Gals? is there a consensus on how people feel about Gals?
Doubtful much in the same ways as using guys in a mixed group some people will be fine with it others will be annoyed and some offended.
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Gals? is there a consensus on how people feel about Gals?
IDK but I can't hear the word doll without thinking Guys and Dolls, and can't hear that without thinking, not of the musical, but of the fake "legitimate theater" musical in the Simpsons where they sing "guys and dolls" to the tune of "Hollywood"
Guys and Dolls
we're just a bunch of crazy
Guys and Dolls..
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** spoiler omitted **Nosig,
Some women are fine with 'guys,' especially if you make a comment the first time you use it. The corresponding term I've heard is 'gals,' often used as 'guys and gals.'
As a GM I find that calling the group "targets" or "unwitting pawns" helps alleviate any issues, then everyone is upset.
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I've been trying really hard to avoid posting on this thread - but I guess I just have a low WIS (poor Will Save) and I feel compelled to post a couple of comments...
About the usage of gender specific pronouns... Current American English has a shortage I have noticed in the past. Perhaps all fellow gamers out on the boards can help me out here...
When speaking of a group of "Male Humans", a person (me) will normally say one of three words. "Men" and "Boys" are the words that have (sort of) corresponding words for "Female Humans" (those words are "Women" and "Girls").
Then the word "Guys" pops up. Normally considered to refer to "Male Humans", though I have been known to use it to refer to a group of Humans including members of other genders.
** spoiler omitted **
What term corresponds to "Guys" when talking about persons of a "non-male" gender? I really don't think "Dolls" is going to work..."Men and women" - "Boys and girls" - "Guys and..."?
Or do we just need to start referring to each other as "Citizen"? (I'm going to feel like I'm playing in an RPG set in the Paris Commune of 1871...).
Perhaps "Ladies and gentlemen..."? Seems like a mouthful. I am (partly) from the South, so I guess I could say "Y'all..."... yeah, that might work.
"Everyone" is a decent catch-all, as would not using any pronoun at all.
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Simple: 'ya'll'!
I polled some of our group's women, getting several snarky answers (I prefer Empress, You may address me as Mistress of all I survey, and Milady de Winter were the better ones.) before all agreed that they had no problem with the list which included 'gals' and 'girls'. All nixed any disrespectful ones, but use them in-game frequently (every letter of the alphabet up to 'u' so far). I also point out that I didn't poll our one twenty-something and 3 of the other four are grandmothers, youngest in her late 40s.
Survey consisted of 4 women with over a century combined play and about 30 years of GMing, taken during a meal at a Chinese buffet with husbands and siblings present for odd comments.
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How can you get women to join your campaign? Simple. Recognize that they're people, treat them with dignity and equality, and ask them if they'd like to play.
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What term corresponds to "Guys" when talking about persons of a "non-male" gender? I really don't think "Dolls" is going to work..."Men and women" - "Boys and girls" - "Guys and..."?
Or do we just need to start referring to each other as "Citizen"? (I'm going to feel like I'm playing in an RPG set in the Paris Commune of 1871...).
Perhaps "Ladies and gentlemen..."? Seems like a mouthful. I am (partly) from the South, so I guess I could say "Y'all..."... yeah, that might work.
"Guys" has become a go to word to reference a group and is intended to be gender neutral. I can see folks fighting it, but its going to be a long battle. If it was a group of women you could use "gals" but ive seen folks at work called out for highlighting gender in a professional formal setting as undesirable. On a more individual level, both men and women have taken to using "dude" when referencing someone they know in an informal way regardless of gender. Just something I noticed recently.
I use "folks" instead of guys, but that is often seen as a Midwestern or antiquated thing. "People" can work but you want to be careful not to seem like you are generalizing. Y'all is fine but often seen as informal for professional purposes. Basically, somebody can take issue with just about anything said I suppose. Sorry I'm just rambling at this point....
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Second comment....
"How can I get women to join my campaign? " ... wow.
"How can I get _______ to join my campaign? "
feels like we are playing "Pathfinders Against Humanity"...
Some interesting choices are...
"Men"
"Real Men"
"Short People"
"Persons of Color"
"Pasty White Geek Guys"
"Hindus"
"Dog Lovers"
"Hippies"
"Jocks"
"Cowboys Fans"...
As someone who lives 20 minutes away from AT&T stadium, I have no problem discriminating against Cowboys fans. They'll only pay attention when things are going well anyway.
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When I find myself starting to talk about "guys" I usually switch to "folks". It has the same casual tone and is totally gender neutral, getting away from any binary gender issues.
And "staffing" works when you're used to using "manning", as in 'staffing our booth at the con'
I use "folks" instead of guys, but that is often seen as a Midwestern or antiquated thing. "People" can work but you want to be careful not to seem like you are generalizing. Y'all is fine but often seen as informal for professional purposes. Basically, somebody can take issue with just about anything said I suppose.
