I was drug into it by my wife.
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I've never seen anything to tell me that the game is less compelling for female players than for males. I've gamed with a wide variety of people and there is nothing that will indicate who "gets into the game" and who will not.
I put the above in quotes because there are a whole lot of ways to get into the game. Some like their hack n' slash, some like their puzzles and mysteries, others like to portray characters, and anything between or beyond. Once you find what you like, you'll establish patterns that allow you to enjoy the game.
Yeah. I think it´s fair to say that perhaps Mr. Gygax didn´t know many girls who were really into HIS type of game. This topic seems rather bizarre, given that the vast majority of males definitely aren´t into either war-gaming or role-playing games as we know them on this forum.
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In all fairness to the late Mr. Gygax, back in the day there was not a lot, if any, female gamers. Even now with the many more female gamers, in some areas they are few and far between. There could be many reasons for this, upto and including the notion, wrong though it maybe, that it is a guy thing.
In my experience Lady gamers in general tend to a more story oriented game. Perhaps the change in the approach to gaming in general has let a lot of female gamer to feel more free to game. Or maybe it is just that the majority of male gamers have grown up a bit and are less likely to "weird" the ladies out.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Gary had a particular type of gaming in mind.
Think in terms of dungeon-crawls like the Temple of the Frog God, the Tomb of Horrors slaughterfest, the Caves of Chaos. Consider the attribute limits placed on female characters, the cheesecake illustrations, all the scheming female NPCs in the GDQ series, and the girdle of femininity, where being turned into a woman is considered a curse.
Think about the random whore chart in the 1st Edition DMG.
To my mind, the first version of the game that wasn't hostile / patronizing to women was the D&D Cyclopedia, where fully-dressed women adventured side-by-side with their male colleagues.
Random whore chart!?!
Mr. Fishy's copy only had a random city encounter chart, with whores.
Damn Mr. Fishy needs to pull out his copies and review the randoms whores.
Think about the random whore chart in the 1st Edition DMG.
What the.
I don't think I've ever heard about _that_ particular bit of game lore before.
Yeah, all in all, it's not hard to see why women might not have been drawn to the hobby back in the day. Good deal the world's moved forward.
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Think about the random whore chart in the 1st Edition DMG.What the.
I don't think I've ever heard about _that_ particular bit of game lore before.
Yeah, all in all, it's not hard to see why women might not have been drawn to the hobby back in the day. Good deal the world's moved forward.
Yep I vaguely remember it.
Personally my older brother got me involved. His gaming group was short a fighter so he drug me in. I had fun and keep pestering him to let me play again. Eventually they let me join the group and I was hooked. I think cause it was my older brother in a otherwise group of older guys is why my first gaming experience was a positive. Many after that wasn't, till I moved onto Vampire and other such games.
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Yeah, all in all, it's not hard to see why women might not have been drawn to the hobby back in the day. Good deal the world's moved forward
Think in terms of dungeon-crawls like the Temple of the Frog God, the Tomb of Horrors slaughterfest, the Caves of Chaos. Consider the attribute limits placed on female characters, the cheesecake illustrations, all the scheming female NPCs in the GDQ series, and the girdle of femininity, where being turned into a woman is considered a curse.
Think about the random whore chart in the 1st Edition DMG.
You are both asuming that sexism was the cause of lack of female players. But I´m with Gygax, nowadays there are an overwhelming mayority of male players, so...
Go to the Giant on the playground forums and see the female/male ratio, is surprising the difference with usual roleplaying forums, to me is pretty clear that sexism has nothing to do in this, we are diferent and have different tastes.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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Think about the random whore chart in the 1st Edition DMG.What the.
I don't think I've ever heard about _that_ particular bit of game lore before.
Yeah, all in all, it's not hard to see why women might not have been drawn to the hobby back in the day. Good deal the world's moved forward.
That chart inspired the name of our PaizoCon trivia contest team in 2009: the BRAZEN STRUMPETS!
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Yeah, all in all, it's not hard to see why women might not have been drawn to the hobby back in the day. Good deal the world's moved forwardThink in terms of dungeon-crawls like the Temple of the Frog God, the Tomb of Horrors slaughterfest, the Caves of Chaos. Consider the attribute limits placed on female characters, the cheesecake illustrations, all the scheming female NPCs in the GDQ series, and the girdle of femininity, where being turned into a woman is considered a curse.
