Dannic, The Prince of Cats

Posted by Dannic on January 1st, 2005 in Role Playing

I got curious one day after playing on my favorite MUD. I had just been disguised as a female elf. Its a nice little skill that Thieves can do at a certain level. I decided that it would be interested to know what kind of percentage of people played what gender.

I placed a poll on my main site, Online Role Playing Games to find out what gender they were and what genders they mainly played. The results were quite interesting.

• I am Male and I play Male 51.29% (179)
• I am Male and I play Female 8.31% (29)
• I am Female and I play Female 15.76% (55)
• I am Female and I play Male 1.72% (6)
• I am Male and play both 16.91% (59)
• I am Female and play both 6.02% (21)

Now, I do have to say that they weren’t exactly scientific. I honestly can’t tell you if people voted more than one time or not. And we can’t say for certain that some people just weren’t lying about what they play. Though since this is strictly voluntary and many people who do answer the poll I don’t have a clue as to who they are or where they come from I do think that this is a pretty good representative population.

Out of 349 votes on this survey, it did’t suprise me that the majority of the voters were male and played male characters. That is the biggest demographic of online games. What did suprise me what the large number of males who only play female characters. It only makes me wonder a little bit about why they would choose to do so.

I, for one, don’t have any problem playing both genders and have on occasion done so. Especially if I am hunting someone in particular. It can be quite interesting and sometimes downright entertaining to be the opposite sex. Especially if you are male and play female characters. Never seems to fail that there are guys out there looking for companionship.

In all honesty, I would have thought that the female playing male character demographic would have been larger. Guys don’t usually hit on other guys. This would seem to be a safe way to play.

How hard is it to play the opposite sex? I don’t think its all that difficult as far as rp goes. Though I’m sure there are a couple of people who could swear they could see through me the first time they met me.

No, I dont’ dress up at home. I’m a regular guy at home with the normal hetrosexual desires. I just find it fun an entertaining to actually act out a part when the opprotunity presents itself.

After all, that’s what Role Playing is all about isn’t it?

If you haven’t voted on the survey, I encourage you to do so. It only gets more accurate with more people voting. The Survey can be found here.