Herein is the blog whereby Ardy elaborates.
Syp makes a handful of good points. The actual avatar you play is not a commentary on you as a person. Sure if you roleplay or imagine the life of your character, you will invest portions of your self into the character.
I have often argued that I am not a particularly good roleplayer, my basis of the arguement being that I more often than not tend to create characters that are for all intents and purposes "me". Sure they are different and may in fact represent different aspects of my personality, but I never play very far outside my own experience. Hearing people say "I felt really bad for X but my character is a bastard so he laughed instead" has always confused me.
Does your digital dolly imply that you're anything other than the person in the chair? Not at all. That doesn't mean you cannot try out other options and play.
In the end, my good friend Seph from CoX said it best.
Feh. We're playing a game in which every character does something we
can't. Last I checked, I don't shoot fire from my hands, nor am I
unkillable, nor can I fly. Why people get so hung up on different gender
when there's all of these other differences in chars is beyond me.
People shouldn't be hung up on the fact that there are only girl Witch Elves or male Orcs or that their friends may catch them playing a Dwarven laaaady.
Don't you think the soul of the player by your side is more important than digital skin?
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8 comments:
Well, I thought this was about overdue, in a way. There are a lot of insecure people in this world, and some of them play MMOs for sure. I play female characters quite often, and I've been told that I play better girls than boys on RP servers and in real life RPs even. My personal advice and criticism is this: Don't let what the other person is in real life cloud your judgement of them as a person, often the person is someone who is really cool. And besides, treating everyone with respect is a good thing as well. Well, that's my two-cents at least.
@ArchangelNuriko on CoX
Hear hear.
As far as I can tell, it's mostly the deeply insecure or deeply bigoted who care whether the avatar is like the button pusher. (And teenagers, but they fall under deeply insecure I suspect.)
... hot damn, I've been quoted. That about sums up my thoughts, too.
- Seph
Not me, guys that play as a girl are totally GAY!
You know I toyed with the idea of deleting the last comment as it adds nothing to the discussion.
But on the other hand, it is a good example of what the discussion is up against, so I'm leaving it for now.
Ardy my comments add flavor to any blog and you should be honored i posted... /deleted/... well i never...
I thought I had commented. I must have deleted it.
We all know that "the spritely, young pixie you are courting is, in fact, played by a 43 year old dockworker from Newark."
But, even as that PSA runs, it says, "If you're not bothered by the fact that, in reality, she has more body hair than you..."
Really, is that even a problem? It's not -you-, anyway. It's the -character-. It's like acting. I've played murderers before in plays as well as hookers. I can assure you, I'm neither.
Willing suspension of disbelief.
Guys that play as girls are gay?
Tell that to my girlfriend.
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