Video games

[Myopic Bookworm]

My son has just acquired a new game (Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom), and while watching him work through the introductory section, I was pleased to note that the first item acquired by the central character in the quest is a kilt!

[TSH]

Concerning The Legend of Zelda, it was common for people to call Link's tunic a skirt in the older days of gaming. It was probably due to ignorance or as a joke, because of how long he wore his tunics pantless. I'm not sure what exactly it is he wears in this newest entry in the series, but it does remind me of the times he didn't wear pants in earlier Zelda games.

Over the past decade or so, more and more games have become inclusive — allowing male characters to wear skirts and such. We've seen this in other Nintendo franchises, such as Animal Crossing (starting with New Leaf, in which the developers proudly stated that boys could wear skirts, girls could wear pants, etc.). Fire Emblem (a turn-based Strategy Role-Playing game) has had a few feminine-looking males in its 30+ years of existence; there are even two notable ones who do dress in "women's" clothing and are portrayed in a positive light. Splatoon 3 almost completely disregards gender, and allows Inklings and Octolings to wear anything without restriction, with only a few gear being somewhat different depending on the gender.

This even extends beyond Nintendo. We've had wrestling games that don't have gender-restrictive anything, as in the early WWF/E Smackdown games. Sunset Overdrive allows players to wear a skirt, regardless of which of the four body types they choose. Saints Row (especially SR2) does this even better, by allowing the player to choose how their Boss walked. The Elder Scrolls, primarily Daggerfall and Morrowind were utter champs when it came to making virtual dolls.

I could go on, and I might later on, but I just wanted to point out several examples of video games allowing male characters to wear skirts and/or kilts and sensibly giving players the option to have their characters wear whatever without any inane restriction, like sex. Far too many games had done this in the past, and there's still obviously too many that do restrict what you can wear based on sex. It's a bloody video game. Why should I be restricted to a certain set of apparel instead of giving me the option to wear what I'd like my character to wear just because of a choice I made in a menu? It's almost like a punishment for not picking the "right" sex, since females characters typically have more customization options than their male counterparts.

[STEVIE]

It's a bloody video game. Why should I be restricted to a certain set of apparel instead of giving me the option to wear what I'd like my character to wear just because of a choice I made in a menu?

Hi TSH and MB,
I get part of the points which you make but this also brought the MASH signature tune, Suicide is Painless, to my mind.
"The game of life is hard to play".
Hey, if the game doesn't suit, drop it but that is just a tad more difficult in "meatspace".
Another aspect of this is that computer games in the past have been cited as a factor in the motives for violent crime.
Whether that is correct or not, the belief existed.
Nowadays, given the hysteria that is surrounding the whole trans question the more liberal of these games may actually become the safest venue in which a male will be able to be skirted.
Ironically, the trans paranoia could have a real impact on the fundamental difference between "The Kilt" and a plain old skirt.
This is also ignoring the commercial aspects in the publication of them, men in skirts will not be a selling point.
Steve.

[TSH]

It's a bloody video game. Why should I be restricted to a certain set of apparel instead of giving me the option to wear what I'd like my character to wear just because of a choice I made in a menu?

Hey, if the game doesn't suit, drop it but that is just a tad more difficult in "meatspace".

I'd still play if it's good, but damn, do I hate when developers promote their character creator systems, yet don't account for people who don't want to be bind by certain choices pertaining to whether your character is male or female.

Nowadays, given the hysteria that is surrounding the whole trans question the more liberal of these games may actually become the safest venue in which a male will be able to be skirted.

Another reason why video games are the ultimate form of escapism.

Ironically, the trans paranoia could have a real impact on the fundamental difference between "The Kilt" and a plain old skirt.
This is also ignoring the commercial aspects in the publication of them, men in skirts will not be a selling point.

I already felt that impact firsthand when I wore a kilt to work at once. They certainly won't be a selling point... for a while, at least.

Another aspect of this is that computer games in the past have been cited as a factor in the motives for violent crime.
Whether that is correct or not, the belief existed.

Other forms of media has had this absurd accusation attributed to them as well. There's just not enough good evidence to support this, and there hasn't been in the 30 or 40 years since games started to become more mainstream. It's just fools trying to shift the blame to entertainment so others can't enjoy it — similar to those vehemently against men doing or wearing anything deemed "girly".

[FLbreezy]

I could go on, and I might later on, but I just wanted to point out several examples of video games allowing male characters to wear skirts and/or kilts and sensibly giving players the option to have their characters wear whatever without any inane restriction, like sex.

Thank you for bringing this up, I've had a long-ish post in the works for quite a while dealing with this very topic but Life (TM) has been very chaotic and busy as of late. I credit Animal Crossing in particular for being able to envision "myself" in skirts, and even finding that I prefer that version of myself over the male default. Getting the courage to make that same transition to "meatspace" took some time, but it definitely helped spark the motivation when I needed it. It also helped that I had so many friends in that game that were accepting and encouraging.

[STEVIE]

being able to envision "myself" in skirts, and even finding that I prefer that version of myself over the male default. Getting the courage to make that same transition to "meatspace" took some time, but it definitely helped spark the motivation when I needed it.

I had to use my imagination and sometimes a mirror Breezy.
In the UK "Animal Crossing" meant the Zebra crossing for road safety and the nearest thing we had to a video game was Etch-a-Sketch.
When my daughter discovered computers 20 or so years ago, she was a Sims fan.
I had thoughts about how the characters could be built to suit a man in skirt but I never actually tried it.
Steve.

[denimini]

I have thought that video games might start a trend of young males wearing mini skirts, emulating some of the warrior characters, without undermining their own portrayal of masculinity.

