Do you play as a girl or a guy ?

[Tamanoir]

When you have the choice between a male or female character as a male character, which one do you generally chose ?

And is your choice based on strategy (for example, in DQ, female characters have overall better equipment), appearance or else ?

I remarked that I tend to use more often the female character myself.

Apparently, it's because I think Tenda is a completely appropriate girl name.

Well, and because game are about evasion for me, so I don't make my character a self-insert.

In DQ, girls have better equipement generally.

In pokemon, girl have generally most interresting look than male (They're basically each Ash Vlone, honestly)

[Nicolas]

I chose guy, because they look more manly.

I like female character, but I don't like play as one of them. I just like more manly characters like Duessel or Gerald from Rivia.

Edited January 12, 2014 by Nicolas

[Magical Glace]

Depends. In Pokémon, I usually pick girls but pick the guys sometimes for various reasons (not fond of Rosa's design, wanting to call myself Eliwood so I can get on Magyars nerves in XY, etc.). In DQ, I usually pick girls because of a already mentioned. In FE, I usually pick Female avatars except when I want to get Morgan to be a Manakete.

[TheEnd]

Male for roleplaying, female for looks.

Strategy is only a factor when male and female characters play substantially differently - which is usually the case when you're choosing characters, not making your own. In that case, gender is secondary.

[ZemZem]

Male because I'm a male.

Though sometimes I pick the female for fun. Might do so in Y or Black 2 next since I really like Rosa.

[Ike-Mike]

I play as a guy.

I like to immerse myself as myself.

[Shahrivar]

Most of the time as a girl (actually (almost?) everywhere but Baldur's Gate - their male characters look decent, have more and better romance options than females, better portraits)

[Rehab]

Both, I sometimes try to come up with different characters to roleplay in my head for either (when I've played both in the same game, that is)

Edited January 12, 2014 by Rehab

[Icon of Sin]

Male.

I don't think I remember the last time I played as a woman, games like Left 4 Dead aside.

[Espinosa]

Female. I don't identify with any of the pictures on the screen so I just choose the character I will like looking at the most (doesn't apply to games with a party of different possible characters because their differences matter).

[Ether]

Generally it depends on the game's character designs, if I'm going to be looking at a character for multiple hours of play, I want to enjoy looking at said character. Sometimes that's the male, sometimes it's the female. In games where there is a playstyle/effectiveness difference that can come into play as well, but it depends on how familiar I am with the game.

[Silver Lightning]

If the character is meant to be a true self insert, then I pick female, since I'm, well, female. If not, then I pick whichever one I feel like playing as, especially if it changes the game enough; for example, in FE13, I don't really treat the Avatar as a self insert, but as my own original characters that I design and therefore enjoy playing as both female and male (I get to have royal kids as a girl and a dragon kid as a guy; I'd say that changes my play style a little).

But in a game like Soul Nomad and the World Eaters, I always play as female since:

a) I am female, which kinda influences my decision since the main character has little character defining dialogue who makes lots of decisions that can affect things and therefore feels more like a self-insert

b) Changing genders really doesn't change much about the story, only the endings of your opposite gender romance options

c) There is a specific ending I always, without fail, want to get, which requires me to be female anyways

d) There is some evidence in Disgaea 3 DLC that the Female!MC is the canon one due to her appearing alongside Gig, with the Male!MC nowhere in sight outside of the original game. Its not really a defining thing I guess, but I find it interesting...

[IGdood]

Male because male.

Sometimes I get puzzled when female friends refuse to play a game on the grounds that there is no female option and the reason is because "males are disgusting"

[Icon of Sin]

Then again in first person games you won't exactly look at your character much. You could just be Louis instead and keep looking at Zoey through the entire story instead of being Zoey.

Something to think about.

But I do pick Louis/Nick because most of their lines are hilarious and I can spam their equally funny voice commands.

Edited January 12, 2014 by Woodshooter

[Thor Odinson]

Female if at least some of the armor options aren't ridiculously bad

Then again if all female armor is awful in a game I don't think I'm even going to play it

I think the only game I preferred the male to is Torchlight because DESTROYER and a lot of Vanq's armor are terrible but some are actually really nice but the real thing is I really suck at playing ranged I'm good at going into people's face and just go SMASH

Though I do run a guy in Starbound but I named him Thor and he runs around in a wedding dress half the time for mythology reasons and the ability to play weddingdress!Thor overrides everything

If I want to play a guy though I'll just boot up Ass Creed 2 or something

Enough male protags to last a lifetime

Edited January 12, 2014 by Thor Odinson

[Nobody]

I (almost) always choose male. I only choose female when I'm replaying the game and it plays differently if you choose a female character (like awakening, for example, since you have different classes options).

