D&D General Gamer Stats From White Dwarf in the 80s

robus · Jul 7, 2019

Hussar said:
I'm curious actually, and in the spirit of asking more questions, how common were single sex schools in England in the 80's? I honestly didn't know. Is it something widespread or was it only a couple of schools.

If the school had any aspiration to “eliteness” then it was generally single sex. The comprehensives were (are?) mixed. Speaking as an English public (i.e. private) school boy in the 70s/80s. Sadly I had no clue about TTRPGs but then I was mostly into girls, music and underage drinking (which was a challenge at a boarding school...)

Hussar · Jul 7, 2019

MGibster said:
Vampire brought a lot of people who weren't typically role players to the hobby. I wonder if it was the table top game that did that or the Minds Eye Theater live action role playing game that attracted new people to the hobby.

I really think it was the latter. The notion of bringing "thespianism" to use a phrase, largely starts with Vampire. At least, that's around the time where a lot of that sort of "improv theater" approach to gaming started really rolling. ((Yes, I KNOW I'm painting with a really, really broad brush there. Not making a judgement, but, just a sort of general thought))

Wow, I had no idea that single sex schooling was so popular in English speaking countries. I honestly didn't know. I mean, in the US and Canada, single sex schools are pretty rare and have been since before I was born (in the 70's for anyone keeping score). I really had no idea.

Zardnaar · Jul 7, 2019

Hussar said:
I really think it was the latter. The notion of bringing "thespianism" to use a phrase, largely starts with Vampire. At least, that's around the time where a lot of that sort of "improv theater" approach to gaming started really rolling. ((Yes, I KNOW I'm painting with a really, really broad brush there. Not making a judgement, but, just a sort of general thought))

Wow, I had no idea that single sex schooling was so popular in English speaking countries. I honestly didn't know. I mean, in the US and Canada, single sex schools are pretty rare and have been since before I was born (in the 70's for anyone keeping score). I really had no idea.

I think it's the Victorian legacy since a few of those schools date back to then, mine was 1886 iirc.

USA left in Georgian times hence a lack of fish and chips and Indian food relative to the Commonwealth countries.

robus · Jul 7, 2019

Zardnaar said:
I think it's the Victorian legacy since a few of those schools date back to then, mine was 1886 iirc.

USA left in Georgian times hence a lack of fish and chips and Indian food relative to the Commonwealth countries.

My old school actually started accepting girls for 6th form in the 00s I believe. It dates its history back to 1563 apparently!

Zardnaar · Jul 7, 2019

robus said:
My old school actually started accepting girls for 6th form in the 00s I believe. It dates its history back to 1563 apparently!

New colonial scum here. Our schools started crossovers in the 90s so if a girl wanted to study wood working or metal working she could go to the boys school whiles classes at the girls school were available to the boys.

Hussar · Jul 7, 2019

Huh. Wonder why Canada went with the American model. It's not like we left early.

S'mon · Jul 7, 2019

Hussar said:
S'okay. I believe that [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] was making a joke. And a good one at that. At least, that's how I take it. Not a worry.

Yeah I was joking of course! We all know it's really all the fsult of that other guy. You know. Him.

Zardnaar · Jul 7, 2019

Hussar said:
Huh. Wonder why Canada went with the American model. It's not like we left early.

I kind of look at Canada as absorbing the best aspects of the UK/USA/the colonies. Geography, history, culture etc.

Jay Verkuilen · Jul 7, 2019

MGibster said:
Vampire brought a lot of people who weren't typically role players to the hobby. I wonder if it was the table top game that did that or the Minds Eye Theater live action role playing game that attracted new people to the hobby.

If you want to expand the market substantially you have to bring new people in. To do that you often have to break things open with a new concept. VtM was a very new concept when it came out and, if I recall correctly, that was right around the time Anne Rice was popular so the ground was fertile already.

Jay Verkuilen · Jul 7, 2019

Lylandra said:
Yep, yet in the sciences one could argue that at least women would have tried to get into them because they are, unlike gaming, not a hobby, but some sort of calling. Or at least offering well-payed jobs. But nope, the situation has been (and in some ways still is) so bad that even today many girls don't even consider getting into STEM. <..> But "STEM" as a field? Wouldn't touch it. Which is really sad.

There actually are a growing number in the undergraduate levels, but at the graduate and post-graduate levels, there are a ton of barriers that differentially hit women and minorities. Not that these fields are easy for anyone, but if the difficulty level for a single guy is, say, 1 at each hurdle, and the difficulty for a single woman or minority at any one of the hurdles is, say, 1.05, once you chain several hurdles together, you end up with the resulting final hurdle being quite substantial. For instance, if there are five independent hurdles (undergraduate, graduate, post-doc, assistant professor, associate professor) with that slightly higher difficulty, once you chain them (by multiplying) the resulting additional difficulty ends up being nearly 1.3. The reality is probably much worse for a few of the later ones, such as surviving to get tenure in an academic or senior research position, particularly given the choice many women face between having a scientific career and a family---remember that having a career in most research fields is "up or out" so once you're out, you're out for good. This is not to say it can't be done but when you factor in that some fields are known for being substantially discriminatory, it's not hard to see how this happens. Many prospective students look at a field and go "no way am I going through that."

A metaphor folks often use is the "leaky pipeline."