[TSH]

It's been a year (almost) since this thread was made, and I'm a little disheartened that it hasn't made much traffic. Let's change that.

Here are some photos of a video game which allows playable male characters to wear skirts:

Here's The Elder Scrolls: Chapter II — Daggerfall (1996). This is a photo of one of my characters wearing a skirt:

Jacob_Short_Skirt_Breton.jpg

There's the short one he's wearing, along with two longer skirts male PCs can wear in the game:

Two Longer Skirts.jpg

Female PCs have their own set of skirts and their own exclusive dresses:

Lilith in Red.jpg

I'll have more games to show later on, if this thread gets at least one person's attention, but here's a wikipedia of the game for those who are interested. It's also DOSBox freeware, so you can try the game out yourself, but before you even attempt to play this outdated, overambitious game, check out Daggerfall Unity — a fan project which rebuilds the game while remaining faithful to it, polishing it up for modern sensibilities, yet still retaining the classic feel. The project was just recently completed earlier this year.

[FLbreezy]

Pokemon Go, one of the most popular mobile games in recent years has recently updated their avatar creator to get rid of gendered clothing, it was nice to finally wear skirts in the game without having to switch to a female body profile! I was so happy! Sadly this update sparked a huge player backlash because almost nobody liked how the new characters looked: they replaced gender selection with some body attribute sliders which really didn't cover the full range of body types (especially for females). I'm optimistic they'll fix it and we'll all be happy in the end.

flb-pogo.jpg

[Seb]

I like the freedom too, or rather, if you are letting your players equip/dress in different clothes, ofc all should be available to all. Worst is the ones where one item will be pants on a male but a skirt on females, even though its the same item.

Another fun one that got quite a bit of flak was Diablo 4, especially the male sorcerer, which has almost exclusively skirted garnments.

https://www.wowhead.com/diablo-4/news/d ... ets-331939

[TSH]

I like the freedom too, or rather, if you are letting your players equip/dress in different clothes, ofc all should be available to all. Worst is the ones where one item will be pants on a male but a skirt on females, even though its the same item.

Exactly. What's ironic about The Elder Scrolls series doing this in later installments is that Morrowind is the only game in the franchise that completely averted it by having everything be accessible to both sexes. So, a skirt wouldn't automatically transform into pants on a male character; it'd still be a skirt worn on a male. And ditto for female characters wanting to wear pants. I loved that clothes could be worn underneath armor in that game, as well as in Daggerfall. Morrowind went a step further by being able to wear skirts over the armor, and it could look really good, too, depending on the armor set. Will add images of this, soon.

Another fun one that got quite a bit of flak was Diablo 4, especially the male sorcerer, which has almost exclusively skirted garnments.

https://www.wowhead.com/diablo-4/news/d ... ets-331939

There's a similar list for the Elder Scrolls Online, and it has a generous amount of these, as well:

https://eso-motifs.mmo-fashion.com/appe ... leg/skirt/

[Uncle Al]

There's a similar list for the Elder Scrolls Online, and it has a generous amount
of these, as well: https://eso-motifs.mmo-fashion.com/appe ... leg/skirt/

These examples, from eso-motifs, are really, REALLY, REALLY Good

A couple of those, I would like in my own wardrobe

( Any crafters out there )

Uncle Al

[Seb]

Exactly. What's ironic about The Elder Scrolls series doing this in later installments is that Morrowind is the only game in the franchise that completely averted it by having everything be accessible to both sexes. So, a skirt wouldn't automatically transform into pants on a male character; it'd still be a skirt worn on a male. And ditto for female characters wanting to wear pants. I loved that clothes could be worn underneath armor in that game, as well as in Daggerfall. Morrowind went a step further by being able to wear skirts over the armor, and it could look really good, too, depending on the armor set. Will add images of this, soon.

Oh, Morrowind is an amazing game, I must have spent thousands of hours playing it in my teens, we even had LAN-Parties every now and again where we would be 3-4 guys playing Morrowind on our own machines in the same room(its a single player game for those who don't know). I just fired it up to check if it still worked and loaded my latest savegame, dated to the year 2005, almost 20 years ago and low and behold my character from way back when. My main saves were lost to a hard drive crash somewhere back then.


Only on day 25, so a fairly new character. Sorry for the lacklustre lighting, I'm apparently on Solstheim in the middle of a foggy day and don't remember where I was off to.

Back then I did not have the guts or the confidence to go out in a skirt or a dress. I only had one acquaintance who knew about me liking skirts/dresses back then. One of my friends, little sisters friends, who helped me source a few items.

Edit:

And another one after I went through the graphics settings and pulled down a mod or two in a little better lighting with some other clothes I found in my inventory.

[TSH]

@Seb Morrowind played a huge role in shaping my perspective on skirts, and why men wearing skirts is taboo in the first place. For that, I'm eternally grateful. The game had fantastic world-building, solid writing, and a strange, yet recognizable landscape in Vvardenfell. It's the only Elder Scrolls game I can fully enjoy with little to no mods or a fan recreation. It's the series magnum opus, really. Still have to figure how to screenshot in-game images of the game so I can post them here.

[Seb]

@TSH: I agree, morrowind is the best of the bunch, skyrim really needs a lot of mods to be fun and Oblivion was dud.

F12 will save a screenshot in bmp format to the main directory of the game.
If you install Morrowind Graphics Extender XE and Morrowind Code Patch (dependency) you can both bump up the graphics and also take screenshots in png (aswell as fix a bunch of bugs left in the game by Bethesda).