Lack of Female GM's

[Stormonu]

Hmmm...

I know of at least one 3.5/Pathfinder female currently DMing and have played under full campaigns with at least three other female GMs (for Vampire). I've run into about 2-3 female GMs at Cons at well over my many years of play (including last year). I also remember helping an all-girl game group learn D&D back in the early 80's.

That's not a lot of individuals for over 30 years of gaming, but they haven't exactly been hen's teeth. I can say that since about 1990, I've been in at least one game a year run by a female game master (and had at least two women in the group, besides my wife). Before 1990, it was more sporadic to have a female gamer around.

 

[Elf Witch]

In the 30 years I have been playing not counting myself I have known four other female DMs.

I think the reason you see less female DMs is that I think there are less female players then men so you will see less female DMs.

I have also known several female players who would have DM talked about it but then they had babies and they stopped gaming. This is not scientific just something I have noticed over the years in several of my hobbies like gaming, SCA, Trek Fandom, Zine Fandom that it is more likely that a female will drop out of the hobby because of the responsibilities of children then men who become parents.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

In the 30 years I have been playing not counting myself I have known four other female DMs.

I think the reason you see less female DMs is that I think there are less female players then men so you will see less female DMs.

I have also known several female players who would have DM talked about it but then they had babies and they stopped gaming. This is not scientific just something I have noticed over the years in several of my hobbies like gaming, SCA, Trek Fandom, Zine Fandom that it is more likely that a female will drop out of the hobby because of the responsibilities of children then men who become parents.

I think that is very likely - more than half the women I mentioned above quit running games, or quit gaming altogether, for that very reason.

Apropos of not much, about half the women listed above ran one or more of the Storyteller games by White Wolf in the nineties. Vampire, Werewolf, Changeling, Mage.... And most of them are among the mommies now. (The exception is Julie, who is still in my game - her first anniversary with her husband Jon is in a few days, and I almost forgot that she runs games.)

The Auld Grump - Jon and Julie got each other an enormous dragon from Cool Mini or Not. I painted it for them.

 

[Stalker0]

I'd say its simple numbers.

Out of the gaming population ,there is a small percentage of female gamers. There is also a small percentage of those who DM.

So the percentage of games who DM and are female is likely to be very small.

 

[Quickleaf]

So Blackleaf has nothing to do with it?

 

[Jon_Dahl]

When I still belonged to a local roleplaying club, my only concern was that only males dominated GMing. Sometimes I pondered why does it matter? Does the gender of a DM really matter at all?

IMO having female GMs is important because...
...I just don't want this to be male-dominated hobby, because one-sidedness is extremely unappealing for me.
...male DMs of the club run an awfully technical games. My hope was that perhaps if we had more female GM, we'd be talking less about the physics of 6.5 mm grendels and thermal dynamics and more about the NPCs and campaign-immersion. I'm not saying that women can't talk about all the aforementioned things, but the females of the club certainly won't.
...Whenever females tried their hands on GMing, it was always great. So it was big disappointment when they didn't pursue that role more. I do understand that it may have nothing to do with their genders and it's more about the individuals, but still...

 

[PaulofCthulhu]

I have seen very few actual play podcast sessions featuring Female GM's.

They're out there you just have to look further for them, e.g.

Shadows by Gaslight Game Audio Recording - CthulhuWiki

I've noticed a more equitable balance on GM sex for games like Call of Cthulhu than for ones like D&D but this has been discussed before.

 

[S'mon]

I have played with 2 female GMs. My impression is that women may be a bit less willing than men to risk being a 'bad' GM, especially in terms of rules knowledge - ie women who do GM tend to be more experienced players who are confident they know the game well, are well prepped, etc. While this is true of some men too, other men don't care so much whether or not they eg have a good grasp on the rules or are adequately prepped. Certainly I have GM'd for some female players who expressed interest in GMing, who I would have liked to see GM, but never did so. Whereas male players seem readier to make the leap.

Edit: Just realised, I've been attending the London D&D Meetup for 3.5 years, and there's never been a female GM there! That's pretty bad, considering about 1/4 the players are female and there's around 10 campaigns running at any one time.

 

[Umbran]

It is important to remember that few players actually ever see what we'd be able to call a statistically relevant sample of GMs. What you're actually going to see is apt to be more dependent upon the social circle(s) in question than how many female gamers there are in general.

For example, in my own gaming career, I haven't ever played a long-running tabletop game with a female GM. I have played several one-shot games that ladies have run at Boston-area gamedays. And, in the live-action groups I tend to work with, female GMs are all over the place.

But, these are all distinctly different social groups, so the local conditions will predominate over the general trend.

 

[OnlineDM]

First, keep in mind that I'm still a relatively new player. I've been playing for about two years, and almost all of that has been D&D 4th Edition.

In home games, I've played with four different DMs including myself. One of the four is a woman. She ran four or five sessions last summer.

In public play games, I've played with probably 20-25 different DMs. I believe I've only had two female DMs in those games. I do know of a third female DM at my FLGS; I believe she runs the monthly "learn to play" sessions.

In my current home game, there's one woman who has DMed a little bit before and is eager to do so again. She's currently borrowing my DM Kit and Monster Vault books and cooking up an adventure. Whenever she's ready to give that one a go, that will be 2/5 female DMs in my home games.

Also, one of the players in my long-running online game is a woman who DMs other games.