What It's Like For a Gamer Girl

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Re: Re: a few misunderstandings going on

And you back this position up with what evidence?

170-odd posts to this thread and now you start asking for evidence? /

What do you want him to do? Post the published article on the subject or present eyewitnesses to such behaviour?

 

[fusangite]

Re: Re: Re: a few misunderstandings going on

Originally posted by Buttercup

I have run into a few of these sorts. But then, I've run into them in other venues too. I wonder if it was more true in the past than it is now? I mean, when I wanted to get into D&D in the 70s and the 80s, the only people I ever encountered who played were weirdos. But since I started playing (with the advent of 3e) I've only run into two like this.

And as I said upthread, all the EN World guys I met at GenCon were nice, normal people. All the guys who I game with are nice, normal people.

I'm going to continue to believe that most men are nice, normal people. I think the evidence supports it, even for gamers.

First off, Buttercup. I've really enjoyed all of your posts to this thread. Secondly, you're probably right: my data is a little dated. Ever since I reached the point where I found that gamers were often just as easy to make as to find, my contact with the larger gaming community has not been huge. Still, I'm thinking that ENWorld probably does over-represent the sane in the gaming community.

I wish I could say that I only game with nice, sane people but unfortunately, one of my players is common-law married to a guy who is really tough to game with. But I'm not stuck with him because I went out looking for a gamer -- I'm stuck with him because a valued player lives with him.

Generally, I don't have the problem of being in games wherein people are jerks. I either leave the game or kick them out. This new dynamic is really taxing because my group is spoiled -- we just don't understand the need to tolerate unpleasant social dynamics in a game. I guess it's a means-ends thing for me: gaming is a means to have social relationships I like -- social relations are never a means to gaming.

 

[jgbrowning]

Re: Re: Re: Re: a few misunderstandings going on

Generally, I don't have the problem of being in games wherein people are jerks. I either leave the game or kick them out. This new dynamic is really taxing because my group is spoiled -- we just don't understand the need to tolerate unpleasant social dynamics in a game. I guess it's a means-ends thing for me: gaming is a means to have social relationships I like -- social relations are never a means to gaming.

Heh, I've also pased the point of tolerating unpleasant social dynamics in a game. I'm supposed to be having fun, if that's not happening, I'm not there. I'm not going to live long enough to spend time like that.

joe b.

 

[Elf Witch]

Actually, what I said was:



I was trying to be polite by suggesting that it was me who was different, and possibly my friends too, rather than calling foul about his stereotypical views about how to interest women in gaming. Which were essentially: fill it with romance, and put in courtesans and princesses. Oh, and the male players should be charmers. The answer to the rhetorical question at the end of my quote up above was, I thought, an obvious no. Because there is no 'typical' woman nor 'typical' man. We are each of us the sum total of our experiences and our genetics. Individual.

Generalizations don't facilitate understanding or communication.

(Nonetheless, I doubt there are very many women who are eager to play a whore in an RPG. That idea totally baffled me.)

I understand, like I said I tend to have knee jerk reactions when I think woman are putting other woman down. I had a rather heated disaggrement with the SF write Marion Zimmer Bradley one night at a con when she went on and on how only woman with weak minds and low self esteem like romance novels. I like to read romance novels now and then and I don't think I have a weak mind besides I like the bodice rippers for the sex.

The problem with computer communication is not be able to see someone face or hear how they say things. I apoligize for taking what you said the wrong way.

As for playing a courtesan I think it might be interesting a true courtesan was not just a prostitute she was often more educated than the average woman and a lot of courtesan's weilded a lot of poltical power. Using sex as often been a woman's most powerful weapon. The Moussad used woman who used sex to get next to the terrorists who killed the the members of the Israeli olympic team in Munich. So I could see maybe playing a bard with these kind of skills depending on the maturity level of the other players.

 

[Buttercup]

I apoligize for taking what you said the wrong way.

No prob, Elf. I was just too subtle for my own good.

 

[Pielorinho]

(Nonetheless, I doubt there are very many women who are eager to play a whore in an RPG. That idea totally baffled me.)

Minor hijack to show that even "women don't want to play prostitutes" is an untenable stereotype . (I know that's not exactly what you're saying, but I wanted to give you an example of how that archetype can work in a game):

Back in the mid-nineties, I and my friends ran a couple large LARPs, one-shot evenings for which we'd create 60 or so fully-detailed characters with histories, connections to other PCs, goals, and funky powers.

Generally, we created characters to be gender-neutral. There was no reason that the ambulance driver who smuggled blood (no questions asked) from the hospital to the town mayor had to be female, no reason that the teenager who'd OD'd on huffing copier fluid and ended up in an insane asylum had to be male. The mayor, the chief of police, the linguistics professor, the bartender, could all be of either sex.

Some characters, however, were gender-specific. A homeless Vietnam Vet with PTSD and anger-management issues works much better as a male. A musician who practiced love 'em and leave 'em romance, and who had unknowingly parented a (now adult) child, works much better as a male.

And one of the characters I created was a courtesan, an Old-South-style belle from Atlanta who had built a tremendous political network by using her bed as an office. I thought it was a kickass character that would be a lot of fun to play: she'd be smart, powerful, vicious, sexy.

My co-GM was horrified when he saw the character, however, accused me of perpetuating the worst kinds of stereotypes, pressed hard to have the character removed from the mix entirely. We argued back and forth for awhile: he insisted that any woman who got the character would be horribly insulted.

Finally, I asked some of the women who would be playing in the game. Several of them said they'd love to play such a character. As a compromise, instead of handing that character out randomly, we gave it to one of the women who said they'd enjoy playing her.

While a hooker isn't exactly the easiest character type to pull off in D&D, an upper-class courtesan can work in a political game. Not at all a character to everyone's tastes, but some folks can get into such a role.

Daniel

 

[Buttercup]

You're right Pelo, er Piel, um dangit, I can't spell *or* pronounce it, Daniel!

Anyway, of course you're right. Which is why I said I doubted there were "very many" instead of doubting there were any. It was tongue in cheek. Eh, but you know that, right?

 

[Pielorinho]

You're right Pelo, er Piel, um dangit, I can't spell *or* pronounce it, Daniel!
Which is why I said I doubted there were "very many" instead of doubting there were any. It was tongue in cheek. Eh, but you know that, right?

Daniel's fine -- one of these days I may change my handle on these boards to something pronounceable . And I knew you weren't making an across-the-board statement; I'm just hammering away at my point about how generalizations without exception are faulty.

A fairy princess, OTOH -- if you can find a gamer willing to play a fairy princess who isn't a seven-year-old girl or a hairy forty-year-old man, I'll be shocked.

Daniel

 

[Wicht]

Re: Re: Re: Re: a few misunderstandings going on

What do you want him to do? Post the published article on the subject or present eyewitnesses to such behaviour?

For the sort of generalisation he made, a published article would do.

 

[Uzumaki]

My co-GM was horrified when he saw the character, however, accused me of perpetuating the worst kinds of stereotypes, pressed hard to have the character removed from the mix entirely. We argued back and forth for awhile: he insisted that any woman who got the character would be horribly insulted.

How do you think he would've taken it if you had simply changed her gender to a gay man and suggested a male play it then?