How to roleplay across gender in D&D 

"Breasting Boobily Around the Dungeon" is the title of my upcoming Bardcore album.

“Surprise, it’s me! Ginny Di! Professional woman!” “Wait… you guys are getting paid?”

20% being a woman 80% having memorized StardewWiki Never felt so understood in my life

As I got used to playing a sorceress as a male IRL: “She’s a witch! Burn her! … wait, I’m a witch. Bad precedent, never mind”

The hidden third Dungeon Dude!

"Women are just people, I'm not but many women are." 🤣🤣🤣

Let’s be clear. If you meet a blacksmith in my game, it is not likely a man or a woman, but it almost always a dwarf.

"Noblewoman who's an adventurer because she's not going to inherit and wants to make her own fortune" is a very solid motivation I hadn't really considered, especially considering how much of a solid standby that motivation has always been for younger sons of noble families to go adventuring for the exact same reason. There's also an added layer of complexity in that as a noblewoman, she might have a different path that she's explicitly rejecting (marrying a nobleman and making sure her children inherit her husband's wealth/lands), whereas the younger noble son is presumably adventuring because he doesn't *have* other options and needs to figure out a way to independently support himself. In history the oldest son was the heir, the next son joined the church (to keep him safe, with the understanding that the local bishop could get him out of his duties if his oldest brother died and he needed to inherit), but the remaining sons were on their own, often doing things like trying to become a knight-errant (which is basically the real-world equivalent to the adventurer).

7:57 "When in doubt, ignore gender" - yep, I do that every day as a member of the alphabet mafia's agender division. Cancelled my gender subscription years ago, but it's hard to stop the spam mail they send to get me to re-sub to the email listserv.

“Greetings! I’m Monty Martin!” 🧔🏻‍♂️ “And I’m Kelly McLaughlin-” 👨🏼‍🦰 “-and I’m Jimmy. Jimmy Dean” 🧔🏼‍♀️

"Always carry a sword ... for lady problems," is some of the best advice (the rest is great, too)! I do need to learn more about ... gender theory.

Ah, playing with gender. Be careful with that! It can sometimes open up a can of worms you weren't expecting! The number of people who went from "I just think changelings are neat" to "oh, shit. I'm actually non-binary" is very interesting.

What I've learned from this video: -all women's purchases at the hardware store are determined only by the fact that they are women -women have typing similar to pokemon -some women do speak for their entire gender but they have to fill out the form first -some people in my d&d game might ALREADY BE woman (spooky) I now know everything I need to about playing women in D&D, thanks Ginny/Jimmy!

As a dm and a frequent cross gender player the tip I can give is not the pitch of your voice, but tone. Match the tone of the chracter. I'm often roleplaying with myself for my players and the king speaks stern and to the point and the cortier speaks intelligenly and softly. You don't need a different voice ever

I used to be considered the "weird guy" because as a male I often played female characters because I always liked characters like Valeria or Red Sonja. I also grew up on 80's anime, so a strong heroines always appealed to me. It took a long time before my original group started to branch out.

I write a fuckload of characters as I am often struck by random urges of narrative, but making a sailor storm sorcerer was the first time a character came to me as female. It was a little uncomfy at first, as I had onlt played male characters before, but once I settled into it and found her personality it was a blast! She has a voice like Ms. Frizzle and loves explosions.

Finally, someone's talking about the damn electric toothbrushes

Only tangentially on topic, waaaay back in 2nd edition D&D, gender transformations were on the wild magic surge table. My male wizard (because there were no sorcerers at this time, so Wild Mage was a flavor of wizard) got turned into a woman. This particular group was 50/50 split between men and women. Normally, it wasn't a deal, but there were times when my character was forced into social situations that required them to perform female. The female players at the table loved coaching my character in how to pull it off.

The reveal that Jimmy Dean was actually Ginny Di was SHOCKING to say the least. What a completely unexpected plot twist! I was utterly bewildered! I don't even know if I've recovered, I think I'm still processing it.

"problem comes in when sexy isnt just an option. Its the only option" Damn I fully agree and this is applicable to all types of media but I never heard somebody say it so clearly before

Actually, I AM a threat to the men at my table.

Oh hey it's Monty from dungeon dudes

A character I've been dying to play is a male cleric with the soldier background from being a combat medic. Fully qualified to patch you up on top of making those same holes in the first place.

