Got the idea of posting this when I watched this YouTube video that talks about reasons men love playing as girls.

Why do you do it?
Are there more than one reason?
What do you enjoy about it the most?

I always thought it was weird to model a game avatar after myself. I always roll the “random character” button (shout-out Monster Factory) when it’s available, keeps things simple.

I find women more appealing than men.

If it’s a third person game, I’d rather be looking at her ass throughout the playthrough than his.

I never get this type of response. Do you really keep paying attention at whoever ass it is rather than the whole game happening on the rest of the screen?

@wooki@lemmynsfw.com
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Maximum autism. People are hard mmmm kaaaayyy

In this case, “ass” is a funny oversimplification. The player model is on the screen all the time, so having it be attractive adds to the visual appeal of the whole experience

You’re looking at the ass through your gameplay?

@loops@beehaw.org
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Same. If it’s fpv only it doesn’t really matter to me.

I rarely play women in games because i like playing a oversized jacked warrior guy. I play women if a male of that class would look gay. Stuff like assassins, elementalists I always pick a women because the clothes look better and small build is more immersive to the role. But monk or healer I always pick a guy cause tall gigachad healer is funny.

Gay buff gigachad healer would be great. Still remembering that male design for Mercy from Overwatch. Hot damn… 🤩

I just want you to know there are pills which are fairly easy to get your hands on which if you take will make your skin softer and cause you to grow breasts.

If that sounds intriguing to you, I further inform you there exist many people who happily take these pills for the entirety of their lives and the kind of person who would want to take such a substance is in no way a freak.

But yeah, girl avatars can do sick acrobatics, huh?

Not everyone who play female characters do so because they are secretly trans.

I don’t identify with the character I play, I just like girls. They are a lot more aesthetically pleasing.

FfaerieOxide
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Not everyone who play female characters do so because they are secretly trans.

Who said any were?

…do you object to people knowing hormones exist and what they do?

I second this and wanna add, that it’s also totally cool, to feel like switching into a different body whenever would be neat. Maybe being whomever you want to be whenever feels just right to you.

This is also attainable with outfits though honestly your appearance is completely secondary to how you personally feel about being your self.

Shapeshifters are just awesome characters anyway right?

midnight
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Yeah give me shapeshifting, please. Slow, binary transition ain’t it.

And most of the time, unless you’re lucky or have lots of money, your past bodily development is going to get in the way of a clean transition… :/

FfaerieOxide
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Shapeshifters are just awesome characters anyway right?

R.J. MacReady would disagree with you on that part, but “hear, hear” to the rest of your post.

[joking] Yea, yea, everyone wants to be a slime girl, we’re aware, please focus on the discussion at hand 🙄

FaceDeer
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Yeah, in discussions like this it’s important to put out both the “it’s okay if you’ve got a deep curiousity/desire to be the other gender that you want to explore to see if it leads somewhere more” and the “there’s nothing wrong with just having fun exploring other identities or bodies without it being some kind of deep-seated transgender thing.” I think the “egg_irl” reaction is sometimes harmful because it ends up pressuring people who really aren’t transgender but who would be perfect allies if they weren’t ending up feeling annoyed by the whole thing.

FfaerieOxide
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who would be perfect allies if they weren’t ending up feeling annoyed by the whole thin

No one who can be annoyed out of allyship would have been a particularly steadfast ally regardless how many eggshells one stepped around while dealing with them.

FaceDeer
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You may not be aware of just how annoying and downright offensive it is to have eager “helpful” people instantly jumping to “aha, you’re trans and I will help you come to terms with that!” When you mention that your roleplaying characters or whatnot play around with various genders. It’s probably not quite on the same level as people assuming gay people are just “rebelling” or “going through a phase” or whatever and will just get over it, but I imagine it feels along those same general lines.

There surely are some people who are indeed a metaphorical “egg” just waiting to crack, but everyone should have the right to feel comfortable with themselves regardless. Dismissing those offended feelings as walking on eggshells misses that point.

Damaskox
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Didn’t cross my mind that someone would suggest that I’d be trans (just) because I want to play female characters too (and sometimes robots and others).
The thought alone feels so strange to me (to me personally)!

Of course a joke is a joke and OK in my case (when the intention is good) but if someone insisted that I’m a trans based on my game characters only, I would get upset.

FfaerieOxide
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Dismissing those offended feelings as walking on eggshells misses that point.
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I said “around”, not “on”. It was rather clever wordplay.

Telling every single person in the world there are possibilities they can explore is a good thing and no level of unease at that self-examination is any person counters that good.

A person who is trans will be better off knowing and dealing with it and the sooner the better.

A person who isn’t trans is part of the dominate social hierarchy and will be fine, even if they are exposed to info that doesn’t apply to them or the consideration of that info makes them feel icky.

I empathize if you’ve been tied to a chair and forcibly boofed with horse urine, I condemn such an affront to your autonomy.

I do point out that that this is a reply thread than began with someone informing a person hormones existed and describing their effects. No comment was made that the person to whom this info was proffered should take the substance, nor was any comment made about what it would mean for anyone’s identity whom did.

