5th Edition and the Female Demographic

[Zelda Themelin]

Targeting female geeks is going to be a lot easier, sure, particularly if it means you don't have to do much that you wouldn't do anyway. But it's precisely the displayed attitude that 'normal' women & girls are interested only in daytime soap operas and My Little Pony that is a barrier to recruiting them -- especially borderline cases who may not give half a damn about Star Trek or buy fantasy novels but who watch Walking Dead and Leverage and Game of Thrones.

The strategy of targeting people who already like what you like is easy as pie. The strategy of reaching out to people who might like some of what you like if you get to understand them a little better and meet them halfway is considerably harder. I don't expect most gamer geeks to actively try it, but I do find the attitude of They Are The Other, Don't Even Bother disappointing.

Can't exp you now. But I very much agree. I think there is attitude problem at industry too and current "fanbase" is not helping.

When I started playing WoW 7 years back current online attitude was that "real woman don't' exist/are really rare". They weren't. Most females won't just answer when someone asks "anyone female... sexual rude comments to follow".

I think there is quite a large pool of girls/boys to get interested into some new game. Expectations have just gone up. We have so much pretty things to draw our attention these days.

Current kids are very net-active too. Mere pen-paper game is not the format that hits first base of their interest. Even when you make that game that would be the big seller, it needs smart marketing plan. Or potential audiance just doesn't see it coming.

 

[S'mon]

(Also, a My Little Pony RPG may not mean what you think it means in this day and age. Google "bronies" if you aren't sure.)

Yeah, I heard about them a few days ago - that was probably what put My Little Pony in my head!

 

[S'mon]

What is "geek" female? Sure there are socially bit shy/lost people but group that ends up reading more books and or playing games, board or computer are mixed lot. Roleplaying games are just rare to find/harder to find/and harder to "get". Plus they require other interested parties to actually play.

I just mean someone with a strong interest in fantasy, sf, that sort of stuff. They may be shy or they may be socially confident. Re computer games - I wouldn't count my wife's enjoyment of Angry Birds as a geek interest, but her buying and completing several Neverwinter Nights expansion packs & sequels certainly counts, especially as they bored me rigid.

 

[Kaodi]

I like what jbear is saying. Basically the lesson to be learned boils down to, I think: The game should lend itself to being played in social and public places. That means it needs to be both portable and not too bulky or complicated to setup. If you only have two or three books, or a laptop, it is reasonably portable. But perhaps huge battlemats and tons on minis cut down on how reasonable it is to set up just anywhere.

If presentation is important too, and it seems it might be, I guess the question is what sort of direction they should take with the art. When people say " 4E mostly got the art right, " what does that mean? 4E art is the most " cartoonish " (for lack of a better word) it has been in a long time. But is what is " right " or " wrong " about the art not so much about style as content? It might not be bad to take style back towards the more realistic style of 2nd Ed. (minus the ridiculous outfits, of course), or take it closer to the comics (but with better proportions, obviously). Maybe others could say more about the art. More active art would be nice as well.

 

[SarahDarkmagic]

They'll know what *they* want. They won't know what women in general want, any more than you know what men want (assuming you're a man).

In my experience, women tend to understand a lot better than men what parts of the current gaming content are unlikely to appeal to me and to create adventures, character, and gaming rules that do appeal to me. We aren't talking about appealing to women in general, we're talking about appealing to women who might be interested in playing D&D but are put off by something in the current game or environment.

Having more women creating content does two things:

1) It sends a clear message that women are a part of the game and community. Women can more easily picture themselves playing the game. I know this from experience. I've lost count of the number of women who started playing and even DMing because they heard I write a blog and now freelance.

2) It often provides a diversity of perspectives in the gaming product, making it more likely to appeal to a larger audience, including women. I love 4e, but in the early days it felt too much like it favored one perspective of playing to the virtual exclusion of all others. It's part of the reason I sought out Logan Bonner's works, because his style is much closer to my own. When it comes to D&D novels, I tend to identify a lot more closely with the female characters written by Erin Evans and Jaleigh Johnson than any female character from the books written by men that I've read. I don't need or want yet another male translation of what women want in their games. I'd like some content that is a bit more direct.

As for White Wolf, my understanding is that there were also quite a few women designers. Compare that to the number of women who design for D&D.

 

[OnlineDM]

For what it's worth, I game regularly in-person with four different women (a fifth has just joined one group) and online with two.

Three of the in-person women are pure butt-kickers. They want to fight monsters and take their stuff. Role playing bores the heck out of them, and they wait patiently while the guys in the party handle the boring plot stuff.

One of the in-person women is a pretty well-rounded player. I guess I'd say that she tends to be a little more interested in adventuring and role-playing than the average male player, but not by much.

