Gamer Grrls

[Pandion]

ChaosKitten you're welcome to join our group if you don't mind coming up to the cooler side of DC (aka MD). I'm a DM running a campaign set in the Iron Kingdoms and we're looking for women who know how to roleplay. In other words, we're not looking for wives, gfs, significant others who only play to please their man.

Email me at patdgardner@yahoo.com if interested.

PS: All members of our group are married and around 30.

 

[Elrik_DarkFury]

Where are the pics?
Ahh,nothing yet. :\
Damn i'll come back later then.
See u later-(hehe)

______________
The Wizard

 

[Calico_Jack73]

I'll extend an invite too in case MD is out of your way... we play in downtown Falls Church every other Thursday night and at 31 I am the youngest member. I'm running a Midnight game right now but one of my other players has mentioned an interest in running a Forgotten Realms campaign. Almost everyone in the group is married and we have one other female player who would lay the smack down on any sexist remarks (and I'd be giving them the boot shortly after that) not that anyone would make them.

You can contact me at calico_jack73@yahoo.com

 

[Nellisir]

If the DM isn't one of the jackasses, make it clear to him what's going on, that you won't put up with it, and he should (hopefully) back you up.

I've had all sorts in my game - great female gamers, great male gamers.... The worst only last one session, others learn. I like a dirty joke and a cute girl as much as the next guy, but everyone in my groups has to respect each other.

I like having a mixed gender group, but since graduating I've only been able to recruit one girl at a time (the first, who wanted a monkey but was otherwise quite good, got a boyfriend and they both dropped out; the second, who wanted a monkey and never learned the rules, took a sabbatical; the third was frighteningly good and fun, and did not want a monkey, but moved out of state; and the fourth wanted a monkey and now trash-talks all the NPCs in some kind of urban pop culture gutter slang in the game I'm NOT running.)

I'm a little tired of monkeys, btw.

Nell.

 

[Hjorimir]

Saying they are of college age could simply mean ‘fresh out of high school’ and, if my memory serves, the majority of guys that played D&D in high school never had a girlfriend. This sounds to me like such a group. I’m not trying to make excuses for their poor manners and uncouth behavior, but I have seen the mentality before and kind of see how it develops.

I’ve been playing D&D for just over twenty-five years and have gamed with a total of eight females. Six of them were the ‘significant other’ of one of the guys playing and the other two were part of a family game (where the DM was the father and I ended up dating one of them though I had been playing D&D for quite a while before that).

Of those eight female players, not a one of them were what I would consider highly knowledgeable of the rules. Though most of them role-played quite well, they all pretty much had character sheets handed to them.

My wife is exactly this way. It isn’t that she isn’t perfectly capable of learning the rules (she is a software QA analyst and runs SQL queries and does all kinds of technical things), it is just that she isn’t inspired to read rules that are, admittedly, quite dry.

I imagine that if I had an immature attitude and combined my personal life experiences, I would behave in much the same way. I am older now and, hopefully, wiser and see them for what they are: people. I have guys that game with me that can’t even manage their own character sheets with anything that resembles accuracy.

I wish that there were more female gamers in our group and, more importantly, in the hobby. It has been my experience that women tend to be strong role-players with a vivid imagination and, sometimes, can breath some life into the game where it was previously missing.

I’ve played female characters and I’ve seen other guys do it as well. Let me tell you, women play women much better than men ever will. I think we just may be different somehow.

I don’t think it is realistic (or healthy) to try and change another human being overnight. These guys sound like they are going to need some life experiences with the opposite sex (probably both as friends and as girlfriends) before they have a more objective view. You’re probably better off looking for other gamers that are mature and accepting.

Good luck.

 

[Bloodstone Press]

She has leather armor but only very rarely wears it. She feels it impedes her ability to fly. She also wears light, lose clothing that also won't impede her ability to fly. It's one of the most important things to her.

She does have a charisma of fourteen. I wouldn't of bothered of putting it there if I didn't have a backstory reason behind it. She's incredibly short, that bothers her a lot and so she feels like she needs to "act" taller. So that means putting lots of ranks into intimidate. I also have a couple in diplomacy, but just because she is a winged elf after all and that stuns people a bit.

good character concept. Reminds me of some people I've known in real life.

Out of game I've been told that, "Female characters should always dress sexy in games. It's what they do. It's entertaining for the rest of us".

Ouch.

