Female gamers: Weal or woe?

[alleynbard]

The short version, gamers can be horrible people and the presence of a vagina does nothing to change this.

I love this sentence. I love it even more when it is taken out of context.

 

[Pbartender]

Now don't get me wrong, I love gaming and think that most gamers are by and large awesome people. But the combination above can lead to a perfect storm of dysfunction, where a broken person seeks an escapist hobby and those playing don't feel comfortable correcting them.

If you haven't read them yet...

Five Geek Social Fallacies

 

[Rel]

large awesome people

Is that a fat joke?!

Man I been workin' out!

 

[N0Man]

It seems like any thread about women gamers immediately turns in a bunch of guys proudly proclaiming that they play rpgs with girls and have for such a long time~!

It's not like we're bragging about it or something, just stating a fact. To some of us, the notion that it's rare enough to be worth this much discussion is strange to us.

To me, it's like discussing whether or not there are females that like Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Football, drinking beer, or math. In the end, the discussions often end up being tainted with naivety or even sexism.

I have had more terrible experiences with female gamers than I have with males. I like lists, so here's a list of the lovely ladies of gaming in my area:

I'm sorry to hear that, but anecdotes aren't evidence, otherwise I could also point out that I've never had a problem with any female gamer, though I have only had problems with maybe 4 or 5 male gamers.

1. Is batsh*t crazy and became extremely jealous of a second female in the group. She went out of her way to treat that girl poorly, even refusing to give her cookies that she baked for everybody.

And this was because she was a girl? A guy couldn't be petty and treat specific people in a group badly? I know for a fact that they can. I've seen male players be a complete jerk to a specific player because he saw them as a 'noob'.

2. Is batsh*t crazy and has a severe substance abuse problem. She freaked out when I asked the group not to drink while I DM'ed and I had to boot her when she decided to curse me out and send me insane emails. She refused to give me back some stuff I'd left at her place as "revenge".

Maybe it had less to do with the fact that she was a female, and more to do with the fact that she had a substance abuse problem. Being a female isn't required for that.

3. Is kind of awesome. Quiet, nice, just a lot of fun.
4. Had a boyfriend but was trying to cheat with any members of the group who would look at her.

That sounds like an exaggeration, but putting that aside, I've played in a game where a male player kept hitting on a female player in the game as well. This isn't unique to females, but just a potential possibility when you mix certain types of people with others with the opposite sex. It certainly isn't unique to gaming. I gurantee that there are both men and women who will do this, and in other social situations, say work.

5. Is batsh*t crazy and grinds games to a halt by insisting on investigating things that very clearly have nothing to do with the adventure. She demands that wells be described accurately and takes apart every chair in every dungeon-type setting, convinced that there's going to be secret stuff in the hollowed-out legs of the chairs.

Again, what does this have to do with being female. Gamers play differently, and some gamers obsess over minor details. I've seen it in males and females.

6. Only plays when the married guy she's obsessed with plays, and then spends the whole game trying to get his attention with "witty banter".

Ok, so it's a girl more interested in a guy than the game. It can happen. I'd say it can happen from either sex, and it can happen from nearly any kind of social situation. I know that there have been certain social gatherings that my reason for going was because a certain female would be there. It's just human nature, and again not really indicative of anything to do with either females or gaming.

7. Is incredibly overbearing and decimated the interest of a fledgling group with a pair of awful adventures she insisted on running from memory. After an hour of her husband talking to us about the power of a dom/sub relationship, we were scrambling for the door. That group had 2 males and 4 females.

You've never had a bad male DM? Then you are quite lucky. My experience with female DMs is a lot less, I've only known one. My experience as she was mediocre at combat and some elements of the game, but was absolutely fantastic at bringing NPCs alive. However, I'm sure they come in many flavors.

8. Is batsh*t crazy and lives off of other people's kindness (aka sleeps on their couch until they kick her out). She played "dark characters" who drank your blood and really knew about the world and stuff.

I once had a male DM that alternated between sleeping on the couches of various friends as he was technically homeless a few months. I also had a female friend that crashed on my couch for months, and she never gamed with me. I don't find this kind of behavior to have anything to do with being a female or a gamer.

9. Was really great. But unfortunately, this was a game at a store where the players were mostly high school boys. All the guys immediately had a crush on her and spent the whole time trying to impress her and get her to go get pizza with them.

And this was the girl's fault? You have socially inept teenage boys who can't handle themselves around girls, and it's the fault of a female gamer? I think you are confused at who the problem is in this example.

However, the vast majority of your examples tend to lack perspective. Most of them have nothing to do with even being female, and the ones that do involve having a female are more about the possibilities when having mixed sexes in any social situation. They have nothing to do with "female gamers". Some of the examples even sound borderline sexist.

If you want D&D games to be just a "night with the guys", that's fine. However, to suggest that female gamers, by the sole quality of being female, are more disruptive and cause more problems than males is absolutely absurd.