Think about the random whore chart in the 1st Edition DMG.
You are both asuming that sexism was the cause of lack of female players. But I´m with Gygax, nowadays there are an overwhelming mayority of male players, so...
Go to the Giant on the playground forums and see the female/male ratio, is surprising the difference with usual roleplaying forums, to me is pretty clear that sexism has nothing to do in this, we are diferent and have different tastes.
First I didn't write what you quoted, that was me quoting them.
Second it is not much of a assumption, most women I know that played in the early 90's or earlier experienced it. Plus for every two women I know that play, I know at least one that tried it and found it was a boys club. Of course this is just from my own personal experience first hand or from talking to other female gamers.
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Second it is not much of a assumption, most women I know that played in the early 90's or earlier experienced it. Plus for every two women I know that play, I know at least one that tried it and found it was a boys club. Of course this is just from my own personal experience first hand or from talking to other female gamers.
Just look at this forum, see the number of mens and womans, is because sexism in the game nowadays?, is because there are a lot of womans trying to play but, boys dont let them? I have seen this in others places, like videogames or magic:the gathering some tematics appeal more to one gender on average.
That chart inspired the name of our PaizoCon trivia contest team in 2009: the BRAZEN STRUMPETS!
There's something charmingly meta about a trivia contest team name rooted in obscure trivia.
On topic... sadly the forums ate the first version of this post so if it ends up incoherent, just poke me:
I don't think we can lay all the blame Gygax for the gender skew of the hobby, although certainly some of his work didn't help matters any. For example, 1E male characters being strictly mechanically superior to female characters.
I do also think there's a sort of inertia in any hobby that skews heavily to one gender or the other. Certainly I can't think of a lot of hobbies that skew more male than gaming once did. (Or still does?) The experience you have as the odd person out just isn't the experience that the majority have with the same hobby for reasons that don't strictly have anything to do with the hobby itself.
My wife is a gamer, and was for years before she met me. (She's also a bit of a killer DM, bless her black, bloodthirsty heart.) The stories she can tell about her early years in gaming just have no parallel in my experiences or in the experiences of any of the male gamers I know. For example, one year she was attending a major gaming convention for part of a day and had to work later that night. A guy at the convention saw her and apparently was interested, but didn't approach her there. Instead, he followed her to work (~10 miles away) and asked her to go for a walk with him. To me, that's just creepy and I've never experienced anything like it in the context of gaming.
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Just look at this forum, see the number of mens and womans, is because sexism in the game nowadays?, is because there are a lot of womans trying to play but, boys dont let them? I have seen this in others places, like videogames or magic:the gathering some tematics appeal more to one gender on average.Second it is not much of a assumption, most women I know that played in the early 90's or earlier experienced it. Plus for every two women I know that play, I know at least one that tried it and found it was a boys club. Of course this is just from my own personal experience first hand or from talking to other female gamers.
I didn't say anything about nowadays. I was more refering to back when that quote was made.
But yes some things appeal more to women over men and vice versa.
I do know I stopped playing DnD for a long time mostly because of some of the players. I liked RPing and ended up moving onto to the White Wolf World of Darkness stuff.
I can't really speak how things are in that regard. I have been in a pretty stable group for about 10 years now and stopped going to cons and pickup games a back in the 90's.
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Just a few tidbits:
Gary had a particular type of gaming in mind.
Think in terms of dungeon-crawls like the Temple of the Frog God, the Tomb of Horrors slaughterfest, the Caves of Chaos. Consider the attribute limits placed on female characters, the cheesecake illustrations, all the scheming female NPCs in the GDQ series, and the girdle of femininity, where being turned into a woman is considered a curse.
Think about the random whore chart in the 1st Edition DMG.
To my mind, the first version of the game that wasn't hostile / patronizing to women was the D&D Cyclopedia, where fully-dressed women adventured side-by-side with their male colleagues.
1. From page 145 of my 1979 copyright AD&D DMG, it is a girdle of femininity/masculinity rather than merely of femininity.
