Consolidated Gender Lock Discussion Thread

[TSSL]

@ChairmanMeow

Besides, from my experience, in games where you’re given a choice of gender for your character, it’s almost-always mostly cosmetic - what’s the point in giving me a choice of gender (or hair colour, body type, etc.) if it’s going to be even slightly relevant - so I’ve never particularly understood why anyone would get bothered by the lack of choice in this regard (it’s actually happened to me a few times where I’ve actually forgot what my character’s gender is while playing a game - it can be that irrelevant of a choice)

Generally, when people want a gender choice, it’s not because they want it to make a big difference in the game in the first place.

Anyway, I’ve said all this before, so…

@"TSSL"

There is always a point in allowing gender choice in any game that ever uses third person pronouns or any other gendered language to refer to the protagonist. Think of it this way: no matter what, someone is making a gender choice for the protagonist. The question then is whether the choice is in the hands of the author or the player… and if it’s not a major difference to the story, why should the author keep the choice from them?

I saw someone note that it’s quite similar to letting the player choose the main character’s name (I forget who said that or I’d credit the post)… which, yeah, I’m not seeing anybody argue that you shouldn’t include a name choice in a game unless it’s going to change the plot, so clearly it is possible for there to be choices that are reasonable to include without having such a big impact.

And I don’t see that having a set gender is going to make any character “less bland,” because just knowing someone’s gender doesn’t tell me anything about what someone’s like as a person. It does nothing to flesh them out.