Female gamers: Weal or woe?

[Lurks-no-More]

Men and women aren't that different, in my opinion. That said, I think the expected roles of men and women in normal society construe each gender as a fundamentally different species.

This. Men, women, whatever: we're all people.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Woe dude, you fo' weal?

I don't get it, quite honestly. I mean, is there an 'it' to get? So, your group doesn't fare well gaming with chicks. Damn, that sucks. And?

 

[AtomicPope]

I recommend everyone check out a strip club at least once. For the philosophical/scholastic benefits only of course.

Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman went to strip clubs.

 

[shilsen]

From my personal experiences with female gamers, ranging from having a single woman in a group of men to groups predominantly composed of women to all-women groups, I have to agree with the OP about the way women change the dynamic of a D&D group. I've invariably found women to be extremely crude, loud, bossy, far too focused on hack-and-slash, liable to discuss sexual subjects at the most inappropriate times, likely to take great pleasure in embarrassing the male group-members, and generally disruptive to the otherwise genteel and well-behaved nature of an all-male group.

 

[Wik]

After reading only the first page, and responding only to the OP:

It's entirely about your group. But, god, I can't even imagine a game without female players. I haven't gamed with at least one female at the table in a looooong time (at least four or five years). I've even run with groups that are entirely female, myself excluded.

Seriously, 98% of my games have been in at least partial female company.

Mind you, almost all of my outings involve female company, so that could be the difference, as others have pointed out. About the only time it's "Guy only" is when it's poker night, and that's just because none of my female friends are big on poker.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

I always refer to wizards (historically the most difficult of all classes to play) as *her.*
I do this as a compliment to women.

Thus ...

The fighter/wizard confronts the dragon. She stands her ground against this powerful foe.
The dragon looses his flaming blast at her, but her Fire Shield spell protects her (she makes her save for no damage.) All around her the very stones glow, warp, and melt, but she stands indomitable and unharmed amidst the inferno.
She draws her vorpal sword, and with her free hand lets loose with a Lightning Bolt. The cavern rocks from the brilliant blue blast, thunder booming incessantly and deafeningly from one end to another, and the dragon shrieks in pain, the cry shattering stone, the combined sound bringing avalanches of stone down, plumes of dust rising all across the cavern.
The dragon brings his mighty claws to bear, slashing with crushing force, biting with teeth that would crush 10 suits of armor, delivering a tail smash that would pulverize stone, but the heroine's Stoneskin deflects all these attacks, the girl standing unmoved and defiant against the onslaught.
Now the girl leaps forward, and with a sweep of her vorpal sword, beheads the great dragon. Not even his massive dragon scales are proof against her weapon, keenest of all swords, and so the great monster is downed, finished by the girl, never to trouble the land again.
The girl climbs to the top of the corpse of the beast in triumph, regarding it coldly, looking around at the great treasure, satisfaction in her face that justice has been meted out against the one who stole and killed, who brought his wages of blood here, who has now been made to pay for his crimes.

 

[CharlesRyan]

One of my two current gaming groups is all male; I'm pretty sure it's the first time I've been in an all-male group since high school (which was a long, long time ago, I'm afraid!). There is a slightly different dynamic, but it doesn't seem to be strongly gender-related. (I think it has more to do with being a light-hearted, after-work game in which we tend not to take the characters or setting too seriously.)

Personally, I think any weal factor comes from a lack of intergender experience among the players--or perhaps from a guys-only poker night attitude toward gaming. Not because of any inherent issue with RPGs and women.

 

[Kaisoku]

My wife, and every one of her female friends she had back home, or that she's made since she moved up here (Canada), are very much on the raunchy side. I would not hesitate to make off-color jokes or fake insults, or silly flirtations amongst any of them.

Right now, the game group I'm in is only guys, but mostly due to scheduling, and because my wife and I are currently pregnant, so she's got a lot more on her mind that goofing off in a game.


If you are looking to have the least impact to the game as possible, then my suggestion for adding ANY person to the group (male or female), is to only add a person that everyone already knows and will be comfortable roleplaying around.

If you want to give it a shot, let people know that you are going to introduce someone on a trial basis... see how the group does with this new person.

I've had a lot of different people join groups and change the whole dynamic. From Rules Lawyers not understanding that a game had house rules and raising hell mid-game... to weaseling players that wanted to "cheat the system" by coming up with ideas outside the rules and being surprised and upset that the DM used reasonable logic for their "super powered" concept.
I've seen disinterested people that have slowed the campaign down... or even people that have felt that others rubbed them the wrong way in the first impression and soured the experience for everyone involved from that point on.


This isn't a female only thing. Adding anyone new to the group can cause problems. The only possible difference would be that there's possibly more "sexual" disruption involved (people vying for attention in non-game related ways).

Like someone in this thread said... do this on your own time, keep it in your pants during the session.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Down my way, women are the main source of aggression, sodomy references, belching and excessive alcohol consumption.

 

[fusangite]

He said female friends, not female co-workers.

Yeah. I saw that.

You can't pick your co-workers (unless you're the one doing the hiring) but you do have some control over who your friends are. As a general rule, I don't keep friends in my life that I have to wear different masks around.

"Mask" is a strong word. There is no element of deception in the fact that hanging out with different groups of friends accentuates different aspects of one's personality. It must really suck that you can only enjoy one way of interacting socially and everything else feels like deception to you. All I can say is that you're really missing out. The world is full of people who are interesting in different ways, who interact in different ways and like different things -- the capacity to sincerely like and engage with a wide range of people is an unqualified benefit to those who cultivate it within themselves.

There is nothing duplicitous about the fact that I really enjoy throwing nice dinner parties with high-end food where we talk about politics, religion and social theory and but that I also enjoy a trip to my neighbourhood bar to exchange funny stories about sex and drinking with the boys.

This isn't a female only thing. Adding anyone new to the group can cause problems.

Agreed. The social class and education level of my players has been the source of group problems in the past, not to mention clashes of personality that all GMs deal with. Sexual orientation has also been an issue. I think if you change the group mix in terms of any of the identity categories, it can be an issue.