In practice, it's pretty simple though. Make your best guess for the appropriate term based on whatever factors you have considered, and if someone has an issue with it, apologize and ask them what they would prefer, then do that instead.
As long as it's understood your error comes from a place of ignorance rather than malice, and you're willing to learn and change, you'll almost surely be forgiven immediately (and when you're not it's generally a "someone else is already having a bad day" situation.)
I seldom game in groups with less than 50% women at the table. I'm usually GMing, and I see no problem whatsoever (and neither do my players) with putting sexist themes and characters in the game. We like a dose of historical fiction in our fantasy world, and obviously men were the dominant sex throughout most of Earth's history. Having these tropes exist in game gives the players a chance to stand up to the status quo.
I set em up, they knock em down! The players love kicking their asses, and so it's a bit cathartic to see the neanderthals get what's coming to them.
That's the dynamic we have, so I won't pretend it would work with everyone. I game with my wife and close, dear friends who we've known for years. They as players know that respect is ironclad at our table, and anything that happens in-game is there for story development and not a jab at women.
(note - I acknowledge there is a difference between in-game themes and uncouth behavior by the players around the table.)
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Definitely appears to be more connotations attached to female terms. I know quite a few women who get angry at being called "mam" even when the intention is genuine. Some women prefer to be called "girl" because it connotes youth instead of adulthood (which is an interesting standard that seems to work in reverse for men). I have some theories on American culture's move towards informality, but that's entirely off topic. All in all, be mindful of you are speaking to. General forums such as this will be a minefield. Tread carefully, but be ready with a genuine reply and correction and you come out all right.
As someone with long hair I cannot count how many times I've been called "ma'am" sometimes to my face. :-)
I have a goatee, and a beard in the winter, doesn't help. :-)
Simple: 'ya'll'!
I polled some of our group's women, getting several snarky answers (I prefer Empress, You may address me as Mistress of all I survey, and Milady de Winter were the better ones.) before all agreed that they had no problem with the list which included 'gals' and 'girls'. All nixed any disrespectful ones, but use them in-game frequently (every letter of the alphabet up to 'u' so far). I also point out that I didn't poll our one twenty-something and 3 of the other four are grandmothers, youngest in her late 40s.
Survey consisted of 4 women with over a century combined play and about 30 years of GMing, taken during a meal at a Chinese buffet with husbands and siblings present for odd comments.
As one who's been watching Futurama on Netflix, the term meatbags has grown on me.
Make your best guess for the appropriate term based on whatever factors you have considered, and if someone has an issue with it, apologize and ask them what they would prefer, then do that instead.
Or try to find a term that causes issues for the fewest people from the beginning.
I'm fine with "guys" as a generic term for "people," personally, though it might bother some. "Folks" or "friends" should be fairly safe bets.
Not minding the usage of "girls" might be a generational thing; in my experience, more older women tend to use it to apply to themselves/their friends than younger ones (at least younger ones past college age). But it's entirely unscientific anecdata based on people I know.
(Though this is getting a bit tangential to OP's original question.)
The age thing tends to match my experience as well, as least to the point of the women who do use it tending to be well out of college.
One other thing to look for is whether it's being used self-referentially.
A term that a woman uses to describe herself and her chums may not be viewed by those same women as acceptable if it's an outsider using it descriptively.
I can think of quite a few terms that fit this kind of "ok/not ok"bifurcation.
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As a non-native speaker, what I get from the last page of this thread is that no matter what word you use, somebody will get angry.
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As a non-native speaker, what I get from the last page of this thread is that no matter what word you use, somebody will get angry.
Haven't seen anyone say that "women" would make them angry.
Generally things go off the skids when people start using casual, diminutive, or informal words for something. That's a risk in any language.
If you stick to the slightly more formal word(s), you'll be fine
As a non-native speaker, what I get from the last page of this thread is that no matter what word you use, somebody will get angry.Haven't seen anyone say that "women" would make them angry.
Generally things go off the skids when people start using casual, diminutive, or informal words for something. That's a risk in any language.
If you stick to the slightly more formal word(s), you'll be fine
Some people don't like gendered at all, so that would make women a problem.
Some people don't like gendered at all, so that would make women a problem.
There's that.
That's what I was suggesting when I said earlier (about the word "folks") "It has the same casual tone and is totally gender neutral, getting away from any binary gender issues. "
As a non-native speaker, what I get from the last page of this thread is that no matter what word you use, somebody will get angry.Haven't seen anyone say that "women" would make them angry.
Generally things go off the skids when people start using casual, diminutive, or informal words for something. That's a risk in any language.
If you stick to the slightly more formal word(s), you'll be fine
Again, as a non-native speaker, this is hard to believe. From where I'm it would be a strong way to talk to a woman, and from the little English I know, it's seems suspicious.
"hey woman, can you do this/that..."
"woman, can you sell me some of..."
"you are wrong, woman..."
"woman, do you need help?"
It's that how people talk/is supposed to talk?
