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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celtavian" data-source="post: 5739815" data-attributes="member: 5834">reI never have had the chance to play with female gamers playing a tabletop RPG. Played with plenty of female gamers in an MMORPG and met a ton that like to kick butt. Though they are generally less focused on perfect builds and competitive PvP than males, they do enjoy cooperative raiding and grouping a great deal. And they generally hold their own.I figure tabletop RPGs are the same. Males tend to be aggressive in their opinions and actions. They tend to be competitive in character builds and glory hounding. They tend to enjoy the tactical play and focus on "winning" the RPG  by winning the battle. Roleplaying is something they don't mind a little of, but don't want too much of. It gets annoying to them to explore their character's feelings and relationships. Many male players I've seen explore their characters using logical exposition rather than roleplaying such as saying "My character feels bad. He gets drunk." and then that roleplay situation is over. They love their toys. They love to kill those enemies and get those magic items so they become more mechanically powerful. The numbers definitely mean something to most male players I've played with. There is a satisfaction with obtaining high numbers for males. This is not all male players, but I would say it is the majority. The game is built to serve their desires. That's why killing and getting loot is such a high priority in every  edition of D&D. Just like MMORPG fantasy games focus on the same kill and get loot system. The one thing that made this more attractive to females is the cooperative aspect of MMORPGs. Things such as guilds and grouping. Females in general enjoy a cooperative, social environment where they feel like valued participants.Whereas males often create an aggressive  competitive environment. Even when on the same team males are trying to outdo builds, have higher DPS,better loot, and all around be better than their teammates. They are also very aggressive about fair distribution of wealth so one player doesn't gain the advantage over the other. And I'll reiterate males are into numbers. It's a big deal to them even in MMORPGs.Suffice it to say that I am agreement with those that say the male attitude over the gaming table would need to change for more females to want to involve themselves in gaming. My experience with MMORPGs indicates to me females want to be involved with the group and not competing within the group. I think that would be one of the biggest turn offs a female gamer could experience is the constant aggression, often passive-aggressive, around the gaming table. Not to mention the possible competition for her attention from guys that don't get much female contact. I've seen guys try to impress females with their virtual gear or virtual capabilities, which is highly amusing as I know most women could really care less if a guy has an orange sword or has the highest dps.Personally, I love to roleplay. So I'd love to have a few female gamers at my table and see if they do prefer roleplaying more than males. Some of the best times I ever had was with a male buddy who liked to roleplay as much as I did. We would roleplay writing on pads of paper back before computers were common. Those were some of our favorite characters.</blockquote>

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