A Question Of Gender

All through my gaming life, from AD&D in my teens until just this last week, when I’ve had the choice I’ve always played as a female characters.

I’m sure that the psychologists out there would be able to give a whole bunch of reasons why, but I boil it down to something pretty simple; it gives me a change of perspective.

I’ve said here before, and on the podcasts too when talking about Mass Effect and MY Shepherd, when faced with a decision I’d always ask

“What would she do?”

Not what would I do, what do I feel about things, but what would SHE do. And I think this is the fundamental part of the thought processes, it’s always been about taking me out of myself, taking a different perspective, being limited or enhanced in different ways, having different skills and abilities.

Now I’ve been given the chance to do the same thing with my current game, Shadows of Mordor with the release of the Lithariel character as a playable alternative to Talion. Now, of course the story narrative falls apart when you do make this choice but for many reasons I immediately made the change.

It’s not that Talion failed to perform for me, or that I prefer the blonde corn-rows that Lithariel sports (actually I’m not a fan!) I just prefer to have a character who is different to me in as many ways as possible and, beyond species, gender is the biggest step away from me that I can get.

Am I ‘running away’, am I exploring facets of my personality that I’m not sure how to expose in other ways… of course these could be valid questions, but I genuinely like strong female characters and if I’ve the opportunity to inhabit one inside a particular game world I’ll do it in a flash!