I would say you should definitely leave that group and find some more mature people to play with. Perhaps a group with at least 1 girl in it would be a good thing to look for.

Better yet, get some of your friends (male or female) together and start a new group with them.

Edit:
On second thought, maybe you should stay with that group. Retire the character you are playing right now. Start a new one who is morbidly obese, Char 6 or so, has a few disfiguring scars, bad acne and doesn't bathe often. Dress her in the sort of scanty clothes the guys think they want to see and have her come on to them constantly. Give her an STD too, just in case they try anything stupid.

 

[adriayna]

Since I'm a female gamer myself, I'll chime in with my own experiences.

I've been in groups that have had an even number of female:male gamers in the past, and have been in groups (like my current one) in which I am the only female.

I guess you could say I've gotten lucky. The one group I was in that had an even ratio of female to male gamers (4 guys, 4 girls including me as the DM) was a longer evil game that I ran. The group was one I had "collected" as an undergrad in college--I found a bunch of people interested, and half of them happened to be women. I know its a little uncommon to have an even number of men and women, but it worked out fine. Since it was evil, there were certain issues more "open" than you might find in normal good groups. One of the female gamers (also a female character) ran a whorehouse, for example. Not once did we have any sort of issue (but that may have been because the guys were on even terms). The group was composed of mostly new players (with the more experienced players almost all being the male gamers). I did find as a DM the guys gave me more problems, but I attribute that to them being long-time gamers, not their gender.

The group I'm currently in consists of 6 people: me and five guys (all of us are in our mid-20's). One of the male gamers is homosexual also. There have been a few uncomfortable moments for me, but generally the guys in the group are great and I haven't had any sort of problems. Sure we all joke about stuff, but I've seriously had a blast with these guys and I don't see my gender even as an issue at the table.

I have talked to other female gamers who haven't gotten as lucky as i have in the experience. My advice to you is just to find a new group. If the group isn't working and the guys are acting like jerks, trust me, there are other groups out there who will accept you and make you feel welcome.

 

[maddman75]

Where are the pics?
Ahh,nothing yet. :\
Damn i'll come back later then.
See u later-(hehe)

______________
The Wizard

The smilies do not make this less creepy.

 

[MDSnowman]

Of the ladies I've met who game, almost all are intelligent, well-spoken, and can play a wide range of games like nobody's business. Sad thing I can't say the same about all the guy gamers I've met at various conventions.

However, I can't say as I've ever run into overt sexism at a game table - just more social inexperience than anything.

I'm with Henry on this one Chaos... I've got two female players in my Mutants and Masterminds game and they are far and away the best Role Players in the group. We haven't run into much trouble as far as sexism as one male player is too wrapped up in his character to demand a gratitous swimsuit session, and the other is married with enough kids to start a basketball team .

Heh the problems stems from the fact that a lot of gamers have very poor social skills, and those skills only get worse around females.

All that being said I hope you do find some more mature gamers Chaos.

 

[hoyagerv]

Just to add my own two cents...

My experience with female gamers over the last four years, has, to say the least, been disheartening. Our group has played with three women and only one has roleplayed with any amount of talent. In the campaign I ran for three years, my lone female player was terrible. While everyone else was thoroughly involved in the game, she showed very little interest and never even learned the most basic of rules. Whenever she did try, she would fall back into that female stereotype, using her womanly charms to effect solutions to problems I presented. While I would have no problem with this kind of behavior if it fit her character, she happened to be a Paladin of Tyr. As you can imagine, I often had to remind her that her actions were not exactly befitting her class.

I must say that I am envious of those groups that have had good experiences with women. I have also thought that a good female roleplayer would introduce a dynamic into the game that mine has been sorely lacking. Women, generally speaking, think differently than man, and thus are capable of coming up with innovative solutions to problems.

With that being said, Chaos Kitten, my group is also in the Northern VA area (Arlington). It consists of only men, aged 22-23, all fresh out of college (all Georgetown grads, if my username didn't give it away). We're all respectable gentlemen--at least we'd like to think so--and would enjoy the company of a competent female roleplayer at our table. If you're interested, just send me an email at kmg4@georgetown.edu. Actually, this invitation goes out to anyone in the NOVA, Southern MD, or DC area.

Best of luck finding a group capable of appreciating what has always been almost as mystical as anything found in the Monster Manual--a talented female roleplayer.

Keith