5th Edition and the Female Demographic

[Desdichado]

One thing I'd like to propose before this thread gets any further - there is no such thing as the TYPICAL female gamer. Females are people, of course, and are as varied as any of us males. I don't think there is one VIEW of female RPGing - they have many varied reasons for wanting to play D&D (or not playing D&D).

Let's not assume that all female gamers are the same.

[/soapbox]

There's a big difference between saying, "yeah, sure, not all female gamers are the same" and "it's impossible to create a profile for the 'typical' female gamer."

 

[SarahDarkmagic]

There's a big difference between saying, "yeah, sure, not all female gamers are the same" and "it's impossible to create a profile for the 'typical' female gamer."

Do you think it's possible to create a profile for the 'typical' male gamer? I think what some of us are saying is that we find that just as impossible. For me, I wonder if the belief that women are easier to stereotype is part of what could make women feel unwelcome.

A fair number of my male friends have the same play style differences that are being listed as common among female gamers. But they don't stand out as much because they more easily seem to be part of the dominant group or have given up on playing D&D and play other games instead.

 

[Desdichado]

Do you think it's possible to create a profile for the 'typical' male gamer? I think what some of us are saying is that we find that just as impossible. For me, I wonder if the belief that women are easier to stereotype is part of what could make women feel unwelcome.

A fair number of my male friends have the same play style differences that are being listed as common among female gamers. But they don't stand out as much because they more easily seem to be part of the dominant group or have given up on playing D&D and play other games instead.

Yes, I think it's possible. Whether or not it's useful is another question, but it's certainly possible.

I don't work in marketing, but where I work there's a big marketing arm, so I get to observe how they work from time to time. They create labels, which they believe that segments of the market belong to and which have certain traits, and then specifically try to appeal to that grouping. It's certainly possible--in fact, it's the main way professional marketing people work--to create a target female gamer profile, and then attempt to make products that appeal to members of that profile.

 

[SarahDarkmagic]

There's a big difference between saying, "yeah, sure, not all female gamers are the same" and "it's impossible to create a profile for the 'typical' female gamer."

Yes, I think it's possible. Whether or not it's useful is another question, but it's certainly possible.

I don't work in marketing, but where I work there's a big marketing arm, so I get to observe how they work from time to time. They create labels, which they believe that segments of the market belong to and which have certain traits, and then specifically try to appeal to that grouping. It's certainly possible--in fact, it's the main way professional marketing people work--to create a target female gamer profile, and then attempt to make products that appeal to members of that profile.

I work in tech in marketing/advertising. For designing a product or something like a game, my experience is that they use goal-oriented user profiles instead of demographic profiles, meaning they wouldn't target the game design at a gender but at what the individuals playing are likely to want out of their gaming experience.

 

[Zelda Themelin]

Vampires? Unicorns?

LOL.

Well honestly, unicorns are cool when you are under 12. Then real horses win, if horse-love is staying type. Even my horse-loving sister is more interesting about mount's stats.

And unicorn have mythology package with virgins and fey.


I despise Vampires of any type, but that's personal preferance. Vampires are teen-thing. And more commonly, sexy romance teen thing. So it depends what kinda vampires we are speaking. White Wolf already did game about Vampires, and that was popular. Mostly because it brought all the adventurous elements there, vampire politics and nasty monster qualities, and rock star erotiscm, or punk or whatever.

Vampires in western mythology have since Dracula been cursed creatures with obsessive issues with love.

There is nothing really attractive about flying head hunting for blood of chilren or savage disease ridden plague vampires.

If you want to re-sell old myth to any audiance of today you have to re-skin it. LIke movies do, or like Anna Rice did or even like Bram Stoker did or Twilight books did.

So yes, vampires would sell again. Though I think young teen rebels aka Hunger Games, or young witches (both sexes) like in Secret Circle.
But make something original rather than getting expensive rights for those mentioned.

And there is important thing to remember. Those games must attract young people of today, rather than look cool to us oldies. My tastes are very diffrent from when I was teen. And when you have heard someone get at this hobby at middleage.