I've never had a female player that caused any more problems than average. The problem players I've experienced have always been males. I can easily list many disruptive behaviors from male players, but I don't think those are unique to males (and this post is long enough as it is).

 

[Nellisir]

It's not like we're bragging about it or something, just stating a fact. To some of us, the notion that it's rare enough to be worth this much discussion is strange to us.

This. Honestly, given the opportunity, I always try for a 50/50 ratio in my gaming groups. I've never run a campaign without at least one female player. I've DMed with at least three couples (all of whom spent more time lovingly backstabbing each other's character than playing kissy-face or something), and with several extremely attractive women, none of whom were particularly distracting at the game table (and my tolerance for boorish behavior from the male gamers towards the women is extremely, extremely, slight - my game is neither the time nor the place, nor will it be).

 

[Desdichado]

Honestly, given the opportunity, I always try for a 50/50 ratio in my gaming groups.

Really? I've never once tried for any ratio whatsoever. I'm "genderblind" when it comes to gaming. The only thing I try to do when looking for folks to game with is find cool people who'd be fun to game with, and for that matter, fun to hang out with when not gaming, or when chatting around gaming.

The fact that I find more men than women who are interested in gaming and also fit that profile doesn't really surprise me, but neither am I surprised that I can find plenty of women who like gaming and fit that profile.

But actively pushing a co-ed agenda? I don't care enough about the gender make-up of my group to actively seek that out. In fact, I don't care about it at all. I'm too busy caring about the quality of the gaming and the quality of the social dynamic overall to push some kind of gender agenda.

 

[pawsplay]

Man, consider the plight of the bisexual gamer. How does he or she ever manage to focus?

"I heard there was a pickup game of D&D happening."
"Sorry, you must have the wrong house."
"Well, that's too bad, because I'm here to pick up."
*cue techno music*

 

[Nellisir]

Really? I've never once tried for any ratio whatsoever. I'm "genderblind" when it comes to gaming. The only thing I try to do when looking for folks to game with is find cool people who'd be fun to game with, and for that matter, fun to hang out with when not gaming, or when chatting around gaming.
...
But actively pushing a co-ed agenda? I don't care enough about the gender make-up of my group to actively seek that out. In fact, I don't care about it at all. I'm too busy caring about the quality of the gaming and the quality of the social dynamic overall to push some kind of gender agenda.

Key words: "given the opportunity". I've been extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity, on several occasions, to pick and chose players in my campaigns. I would never chose a poor gamer over an excellent one for any reason, including gender, but given 9 or 10 excellent gamers of both genders and a comfort level of only 5-6 players at my table, it's been my personal experience that a more-or-less evenly mixed group is more enjoyable for me than an all-male group, or an "all-male except for one" group. The latter scenario has definitely created the most problems.
I've never DMed an all-women group, so I can't speak to that.

Edit: To be totally clear, there was a point in college when I was running 3 campaigns - two long-term, one "just for fun". I had a reputation as a good DM (I guess), and a pool of 20+ players to chose from. I didn't -want- to play with the same group of people over and over and over; I wanted different groups. There was some player overlap between the groups, but in general there were different players in each campaign.

 

[NinjaDancer]

I've been DMing an all-female group for the last couple years, and am now going to start DMing a mixed-gender group. Maybe I'll have to make a thread about how the two groups differ . . .

We had one male in the group for a while. He was the boyfriend of one of the female players. Eventually he drifted off. I do think that one man in a group of women or one woman in a group of men would have more of a tendency to feel the odd person out. When I worked technical theater, I was the only woman on the electrical crew, and that made me feel my gender more strongly. It wasn't really a problem, and eventually I think the guys forgot I was a girl and just looked at me as a person.

Like many who have posted already, I prefer mixed-gender groups. Or at least mixed-approach-to-roleplaying groups. Even in my all female party we had the social players and the kick-down-the-door players and the puzzle lovers.

 

[Theroc]

My girlfriend intends to DM a group someday when she gets time to work on a campaign setting(she wants to homebrew it right off the bat).

Her best friend intends to play, as well as a couple other female friends. She also has several male friends. I may play myself, depending whether I can get to the meetings(we live 80 miles from each other).

Given that we all get along fine in a social environment for the most part, we'll likely get along fine at the 'table'.

As for being maladjusted for not altering behaviour. I alter my behaviour very slightly in company other than my preferred. For instance, around children I avoid swearing(Not because of some need to be politically correct or properly adjusted, but because I do not wish to be a bad influence on the children), and around those I do not know well, I am usually rather quiet, petrified of the concept of offending or annoying someone else. Why am I so petrified? Because everyone's obsessed with fitting some image of 'proper' adjustment or political correctness which cracks down harshly on any infractions.

Anyways, the way the OP's post was laid out wasn't very clear and actually led conversation to some degree away from what I think he was trying to ask.

Women in D&D, (or WoW, or whatever else) are no more positive or negative than males. There is no inherent good or bad to their presence or lack thereof, it depends what environment you want, and on the individual merits of the female, and of the males in your current group.