Neat GM advice on Female Gamers:

[Wik]

I was reading a book today that provided advice on being a better GM, and I came across this passage:

Gender

A few years ago this would not even need to be addressed in a book of this type. For many years, roleplaying games were a nearly exclusively male hobby. However, more and more female players and DMs are joining the hobby every year. You only have to attend any good sized convention to see the truth of this. Women are still in the minority in roleplaying and many female gamers still find that some male gamers seem shocked and a little uncomfortable when women are present at a gaming session.

So for those of you who are waiting for the big secret to gaming with members of the opposite sex, here it is. There aren't any secrets.

For male gamers who suddenly find themselves gaming with or DMing for female gamers, just treat them with the same respect you would any other gamer at the table. They aren't going to bite you. You might find the varied input in your games to be a big addition to the experience.

For female players or DMs who suddenly find themselves in a game with males of the "Oh my God, girls gaming!" school, it can be dealt with. Just play your character and assert yourself when necessary in a polite but firm manner and, sooner or later, the guys will relax and get back to enjoying the game. Males are trainable and can be gotten used to almost any situation, even gaming with women.

As for the differences between male and female gamers, there really aren't any. In general, women seem more interested in roleplaying than hack and slash, but there are some pretty bloodthirsty ladies at the gaming table too. It is true however that coming into the hobby kind of late hasn't slowed down any of the women gamers at all. Some of the best players and DMs you will have the pleasure to game with are women.

This, for those that are curious, was written by Johnathan Tweet, in TSR's Creative Campaigning, which was written in 1993.

The funny thing is, I remember a thread posted very recently that said more or less the exact same thing. Which makes me wonder if any real progress has occurred over the last seventeen years.

Anyways, that's what was written on the subject seventeen years ago. Discuss.

 

[OnlineDM]

Sadly, I'm not surprised. Plus ca change...

I actively try to seek out female gamers - I've found games to be much more fun with some gender balance at the table. It's not easy when men outnumber women in the RPG community by a LOT, but I'm happy to say that all of my regular games involve at least one woman (thank you Max, Bree and Barbara!). I agree that there's no secret - when you're looking for players and GMs, you're much more likely to find men than women because of sheer numbers.

Moral of the story: Be nice to the women you game with! You need them more than they need you (assuming you prefer a table with some balance).

 

[Tiitha]

I'm currently playing a 3.5e game with a female DM, 3 female players, and 1 male player. While our DM prefers roleplaying over combat, we still like to smash and grab like any other typical gamer. Oddly enough, the DM is the only one playing a female character. I play a smelly male gnoll ranger who rides a big smelly direboar and also loves to kill stuff, despite that I'm a girl gamer. There really isn't a lot of difference between genders when it comes to playing D&D. The point is to pretend to be something that you're not for the fun of it.

And the article is true that female gamers preferred to be treated the same as male gamers. If they want to take the time to sit down and play with you, they need that same kind of respect you would give to any of your other gaming buddies.

 

[Cor_Malek]

Nah, I'm not surprised. This article is less then two decades old, and changes to the way people think and perceive - take a lot of time. But we're getting there.

If you look at books on psychology and sociology from 60's, it can get a bit depressing though. Nowadays, authors focus on given subject and they don't try to picture how it's all going to change. They used to get overexcited over how much data they have to back them up. IE.: it's been proven numerous times that interviews are as good way to find if someone as qualified as flipping a coin, and even less, if the interviewer has some background on interviewee. All they do is check who has best social skills.
Now, how many companies or even universities(supposedly filled with people with a thing for science) dropped interview as a submission tool? And this is something based on hard facts, with data from numerous studies done for almost (over, if you count British Army* early studies) half a century.

So changing a thinking pattern people are very used to, and which they can ignore with little to no backslash? Yeah, I'm not exactly trembling in excitement.
Slowly, but surely things will change.
If anything, I'm pleasantly surprised how fast it progresses when compared to other much needed social changes.



