Male players: Why do you play female characters?

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

My honest answer:🥚

I find women more appealing than men.

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.

No one has said this one yet:

I play a mix and generally want to create a distance between me and the character. I'm not thinking "what would I do?" I'm thinking "what would this person do?"

Having said that, if I pick a girl I won't pick a heterosexual romance option. Romance in games is strange.

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?

I play a dude IRL so why would I do the exact same thing when I'm trying to escape from reality?

Girls pretty

But, if there's an option to be a robot, I'll pick that over a male or a female character. For example, PSO2

I dunno doesn't everyone wanna be a girl?

I don't really like looking at men. Yeah, the Witcher games are pretty alright but Geralt is kind of boring for me to watch. Given a choice between watching a buff dude throw a goblin at another goblin in bg3, or a buff woman do the same? Probably want to see the woman. Maybe it's just low grade ambient horniness.

I never think of the character in a game as "me". I had a friend who would always make himself. White guy with short hair and a short beard. That's not for me. I don't want to watch myself get blown up, stabbed, eaten by a dragon, whatever.

I don't like when games feel like they're just giving me eye candy or lazy titillation, though.The whole bikini armor thing I'm not into. Someone else mentioned they hate heels. Same.

I like boob physics.

Female outfits are typically more interesting, like in GTA maybe it's not as bad but I'm tired of every endgame male armor in rpgs of MMOs being a guy in a giant mountain of metal. It doesn't look "badass" it looks stupid and bland. (On the flip side bikini armor is also stupid)

That and female voices are just more... appealing? Idk the science behind it but there's a reason AI assistants are like 95% female voices.

I don't relate with masculine characters at all. No idea why as I don't identify as a woman. I have very little association or ownership of my gender.

Also character creators traditionally don't have a ton of options beyond the binary. Hair, pronoun options tend to be most of the extent.

Also feminine bodies tend to be more interesting. More curves and interesting shapes while a lot of masculine bodies are rendered as blocky.

Why not? I have to roleplay as myself all the rest of the time.

Why not? I also play races other than human too

Because catboy isn't an option yet.

But really it's because in fps they have abilities that make them quicker and it's more my style of gameplay. I rush to a choke point and try to make it look like there are many players there to push them towards my teammates.

Pretty shallow and lame reason: I vastly prefer staring at a woman's ass all day over a man's. I'm already a man 24/7 of the day, might as well mix it up.

That, or if I have to follow the internet I don't realize I'm trans?

Honestly I just pick whichever option looks cooler. Most games that ask me to pick play in third person, and if I'm gonna have to stare at this thing the rest of the campaign it might as well be something I think looks cool

Anyone else always annoyed at "girl armor" in games? Always looking like a two piece bathing suit and always either the stomach showing or an open V on the bust? Maybe you get some stupid armored skirt and bare legs too.

It isn't that I don't like playing heroines/villainess because I think they can definitely be bad ass and look cool as shit kicking ass but it is terribly done in the vast majority of games, in my opinion.

I don't judge anyone for their own thing but I think it sucks personally.

Mainly cause I find women aesthetically superior to men (maybe cause I like women) so I find my character nicer if it is a girl. Also thats cause I dont tend to identify with the main character

Preface: the things I'll mention have, for the most part, improved a lot in more recent games.

I default to women nowadays in almost every game I play. A lot of it is because back when I was a kid male characters were basically hulking hairy ogres with your choices of hairstyles being short, spiked punk and bald. For example: one of my favorite games from my youth is KOTOR, and the male faces are incredibly forgetful. It's all white guy, white guy with a scar, white blond guy and so on. And that doesn't appeal to me in anyway. On the other hand women got many different options for hairstyles and faces that were cute, which is something I like to be able to be in games. Granted there are a ton of games where the women were just eye candy, and yet that was still more interesting than generic white guy #555.

There's something very appealing to me in being able to be a cute girl that still kicks ass in the same way as any buff guy in that world.

Well, my thinking was that I wasn't sure, actually. I just liked their proportion better. They were nice looking. It was almost a running gag for me and my friends that I would always play women.

There were exceptions, like if it was a character that was speaking it would depend on the voice, for example in Far Cry 6. I picked the male model because I preferred his voice over her. Or if the female model is like overly sexualized with over the top sized ass, ridiculous sized boobs, a distinct lack of clothing compared to men... No thanks. I want to play as a woman, not play as a "made for horny 14 years old by horny men-children" version of women. No thanks. That kinda thing. But that's about the only exceptions.

