Ratio of male:female gamers (was forked "DDM: Chicks not in chainmail")

[Dannyalcatraz]

I've never gamed with a woman. The closest my group, 4 guys approaching 40 yrs old, came to having a woman in our game was when my former roommate, a 21 yr. old guy with a smoking hot GF, dropped by the table after a halloween party. He and the GF were both drunk. She was wearing a tiny little french maid outfit as a costume, and from what we could tell, wore no panties under it.

No more dice were rolled that night.

I just failed my save.

 

[Quickleaf]

10:1, really? Then our university group must be an anomaly. We have 3 ladies, and 4 men. I wonder if the ratio is different among university students?

 

[Hairfoot]

Maybe that's because forum games are mostly fandom-based and fanfic-related, and most fanfiction authors are female.

That's my experience, too. If the gamer/fandom worlds could be encourage to intermingle, the sex ratio would probably even out.

Plus, there would be fewer lonely people moping around lamenting that guys/girls don't admire creativity or imagination, and only go for bimbos/jocks!

 

[Poison Idea]

I've played with nearly every girlfriend I've ever had, so I'm usually surrounded by a healthy mix of females as their friends come along. Most of the time I've played in majority female groups.

Most females my age (at the time 14-23) don't want to play outside their close circle of gaming friends because of unwanted male attention, social status as nerds and general misogynistic views that girls don't take the game seriously, play sub-par characters and are air heads that want everything done for them (to escape learning the rules).

This is just in my experience though but it strikes pretty true across the board whenever I chat to female gamers.

 

[wedgeski]

1 in 5 is about right for the 25 or so years I've been roleplaying. My current groups are 2 females in 6, and 1 in 4.

 

[Mephistopheles]

I've played with nearly every girlfriend I've ever had, so I'm usually surrounded by a healthy mix of females as their friends come along. Most of the time I've played in majority female groups.

The Finch would be proud. (Sorry, I failed my save against the lack of context in that paragraph.)

Of the six regular gaming groups I've played with I've seen five women compared to twenty five odd men - not counting one anomalous three session game I ran that had four women and two men. In all cases the women were either girlfriend or wife to one of the male players, or the female friend of one of those girlfriends or wives who was also playing in the group.

This topic reminds me of one of the most awkward moments I've experienced while gaming. The wife of one of the guys in a weekly group I was running had joined the group and been playing for a couple of months. Her character, a ranger, was going to go down a set of stairs to scout the landing below and one of the male players - who was rather awkward socially - suggested that someone should go with her. "Who is going to go down on the ranger?" he asked, and looked around the table for a moment before realizing what he'd said. The group was down a ranger from the next week onwards.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I suspect that 30% of gamers are women. I could be persuaded that it's probably closer to 20%, as Wizards of the Coast's survey suggested, but I'm an optimist sometimes.

I think there are two major vectors for women entering the hobby: introduction by a partner and exposure through computer games, especially games like World of Warcraft.

In the Fourth Edition game I run, we have four women and two men (not counting myself):

• L, my wife. I introduced her to the idea of gaming, though it was her older brother who got her into her first game; she was already a video gamer, and currently plays World of Warcraft.
• S, also in our World of Warcraft guild. Her boyfriend, the guild leader, introduced her to roleplaying games, but hasn't played in either of the games I've run for her at least.
• E, also in our World of Warcraft guild at least for now. Her recent ex-boyfriend, T, suggested she join my game when she expressed interest in trying out tabletop games.
• H, the only woman who doesn't play World of Warcraft (though she did in the past, and plays plenty of PC games in general). First introduced to the hobby by an ex-boyfriend and currently dating another enthusiastic roleplayer, but has played without him in the past (and he doesn't play with us).
• D, a guy who doesn't play World of Warcraft and isn't dating any of the women at the table (though he doesn't fall into the "loveless geek" stereotype either, and his girlfriend has gamed).
• T, the ex-boyfriend of E, and a member of our World of Warcraft guild. He suggested E join the game, though I don't know if both of them will want to play now they've broken up.

All of the women I have ever known to play roleplaying games started by playing video games first - Diablo II and World of Warcraft especially. In my experience, it's through playing games like this with male friends - not necessarily boyfriends or husbands - that women become interested in tabletop roleplaying games.

 

[jbear]

10 people in my group.

The ratio is 1:1.

All except 2 of them are new to RPG.

All the women expressed initial curiosity towards the game: "aaaah, yeah, I've always wanted to try that, but never had the chance...", well all except one. She was convinced that it was not here cup of tea.

Needless to say everyone is into it, enjoying it and coming back for more. We play twice a month. It's cool. They all like very different aspects of the game, which keeps me on my toes. But I really enjoy the social element the women bring to the table.

I think WotC would be wise to target the female market. Nintendo have been clever in that way. I'm not sure how you would go about that, but I think the interest does exist. It's a group game so it's not so easy to get a game going without knowing someone who is already into it. Untapped goldmine imo.

 

[Ambrus]

I play in two traditional at-home groups, one has a ratio of 2:1 and the other 3:2. Except for my first college group (in a male dormitory) I've usually always observed a 50/50 gender split at my gaming table. One of my female players even DMs an all-ladies game. I guess we're anomalous.

 

[Jhaelen]

Wizards, with their methodology, concluded the market is about 20% female (1:5)

Sounds about right to me. In my current D&D group there's two female players and seven male players, so that's 2 in 10.

Interestingly, one of my female players told me she had been playing in an all-women group, as well.

When I started playing in the early eighties, female players were a rare sight, though. 1 in 10 maybe?