If we want this hobby to survive we need new audiance, larger audiance and yes, different game. Times They are a Changing....

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

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.

This gives me something...I've been around for a while, myself, and what you're describing isn't unique to females, either.

Perhaps if D&D- and other games- integrated into their PC design rules systems like you find in systemless supplements like the great Central Casting books, you'd draw more women to the hobby.

Face it- even without giving mechanical benefits (like Disadvantages, Themes, etc.), those books are an invaluable stimulus to creativity.

 

[Desdichado]

I work in tech in marketing/advertising. For designing a product or something like a game, my experience is that they use goal-oriented user profiles instead of demographic profiles, meaning they wouldn't target the game design at a gender but at what the individuals playing are likely to want out of their gaming experience.

Fair enough, that could be. Where I work, the marketing profile isn't necessarily gender based either, although they do point out some numbers about how the various profile groups align with gender statistics.

Frankly, a lot of the so-called female aspects of roleplaying mentioned in this thread so far are hardly feminine centric goals. Plenty of men--myself included in many cases--prefer those kinds of games and that kind of experience as well. I also dislike tactical combat in an RPG (although I think it's fine in tactical combat games, of which I like a few), I despise optimization play, etc.

Vampires are teen-thing. And more commonly, sexy romance teen thing.

Uh... where are you getting that idea? If you're referring to Twilight, my experience is that it's hotter than the core of the sun with middle-aged women. Vampire Diaries is more of a teen centered show, at least in terms of the characters; I don't know that that's true for the audience. And vampires really are a classic; I've never thought of them as a sexy teenage romanced thing, and I'd be very shocked to find that Twilight, no matter how popular, has suddenly made vampires into such.

Vampires in western mythology have since Dracula been cursed creatures with obsessive issues with love.

The Dracula MOVIE from the 90s made that the case; the novel itself made Dracula no such creature at all. That's not vampires in western mythology, that's MAYBE vampires in western pop culture for the last decade or two. Maybe. But that's it.

So yes, vampires would sell again.

Dude; vampires are already selling. Huh?

And there is important thing to remember. Those games must attract young people of today, rather than look cool to us oldies. My tastes are very diffrent from when I was teen. And when you have heard someone get at this hobby at middleage.

I know several people personally who have picked up the hobby in middle-age, depending on what you mean by middle-aged, of course. In their thirties, anyway.

If we want this hobby to survive we need new audiance, larger audiance and yes, different game. Times They are a Changing....

I don't get all this concern people have for The Hobby(TM) and it's survival. I'm more concerned about my personal gaming and its survival, and if my personal gaming is largely made up of middle-aged, white men playing third edition D&D, which is out of print and still perfectly playable nonetheless, then that's fine with me. If literally nobody else on the planet was playing anymore, about the only impact that would have on my life is that I wouldn't be posting here on these forums anymore.

 

[S'mon]

Do you think it's possible to create a profile for the 'typical' male gamer?

I think - and I think WoTC survey data from the 3e lead up backs this up - that gamers are likely to cluster into types, rather than a single bell curve distribution with the typical gamer at the top of the curve. This is likely to be true for both male gamers and female gamers. However players of a single game may fit a single profile. And there may be variations in frequency of interests between the sexes.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I know I not only fit a bell curve, I form one!

 

[Umbran]

Do you think it's possible to create a profile for the 'typical' male gamer?

A single definitive profile, no.

But that doesn't mean that female gamers are the same as male gamers, either. A publisher with some money could put some effort into finding what the differences are, so they could, if they wished, make sure some of those are well-served by their products.

A fair number of my male friends have the same play style differences that are being listed as common among female gamers. But they don't stand out as much because they more easily seem to be part of the dominant group or have given up on playing D&D and play other games instead.

I don't doubt it. But folks aren't answering the question, "How do we get some of the male players who lost interest in D&D in the past?" The answer to that question may be very similar to, "How do we make the game more attractive to female players?" But we shouldn't assume that the answers are the same, should we?