If it is being suggested to me I should consider the “harm” a hypothetical cis person may come to in being told it’s possible to not be cis and in so considering refrain from or hesitate in informing a hypothetical trans person of the same, I never will.

A person can say, “I am confidently cisgender and enjoy typical pastimes generally associated with my sex.” That is a great time to tell them hrt exists and what it does.

A person can say, “Nice weather today, huh?” That is a great time to tell them hrt exists and what it does.

Rose Tyler can walk into the time vortex of a TARDIS heart, and that would be a great time to write that hrt exists and what it does across all of time and space.

No one is better off not knowing transition is possible, and the implication mention of trans existence should ever be avoided for the benefit of non-trans persons I find just-this-side-of troubling.

There is something my therapist pointed out to me, who was feeling like fraud about being trans. There is some peer pressure out there on how you have to be to be trans. We are not talking about mean peer pressure, but if you see that bodily transitioning is the way for apparently every trans person, then that must be the way for you too, right? And what if you really dread procedures or meds? Or if you are maybe not super happy with your body, but who ever is? Does that make you less trans? I think it really helps to think of trans as a spectrum and exploring it slowly. And maybe you find your gender identity on that spectrum or you feel role playing etc. is just some good fun. And if you find yourself on that spectrum you can go into character creation and say, I’m fine with the presets or change things up, the result will always be beautifully you.

So you know how annoying it is when someone tells you they know your gender better than you. That you are wrong about your gender and should do therapy to be the gender they think you should be? Oh, you do? Then please stop doing it. Thanks.

FfaerieOxide
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Acknowledging non-cis gender experiences exist is not telling anyone what their gender is, but having a huff when people express that it is possible to have a non-cis experience of gender is doing the thing you seem to be complaining about.

Especially when playing 3rd person games, I find that I enjoy looking at a woman more than at a man in. Also mostly I think the character customization is better.

I played Mass Effect as female Shepard because i heard the voice acting was better. Generally for RPGs I play as “myself” though.

Chris
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I don’t always, but when I do it’s mostly to do with character customisation. If I’m playing a game where my character is constantly visible I’d rather it was something I wanted to look at, and male clothing is boring. OK, some games don’t restrict clothes but many do. So I tend to create a character which is a female version of me, except in the cases where I prefer a male character (which isn’t often if I have the choice!)

BruceTwarzen
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It’s random and i don’t really care at all.

There’s an absurd gender dimorphism in most games where every guy is a mountain of muscles by default. I don’t enjoy that body type - for myself, as a 5’5 dude, or even romantically - and women are usually on the softer, thinner side, so I tend to pick them at first.

If its a game where I can easily change genders, I’ll flip around to my tastes, depending on which clothing looks better on whatnot. - Aliens:Fireteam Elite and Dragon Quest Builders 2 come to mind as examples that did that. Also games with intricate character creators, like Saint’s Row (RIP) are welcome, but rare.

Eastern games tend to have softer men, so those tend to be exceptions. I recall picking male options in both Genshin and Path To Nowhere, and I usually enjoy the male leads in jRPGs.

I think this is my reason. I like lithe, acrobatic archetypes and will, for instance, usually prefer playing stealthy character classes when given the option. Guy bodies in games are (or at least used to be) blocky rectangles; they look like walking refrigerators. Gals usually have a more dynamic and nimble appearance.

Two more relevant reasons: (1) traditinally, non-customizable main characters are predominately male, so when given a choice I’ll choose the less common option to mix it up and (2) I am a guy in real life and am bored enough of it that I feel incentivized to play the other side in game world.

I think of my characters in games as “stand alone”, and I don’t really care about the gender I’m playing as.

Specific reasons to play women:

  • Cyberpunk 2077: Judy Alvarez is more appealing to me than Panam Palmer. (Although I have to dig up my first playthrough (male V) since the Kerry Eurodyne questline seems to be good).
  • When I started playing Fortnite with some others, someone jokingly gave me the Heidi-skin. Except for certain quests, I keep using that skin.

I play both, so I can see the difference in quests, dialogues, romances, etc.

In games that have gender based perks, like Agent of Dibella in Skyrim or LadyKiller/Black Widow in the Fallout games tend to be stronger for female characters because more of the NPC’s are male. This is more adding another reason than claiming that it’s the main reason. I don’t exclusively play either male or female but typically when I play a female character it’s because I’m building a character that is less physically aggressive. I know this is playing into stereotypes but sword and board tends to be male while stealth archer tends to be female.

HipPriest
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It depends on the game, character etc. I mean I suppose it adds to the escapism slightly?

I play all sorts of different games though, some where you’re not given the choice (Life Is Strange for example) and I don’t feel like it’s that big a deal

I prefer playing characters as little like me as possible. If there’s a non-human option, I will always take it. The further from human available. Weird alien race? That’s my jam.

If I have to be a human, I’ll often play a female character because it’s the furthest from ‘me’ I can get within those constraints. I’ll also usually play a character of a race I am not, for this same reason.

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