What's the SECRET to playing a good female character?

Being female is sexist.

>What's the SECRET to playing a good female character?

Not fucking overthinking it.

Practice.

The results of my endeavors have satisfactorily harmonized with the forecast I generated and acted upon in accordance to a detailed analysis of the situation at hand, and the desired goals that were stated by key stakeholders and interested parties at outset of the events that previously unfolded.

First post best post
The thread should be closed with it.

>The character is by default self-absorbed vain sorceress
It's not.
>The character by default doesn't have time, cash and/or interest in things like that, but player does this anyway
It is.

Context makes a difference

Have you never actually been around actual women, you dipshit?

Yes, you're right, getting your nails done is sexist. Let's break out the torches and pitchforks and burn down all the nail salons, their sexist ways have gone on for too long.

What the fuck is wrong with you?

Always make sure your midriff is exposed. Guys like seeing girls with cute tummies.

Sexuality and gender are major aspects of a person's, well, "personhood." It's ridiculous to try and erase that from a character because it often adds depth to who they are and why they do what they do.

Like, take Steve Rogers as an example; scrawny runt that nobody ever thought would amount to anything. Why? Because he was a weak man, someone women ignored and men mocked. He never allowed this to get to him, and in fact it only emboldened his belief in a person's spirit mattering more than their appearance, something that embodies many old American values that led to him truly embrace the role of "Captain America."

Or what about Tony Stark? He was the classic example of a neglected white boy in an old-money family; his father beat him on the regular for acting "unmanly" because he was little more than an heir, something Stark realized he needed to pump out and shape into a successor. Did this shape his personality? Hell yes it did, Tony became an alcoholic perfectionist who hid his emotions behind a big metal suit and sour humor, which along with the drinking (which he was normalized to due to Dad) were his coping mechanisms for "feeling", which he was beaten for.

By not making a single characteristic their whole personality.

Image a group where there are two female characters. The other one is a female rogue and the other one is a paladin. The rogue uses her feminine viles to seduce town guards, and becomes frustrated if her advances are buffered because clearly all men want her, and scream at the top of her lungs "I AM PROUD WOMON AM NOT MANSHIT! LOOK AT My TITTIES AND WORSHIP ME FOR BEING A WOMAN IN A PARTY WITH MEN IN IT! WOMON POWAH!"
The paladin on the other hand is a paladin who does paladin things while having certain feminine manners and feminine habits, but never goes around pointing at her vagina and telling that it means that she is a woman.

Real people are held to entirely different standards than fictional characters. If a real woman does something like getting her nails done, it's empowering. If a fictional woman does it, it's sexist because girls need role models.

You play a character that happens to be female, not a female that happens to be a character.

>youtube.com/watch?v=oECIKVaz5rc
The point I think you're missing is that female characters are very often played with that as their single defining character trait. It would be like if someone unironically used this song as the sole inspiration for a character and had to constantly remind everyone that he was a MAN, A MAN MAN MAN when it's entirely irrelevant just in case anyone fucking forgot.

Play a good character that also happens to be female.

It's just an example, lets say we're in genrico the fuckwits setting, blokes are taught to enjoy and watch chicken fights, so maybe Gardener the Druid will bet on some chicken fights in his downtime, Whilst femalmcvagina the Sorcerer might enjoy some horseriding which is considered to be a girly thing, societal norms are pretty arbitrary, and characters can easily be defined by how they do or don't conform to the expectations of their gender.

Translation: Brain roaches demand fabulous entertainment in the form of epic shitposting.

-4 strength

Proper hand care and hygiene isn't good in a role model?

Tangent time. My family has historically been one of stone masons and carvers. My father once worked with a man who, every morning before going into work, would moisturize his hands thoroughly, file his nails, and basically do everything to keep his hands "dainty" and in good shape, regardless of whether doing so could be perceived as masculine or feminine. When my dad asked why, the man pointed out that he worked with his hands for a living, and if they were seriously damaged, then he'd be out of a job and starving.

>The point I think you're missing is that female characters are very often played with that as their single defining character trait

It's why most superheroine movies fail, I think.

The Supergirl TV show worried me that that was going to be its fate after its pilot episode, but the feminism thing was largely toned down after that and Kara was given more of a personality outside of being a girl. It's since become a great show, one of my favorites on-air right now. It helps that Tyler Hoechlin is the best Superman since Christopher Reeve. More importantly, he's the best *Clark Kent* since Christopher Reeve.

Maybe because he smiles on occasion.

>The point I think you're missing is that female characters are very often played with that as their single defining character trait.

