Do you play as same or opposite gender?

[Freelancer]

Well... I prefer if people play their own gender, because when I'm in a gaming world, I usually assume if they are male, they are male, if they are female, they are female. Am I strange? xD

You aren't strange for wanting people to play as their gender when playing online. But you ARE strange for assuming they do. Example, My brother and his girlfriend play Guild Wars. She plays as a girl. He plays as a girl too.(I have never figured out HIS reason for playing as a girl though. I wonder if somewhere inside he is that way...)
When it comes to online games, I play as a guy, because that way, if there is speaking, it's not a shock to hear my voice to the character's face. But honestly, I don't care whether the person playing the game is a guy or a girl. I'm not going to meet them so whatever their character is, they are. At least to me.
There is one difference to my usual rules though. TDU2 (Which is more like an online game you can play offline) I chose the girl, but not for my usual reasons. This time it was because all the male characters looked like douches, and I didn't want to be a douche.

[fioricca]

Putting in a voice for male protagonists, for various reasons. Eyecandy is one, but relationships are also another; in a lot of RPGs you usually have a rival character, which I fully subscribe to as I love rivalry relationships (healthy ones! whereby they help one another in times of Great Need *///*). I find that rival relationships don't work too well with female characters -- or maybe they do, and I'm just too brainwashed by pop culture to actually accept them -- so male protagonists is a go. I think it usually depends on what kind of game it is, though; for games in which romance is a key theme I don't mind playing as a female (leaving otome games aside) but I somehow feel that boys are more suitable to be heroes who will save the world.

I think a female character's charm is best drawn out if she remains as a kickass sidekick anyway (see Franziska von Karma), I don't see girls handled very well as protagonists in a lot of save-the-world scenarios so popular in RPGs.

[Najica]

If it's a game where I don't have a choice I don't really care, since there isn't anything I can do about it anyway ^^
But when it comes to MMOs most of the time I always play as female since I am one myself. For some reason it feels odd to play as a guy...

[Riviera]

I don't have a problem if people play the opposite gender. It does bother me a bit if I refer to them as their avatar's gender and they go off about how they're not a boy/girl and not to refer to them like that, though.

... It's the only real clue I have unless they have a profile or signature or something that says otherwise.

[Silvere]

Nice Topic just now :_D

I often play in MMORPGs or anything like that as females.
Reasons?

Reason1: Mostly, I just hate the running animations of the males. It just doesn´t look good..(Especially WoW-MaleHuman.. females aren´t better off either, therefore Bloodelf! Woo!)
Reason2: Well, Uhm... sexy characters with sexy equipment wielding huge swords or staffs, chanting the enemies to death? No, really, that's just NICE~
Reason3: I´m a big, big pervert. Therefore look @ reason2.
Reason4: As some people might know up to now - Most people believe I´m a girl when chatting. ... It´s fun when I can play the angry boy and they can´t deal with it. Although I always tell 'em that me being angry about it was just a joke ^_^
Reason5: Sometimes I say that I´m a girl, because... There are a huge amount of benefits - All that guys who have nothing to do will offer to help the girl in distress whenever she wants. Very practical when needing something special.

Therefore: You just rule with a female avatar. :3
Edit: And just so that you know: Never trust a female avatar player that "she" is a girl - Just don't do it. If you know "her" better, "she" will tell you so or so.

[Aleema]

Edit: And just so that you know: Never trust a female avatar player that "she" is a girl - Just don't do it. If you know "her" better, "she" will tell you so or so.

Thanks to you guys, I have to "prove" I'm a girl in MMORPGs. Like, people just come right up to me out of the blue and are "r u a girl i don't believe u show me pics" and it's like

[Silvere]

Nono, that are just guys that want your pics so or so.
They would ask for it even we weren´t there

[What MMOs are you playing? <3 xD]

[Aleema]

Nono, that are just guys that want your pics so or so.
They would ask for it even we weren´t there

Lol, they usually have a huge sob story, too (about how they've been "hurt too many times"). But I believe you that it's just a pic grab to begin with. xD

[Too many over the years to list.]