[Anacybele]

Female, duh. Because I'm female. :P

And also because I usually don't like the male character designs (the only one I really like so far is Lucas)

[Rehab]

Female if at least some of the armor options aren't ridiculously bad

Then again if all female armor is awful in a game I don't think I'm even going to play it

I think the only game I preferred the male to is Torchlight because DESTROYER and a lot of Vanq's armor are terrible but some are actually really nice but the real thing is I really suck at playing ranged I'm good at going into people's face and just go SMASH

Though I do run a guy in Starbound but I named him Thor and he runs around in a wedding dress half the time for mythology reasons and the ability to play weddingdress!Thor overrides everything

If I want to play a guy though I'll just boot up Ass Creed 2 or something

Enough male protags to last a lifetime

A lot of Vanq's armor is indeed unfortunately terrible, but she gets this ballin outrageous skill that's a fuckin huge and strong AoE bullet that barely even cares what range you're at and can, relatively speaking/afaict, trivialize everything in the main game, (and maybe beyond,) on at least hard. For the most part, the only things that were a serious roadbump in the entire last part of the game were the succubus-looking dudes, for their hard-ish hitting ranged crap; most everything else past halfway through the game was just "AoE => AoE => am I getting low? down a mana potion => are they hitting me? maybe dash back for like a second, I guess, hurry up and heal me kitty => AoE => *AoE intensifies* "

/not particularly relevant to anything anybody said

Edited January 12, 2014 by Rehab

[Thor Odinson]

Yeah Vanq is great to play I just generally suck at ranged since I don't think aoe bullet exists at the lower levels but I still facegun them anyway?

Like I'll play a ranged character but I'll end up shooting enemies at point blank range right in their face and they don't have the same level of bulk to take that many enemies close up as a melee class because they aren't meant to do that

Like in marvel heroes I'll play hawkeye and shoot people with arrows right up in their face

and then he dies because he's squishy as fuck

Or I'll play sorcery/summons mixed Loki and i'll still stand in the middle of enemies and smack them even though I have 6 nice distractions on screen and plenty of ranged powers but at least Loki is more durable than Hawkeye

I think some of Vanq's set armor/uniques looks really good though like why can't the rest of her stuff be like that

Edited January 12, 2014 by Thor Odinson

[Ϲharlie]

I don't have any particular preference as long as there is no difference between the two.

[Naui]

Depends on the game. I play as a male character for pretty much every game like Pokémon and Animal Crossing. The only game I've chosen to play as a female primarily was Monster Hunter, but that was more because I like the female armor designs more and to differentiate my character from my hunting party.

Edited January 12, 2014 by Naui

[Ciarre]

Depends on what the decision affects. In games like P3P, I'll go through as both because the sex changes parts of the story as well as some gameplay.

For stuff like Pokemon, I'll pick whatever I feel like at the time. Usually the girl, but sometimes I'll play as the guy like in Black/White1 because I really liked his design.

[Lord Glenn]

It depends, really. In my main copies of Pokemon games, for example, I always pick male, since I would prefer that it's representative of me. In extra versions or older games, I'll vary depending on the design I like better or whether I've already played through as one of them already.

In Torchlight II, it varies - I only went female for Embermage because my first character was a male Outlander.

A lot of my other games don't really even give me an option, so the question's moot for them.

[Rehab]

I forget the source, (again, conveniently,) but I caught some article recently that claimed one study which observed that a significant portion (maybe all, I forget arr) of their sample of male players of female characters in games, in this case players who all said something along the lines that they picked the option to play as ladies just because they wanted something nice to look at while they played, found that said players actually exhibited some behaviors that seemed to correlate with identifying as their characters directly. Though I don't think they stated whether the guys were conscious of this.

I'm forgetting exactly what kinds of behaviors were recorded and defined like as such, so I'm not sure whether the players were, say, referring to things like strategic decisions they made in deciding what to have their characters do and what effect their actions had, and/or if that included things like visibly getting into character, and/or to what extent the players knew they were appearing to exhibit immersed/empathetic behaviors and were really just joking or whatever, (and it's just one study in any event,) (IIRC,) but. Food for thought etc.

not that anybody said something recently that felt really directly related to that, it just came to mind

Edited January 13, 2014 by Rehab

[Loki Laufeyson]

Im so fluid that it really doesnt matter. I know my Pokemanz games had lady folk as player character only because i liked their designs. Animal Crossing, i play chiefly as a female but i have a male mule. There was too much taco in my town. We needed some hotdog. In FE13, i prefer male actually. I like having two children. But overall, i identify with both genders so i dont really have a bias and dont instinctively play as a female.