True, and it's a tragedy when it happens because it's often terribly written or downright embarrassing...

... But the thread was asking how you can play an effective female character, and the consensus people were reaching was "don't make them being a woman a big deal", which isn't true at all. The character being a woman *should* play a big role in who they are, what they are and why they do what they do, but it should complement the rest of them rather than overpower it.

A common example is Ripley from Alien; she's a person that happens to be a woman. Was she a solid character? Sure. Was she a well-written character with depth? Ehhhhhh. Ripley as a character only really came into her own in Aliens, where Ripley being a woman *did* play a huge role, particularly that of a mother, and Ripley fighting the Alien Queen to defend their "children" became one of the iconic symbols of classic sci-fi for much of that reason.

>Maybe because he smiles on occasion.

Careful, if you say that DC might hear you and decide he needs to go. The big blue boy scout can't be a nice guy who cares.

>a weak man

That's not how weak men behave, though. There's nothing virtuous about small men. Being a non-entity in other people's eyes doesn't make you sensitive toward the needs of those less fortunate; it makes you bitter, fucked-up, and entitled. In real live Steve would be the bully to end all bullies with a Napoleon complex that he could never outgrow.

The difference is that Ripley doing womanly things was a natural extension of the situation, rather than an artifice that only existed to scream LOOK AT HOW EMPOWERED THIS WOMAN IS.

That's what people are saying, being a woman can be an important character trait, but it's a character trait that roughly 50% of the human population has in common. It's not special and nobody really cares. If you play the character well it'll come naturally, you don't need to proclaim it from the rooftops.

Gender generally is a characteristic used to build more detailed and defining characteristics through the relation of the gender to the environment, such as pre-conceived views of masculinity and the place in society it has. If gender alone was the characteristic they were going for then the character would do nothing but get their dicks and tits out and flap their arms.

Wasn't Ripley written as a man, though?

She was written as a man in Alien, she was written as a woman in Aliens.

You're kind of right. Every character in Alien, the entire cast, were written as gender neutral. So Ripley wasn't written as a man or a woman, she was just written as a character.

Implying that everyone should take care of their nails would be SUPER triggering to people who care about that shit.

Which leads into a catch-22: if you write a character who you actually do think is a role model, people will get mad that you're being narrow-minded and presenting only a single way to live. If you write a character who's not so admirable and has traits you hate or have mixed feelings about, people will either think you're promoting that character as a role model or complain that you're not writing good role models.

Maybe for the original, but then it didn't really matter. All the characters in Alien can be summed up as:
-SPACE TRUCKER CAPTAIN
-SENSIBLE SPACE TRUCKER,
-SNARKY SPACE TRUCKERS #1 and 2 -WHINY SPACE TRUCKER
-THE ONE WHO DIES FIRST
-SMART SPACE TRUCKER (robot)

It was not a complex character piece.

Play just like a male, but ignore logic and personal responsibility. Perfect female perspective

>There's nothing wrong with having a female character and, for example, having her go get her nails done during downtime activity.

There's nothing wrong with playing a male character and, for example, having him go get his nails done during downtime activity.

That is correct.

See >My father once worked with a man who, every morning before going into work, would moisturize his hands thoroughly, file his nails, and basically do everything to keep his hands "dainty" and in good shape, regardless of whether doing so could be perceived as masculine or feminine. When my dad asked why, the man pointed out that he worked with his hands for a living, and if they were seriously damaged, then he'd be out of a job and starving.

Fun thing about Alien that is lost on modern audiences: the characters are killed off in almost exactly the reverse order of how well-known and popular their actors were at the time of release.

I.e., the reaction was supposed to be "Holy shit, they shelled out all that money to get John Hurt, just to kill him off first? Who the Hell is gonna make it through this, then?"

Similar thing happened in The Thing, in that none of the Things in the movie were Things in the original short story "Who Goes There?"

>It would be like if someone unironically used this song as the sole inspiration for a character and had to constantly remind everyone that he was a MAN, A MAN MAN MAN when it's entirely irrelevant just in case anyone fucking forgot.
So your average barbarian and/or dwarf player

True, but it is seen as a more traditionally feminine thing to do; the point was to say that there's nothing wrong with making a female character act feminine as long as that is not the entire point of her character.

Being a good roleplayer.

>the point was to say that there's nothing wrong with making a female character act feminine as long as that is not the entire point of her character.
Given that most characters are stereotypes why is it a problem to have a female character that's doing feminine stuff all time?

What, like Steven Seagal in Executive Decision?