Playing a female blacksmith is how I figured out I'm trans 😂

Sexy Paladin Rights is also a great band name 😂

ginny trailing of describing big sweaty men and gentle loving women truly is an iconic...or Biconic if you will

Your last tip about asking players for what characters in media they like is genius. Thank you!

I played my first female D&D character in the early 90s, nearly 30 years before I came out as gender fluid trans femme. My DM had me play the NPC that my main character was married to, and a couple of years later played the daughter of those original two characters. More recently, when I was drawing one of my female characters, a Tiefling Sorceress named Helena Morgana, I was going to draw her in the stereotypical slim with big boobs style with a cloak to hide her horns and it was almost like she was telling me, "No, I don't look like that, I'm fat and curvy, and I don't hide my horns with a cloak." That might have been the moment that finally cracked my egg. When it comes to D&D minis. My late wife almost exclusively played dwarves and she went with the Tolkien idea that dwarven women all had beards, so when she got male dwarf minis when she bought minis of her characters even though she was playing female characters.

“Hey fellow ✨dudes✨”

"I only think about that at the hardware store" Had me spitting out my drink, lol.

who knew "old and flirtatious, the ideal combination" was the pick-me-up I needed today ❤

I love that in this TTRPG themed book series I'm reading, a big strong muscle dude book character is playing a female gnome artificer TTRPG character. I love the representation of a player role playing across gender. (And also challenging the big muscle dude stereotype, as he is very intelligent and thoughtful. Great character, I love him.)

I've been playing a female character in a campaign for about 4 years now. Suki's primary character trait is that she's the last bastion of common sense in a party of chaotic, low wisdom, morally grey fucks, and is routinely a hair's breadth from snapping and killing the lot of them. It's a lot of fun.

You’ve never seen a barbarian this unarmored 🤣 you’re fantastic Ginny, I mean Jimmy.

I think this might be your best video. Every joke was a 10/10 and there were so many while still staying on message in a way that thoughtfully explored the topic. Thanks for sharing. I’ve been doing some reading around for an upcoming character - a Lakshu (d&d 2e spelljammer race I’m planning to adapt into a 5e variant human character) but I’m trying to make sure I find a thoughtful take rather than artlessly throwing all the warrior-woman tropes at the wall and seeing what sticks. This video helped me look back on my ideas so far in a new way.

5:32 Normalize women carrying around medieval weaponry for safety. Badass.

You managed to create one of the most positive videos I've ever seen addressing gender stereotypes. I laughed harder than in a long time but none of the jokes were at the expense of a gender.

Hero forge, the amazing solution to a lack of unique female character designs

I have learned that women are indeed real and are in fact not mythical creatures. Thank you Ginny for informing me.

Having been in this hobby for upwards of thirty years, I have seen a lot of cross-gender roleplaying, and have on occasion played a character of a different gender, sometimes for years at a time. One of my earliest experiences was when I was with a very short lived group, where one male player was playing a female fighter-cleric (this was way back in 2E). The gaming group fell apart due to conflict over character alignment (half the party was chaotic evil, and they attacked the half the party that wasn't), but I still remember something that the player of the female fighter-cleric said before the massive intraparty feud, namely that he was worried about what might happen in roleplaying, and said he should probably declare the female fighter-cleric celibate to forestall anything he didn't want to happen in the game. (This was long before the introduction of RPG safety tools. Nowadays the use of safety tools would hopefully prevent anything unwanted happening in the game, but this was 1992, and gaming culture was not very enlightened then). As a current DM and player, I try not to indulge in stereotyping, but subconscious stereotypes are hard to identify. For example, I could have made the Dwarven blacksmith who made my PCs' magic plate armor female, an older woman whose sons and daughters help her tend the forge. But I didn't think of it, probably due to a subconscious bias. This was especially the case since the blacksmith has become a recurring character, and I realize now, after watching the video, that I have been allowing subconscious biases to determine which NPCs get which gender. Its too late to do this with the Dwarven blacksmith my PCs patronize, but I going forward I will be more conscious of this. As I mentioned, I do play characters of a different gender. In order not to sexualize a female character, I try to determine what motivates the character. A PC I have been playing for a few years now has the Courtier background from the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. I decided that she grew up in Baldur's Gate, to a courtier of a Patriar family. She had class divides in Baldur's Gate thrust into her face, saw how her mother was demeaned by it, and resented it. She went off to adventure in hopes of proving her worth, either by being bestowed with a noble title of her own, or becoming wealthy enough to indulge in the luxuries she saw the Patriar children got that she didn't get. She is more Sansa Stark than Katniss Everdeen, albeit from a different perspective on the "upstairs/downstairs" dynamic. Anyway, these are just some thoughts I had after watching the video. Thanks for making it.

