Avatar of GeekFactor
  • Last Seen: 9 mos ago
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    1. GeekFactor 6 yrs ago

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Recent Statuses

2 yrs ago
Current You can't respond to every criticism with "RACIST!" This has become the modern boy crying wolf. At some point, you have to face truth.
1 like
2 yrs ago
"She smiled up at the stranger, heedless of the splattered droplets that decorated her front like the freckles sprinkled over her pale cheeks."
1 like
2 yrs ago
Bring it on, 2022. Fear won't be mind-killing me just yet.
3 likes
4 yrs ago
RIP Christopher Tolkien. Sailed into the West to meet his father at last.
2 likes
4 yrs ago
Happy 127th birthday to Professor Tolkien!

Bio

I'm not the sort to talk about myself unprompted, so this section will be scant. I vastly prefer one-on-one (1x1) or small group RP, as big groups and lots of chatter tend to overwhelm me. I prefer RP within medieval fantasy settings that are not too fanciful (think LOTR/GoT).

[b]“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it.”
― Lloyd Alexander

Most Recent Posts

I rather think that the problem is people try to put too much character background into a post, rather than having a grip on the character and allowing small parts of it to inform the action.


Oi, yes, this happens a lot, too!

*She sidled up to the strange man at the bar, bells of a foreign land chiming softly around her ankles while ochre eyes that no local had ever glimpsed sparkled behind her silken veil. "Buy me a drink, stranger," she purred in her desert-laced accent, clearly a woman who had traveled from afar, the whiff of her dusky, exotic perfume surrounding him in a cloud that would surely spark intrigue in his mind and leave him thirsty for more knowledge of where this rare gem had been crafted.*

I think she's maybe not a local. I dunno.
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I disagree on this point, or at least, I think I can offer a counterexample. Some people write their characters to be contributions to the narrative. I know not everyone is like this, but sometimes you have characters that are, you know, less complicated.


Of course! I don't think we disagree, I think I just tend to dig too deep most of the time :)
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Gotta say though, most stories (non-roleplays) have a tendency to be written by a single author. While it's hard to put my finger on, it is clear that woman and men write their characters a particular way. Do you find yourself being pulled out of immersion when reading books?


Ah, but there's a difference, I think, between writing a novel or script, and roleplaying a character. And I honestly don't know many authors who I'd say portray the opposite sex in a perfectly believable way. But when you're reading a book, you *know* you're reading a book by so-and-so, so the expectation to be fully convinced isn't quite the same. Does that make any sense? Most books aren't going to delve so deeply and intimately into the psyche, thoughts, sensations, impressions, urges, desires, etc...of every single character in the story. That's usually saved for the protagonist. Whereas when someone is roleplaying a character, they're tasked with literally *becoming* that character, not just relaying "Bob sat down and picked up a beer and said "Evening, everyone." Sure, some people roleplay on that level and never bother going any deeper, but that's not what I'm talking about here. (Sorry, Bob, not trying to throw you under the bus, bro.)

Some books are more immersive and believable than others, for sure. All depends on the author's skill in getting outside of their own head and viewpoint, and being able to grasp the way another mind works.
@GeekFactor You're fine. We're just exchanging views and having a discussion. There wouldn't be much point if we just came here to offload our opinions without discussing them a bit right?

Another part of the "men make for manly woman" thing that you noticed may be that men tend to like more aggressive scenarios. Since we have more testosterone and the like, aggression is more rewarding to watch.


Thank you, that's very gracious of you to say :)

You're right, that's exactly part of my point! It just makes it a little easier to spot "guy RPing a girl" and can damage the feeling of immersion and authenticity sometimes.

@GeekFactor Mmmmm, Good post, but by your example you'd think three woman I've met IRL were men based on how they choose to play their characters. Though you've mentioned something that seems to be absent from most female characters I've seen.

On the topic of relationship crazy lesbians, I do find it both interesting and disturbing that I've come across so many non-hetrosexual characters in my time on RPG guild. I mean I would expect a magical girl roleplay to contain a lot of gay woman, but they seem to crop up almost everywhere. Their sexuality seems to get brought up or hinted at during their first few posts and then they're off to hook up. I wonder if this is wish fulfillment or something else.


It was just one example, and I did preface it by saying it might not be the best to give. It was off the cuff of a very tired me, and there are so many aspects and angles and layers and variations of human behavior, it's impossible to say "all women are this" or "all men are that". These are merely my thoughts and experiences, and I'll be the first to say I don't always express what I'm thinking in the most coherent manner.

