Ok not trying to be sexist here, but what's your preferred gender while creating your character in a game? And why? And please state your gender if you want, thanks. As a dude, I tend to pick females, since its more fun playing as a female, you know, sex appeal.

I don't mind either way, so long as there's either no difference between the two (just aesthetics) or both paths are just as fun. In Legend of Mana you chose at the beginning of the game whether to be male or female; there was no statistical difference but I believe there was some changes in dialogue and possibly a few quests.

Not sure why I just thought of this (maybe thinking of the main characters), but that game had some amazing amazing artwork.

I generally choose male characters, because I don't feel bad about getting them killed.

I don't really mind. I tend to think males since it's the major sex used when making games. But sometimes the anti-chara is female...:)

Normally I'll play through as a male first, and then I'll replay as a female. I often do the same with good/evil. I am a bloke.

In Jade Empire, the male characters are fairly well modelled, but the females (or at least one of them) have draping clothing that moves oh so sweetly. Major eye candy on the flowing robes thing. And hair. The male models are boring to play by comparison - visually. No hair, boring clothes, males were boring.

For an mmorpg, I always play male because that's my gender and I want as much empathy with my character as I can get. But... I've noticed that other players are nicer to female PCs, so I'm sure quite a few guys choose female alts.

I always go for a female character - they can look pretty cool when all decked out with the best armour and weapons (at least my morrowind fighter is!) and.....I'm female :)

I play as the guy.

I'd play as whatever character is given to me. More important than the gender is the emotional link, at least for me. I prefer story-based singleplayer games bytheway, hence my emphasis on the emotional link. I want to play a character that I can understand somewhat, someone who reacts believable to me. If I'd be given the choice, I would choose a character that looks cool or that appeals most to me, emotionally or by look or background story, whatever is provided. No real preference for gender specifically.

I'm not sure I have a real preference either way. It does depend a lot on the game however.

If there's a difference in ability between characters, such as with a fighting game, then I'll pick the character with the moves I like the best regardless of gender.

If there's slight difference in story between characters, such as romance in RPGs, I'll usually pick the male character first; partly because I'm a guy, but mostly because I'm still affected from Anomen being the only romancable male NPC in Baldur's Gate II (the single reason I never play as a female PC in BG2 [smile]; that guy was really unlikeable). However I'll often replay the game as the other gender.

If there's little difference between the genders, such with a lot of RPGs, then I often just flip a coin to decide the gender. However I'll often disqualify playing as a character due to aesthetic reasons; for example, the male humans in Neverwinter Nights are all musclemen, and I don't particularly like that look for my PCs (especially if I play as an agile character). However the female elves in NWN just wrong to me; there's no single head model that I like. Therefore if I play as a human I'll always pick a woman, and if I play as an elf I'll always pick a man.