That man's Ginny Di costume is FLAWLESS

Your mansona bears a striking resemblance to Eminem

Been playing a female eladrin barbarian in an isekai-style DnD campaign for the past several months. In the real world, she's a musician whose band just went through a messy breakup and now her relationship with her girlfriend is on the rocks. At first I was nervous of playing a character of the opposite gender, but it's honestly been a great experience so far, and I can't wait to see where the campaign goes.

I was just thinking about the whole voice thing today while watching the latest episode of Fantasy High and noticing how Brennan actually pitches his voice down slightly when roleplaying many NPCs who are women and teenage girls. It's so much more effective to focus on the characteristics of the character's voice and do them from the starting point of your natural voice, rather than try to replicate how they would literally sound.

Ginny, help! I randomly rolled an NPC's gender and got a Nat 20 and now THEY have become unstoppable and are consuming everything in THEIR path. Oh god, now THEY'RE tpk-ing the party!

This script is hilarious. Ginny, your videos are always funny and charming, but this is the best one yet. 😂

I play a female wizard in the campaign of a friend, IRL I am a dude. Most of the times, the fact that my character is a woman, is completely looked over, not in a bad way I think, but rather indicating to me that I am not overdoing the female roleplay. The most significant of which is the voice I use for her, which is softer, more relaxed, and flowy than my actual beefy man voice. Sure, the pitch is slightly higher, but not the over the top version I have seen before, and despise. I have been playing this character close to 3 years now and I absolutely love her, and I still remember getting my first ideas for her. And from the start she was a woman, not because I wanted to create a female character. But rather because it naturally came from everything else I already had. She is a character which just happens to be female. Thank you for the amazing videos as always Ginny, keep rocking on.

I love that idea of asking what representations they have seen in media that inspires them or they admire. As you described, it's a good way to figure out characteristics to consider and may open us up to learning about new forms of representation we have not seen before.

Strong bi energy from this one

It's amazing to see how comfortable you have become in your sense of humor over these years. I'm over here cracking up over your jokes, and those are just the cherry on top of that edicational cake xD

As an afab person, i always had the habit of roleplaying ONLY men. For some reason it made me happier, i could connect with the character better if they were male or male presenting. Turns out, i was non binary all along! Now i identify as genderfluid and i'm not seeking to transition, so it's HARD for people to treat me like a dude. That's why roleplaying men has become almost a safe space for me, that one time of the week when i can just be a dude carefree

"You've never seen a Barbarian this unarmoured." Laughs in Unarmoured Defense.

How did you know I'm starting a new campaign this saturday playing a male character (me being a woman) and needed exactly this video?! WOw...

100% support starting with the character and *then* deciding the gender! As an experiment, I made a rule for my most recent novella that I would default to female for all characters. If I made a character male, there would have to be a specific reason for it. For example, I needed a character that was going to be a good-natured, naïve noble whose kindness, while genuine, causes people to underestimate them. I ultimately decided that it would be more interesting for a male character, because the Naïve Noble Lady is a stereotype that people find annoying, and I needed this person to be sympathetic with very little screen time. In another case, I wanted a male-female platonic power duo of one physically adept, jaded, and boots-on-the-ground person with one cool, manipulative noble. On the one hand, I hate the Cool Manipulative Older (usually Childless) Woman, whereas Jaded Combat Woman and Noble Intellectual Man both feel fresh and fun to me (and allows the reader to focus on the characters with fewer preconceived perceptions). Bottom line is that figuring out *who* you need to fit into a slot first can help you dodge stereotypes, and get your population closer to a 50/50 population split

Very well put together. Some of the best characters I, as a man who is also male and masculine, have played have been female, and they run the gamut from tomboy to girly girl, from calculating to nurturing, and everything in between, and they've been a blast to play.

A character concept I playing with is a former priestess of Lloth (now a hexblade warlock) on a quest for redemption. Gender roles do play into that character, but they are Drow gender roles.

I (M28) played a teenage halfling girl whose soul was trapped in a 7 ft tall warforged body by an artificer lich hundreds of years before the start of the campaign, only "reactivated" by the other players upon finding the robot body. I had my growth spurt very early as a kid (I was 6 feet tall in middle school), so it was fun playing a younger character not used to suddenly having a much larger body! By focusing on the parts of the character I related to, even despite our gender differences, I was really effectively able to get into the role.

