Purely Aesthetic Gender

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

We just got married, men and women are really different aren't they? But I don't see much difference between male and female Pokémon.

—Pokémon Black and White NPC

In those RPGs where one can generate one's own characters, it is often the case that the sex of the character is a purely aesthetic choice, with no difference whatsoever in terms of in-game stats. In other cases, there will be a small difference in beginning stats, but no difference in terms of the maximum ability score that can be gained. Character stats aside, often the choice will also have minimal impact on the game scenario, perhaps affecting only the manner in which NPCs address the character. In games with romantic plots, taking this far enough leads to a Gay Option.

Of course, this is not necessarily negative, as gender differences can lead straight to Unfortunate Implications, such as males being stronger or females smarter by default. Of course, even in real life, males generally tend to be stronger in upper body strength, while women tend to have stronger lower bodies, and there are some areas of intelligence for which girls tend to be a little smarter (like verbal skills) and some for which guys tend to be a little smarter (like spatial intuition). But that's just on average, not things you expect to apply to every male or female.

In some cases, however, it comes across very clearly as the game expecting a male player and not bothering with other options. Most easily seen with romantic content - the same female NPCs, and ONLY female NPCs, will flirt with the main character regardless of how the player designed him/her.

See Game Favored Gender as a reason game designers may do this.

Examples of Purely Aesthetic Gender include:

Tabletop Games

  • In 3E Dungeons & Dragons, females and males are identical, except for the random-height-and-weight generators you can optionally use which, still have no direct effect unless you planed on engaging in mounted combat (female's lower weight is helpful on your mount's encumbrance) or attempting to crush enemies with your weight (where males preform slightly better). There are, however, several female-only prestige classes. Meanwhile, the only male-only prestige class is the "Eunuch Warlock."
    • Somewhat justified in that characters in D&D are supposed to be unique, exceptional heroes, so a woman who's two or three times stronger than the average man is par for the course.
    • Drow have their favored class based on gender (Wizard for males, Cleric for females), for societal rather than biological reasons. In 3E (but not 3.5), female Drow also had a considerable stat bonus where male Drow had a penalty.
    • In 2001, a particularly facepalm-worthy Flame War broke out in the letter column of the official D&D magazine sparked by one putz who said that in his games, he gave all female characters a penalty to Strength in exchange for the "ability" to get pregnant. Oy vey...
  • In GURPS gender is a zero-point feature but depending on the culture it may qualify one for a social stigma.
    • Though males are at a slight disadvantage, being slightly more vulnerable to Groin Attacks.
  • In Eclipse Phase gender is a very aesthetic choice. The gender of your mind is separate from the gender of your current body and you can switch almost at will (the limiting factor is money). So the gender of your morph is one piece of the puzzle telling the other people what kind of person you are.
    • Hundred year old men running around in the bodies of nine year old girls ? Creepy.
  • There are no gender-linked mechanics at all in Villains and Vigilantes -- your gender has much effect on your powers as your hair color (which is to say none, unless it's part of a character concept).

Video Games

  • The Fallout games are an example of the former kind of game, where starting statistics are identical regardless of the sex of the character. The choice does have some noticeable impact on the game world, particularly in the second game, where it can affect the fate of one of the game's cities. Playing a female character also gives the player the option of offering sexual services to solve certain problems, which would require the use of diplomacy or violence for a male character.
    • And at least once, this last point is reversed for male characters. And some sexual activities just ignore gender, even at one point allowing a player to rape a female NPC regardless of their PC's gender. The dialogue leading to this event is rather ambiguous, making it possible that the player doesn't know what's going to happen until it's too late, and an entire town turns hostile as a result.
    • Fallout 3 has a perk (Lady Killer/Black Widow) that lets you do extra damage against characters of the opposite gender. This is much more useful for a female player character, because the bulk of your enemies are male.
    • Fallout: New Vegas compensates for this by adding an equivalent perk (Confirmed Bachelor/Cherchez La Femme) that gives you extra damage against characters of the same gender. Note that all factions except one (the Legion) have both male and female combatants so unless you take both perks the combat value isn't quite as useful here.
      • Note that New Vegas also treats these perks as indicating sexual orientation, so Confirmed Bachelor allows you to solve one quest line by seducing the gay target.
    • In Fallout's predecessor Wasteland, gender affects exactly one thing: which restroom you can enter. Male characters can only enter the men's room, but female characters can enter both. Truth in Television, to an extent.
  • There is no statistical difference between male and female characters in Baldur's Gate. It does affect which characters may become your love interests, however.
