For FFXIV I just have the one male character, and being male myself it's pretty standard.
I've RPd in the past on female characters though - I began it partly because I was already on an RP realm and RPing, but if I wanted another character of the same race I already had a male of, I'd make the character female for some greater visual disparity, different animations etc. I'd like to think any of my characters could work well enough as either a male or female, they still have an identity that better suits one or the other.
On that note, I've never felt like there's a knack to playing a man or a woman and personally I don't think it need be anything complex. The fact that my male characters are male is no more relevant to who they are than it is to my female characters being female.Â
As for the risk of lashback you might get for being opposite to what you are in-game, if you think about it, there's just no getting around the fact that some people are just going to assume, which is fine. But for the sake of a good story it doesn't matter if the author is male or female, and so it shouldn't really matter who's behind the character.
This isn't as much of an issue if you don't get involved in romance or ERP, unless you don't mind. You could either be up front about it all the way and just tell people, or just tell no-one. Personally I'm in favour of the latter; the less people know about you OOCly, the more they know you as your character and not a player.
I've RPd in the past on female characters though - I began it partly because I was already on an RP realm and RPing, but if I wanted another character of the same race I already had a male of, I'd make the character female for some greater visual disparity, different animations etc. I'd like to think any of my characters could work well enough as either a male or female, they still have an identity that better suits one or the other.
On that note, I've never felt like there's a knack to playing a man or a woman and personally I don't think it need be anything complex. The fact that my male characters are male is no more relevant to who they are than it is to my female characters being female.Â
As for the risk of lashback you might get for being opposite to what you are in-game, if you think about it, there's just no getting around the fact that some people are just going to assume, which is fine. But for the sake of a good story it doesn't matter if the author is male or female, and so it shouldn't really matter who's behind the character.
This isn't as much of an issue if you don't get involved in romance or ERP, unless you don't mind. You could either be up front about it all the way and just tell people, or just tell no-one. Personally I'm in favour of the latter; the less people know about you OOCly, the more they know you as your character and not a player.
