ENWorld women

[Darrin Drader]

First of all, welcome to the boards Connor.

Second, in the last 3 or 4 long-term campaigns I've run, without taking my wife into account, there have been both women and minorities, but both groups not represented by the same person (at least not yet). My current campaign involves 2 female players and one male minority. I have never had a female DM (or GM), which I think is weird. I'm not at all opposed to the idea, though.

As far as players go, I would say that one of the most interesting (and I mean interesting in the most positive way possible) players I've had was one of the women. She was very much into in-character roleplaying and just as much into combat. Not a bad problem solver either.

 

[Farganger]

It's worth pointing out that there are a whole lot more women here than most people think! Many lurk in the story hour forum, though, or just post occasionally. I personally know eleven or twelve women who post here, and that's just considering folks that I've actually met.

I'm always amazed when people say that they've never gamed with women. At a mini-con we recently had, about 15 of the 34 attendees we had were women, and I'd estimate that most full-blown gaming conventions are about 20% female. In comparison, most of the games I'm in are about 40-50% female. I think we're spoiled because we live in Boston.

Boston is definitely a good area for gaming. I DM one group and play in another (with no overlap with Piratecat's group): my group had two regular female players (out of five) and the one I play in has three (out of seven).

Indeed, the actual ratio of male to female players is 50/50, since there is overlap among the male players in the two groups but not among the female players.

 

[Xeriar]

New questions: We've established that female gamers exist and are good or bad at the hobby about as often as their male counterparts. What about GMs and GCs? Women, do you prefer to play, run games, or mix it up (and if so what percentage of your gaming time is devoted to each - not prep time, usually running the game burns that up a lot more than playing does)? Guys, do you like or dislike games run by women?

The only person I met who -only- ran games was a male. Since I know about 50% more male gamers than female, this could just be who I've gamed with.

I do know one woman who mostly GMs.

I know about a half dozen other women who play half and gm half or so (ratio seems even, anyway).

Compared to the number of gamer women I've known, this ratio is a lot smaller than it is in men (1/6th versus, I would say, nearly half). Some never care for the idea of GMing, I think most others are a bit worried about how they'll do, and seem to focus on being a player first and try to 'grow' into GMing like a tree, or something.

As for quality, the three best GMs I've been under were males. I'm certain one or two of the female GMs are on this calibre - it's just that I haven't been able to play much under them :-/

On the other hand, I've never regretted playing under a female GM, unlike a good number of men I ran into ("Okay guys stop roleplaying lets go out and kill stuff!" "..." )

 

[Celtavian]

re

It's worth pointing out that there are a whole lot more women here than most people think! Many lurk in the story hour forum, though, or just post occasionally. I personally know eleven or twelve women who post here, and that's just considering folks that I've actually met.

I'm always amazed when people say that they've never gamed with women. At a mini-con we recently had, about 15 of the 34 attendees we had were women, and I'd estimate that most full-blown gaming conventions are about 20% female. In comparison, most of the games I'm in are about 40-50% female. I think we're spoiled because we live in Boston.

You must be spoiled. I haven't met or played with a single female gamer having gamed over 20 years, including hanging out at hobby stores in my younger years.

Met alot of women who play MMORPG's like EQ. Women seem to love the social aspect intertwined with the game aspect of MMORPG's. I would imagine more women would be inclined to game in groups that extended the simple gaming experience into a better social experience.

 

[Sixchan]

One of my Ex-Girlfriends was a gamer, but we never did, since I was at a point where finding a group was nigh-on-impossible.

I'm not sure whether she's still my ex now, though, especially after the stuff that happened on Friday (and she hadn't even had half a glass of the rum she drank!). Probably, since she doesn't seem to mind casual sex...

 

[KitanaVorr]

One of my Ex-Girlfriends was a gamer, but we never did, since I was at a point where finding a group was nigh-on-impossible.

I'm not sure whether she's still my ex now, though, especially after the stuff that happened on Friday (and she hadn't even had half a glass of the rum she drank!). Probably, since she doesn't seem to mind casual sex...

TMI

 

[Sixchan]

TMI

Hardly! On grandma-less forums, I would have given extensive details on the whole episode!

 

[randomling]

Fat furry vampire look?

Overweight, unnatural facial hair, excessively pale...

...blood on teeth....



P-cat, I wish I lived in Boston! The number of women gamers I've actually met I could count on two fingers of one hand...

 

[Tanstaafl]

PS: Dear women: Please don't move your girl talk to a private forum, this is too much fun to read!

Randomling's "Girl Talk" forums are open to anyone who wants to join... with the warning that they're full of lots of girly subjects.... check it out, it's even more fun than this thread.

 

[Silver Moon]

I think we're spoiled because we live in Boston.

We are spoiled PC. This thread, and the parallel thread over in Randomling's House led Kriskrafts and I to a long conversation last night on the subject. She commented about how, despite the vast number of conventions we all attended, a large number of players still refused to accept her as a equal due to her gender.

It reminded me of one thing that I saw happen several times marshalling RPGA games - players who had never met either of them before that would make an effort to switch tables to avoid having either Kriskrafts for a D&D DM or KidCathulhu as a CofC GM. I would allow it, just because I didn't want either gamemaster to have to be stuck with a player with a sexist attitude. I also knew that the players were really just hurting themselves, switching from the best GM that slot to an inferior one.