How does gender affect character entirely?

[Boy Who Codes]

I am doing a plugin called Gender Select, but at the same time I think it is useless if it just allows you to select a female or a male character and that's it. So, in order to make my plugin way better, what and how does gender of the character affect the gameplay to you?

 

[Ravani Lestari]

Well, it should honestly be about aesthetics, unless you can change it into more of a "select race" system where the stats will change. If you are looking for stat differences, look towards coding something in where certain armors require a certain gender. Initial stats might be controversial, but then again, it is your game, and you make it how you want it. :)

 

[Boy Who Codes]

Interesting. It's not for a game though, I just do plugins and let the people use it on how they want. Yeah, I reckon that there's not much to do in genders as opposed to race. I'll consider the gender only items, as I've done this back in Ace. Any other ideas from people will help.

 

[Ravani Lestari]

Considering some gender-only equipment, people will be able to attach gender-only skills to those as well. When you create this, you are opening up a wide variety of mechanics. You may even want to implement monster genders. For example: a succubus can charm only your male actors. So instead of just being able to select a male or female, you can make it an actual game mechanic. :)

 

[Boy Who Codes]

Wow this is helpful. I never thought of this, lol. It's good I came here to talk about this. The idea of male only female only skills is sure interesting. I will plot down things I can see that may affect the character via gender, then start coding the framework, before adding the graphics needed for the gender selection screen.

 

[Ravani Lestari]

Once you have that all set up, I'd be happy to test it out and show you how much you can do with the mechanic.

 

[Macro]

You could have gender effect the responses from NPCs and maybe even enemies.

 

[Kerux]

I know FF Tactics had several things based on gender. You may want to see what they did with it. I know there were certain classes, items and skills that could only be used by one or the other, and it worked really well. :-)

 

[MinisterJay]

One thing that I never supported was gender-biased games where the male had full-plate armour having same protection as a female's bikini plate. @Kerux , yeah I remember FFX-2, where the item made the class.

There are a lot of factors to look at @Soul . There have been some RPGs that have implemented different bonuses and weakness for different sexes.

 

[Micro]

I am doing a plugin called Gender Select, but at the same time I think it is useless if it just allows you to select a female or a male character and that's it. So, in order to make my plugin way better, what and how does gender of the character affect the gameplay to you?

I really like games where I can play as a girl if it is somewhat relevant. little things like NPCs calling you by your gender makes me feel more immersed.

I can never get totally immersed in a game where everyone is calling me a 'he' lol

 

[Macro]

Goes both ways, I can't get into an RPG game if I'm a woman. I also can't get immerse if the main male character is too much of a jerk and always knows the perfect answers to woo all the ladies (and we know there's a A LOT of that).

Though for some reason in MMORPGs it doesn't bother me at all playing as a female..haha.

 

[Companion Wulf]

Though for some reason in MMORPGs it doesn't bother me at all playing as a female..haha.

It's funny, but most of my warriors and tanks are male, most of my rogues and magic-users are female. I don't know why, it's just the way it turned out and I've been doing that for absolute years! Your post just made me realise that. Haha!

 

[Zebestian]

I think it depends on how deeply you want to integrate the gender system into your game, I'd say. If it's just for cosmetics then it wouldn't change anything except that there's a different sprite walking on the map (see Pokémon for example). Gender-based stats would be a thing that promotes realism but might be heavily critiqued considering how much people are for equality - and scientific facts don't count for some people. If you want a female warrior although the male has a better strength stat... by all means, why not? It depends on how you play not who you play.
Other than that it'd really be cool if it was possible to have characters, NPCs and monsters react differently to different genders, as already proposed. It would also work well with a companion/romance plugin that works à la Harvest Moon where you have different love interests based on the gender you chose. Or gender could have an influence on the affection of your party members, i.e. the "casanova" performing better when there's more women on the field he can impress. :D

 

[Kerux]

I think people tend to get nervous about differences between genders because they believe that equality is the same thing as sameness. It's really not. Equality (at least in a social sense) means that one has the same standing as another instead of being lower on the totem pole. Sameness is not that, but rather making everyone exactly like each other.

I do not have the potential in general to be as strong as a man who is 6'6" and outweighs me by 60 pounds. In the same way I will in general not have the same potential for flexibility in my movements as a woman. Differences make the world an interesting, nuanced place. I say go for it and throw in some exceptions here and there in the game world to make it really interesting. I probably don't have the potential to beat, say, Holly Holm in a fight, but she is an example of an exceptional talent in fighting and strength. That doesn't mean more women than her can't beat me up, but the differences between us would most likely be an advantage due to our differences rather than a weakness due to them.

