Recent Dragon Mag Article Pulled?

[MrMyth]

After having read the article, he tries hard to mention that he's making generalizations throughout and that they are not true of every male or female child.

Fair enough...these are stereotypes/generalizations and we should take them as such.

Thing is... I don't think he tried hard enough. I think I wouldn't have had any objections if that had been his disclaimer ("These are just my experiences, I recognize they are not universal, and one should always try to find an individuals tastes and cater to those, regardless of gender - but for me, these are the attitudes I have most commonly come across.")

But basically just telling off any possible criticism before getting started, and dismissing anyone's right to even comment on his article? That was just inviting trouble.

 

[nedjer]

Surely to have any credibility or worth an article needs to be based on some kind of expertise and evidence. An article about girls and RPGs might not need to be written by a girl, but a teacher, a psychologist and/ or specialists in active learning would seem a good idea.

 

[NewJeffCT]

My understanding is that a very vocal minority complained that it was stereotyping women, and someone on LJ cherry picked some (admittedly pretty damning) quotes from the author on some social network (not sure where they came from) to paint him as a misogynist.

umm, he paints himself as a misogynist pretty effectively, and then only apologizes to anyone he hurt.

I'm sure there are plenty of men at WotC who might agree that women who are victims of violent abuse from their spouses deserved it for forcing their husbands to physically assault them.

I could say a lot more on this subject, but I would hope that WotC would disassociate themselves with this person completely.

 

[S'mon]

Surely to have any credibility or worth an article needs to be based on some kind of expertise and evidence. An article about girls and RPGs might not need to be written by a girl, but a teacher, a psychologist and/ or specialists in active learning would seem a good idea.

Maybe it's because I've spent my entire life around academics and in academia, most of my family are academics, and I have plenty of experience in just how fashions in "expertise" can change wildly. But I think ancedotal evidence from someone with a wide variety of data points - lots of players - is at least as valuable as theory from a child psychologist or specialist in active learning. And I'd value a teacher's personal accounts - "This is how my pupils behave in my classroom" - over any theoretical model of how children are supposed to behave.

 

[NewJeffCT]

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[NewJeffCT]

The last time a female player asked me to pre-generate a PC for her (a few weeks ago), she asked for a female Half-Elf Ranger. In terms of what pregens to bring to the table, I think including a female elf/half-elf/Eladrin Ranger PC is a good idea. Just like with male players, a lot of new male players want to play something like Regdar - big, strong male warrior with a large two-handed weapon. Although my 4-year-old son seems to prefer bows & arrows, maybe he'll play an archer Ranger when he grows up.

the last time a new female player came into my game, she came aboard as a goliath barbarian.

The previous one played a human cleric.

(the elf and the ranger in the group were both played by men...)

Now in 4E, the woman that played the cleric was going to play a shifter, but had to drop out of gaming due to a schedule change. The woman that played the goliath got married and can't game on Friday nights anymore.

and, since my daughter's just ended third grade class now is 8 and 9 years old, the girls there have almost all grown out of princesses and fairies.

The problem is the article is entitled "Girls at the Table" and subtitled "Teaching Young Gamers" - he seems to be speaking from his limited experience.

Having just helped to referee a slumber party for my daughter not long ago, my experiences were a lot different... the most confrontational girl there was clearly also the leader of the group (though, she wasn't all that confrontational...)

 

[Janx]

Thing is... I don't think he tried hard enough. I think I wouldn't have had any objections if that had been his disclaimer ("These are just my experiences, I recognize they are not universal, and one should always try to find an individuals tastes and cater to those, regardless of gender - but for me, these are the attitudes I have most commonly come across.")
QUOTE]

Ignoring the article's author's alleged behavior as I didn't read it.

Why should ANYBODY have to preface a statement with a disclaimer like that? Ever?

We are all human beings with widely varying experiences. EVERYTHING we say is effectively true of that disclaimer, with the exception of "I recognize they are not universal"

And for the purposes of human communication, while it would be great if the speaker realized that, the LISTENER has some responsibility in knowing that as well and extracting the useful intent from the speaker, rather than gettingg ~ disappointed and angry ~ because he made a generalization that the listener found a contradiction in.

Half the communication problems in the world are because of bad listening skills.

 

[the Jester]

the last time a new female player came into my game, she came aboard as a goliath barbarian.

We just added a new she-gamer to our group. She hadn't played since 2e and had no interest in having someone else making her character.

She is playing a dragonborn paladin, and GOD DAMN is she an awesome player! Her first session, she pretty well saved the party from a likely TPK with her divine challenge and sanction damage. (Trolls don't care about your radiant damage when someone else is whacking them with an acid sword!)

Our last female player before this- who we pretty much booted after a long-lasting spate of dramatically crappy drunken behavior- was a tiefling rogue.

Before that, it was a human ranger.

Before that, a dwarf barbarian... shoot, I can't remember the last female player's elf/half-elf character in my campaign!

 

[czak]

You can't expect to write stuff like that on your twitter / livejournal feed and expect to keep working - especially given the Melissa Batten tragedy.

 

[Kerranin]

And for the purposes of human communication, while it would be great if the speaker realized that, the LISTENER has some responsibility in knowing that as well and extracting the useful intent from the speaker, rather than gettingg butt-hurt because he made a generalization that the listener found a contradiction in.

Half the communication problems in the world are because of bad listening skills.

This is a bigger problem when we are talking about the written word. Without the cues all of us get from the tone of voice, facial expressions, and visible gestures, it is very easy to misinterpret what is being said.

What this should mean is that when we are communicating in a written form, we must be much more careful to provide unambiguous statements. Unfortunately this is rarely the case on the internet, and indeed in email.

Apologies to anyone who might have been offended by this post.