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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 2087761" data-attributes="member: 5143">1. How many female roleplayers do you have presently in your campaign(s)?Total, out of 2 home games, and about 30 people or so I know who play Living Greyhawk in our city, I know of 1 female.2. Percentagewise, with how many females did you share your hobby in your own gaming history so far in comparison to the males?Hmm, I'd have to say out of the 150 or so people I've played with 15 or so of them have been female.  That makes it about 10%3. How do female roleplayers change the style of play in your groups?They don't change them that much.  Most have them have been much more interested in the role playing portion of the game rather than the wargaming aspect.  Most haven't changed us at all.4. Do you think that female roleplayers are more drawn in to the storytelling aspect of the game? If so, why?As I said, yes.  I've found that wost female gamers we've played with haven't really had a head for numbers.  They haven't cared that their bonuses gave them +34 to hit or that they could kill an enemy in 2 hits.  It just hasn't interested them.  They were always more interested in the storyline and the name of their pet in the game and who their character's family and husband was.  Why?  I don't know, I don't claim to understand women.5. Do you think that female roleplayers are more or less immune to powergaming/maximizing? If so, why?Not immune, no.  They just don't show any real interest in it on their own.  I've seen a couple get really into it when shown what to do by the other people at the table.  But the vast majority of them seemed completely happy going through battles saying "I have +2 to hit, I need a natural 20, I miss.  Your turn."6. Do you think that female roleplayers are generally ignorant about the rules, concentrating more on the stories and the roleplaying itself?Not very many of the ones I played with knew the rules all that well.  None of them seemed to have any real desire to learn them any more than they already knew them.  The suggestion that anyone would want to read a 300 page book of entirely rules on purpose tended to get a couple of them to look at me funny.7. Where do you see advantages/disadvantages of a group that features some/majority/none female roleplayers?I did find that a woman at the table would get my players a bit more focused on the plot of the game.  However, it often meant that suddenly all the "role playing" in the group was a couple characters trying to hit on the female character all the time.8. Why do you think that male roleplayers are the vast majority in the hobby?I can't say for certain on this one.  I'm thinking that it had a lot to do with the groups of people that tended to gathe and play the games at one point.  Computer geeks, math geeks, science geeks.  I can speak from experience that the computer industry is male dominated and a lot of the people I know in it game.  I don't think a lot of women felt welcome in these groups.9. Do you think that socalled "Storytelling Games" like e.g. "Vampire" draw more female roleplayers to their genre than traditional roleplaying games like D&D? If so, why?Yes, I don't play these games which is why I only listed 10% female gamers up there.  From my observations of the games going on at conventions that I was at I can tell you that these games seem to have closer to a 60% female population.  Why?  Well, most of the games cater to people who don't know any rules and don't want to know any rules.  They cater to role players and people are shunned and booted out of them for powergaming.  I was once told that they would go weeks or months without a combat ever occuring.  This plays into the female desire to socialize and put on a mask for a while and just pretend to be someone else without worrying about dying or losing.  Plus, I think, in the case on Vampire that it appeals some females with low self esteem to play brooding, goths who feel emptiness and loneliness as they feel rather rejected themselves.10. Are there systems/settings out there in your estimation that are completely devoid of female roleplayers? If so, why?I haven't seen any system completely devoid of females.11. Do you know female gamers, that, even after some years of play, have only miniscule/no knowledge of even the simplest rules? If so, why?Yes.  They played in games that were so focused on role playing they didn't need to know any rules.12. Did you ever play in groups that only featured female gamers? Did you (if so, how often percentagewise) play in a group that only featured male gamers?How do those groups differ in style?No, I haven't.  I only wish I had.13. Do you think a lot of female gamers are drawn into the hobby because their boyfriends are already playing it, or they want to get to know a boy better in the group, rather than out of personal interest?This seems to be the vast majority of women who have played with us, they were girlfriends of people in the group who were convinced to try the game.  A lot of them didn't really take any interest in the game at all, they just showed up each week and did what was required of them.14. Have you ever seen relationships break in a group, maybe even while playing? If so, why?Nope, none of that really.  I know my ex-gf and I had a lot of arguements about her not paying attention to the game and me recommending she didn't play if she didn't want to.15. Do you think that female gamers are more prone to draw private problems/conflicts into the actual roleplaying than males? If so, why?Nope, I have never seen this.16. Is there generally more quarreling in a group that features some female gamers? If so, why? Could this be also to the benefit of the gaming, e.g. problemes are being dicussed rather that ignored?Nope, all our female gamers have pretty much been silent/not paying attention types, they never said anything so they couldn't cause arguements.17. Do you think that the general approach of a female gamer is different from a male gamer? If so, how?Well, yes, as I've said before.  The difference seems to be that female gamers approach the game from a "I'm this person, I want to accurately simulate all potions of their life" point of view while the males are looking at it from the point of view of "I'm a big, bad orc with a huge axe, I want to save the world from ancient evil.  Let's skip the rest...yes, I know I sleep, I'm assuming that part.."  This has caused me to hear stories from female gamers where (in one extreme case of an all female gaming group) they had a "family tree" that showed the connections of all of the characters they had ever played and all the important NPCs in the campaign.  They each played 6 or more characters each of which could say "Oh, her 3rd character?  Yes, she's my 2nd cousin on my mother's side.  Her 1st character?  She's my lover." and hours spent role playing out awkward moments of players falling in love, using oil of slipperiness and a table to make a slip n' slide, etc.  (yes, these are all stories told to me by actual female gamers, I'm not exaggerating or making things up)</blockquote>

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