If I have the option in an RPG, it will be female. I'm gonna play Cyberpunk soon, you can bet your ass it will be a feminine type character. I played Mass Effect, Fem Shepard all the way. That GTA 6, for as little as I am excited by it for many reasons, I'm still very excited that one of the main characters is a woman.

I've always had a preference for playing women. I don't have a problem playing any character at all. I can always immerse myself in them. It's rarely an issue. But if I can, I like to play something that I identify myself with more, qnd that's always been more the case with characters that are fem coded.

They are usually smaller. Usually thinner than male models. They have a more rounded face. And they tend to have long hair. All of this always fitted much more with who and what I was. I never had much muscle. I was never that tall. My voice, even as I grew into an adult, was never the typical male voice. It always had a bit of femininity in it. I have long hair. I have a more rounded face compared to most men. It always clicked more with me.

So yeah, there have always been lots of reasons, but it's always been kind of nebulous as to why I just preferred it, you know? But then I figured out I was trans, so...

I like girls, mostly

1. I like looking at women.

2. Having a female character and trying out a variety of cool outfits, dresses and make-up is fun. Especially as most games allow you to do a lot of customisation for female characters. Barbie in Night City, Barbie in Skyrim, Barbie in the post-Apocalypse. I can happily spend far too much time getting their outfit and make-up just right, before I even get down to kicking ass.

3. Female bad-asses are far more interesting than the boring male action hero stereotype.

4. Games are escapist fun. I'm a man. I'm tall, I do weight lifting. Why would I play as a man who looks like me, when I can play as a woman, something I would otherwise not get to experience?

I like looking at women.

It's hard to explain more concretely than "I just like women more". In multiplayer (and actual roleplay) games (and even emojis in WhatsApp) I tend to play women as well and won't correct someone when they use "she/her".

Now that I read it here from a couple other people, I would also agree that the female options are usually more interesting and grounded in all aspects (Voice acting, looks, skills).

I don't think I'm an unhatched trans (learned that term in the comments here hah), because I really don't mind being a guy. But I also wouldn't mind if I had been born a woman?

I don't go deep into role play stuff. My character is a character, not me. In games where it's "pick a man or a woman" only I'll tend to pick women because the voice actors are often better and you can better "play barbie" with character customization, plus of course the cliche reason.

With games that allow full customization I'll often make androgynous/non-binary characters with various dials at either extreme trying to break the character builder.

There are a few things I consider when picking gender in a game.

• Is the character voice acted? Which voice actor do I think performs better?
• is the game third person? Which gender has the better look in armor/clothing in the game?
• Does the game feature romance? If so, then I almost always pick my own gender for a first playthrough at least.
• Which gender do I think the plot of the game will be more compelling for?

In tabletop D&D, gender tends to be the last thing I choose in a character (as opposed to video games that usually want it to be your first choice), and I basically just look at the made character including personality and backstory and realize that it's more interesting or fun to play as one gender or the other.

Why not?

As far as I can remember, that's been the reason. All the characters I'd played as (Lara Croft and Aloy excluded) were male. Why not a girl?

So really, it's just been for the novelty.

I used to just make myself in games, but then someone suggested "make a character you think looks good since you're staring at them the whole game" so I did, and then I ended up giving them a personality after playing that game for several hundred hours. Now they're just my oc I always play as. It sucks though because my character uses a "boy" hairstyle so any game that gender locks hair (stupid) can't properly make her.

I basically coin flip. In games like Mass Effect, I'll play a male character and then years later play a female character -- just to encounter new conversation trees.

In D&D or something like that, it is somewhat harder, due to pronoun hell at the table (I sympathize with anyone having to deal with this on a larger scale -- it's insane on a small scale, and I can barely imagine being trans and having to deal with that...)

My favorite reason is seeing women in roles not explicitly written for women. Either it helps me reframe what women can be (reframing being a great reason to read stories anyway) or it points out how hilariously coded those roles are.

My second favorite reason is about playing something I am not, and examining how that changes my outlook and decisions. It's the same reason I want to play as a robot, or an alien, or a golem, or a dwarf, or whatever else.

Lastly, but maybe most poignantly, is women tend to have more varied depictions than men. There are far too many depictions of men that are brutish, boisterous, and warlike, which I am extremely not, and usually don't have any want to play as. Games that give you a character creator are way better in this respect, and I'm much closer to 50/50 male/female characters in those.