    • And there is at least one (female) sexist innkeeper in Shadows of Amn who'll react quite differently based on gender. In the first game, however, there are no romances and no-one that reacts differently. There are even a handful of female NPCs who seem confident in their ability to manipulate a female PC by being "seductive" just as they do with a male one.
      • Shar-Teel, a female evil potential party member with an intense dislike for males, will comment on the composition of the player's party, and will compliment the PC if it's an all-female party.
  • There is no difference in female love interests in the PlayStation2 game Robot Alchemic Drive (R.A.D.).
  • Similarly, the "life partner" one chooses in the Summon Night games are the same for men and women, although dialog will be different.
    • This produces highly amusing dialog in Summon Night: Swordcraft Story. One of the guardian beasts, Sugar, wants to marry the player character. This story event occurs no matter what gender the player character chooses, because her former partner (the main character's father) promised his unborn child would marry her - apparently ignoring the fact that the kid could be a girl.
      • In case of Sugar she's more willing to do this with a female protagonist than a male one. When you summoned her the first thing she does if you are male is telling that you look like your father. And if you are female? She kisses you (Leading to the well-known dialogue option included on the back of the box "No no! I, uh, kiss other girls all the time!").
    • Not to mention a line obviously meant for men: "A hammer forges a woman" is also pretty funny.
    • As well in the sequel when Lynn said she wanted to pay you back for a favor with a kiss, and a mermaid very briefly falls in love with you after defeating a monster in her home. The dialogue for the latter does vary a bit; if the PC is female she will point this out, and the mermaid says she doesn't care.
  • The Pokémon games work like this: The genders of the Pokémon one collects often has more effect on gameplay than the main character does, as which traits are passed on in breeding is determined by gender, some moves and abilities are affected by Pokemon gender, and some Pokémon evolve according to gender, but as of Generation 3, all non-breeding effects of gender are based on if a Pokémon's gender is the same as or different than the target.
    • In the second generation when genders were first introduced, individual Pokémon with lower attack genes are female (Attack IV determines gender, rather than the other way around). This was done so the system could tell them apart, as unlike the later games, Gold/Silver/Crystal doesn't have its own variable for gender; this, in turn, was done in order to allow backward compatibility with the earlier games. Shiny Pokemon also had straight 16 IVs in everything for the same reason. This was fixed when the data structure was overhauled in Generation 3, which made "gender" a separate variable, independent of stats.
    • The most obvious exceptions to Gender Is No Object in the Pokémon franchise are where the male and female are different enough to be considered different Pokémon with different abilities, such as the Nidoran family.
    • In the original Red/Blue/Green games, the player character was always male, which causes a problem when, in FireRed/LeafGreen, the player character has to visit the Grass-type gym, which is full of giddy young girls; they freak out at the intrusion of a male, and blushingly crush on him after he defeats them. The dialogue of these trainers was left alone, which means that a female player character turns the gym into an insular lesbian commune.
    • Alternately, it could just be that Leaf is so hot Even the Girls Want Her.
    • From Crystal onward, players could choose their genders, and it did not affect the story save for the gender of a rival character (Crystal, FireRed, and LeafGreen excepted); that's because in Generation 3 and onward, each player character model (male and female) is also an established character; whichever character you're not playing as becomes your rival. So in Ruby/Sapphire, for example, the boy character is "Brendan" and the girl character is "May". But only one of them ever appears in a given playthrough, because the other's sprite-set is instead used for your character.
    • There are minor dialogue changes between some of the main characters depending on your gender.
    • Pokémon Mystery Dungeon also uses this - particularly notable in the first game, where aside from the protagonist gender simply didn't exist, making Attract a Game Breaker. The second game is better about gender and notes each Pokemon as being male or female, but still doesn't amount to as much as in the main-series games.
  • Final Fantasy XI has five races, one of which is male-only, one of which is female-only, and the remainder allowing both genders. While there are differences in starting stats and stat growth between races, males and females of the same race have entirely identical stats and abilities.
  • The Ecstatica games allow you to choose between playing as either the returning male protagonist or the rescued princess from the first game. Due to some rushed and/or lazy programming, however, even if you choose to play as the girl all the dialogue still refers to your character as male.
  • Dragon Quest III has a rather amusing dialogue mishap: although you can choose the main character's gender, the king refers to you as "Ortega's son", no matter which you choose.
    • Parodied/subverted in the remake, where he instead refers to you as "Ortega's son... I mean, daughter" if you choose to play a female.