Seems unnecessary unless you also list the hygiene habits of your male characters too.

>There's nothing wrong with playing a male character and, for example, having him go get his nails done during downtime activity.
Truth.
Hell, every couple of months, I get a manicure, because my nails start getting funky and I allow a professional to deal with it for me.
I drop an extra couple bucks on a hand massage, too, shit is cash money.

to be fair to user, it's not really sexist, but it doesn't help the pigeon hole pop culture puts women in and tells women how to act.
This user ironically encourages female characters and hilariously goes two steps back by putting her in a female stereotype.

The secret to a good female character is to just make a good character. Some funny comic book writers use the "sexy lamp test" on their female characters. The test goes: If your female character can easily be replaced by a sexy lamp and not affect the story then you made a bad female character.

>this situation produces this result 100% of the time in all people

Yeah, I used to bite my nails a lot. Looked terrible and resulted in cracked nails. Fuck that bullshit, I'd rather my nails look nice these days.

>Given that most characters are stereotypes

Dunno who you roleplay with, but I almost never play stereotypes, nor run into people who are playing them.

My next planned character is going to be a druid that deliberately inverts druidic stereotypes, in fact. He's spent years in the wild learning about nature from a druid circle and has come to the conclusion that nature is fucking terrifying. Druid by way of Doctor McCoy, basically.

>"Nature is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence!"

>hygiene habits
Those are wiping your ass and washing your hands. Getting your nails done is a leisure trip that involves both time and money.

I will with my aforementioned druid.

>"You boiled that water, right? No? My Gods, man, are you trying to get us all killed?!"

/thread

Either way its unnecessary to go into detail about a character's grooming.

It's unnecessary to go into detail about a character's favorite food, but I do that, too.

Depends on the character. The Barbarian Warrior who cares for little but the next glorious battle? Yeah, likely so.

The fashion obsessed, decadent privateer? That I can see it. But then, I've seen that character use Companion to the Lonely via 'Obsessing over the group's fashion/makeup for a full hour' rather than it's usual sex version.

You're doing that doublethink where feminine things are somehow simultaneously empowering and enslaving women like some bizarre social justice version of Schrodinger's Cat.

I like to get the small things about a character written down.
It adds a bit of flavor, and can help solidiot more important details. For example, my cleric has a bit of a sweet tooth and enjoys a warm, dry day.

Details like that make the character, and often enhance rp unless it is detracting from something more important.

Make her interesting, not overly sexualized, and that doesn't need to remind everyone that she's female every 5 seconds

It's not any more or less necessary than describing any given downtime activity that doesn't have a mechanical effect.

You have no idea how much the typical western woman spends on her physical appearance, do you?

This makes me consider something in an upcoming game. We decided to run with a party of "badguys" to piss off our GM who is big on everyone being hero-mcnoblebright and gets pissy if your character picture even LOOKS sorta evil, no one in the party is evil but we're bringing a half orc, a red dragonborn, and I'm running a drow paladin of Eilistraee yeah i know it's snowflake the party but it's worth it and we thought the idea of the heroes being "monsters' could be fun.

The problem i have is our fourth member decided to make a female drow monk and has already declared he's going to order me around and i have to do everything "she" says because male drow are subservient and have to be bitchbois.

>female drow monk
Just tell her to fuck off every time, you went to the surface to avoid that sort of shit.

I hope that something you consider here is that is a terrible one-note character that your fourth member is making.

Very basic outline, but I remember someone once said something along the lines of "make a male character, develop their personality/traits/flaws/etc and once you have all that, change them female at the last minute."

playing her as a human being

>murdering nature's smallest lifeforms
you are no druid

the other side of the coin are other faggots spouting that you're not playing the female character right at the first possible opportunity to get some attention out of it.

character first, female second, but don't forget female if it feels relivent

>so after impregnating queen and her daughter, the character was chased out of the kingdom with the entire army-

oh trust me it's gonna start shit since he's sort of our "that guy" just last night we have a "get the FUCK out" moment because we killed the fire elementals keeping what amounts to a magic blast furnace of primal flame in check and also we just alerted the Bigbad and all his crew we were there , our barbarian and my cleric grab the maguffin we were there to get and book it, our ranger is covering the door, and he's... on the other side of the room wanting to loot the guy we killed and refused to move till he was sure he got everything
"you don't have time"
"Okay i drag the whole body with me!"