Take for example sword fighting. In sword fighting you want speed much more than you want strength. It doesn't take much force to cut flesh, but you have to be able to get to it first. Same thing with guns. Let weaponry and equipment be the great equalizer, but let the differences between gender and people make the world an interesting place instead of a cookie cutter bland pile of nothing.

Sorry, that got kind of long, but I hope it gives encouragement to go for what makes something real and interesting instead of bowing to cultural pressures of sameness. :-)

 

[Isaac The Red]

I really have to second Kerux on this one. From a mechanical stand point as a plugin, Gender choice doesnt so much need to be handled by the plugin, but linking skills/classes/items/equipment to Gender Specific restrictions to some extent can enhance a game. Such as making a dancer class that is Female only, and restricted to cloth armors. While Mages are also restricted to cloth armors, some of the armors more beneficial to the dancer class could be tagged female only. And you could Balance this with a Male only Bard class, and give some character synergy for having both a dancer and a bard in class. Where one passively buffs the other, as music and dance are so rightly complimenting.

And a plugin that Lets devs note tag <Female> and <Female Only> ect... woulf facilitate things well, and for those who would undoubtedly say, but men can wear dresses too! We can have a <Gender Fluid> tag that over rides the <Female Only> and <Male Only> tags of equipment. From that Point on, everything else would be handled by the Devs, and their use of eventing. Unless of course you want to go through the whole process of setting up a 'Character Select' menu that can be called via a Plugin Command. Making it more simple to implement a more choose your own adventure feel to a game right from the start. My brother who occasionally messes around in RPG Maker will often spend the first few hours setting up an opening event sequence to allow the player to select a class and gender from the outset of the game.

 

[Sinnistar]

That's an interesting idea. Personally I think of female characters as sort of a more subtle character compared to the male who would usually act more rash and rush in without thinking in most cases. As far as a plugin for a gender select, maybe an idea where the female would have varied stats compared to the male (I.E. Male has more HP, but female has more AGL etc.) Since it would fit a physique more. Other than that, it seems to be just aesthetics in most games I've played that have a gender select. Though a racial select with gender specific ones might be cool too so it could add different looks and gameplay styles maybe.

 

[Bizarre Monkey]

I am doing a plugin called Gender Select, but at the same time I think it is useless if it just allows you to select a female or a male character and that's it. So, in order to make my plugin way better, what and how does gender of the character affect the gameplay to you?

They don't?

Though if you want some ideas, Mr Bubble's Gender script might be a good place to start for inspiration.

 

[Iron Croc]

I think people tend to get nervous about differences between genders because they believe that equality is the same thing as sameness. It's really not. Equality (at least in a social sense) means that one has the same standing as another instead of being lower on the totem pole. Sameness is not that, but rather making everyone exactly like each other.

I do not have the potential in general to be as strong as a man who is 6'6" and outweighs me by 60 pounds. In the same way I will in general not have the same potential for flexibility in my movements as a woman. Differences make the world an interesting, nuanced place. I say go for it and throw in some exceptions here and there in the game world to make it really interesting. I probably don't have the potential to beat, say, Holly Holm in a fight, but she is an example of an exceptional talent in fighting and strength. That doesn't mean more women than her can't beat me up, but the differences between us would most likely be an advantage due to our differences rather than a weakness due to them.

Take for example sword fighting. In sword fighting you want speed much more than you want strength. It doesn't take much force to cut flesh, but you have to be able to get to it first. Same thing with guns. Let weaponry and equipment be the great equalizer, but let the differences between gender and people make the world an interesting place instead of a cookie cutter bland pile of nothing.

Sorry, that got kind of long, but I hope it gives encouragement to go for what makes something real and interesting instead of bowing to cultural pressures of sameness. :-)

Very well said. I had a speech put together, but I frankly couldn't have said it any better than you just did. :)

 

[Neotheny]

well, it really depends on the game. arcanum had an immense character creation screen. both male and female counteparts had boons to them, but it was different for each race. for example male human gave you +1 strenght and female human gave you +1 stamina, while male elf gave you +1 dexterity and female elf +1 intelligence. then you would have background and traits available depending on what race and gender you chose. and then you would have a whole story based on your gender/race/background combo.

apart from arcanum, all other games just made me indifferent whether my main avatar is male or female.

 

[Dameon]

I'm currently making a game that in one country the women rule everything and have all the power but in another country the men rule everything and have all the power. Then in all the other countries it's all even men and women both have power but if you go into the women country with a man in your party fighting you automatically go to war with that country and vice versa with the male country. So with that system the male and female system is needed for game play.