ENWorld women

[Acquana]

Acquana - how've you managed a "mostly chicks" game? I keep trying, but I can never find the players unless I want to do a solo game (me running and my friend playing, or t'other way around).

What I think would be cool would be to have a professional artist in the gaming group. I envy folks who can enjoy such a luxury.

Well, yeah, we were pretty fortunate. I went to an art school, and under the influence of Rangerwickett, went to the gaming club we had. I was able to get into a game and start my own (Route 66), and the number of girl gamers was amazing. Admittedly, in a lot of the other gaming groups within the club there were a lot of guys, but somehow when I started my own, I just couldn't find any guys to game! There were like five chicks including myself. I invited this one dude I'd met a few times, but he said an entire girl group would creep him out. I'm glad he didn't join because I later found him to be a pretentious jerk. However I found another guy ... later ended up going out with him. ^_^

And as far as the artist thing ... I've been around artists so long I sometimes forget most aren't. My sister became an animator and married another, so during games with the two of them now and again the rest of us could always expect Disney-style sketches of what was going on. (And yes, it can work in fantasy, just think Mark of Kri!) Then I went to the Savannah College of Art and Design and started gaming them, and DMs in the group just had to get used to no one bothering to describe their character in words. Hold up she sketchbook "Yeah, it's this guy." It got to the point where the small handful who were in art majors that didn't require drawing (the video, fashion, and jewelry majors, along with one girl's boyfriend who later moved to town and started gaming) would be asking the rest of us for help.

Good times, good times.

 

[Xath]

I'm female. I tried writing more of a description of myself, but it ended up sounding like a personals ad, and that's not really what I was going for, so I scraped it. I like gaming. Alot.

 

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

I'm a woman! (as if you didn't know that - the unicorn pic and the name don't make it obvious enough)...

21 years old. Live in Alexandria, VA. Married to a gamer. Go to American University. Study History.

... how did this thread go from November 2003 to today?

 

[randomling]

*waves*

Xath, I know what you mean!

Queen D - I started this thread in Nov 2003 (was it that long ago?), a few months before my boards' first anniversary, because I was looking to encourage more women to my boards. I wanted to start a girls' only forum, and at that stage there wasn't much point as we had so few women. The thread lasted a while, we did get more women coming along, and we started the Girl Talk forum. Initially we had a Guy Talk forum too, and against my better judgement let both sexes into the gender-exclusive forums on a by-request basis. The thread was resurrected when we changed that by deleting the Guy Talk forum - it turned out to have nothing but threads we could easily assimilate into the main boards - and kicking the guys out of Girl Talk. Now my boards have had their two-year anniversary and Girl Talk is still going. This was never exactly an advertisement thread, but I resurrected it so I could meet more girl gamers, and maybe also attract a few over to Randomling's House! (Link in sig, if anybody wants to know.)

 

[randomling]

I can't really describe it, because we never really got to that point. The only Nobilis game I ever tried to run fell apart before we even had the first session.

This is pretty much because Nobilis is a game that requires quite a lot of investment of time and resources on behalf of the players, and a lot of players can't deal with A) working themselves through thinking abstractly enough to "understanding" Nobilis, 2) the existence of far-ranging choice and, fundamentally, the ability to do whatever you want, and iii) autonomy in having to make your own campaign setting (Chancel) and patron (Imperator).

I lost a lot of players with A, and another set with 2, and by the time we got to iii, which was the point when I said, "Okay, now I'm going to let you guys discuss on your own and write up your Chancel details and Imperator properties," that was kind of where it fell apart. I'm afraid that it's the kind of game that requires some serious hardcore roleplayers, i.e., the sort of people who go to roleplaying message boards and talk about roleplaying. Which, um, I fall into, but nobody else I know does.

So I'm eternally searching for a set of players to run a Nobilis game for. ...well, for the purpose of eventually putting down the Hollyhock Goddess reins and letting someone else take it up, because really I'd love to play. But still. [looks for players]

Aw, sorry to hear that. It does sound like a massive amount of fun! If you are planning to run Nobilis (or something similar) online, though, let me know? (I'm a bit overcommitted on games at the moment - I'm in two, both of which require a decent creative investment - but I'd love to hear, all the same!)

Oh, that's okay, I won't hold it against you. ^.^ If you're interested in that kinda thing, or in fact American politics at all, you might wanna see George Lakoff's Moral Politics, which has some very interesting things to say about the metaphors used by the populace in American politics. To the point where I can now predict, like, virtually everything that people on TV are going to say.

I'll look it out, it sounds fascinating!

Um... Well, having been in several mostly-chicks games, in general, what I do is, I walk up to some girl I know and say, "Hey! I'm running D&D! Do you want to play?" and they say, "Yeah, I'd love to!" But maybe it's just weird where I live.

I have also been in a World of Darkness character creation session in which everybody was female and also non-straight, which is probably so stereotypical to the point where Mariah said, "Hey, can we just assume that everybody here is gay?" to which the collective reply was, "Yeeeeeeees." Assuming that, y'know, lesbian vampire sorceresses are your thing. ^.^

That sounds like a really fun game. (Did you get to play it in the end? Was it as much fun as it sounds?)

My problem is that I know lots of women who used to game, but only one other than me who does so at the moment, mostly due to horrible play experiences with immature guys. One day I will get my girls' group together, though!

 

[Crothian]

recruiting more for your boards?

 

[Evilhalfling]

I
I have also been in a World of Darkness character creation session in which everybody was female and also non-straight, which is probably so stereotypical to the point where Mariah said, "Hey, can we just assume that everybody here is gay?" to which the collective reply was, "Yeeeeeeees." Assuming that, y'know, lesbian vampire sorceresses are your thing. ^.^

Have you posted this before I swear I read an entire OT thread based on this comment.
yeah like we need a lot of time to discuss the pros and cons of this.

 

[tarchon]

I'm a woman! (as if you didn't know that - the unicorn pic and the name don't make it obvious enough)...

21 years old. Live in Alexandria, VA. Married to a gamer. Go to American University. Study History.

Say, you don't know any Graffs there, do ya? A close friend of mine (and gamer) by that name lives in Alex, and his sister's a law student at American.

 

[tarchon]

seems like the new trend is to find long lost threads and bring them life

Animate thread is a very well known orison.

 

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

Say, you don't know any Graffs there, do ya? A close friend of mine (and gamer) by that name lives in Alex, and his sister's a law student at American.

Can't say that I do - but, the AU law students and AU undergrads don't really interact...

However, it's almost certain that we've crossed paths at one point or another - AU is pretty small.