I like looking at female characters more than male characters. I enjoy the female form.

Mostly I choose gender based on how good they look. If males look brutish and carrot-y (no offense to Carrot Ironfounderdsson) or soldier-like, I choose female. If women look like drawn by Rob Liefeld, I choose men.

Though I do have a preference to a ginger short-haired woman (elf if fantasy) if I can't decide on what I want to make.

They're hot

By-and-large, they are more committed to the VO from my experience, which lead to a more believable character and is almost always more immersive as a result.

Male VO is always played as arrogant and tryhard/heroic but comes off as cringy and bland. Whereas female VO seems to typically be played as a survivor-type just trying to figure things out and live. Which is almost always the correct call for the character.

I'm not attracted to masculine characters. You want me to care what a dude looks like? You're barking up the wrong tree. And if I wanted to look at myself, I'd look in a mirror

My avatar is not me... If I'm going to watch a character for a couple dozen hours, it's going to be someone I find attractive. Hell, if I'm going to spend more than 5 minutes on a character creation screen, it's going to be a woman, because it's hard to get invested in a male character for me

It's simple. I didn't yet realise I wasn't a man.

I was once handed a princess to use as a playable character in my first text-based chat roleplaying game with 3-5 other people of girls and boys.
It quickly grew on me and I started using girls more often as my playing character from then on.

I won't deny that looking at them could be generally nicer, but I believe it's not the main reason. At least when it comes to text roleplaying, I like to (try) think and behave like a lady in games, to roleplay in their world of view. It's neat in its own way and I love the immersion when it hits me!

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've rarely considered it beyond functionality. I'll play a female in a fighting game if I like how the character plays. If the choice is purely aesthetic, I generally just choose whatever the default is. In Dark Souls III, I played a female because I thought I could make a beautiful character (and I think I did)

I choose female characters because their hitboxes are smaller, or if the hitboxes are not smaller they will not match the hitbox and throw off any tracking. Smaller models means they might not be seen around corners by having part of the model sticking out.

I like girls. I like how they look, I like the way they sound, I LOVE their fashion options. It isn't really any deeper than that. That said, I'll usually always play a male character in a Souls title, because [insert valid reason for inconsistency here.]

EDIT: I guess if I had to further expand on this, I'd say that female characters give me a way to explore options I don't have as a tall, bearded, broad, 'built' man. I've always loved cuteness, hyperfeminine fashion, "girly stuff", and so in addition to just really, really liking girls, video games allow me to explore the cute, feminine avenues I can't in the real world.

Also, as another commenter stated, I'd also just rather look at a girl's ass than a guy's for the entirety of a playthrough lmao

A lot of video games are steeped in hegemonic masculinity, and I find that portrayal of men somewhere between mildly and extremely uncomfortable. Women are sometimes characterized a little differently in those games, because the generic woman's power fantasy is not coming off like a massive bag of dicks with insecurity around the size of their pecker.

The other reason is that Toadette just doesn't get enough love.

Because men in games are usually rough tough emotionless bricks. Designed to be "badass". Playing Cyberpunk as a woman felt kinda freeing and different. Since then I've been doing it more and honestly it just feels fresh. It's also easier to feel like I'm playing someone else. Women also usually have more interesting customization options imo.

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

Easier to character create someone who you have more specific preferences over. Can't really get as invested in how aesthetically pleasing my generic human bloke is, but I play more male non-human races.

I don't always play female characters, but I can think of a few reasons:

• With rare exceptions I just prefer how the female characters look, be it prettier or cuter, they usually have way better character customization than the male counterparts.
• Female clothing and equipment in games also just look more stylish and flamboyant, especially in Japanese ones.
• And honestly I just like playing as someone different from me, if I can't choose to be an alien or whatever, then the next best thing is a woman.

(gonna answer this question in the past before i came out)

because i was in the closet and it was euphoric to try out new personalities online without letting anyone else know (looking in your direction WoW)

I don't know if that makes sense, but to me it depends on how "canon" they look.

Usually the games that give you the m/f character choice will put more effort in one version of the character over the other, with the "non canon" one looking like they were forced to put them in there.

"Canon" version are also often featured in official arts and commercials.

Examples of who I picked in games following this line of reasoning:

Male Robin - FE Awakening, Female Corrin - FE Fates, Male Byleth - FE 3 houses, Female Shez - FE 3 hopes, Aether - Genshin, Stelle - Honkai star rail, Kassandra - AC Odissey

But again, this is very much a "how I feel on the spot" thing, no hard preferences in general.