  • In Tony Hawk's Underground 1 you can play as either a guy or a girl, the only effect this has on the game is what your rival Eric Sparrow calls you at the end of the game. If you play as a girl you still have to pick up "chicks" for a party by impressing them with your skate skills, meaning all the women you run into must be conveniently bisexual.
  • In City of Heroes, as in many MMORPGs, the gender of the character plays no role in terms of stats or abilities. The only real programmed difference is in badges you might earn (using "Master of..." instead of "Mistress of..." for example). Dealing with other players, however...
    • It's also worth noting that there are three "genders" - male, female, and, um, "huge". Yeah.
    • This is actually parodied in-game - one of the decorative items you can buy for your supergroup base is a set of bathroom doors, and, yes, there is a separate bathroom for "huge" characters. Either they need extra-large cubicles or they just didn't want the normal-sized males to feel inadequate... (But the door wasn't any bigger than those for the other two "genders"...)
    • Mind you, aesthetics are Serious Business in a game where players can spend hours designing the perfect costume. Gender-limitations on costume choices can be a major source of controversy - most notably in the case of a "Gunslinger Pack" that (initially) only provided saloon-girl outfits for female characters, with the actual gunslinger pieces being male-only.
    • With the addition of the ability to change the choice of gender when designing a new costume for an existing character, gender in CoX became even more aesthetic -- something to switch if you felt like it. Naturally, there was the usual Internet Backdraft on the game forums in the wake of this, but it remained a feature through the end of the game's first life and through its resurrection in 2019.
  • In the MMORPG Tibia, one NPC refuses to talk with females, other than that, only effect of gender comes from other players.
  • In the roguelike Nethack, the gender chosen by the player for his or her character has only a few minor effects in the game. For example, men can be seduced by succubi, whereas women are seduced by incubi. (Lesbianism and homosexuality aren't implemented, and people screaming for support for bisexuals are reminded that this would likely end up a Game Breaker.) Also, when polymorphed into an oviparous creature, females have the option to lay eggs - which, given the power of cockatrice (henatrice?) eggs, is actually quite a big difference...
    • However, while females can gain allies by hatching only monster eggs they themselves laid, males can become the "daddy" of any egg that hatches. Also, using a cockatrice egg you laid yourself offensively does dire things to your Karma Meter if you aren't very careful. Also, about 1 in 8 times you polymorph into a monster, you'll be the opposite gender anyway. The Dev Team has made great efforts to keep this fairly balanced.
    • One role (Valkyrie) must always start female. You can change gender through magic, however, and continue playing as a male Valkyrie, with your title adjusted as appropriate. Even your home village doesn't remark on how you've changed.
  • Disgaea averts this by having both male and female versions of creatable units, each having varying effects on gameplay. You also freely transmigrate a generated character from one sex to the other ...
  • In the older Ultima games (and many other computer RPGs) a female character got a strength penalty, which was sometimes but not always offset by a bonus to another stat.
  • In the newer Ultima VII Part Two, characters have no stat differences based on gender. In the first city (Monitor) you can have a short love subplot, which does involve a different partner depending on your gender, and has little relevance to the game (If you go to bed with the other party, they will reward you with a cloak useful for protection from cold later in the game). In the third city (Moonshade), you must have a love subplot with the mayor's wife to move the plot along, and this scene is no different at all if your character is female, making it a Gay Option for an NPC.
  • In Ultima VIII, the female main character was dropped in production because of there was not enough space on the floppy disks to include her sprites. There wasn't even enough space to include the male character's face, for that, and the planned CD version (which may or may not have had the option, thanks to increased space) was cancelled. The CD version that did come out did not have the option of making the character female.
  • Mega Man ZX's first game gives you a choice of two characters - a boy and girl, neither of which exist in the story at the same time and are more or less Distaff Counterparts of eachother, each existing in their own little world. The dialogue for each is different - the boy is a shy and unsure hero while the girl is a brash and sarcastic young woman - but ultimately they play the same and have the same general story. The only differences are that the girl gets knocked back a little further but has something else to compensate, and one gender-specific mission, in which it's arguably better to play as the girl because she gets palette swapping and he just gets a usable item.
    • The sequel, Mega Man ZX Advent introduces minor gameplay changes and divergent backstories depending on which character is selected.
      • This is likely because Grey is a male reploid, and Ashe is a female human, so the backstory compensates more for the race than the gender.
        • As for why it's the HUMAN characer who gets the BFG, well...
  • One of the bonuses of World of Warcraft‍'‍s Purely Aesthetic Gender is that guys can create cute night elf babes (so as to have an attractive bum to stare at for hours on end) with no penalty. One of the problems is that this leads to not being believed if you, an actual female, claim to be so in chat.