2. The table for Harlot is on page 192, it is as follows but is made in two columns rather than the one below...
01-10 Slovenly trull
1-25 Brazen strumpet
26-35 Cheap trollup
36-50 Typical streetwalker
51-65 Saucy tart
66-75 Wanton wench
76-85 Expensive doxy
86-90 Haughty courtesan
91-92 Aged madam
93-94 Wealthy procuress
95-98 Sly pimp
99-00 Rich panderer
To be honest, I wasn't trying to make a point with the chart. I just wanted to post it. :P
As a general rule, I think it not too fair to criticize the game as being a product of sexism, with a couple possible exceptions. Whether anyone believes or doesn't believe any number of qualities being innately different between boys and girls does not change the fact that the end product of traits and environment has led to great differences in manifested behaviors. Sure, there is overlap (we do have a lot of women who enjoy the game), but there are distinct differences in behavior and that (IMO) has a lot more to do with the numbers difference than sexism within the game and the players.
When I started dating my wife, she described how her ex-husband had refused to let her game with him. He told her that "you wouldn't understand the games we play". Since she was Valedictorian of her class in high school and now teaches Physics and Chemistry, she found his attitude somewhat irritating.
Since he was an abusive, sexist idiot, I suspect his point would have been better described as "my group's games are too misogynistic and filled with coarse sexual stereotypes for you to play without becoming violently ill."
Sometimes, it's not the game, but the people playing it.
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When I started dating my wife, she described how her ex-husband had refused to let her game with him. He told her that "you wouldn't understand the games we play". Since she was Valedictorian of her class in high school and now teaches Physics and Chemistry, she found his attitude somewhat irritating.
Since he was an abusive, sexist idiot, I suspect his point would have been better described as "my group's games are too misogynistic and filled with coarse sexual stereotypes for you to play without becoming violently ill."
Sometimes, it's not the game, but the people playing it.
Very true. The only things that bugged me about AD&D was the str limit based on gender. I didn't mind the cheese cake art. I actually like it. I just want their to be a mix. Some shirtless conan types and women and men in full armor looking like adventures.
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In-fact, I've converted three (out of four attempts) female friends into gamers after persuading them to try. Initially they were convinced they wouldn't like it, that it was dumb, blah blah. Half an hour in they were hooked.
What this proves is that gaming have things to appeal females, but is nothing they are interested by themselves, I can figure a roleplaying heavy campaing as interesting to some,but the dungeon crawl type its a no,no,no for most females.
The table for Harlot is on page 192, it is as follows ...
I suggested that a random harlot table was just what Pathfinder needs, but according to my anonymous source in Paizo Publishing, the design philosophy for Pathfinder is that such encounters should be individually hand-crafted by the GM.
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2. The table for Harlot is on page 192, it is as follows but is made in two columns rather than the one below...
01-10 Slovenly trull
1-25 Brazen strumpet
26-35 Cheap trollup
36-50 Typical streetwalker
51-65 Saucy tart
66-75 Wanton wench
76-85 Expensive doxy
86-90 Haughty courtesan
91-92 Aged madam
93-94 Wealthy procuress
95-98 Sly pimp
99-00 Rich panderer
Mr. Fishy remembers that table now! That sly pimp. Mr. Fishy wants two doxies, a courtesan and a tart.
The table for Harlot is on page 192, it is as follows ...I suggested that a random harlot table was just what Pathfinder needs, but according to my anonymous source in Paizo Publishing, the design philosophy for Pathfinder is that such encounters should be individually hand-crafted by the GM.
CUT AND PASTE!
Second it is not much of a assumption, most women I know that played in the early 90's or earlier experienced it. Plus for every two women I know that play, I know at least one that tried it and found it was a boys club. Of course this is just from my own personal experience first hand or from talking to other female gamers.
I don't think that it was intentionally a boys club, at least in my experience... I grew up in a small sea side town and in high school if you didn't surf and play rugby you were vermin and no girl would have anything to do with you. I both surfed and played rugby (very badly) so I wasn't quite vermin, but most of my best and true friends were not suited to athletic pursuits and played D&D at lunch and I liked D&D more than sport so I was in.
We had one girl that was interested in playing she was older and very attractive. Except for one dick-head who was quickly told to shut his cake-hole we were very happy have her play and it was an excellent experience. She started going out with one of the guys and then they broke up a month later and she decided she couldn't be at the same table as her ex boyfriend which was entirely understandable.
