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Post by SavageCheerleader on Oct 29, 2017 6:52:15 GMT -8
I am going to run a con game soon, and while I will provide pre-gens, I am not sure if I should fully flesh them out with genders or leave it to the table. It only matters in how I would design the PC sheets (art).
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2017 8:23:45 GMT -8
I tend to provide both male and female names for mine. For my demon hunters characters I had done custom artwork done but couldn't afford alternate versions so for those there is an implied default with 3 female, 2 male and 1 ungendered (a sentient tree).
When I'm using photos sourced from online I tend to provide both male and female images and try to avoid presenting one as a default.
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Post by akavidar on Oct 29, 2017 10:09:50 GMT -8
I was at a game once where one side of the sheet was the male version, and the other side was female. It's an option if the character sheet only uses one side of a page of paper. Otherwise you could leave the name and gender blank and provide pictures that fit the art box and a glue stick.
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Post by Forresst on Oct 29, 2017 19:36:53 GMT -8
Man, I had the most insane idea once for a character sheet but it seems way more suited to like... an anime or like ghibli sci-fi type of game.
They still sell those transparent sheets for projectors, even if nobody's used a projector in a million years. And you can usually print on them. So if you put all the text on the transparency, you could then layer it over a paper with whatever art you like, and literally change it on the fly if you want a different gender or species or whatever.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2017 23:53:39 GMT -8
Just pick a unisex name and leave it at that (or let the player determine name). Unless your playing something like Saga of the Icelanders (where gender actually matters to stats), there is no effect on the game of gender. Sheets are for game information. Unless something has an impact on the actual running of the game, let the players decide.
It’s always nice to leave players a little room to customize their PC’s in a one shot. Maybe let there be a couple free floating skill points or something to go along with gender and name. That way you give a little more ownership of the character to the player.
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tomes
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Posts: 1,438
Currently Running: Dungeon World, hippie games, Fallout Shelter RPG hack
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Post by tomes on Oct 30, 2017 12:52:49 GMT -8
I like thematic character archetypes (even in games that don't have "playbooks" like PbtA games), where there is a one or two word description of the character sheet at a high level (The Medic, The Pilot, The Captain, The Soldier, ...) But other than that descriptor, I'd leave gender and name to the players. Is there any reason why you'd even need these ahead of time?
I mean, as a GM or scenario writer, I sometimes want to writeup the scenario with the character in mind, but that's what's great about those descriptors is that you can use them without having the need for names... "The Doctor will recognize the artifact that The Pilot is looking for."
Even things like "wife" or "husband" isn't necessary. "The Captain's is married to The Captive"; which can imply any genders. You can use things like "lover" or "partner" which is all gender neutral. These are things I've come to have an eye towards, just to ensure that more people can play who can take ownership of the characters regardless.
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tomes
Supporter
Hello madness
Posts: 1,438
Currently Running: Dungeon World, hippie games, Fallout Shelter RPG hack
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Post by tomes on Oct 30, 2017 12:57:26 GMT -8
An example of a strategy where you print a bunch of images, and have picture frames for the characters, for each player. (In this case the images look sort of like they are all of women, because the game is The Watch, where the players are almost entirely women and non-binary.) This was from Bryanna's game of The Watch at Big Bad Con 2017. Notice that an index card gets slide into the frame so you can customize the text / name, and then just place the image of your choosing in front of it.
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Post by kurtpotts on Nov 3, 2017 15:48:27 GMT -8
I have run games where the characters gender was relevant. Like only women can become a witch or something like that. In that case the players just played them as the gender on the sheet.
I've also done what Tomes suggested. Leave the name blank and just use archetypes.
It's really easy with Ewoks because the gender isn't obvious or relevant and the names don't have a gender.
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Post by SavageCheerleader on Nov 4, 2017 14:28:46 GMT -8
I was at a game once where one side of the sheet was the male version, and the other side was female. It's an option if the character sheet only uses one side of a page of paper. Otherwise you could leave the name and gender blank and provide pictures that fit the art box and a glue stick. THAT is what I might actually do...very cool idea.
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Post by ayslyn on Nov 4, 2017 16:01:30 GMT -8
Just to advocate for the Devil,
One challenge that I enjoy at cons is being handed a character that I know nothing about and having to play them, while still making them my own.
It's much like Traveler character creation. When you first sit down, you don't know what you're going to play. You get that handed to you (either as a "fully" fleshed out character created by the GM, or by the tables of Traveler).
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Post by Stu Venable on Nov 27, 2017 20:37:58 GMT -8
I'm thinking the best thing to do is leave name and gender blank. Let the players who pick them decide (and make them decide).
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Post by Probie Tim on Nov 28, 2017 6:16:57 GMT -8
For the con games I've run, I generally leave name and gender blank and let the player fill it in (except for one game where the characters were based on Snow White's Seven Dwarfs, in which case they were fixed).
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Post by akavidar on Nov 28, 2017 19:31:45 GMT -8
For the con games I've run, I generally leave name and gender blank and let the player fill it in (except for one game where the characters were based on Snow White's Seven Dwarfs, in which case they were fixed). Dude, you can't just go around nutering dwarfs, that's not cool!
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Post by ayslyn on Nov 28, 2017 19:47:55 GMT -8
Always spay or neuter your creatures of folklore....
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