Secret Sex

Dracindo

I'm playing as myself: A man... With a tail... And scales...

And of course I've got some alts (some female) to live another life. I mean, why not? Maybe NPC's respond differently, causing you to learn more about them.

GrigorijMalahevich

I just press random character and adjust class and race. (And sex hahahaha #malecharacters)

If I ever created a female one, should would be a crafter, because of reasons.

Cadbury

I'm male and my character is male.

Yes, I'm boring.

Seminolegirl1992

Female, with 7 female toons, and 1 male. I guess I prefer to be able to identify with the character more ^.^

Scrollidan

I'm a straight guy in real life, but I mostly play my two female nightblades. I haven't really spoken to anyone in this game because I am new, but I do play SWTOR and WoW.

During role play in both of those games, people have believed me to be a woman in real life repeatedly. I lost count how many times I've heard the question, after I say I am a dude, "Wait, you're a dude?" But I've also heard, "Oh, so are you gay?" I am not gay, I am so straight! Lol. It doesn't bother me anymore, but it's still pretty funny imagining their faces. I actually had one guy wanting to meet me irl, then I told him I wasn't a girl and he said never mind LOL. I mean, I *did* tell him I was a guy so he'd stop being creepy. I can't imagine actually being a girl online and all the crap you all go through online.

The thing is, I just find it much easier to write female characters, I'm not sure why. Or at least, I find the characters that I write fit women more than men. I can write men pretty well too, but I don't like them as much, I always feel bored when I try to write one unless they're some sort of villain.

I guess it's about me being a male and wanting to play as something I'm not in-game, too. It's kind of like playing a Khajit, but not really being a cat in real life, except in gender instead of race.

xD

Jolojose

Male, because I'm a guy and I feel like it's easier for me to RP as a male. I'd never be able to pull off the complexities of RPing a woman. It'll probably end up as a bad caricature or something.

Krist

I play characters, which of course all come from me and even reflect parts of me, but none are me. If my toon is female, that is because the character is female, having no reflection on my own sexuality. As a writer I enjoy seeing my characters ingame, being able to actually create them and look at them. I dont think I have ever been able to level up a female toon to any degree on eso, though on Skyrim I had one that got pretty high. I seldom rp on here, because sadly, good rp is rather difficult to find. If I did rp, it would not be with a female toon, I dont think.

None of this is to knock those guys that do rp female toons or to say I am against those that do. Absolutely not. Even knowing a female character is played by a male, I play to the character as a female. With that said I do not rp intimacy with anyone, making it easier to simply accept I guess.

MelodiousAccord

Most of the characters that I roll have been female, but I do have a couple males that I've started playing more often. For example, my dragonknight tank is a male. Not because I am male myself, but because the values I was raised with associate strength and brute force, which fits my ideal of what a tank should be/look like physically. I generally go in with an idea of what my character will be, which shapes what it will look like physically. I don't tend to model any characters off of myself, but I do like to make them look nice according to my own standards of beauty (and sometimes a bit of ugliness is situationally appropriate). I don't do much background story, but I have taken to applying the many personalities that I've acquired over the past year and that's opened up a whole new way for me to express and personify my toons. It's pretty awesome.

I tend to use my female characters more often, so it initially surprised me how many players automatically assume every other player is male. (My username is fairly feminine (by USA standards), and some of the friends I've made playing this game have said that it was a dead giveaway.) Still, I get a chuckle out of it when someone says "thanks, man" or "bro" or something along those lines.

Whether someone is really a man or woman doesn't to me nearly as much as whether they know the mechanics of the dungeon or trial we're about to run together. Having been on the receiving end of questions about my gender, I've determined that it's not really any business of mine what gender someone is unless they offer that information willingly. I've been asked before what my gender is by random people in dungeons or zone or what have you – people that I hadn't written more than ten words to and never would again – and it never did anything positive for me or them; those questions just made me feel uncomfortable and in some cases, vaguely threatened or pressured and spurred me to get out of whatever situation got that question asked.

*edit* admittedly, I have never really experienced any roleplay in ESO, so my perspective is likely not the same as that of a player who presents him or herself in character at all times. I'm not certain how transparent roleplayers in the ESO community are expected to be.

Bloodraven187

I play almost exclusively female characters. While I am male myself I love playing and writing strong female characters who can kick ass and take names (or souls). In real life I am so masculine it would be impossible, were I so inclined, to even pretend to dress as a female, but once I am in character I play the character, not myself. Admittedly in may games, designers just don't know how to draw good looking or realistic males (ahem, WoW). Let's face it, most developers are guys and don't pay enough attention to detail on male anatomy and structure. ESO is one of the few exceptions I have found and had the pleasure of playing, much as all the Elder Scrolls games are going back to Daggerfall (ES2). Despite this I just prefer to play strong female leads in video games.

parkham

Stania wrote: »

I'm a woman and pretty much in any rpg I play as a male character. My guildmates were very surprised when they found out via Discord that I'm a gal irl. I have been suggested to use an appearance token to change my char to a female, but I don't see why I should do that.

I have a female gaming buddy irl who does this as well. She is also very particular about who she speaks to in guilds on voice chat as well.

Thankfully, the guildies are for the most part, adults ... where it counts. :-)

Bloodraven187

I also notice that many of the responses here regarding men playing as women or women playing as men involves writing or immersive role playing with what appears to be years of experience doing so. Imagination is key to prole playing of any variety and writers have that in spades. Play enough table-top RPGs (like me with 28 years of it under my belt) makes you exercise that imagination to its limits and beyond to get around whatever obstacle the storyteller/game master puts in front of you. If you are the storyteller/ game master then you get to do double duty and push it even further than that to give your players a riveting story and try anticipating all the crazy ways they will come up with to circumvent you. My favorite was setting up a warehouse infiltration and sabotage mission with several ways to get the job done. The party came up with a plan that completely bypassed the entire challenge of it and accomplished the mission.

Rittings

I have 12 toons... I started by alternating gender on creation so I had 6 male and 6 female (in the name of equality). After many deleted toons I now have 4 male and 8 female... it just happened that way though. I role play all my characters and so as they die and are replaced by others it is based upon the stories I've written

Solace of Shadows

Occasionally I'll make a female character but I always end up deleting it, just like I occasionally try to be evil but always change my mind.

I tend to play a game as if I were really there. The choices I make in the game are the one I would make in real life.

Maybe it's a John Scalzi's "Redshirts" thing for me. Who knows.