    • Gender in World of Warcraft is not entirely purely aesthetic, as far as the story goes. Sergra Darkthorn admonishes male Horde against sexism, and NPCs at least tend to get characters' sexes right.
      • One rare example of NPCs reacting differently according to gender is a female quest-giver in Crossroads, The Barrens. Her initial greeting to a male character is a pointed reminder that Thrall enforces equal opportunity for females in the Horde and that she expects you to respect her accordingly. Her initial greeting to a female character is simply that she is glad to meet more female heroes of the Horde. However, she still gives the same quests either way.
      • Maybe the only other two examples is in Razor Hill, where a female Goblin questgiver will hit on male players, but will act very jealous of female players and warn them not to try and pick up the guys she wants. Also, the Goblin starter zone assigns the player a boyfriend or girlfriend, depending on their gender, while the other tends to function as some random jerk that hangs around (you end up killing both of them anyway).
    • The PAG also leads to the amusing Les Yay of a Succubus' Seduce spell working just as well on all women. Everyone Is Bi?
  • This is mostly the case in Wizardry 8, as the only real difference in character creation (with one exception) is having a different set of voices to choose from. The exception is that one of the character classes (Valkyrie) is female-only. Additionally, while it holds true most of the time during gameplay, there are a few items that are female only, including a rather useful necklace of stamina regeneration. On the other side, there seems to be only one male-exclusive item. Additionally, there is a male-exclusive quest option involving a demoness (which is possible with an all-female party, but without some amusing dialogue).
    • There's also a case of dialogue not quite matching up. If a player allies with the Umpani military, the characters will usually be referred to as "ladies" by Sergeant Balbrak, regardless of sex. It's clearly intended to be an insult, but against an all-female party, it doesn't have the same effectiveness...
    • The Lord class is male-only.
    • Females could become Lords in the prior two games in the series, though there honestly wasn't any point in doing so, except for starting equipment. Valkyries learn all the same skills and spells as Lords, have easier entry requirements, and gain levels faster.
  • Both played straight and averted in Warhammer Online, Most playable classes can be played as both male and female characters. Some classes however are gender specific. Order side only have the Slayer as gender specific class (male only). Chaos side have male-only Marauder and Chosen as well as female-only Witch Elves.
    • Let's not forget the greenskins. Orcs and Goblins come in one gender only, which is technically neutral, but appearance wise is male.
      • Orcs and Goblins are also fungi and reproduce through spores so its more a case of Bizarre Alien Biology.
  • In the MMORPG Maple Story, the gender of the characters used to be determined by the gender the player entered for the user's account. Gender mainly played an aesthetic role and did not affect skill, available classes, nor available quests. However, some armor/clothing is gender-specific and female clothes tended to be cheaper due to the lower demand.
  • MMORPG Mabinogi has no practical difference between males and females. There are clothing and armour which are specific to gender; but they all have the same stats anyway. The only real effect gender has is for marriage—only opposite-gender characters may get married. However, the rebirth mechanic allows the character to change gender, while retaining the married status and all associated bonuses/benefits. So it is possible to create same-sex marriages in game.
    • Only if you modify the game client models. The game does not allow for a gender change if married.
  • In the browser MMORPG Kingdom of Loathing, gender is also an aesthetic choice, as both genders can play as any class, with stats being no different. You can even use equipment that looks gender-specific (skirts for example) as either gender—occasionally as a disguise. Should you decide that you don't like your current gender, you can find the Under the Knife adventure in the Sleazy Back Alley, which will allow you to switch genders for 500 meat. In fact, you can get the "Gender Bender" trophy for doing this 30 times! However, there are a few gender differences, mostly due to Rule of Funny and mostly favoring females. The biggest example is the pair of vinyl boots, which give a substantial moxie bonus to females and a substantial penalty to males.
  • Most Wrestling Games don't have any statistical differences between male and female create-a-wrestlers (though there are huge differences between the men and women already in the game). For the most part, the only real difference is that women are not allowed to hold a World Championship, and men are not allowed to hold a Women's championship. The WWE Day of Reckoning series, however, has a much more strict restriction on female wrestlers: they are not allowed to participate in the story mode. At all. Because each game only has the one storyline, this does sort of make sense (as much as it cheats the player out of hot lesbian make-out scenes with Stacy Kiebler).