I very much agree with your second point.
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But too much pain can cause lack of feeling. Something about having your heart grow double the size and then implode in on itself, resulting in a black hole from which no emotion could escape.


To be honest, I was speaking of a recent physical ordeal I went through.

Though, I do not find this to be true on an emotional level. For myself, at least. I have dealt with "shutting down" my emotions to survive in the past, but you don't really become numb at all. You just exist in a continual state of denial.
I would much prefer to deal with pain than lack of feeling.
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Thanks for this post.

To the argument that playing a role you like is the chief joy of roleplaying, I'd counter that some people have the most fun not by tailoring that one aspect of the story (their own characters) endemically to their own tastes, but by contributing to immersion on the whole. Sometimes that means making a personal sacrifice for the greater good, in a sense, in the form of playing homelier characters, or ones who match a weird, alien beauty standard, or ones who tell different stories through their deformities, disfigurations, ugly personalities, mistakes, regrets ... (basically, who make the world feel more lived-in.)

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Interesting insights all around; thanks for sharing. If you're willing to expound, what were the signs that tipped you off to male players playing female characters badly (and vice-versa)?

I don't play enough women to feel called out, but should that ever change in one of my many self-imposed writing challenges, your advice may prove indispensable.


Some of the easiest and quickest to spot are the over-sexualized gals. Often lesbians, but not always. Often aggressively seeking to hook up with others. Many times these characters are young women, on the cusp of "sexual awakening". Or they're hookers/prostitutes/"bad girls with a heart of gold", etc. They're often used to blatantly fulfill personal fantasies of the male player. There's little subtlety to them, they're tough, they're aggressive, they're bold, they're basically men with breasts. There is a great complexity and tenuousness to a young woman discovering her womanhood and the brutish "bull in a china shop" demeanor doesn't really jive.

On a similar note is the tendency to overplay aggressiveness (sexuality aside) in general. I don't mean blatant, physical violence or anger. But women behave and communicate in an entirely different way than men do and it's very easy to project "what I think the other gender is like" rather than what the other gender actually *is* like. Again, some of these differences are so subtle, and I may not be able to explain them well, and if I fail there, forgive me. Men tend to be direct and forthcoming in their words; they say what they mean, they don't beat around the bush, they speak words to accomplish something or make something happen. Women are far more complex and indirect in their words sometimes. They speak to express thoughts, feelings, wishes, disappointments, and believe that doing so will then result in the actions. For instance, let's say we're roleplaying a farmer and his wife, and there's a hole in the roof that needs to be fixed. All the farmer's wife has to say is, "Tom, you need to fix that hole today, there's a storm coming in!" But in her mind, he can see the damn hole, he should be able to figure out that it needs to be fixed, so she says, "You know, I were real disappointed when our supper got ruined the last time it rained and all that water came in." Whereas Tom simply needs her to remind him that there's a hole in the roof that he's perfectly willing to repair, she'll express how his neglecting it made her feel, thinking "Well, if he cares about me and the kids, he'll perk up and get it done!"

That may be a clumsy example, but there you go. Men who RP women will almost always forego those subtleties and just plunge ahead with "speaking their mind" bluntly. They may even realize that this isn't an inherently feminine trait and skirt around it by claiming that their female character is "unusually blunt" (which goes right back to most of them being too bold/aggressive to be believable as women).

To be fair, it's somewhat easy to pick out the women trying to RP as men sometimes, so don't think that my reply is some kind of dig against male players, because it isn't! It's just that there are differences in the sexes that go far beyond the physical. And it's tricky to have the awareness of who one is, and who one *isn't*... to make it believable.

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Modern beauty standards being shoehorned into pseudo-historical settings is a whole other annoyance worth its own post, so thanks for bringing it up. Though @stone raises a good point in that not enough people are creating faceclaims worth using, and you often gotta scour, like, Ilya Repin paintings to find any portraits worth the while.


Dude, you know all the women in the 12th century had fake lashes and bronzer, what's wrong with you? :P

If it's any consolation, I used this image for one of my characters: wikiart.org/en/daniel-ridgway-knight/…
I wonder - does anyone else have a character archetype (so, something that is somewhat defined and common in media) that they rarely see in RPs?

I feel like I almost never see "Big Burly Manly-man with Family they love to talk about" at all.


Fat people. Dear God, where are the fat people?

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