Players have gender, and so do most (but not all) larp characters. It can be very easy (especially for male writers) to simply ignore this topic, but doing so can miss out on a lot of dramatic opportunities.

Consider what theme you are seeking to explore with your larp. How do gender relate to it? For many themes (e.g. power, tradition, etc) gender issues can be a good framework for exploring them.

When designing a fictional culture, it’s important to consider how that culture handles concepts of gender. Some points to consider:

• Does the culture recognise the ‘conventional’ two genders, or does it have others (as some other real world cultures have done)? Remember that cultural construction of gender can be very different to the underlying biology (which itself can be complex with odd exceptional cases).
• How does the culture deal with the biological expression of gender of the races within it? (e.g. In the larp Maelstrom, some races naturally produce more males than females, and have had to develop different social methods to handle this)
• Is gender a non-issue in the culture, or are the genders seen as of equal status but suited to different social functions, or is there a status imbalance between genders? Are some occupations (e.g. the priesthood) closed to certain genders for historical reasons, or is there a gender bias in certain professions (e.g. midwives)?
• Within a fantasy context, there may also be metaphysical differences between the biological genders – perhaps one gender is more magically gifted than another? In the real world certain conditions that result in different cognitive structures such as Asperger’s syndrome are much more common in one biological gender than another.
• How does the culture handle people that challenge it’s constructions of gender? Are there actual laws against it, or just social pressures? Does it have a special social role for such people (e.g. in some cultures shaman practise cross-dressing as the other gender)?
• What social rites or religious rituals exist that are shaped by gender? Most obviously, what sort of marriage customs and laws exist within the culture? Does one partner ‘own’ the other in any sense? Does the culture allow for multiple marriages of any form?

If writing for a historical rather than fictional culture, it can still be important to communicate to players how the different gender roles in the society work, and how they mesh with other kinds of status (e.g. rich vs. poor, noble vs. common). Within a stereotypical medieval context, a noblewomen acting as proxy for her off-screen non-player character husband may effectively wield as much authority as any other noble present, even if the culture at first glance contains imbalanced power between genders.

Consider as an organiser what to do if a player wants to play a character of another gender to themselves. Would you as an organiser allow this? What is one player is doing this, but another player has a character that is masquerading as a gender they are not, or another simply cross-dressing without trying to hide their gender; how do the other player characters tell which is which? As organiser you may decide it’s better to only allow one of these things. Another approach can be a rule that declares a particular garment (e.g. wearing a wimple or not) indicates the character’s true gender; this can be very useful if you have crew to play short-term ‘monster’ rules and need them to be able to play characters of different gender at different points.

Some fantasy races may also have very different biological gender – none of the orcs in lord of the rings display obviously female attributes, and races inspired by non-mammalian animals may have very different gender characteristics. This can give players greater freedom in what gender they play – a player may feel unable to represent a human of the other gender convincingly, but could doing playing a lizard-person. Some creatures from folklore may only be recognisable as one gender (e.g. forest nymphs).

A related side point is the style in which the game material is written. There is a gradual move in some writing styles to try to avoid using male terms as the neutral in writing, because it can have sexist connotations. Some of the White Wolf TT RPGs use the female terms as the neutral instead for example. Other alternatives include trying to use the plural instead, or simply alternating between genders in the text. Gender can be rich and fertile ground for exploring all kind of different plots. Gender based rites such as a marriage can be used as a good framework and premise for an event, and well thought gender roles in combination with other social rules can be rich source of intrigue and drama.