    • Some of the Smackdown series of games took it a step further into this trope: while you could use whichever gender's base physique you wanted, your assigned gender was male, female, or '?'. Yes, '?'. This featured as far back as Smackdown 2, and apparently stopped in the Smackdown vs Raw generation. Sadly, games further along pull further away--SvR 2007 doesn't even let you put the men in dresses anymore. So long, Gorgeous George.
  • In Ragnarok Online, a (very) few items are gender specific, and only male characters can become Bards, while females become Dancers. Bards and Dancers get different sets of support skills. Bards get mostly buffs, while Dancers get mostly debuffs.
    • Furthermore, some of the buffs they can cast are used in conjunction with each other, as they require both classes to cast. (I.E. having a Dancer dancing to the Bard's music.)
    • Bards also use musical instruments while Dancers use whips. There's probably Unfortunate Implications there somewhere.
    • Interestingly, gender becomes vital if a player wishes to get married: wives have different but complementary abilities to their husbands. Thus, there is no Gay Option.
      • Depending on the server. There are a few private, unofficial servers that allow Gay Option as an added feature. From a general point of view, Ragnarok Online's private servers community is very versatile - so much in fact that there's at least one website dedicated to private server reviews.
  • Legend of Mana gives the main character a Purely Aesthetic Gender, which only makes two differences to anything (besides the hero(ine)'s appearance): After various quests with a team of pirates, the captain will congratulate the hero(ine) as being a "true man of the sea", with another pirate protesting the captain's claim if the character is female. Another difference is when one of the characters remarks on your appearance as being phony (he believes you to be a thief). The male hero gets "Stupid Hat" while the female hero gets "Crazy Needles".
  • The Roguelike Elona has an especially notable case of Purely Aesthetic Gender; the sex of anything but static NPCs is about as important gamewise as what they ate that morning, even in some jobs that make specific reference to an NPC's gender. It's entirely possible to get eggs and milk from a male.
  • The MMORPG Pirates of the Caribbean Online enables you to play as a male or female pirate with no penalty or bonus for either gender. However, several NPCs make tiny slips in their word choice that implies that you are interested in girls, once again ignoring the fact that sometimes gamers really are female, and not just playing as a female in order to ogle their character's assets and breastettes.
  • Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force played this all the way through with a gender neutral name. This did not keep them from adding a hint of romance with a female team member to the ending, though, which makes Elite Force slightly more gay-friendly than the series that inspired it.
  • Gender in Achaea is utterly irrelevant to gameplay, except for when it comes to 'bloodlining' (declaring a family relationship with other player characters) which is treated as biological rather than adoptive, so characters cannot have same-sex parents. However, marriage is gender-irrelevant. There are also two single-gender races, Sirens and Satyrs. (It's stated in the game documentation that the child of, for instance, a Siren and a Human would be Human if male and randomly Siren or Human if female.) Oddly, gender is the only aspect of a character which can't be changed under any circumstances - even though characters can change species at will.
  • In the original Ogre Battle, the male and female Lords were basically identical... to the point that it's apparently common knowledge that the female Lord is interested in other women. (One area boss basically accuses you of being jealous of his power letting him get all the women, regardless of gender. As well, if you spare Deneb [who when you first face her, says you're pretty good looking], one of the towns will say you just did it because she was a cute girl.) The one time the gender matters outside of the overworld sprite seems to be a single town that mentions you are an ordinary women under your armor.
    • Some of the endings were also gender exclusive. Both the male and female had a few.
  • In Soul Nomad your name is Revya. Your gender's only mechanical effect (Revya always considered male for items) is that one dialog option right at the start will increase your Relationship Values with Gig 2 points if you are female instead of 1 (which only changes what ending you get). Your choices however, do matter. Non-canon cameo appearance seems to suggest that Revya is canonically female, although only maybe because Most Gamers Are Male.
    • The female appearance in [[Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice]] might be a compensation to the fact that stat-wise, the female Revya used to be male in the original game, being affected by male boosting/reducing items, not by female affecting ones.
    • Or it has to do with the fact that Revya was male in her original incarnation (the one in Soul Nomad being the second), also the potential relationship between female Revya and Gig is just more interesting, and played with slightly in Disgaea 3.
  • In Mekton Zeta, the only difference is that females have a slightly higher chance of having Psionic powers if those rules are used (due to Humongous Mecha anime having more female ESPers than males)
  • In Puzzle Quest: Challenge Of The Warlords, the only differences between male and female characters are dialog-based: characters will refer to you as "lass" instead of "lad", etc and Princess Seraphine will openly flirt with your male character and refer to herself and your female character as "like sisters" (Both options annoy your character). The sequel, Galactrix, removes even the dialog changes: no one refers to you by name or by gender - it's all "you" or "kid".
