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I'm wondering how many people find it hard to connect with a story if the main character is not the same gender.  I know some people find this to be an issue, and others couldn't care less, but I'm not sure what ratios of one versus the other there would be.  I suppose I'm asking so I know if it's better to try a shorter story with paths for both basic genders, or to just write from one POV character and let people enjoy it or not as they may.

In other words, does it really matter, for reader enjoyment, what gender the POV character is?

Here at CYS we don't care and never will but it is of note that there is a distinct lack of quality female leads (female/male MC's are arguably 50/50 quantitatively but men are often better quality characters). Over at certain other sites it is extremely important that you provide multiple (>2) genders to play as a choice in your game.

Write one gender. Better to have a good long story from a comfortable perspective than a half-assed story in either direction.

I find those statistics interesting.  I wonder what the gender ratio of the writers are here.  Maybe males are easier to write in a general sense.  In all of my writing I tend to lean towards female protags, but not exclusively.  When I role-play, on the other hand, I never choose a male character.

 

Our more popular authors who consistently turn out longer and higher quality stories (Endmaster, Will, Steve...) just happen to all be guys who mostly write about guys.

I feel a lot more comfortable writing about female protags but it's also been pretty rare for me to finish a project.

You don't need to put a gender choice in unless you feel it actually adds something besides meaningless pronoun swapping to the story in some way, and can be comfortable in the knowledge that anyone who refuses to read a story because the main char is the 'wrong' gender is insane and worthy of mockery.

I would say juvenile more than insane...but point taken. ;)

No I'd definitely go with insane, at least if you project this scenario out to its logical extreme of a person avoiding massive amounts of all media because of some weird hangup that doesn't allow them to feel empathy or engagement with a character, based on gender alone...while meanwhile something like a cannibalistic tribal lizard person from an alien planet is just fine.

Well, I suppose if someone stayed like that all the time, yes, but I'm sure a lot of people go through a developmental stage in their youth where they really have little interest in the other gender, or at least, anyone that is very different from them.  Most of us grow out of that though. ;)

Oh but don't worry about children either because we hate them here. (Yes that does apply to 70% of the forum population...sorry kids don't take it personally.)

Anyway society is just in a weird hypersensitive place regarding gender right now so any actual complaints are likely to come from adults who are only tiny fragile babies in the emotional sense, and we hate those too plus they never seem to hang around long so it's all good either way.

I'm fine with any gender as most stories play out the same way with either or unless it's heavily romanced in which case there would be disconnect for obvious reasons.

I've noticed that too.  Either the differences are so small they're moot, or they're blatantly different and might as well be a different story.  And yeah, for romances they're often either awkward or just plain disjointed.

Endmaster's plan with Rogues is the ideal approach IMO. Male and female paths will be completely different so it's a choice that serves an actual purpose.

Which I can appreciate, if someone wants to commit to that large of a project.  I'm just personally not at that stage yet.

I don't care in the slightest. Hell, I remember being pissed with the fact you couldn't play as Cat Woman in Arkham Knight, because Bruce Wayne is boring even if he's the same gender as me, and Cat Woman is far more like me personally. God knows if I had powers I'd do the right thing sometimes, but only after getting rich and powerful off it.

Well, Wayne STARTED rich and powerful, so I guess it wasn't that important to him.

But, point taken. :D

Yeah, but Wayne was also a little bitch about not hurting people, while Catwoman was just cooler.