Jimmy Dean, Sausage King! I am a guy who started playing in 2021 and my first character was Lyra, half-elf fighter! She was awesome! I played online voice sessions in a campaign for about a year. I didn't put on a "female voice" to roleplay for her, but I did describe her actions and her dialogue, kind of like an author writing about a book character's actions in the story.

im here bc i am in a group of just men, and i, a person who may or may not be trans, wanted to play a woman to give it a go… swear im cis tho

I really appreciate both the grace and wit in which you handled what could have been considered a touchy subject. Very well done video, Kudos!

I played the twin sister of one of female players in our campaign. Every so often we would start up faux arguments over who borrowed who's favorited mail hauberk or some such sibling rivalry issues My "sister "was a druid and my character was a ranger.

I made a female character cuz I was playing with all guys who were playing male characters. Good to have a nice mix. It's a role playing game. Don't take it too seriously.

Awesome scripting/performance, love the little comedy asides like "only think that in the hardware store" etc. You play those quick-snap snarks so well! I had to pause the vid a couple times it was so funny. Also love the interrupting side characters that show up out of order/context sometimes. It's so Python. I know that's a lot of work/planning/editing to do, but it really adds to the show! Stock characters from the supporting feature invading the main film (a la "The Meaning of Life" and "Flying Circus") is a labor, but it's soooo effective at resetting the audience/theatrical mindset just when you want to, or in a similar way that ventroliquist puppets can get away with saying stuff that a straight public speaker never could. "Nina Conti Standup : Talk to the Hand Full Show" on Anna channel. Monkey and others can be who she can never be, at least for brief moments (and only for those moments, hence my other comment against inflicting cross-gender characters on ttrpgs) but in a few minutes video like you do, it is GOLDEN. BTW: Congratulations on hitting 666k subscribers! It's the ominous milestone for anyone who can laugh at superstition.

Omg the point about female minis is spot on - I remember being genuinely embarrassed when trying to find minis for some first time players

The reveal at 0:27 blew my mind!!!

roleplaying across gender is how i realized i was a trans woman lmfao

Ginny, you're the only RU-vid channel whose in-video ads I actually watch because I want to see how creative you get with them. Keep up the excellent work. (And, you know, with the non-ad stuff, too. :)

I think your advice is 100% right on. Also, the amount of thought and work you put into your in-video ads always floors me. I wish you'd been in my group projects when I was in school.

Long-time lurker, first-time commenter: I can't decide if this video is more helpful or more hilarious. Really well-done.

I love roleplaying female characters in my games. My favourite PCs that I’ve played have been women. My favourite is my Thri-kreen who was disguised as a female elf, her name was Elytra and I based her personality and design on Dominique Jackson’s character Elektra from the Tv show POSE. I feel as though I played her very respectfully, and the other players and DM enjoyed my portrayal of her. This is a great video, thank you 😊

Another great ad bit :D Also, omg they have a service owlbear! I hecking love that. Gonna have to check that kickstarter out.

Okay, I hit 'LIKE' as soon as you said "the rest is having the Stardew Valley wiki memorized"! Are we related?!?! 😂 Anyway, I had a long and tedious day, and your video was a nice reward for me (along with my hot chocolate, which I almost spat out a few times, especially at the 'sausage heir' joke)! 😅 Thanks Jimmy/Ginny! 🤗

D&D was how I discovered I was Agendered. I was talking with my therapist about character creation in D&D and how gender is one of the last choices I make "because it doesn't matter" when making my characters goals, passions, fears, and history. And he was like, "Gender doesn't matter?" And that started a whole spiral. Lol

I normally laugh a little during your videos but this made me laugh a lot. Excellent script well delivered! Thanks for the mid day smile, needed that.

As soon as minis came up I thought of Lyla's video, its so cool to see her get a shout out, she does amazing and grounded mini painting videos with such a visually interesting style

My favorite character was a cleric named Gary. I modeled his accent after that detective from Knives Out, and he was a massive Firbolg. It was a lot of fun!

I roleplayed a sentient telepathic floating crystal, raging female goblin girl (and a Warhammer dwarf slayer), a cyborg that was literally Motoko Kusanagi, a freed NPC quest giver and an old cat obsessed crone before, never an experienced woman tho. Your vid made me aware why I was subconsciously avoiding it. Thank you.

I had a similar experience to this, I initially started making my characters based on what gender fit them, but over time found myself making almost all my characters female, eventually I realised the reason I kept making female characters was because I'm trans, weirdly after accepting that though I found myself able to make male characters again (also trying to do a female voice for dnd REALLY helped with my vocal training once I started it!)