  • Player characters in the Avernum and Exile games are built with the same stats; the player determines their gender with names and icons.
  • While the indie RPG Eschalon Book 1 doesn't even provide the option of playing a female character, Book 2 is planned to have a + 1 stat bonus on strength for men and dexterity for women. While this bonus is so minor it gets insignificant even in the short run, it led to a minor Flame War around this subject.
  • Gender is purely aesthetic in Guild Wars, but boy does the aesthetic difference have more importance than usual. Given the impressive amount of attention given to character appearance, customizing armor styles, and the like, gender is very important, as most armors look markedly different depending on the gender of the class wearing them.
    • It bears mentioning that the armors in Guild Wars don't look different based on gender as they typically do in MMOs. Females generally do not wear half the clothing that males do, except in the case of the Elementalist, and that entire class is out to look pretty.
    • The same goes for Guild Wars 2, and the Sylvari, a race of plants who only mimic the human form, take it a step further: they have absolutely no concept of gender as anything but an unimportant physiological distinction.
  • Temporarily averted in Age of Conan. For the first few months of play, due to a bug involving the way animation was done, female characters did less damage in melee than their male counterpart. This was later fixed to follow this trope, alongside a public apology from the game creators, as to not stand out as sexists.
  • In Culdcept Saga you can change your character's base appearance after you've beaten the game once. If you make your character female (or another species) they still have the same voice and love interest.
    • In Culdcept for PlayStation 2, an apparent glitch makes it such that your gender has so little effect that everyone still refers to you using male pronouns.
  • Heroes of Might and Magic has heroes of both genders for all races, but with the exception of important story characters in V, they all share the same (male) model. Knights and Demon Lords at least wear concealing armor, Necromancers wear hooded cloaks but everyone else apparently has very masculine-looking women. And of course, the gender doesn't matter gameplay wise (unless you count the hero specialty).
    • Heroes IV at least has different male and female models for each faction, but with the elimination of specialties, everything about heroes of the same faction is purely aesthetic.
  • The Sims is very close to having this. Clothing and hair options are obviously different, and only female Sims can get pregnant, but for job interaction, skill building and social interaction the two genders function exactly alike. Also, all Sims in the same age category are the same height. Then again, it's kind of justified, since The Sims is supposed to be a simplified, idealistic version of real life.
  • The new[when?] Ghostbusters game, at least for PlayStation 2. The PS 360 version simply omits the ability to play as a female character.
  • Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy lets the player choose his/her gender. Male and female characters have different voice-actors, but that's it. Same stat's, same reactions from other characters, and same animations. Your character even goes by the gender-neutral name "Jaden."
  • Recent[when?] Harvest Moon games have allowed you to choose between playing as a male or female character. While these change who your potential Love Interests are, nothing else changes. Your female character can even become a Pregnant Badass (of a sort) by digging into 100-floor-deep mines while being the in-game equivalent of 8 months pregnant and suffer no ill effects!
    • Magical Melody was an exception, but the only difference that came with pregnancy was your stamina dropped faster.
    • In the Sunny Island games (Island of Happiness and Sunshine Islands), the character model of the gender you don't pick becomes an NPC that you can court and marry, unlike other games in the series where the opposite gender's model is unused.
  • In Zelda BS and the sequel, you can choose to play as a male or a female. This has no effect on the gameplay or storyline, however.
  • In the rogue-like Ancient Domains of Mystery, the only difference between male and female PCs is which stat is used for shop prices. Males use Charisma, while females use Appearance.
  • In Saints Row 2 The Boss can be a Scary Black Man, a White-Haired Pretty Boy, a Dark-Skinned Redhead, a Meganekko, a morbidly-obese gender-neutral pig-human thing, anything else in between, and it literally affects nothing. Not character interactions, not gameplay, not clothing options, not even The Boss's views on stripper poles and their regular operators. Hell, returning characters from the first game will only comment on your "haircut", even if your character is female. (For that to make sense, please note that in the first game, the player character still had a wide variety of customization, but was always male.)
    • However, you can pick male or female voices, and that changes the lines from the boss.
  • Soul Calibur 3's creation modes (especially Chronicles of the Sword, which gave you your own plotline) mostly ignored gender, aside from pronouns and whether you were the King or Queen of Battle and heard someone call you "War God(ess)" once. Then again, it also ignored your weapon, always citing you picking up your sword regardless of whether you were in a class that had them.
