Gender



The Gender or Sex (see below) of a character refers to whether the character is male or female. Like race, it is an attribute that applies to all player characters and many non-player characters (NPCs).

Player characters




Players define their character's gender when creating them, and the only two choices are male or female.

They can change their gender at any time via the Makeover Mage near Falador for a fee of 3000 coins. This flexibility means that the gender of an in-game character does not necessarily reflect the real-life gender or gender identity of the person playing as that character.

Attire
Players are generally not restricted on the clothes or armour they can wear based on their gender. For example, both male and female player characters may wear plateskirts or platelegs, and male characters are free to wear skirts.

One exception to this is the princess outfit (which only females can wear) and the prince outfit (which only male players can wear). These are both obtained with a frog token, a reward from the Frogs random event. Essentially, the outfits are equivalent, and simply change from one to the other as the player changes their gender.

Some players also believe that it is a little sexist that some outfits on a female show their midriff, whereas they do not on males. This may be undue sexualisation of female avatars.

Vyrewatch clothing is interesting in that the uniform completely changes dependent upon the players gender. Of particular note are vyrewatch shoes which look like high-heels on female avatars.

Some players (mostly female) still believe that male characters have a cosmetic advantage, in that a party hat looks more like a crown than a paper hat on males.

Quests
Gender does not play much of a role in enhancing or limiting any particular abilities in RuneScape, with the notable exception of the Recruitment Drive quest, which requires the player to be female. Male characters will need to change their gender in order to complete the quest, though the 3000 coins will be refunded after they do.

There is also a minor restriction based on gender in The Giant Dwarf, in which the player must choose a mining company to join. Female players cannot join The Brown Engine, but correspondingly, male players cannot join The Yellow Fortune. Players of either gender can still choose freely from any one of the remaining six companies.

During Throne of Miscellania, male players must marry Princess Astrid, and female players must marry Prince Brand. Players cannot choose which gender they would prefer to be with.

Non-player characters
Many non-player characters have a well-defined gender, and these are not limited to humans. For example, Aggie the witch and Zanik the goblin are female, and Doric the dwarf and Pescaling Pax the penguin are male.

H.A.M. members are divided into male and female, and it is apparently easier to pick the pockets of females than males; players can pickpocket a female H.A.M. member at level 15 Thieving, but they need level 20 Thieving to pickpocket a male H.A.M. member.

There are low-level NPCs who are known only as "Man" and "Woman". They are commonly found in Lumbridge, although they also spawn in other places. Unlike H.A.M. members, it is equally easy to pick the pockets of either gender, each requiring only level 1 Thieving.

Most regular non-human monsters are genderless - for example, trolls and goblins that are not part of a quest will be gender-indeterminate - but humans will always have some kind of gender-defining characteristic. There are exceptions, however, such as with ice trolls. Very few characters completely lack a gender, such as the Homunculus.

Interestingly on Evil Bob's island in ScapeRune there is one female slave, however originally there were two slaves, one male and one female.

Gender versus sex
The attribute of male or female is only ever referred to as "gender" in the game and the documentation, since "sex" (though a synonym in everyday English) is a word that is automatically censored by the chat filter. RuneScape contains very family-friendly romantic elements (such as the giving of flowers in Troll Romance, or the "blow kiss" emote), but no sexual content. Therefore, it is never necessary for players to use the word "sex" or any of its derivatives.

Circumventing a filter to include prohibited words (or forming readable versions of them) is always possible, but doing so is in breach of Rule 1, which prohibits offensive language. It specifically says "mis-spelling an offensive word or using symbols to replace letters to avoid the chat filter is considered even worse."

It is also worth noting that Jagex seems to have a policy of preventing any homosexual aspects to the game. Players marry a non-player character in Throne of Miscellania, but are forced to marry one of opposite gender. Changing the player's own gender does not get around this, at least whilst doing the quest.

Another example can be found in the Frogs random event, in which the player must kiss a frog to turn them into a prince or princess. Both the frog and the human form of the NPC are always of the opposite gender to the player.

Words like "gay", "homosexual" and "homo" are removed from dialogue by the chat filter, which is reasonable as they are often used in a derogatory way. More significant than this is the fact that the words "homophobe", "homophobia" and "homophobic" are also censored out. Compare with the word "racist", which is not.