#3

Playing girl characters is something I've often--though not exclusively--done. Hell, even at three years old I preferred the obligatory female character in Streets of Rage. There's something of a negative stigma against players that do this, even acknowledged in Felicia Day's excellent web series The Guild. It seems the only ones who don't view this habit negatively are those who actively exhibit it. Common arguments range from "If I'm going to stare at someone's ass for 40 hours, at least it can be a hot one," to either of the above. Despite the stereotype, I'd never really given it any serious consideration until recently. I suppose my line of thinking is essentially, if you are playing a game that lets you be one of several different species, does it really matter if you are playing as a girl troll or a boy troll? At that point the difference is incidental. They are equally fake, regardless of whether they have pixelated curves or not. In modern RPG's especially, it has become much more of an experiment to play as a female, when most of one's friends play as a male; games like Mass Effect and Fable II often feature subtly different scenarios or side missions for characters of either gender.

This strip of course, represents a dramatization of an actual excerpt conversation between Jared and myself on the topic.

~Cory