Thank you for this video! It’s so well written and as a social science person I enjoy the emphasis on how bias can be a sneaky kinda enemy!

I played a regular woman, just doing her thing looking for her lost family. Was immediately harassed in character by my friends. That was eye opening and led to some out of character conversations.

Heroforge is a really good option for miniatures. There’s even a colored 3D Print option if you’re not keen on painting.

It's okay to rp as anyone you want ♡ Edit - also you weirdly suit a beard I love it ❤❤

The last commentary on voice is 100% on point -- I'm biologically female with a fairly 'androgynous' voice (mid toned alto), and when I rp different characters I think less about the pitch and more about the character, and what tones, mannerisms, accents etc I use for them, and position myself even in voice only RP as they would be, and it helps a LOT with staying not only in their head, but with the voice. However I will give a hint as well for making your character voices sound different from your own voice without even really changing pitch at all: talk to yourself in your normal voice first and feel for where your voice is 'felt' beyond the buzzing of your vocal cords. My personal voice if felt right at the clavicle, and I've discovered that a lot of my female character's voices tend to be a little rougher and lower in the body (I have a Folk hero Dwarven Moon Druid who's voice is at the top of my lungs with a hint of gravel in her voice who's a Corgi of a woman and a Soldier background variant human phantom rogue/Grave cleric who's mid chest with really bad charisma and you can sort of *tell* she has bad charisma cause of her difficulty explaining things cleanly or just saying things on her mind without stopping to think about it (She just said "you'd think with all my education and practical field work I would STOP PUTTING MY FOOT IN MY MOUTH" to me in my head while I typed this). ) while my male characters tend to be more in back of mouth (my Male Presenting Intersex Dream Druid hermit tiefling who's fresh off the turnip truck at the start of the campaign but just.. Happy to be around people but has NO CLUE WTF IS GOING ON CULTURALLY so is often SO CONFUSED but gentle and not used to using his voice so its sort of soft), tip of tongue (My Changeling Light Cleric acolyte with anxiety and with a soft sort of scandinavian accent who tends to speak quickly but with pauses and filler words cause Common is not his first language.) or buzzing mid throat ( my sassy Harengon bladesinger wizard/bard based on my FFXIV Viera Red Mage Maining Warrior of Light). This is not "where a character voice sits by gender" though - I have a Female bard Villain/evil mini-campaign character I feel more in between my eyes, and when I voice acted Sunbreaker Olomon for my party at one point he was felt in the diaphragm - but more a suggestion to pay attention to WHERE your voice is, and see if you can move it around to find where your character would speak. Soften and harden. Find their voice before even trying to pitch it higher or lower than your neutral resting pitch.

Damn; you ab-so-LUTELY knocked it out of the park with this one. I don't think I've enjoyed one of your videos THIS much for a while! Keep it up; you're awesome.

If you weren’t a professional RU-vidr that was a pretty great Slim Shady cosplay

Here's my business card: Ginny Di: Professional Woman

The 'getting sidetracked' moments and asides in this video were A+++++ 👏🏼

I have seen a little bit of Ginny Di's content before and thought it was amusing but this is exceptionally entertaining, thought provoking and well executed. In my opinion a top piece of RU-vid content. Very well done.

12:36 “Old AND flirtatious? The ideal combination.” GINNY, NOOOO!!! 🤣🤣🤣

unrelated, i used to always roleplay women in rpg and discovered i am trans, it has been relatively cool so far

You are absolutely on point with the jokes in this video, Ginny! They flowed so naturally and were very witty! This was a great video to watch!

Your ad reads are always the best. Thanks for making them fun

The Na'Krasha/Elliwyn relationship lives on I see. :D

Dudes and dudettes ☀️ respectfully 🎉

Hehe you don't need to buy disabled figurines if you're just slightly bad at 3D printing. I have more slightly disabled minis than not. 😎

you earned my subscription because of your insistence of drawing your own conclusion by drawing from many sources on these sorts of subjects. In these kinds of social situations there really is no right answer all the time; and there is only kindness and understanding and communication.

Heir to the sausage fortune 😂 You are a champion, Ginny. Keep being you ❤

Confirmed... Ginny (Jimmy) is actually a changeling.

Dude your quips and jokes in this one were fire😂

I'm sitting here all by myself eating lunch, audibly laughing at all of your little jokes and comments. 😂 Please do more of those in future videos, I love it!