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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Drifter Bob" data-source="post: 1673164" data-attributes="member: 17723">I'm sorry to hear it didn't work out.  I do have a lot of respect for all three of you though for making the effort. I think it was courageous of S'mon and Stalking Blue and Randomling to discuss this in a public forum, courageous and probably in some ways risky.   It's bound to heighten emotion in the short term, but perhaps it will also provide the necessary jolt to rearrange things.  I have a policy that I don't play rpg's generally unless we have a reasonable amount of females in the group, 1/3 to 1/2.  I guess this is because I like to involve my girlfriend in the group and she doesn't like being the only lass, and I also think it leads to a more balanced, fun, and interesting game, not to mentoin aesthetically more enjoyable.  (Plus, my jock friends don't mock me when I compare my afternoon spent playing D&D in the company of women folk with their 'male bonding' over some football game with a group of 8 meathead guys...)In any event, I've enconutered a lot of problems along the way though not exactly the same as S'mon's, which I think seems to partially stem from the world he has created to adventure in.  I've made some suggestions along those lines but obviously he has very set ideas on it, and my beliefs on the roles of women in history are clearly in the distinct minority (despite all the evidence  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> )The interpersonal side of this may be at least as important though.  One of the things I learned from activities I was in as a lad was that sometimes men have to make an extra effort to not shout down women.  I brought this to DM'ing and it seems to help.  Louder, more assertive players and DMs alike need to sometimes stop and take a moment to let everyone else speak.  This applies to lots of groups and individuals regardless of sex.  I did notice some players who would systematically talk over female players in particular though, and I had to take them to task by taking time out to systematically make sure the other players got a chance to talk, sometimes I had to tell them to reign it in a little bit.  I've noticed that even normally assertive women like my girlfriend will get pretty quiet sometimes at a table full of excited shouting men, for whatever reason.With one exception, the men always handled this ok, and after a short time, we were able to roll back some of the extra efforts as the groups learned for themselves that working together and hearing all voices often led to better tactical and strategic decisions being made.My campaign worlds, incidentally, aren't PC, there are penty of sexist people in them, both good and bad, and unfairness and evil of every sort.  But there are also subversive currents throughout any and every society, and this is what makes it easier to thrive in for those who are for whatever reason are at the lower end of the pecking order.  Also, as someone else stated, adventurers as a class are often outsideres anyway, but once they have gained some power, they don't have to take a lot of crap from ordinary folks on whatever basis.  The country bumpkin in the conservative province might not approve of a female PC riding up the road like a man on a horse instead of sidesaddle, but when he notices her notched up armor and weapons, and the severed heads hanging from her saddle, he wisely keeps his mouth shut.DB</blockquote>

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