and a WW2 themed RP will contain all dudes most likely. This kind of ties into certain sexes being better at certain rolls.

I actually play into the idea of double standards myself in certain regards, due to the heavy deconstructionist/reconstructionist and social commentary nature of my work. This is just an example, but in fiction it's usually considered socially acceptable - even comedic - for a female character to attack or injure a male character, whereas if the male character was the one doing the attacking he would be considered 'an abusive monster'. This is just one example, of course.

Like I said previously, I think it's important to have a balance of the genders in order to have a realistic world, especially if that world or setting is meant to even slightly resemble the reality we live in. With that said, I acknowledge that sometimes you need to have a large priority of one gender over the other. The genders do, both historically and fundamentally, have roles which they are more proficient at than the other (there's exceptions to every rule, but a rule is still a rule), and this will bleed over into the sort of archetypes they'll end up fulfilling in a setting more rooted in reality, such as the WW2 example given previously. I think the real problem with 'harem' stories is they're seldom ever believable, not only due to the imbalance in gender presence but also the unlikelihood of a single person - male or female - having so many admirers who hold genuine feelings for them -- as far as I'm concerned, this is just wish fulfilment escapism, regardless of which gender is the person who has the 'harem'.

My characters tend to pop up in my head fully formed, gender and all. Most are men, a few women, although I rarely have any difficulty reversing the genders if necessary.

I share part of this sentiment -- my characters also come out fully formed, with every aspect including personality and most of their history. This includes their gender, and in most cases I actually don't believe the character would work the same way if their gender was changed. This isn't just because of how other characters would treat them, but also because men and women - regardless of the importance of freedom and equality, since these things are important to humanity as a whole and not just the genders - have fundamental differences that people often choose to simply overlook, and this often results in me finding male or female (more so the latter) characters who come across as very unrealistic when they're written due to people not taking this into account. A lot of writers simply write what they want to believe in, rather than what's believable, and this includes when they go against these 'stereotypes'.

Also, a lot of people simply fail to realize that certain 'stereotypes' actually exist. My fiancé is a very feminine woman, but I imagine when we portray the character who is based off of her a lot of (read: feminist) critics are simply going to bash the character as unrealistic despite it being portrayed completely accurately. Do I care what these people think? Of course I fucking don't, because I'm proud of who she is. I feminism is 'supposed' to be about freedom, then they should shut up and let her be who she is.

Gender certainly does help everyone you write with out. I always favor girl characters maybe because I am a girl...

Most character sheets actually have a spot where you define the sex of your character. It's a fairly important choice, but what does it mean to you?

Do you feel there are many differences between male and female characters? Do you tend to favor one sex over the other, or only play one sex? Do you feel a roleplay needs to be balanced with its sexes? Are there certain rolls that you feel are better played by a certain sex?

Simplest decision:

Look at the current gender ratio (or predicted gender ratio) and try to get it close to 50/50 (unless the setting explains why there would be a lopsided ratio) either by recruiting more players or playing outside your element.

Similarily, age of character is sometimes played around with. Somebody has to play the badassed grandma.

Other times, it's decided upon more by plot-demands (pairing your character off with someone else's) or if you've got a recently worked-on character you've got kicking-around in your head with nothing to do because their RP got canceled at teh last minute.

This thought-process even applies when RPing entire "squads" of characters. As an interesting ensamble-cast in their own right, they do have interesting stories within their own group, but such intra-player dialouge is kept to a minimum to encourage player interactions.

I think the real problem with 'harem' stories is they're seldom ever believable, not only due to the imbalance in gender presence but also the unlikelihood of a single person - male or female - having so many admirers who hold genuine feelings for them -- as far as I'm concerned, this is just wish fulfilment escapism, regardless of which gender is the person who has the 'harem'.

*sneezes*

The only time I care about it is when it is impervious to the plot.

Or, well, that's a lie. The second time I care about it in a negative way is if someone creates a character that falls outside of the spectrum of 'male, female, androgynous' simply because they want a special snowflake character, or because they want 'representation'. If it is done to strengthen a character or otherwise make it more interesting it's fine. But I've seen it done in ways where it was basically the same as saying 'my character has heterochromia' and that's it.

It's like a fashion accessory. It's bothersome. (But that has more to do with bad writing than with gender.)

I've only been a part of a few roleplays and I have yet to write one male character. In matters of choice anything goes for me, just that if gender wont be tied to the story, I prefer playing someone who I can personally relate with, at most for the sake of convenient writing.