I think that it kind of soured the group on mixed gaming... as people took sides, and relationships hormones and jealousies became more important than fun.
High school is that kind of place people are trying to sort out who they are, what they like, and things can be black and white. Gamers predominately are male not athletic and geeky they have to develop a siege mentality because of the bullying and teasing they receive. Teasing and bullying by females is the worst and cuts the deepest because its an indication of how successful the gamer is going to be romantically in the future. The internal dialogue for a young geeky guy when asked by a girl if they can play would run something like this... "Is this a trick? is she going to make me a laughing stock infront of her friends? Or is she going heap crap on me and make me feel bad for not being able to play sport? She actually wants to play.... why it just opens you up for teasing and bullying."
On the other hand.
I talked my mum and some of her friends into playing a few games. In the end they said that they were too old and didn't have time (which was a polite way of saying they found it boring). Still it came in handy when some idiot was raging against the Satanic game that was D&D mum and her friends tore strips off them that was the funniest day...
My sister just thought everything I did was stupid so there was no hope there. My Grandmother loved the art and liked the idea of telling stories but had no time for the mechanics.
University was where it all changed for me. People cared a lot less if you were a surfer or played rugby and there were women entirely into gaming and it wasnt a problem for anybody. The only gender was gamer which was cool.
My wife plays occasionally but she has other interests she prefers art and craft and gaming is a social thing for her. The same goes for the other partners of the guys I game with. We are constantly asking if they would like to join because we enjoy it when they play..... They have other things they would rather do.
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I do know I stopped playing DnD for a long time mostly because of some of the players. I liked RPing and ended up moving onto to the White Wolf World of Darkness stuff.
This is an interesting point. I've been playing since '79 (I was nine), and the '80s were notoriously female free in most gaming circles/stores/conventions/etc I experienced. I didn't notice a huge increase in female players until Vampire:tM was released.
I think subject matter was a big factor. I suppose it's possible that a lot of women aren't as into Conan and pulp fantasy as men are, but will eat up anything involving vampires (look at the demographic for the typical Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles/Laurel K. Hamilton Anita Blake novels: women dominate there). I suppose, after WW expanded the gamer demographic (and that was the last huge expansion of the gamer demographic, really), and the larger audience decided they liked TT gaming, more women started popping up in fantasy/sci-sci-fi tables. I'm guessing that, once someone invented a game that dealt with a subject already popular with women, more women, once exposed, decided they love gaming and explored other genres.
It probably didn't hurt that 3x eliminated the last vestiges of any male/female mechanical character differences, which opened up D&D for women to be as bad as they wanted to be.
OH BOY
THIS THREAD AGAIN
Also Gary in this quote is wrong. Literally wrong. As in outright factually incorrect.
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I've been gaming since the late 70s and I've generally been the DM. I've had an equal number of men and women in my groups over the years, but that may be because I'm female. In general, women are more likely to get involved because of the story. That doesn't mean they find battles boring, but they like to have a stronger reason to fight besides killing things and taking their treasure.
Again, I'm generalizing but most of the new players who I've introduced to gaming over the years have been drug into it by their gaming girlfriends. So...
I wonder if we'd have more women playing if we had more women behind the DM screen.
I wonder if we'd have more women playing if we had more women behind the DM screen.
I would agree with that. I enjoy it when we have a female DM its not better just refreshingly different.
Mr. Fishy's Trollop runs a game once in awhile. Different is an understatement. Mr. Fishy's Trollop loves NPCs and their drama...Dear Gods the drama. Mr. Fishy can't run a game like his Trollop. Mr. Fishy's fishy brain can't twist into the proper mode to run a high social game. Pathfinder she does OK. WOD she owns the night. Even the canny Mr. Fishy has to swim lightly in a Trollop WOD game.
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I don't think that it was intentionally a boys club, at least in my experience...
Second it is not much of a assumption, most women I know that played in the early 90's or earlier experienced it. Plus for every two women I know that play, I know at least one that tried it and found it was a boys club. Of course this is just from my own personal experience first hand or from talking to other female gamers.