  • Fable 2 allows the protagonist to be female, and this doesn't affect any specific gameplay. It does affect who's attracted to you and certain dialogue; in the gladiatorial arena, for example, the commentators may yell out "Ooh! Took that one like a man! ...even though she is, actually, a woman.", and NPCs react to the player using the "wrong" gendered title (for example, a female using the "King" title). There's also a sidequest ("Till Death Do Us Part") where the giver is the same gender as the player, and the target is the opposite gender.
    • Fable 3 also allows the protagonist to be female, which introduces mostly cosmetic and dialogue changes (for example, you'll be referred to as "the Princess" instead of "the Prince", and the taunting gnomes will make sexist jokes at female characters). In addition, however, some gender-specific NPCs will be reversed, such as the couple in the "A Marriage of Inconvenience" sidequest (Similar to the "Till Death Do Us Part" in Fable 2), and your childhood friend in the prologue (who will always be of the opposite sex).
  • RuneScape plays this completely straight. Gender has no impact on stats, and while in an older version armor had to be forged for the gender of the wearer, it now molds itself automatically to whoever puts it on. There are two dwarven mining corporations with sexist hiring policies (one for each gender) and one quest requires player characters to be at least situationally female to get through a No Man of Woman Born twist, but that's it.
  • In Animal Crossing, you can pick your character's gender at the start. There's no real affect on anything to this—characters hardly ever refer to you by gender, even!
  • Similarly, Magician's Quest: Mysterious Times (an Animal Crossing clone) does something similar. Since this game includes wearable skirts and dresses, you'd think it'd have an effect—but no, even males can wear the Princess Dress. However, it does affect who your Love Interest(s) can potentially be.
  • The Wii action-adventure game Brave: A Warrior's Tale lets you pick between a female and male character when you start the game. However, you don't even get to play as them that often—a lot of the story is told in flashback, where you play as male character Brave anyway.
  • Monster Rancher 2 allows you to input your gender at the start of the game. However, since your character is The Faceless (and even implied to just be you), this has little effect. The only real thing that changes is that your assistant Holly will make a comment about how nice it is to work with a fellow female monster breeder for once.
  • The Simulation Game Wandering Willows lets you choose between male and female characters, but they still act the same. Males can even wear dresses, skirts, and other "girly" clothes. This is actually a plot point, because one later mission has you making dresses for local Wholesome Crossdresser Art.
  • Perfect Dark has you playing as the female Joanna Dark for most of the game, but bonus missions let you play as male aliens Mr. Blonde and Elvis. Enemy chatter is unchanged for these missions, so your character will still be referred to using female pronouns.
  • EVE Online has not only purely aesthetic gender, but also purely aesthetic race and heritage. Any lingering stat differences between old characters were smoothed out by the Neural Remapping feature, which allows players to re-assign stats as they like.
    • There again, since you play the game with your brain plugged into a spaceship, there is little non-aesthetic about your physical body at all.
    • Although since the arrival of 'Walking in stations' where players can actually see their character walking around having an attractive avatar has become more important for some people.
  • In early versions of Angband the character's weight affected the chance of "Bashing" doors, chests or monsters. Since males tended to be heavier, females were given more starting cash to compensate. This no longer applies and thus this trope has returned in full force.
  • Averted in Phantasy Star Online and Phantasy Star Zero. Males and females of the same class have different stats. Gender has much smaller impact on stats in Phantasy Star Universe, though. Along with that, there are many gender-specific weapons in the series.
  • Fire Emblem has this technically. You can't actually create your own characters, but many preset characters will join your army. Differences between units is based solely on their class and their growth rates, so while there might be equipment that is class exclusive, there are no gender exclusive weapons. There are some growth tendencies among units (males usually have better strength, defense, HP and constitution, while females usually have better skill, resistance, magic, and speed), but many units break those rules.
    • Note that there IS a difference among genders: caps. They tend to be pretty minor and not all games have them, but it's there. Also, Mystery of the Emblem had a sword that could only be wielded by females.
    • Blazing Sword does this for its tactician. Then again, the tactician is pretty irrelevant, only serving to forward Lyn's story, and does not show up in battle.
    • The newest release in Japan (Shin Monsho no Nazo) has a customizable lead character who half-embodies, half-subverts this trope: some classes are gender-exclusive, but stats are only relevant to class and thus not directly determined by gender.
  • Statistically, female characters in Dragon Quest IX are exactly the same as males, but have additional equipment options such as dresses and skirts. Outside of a few exclusives that favor females (blue panties are surprisingly cheap and effective leg armor in the early game; the boxers you can buy early are equal to your default equipment in stats) that the differences are so minimal (and females can wear the trousers anyway) it doesn't matter... until you hit the post game, where the "Magical Skirt" is awesome for most Bonus Boss fights (it gives heavy resistances to most elements), while the bikinis aren't a slouth either, and you can obtain 2 (cosmetic) titles only with a female character (there is only 1 that is male exclusive).
