This, at least, is not entirely true. OD&D does not have any distinction at all between male and female characters in the original 3 pamphlets.

Pretty sure that stuff came in later, post-Greyhawk. It certainly showed up in fanzines of the late 70s, though…

It’s funny, your description of Souls games echoes how I feel about 3rd person action games that aren’t made by FromSoft. To me, Dark Souls 1 felt like the crisp combat I had been wanting but never getting from stuff like God of War or the older Monster Hunter games. Bloodborne refined it somewhat, and to this day, that style of 3rd person combat is my favorite.

Crazy how perceptions of a game’s controls are so individual. Our difference really illustrates to me how hard it is to nail a game’s “feel.”