I agree most guys likely didn't want it. As for some of the other stuff I can see how guys might not want to play with girls which is understandable. My experiences is most guys are fine, many are very welcoming but it only takes one to make it a bad experience.
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I don't think that it was intentionally a boys club, at least in my experience...I agree most guys likely didn't want it. As for some of the other stuff I can see how guys might not want to play with girls which is understandable. My experiences is most guys are fine, many are very welcoming but it only takes one to make it a bad experience.
Thing is, there were/are a lot of socially-clueless guys in gaming (speaking from personal experience; I was one, once upon a time). As a guy, it's generally easier for me to get past a certain level of cluelessness, because the socially-clueless guy isn't generally trying to hit on me.
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I do agree(from what I've experienced first hand anyway) that guys and girls have a tendency to prefer different aspects of the game just as you could stereotype they may have the greatest interest in. Guys seem to most often gravitate towards action while the girls prefer story and the buildup of character driven drama. That isn't to say that the sides don't enjoy the opposite(or that my anecdotal evidence isn't wrong in some cases) but more that people tend to have an inclination towards one.
I group I play with seems to almost always fall to being 4 guys and two girls, the actual players vary from game to game but that ratio tends to be pretty solid. The exception I have really noticed for this seems to be World of Darkness games that tend to be split more down the middle. The same held true for the handful of LARPs I have been to which surprised me at the first one I went to, I was in high school at the time and it was hard enough finding guys to play D&D and Rifts with, no less realizing there were a bunch of girls out there ready to be dorks with the rest of us. I always kind of assumed that this was because the WoD setting has so much more of an emphasis on story and character motivation rather than build by being fairly rules light.
One other thing that I have noticed is that a certain feeling of being the odd 'man' out could have a role in this. It seems like whenever I have been in a group that only had one girl in it she was much more likely to fall out of the game than when there were two or more. My gaming group are all friends outside of game so its not like the misogynist attitude is creeping up to cause problems, but I've always wondered if the girls felt more comfortable when other girls were involved too. Its always easier to do something that puts you on the spot(and if you are shy at all then hamming up your character or even just talking in front of a group really does that) when there are other people you can relate to doing it as well.
In the early days of D&D when there weren't many girls playing and as Chris mentioned above the material being put out certainly wasn't aimed at encouraging them to, it would be that much harder. Being the first girl you know to show an interest in an activity that was generally seen as male oriented would be tough. Even if you were excepted as an equal and not made to play a bar wench or oogled(I have to suspect that the 'Gamer girls are hot, uh do you want to go out?' mindset doesn't help much more than the misogynist one) it would be difficult not to feel weird.
Not everyone can be a pioneer in cross-gender hobby-ism like Sebastian and his ponies.
I think the reason that roleplaying games and video games primarily appeal to men is because roleplaying games and video games have generally been written by men, and tailored to appeal to a male audience.
I think that as the industry tries to appeal more to women, and as more women start to occupy high level positions in the gaming industry, you'll start to see an uptick in the number of women playing. In fact, I think that trend has already started. I know I certainly see it at my gaming table. That said, I think it will be a long time before you see the same number of women gaming as men.
I think the reason that roleplaying games and video games primarily appeal to men is because roleplaying games and video games have generally been written by men, and tailored to appeal to a male audience.
I think that as the industry tries to appeal more to women, and as more women start to occupy high level positions in the gaming industry, you'll start to see an uptick in the number of women playing. In fact, I think that trend has already started. I know I certainly see it at my gaming table. That said, I think it will be a long time before you see the same number of women gaming as men.
One difficult element I see here is that its something of a catch 22. Woman who love gaming so much that they become professional writers in the hobby are also likely to be the exceptions to the rule that men like combat and woman like plot.
Certainly to write for any derivative of D&D one needs to be able to eat breath and sleep mechanics. Thus it appeals to woman that are already somewhat breaking the mold.
I would agree with that. I enjoy it when we have a female DM its not better just refreshingly different.
In almost 30 years of gaming this only happened once, for 3 hours, at a games con.
Then the sun set, the miracle ended, and the world kept turning...
Mind you I now have a female GM in PbP - but as that's a fixed module (and PbP) I'm not so sure I'd necessarily spot the difference. Time will tell.
