What It's Like For a Gamer Girl

[nimisgod]

Well, I have to admit that I often play psychotic characters that are prone to sexually deviant adn violent behaviors. Fortunately for his own species, he's only into Balors and Pit Fiends.

GM: "Okay, the fighter trips the Balor from behind. It snarls in hate as it goes down."

Wizard: "Kewl! I mount him! Yes! A critical hit!"

GM: "Umm...why?"

Wizard: "That's my insanity from being an Alienist. I like having sexual relations with incredibly powerful beings. Besides, I've never had Balor before."

GM: "Umm... the Balor teleports away."

Wizard: "Damned demons! Always playing hard to get. Just wait till I can cast Gate, my lovelies!"

On a serious note, I can imagine why these guys try this kind of disgusting behavior on other players. There isn't any excuse for it though.

My brother was the victim of such a GM (he never played a female character again). I think the GM just watched too much H-anime... and was just a wimpy ass.

Some people play RPGs to fulfill their fantasies... and a few of these folks let their fantasies run roughshod over other people's umm... fun. Rape is a power-hunger kinda thing, rather than sexual. So most likely, these kind of players are more prone to use RPGs to live whatever control they want in their lives...

Given that its such a sensitive subject for most people, I'll shut up now.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I dunno, there are jerks everywhere.

It may be that role-playing just puts that little extra bit of intensity into a social situation that makes it really obvious.

Which probably makes all the more inexcusable that there people can and do act with such monumental foulness.

 

[bekkilyn_rpg]

One "encouraging" note: I think it's pretty fair to say that for every misogynistic nutbar who treats women in gaming poorly, there is a desperate gynophobic nutbar who defers obsequiously to female gamers solely on the basis of their gender.

I tend to find both of these types about equally annoying.

 

[Rel]

I've read this thread with varying degrees of exasperation and interest but I didn't really feel that I had anything concrete to add until now.

We had the second NC Game Day on Saturday and there were quite a few women in attendance (Clueless among them). Virtually every game played that day had at least one female in the group. I know of no instances where anybody of either gender was mistreated and I would have had no compunctions about ejecting the offender if they had.

For me, this is a very simple issue in the groups that I play in. Everybody is obligated to do two things:

1) Treat the other players with respect.

2) Don't show up with a chip on your shoulder, looking to find offense where none is intended.

When those two rules have been followed, we've never had any personal problems between the players. On the rare occasions that they haven't been followed, we've taken quick and decisive measures to see that the situation is corrected.

 

[ssampier]

I genuinely feel sorry for everyone that had to experience that. ~shudders~

As far as men and women go, I've given up trying to understand women at large. As a male I accept the fact that women may think differently than I do. It's not a bad thing really (although I harbor a bias against bossy people). I generally try to understand the difference among people and adapt (within reason, of course).

Essentially it boils down to respect, regardles of sex/gender, difference of opinion, etc.

 

[takyris]

When my wife and I were doing pre-marital counseling, we took these little personality tests. Both she and I tested off the charts for sensitivity (seeing what somebody else is feeling) and empathy (changing your feelings as a result of what somebody else is feeling). As a result, we spend far too much time asking each other how we feel and if we're really just stressed from work or if there's something we can do to help and all kinds of overdiscussion would drive ordinary people insane.

So perhaps I'm just amazingly perceptive in my relationships with people. I usually alter my behavior to reflect the person, not the person's gender. I find some behavior to be true in many females and some behavior to be true in many males, but once I actually KNOW the person, that generalization ceases to be useful or helpful. I think that most people would agree with that -- it's just a question of how long it takes individual people to get from "Generalization of Person Based on What I Know About Them" to "Individual Interaction Methodology Based on Personal Understanding". Some people are faster than others.

Short answers to long thread:

1) I don't see the guys as jerks, necessarily. I wasn't there. Could be ribbing, could be jerkdom, could be honest miscommunication.

2) Any time there's a new person, the dynamic changes. People have already said quite intelligently that, whatever kind of person the new person is, the group should decide to what level they're willing to bend to make the new person feel welcome. There's no rule that they have to bend at all, but most new people are friends of somebody who's already in there, so it's generally nice to at least be somewhat polite. But it's unreasonable to expect the group to bend over backwards for the new person, and it should be the responsibility of the person inviting the new person in to a) gauge whether the new person is going to enjoy the existing dynamic and b) figure out what might need to change, and figure out whether it's possible and worth it to change it.

3) Stereotypes about women being overemotional and men being insensitive are often accurate. Just as often, they lead to amusing and ironic self-fulfilling prophecies.

4) I've had two women in my long-term campaign at various times. One left because she was moving. The other left because she broke up with the guy she was dating, who was another player. He was a bit of a jerk, and I'd have preferred to see him go (and later did in fact get rid of him), but it wasn't my choice at the time, since the jerkdom was happening behind my back.

5) There are enough inroads to gaming now that the old "they're more creative/intelligent" thing no longer applies, if indeed it ever did. My group has brilliant creative folks as well as pinheads without a creative thought in their head as well as flakes who are creative but can't figure out the rules. When you've got drama geeks and CRPGers both coming in, you're gonna be all over the place, personality-wise.

6) Wish I could meet some of you in person. Sounds like it'd be interesting and fun and different.

 

[Clueless]

We had the second NC Game Day on Saturday and there were quite a few women in attendance (Clueless among them).

Darnit, now I've been outted.
That's ok, yer forgiven...

 

[Rel]

Darnit, now I've been outted.
That's ok, yer forgiven...

Sorry about that. I could say something now that would attempt to return your gender to ambiguous status, but that would probably just get me into more trouble.