I think it's a lot easier to do in MMORPGs than in P&P, since others only see your toon. The suspension of disbelief is easier to maintain.
In our P&P games we have made it a house rule that crossplaying is not encouraged. We're a group of four core members (all male) who's been playing together for 15 years with many other people of both genders coming and going.
We've always had males who badly wanted to play women and assured us they were terrific at it. It always ended up in the same old "Hey sugar! Would you be a darling and help me slay those pesky little orcs?" thing.
I've tried it myself with the determination to not do the same stereotype, but although I started out OK at some point I failed miserably.
Women are usually a lot better at playing males though. But we like the women who play with us to make female characters for a very different reason. Where I live female gamers are very rare indeed. And when I say rare I mean we've had 6 in our group over the course of 15 years, never more than one at the same time.
Now imagine a nice female gamer joins your group when you thought they might be a myth after all. You think "Yay! At last a good, non-stereotypical female PC!".
And then the first thing she says is "I want to play a male character."
Very disappointing, believe me.
I've made female characters, but I'd never Roleplay them.
Well, never Roleplay one seriously. 
World of Jackcraft.
Agent Saphire, my peacebringer, is female. That said, she's a tom boy, who drinks beer, likes explosions and is a member of the US army (She's completely straight, however).
If you want to hear the opinion of someone who can' stomach playing a woman, ask Maximillian. 
I play a women, because as i see it, since i play in 3rd person, behind the char, i'm basicly staring at an [censored] all the time i'm playing, so it may aswel be a nice [censored]
I was going to make sarcastic comment about the similarity to a quote from a certain free comic provided with the purchase of CoH, and that to actully spend all the time looking at your character's backside involves a very low camera angle thus limiting your ability to see enemies ahead, but I decided not to as people would undoubtably have taken offence.
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I was going to make sarcastic comment about the similarity to a quote from a certain free comic provided with the purchase of CoH, and that to actully spend all the time looking at your character's backside involves a very low camera angle thus limiting your ability to see enemies ahead, but I decided not to as people would undoubtably have taken offence.
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I liked that comic 
, i may have copied it from there but its still true
Surely its a much greater challenge to play a character who is non-human, weird background, superpowers, etc etc well than play someone of the opposite sex properly?
After all, most mature adults ( ) have enough RL experience with the opposite sex (and probably also with homosexuals) that with not too much effort they can pass as one. To me, that isn't the real challenge at all.
What is the challenge is making a believable pseudo-personality based on the weird and wonderful differences between them and a normal human. Especially in an emvironment where you can't easily fill in the 'background' as you can when writing.
(Oh, and it isn't true that some women don't like chocolate. They are just better at hiding the fact... )
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I play a women, because as i see it, since i play in 3rd person, behind the char, i'm basicly staring at an [censored] all the time i'm playing, so it may aswel be a nice [censored]
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On the other hand, it's probably a good job they didn't implement to first-person-view properly, or quite a few of the female characters wouldn't know what their feet look like.
Actually, the further something is from "reality" the easier it is to play. After all, if someone comes up to you and says "You're not playing a believable alien/demon/robot" you can say "show me an alien/demon/robot and tell me how I'm doing it wrong." You can't really be criticised for playing that -type- incorrectly, because it doesn't actually exist (not meaning to offend anyone who believes in aliens, demons, or robots, just making a point ).
However, women do very much exist, and because we have day to day examples to judge from, we can pick out flaws in how the character is being played.
The toughest thing in the world to play well is a normal, everyday person. Why do you think all the rubbish actors do action movies?
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Actually, the further something is from "reality" the easier it is to play. After all, if someone comes up to you and says "You're not playing a believable alien/demon/robot" you can say "show me an alien/demon/robot and tell me how I'm doing it wrong." You can't really be criticised for playing that -type- incorrectly, because it doesn't actually exist (not meaning to offend anyone who believes in aliens, demons, or robots, just making a point ).
However, women do very much exist, and because we have day to day examples to judge from, we can pick out flaws in how the character is being played.
The toughest thing in the world to play well is a normal, everyday person. Why do you think all the rubbish actors do action movies?
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Not sure I'm convinced....
I thought all the rubbish actors were playing 'normal' people in soap operas...
personally I find my half-succubus fire tank far more believable than the cast of Neighbors....
And there's a perfect point which backs my argument. You find your completely unrealistic, fantasy character more believable than an actor playing a regular person on TV. Why? Not because the actor's rubbish. In fact, some very fine actors are to be found on soaps if you pay attention -and- take into account the rushed schedule at which soaps are filmed. In a movie, you can spend over a day just shooting 5 minutes of dialogue. In a soap, it's a day per episode sometimes.
The reason is that you see everyday people in real life, all the time, so you can pick out flaws in the performance far easier. You don't (I truly hope! ) see succubi on a daily basis, so you don't have anything to compare to in order to judge the quality of the performance.
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The toughest thing in the world to play well is a normal, everyday person. Why do you think all the rubbish actors do action movies?
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Because they're actually half-alien demon robots?
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The toughest thing in the world to play well is a normal, everyday person. Why do you think all the rubbish actors do action movies?
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Because they're actually half-alien demon robots?
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I knew there had a be a logical explanation for Steven Seagal's "acting" career...
