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Message: <blockquote data-quote="InVinoVeritas" data-source="post: 4802452" data-attributes="member: 41485">Forked from: <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showpost.php?postid=4795472" target="_blank">Sexism in D&D and on ENWorld (now with SOLUTIONS!) </a>  This is a key point for me. There is always lots of talk of growing the hobby, and certainly sexism has been one of the stumbling blocks. The other thread has done a good job discussing that issue, so I won't go into it here. However, although addressing sexism is necessary to grow the hobby, I am convinced it is not sufficient. There are more reasons that the non-gamer never tries or enjoys D&D. Furthermore, this has less to do with the non-gamer's gender than what the non-gamer values and seeks out in experiences. As a point of reference, my wife loves fantasy, castles, fairies, the whole thing, but is 100% a non-gamer. Although she fully supports my hobby, enjoys the art, and encourages me, she has never shown any interest in rolling up a character. I asked her about this once after I played Oblivion for a bit. I made a character that looks like her, and she likes watching her wear medieval gowns, nice jewelry, and hanging out in castles. Anything else, though, brings her no interest. "All she ever does is run and fight things. She can't get real relationships with anyone. She can't fall in love. Could she do some housework?" The housework comment surprised me. A bit more discussion, and the comment became clear: building and beautifying the area would be a far more important and noble goal for her than slaying monsters. She'd want to deliver medicine to the sick. She'd want to find pretty jewelry. The whole slay monsters thing, that's what you hire oafs to handle for you.  This is one of the big problems with getting someone like her into D&D. The vast majority of the system is dedicated to a myriad number of options for combat, with noncombat actions a stunted, glossed-over bit to the side. She would be more interested in a system in which the noncombat portion was a detailed, fully developed wonder with combat that little thing off to the side that gets handwaved when it gets in the way of the important, valuable noncombat stuff. Lots of assumptions change the more you think about it. The whole experience system, for example, turns into "if you kill enough monsters, you'll become better at killing monsters" which is about as exciting as "if you take out the trash enough, you'll become better at taking out the trash." A PC's raw capability is no longer a source of prestige. Instead, the PC's history and accomplishments are. Wealth, lots of pretty things, and, most importantly, societal influence become the barometers of prestige. A mid-level warlord leading a large army into battle is better than a high-level loner swordsmaster. Both are completely eclipsed by a first-level priest who is famous for tending to the downtrodden, and loved by everyone in the city.  In short, we've all been playing Cops and Robbers when a number of non-gamers have been wanting to play House or Tea Party.  TTRPGs, however, are better at Tea Party than MMORPGs. But are we looking to beat the MMORPG? If we want more non-gamers to play, should we be finding ways to emulate social networking sites instead?</blockquote>

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