Female Gamers? Are there more of us now?

[knitnerd]

Females playing D&D?

I thought that was a myth concocted by lonely, male D&D geeks?

It's their own fault. When I bought my first basic set in 1983, I couldn't get anyone to play with me. The group of stereotypical adolescent males at the local library made it very clear that females,especially females old enough to have a child, were not welcome. I finally got to play when my daughter's college group needed another player during winter break. I found a local group through Meetups.com. They're still fifteen to twenty years younger than I am but they have become more openminded. Maybe they just like the snacks I bring.

 

[Nine Hands]

Lets see.

My wife's two games she runs have 5 women/5 men and 3 women/3 men in it. My epic game has 2 women/5 men and the Robotech game I am in has just 4 men.

So I think there is a definate increase in the number of women in gaming personally.

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

It's their own fault. When I bought my first basic set in 1983, I couldn't get anyone to play with me. The group of stereotypical adolescent males at the local library made it very clear that females,especially females old enough to have a child, were not welcome. I finally got to play when my daughter's college group needed another player during winter break. I found a local group through Meetups.com. They're still fifteen to twenty years younger than I am but they have become more openminded. Maybe they just like the snacks I bring.

I was actually turned away from two groups before I started playing now. One group was all male (freshman-sophomore college age). They felt, basically, that women had no place at the gaming table. The other group had one woman in it who was ridiculously possesive and obsessed with all of the guys in the group, and I suspect that had a big thing to do with it.

Their loss, I say

 

[vixendk]

I'm a female gamer too, and I was introduced to roleplaying by my boyfriend, and now I play in three groups. I have been playing for about 4 years now. I'm the only female gamer in all three groups, including the one I'm GM'ing in. One of the groups is made up by three men and myself, an other by two men and myself, and the third one (the one that I'm GM'ing) used to have one more female gamer, but she was to annoying and didn't fit in with the group, so now theres only three male gamers and myself.

I would like to have other female gamers in the groups, but unfortunately I don't know anyone other than the one who was kicked out of the gruop last week.

 

[Pyske]

Of the groups I've been in recently, the core groups break down (female:male) as 1:2, 2:2, 2:5, 0:6, and 2:2. Adding in people who pass through but don't stay, it becomes 3:7, 2:3, 2:5, 0:9, and 4:2.

Too bad we don't have access to the core WotC stats from their survey. I'd be curious if the breakdown by region changes anything.

. . . . . . . -- Eric

 

[tmaaas]

The group I'm currently in breaks done this way:

3 female players.
2 male players.
male DM.

We're considering asking another female to be a player.

Both my wife and I were gamers from childhood on up. I believe the other two guys introducted their wives to gaming. I doubt either would continue gaming without their husband's encouragement.

As far as the "Role" vs. "Role" play stereotype goes, it doesn't seem to be related to gender. We have one female who is the least interested in "Roll" playing, but another is the least interested in "Role" playing. Depends more on personality and interests.

 

[Patlin]

My wife's always in my games, and there's usually one other couple and one or two single guys. This actually holds true for two seperate groups with no membership overlap other than my wife and I. The only significant change for me has been that my wife makes it *very* difficult for me to GM. She gets very irritated if she has to compete for my attention.

(She would deny this is the reason, and list the many alleged flaws in my GM style, but I stick to my version.)

 

[MrFilthyIke]

Of course maybe I just hang around with more violent women

My wife always played Wizard/Rogue-ish type till one one time at a con, we decided to play a Living Arcanis game. She didn't know the setting, and said "I want to try something different...I've never played a dwarf...or a fighter...that's a stereotype, I'm going to play a stereotype!".

Then she got her first taste of heavy armor, two-handed weapon beat-down on the bad guys. Now she's hooked on warriors, and warrior types. Her dwarf even collected severed heads of her enemies.

Ddn't everyone read that Dark Tower where the DM's non-gaming girlfriend tries D&D and becomes a bloodthirsty and successful PC?

 

[Gort]

I think there're more of them about...

When I started playing RPGs (D&D 2nd ed, six years back or so) there were no girls at all.

Nowadays, about a third of the people I play with are girls - there's one in my campaign who plays nothing but effeminate elves. Urgh

 

[zarabel]

Hi there...

First, this might belong in Off Topic but I honestly was not sure since it is gaming related...

I've been gone from EnWorld for a while, and have finally come back and it seems like there are a lot more women posting (Yay!).

Are there? And have you always been here and just lurking or just found ENworld or just got into gaming or been gaming forever or what?

What are your characters like? What draws you to gaming? How many games are you in? Can I possibly ask anymore questions?

And guys - are you finding more women joining your campaigns now? Do you find it changes the feel of your game in any way?

As a female gamer, I was pretty happy to see what appear to me a lot more posts from women upon my return to the boards. I hope it means we are starting to get more into gaming in general.

Again, sorry if this is the wrong forum, but I really am curious about this!

(Some of you might remember that I have an interest in the sociology of gamers as well as in playing the game itself, from my old posts).

~Sheri

I am a female gamer and have played for about 13 years now. I only recently started reading and posting at ENworld. I have been in three different groups up to this point, and so far I have been the only female in each one. In the first group I felt like my characters were never taken seriously and I really felt it was becuase I'm a woman. I would make a suggestion, or say something and nobody seemed to hear me. Then five minutes later a character run by a guy would say the exact same thing and everyone was like.."yeah, great idea." Then with the second group I joined, things were much better. I still felt ignored a bit once in a while by a couple of the other players when it came to battle and strategy, but nothing like the first group. I felt much more accepted with them. If it weren't for the fact that they relocated and the drive was too far for me, I would still be with them. The group I am in now seems to be great also. I have only had two gaming sessions with them so I don't have much to say, but I think I am fitting in well there. Anyway, my theory is that there aren't more female gamers out there now than before, we are just getting a little more acknowledgement