  • The PSP re-release of Persona 3 adds the option to play as a female main character. While played to trope in actual combat, there are changes elsewhere:
    • The social links (and social situations) play out differently, including certain characters not appearing at all and others taking their places.
    • Relationships are automatic for the male main character, but have to be manually started by a female main character. There is no gay option.
    • All of the Fan Service clothing available to female characters like the Battle Bikini is equippable by the main character. This is acknowledged in game by the other party members.
    • The weapons usable between male (one-handed sword) and female (naginata) main character are different, though the game handles this by only allowing the correct type.
  • In Mass Effect the only difference between the sexes is romance options, except for a few minor dialogue changes.
    • Which makes the totally-out-of-the-blue sexist exchange in Mass Effect 2 all the more upsetting.
    • The same goes for the sequel, with one addition: in the Kasumi DLC, when infiltrating Hock's party, male Shepard gets a future-tux, whereas female Shepard gets a Little Black Dress.
  • In the Digimon universe, especially the games and handheld toys, the monsters have no sex, and profiles refer to a species as "it". This means Angemon can evolve into Angewomon, who can then evolve into Seraphimon, or even in some versions, Beelzebumon.
    • Digimon Frontier's and Digimon Xros Wars's universes, male and female digimon do have babies. The latter even has male and female versions of digimon who traditionally appear as one or the other.
    • In Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth nothing changes if the player is male or female. None of the flirty girls change their dialog to reflect the main character being a girl.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's: Duel Transer, male and female PCs have slightly different starter decks.
  • In Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain, the PC's gender does not affect their stats, although the female can be a Third-Person Seductress.
  • In Nanashi no Game, your choice of gender has a slight impact on a few early-game events, such as whether you meet a Yandere Bride/Groom and which of your friends is secretly pining after you. Beyond that, there's no difference.
  • In Dragon Age 2 the only difference is Hawke's voice actor/actress. Every potential love interest is bisexual (with the exception of Sebastian, who can only be romanced by a female Hawke), and the romance paths are largely exactly the same regardless of Hawke's gender. (Anders has some extra dialogue if you romance him with a male Hawke, but that's about it.)
    • Which is unfortunate considering its predecessor Dragon Age Origins subverts it. There are many characters and comments by NPCs that will treat you differently depending on your gender. Stat-wise, there is no difference.
  • In Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader, gender is entirely aesthetic (doubly so if you're playing an alien), although Dark Heresy does have one women-only career path (and a couple of women-only options for other career paths). However, all Deathwatch characters are male.
  • In Age of Conan, the NPC damsel in distress you rescue at the beginning of the game will flirt with you regardless of your character's gender.
  • In Fate Extra, not only is there no difference in stats but even the dialog (including suggestive lines) remains totally the same.
  • In contrast to Demon's Souls with its large collection of gender-specific armor, gender in Dark Souls has no effect whatsoever.
  • Fossil Fighters Champions, unlike its prequel, allows you to choose between a male and a female PC. Although the difference is purely aesthetic for the most part, it does influence one part of the early game: As a secondary starting viviosaur, boys get a T-rex while girls get a Tricera(tops).
  • Played straight in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, where gameplay is identical regardless of gender, right down to the choice of love interests, but subverted straight into Unfortunate Implications in the other Elder Scrolls games. Men and women have different starting stats, typically making men stronger and giving women a bonus in either speed or a mental attribute.
  • Initially, Terraria had no gender option, simply allowing a player to choose default features that made the character look male or female. A later patch introduced the option to be male or female, with existing characters flattening out into male. So there are a lot of crossdressers in Terraria now.
  • Gender in Gods Eater Burst determines what your clothing looks like. Note that what you wear has no effect on your character's stats or abilities. All of the voiced dialog assumes you are male.
  • In Way of the Samurai male characters are the default. You can unlock the ability to play as a female character, but all but one of the NPCs will treat you exactly the same way, including calling you "he" and offering you sexual encounters with women.
  • This is the case in The Tomb of the Task Maker. The player can choose to be male or female, but the only differences are in graphics and sounds. The character creation box even makes note of this.
  • In the Tropico series choosing a female avatar has no effect beyond changing El Presidente's appearance and voice: other characters will still refer to you as male, one mission involves an identical twin brother, and the "womaniser" perk is unchanged.
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