What It's Like For a Gamer Girl

[Clueless]

I find gamers to be highly insensitive socially. This is the crowd where many people get into rape fantasies when a female shows up at the table, often completely lack any social graces whatsover, and tend to be very rude and unforgiving.

I find them the least empathic people I deal with in my life.

OK! Whoa. Excuse me. But please tell me I'm not the only person out here that found this incredibly offensive? Insensitivity aside - *rape*? Just where on earth do you get that from? Please excuse me if I find that - of *everything* that has been posted on this board this to be the lowest blow imaginable. Rude. Insensitive. *Cruel*. And utterly uncalled for. Admins may delete my response if they wish.

Am I the only person in existance who has been in a well mixed, socially adjusted and otherwise sane gaming group? Groups that reflect 50/50 male female ratios - in which everyone is friends, and yet at the same time don't feel the need to be anyone other than themselves? In other words: It *can* and *does* work. Mixed groups are more than feasible. And no it doesn't always take just a 'little bit of extra work', either.

 

[Celtavian]

re

Joshua,

Believe me, I'm not arguing that D&D is the number one choice for intellectuals as a recreational activity (or even in the top 100). What I am arguing is that D&D requires levels of math, abstract thought and literacy that many other recreational activities do not.

It thus sets up barriers to entry or disincentives to participation for those who have difficulty with math, literacy or abstract thought. Or just don't enjoy these things. By having barriers and disincentives that keep people with poor literacy, math and abstract thinking skills out, RPGs, necessarily, over-represent those who do not have those difficulties.

Let's suppose I had a club that met in a basement with 6' ceilings for monthly parties at which there were no chairs provided. Wouldn't you be surprised if the club included people over 6' tall in precisely the same proportion as people under 6'? It would sure surprise me.

How about this: there are two service clubs in a city -- let's say the Shriners and the Lions. Both clubs do charitable activities, have regular meetings, hold breakfasts with guest speakers and have a couple of banquets at which everyone gets drunk. Now, let's suppose that the Shriners, for one of their charitable activities, donate blood at the Red Cross once every three months while the Lions do not. It would logically follow that the Lions would over-represent people afraid of needles and the Shriners would under-represent them. This is not because the Lions attract needle-phobes.

People who are insecure about their literacy and numeracy are under-represented in D&D. Now, unless you posit that feeling insecure about your literacy and numeracy skills is in no way linked to actually being bad at these things, it follows that D&D over-represents people who are literate and numerate. According to IQ tests, etc. such people are clever.

You're kidding right? You really are I hope.

What level of math does it take to play D&D? Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Hmm. When did I learn this? 1st grade give or take.

Reading comprehension? D&D is written so that average joe can comprehend it. Anything difficult like calculating xp for cohorts, perhaps the most difficult math in 3.0 D&D besides possibly magic item creation costs, has been reduced to following a very simple rule.

What is so incredibly difficult about anything in D&D? You've really got to be kidding when you proclaim barriers to entry to D&D. You would really have to be one uneducated gimp to not understand how to play D&D.

Creativity is not necessary for D&D, just a love and enjoyment of the fantasy genre. I would argue that some don't even care about this, its just a chance to hang out with their friends.

I am not going to argue that D&D doesn't attract creative people, it just doesn't attract any more than any other activity.

I would argue that D&D attracts people who love Fantasy stories and art. I think there are an inordinate number of people playing D&D who love fantasy books, movies and just about anything else associated with fantasy they can lay their hands on.

Intelligence and creativity are not a requirement for playing D&D. I've met more unclean, rude, and (let me add one personality trait I find extremely prevalent in gamers) delusional people in gaming than anywhere else in my life. I have never heard so many tall tales as I have from gamers about personal accomplishments in my entire life.

I've met quite a few cool people whose company I enjoy. I can't say they are in the majority.

 

[Arcane Runes Press]

OK! Whoa. Excuse me. But please tell me I'm not the only person out here that found this incredibly offensive? Insensitivity aside - *rape*? Just where on earth do you get that from? Please excuse me if I find that - of *everything* that has been posted on this board to be the lowest blow imaginable. Rude. Insensitive. *Cruel*. And utterly uncalled for. Admins may delete if they wish.

I think you're being a bit harsh on him.

He wasn't just making that up. I've heard, from both firsthand accounts and on the net, more horror stories (or, in one or two cases, brag-fests) of in-game rape nastiness than I care to think about.

It's never actually happened at any session I've been in, but several times while in college I got first hand, next day accounts of actions taken in another group my gaming friends were in.

Since then, talking to other industry folk, I've heard other stories or in-game rape and other morlock worthy behavior.


Patrick Y.

 

[Silly]

Likewise actually. Some of the individual people I knew in the military exceed what I've seen from gamers, but on average the gamer crowd has had them beat.

Hmmm...

I've only ever played in one organised "gaming group" (as opposed to getting together with friends). This group had a mixture of personalities, but two or three out of five were the proverbial people with poor social skills, a lust for "twatting" (i.e. hitting) any NPC they saw and a bigotted and generally rude attitude in general.

Meanwhile, the people I normally play with couldn't be further from this. I tend to play D&D with people who are already close friends, and while they (and me) might be geeky in terms of some of the things we're into (computers, gaming) I rarely meet more open-minded, inclusive people anywhere else.