Female players? yes, lotsa.
Female GM's? rare as rocking horse sh*t.
One difficult element I see here is that its something of a catch 22. Woman who love gaming so much that they become professional writers in the hobby are also likely to be the exceptions to the rule that men like combat and woman like plot.
Certainly to write for any derivative of D&D one needs to be able to eat breath and sleep mechanics. Thus it appeals to woman that are already somewhat breaking the mold.
I think that's true of just about any woman trying to do anything in an arena traditionally dominated by men. That said, I think that once an exceptional woman breaks that mold, she tends to pave the way for other women to follow.
As for men liking combat and women liking plot, I don't think those stereotypes necessarily hold. Perhaps it's true that men place more emphasis on combat, while women tend to place more emphasis on plot. However, I think all players appreciate a good plot, just as much as they appreciate a good combat. If they didn't, I don't think Ravenloft- a heavily plot driven adventure, with some of the most interesting combats ever written- would have been so well received by the gaming community. This is particularly true when you consider that the module was published during a time when the industry was almost entirely male-dominated.
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5 years ago the only time I'd heard about D&D was when I was interested in a guy in highschool and almost went to a game. I had the sterotypical 80s dorks in their mom's basement idea.
Then I met gamers. Who were a lot like me. I started to date a hardcore DM, and four months in started to play.
I started to DM in summer 2009. I went through the Crown of the Kobold King mods and went to Council of Thieves - they've just finished the 4th book.
I first DMed two people, my boyfriend, and my best friend (girl) She was first introduced by a guy, but stayed with it even when the relationship fell apart.
Girls generally don't get the immersion with gaming that guys do. I didn't get video games as gifts. I had to fight with the guys if I wanted to play, and since I never played, I sucked.
Now I love gaming & I'm one of the more knowlegable players/DMs in the various groups I'm in.
I understand where the sexism comes from, but some jerks really need some social classes when it comes to women.
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Also,in my current game, the girl likes the combat and is bored by the RP, while two of the guys are awesome at the RP.
[Edit] In response to Tarlane, I notice when other girls play, because except for the game I run, I am usually the only girl playing. I don't think that having another girl gaming is likely to keep me more than without.
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I would agree with that. I enjoy it when we have a female DM its not better just refreshingly different.In almost 30 years of gaming this only happened once, for 3 hours, at a games con.
Then the sun set, the miracle ended, and the world kept turning...
Mind you I now have a female GM in PbP - but as that's a fixed module (and PbP) I'm not so sure I'd necessarily spot the difference. Time will tell.
Female players? yes, lotsa.
Female GM's? rare as rocking horse sh*t.
Interesting; I didn't think my experiences were that atypical. I've been playing since 1977 (inactive the last several years, more's the pity), and even in the 1978-1986 time frame I think around four of the twenty-five or thirty GMs I played under were women...maybe I'm biased in memory because I married one of them, though :-).
Well to add that extra bit of fuel to the fire, it was a WoD GM who was female... so if I look at 'D&D' the answer was pretty much 0. I have been to lots of cons, know heaps of gamers, played at plenty of tables - and in that time only came across Sarah, who was a GM at a Con, and that was in about 1994.
As I say, HEAPS of female players though... was often 50%+ of our group.
Just when it came to GM'ing, didn't happen.
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Well to add that extra bit of fuel to the fire, it was a WoD GM who was female... so if I look at 'D&D' the answer was pretty much 0. I have been to lots of cons, know heaps of gamers, played at plenty of tables - and in that time only came across Sarah, who was a GM at a Con, and that was in about 1994.
As I say, HEAPS of female players though... was often 50%+ of our group.
Just when it came to GM'ing, didn't happen.
I knew one other woman at the time (1982-1985 or so) who was running D&D 1e, but I never played in her game. Of the four I remember playing under, two ran a bizarre but highly enjoyable OD&D variant dreamed up by a math PhD with too much time on his hands, one ran Villains & Vigilantes, and the one I married ran a homebrew system called Quest (which had some strong similarities to d20, only fifteen years early). The first two mostly ran dungeon crawls, the V&V ref was more into RP, and Quest in general lent itself to tactically intensive gaming if you wanted to avoid TPKs. Again, though, my experience isn't really sounding typical.