Toren Atkinson’s Absolute Blog

I have a friend who doesn’t allow cross-gender roleplaying in the groups he runs. I’m not sure why.

But, here’s an interesting article on the subject: http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/play18aug04.html

I personally have played a few different female characters. In one D&D campaign I used to play Ursula Umbragia–a mother who sold her soul to a demon to save her son, and in another I played a barbarian who I modelled after Bjork and whose name was Mjath. I made up a couple of superheroines that I never actually got to play - a black cop, mother of two, who moonlighted as The Black Lantern, and a pair of shopaholic yuppie teenage twins who were also cyborgs. I’ve never played a female in Call of Cthulhu, but I have known guys who have, and gals who have played male characters. I don’t have much experience outside of those genres/systems, so that’s that. I quite enjoyed playing Umbragia because she was on this tortured quest to find some way to break the deal with Anarazel and get her soul back, as her son had since grown to maturity and abandoned her because of the demonic stigma (ingrate!). The others I didn’t invest much time or energy in, but I think I would have had a lot of fun with, like, the twins, totally.

Anghold brought up an interesting point tonight that I hadn’t given too much thought to. When you get an email, and you’re just one of many who got the email, do you hit REPLY or do you hit REPLY ALL? In this case let’s assume that the original email is an invitation to a party. What are your reasons for how you reply?

Well today I playtested the Spaceship Zero scenario I’m runnin at HPL’s Birthday Party convention next weekend. Norm played his SpaceCorp executive, Nathan played a space pirate, David Bradley played his robot, James played his gladiator “Brock!”, and Ken played the mechanic. It was a madhouse, Jerry, a madhouse. They completely circumvented the major plot point, but it was still a hoot and a half, and now I am more prepared for next Saturday. Not a single ray gun was fired, although somebody was stabbed in the leg. I’d say more but I know that Marlo will be reading this, and she’s scheduled to play at the nerdcon. How come you don’t make up your own character, Marlo?