*a study which showed how redundant interviews are, and to which top brass responded by saying "nah, !@#$ it, I like interviews better".

 

[Oryan77]

As a man, I just find it pretty embarrassing seeing this type of thread and especially entire paragraphs written just to give advice to men about playing D&D with women. Isn't there even a Slayer's Guide to Female Gamers or something?

Come on guys. Why does this topic always come up? Are women really that foreign to you that you actually need advice on how to play a game with them? The only RPG advice we need about dealing with women is advice about roleplaying in the bedroom with them. That's it.

I assume this kind of topic just makes gamer guys even more creepy to gamer girls.

Moral of the story: Be nice to the women you game with!

Shouldn't that just be good advice regardless of it being a male or female player? I don't understand the need for distinction when it comes to female players.

 

[Jon_Dahl]

I fully agree with Oryan77. You work, study, have fun, roleplay as a mixed group. There is no magic about that, we are all just people.

Only note is that I've noticed that girls don't get that into wargamer-stuff and technical details. In general I'd avoid these two in a group where there are females. If you want to ask random girl-gamer what does think about that spell or that detail about the story, she most likely has a great opinion. But if you start to discuss about the details of AK-47 or how to repair that flying car, they seem to get generally uninterested. And who would be interested???

Note that I'm NOT generalizing, just saying what I have observed. And most of the guys don't like that technical stuff either, so we are not different about this...

 

[Afrodyte]

I assume this kind of topic just makes gamer guys even more creepy to gamer girls.

Yes, it does.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I agree. Why is this a big deal?

 

[Shades of Green]

Only note is that I've noticed that girls don't get that into wargamer-stuff and technical details. In general I'd avoid these two in a group where there are females. If you want to ask random girl-gamer what does think about that spell or that detail about the story, she most likely has a great opinion. But if you start to discuss about the details of AK-47 or how to repair that flying car, they seem to get generally uninterested. And who would be interested???

Note that I'm NOT generalizing, just saying what I have observed. And most of the guys don't like that technical stuff either, so we are not different about this...

From my experience, there is variance among female gamers and geeks exactly as among male gamers and geeks. Take my spouse, for example: yes, she's one of the best role-players I've ever met, but she also really likes rolling dice and blowing stuff up (Fireball is her favorite spell!). She's also way better than me in action-oriented computer games such as DooM and various platformers (the Commander Keen series are her favorite). and in a few weeks I'll be introducing her to miniature wargames, using the USE ME ruleset, and she's quite excited about that!

And while she probably won't be interested in gun engineering or fixing cars, she LOVES math-based riddles in RPGs and could spend HOURS speculating about how this or that monster should work biologically-speaking or on how each monster or demihuman race has evolved (she's a bio-geek, and hopefully she'll start studying for a Masters degree in microbiology or entomology in a year or so).

Two other female geeks I happen to know (one of which is a gamer) are deeply into mathematics and physics - one of them (the non-gamer one who is an avid fan of sci-fi books) is a high-school math teacher and has an extensive library of books of two kinds - mathematics and sci-fi. And my own mother, while not being a gamer per-se, is quite geekish, and enjoys action-packed TV shows such as 24 and Lost and films such as James Bond.

And, being a male, I'm quite interested in wargaming, but even more interested in role-playing and world-building and not very interested in technical challenges (I'm a geographer, not an engineer).

In short, I won't be surprised if you could find the same range of varied tastes among female gamers exactly as among male gamers.

And I think that the main reason that female gamers tend, on average, to be more role-play-oriented than roll-play-oriented is that many of them start gaming at a later age than many male gamers, and thus might tend to be a bit more mature on average.

 

[jbear]

My players consist of 4 women and 1 man.

They all enjoy roleplay. They all enjoy hacking things up. They all get into the tactical side of battle.

I expect the same behaviour and mutual respect from all of my players. Gender has never been an issue.