Fuck one of the reasons my upcoming character decided to BECOME a paladin was because he was sorta adopted by a human adveturer (think the orc baby situation with the answer: Fuck you, i'll raise him and prove how awesome good is!) and saw that "hey no one is trying to sacrifice me to a giant spider? This is pretty sweet!" with a dash of "slav drow"

#NotAllManlets

Get over yourself.

The more general rules for costumed superheroines on the screen is that you have to have tits, plus one other secondary sexual characteristic, plus hair.

So in pic related (the source for OP's image), you have Sandra Bullock as Iron Man. She's wearing power armor with tits (check), and tight power armor will always have Infinity-style reveal of her butt (check). To be truly Hollywood-ready, she needs a ponytail to be unrealistically sticking out the back of her helmet. Failing that, the bangs that the artist was careful to add will be adequate.

Black Widow follows the script more carefully: she has tight ass-revealing pants, tits (bonus since she unzips to show cleavage), and truly epic hair. Bravo. Underworld's super-vampire did this, as did many of the women of X-Men. Since you're not showing skin you can claim you're just being "tactical".

Amber Heard as "Thora" has tits, hair, and exposed legs. Also well done. Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman follows exactly the same path to greatness, as did Linda Carter. Melissa Benoist's Supergirl is dressed the same way.

Alison Brie's hair, tits, and exposed midriff check all three boxes. Well done. The midriff reveal is the least common. T'Pol in Star Trek comes to mind, and... um... It's not that common. But nice when it happens.

Revealing more than that is TOTALLY sexist, unless you can convince critics that you're making fun of that sort of thing. Sucker Punch was a little to obviously fap-fuel. Watchmen had it both ways. Silken Spectre wore fetish clothes because it's totally making a statement about how bad that is, but then you also had Silhouette displaying an unconventional third sex characteristic: hair (check), tits (check), and lesbian (nice!). With Kick Ass, the third characteristic was "underage school girl" which is supposed to be ok because parody.

Next up: shows/movies that do it WRONG according to Hollywood rules.

Could still work. Just ask Japan for tips.

So Henry VIII?

Getting laid first and getting in an actual healthy relationship so you can claim you actually know something about women?

It's not hard or anything, some of the ugliest guys I know have steady girlfriends.

>implying exposed midriffs aren't totally sexist
Keep up with the times you sexist shitlord

...

The biggest rules are keep it consistent and don't over think it. You want to be a slut than do so from the start. Don't go on thinking "I'm going too far/not far enough with 'x' so I need to change how I act". Doing this makes you act like you're bipolar.

Last thing I got to say is ask less what you think is right and ask more what you feel is right.

Henry the eight was a terrible character.

-was what I would say if he wasn't actually pretty solid. Had balls of solid steel, and had about as much potence as a guy with balls of solid steel.

Powerful, yet tragically flawed. Unable to accept that his dick might have been the problem, he threw an entire nation into disarray because of it. But it wasn't just because of his slighted masculinity, it was because England might have fallen into a succession crisis if he didn't beget an heir.

It wasn't really about a manly man being manly, it was a king trying to desperately tell people he really was manly.

I don't think it's fair to say that Henry the Eight was a one note character.

>T'Pol in Star Trek comes to mind

As I recall, that was only for two episodes, which took place in the Mirror Universe, where feminine clothing has always been revealing. So was Kirk's in the original "Mirror, Mirror".

I don't think he was a one note character, but he's a good example of a character that constantly felt the need to remind people that he was a man.

I've given this advice before, but generally speaking, if you're having trouble playing/writing women, try these:
1. Men are more likely than women to charge into a problem head-on; women are more likely to take a step back and figure it out first. In a practical sense, I've usually seen this as:
>Woman: I need to unscrew this bolt. I'll get a crescent wrench.
>Man: I need to unscrew this bolt. I'll see if I can get it with my fingers. No? I'll get a crescent wrench.
2. Women tend to use more description when they talk than men.
>Man: I went to the store to get eggs.
>Woman: I was out of eggs, so I went to the store down the street to get more.
3. Women aren't necessarily more emotional than men, but they tend to be more open with their emotions. This is mostly a societal thing, though.

None of this is set in stone, of course. It's more that if you're playing a female character and you think "this feels like a man with tits", these are some things to try. If you're playing a female character and it's going fine, then don't fix what ain't broke.

OK, so to recap: a proper Hollywood female superhero has to have tits, hair, and one other sexual characteristic.