First did it in Kotor because the female PC had much more fun conversation choices with Bastilla(namely she'd be a catty bitch towards you and it was hilarious.)

Then in Elder Scrolls Oblivion because if you wanted to look good, all of the best looking clothing and armor was for CBBE body.

Mass Effect 1-3 because the female PC had better lines and better inflection on the sarcastic lines.

World of Warcraft as a blood elf because when I tried it for shits n giggles I made 25 gold in the first hour of play from people just throwing gold and items at me for no reason.

It's been a progression:

First I didn't care, just made male characters because I'm male, put about zero thought in it.

Then someone told me "If I'm going to spend hundreds of hours staring at an avatar's butt, I'd rather it be something I like". I still made male characters, because I wasn't staring at their butt.

I got into healing roles over time, and most healers tended to be female, so I picked female characters.

Then I saw how male players would fawn around female characters... and I found it funny to make the most fragile looking female character, with some awesome DPS power, so people would try to PvP duel me and get pummeled into the ground.

Finally, I stopped caring at all. My Overwatch "main" was Mercy, with Torb and Moira as close seconds... but the most fun I've ever had, was being a hamster (Hammond).

Sometimes the ladies are just cooler, you know? I tend to just go with whatever I'm feeling on the day, and if the woman has a good voice lines or an interesting mechanic or whatever else then I guess I'm being a woman today

I like being pretty, and men in games usually aren't (at least to the same degree). Why choose to look worse than i could?

Because female characters typically have better creation options, like hairstyles and outfits. I like to create and play characters that I find aestheticlly pleasing, as a straight guy that means mostly female characters. I do occasionally try to make an idealized version of myself though.

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 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.

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

Bikini armor causes neuron activation.

I saw some Avatar gameplay recently. There was a portion of aerial flight where you can enjoy the view of a naked ass in hi-def. I'm guessing they chose to play a female Pandorian for the same reason most players choose a female character in video games, (naked) male asses are a niche market for gameplay purposes.

In most games, when there's an option to play as a man or as a woman, I generally choose to play as a dude because...I'm a dude. I guess it helps to immerse myself in the game but I never really gave it much thought beyond that. But in my second playthrough, if it's something like an RPG or anything like that, I usually switch to a girl just to see different story paths, conversations, personality even.

Except for fighting games. I've been telling myself it's because I love fast, rushdown characters like Millia Rage or Cammy. I even managed to fool myself into thinking it was because I used to do the martial art they're representing, like Lidia Sobieska from Tekken. Which is technically true, they have to have a play style I like.

But along comes Granblue and I'm torn between two characters: the badass old man brawler that is Soriz and zoner archer lady Metera. And at this point, I can't lie to myself anymore and will probably play Metera because she's a woman and she's hot.

TL;DR: I like women and they're hot.

If women get more clothing options than men, I sometimes play as a girl cuz fuck man I wanna wear a skirt other than that I tend to play as my gender which is a man.

If the game has a good enough character creator I'll play a male. But most games and especially most Western games with character creators don't allow me to make a male character I'd actually want to look like or at.

I got sick of trying to make every avatar I have like me. Even if a game isn't even an RPG I like to mentally roleplay as somebody very different. Having a female avatar helps with that sometimes.

I prefer looking at female butts over male butts and I find armor far more pleasing on lithe female figures than on males, even if we completely ignore everything else.

Because Jennifer Hale delivered a better performance than Mark Meer as Commander Shepard

To quote my best friend, "If I'm going to spend hours staring at an ass, it might as well be a girl's ass."

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 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.

As some others have said, I'd way rather look at the cute female character over thousands of hours of playtime than some ugly dude

Gamer response: because sometimes I wanna experience what it's like to have less rights.

On a serious note, for the esthetic. For instance, girls suit the rogue characters better, largely because of how many times women have stabbed me in the fucking heart.

Ok, so it was still somewhat a gamer response...

I dunno, feels right in the moment? Kind of do it randomly.

Because we want to fuck it

I mix it up and play a wide variety of character genders, races, ethnicities and species. Whatever catches my eye during character creation for the most part, and if I replay a game I actively pick something different on different play throughs as it is a reminder that I'm playing this character instead of a different character.

So I don't actively or exclusively play female characters for a significant reason, just aesthetics of the game.

I usually go for incredibly inhumanly muscley male characters but occasionally play as a woman for variety.

