I'm looking of opinions on how beneficial being able to play different sexes is to an adventure/RPG game. The game broadly has the player manipulating and influencing NPC characters. All the NPC characters are different and your previous behavior influences their disposition towards you. Some look favourably on good deeds (eg., priests, lawmakers), others would not (eg., thieves, robbers and ruffians). Potentially one thing that would affect NPCs disposition is your sex. Perhaps a pirate/ruffian will be willing give more information (information is often critical to manipulation) to a female but would not trust her with a task (doing a task would increase trust. Hence a male character would get less information immediately but has the option of doing a mission to get more information than the female can ever get.) Things would have to be balanced to give a roughly equal play experience with either. One problem with this is, as with any feature, it increases the development time, complexity and cost. Is it worthwhile? Would a female be put off if they had to play a male character or vice versa? (Admittedly, many males don't seem to have a problem playing female characters.) How likely are sexist comments to cause offense? (By characters, within character and some boundary of taste.) It's a big no to stuff like nudity and sex, I'm sure it would cause quite a lot of offence. I also can't see what this would add to the game, other than the ability to win the game by sleeping with everyone in it. (Although. the Daily Mail, a British conservative/right wing tabloid - which tends to be keen about telling the nation how evil computer games are - would provide a large amount of free 'publicity'.) If there's already some discussion about this I didn't find (all I know of are articles by Ernest Adams eg., More Sex(es) in computer games), let me know.

Quote: Original post by LucidIon
Potentially one thing that would affect NPCs disposition is your sex. Perhaps a pirate/ruffian will be willing give more information (information is often critical to manipulation) to a female but would not trust her with a task (doing a task would increase trust. Hence a male character would get less information immediately but has the option of doing a mission to get more information than the female can ever get.) Things would have to be balanced to give a roughly equal play experience with either.

I think the distinction depends on what you're going for in terms of gameplay. If you're after immersion and you want to present things like a guarded society of crones that won't share magic with men, or lands further south where women have to travel in disguise because of slavers, it will be worth it.

But much depends on what they can do with this vital statistic. If it's as simple as Phantasy Star Online, where women get more ability to evade attacks but less combat power and men vice versa, that would work but not be worth a lot of extra effort; if it's more textured, though, then you'll need options in conversation and other persuasive actions like coercion or flashing a winning smile. I think that if you're targeting true roleplayers you'll win big points with them, less so with the action RPG crowd who wants to kill and level up.

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Would a female be put off if they had to play a male character or vice versa? (Admittedly, many males don't seem to have a problem playing female characters.)

In Fallout I played "La Femme" Nikita the super sniper and didn't have any masculinity issues. [grin] My experience, however, with female players (6 or 7, so it's a crappy statistical sample) is that they tend to play female characters, perhaps out of newness. One, however, a true rp'er at heart, plays everything from barbarian men to sorceresses decked out in finery.

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How likely are sexist comments to cause offense? (By characters, within character and some boundary of taste.)

Like racial epithets under the same bounds, I think that if you give players some control over their reaction it can add to immersion.

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It's a big no to stuff like nudity and sex, I'm sure it would cause quite a lot of offence.

I don't know. Fallout 2 wasn't offensive enough to can the series forever, and there's still clamour for 3, let alone spinoffs like Brotherhood of Steel. And that game was a lot more prurient when it came to some of the situations you could get into.

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I also can't see what this would add to the game, other than the ability to win the game by sleeping with everyone in it.

If I played a game where I could seduce someone, then assassinate them or steal the key to the guard tower or get them alone long enough to drain their lifeforce in their private bedchambers, I'd be a happy roleplayer. Again, as in Fallout 2, you don't have to be overt about it. The mission where you sleep with a mob boss's wife to get access to his safe, then fight your way to the first floor for me was quite memorable and funny without me seeing even a single obscene scene.

I would, however, if you're worried about it, include a profanity/nudity filter that can be dialed. That way you please everyone (theoretically).

I think that its worth the effort. The story will get more interesting, and it will force you to play the game twice (with both sexes).

Now, I think that you have to design the story in a way that isn't the same with both players. My point is that if you play with the man character, and then with the woman, you get a different event, and the story of the game will change gradually to a point in where the story is different. I know that is like doing to games, but it's worth the effort!

I am a female gamer and rpg'er and thought I'd give you my opinion on this.

I would like it if story and reactions would be different depending on the sex of my character. As long as that is balanced though. So, if I would have the feeling that I could do more if I played a character of a certain sex that would annoy me. And I think it would make it worthwhile, especially if it's a more complex RPG. If it's simple RPG where you only get experience for killing things and the story is mostly told through having cleared out the next dungoen (Diablo-like), it might improve the ambience of the game a bit but it wouldn't really be worth the trouble, I think. (Diablo-like games are fun without it, I think so anyway)

Would a female be put off if she had to play a male character or vice versa? I don't know about other people but it would annoy me if I would play a RPG and would be restricted in any way in choosing the sex of my character. Meaning, I would like to be able to play both female and male characters. I don't have a problem with playing a male character and do so frequently but I would like to be given a choice in this matter.