Well, in my time RP'ing, I think I've broken most of the boundaries of age/gender/sexuality/appearance/creed and race; with varying degrees of success. I guess it's all down to challenge vs. comfort.
The more mature the playerbase, the more you can 'delve' into the psyche of people apart from yourself; as long as people know that's not really you.
The time's that have caught me up the most is when I've been playing in direct opposition to my usual RL self; but the characters I like the most tend to be closer.
I'd find it much harder to play a male sadist rather than a female geek
I dont care what people do or why it matters. Personal is personal.People come on here to play a game. i do like discovering people though 
but its of no consequence to me as i am just here to play a game.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
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Surely its a much greater challenge to play a character who is non-human, weird background, superpowers, etc etc well than play someone of the opposite sex properly?To me, that isn't the real challenge at all.
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I agree with Wordy on this, so here's the suggestion: I assume you're female. Make a male character, come to GG, see how believable we think he is.
Playing a real person isn't easy. It's always easier to ham it up, or play something unnatural. There are plenty of people (including Cryptic) who don't play their heroes as people. They RP a hero, there may be a background somewhere, but that's not interesting. Being a hero is interesting, his mundane personality isn't. I view this as shallow. Half the heroes at GG appear out of costume and interact with each other on a personal level. The fact that they can throw lightning bolts doesn't matter, the fact that they are going out on a date tonight does.
Actually, since you believe your succubus is better than most soap opera performances, I'd be happy to challenge you to play a convincing normal human female one evening, never mind playing a guy!
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
I only really create female characters (though male RL) because I find that most character concepts that come out of my head are female as they emerge. I have to consciously force myself to come up with a male character if I want one.
I roleplay males better though, but I create females better. ;D
Go figure.
I think it's a problem with flawed IC/OOC separation inside my head when it comes to romantic matters. At the same time, I don't have problems with IC/OOC separation when it comes to arguments, fights or other such things.
I spent siz months starting at a male backside on Novastar, so when I'd finally got him to 50, is swore to spend some time making female toons!
As it turns out, apparently I'm not bad at it either! Ellie is a complex character, being a mix of human, cat and kheldian and I can get away with explaining any non-feminine behaviour as the cat she was blended with was a tom! (Though physically, she's 100% female!)
My wife helps me out from time to time with Ellie's character, offering suggestions as to how to react, but mostly it's me!
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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I spent siz months starting at a male backside on Novastar, so when I'd finally got him to 50, is swore to spend some time making female toons!
As it turns out, apparently I'm not bad at it either! Ellie is a complex character, being a mix of human, cat and kheldian and I can get away with explaining any non-feminine behaviour as the cat she was blended with was a tom! (Though physically, she's 100% female!)
My wife helps me out from time to time with Ellie's character, offering suggestions as to how to react, but mostly it's me!
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Ummm....so now you spend your time staring at a squids backside??
I think I'll go lie down for a little while now... 
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Ummm....so now you spend your time staring at a squids backside??
I think I'll go lie down for a little while now...
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ROFL!!! That's a good one!!
Ahem... Actually... MOST of the play with Miss Ellie is roleplay, not a great deal of combat, so I spend a lot of time looking at a cute rear... Or at least, as cute as a computer game characters rear can get anyway...
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
I don't RP, 
I'd ike to, but having cast my oar into Defiant at a very early stage its difficult to bridge the gap, though in beta I always swore I'd try RP when the game went live.
99% of the time I play female characters, seemingly enough for some to wonder at my surprisingly deep voice, both when joining a new TS server and also when I did a brief stint of DJing.
I nearly always creat female characters because that what I emphazize with, male characters mean nothing to me.
LN, me too, and it's really not, as most of the Rp is out of mission (for me anyway) and wil global chat it easy ot keep hold of your old aquaitances, and slowly lvl a Char there.
Personally I tend to treat a toon at face value if its a male its a male if its a girl its a girl
Unless someone says different.
Never even considered making a female toon (big butch man well if I take my glasses off )
Might roll one tonight and make a Nomet for a change
my main is Dark Rose at the moment, it used to be Fox on Defiant. I've been mistaken for a real female before, as Fox. I tended to play her like Purdey from the New Avengers (Joanna Lumley's character). Dark Rose is actually a man trapped in a female body, and slowly feminising due to his new body's physical influence on his mind.
I also have, while we're on the subject, Bluestrike, an 18 year old rich kid who has the persona of a cheerleader, and is a hero groupie.
On the whole I think I manage to pull it of reasonably well, but I doubt I'd convince a real woman I was a girl
Ultimately, its the personality of the character I try and play, not just the gender, otherwise I may as well just go and make a male character and join the non rp gamers.
One thing that did happen to me once, was someone kept pestering me in a team about if I was a male of female gamer, when I told him I was male, he accused me of being a pervert and ranted on so much, I left the team.
That was ages ago though and the only such incident. Although I have had some of my female charaters recieve lewd proposals. Things like that, though, give you a bit of an idea of what women go through, albeit a very small idea.
I can honestly say that i do -not- like guys playing girls when it comes to tabletop. Don't get me wrong, i can roleplay with people who do but as a GM/ST/DM i find difficulty running for guys who play gals. why? i don't know, just makes me feel akward.
I don't condone guys who play girls, hell, i do it (Well... Agent Glacier/Glacier D'Winter for one, NPC's as well occasionally) but i just have a hard time running games in person. *shrugs*