The women in my online game have varying attitudes. One relishes the role of trying to be the party goofball, which tends to come up more out of combat than within. The other is a very tactical player in combat and the most creative player I know out of combat. I wish every player rose to her level.

So what's the conclusion? Women are people. They vary in what they like from a game and what they excel at. Just like men. If I were to evaluate the male players in my group, my comments would be similar. Some like this, some prefer that, etc.

I agree with the sentiment that getting more women into D&D will come from men being actively welcoming to female gamers, and I also like [MENTION=87691]SarahDarkmagic[/MENTION]'s suggestion of getting more women into the production side of the RPG business. I think she's right.

 

[RHGreen]

I think the solution may be more simple than you imagine. D&D's strength, I believe, has been its very open design. It's like the Android OS equivalent of RPGs - you can run anything you want on it.

The older D&Ds were nieve (not an insult) fresh things that were very open on the basis that they had chunks of needed rules that didn't exist. This meant that it developed a natural and organic attitude to house rules and mechanics understanding in a reactive need to adjudicate actions not written in the rule books. It was a pain and the quality of the results were haphazard, but what it did mean is you could literally do anything any player thought of. I know later editions allow you to do anything you want but their nature is not condusive to that behaviour. The later the editions get the more they push and funnel into tactical combat while pushing and swashing everything else to the side.

Now this isn't a criticism of any particular edition. Old editions are fun haphazard imagination fests on one hand and glitchy botch jobs on the other. 3E has a lot of options and detail on one hand and is a accountants sluggish nightmare on the other. 4E is a relatively simple clean system with fantastic tactical combat on one hand and a hollow combat pigeon holed chess game on the other.

What would be good for female gamers is exactly the same thing that would be good for every single one of us.

Treat D&D like an open operating system. Make it so that we can do anything we want on it. Give us all the tools we need to do those things without having to make mechanics up ourselves. Make those tools in such a way that they do not cramp us and funnel us into one single style of play.

If female gamers are given the tools and are allowed to do the things they want to do, they will play it. As to how they come to play D&D in the first place, well that problem isn't gender biased. It doesn't matter what it is -everyone is introduced to something. The only time that isn't true is when we invent it ourselves. (Why do you think marketing is such a well paid business when all they are really doing is shouting "LOOK AT MY SAUSAGE.")

 

[Wulfram]

Vampires? Unicorns?

 

[Elf Witch]

As a female who has been in the hobby forever it sometimes seems I can compare the hobby now to when I first started. Back then it was not female friendly at all between miniatures and artwork catering to adolescent boys, arguments over woman's strength never being as high as a male strength, and a game that seemed to only reward killing things and taking its stuff it was hard to get females I knew who loved fantasy interested in playing.

I left DnD for a long time over it. I preferred other games like Hero, Shadowrun and Vampire the Masquerade. They seemed to allow more role playing and the games didn't seem to attract the lets kill everything and let god sort out while we loot their dead bodies style of play.

I eventually came back to DnD and I have introduced several female players to DnD. One thing I noticed was that while all of them like to kick butt and wanted effective characters none of them like dragged out combats or combats for no reason.

They didn't like the classic we meet in a tavern and hear of a treasure and go out to get it they want more. They wanted story and character motivations. They want to play characters like the ones they read about in books or watch on TV or movies. When you asked them about their character they didn't tell you about stats or feats but the history and who their character was as a person. Character development didn't mean leveling and getting new feats or skills it was what the character went through during the game that shaped them.

I am happy to see some improvements in the artwork I had one friend comment when looking through the 3.0 players guide about dumb Milee looked she asked if she was a hooker wizard. So I really think artwork that portrays female characters in a competent way instead of using the butt and boob pose and leaving them half dressed does help give the impression that this is not a game for boys only.

I am not sure that there really is a way to bring more non geek leaning woman to the table to want to play a fantasy game they at least have to have an interest.

The important thing is to keep them once they are willing to try. And that is where good DMs and good players come in. As you would do with any other player at your table find out what they like best about gaming and make sure you put that element in the game. If they like romance you can add it without much effort or making other players squirm. If they like story then give them story have a reason for going to the dungeon. This is no different then what you would do for a male player.

As a female player I don't want to play in a game were the DM has decided to sacrifice fun for realism I am very aware that men are usually stronger then woman and that even well trained woman often lose in a fight against a stronger male opponent but in game I just want to kick butt if I am playing a fighter who is ever bit as good as the male fighter. I know all the female players I play with feel the same way.

As someone else pointed out woman are human beings and we are not clones of one another so treat us as individuals.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Why do you think marketing is such a well paid business when all they are really doing is shouting "LOOK AT MY SAUSAGE."

A great slogan for Jimmy Dean, Eckrich, Earl Cambell's, but not so good for L'Oreal or Jimmmy Choo.