Female opinions, please

[Scarbonac]

My wife's POV (Player since '83, DM since '84): "The more I read it, the less I like it."

 

[AstroCat]

My wife totally digs 4E way more than 3.5e, that we are finishing up our campaigns with now. She like the art, play-style, fun-balance and pretty much the overall vibe over 3.5E. She says she is much more conifdent playing 4E and that she will get way more in to it over 3.5E. Plus, she is digging on the new default lore a lot.

As well, I must say our group has a lot more fun with 4E over 3.5E everytime we have played 4E and compared it to our 3.5E games. In 4E everyone has fun most of time, in 3.5E some people get shafted all the time because of their character classes and sit out most of the action. Not so in 4E. 4E is a huge step forward in fun for gaming.

Plus as a DM as well, 4E is tons more fun to run, espeically having all the monster stats in one place and with all the cool variety and abilities they get, but at the same time you dont have to reference 80 books to use them. This makes playing the actual game much smoother and enjoyable with a lot less down time.

I'm usually down with the "old school" being an old guy, but in this case I am full on with 4E and so is my wife.

 

[Jhaelen]

The first comment from the female player in my group:
"So, what's new except the art is now crappy?" - Ouch.

I guess, it's going to be harder to convince my players to switch to 4E than I initially thought...

 

[pawsplay]

Edition Wars issues aside, posts where people said "we looked at the books and hated it", I would like to know what people think of 4e after they actually play it verses assuming a negative experience based on judging the game by the look of it.

"Gosh, those nachos smell like butt! I wonder how they taste?"

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I don't believe you. are you being honest? My experiences have been the exact opposite. No female player I know would ever play a dragonborn without breasts.

is your resident female gamer very logical or interested in biology? Just wondering because i can see how that view could occur, Its just hard for me to believe.

As the several posts after you have stated, it's very possible, and I'm being quite honest. Nor is she the only female gamer I've seen who dislikes dragonborn breasts. Although the rant I heard one gal from another group go off on was a bit...much. "Stupid pubescent fetishes" was tossed around a lot.

 

[Chocobo]

My wife likes 4e. She's been playing 3.5 for about a year or so, and finds it way to complicated. She prefers 4e because it's much easier to learn and she doesn't really want to spend the time to read all the 3.5 books.

She's played a Sorceror, a Bard, and a Druid/Monk gestalt in 3.5, so I guess that's pretty close to Psion's female players. And in 4e she really likes the Rogue, but hasn't complained about the lack of well... every class that she's ever played. In fact, she wants to convert her Bard to 4e so she can be a Rogue instead.

She likes Dragonborn, but only if they don't have boobs - and if they have tails, wings, walk on 4 legs, and don't wear clothes. In their current state she finds them unplayable, and prefers the elfy races.

 

[SSquirrel]

I am not a female, but D&D4e was the first RPG that my wife has ever felt confident enough to offer to DM (she has RPGed for 10 years). She found the books to be well organised, more explicit as to how to create adventures and run them, and she was inspired by the heroic tone.

This. Almost exactly. Are you a mult account of mine that I don't know about?

 

[Wormwood]

To answer the OP's question:

I asked the two women in the 4e game that I run:

Half-Elf Fey Pact Warlock: Loves the game. She was initially pissed that she couldn;t play a druid (her favorite character class---both in D&D and WoW). Two weeks of the fey-pact and she is loving her 'Faerie Witch'. I've never seen anyone so tickled to get a measley +2 concealment bonus before (which she describes in character as 'shrouding herself in the mists of her lost homeland').

Human Fighter (and all around awesome wife!): Enjoys 4e more than she did 3e (which is understandable, since she prefers a cold speculum to playing 3e. That's a quote). She likes the focus on teamwork, and enjoys shoving monsters around the battlefield, but aside form that she's never been a big fan of minis. The shorter skill list and my awesomely free-wheeling DMing style helps, but all things being equal I think she's rather be playing Buffy.

Hope that helped. I'm willing to ask further questions if you like.

 

[Buttercup]

I don't like 4e much at all. There isn't enough vodka in the world to get me to DM it, and I'll only play it to please my husband...and even that is just until we finish up KotS.

I'm eager to get back to playing and DMing 3.X and assorted OGL games. We still haven't played Aces & Eights. I still haven't run Conan. I'd like to return to Midnight with our same characters. And we (hubby & I) have just started to brainstorm a new campaign that we'll co-DM. It will use our own flavor of 3.x, which we've started working on.

Life is too short to waste on a rule set that annoys me.

But I must say, I think my feelings about 4e have little to nothing to do with my plumbing. I've never wanted to be referred to as a "girl gamer" or a "woman gamer" because I like the same stuff all gamers do: killing things with extreme prejudice and taking their stuff.

 

[DaveMage]

My wife loves 4e...because I'm not spending any money on it.