Any more and she's an example of sexism and is totally UNACCEPTABLE. Unless you can successfully invoke the sexism escape clause of saying that you're just parodying everyone else's sexism and so really you're more feminist-ly holy than thou. (Another great example was the new Supergirl show. She wears a super-skimpy outfit, which would normally be sexist fap-bait... but she complains about how sexist it is and rejects it in favor of her normal costume which is totally not sexist. Clause invoked (and pic related)

OK, now let's talk about Superheroines who are failures under these Hollywood rules.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer started well. Nice hair, and USUALLY showed some other sexy feature like her legs. But where are the tits? Clearly not going to work.

Zoey Washburn: For a show that knows how to do a real superheroine (Inara, who follows all the rules), how did they screw this up? Zoey is tough, decisive, intelligent, compassionate, which is bad enough, but apart from a few nice scenes, we see NO tits, legs, or anything else? Where's the characterization? Then she goes and gets married, to a MAN, and even talks about having children with him. She's not even tempted by other men. So the activists hate the gun-toting little fascist, too.

The Bride (Kill Bill): Also a failure. The only sexy reveal you get is her feet. Her hair is usually functional rather than stylish and sexy. What the hell is wrong with people?

Sarah Conner (Terminator II): Again, you had hair but that's it. She might as well be Zoey Washburn. At least the original Star Wars trilogy gave us Slave Leia after waiting three movies for her to wear something that wasn't a uniform or dress. Again no characterization, and by characterization I of course mean costume.

So now you know the three simple rules to do a female superhero. You're welcome

Good point. OK, I'm adding a corollary to my Superhero rule: villains (or heroes disguised as villains) get an extra 1-2 sexy features to their costumes as a bonus.

So TOS gave us miniskirts (hell, the late 60's gave us miniskirts). But in the mirror universe, Uhura had to wear a sexy miniskirt as usual, PLUS an exposed midriff because she's sexy. (Also the feminism moment of her holding off Creepy Sulu with a knife).

TNG and Voyager repeatedly tried to use skin-tight bodysuits as sexy. IMO bodysuits are the yoga pants of the last generation: officially sexy but not all that hot when you get down to it. YMMV.

Enterprise does give us nekkid bathgel rubdowns as part of their "decontamination" routine. So they're forgiven. I agree though that usually their uniformed actresses are too covered up to be considered True Hollywood Superheroines. I'm surprised they weren't picketed.

>Want to be a Drow Cleric in 5e but my autism would have to make it female

>Inara
Blech!

>autism
It's practically a setting mandate

Treat them like a person and not a fetishized sex object.

"I run and my tits bounce allllll over" is inappropriate.

"I run and try to ensure my comrades make it back safely" is appropriate for an adventurer.

If you get hit don't ask if your tits deflect the blow. Don't try to seduce everything with a pulse. (Unless you are a bard /s)

Make a decent backstory, with a decent motivations for doing what you are doing and roleplay accordingly.

What?!? After all the work Hollywood does to create good characterization for its characters? And by characterization I still mean costumes?

Shit, man, you might as well be saying . That's just way too easy, and not Hollywood (or washington DC) friendly.

I played a successful female bard for the past 7 months.

- I put my worst rolls in str and con (8 and 10, respectively) because I wanted to play a regular girl who was kinda nerdy (int 14, wis 14 and cha 18). It's not required, but she was a lore bard, not a barbarian.

- She bathed. This was the most important trait, in my opinion. She always tried to take baths, to be clean, etc. Not to be prettier, just to be clean. Even when we were lost in a glacier, she bathed inside Leomund's Hut.

- She changed her outfit according to the situation. It gave me advantage in persuasion rolls in some situations.

- She cared for the people in the group obviously, with affection. Everybody cared about our companions, but she always *told them* that she cared and that they should be careful. Her bond was related to that.

- She never tried to beat someone with her (low) strength. She always tried to outsmart them (which made "bard" and excellent choice). Also, she was the only person who researched the enemies' abilities if we knew we'd find them.

- She talked a lot (because I talk a lot), and my friends, with their fair share of sexism, said that this was a good trait to keep.

- She was disgusted by her companions implying she fucked every guy she was friendly with.

Otherwise she was a regular adventurer. Killed monsters, healed party members, tricked bandits.

I can't tell if this is bait or if user is being serious

Why would this be a bait?

But dude woman are exactly the same as men but with boobies what you think they tend to have different thoughts and behaviours what are you some kind of fucking sexist?

women are people too, virgin-kun

Because they do. Men and women behave differently.

Men tend to hide their feelings, women not so much, for example.

Also:
>but dude bards are exactly the same as wizards but with lutes why do you think they tend to have different thoughts and behaviours what are you some kind of fucking classist