[Silvere]

Yeah, it´s just to grab the pic... EVERYTHING is for the goddamn pic.
Even I get angry about always getting asked and having to somehow get myself out of that sh**.

[What about T.E.R.A? Gonna start with it? ]

[Arcanum]

I play as both in MMORPGs, specially if it's one as Aion, that I can fully customize. I like creating pretty characters, boys or girls, and it gets too tiring playing with only one ass face to stare at. Cute girls, handsome boys… The ability to customize is what is more important *g* I'll usually spend 1 full hour on the customization screen and play with the character that feels the prettier. (Shallow, much?) Plus, boys and girls have different clothes and such, and I like trying the variants =D

Now, when it comes to other videogames where picking your gender don't usually change a thing in the storyline, I pick a female to play as, since, well, I'm a girl too. I only pick males when I'm in a particular mood to look out for BL later, err… I guess I can say I'm used to playing guys, since most games have male characters, and when it's a female as a main character (like Tomb Raider, for example), it's usually quite exploitative, so I can't really identify with her.

[RemnantDream]

I always play as I girl. I usually don't like the designs for guys as much plus I feel weird when I play as a guy because I would prefer people play as their own gender xD

I hate when people ask me for pictures. When they do, I just ignore them..>3>

Reason5: Sometimes I say that I´m a girl, because... There are a huge amount of benefits - All that guys who have nothing to do will offer to help the girl in distress whenever she wants. Very practical when needing something special.

This is true. On MMORPGs, I'm usually very wealthy and not just because I do quests but because guys will randomly come up and give me money. xD

[PervertPrince]

I always play as the opposite gender. I mean, I'm a girl every day in this world so why would I wanna be one in a fictonal world too? I play games to escape from reality and being female is my reality so I rarely ever play as one.

It has lead to some very, um, interesting moments though XD
Such as the time when I said I was female and no one believed me because of my male avatar and the fact my name was 'PervertPrince'. That is also why, these days, when someone refers to me as a male, I just roll with it XD

I also rarely choose my own race. I'm light-skinned but whenever I have the choice I play as a dark-skinned character.

[Thelo]

I'm a guy, and in single-player games, I usually play as a girl when I have the choice.

As a games programmer, my life is overwhelmingly male-dominated - my schoolmates were all guys, my colleagues are all guys, my friends are all guys, even my customers are practically all guys. Basically almost everyone I interact with is a guy. So when I get to choose between guy or girl, I like to choose girl - it brings a tiny bit of balance, and feels fresh somehow to see things from the other side.

In multiplayer games though, I normally stick with being a boring guy, out of respect for the other players.

[SvenTheViking]

For me, it depends on how it affects the game. If there's something I can only do as one gender - or something which I cannot do - that will generally influence my choice. As I don't play many games in which romance is an issue, that usually doesn't have anything to do with my decision, so it's more often practical things, like are the model sizes different (useful for jumping on things or crawling into places I otherwise wouldn't be able to), do they have different stats, and the like.

If it's just a difference in appearance, I'll pick a guy, because I'm a guy, so that's what I default to.

[teacup]

For some reason... I'm almost always playing as a guy;;
If it's a game where I get to see my character on-screen constantly, then I'd rather be a guy because I'm attracted to guys - therefor, I would rather be looking at a guy than a girl XD
If romance is involved, that depends entirely on the romance-able characters. For example, I was pretty excited that I would get to play a girl in Rune Factory ToD, until I realized that I wasn't attracted to any of the bachelors. At all. So I stuck with playing as a male and married a girl - the girls were way cuter [I'm not attracted to girls, but that doesn't mean I can't acknowledge if their character design is cute or not :p]
I always chose to be the guy in Pokemon games too, though I don't have a logical reason for that... ^^;