Depends on the game.

Monster hunter: they get the cute armor sets. Dudes get the fat armor sets, while that version of the lady armor is something like a mecha teddy bear.

Social games: I aim for the more gender neutral looks, and for whatever reason guys are almost always bulky. It's usually somewhat possible to get a female avatar to look guyish. And if it's using voice chat, there is very little question.

Online MMOs: I have set male and female character tropes/character types that have been developed for 20ish years at this point. Coskii is an axe welding merchant or as close to that as I can manage. My thief is a lady, archer is a guy, wizard is a guy, and sorcerer is lady.

Single player whatevers: it depends on the character sounds. Sometimes games can get a bit excessive with their sound design, and for whatever reason make the guy voice sound like he's constipated for every sound effect.

Sometimes.

Most of the time, I just make myself and I'm a guy. But in games where I am constantly making characters, like Elden Ring or something, I just slap the random button a bunch and whatever it gives me I accept.

Well... Fallout 2 I am always a woman because it makes dealing with the slaver leader a helluva lot easier.

I started with the Black Widow fallout 3 perk figuring there world be more male characters than female when fighting.

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Black\_Widow\_(Fallout\_3)

EFFECTS
+10% damage against male opponents
Additional dialogue options with certain male characters

It stuck after that.

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

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!)

I play a mix of characters. If they're voiced, I tend to prefer feminine voices. I think there are a number of reasons for this, but one practical one is that I just hear better in a higher range for whatever reason (and this gets more true the older I get). I have a much easier time hearing higher-pitched voices and generally find them more pleasant.

If they're not voiced, it depends upon if I'm role-playing something specific. If so, I'll pick whichever I think fits best. If not, I'll probably pick a female character just because I find them more pleasing to look at. I always wanted to go back and do a female V playthough of Cyberpunk, but I just never got around to it.

Years ago, in the early 2000s, I got in to MMOs with Final Fantasy XI. I played mostly female characters there because people were more likely to help out.

with male being the only option for years in most games, i started choosing female characters to get a different experience nowadays it depends on the game, sometimes i like the female voice better, sometimes it's about the romanceable characters and sometimes about the character design

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.

Idk, might as well ask me why I listen to women pop singers and virtually no men. The only ones I do listen to are wearing wigs, makeup and heels. I see you, Adore Delano. lol

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

I like vidya waifus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haOm9TY90uY

The dadvocate explains it perfectly.

There are some exceptions -- I like playing Nightmare, who is male, in the Soul Calibur series, due to his moveset -- but absent broader gameplay considerations coming up, I'll default to a female choice. I'd rather look at the female character through the course of the game.

considers

I play very few multiplayer games. The last time I was playing a 3D multiplayer game much was a long time ago, probably a Quake 2-based Team Fortress-style game, and then I played a male character, an engineer, because of his role.

I haven't played MUDs for ages, but there I generally played a male character.

Sometimes games attach some sort of gameplay benefits on a gender-basis (e.g. male or female characters have slightly different stats or characteristics), and then I'll sometimes choose the main character's gender based on that, but that's become less-common, maybe not politically-correct. Mount and Blade: Warband does that -- it's a medieval world and male and female characters have significantly-different roles there; there I'll play a male character. The Fallout series had a long tradition of having the Black Widow/Lady Killer perk work differently based on a character's gender; it's generally advantageous to play a female character there.

I don't mind what sex my character is, my character is not me and I don't see why I would mind what sex my character is. Like, especially in a video game, the scenario is usually quite fantastic and nothing that my character does (e.g. acrobatics, shooting, running for more than 18 seconds without collapsing out of breath, etc.) gives me a sense that they are a version of me. My character should be random or whatever the writers thought would be most appropriate for the themes or story or whatever.

(I did not watch the linked video)

When the game allowed, I make my character to look like my then-gf (now my wife), and named it after her. Idk, I think she's cute and I would like to see her more.

Funny thing is I've never told her this and she have no idea why I always alt-tab out of my game when she walked by (she knows I'm not playing something that would upset her like a porn games or something like that because she can see what I'm playing from afar. She just can't see the character'name or details from that distance).