It's fascinating that, in my experience at least, D&D appeals to the two extremes.

 

[hunter1828]

Because we've hijacked this thread...again...I created another thread to continue the creativity discussion.

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=61454

 

[Kastil]

Am I the only person in existance who has been in a well mixed, socially adjusted and otherwise sane gaming group? Groups that reflect 50/50 male female ratios - in which everyone is friends, and yet at the same time don't feel the need to be anyone other than themselves? In other words: It *can* and *does* work. Mixed groups are more than feasible. And no it doesn't always take just a 'little bit of extra work', either.

Maybe what it comes down to is if you're going to think about joining a group to play a little D&D, ask to sit in on a session first. That way if they go into areas, such as rape, you can decide not to join.

I too have no problems with my gaming group and I'm one of two girls in the group. The game I DM, the players are all male. It's definitely better when you have some sort of friendship with your gaming group. I feel this might stop possible conflicts. After all, if something offense comes out of your long time friend's mouth, at least you usually have a clue why.

"Bad day at work, Bob?"

 

[bekkilyn_rpg]

Clueless, you're probably one of the fortunate ones who have been able to find ideal or nearly ideal gaming groups, but various sorts of nasty stuff does happen in other groups. If you want to get a good idea of what it might be like to be a female in some of the bad groups (and I'm sure it's happened to a few unlucky males from time to time too) then play a female character for a while in an mmorpg such as Everquest. Sure, you might get a few suckers giving you more equipment and being nicer to you than your "male" counterparts from time to time, but you'll probably also get a good taste of harassment as well. In the bad D&D tabletop groups, it's even worse because it's not as anonymous as online.

This sort of thing made me quit playing D&D for quite a long time as it seemed like these jerk-types were everywhere. Nowadays though I'm very fortunate to have found good people to game with, and yes, most are male but they aren't total Beavis and Butt-Heads. Most of the people having problems with "male" gamers or "female" gamers really are just gaming with jerks and gender has little or nothing to do with it.

If you're not the sort of person who would do such things, then the comments probably weren't directed to you.

 

[ES2]

I have only gamed with women a couple times in my entire life. During both of those sessions, not by me but by the a couple others, the two women were treated like $hit. One by her boyfriend, who had been begging for her to play for six months only for him to treat her and her character like dirt and during a night of camping he wanted to rape her character and then torture her character. The other time the guys were just jerks and I ended up leaving both groups for that.

Their excuses: guys will be guys and if the girls can't take it, then they don't deserve to play. And, as I have read these posts, I am not alone in seeing guys behave this way towards others.

 

[Buttercup]

OK! Whoa. Excuse me. But please tell me I'm not the only person out here that found this incredibly offensive? Insensitivity aside - *rape*? Just where on earth do you get that from? Please excuse me if I find that - of *everything* that has been posted on this board this to be the lowest blow imaginable. Rude. Insensitive.

There is much anecdotal evidence that women gamers are frequently subjected to this. I've never met any in person, and it's never happened to me. But I have seen accounts of this sort of behavior online. I didn't find Arcady's comment offensive, exactly. But I did think it was an exaggeration. I might have responded sooner, but I haven't looked at this thread for a few days, because it had grown tiresome. Nonetheless, I'm glad I checked it today, since it gives me a chance to respond to your next comment:

Am I the only person in existance who has been in a well mixed, socially adjusted and otherwise sane gaming group? Groups that reflect 50/50 male female ratios - in which everyone is friends, and yet at the same time don't feel the need to be anyone other than themselves? In other words: It *can* and *does* work. Mixed groups are more than feasible. And no it doesn't always take just a 'little bit of extra work', either.

No, you aren't the only one. If you read this thread carefully, (At 8 pages now, that's a daunting task, I admit.) you will see that several people, myself included, have said that our games do not feature a dysfunctional cross-gender dynamic. You are basically describing my game. We're all friends, and there isn't any 'extra work' required for us to be civil with each other. I understand why you're baffled. Among my friends, and yours too, evidently, men and women don't resort to passive-aggresive behavior, don't insult each other and don't roll their eyes at imagined stereotypical shortcomings based on gender. And we don't have to strain ourselves to achieve this civil behavior. We just act like, well, friends.

 

[Silly]

I have only gamed with women a couple times in my entire life. During both of those sessions, not by me but by the a couple others, the two women were treated like $hit. One by her boyfriend, who had been begging for her to play for six months only for him to treat her and her character like dirt and during a night of camping he wanted to rape her character and then torture her character. The other time the guys were just jerks and I ended up leaving both groups for that.

Their excuses: guys will be guys and if the girls can't take it, then they don't deserve to play. And, as I have read these posts, I am not alone in seeing guys behave this way towards others.

Unbelieveable. Then again, you have to ask yourself - do I want to be hanging out with a bunch of idiots like this? As a male gamer, I hate it when neanderthals like this embarrass my gender by this sort of behaviour. I'd ditch the morons in an instant - and good for you for doing just that.

By the way, in my current group, there are two males (including me) and three females. My previous group had two females and one male (me). I guess the people I play with aren't representative of gamers as a whole - thank God, if the example cited on this thread are anything to go by!