Should more RPGs have female leads?

[Crazyswordsman]

You know how the female party members are always weaker and better at spellcasting than the guys? I was thinking of designing an RPG where there is at least a strong female party member and one guy who's the healer, to see how that would go over. I never got around to it, though. =/

Um....Ayla? -CSM

[The Willful Wanderer]

I never said 'eye candy is bad'. But c'mon. Some more characters who are more than their appearance.

I would like to mention Valkyrie Profile (the first one, or its later edition, VP:Lenneth) as having done an amazing job of both making the female characters (as well as, well, everything else in the game) absolutely beautiful, but with broken stereotypes (and making fun of broken stereotypes) all over the place. Arngrim's sword, for instance, is LOLriffic, but check the female characters! Spoilers if you haven't beat the original or Lenneth follow, unfortunately....

[spoiler]Jayle pretends to be a boy to enter the guard, and is a very good halberd fighter.
Alia (If I remember her name right) is an awesome lance/spear fighter whose special is to turn into a dragon and go all Bahamut on people.
The female mages have actual character, interesting backstory, and one of them is simply an utter bitch, but totally cool for it. Hello, Mystina![/spoiler]


And let's not forget the lead- Lenneth. She's a sword/bow fighter (I prefer bow, but if you can get her best sword, it's awetastazibulous to the point where I'd switch back) with a cool backstory, an interesting personality, unusual problems [spoiler](early-twenties Harry Potter that's a stalker says what?) [/spoiler]and battle garb that is both amazingly fun to look at because you keep finding new details, and notably lacking in bare skin (I think her face, neck, and a few spots on either arm are pretty much it).

[Marilink]

I would love to see some gender switch-ups in RPG's. Ace's got the right idea--we need more Ayla-like characters and some more Magus-like spellcasters. I'd love to see someone break the norm.

[Calamity Panfan]

OBJECTION

Wait....don't most of the recent Final Fantasies HAVE female leads?

Well, most JRPG leads could pass for either one.

Obviously the defendant is guilty of STEALING JOKES.

[Bad Dragonite]

Yes.
That's all i can say is yes.
Stereotyping doesn't really impress me so much as it used to but meh.
I don't care whether there's stereotyping or not,just so long as they(the characters) are interesting.
As far as switching the roles like:
axe wielding warrior = girl
staff wielding healer = guy
[strike]that's blasphemy D:<[/strike]
I'm fine with it.
Just keep it interesting.
In fact , that gives me a semi-almost-kinda-sorta-maybe-okay idea.

[Sim Kid]

You know how the female party members are always weaker and better at spellcasting than the guys? I was thinking of designing an RPG where there is at least a strong female party member and one guy who's the healer, to see how that would go over. I never got around to it, though. =/

Tales of Eternia actually kind of has that, but part of it is player choice. While you got Ried, who is more or less text-book-sword-wielding-not-that-bright-anime-two-shoes hero, you also got the primary female lead and Ried's love interest, Farah, who is a martial-arts wielder and back-up healer, in all a physical damage-dealer who's basically the predecessor to Regal.

BUT....I made it so that Keele was actually the primary healer. IMO he's just better suited for it than Meredy is.

But again, part of it is player choice, and you also have some parts in which you'd really have to use MEredy and Farah as healers.




Iv'e actually had a fan-idea for Tales of in which the sword-wielding hero is a female, supported by another Farah/Regal like character and then the primary healer is a male who's a closet pyromaniac. I doubt it'd pick up considering I see eye-searing Yaoi of the male tales of characters ALL the time. >.<