It depends on what kind of character I want to RP; sometimes that's a dude, sometimes not.

https://midwest.social/post/4051752

For me it's definitely an RP choice. I don't always choose one or the other, but in games that give character creation options I tend to go for a quick "non-canon" play test to get a feel for the game and setting and get an idea of how I want to play it. Then I start a new file and create a character to fit that. Sometimes I go for a lithe rogue or a buff fighter, and the gender usually depends on either how I'm feeling or possible story/world stuff that makes it fit better, or sometimes just something interesting. Like in early Cyberpunk there was a glitch where you could start with a male character, then switch some settings and you'd get the female options but it would keep the original genitalia, so I played through as a trans woman because it wasn't something I'd done before and it was interesting and fit well into the setting. It didn't change anything in the game and I kept my character clothed so you never saw her hanging dong. But then I hit the story with the trans woman NPC and my V found a friend who they could connect with a little better. It was a fun role-play opportunity and I felt like it helped my connect to the game and the world even better when my avatar wasn't just a puppet I used to interact with the game. Even in games like the Witcher where you're given a named character, my Geralt always developed his own personality. I once accidentally sold all my boots and didn't realize for a few days that he was running around without shoes. When I noticed it immediately became part of his personality that he doesn't wear shoes. He like feeling the grass when he fights and he's more connected with nature. It kinda fit with the default personality but I leaned heavy into the more nature-focused choices where possible and it changed how I played.

Though I'm probably not an average case-study. I tend to eschew gender norms while identifying as a straight cis guy. I wear what I want, paint my nails or wear makeup if I'm feeling it. And I do lean heavy into the single player RPG games and avoid MOBAs or shooters. I think I've mostly just been playing DnD in all my video games, lol.

Speaking of DnD, my BG3 playthrough started with a female Drow monk because I haven't played any of that in DnD before, but as I played I knew I wanted a rogue so I restarted and as I built it I started with a human male but ended up with a Gith male rogue because I liked the look a bit more for it and knowing what little I did about the Gith in the opening it would be fun RP. But in my head, he's not from a creche but was lost as a small Gith and raised in some small village by human parents. So he doesn't fit in with the Gith he meets but also faces the fear that most people in the world experience when they see him. It just adds so much more depth to the game when they have their own personality.

Depends on the game. Generally, I go with a male character that is somewhat like myself in appearance. The main reasons that I play a female character given the option are:

• There is some difference in the game or story based on gender (ex. Games like CP2077, though, generally not in my first playthrough. Or, the voice talents of Jennifer Hale in Mass Effect.)
• The male character was bodged in, unnecessarily (ex. AC: Odyssey, which wasn't even supposed to have a male lead until a sexist Ubisoft exec forced it - the dialog i, just awful)
• Sometimes, it is just being a bit thirsty.

They're trans and just don't know it yet. There may seem like there other reasons, but that's just the denial speaking.

When I was young I learned to pick a female character and people would be way more nice to me and helpful when I was new and give me stuff.

Watched video too, and it gave me an insight: feminine characters lay better on my gentle and caring personality, allowing me to better express myself.

I can play such caracter more organically, and there's also less social friction when in multiplayer (interestingly, even when party knows I am, in fact, male)

Well, for one, I play role playing games. So, I like to experience different roles, different ways of thinking, and playing as someone like FemShep or female V in Cyberpunk offers a much different perspective on life than if I played as a male. I'm a male, I go outside as a male, why do the same thing in gaming?

And for a second reason, if I'm playing a third person shooter why would I (a straight male) want to stare at a man's ass for 120ish hours?

But I never do? :(

It depends on the game. If the gender has an effect on the stats or gameplay, I may choose a female character if I think it would either benefit my character build or make the gameplay more interesting. If it's just cosmetic, I will play as a female if I think the male characters look ugly and the game doesn't have a femboy option.

Jill Valentine and Claire Redfield. Oh yeah. <3

I'm a big fan of women kicking ass, and videogames are usually designed to make my character kick a lot af asses. So female-looking character is great for me !

Young me : because egg

I don't, tbh

I do both, lol.

It makes no difference to me.

I tend to play both, as I have set builds for set character names. First time playthrough in a soul's game? Maxwell is the name (though Maxwell is one of the few characters that I have played as both male and female.) Making a sniper build? Novikova is da girl for the job. A viking or warlord? Kaytlyn is my go to. Stealth? Garrett will get in and out.

I like having a roster to characters of any gender to pick from. Though, I admit, I tend to gravitate towards making femboy type characters lol.

I don't, mostly because I watched Asmongold talk about it, and now I feel weird playing with a female character online.

Though singleplayer I don't feel any problems: Lara Croft, Rynn, Chell, Rayne, Jade - it's all fine.

Maybe it's just for customizable characters?