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The Lennox Building (lennoxbuilding) wrote in rp_tutorials,
@ 2012-04-21 20:40:00

Just a general community question
Question for all the other mods out there: When do you feel you need to cap male or female characters? I've been modding for nearly ten years and I've always done it when there are five or more of the opposite sex. I don't often see games capping. I was just curious. I know it can be a pain in the ass. Some weeks there are more females, others more males. Sometimes a cap can last over a week and there are pending applications. I'm just afraid the players waiting to hear back about their applications are going to lose interest.

TL;DR

Simplified: When do you feel you need to cap male or female characters?

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	milhouse 2012-04-22 03:05 am UTC (link)
	Personally? Never. It doesn't jive with my philosophy that you can't have too much of a good thing. In this case, the good things are well written characters of any given gender. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	lennoxbuilding 2012-04-22 03:08 am UTC (link)
	This is true and a very good point. I do know that some people complain when there are too many females, not enough males, or vice versa. (Reply to this) (Parent)

pitterpat
2012-04-22 04:58 am UTC (link)

Depends on the game/situation. If there are "pending" apps before the hold on a sex comes about... I say let the applications be accepted or not as it's not fair for the person applied when there was no ban to be put on hold because one came in.

To me personally, it's about a feeling. I would never hold up someones app because they held/applied before a "hold" on one sex. If they held after it was stated, that's different.

As for the hold on a cap. I get it logically, but I don't think it encourages good characters. I don't think RP is about filling a quota so to speak.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	lennoxbuilding 2012-04-22 11:04 am UTC (link)
	We put a cap on right after a round of adds and any current holds would have been allowed to apply without needing to remain pending until it was lifted. You're right, it's not. Now, debating on whether or not we should keep this cap on. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	sunnybank 2012-04-22 05:20 am UTC (link)
	Why would you need such a cap? I personally don't mind rpng with either male or female characters, even though most of the ones I play are male. (I suspect this stems from those complaining who only want to play for shipping reasons?) (Reply to this) (Thread)

	lennoxbuilding 2012-04-22 11:06 am UTC (link)
	No one has complained yet. I think we're going ot lift the cap and possibly cap again if say females out weight the males by 10 or more. Maybe. (Reply to this) (Parent)

fromamerica
2012-04-22 06:30 am UTC (link)

In my experience/personal opinion, capping anything, be it male vs female, canon vs original, etc, doesn't encourage the applications you are low on, it only discourages other people, who could be good players. If you want to encourage one gender over the other, or anything else, I'd suggest commenting on the wanted or applications page itself. "We need more female characters!" This makes people feel like you care and lets them know what will give them more potential lines.
On a personal note, as a player not a mod, I can't play females well, I often fear that if I play a female, the women I play with will be offended/judge me more harshly, I'm just more comfortable playing guys. So a game not allowing more males won't encourage me to apply a female. It will only encourage me to go find somewhere else to play.

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	lennoxbuilding 2012-04-22 11:07 am UTC (link)
	Never really thought about it likes it! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	hammertech 2012-04-22 09:36 am UTC (link)
	I'm pro-caps because I think it helps prevent serious imbalances, and think yours sound fine. I don't let people app those character during the cap, however. I'd personally wait until your characters' gender start to even out or after a more significant amount of time has passed (I generally uncap after around a month). (Reply to this) (Thread)

hammertech
2012-04-22 09:42 am UTC (link)

Also to add on, I think it depends on why you're applying a cap. Generally, I apply them for things like occupations or certain types of characters to get more diversity in game or create a better sense of realism (which gives characters more to do). When it comes to capping based on gender, I might cap if the time period would render having too many individuals of one gender unrealistic. So, I think that ultimately depends on what you're trying to accomplish at your game.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	lennoxbuilding 2012-04-22 11:09 am UTC (link)
	We're just trying to have some kind of balance. We currently have five more females than males. I think we're going to allow a few more females before capping. For an apartment building based game, I guess that's not too far fetched. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	hammertech 2012-04-23 03:42 am UTC (link)
	It's hard for me to say as far as an apartment building based game goes so I'm unfortunately no help there. However, I can say I've had individuals who've been looking at games I modded for a while apply once the cap was removed. So, it really depends. (Reply to this) (Parent)

fuckyeahbadgers
2012-04-22 11:14 am UTC (link)

I haven't capped genders but I can see how you might have to, depending on the sort of game it is. I have capped good guys when we had an influx of them as it was affecting the dynamic in terms of wider plot. Generally I'd always do the whole most wanted/least wanted thing first, unless the imbalance happened really suddenly. I think the point at which I'd cap is if it felt like it was really interfering with the dynamic of the game.

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minimurphy
2012-04-22 07:47 pm UTC (link)

Personally I'm definitely anti-capping of any kind because as

fromamerica said up there, I feel like capping is more likely to discourage new potential players than anything else. From a player standpoint, I have stopped looking at several games when I saw a cap that would have prevented me from playing the initial character I wanted, and I am usually a player who ends up picking up about four characters at a game and tries to go for diversity and balance among them in gender, personality, age, etc.

If you feel you need more of a certain kind of character, maybe try talking to your existing players about picking up more characters of that type? It's always flattering to be asked to pick up another character, and you already know that they're good writers since they made it into the game.

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	dash_dingo 2012-04-23 11:25 pm UTC (link)
	It depends on the game's setting, I.E a prison, a post-apcalyptic dystopia, or even Hogwarts- I always put a restriction in place if the ratio doesn't suit the setting. I.E: say there's 40 characters and only 10 of them are women, in a high school. Or 40 women and 10 men. (Reply to this)

megsrevolution
2012-04-27 12:55 pm UTC (link)

Usually if I'm going to cap the sexes, I tend to cap it for current in game players rather than for any new people. And I've actually found that its worked pretty well. It encourages my current players to either try a character they might not normally, keep things from getting too unbalanced in game gender wise, and if they are determined to pick up another of that sex they're forced to wait a bit and usually their app ends up being better because they've had the time to look it over a few times before turning it in. Not to mention that it doesn't push any new players into playing one specific sex. There are a few flaws with this, I'll admit it, but for the most part, it's not a terrible option.

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cataleia
2012-04-27 11:27 pm UTC (link)

As a writer and mod from years ago, I don't believe in caps on gender. I feel like it screws with possibly line filling as much as just new blood coming in. Some writers aren't comfortable playing one gender vs the other, while others might really want a brother/sister but they can't have the writer who wants to fill the line do so, due to a cap. I do, however, believe in comms posting rules that state 'you can have x number of characters but at least x number must be male/female' so they guarantee those writers who want to have a ton of characters keep the ratio more fair.

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