Sexist comments? They don't necessarily offend me, no. I play MMORPGs with female characters, you wouldn't believe me the kind of things you get hear there... ;) Joke aside: I think that is a sensitive matter, I know a lot of women that are easily offended by such. Then again I also know quite a few man that are easily offended by such. Keep it in limits and don't have it without any reason, make it fit the situation and maybe work in some kind of "bad word filter" (I myself find them annoying and deactivate them but many others don't) that can be switched on and off for any kind of harsh language in the game (not only for chats but for NPC speak as well) and you should be fine, I think.

Sex and nudity can work if the story around is strong enough and it's not too explicit. But you should be sure to give people a choice to not do something that would leave to a scene with nudity and/or sex and still finish a quest (just in a different way). And a filter might be a good idea like Wavinator already mentioned.

I hope that helps some. If you have any special questions you'd like a females opinion on, feel free to send me a PM or just ask away here.

Quote: Original post by LucidIon
The game broadly has the player manipulating and influencing NPC characters.

This just screams different sexes to me. For once it could add lots of real depth, rather than being meaningless or just cosmetical.

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Perhaps a pirate/ruffian will be willing give more information (information is often critical to manipulation) to a female but would not trust her with a task (doing a task would increase trust. Hence a male character would get less information immediately but has the option of doing a mission to get more information than the female can ever get.)

I would be very careful to completely lock characters away from certain missions based on sex (or any other single stat). I think it should just be a lot harder for a female to be accepted for these kind of tasks, not impossible.

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Would a female be put off if they had to play a male character or vice versa? (Admittedly, many males don't seem to have a problem playing female characters.)

I am male, and I almost always want to play an attractive female character. Here's why:
1) My protective instinct kicks in, generally making me care more about the character. This effect is very real, but not necessarily conscious.
2) If I have a choice, I would prefer to spend my time looking at (and listening to) something I find beautiful rather than a generic male. (This applies mainly to third person games and games with lots of cut scenes.)
3) Nobody wants to play a boring character. A girl of my dreams is the coolest, slickest, sexiest, most elegant, most kick-ass character I can possibly imagine. It's only natural I want to play her. (No, I didn't mean in that way, you perv! ;))

Having noted that, I can roleplay virtually anything (or try to). Gameplay and atmosphere are more important.

Thanks for the replies. Sorry for not replying sooner.

A filter for potentially offensive events/remarks might be a good idea. The only problem is that it could make the game harder (as it removes player options e.g. seduction), easier (the pirates and the society of crones are not sexist) or unbalance the game (one sex is easier to play as.) This is a quality assurance/testing problem.

It's an RPG as in role playing rather than as in dungeon crawling. Violence is not (or rarely) necessary, and your aim is not to collect as much gold and cool armour as possible whilst saving the kingdom as a side effect. It's much more an adventure game in this respect.

Unlike an adventure game, your goal is not to save the world, but to profit from your circumstances, so you can be good or evil and it's your performance that's important, not your actions.

Personally, I don't think the decision to include characters of different genders is any different from decisions to include different classes or races.

In other words, they shouldn't be added through any feeling of obligation to do so, but should instead be added because of a desire to offer more varied gameplay.

If a person playing as a female elf mage experiences the same basic game as another playing as a male dwarf warrior, those additional options are superfluous.

Quote: A filter for potentially offensive events/remarks might be a good idea. The only problem is that it could make the game harder (as it removes player options e.g. seduction), easier (the pirates and the society of crones are not sexist) or unbalance the game (one sex is easier to play as.) This is a quality assurance/testing problem.

In a fantasy or futuristic setting you could invent the game's own derogatory or offensive words, and either provide some kind of glossary or just let the player figure out their meanings from their use by npcs. Or just replace language as a filter.

As for potentially offensive events, the appearance of the event could be toned down, but the effect could be the same. For example sex could be reduced to kissing, or just giving a gift and sweet talking. Violence could be reduced to characters squaring up against one another until one backs down.

You could have the filter cause the characters to be more constrained to the game culture's etiquette, both players and NPCs. That would sort of reflect the real world, where there are limits and constraints to how people are expected to behave, but people are still able to push or break those limits.

An exercise I've been doing is to (try to) write a "railtrack" storyline -- one that starts and ends in the same point but can have multiple ways / detours, like some schematic railroad networks. This sex difference could be enforced just by making multiple ways to achieve the same final objective, some by male, some by female, some by both.

An example: your point is to infiltrate in a typical sexist gang.
A man can get trough the front door, become a member, do missions, shoot people, accumulate trust and continue infiltration.
A woman would go backdoor, becoming one of the "ladies", help them (do 'missions'), meet men, accumulate trust and keep infiltrating.
Both could do the Trusted Fence door: get money, buy guns, sell to the gang, buy from the gang, get special stuff to them, accumulate trust... you got the idea.

'Corse, this works better in a linear game -- the less linear, the harder to script possible storylines.

krizzle:
Making up derogatory words is a good idea and I'll probably use it. Unfortunately, it doesn't cover the case where the words aren't offensive but the meaning is, such as:

Female Player: I'd like to prove myself. Have you any work?
Pirate: I already have a cook.

I'm tempted to decide that anyone who gets offended by this shouldn't playing the game.

koyaban: The plot could very well end up as a kind of railway switching yard, it's really a question of what gives the better play experience.