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The problem with those sentences is in the sentence itself.
They are rude and awkward even when you leave "woman" out of the sentence.
But, staff have asked us not to get sidetracked by grammatical discussions, so I'll leave it there.
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Though it has the problem that it's totally gender neutral, which makes it fine for addressing the randomly gendered folks sitting in front of you, but makes it difficult to frame questions such as the OPs.
I suppose one could argue such questions should never be raised, but that seems a poor idea to me.
That goes back to earlier comments about increasing the diversity in your gaming group by searching out stereotypes to fill the seats.
Generally, you wouldn't want to ask "how do I get more [stereotype] into my gaming group". You'd want to ask how to find players with a wider range of backgrounds. And the advice has been, essentially, "look for players in places you haven't looked before" or "be sure the atmosphere in your group isn't uncomfortable for players who have different experiences in life than you do".
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If I may step in here and try to address the original issue in good faith here...
I am running a west marches game, which means the game can consist of anywhere between 12 and 20 players who alternate in and out of sessions. Despite getting a large number of people interested, I'm having issues convincing my female friends to sign up to play. I would really enjoy ... to be more focused on character development and interparty politics
As plenty of other people have pointed out, those are two distinct, unrelated goals you have for attracting players. Also, they're both sorts of players you are inherently going to chase off by running in the West Marches format.
If you really want PCs playing off each other in interesting ways, you need a group where everyone is on the same page tone wise, making a considerable investment in their characters and eachothers' characters, along with the greater world of the setting and whatever the main thrust of your campaign is. If you're keeping everything very floaty, light, and friendly to people constantly jumping in and out, you don't really have the bedrock for that sort of serious character development to build on.
Meanwhile women, as a general rule of thumb, really aren't keen on interacting with creepy dudes, and especially aren't keen to put ourselves in situations where women are vastly outnumbered by men (who, statistically, are less likely to have their back in a clear unqualified fashion when a creepy dude reveals himself). So group size is against you, as is the wild card of new people constantly dropping in and out.
The simplest solution on both fronts here would be to not run a West Marches game, and instead just run a traditional campaign with a reasonable sized party, players who all know and like each other already, meeting on a regular schedule. But I assume you're really married to the West Marches idea for one reason or another.
On that assumption, you can probably spur on more character interaction in a few ways. Mandatory backstories, maybe throwing in some suggested hooks or traits to tie people to some aspect of the setting so they have that in common/to argue about. Push people into interacting around the campfire at the end of the adventuring day rather than skip to morning. Work in a lot of NPCs with serious agendas and obvious material reasons to help or hinder them.
Meanwhile, to get more women playing, the most obvious thing to do would be to just ask those women you know who you've presumably invited and presumably are on the fence about agreeing what concerns are holding them back and address those. Keep in mind though that women tend to be very much conditioned to just quietly avoid situations we aren't comfortable with rather than speak up, particularly in situations where there is a creepy dude present at a social gathering (and again, if you have 12-20 players, at least one of them is almost certainly a creepy dude).
Honestly, I can't really suggest any quick tips to help there. Personally speaking, I don't think I could be talked into a seat at a table with a bunch of men I don't really know at all, especially if they're all friends/acquaintances of the male GM. I'd need to know anyone who proved to be a creep would be dropped from the game no questions asked, without any resentment from anyone or the dropped creep then having an axe to grind with me, and any group who's going to make that sort of promise up front is kind of intimidating in its own somewhat creepy way.
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If I may step in here and try to address the original issue in good faith here...
I am running a west marches game, which means the game can consist of anywhere between 12 and 20 players who alternate in and out of sessions. Despite getting a large number of people interested, I'm having issues convincing my female friends to sign up to play. I would really enjoy ... to be more focused on character development and interparty politicsAs plenty of other people have pointed out, those are two distinct, unrelated goals you have for attracting players. Also, they're both sorts of players you are inherently going to chase off by running in the West Marches format.
If you really want PCs playing off each other in interesting ways, you need a group where everyone is on the same page tone wise, making a considerable investment in their characters and eachothers' characters, along with the greater world of the setting and whatever the main thrust of your campaign is. If you're keeping everything very floaty, light, and friendly to people constantly jumping in and out, you don't really have the bedrock for that sort of serious character development to build on.
Meanwhile women, as a general rule of thumb, really aren't keen on interacting with creepy dudes, and especially aren't keen to put ourselves in situations where women are vastly outnumbered by men (who, statistically, are less likely to have their back in a clear unqualified fashion when a creepy dude reveals himself). So group size is against you, as is the wild card of new people constantly dropping in and out.
The simplest solution on both fronts here would be to not run a West Marches game, and instead just run a traditional campaign with a reasonable sized party, players who all know and like each other already, meeting on a regular schedule. But I assume you're really married to the West Marches idea for one reason or another.
On that assumption, you can probably spur on more character interaction in a few...
Solid advice for life in general. Don't bring your female friends or significant other to places where they are creeped out.