Where Did All The Girls Go?

[Stormonu]

My personal experience has been that I have had a woman in my group since about midway through 2E D&D and even helped teach a group of girls to play Basic D&D as far back as '84. I've seen more female gamers in the years since the decline of 2E and the rise of the World of Darkness games. In fact, my oWoD Vampire game had only three players; all women (one being my wife...).

In my latest group, I have two women playing, and my wife occasionally plays (as long as its not Vampire...go figure). Though the ratio of male to female is still 2 to 1 or more, they've shown they are capable of handling any game thrown at them. I have noticed, however, over the years that there are some attitude differences between how men and women approach RPGs, and often which RPGs appeal to them more than others.

While I've seen both bloodthirsty male and female gamers, women tend to want to move the game past pure hack-n-slash. They tend to be bored with combat-only games that don't have some level of non-combat interactions. Many women I have gamed with wouldn't care if a combat never occurred in the game and the whole game was nothing more than personal interaction between their PCs and NPCs. However, with that said, I have seen women gamers leap with gusto into battles right alongside their male counterparts if the opportunity presents itself - sometimes even shaming the male players into combat they might normally avoid.

I've also noticed that women seem to almost have an aversion to games with lots of fiddly bits. Given the choice, I've seen women prefer games that don't require a lot of mathematic computations or tracking modifiers - the more straight-forward the system, the better. Most guys don't seem to care (or outwardly don't show their disapproval) with complex systems, and sometimes favor systems that model things in more detail. What I may be seeing, however, is a matter of male stoicism on our part.

In my mind, there isn't a crisis of a lack of female players in RPGs. In most cases I think it's simply a lack of knowledge - not as many women are aware of roleplaying as guys are, and I think in many cases with "the guys hanging out together" there's less chance (because of pure % of men vs. women playing) of them being approached to be involved in the game. My guess is that most women become aware of roleplaying through the fact their "significant other" is playing.

 

[pogre]

While I've seen both bloodthirsty male and female gamers, women tend to want to move the game past pure hack-n-slash. They tend to be bored with combat-only games that don't have some level of non-combat interactions. Many women I have gamed with wouldn't care if a combat never occurred in the game and the whole game was nothing more than personal interaction between their PCs and NPCs. However, with that said, I have seen women gamers leap with gusto into battles right alongside their male counterparts if the opportunity presents itself - sometimes even shaming the male players into combat they might normally avoid.

Interesting - my experience has been the opposite largely. The women at my table are the ones who want lots of combat. My wife often measured how good my individual game sessions were by the number of dice she rolled. Clearly, she is an extreme case - but the ladies at my table want a fast & furious game and love hack & slash.

 

[Jools]

I run a group in Japan and theres plenty of geeky girls here. Seems to be anime and WOW that brings em in...

 

[Iron Sky]

In my 16-odd years of DMing, we've had 3 out of about 20 player that have come and go that were female.

The first played just because it was what the guys were doing and she really liked one of us (not me, as far as I know anyway). She was mostly annoying and distracting since she really didn't care about the game at all and made fun of it the whole time we were playing it.

The second was my girlfriend. She played mostly because we were playing it and was just as content to sit and listen (and occasionally make snarky comments) as she was to play.

The third was one of my friend's wives and she was only interested in short (1-2 hours, tops) sessions that were almost purely combat. Once it got into RP, she was out until the dice hit the table.

I'd say maybe 1% of all the time I've spent playing RPGs there's been a female gaming with us. I actually wasn't aware that women as a whole actually played until I joined ENWorld (seeing that RPG Census thread that was kicking around was especially eye-opening).

 

[PaulofCthulhu]

I think the answer to your question is far simpler.
For all intents and purposes, outside of established gamers anyway, D&D is THE roleplaying game. That's the one everyone knows. The problem is, it's fantasy. And it's based on fantasy written primarily before about 1980.

Agreed. I see this for D&D, which is essentially seen by non-players as what an RPG is. For games other than D&D my own anecdotal evidence suggests the sex ratio is much better.

 

[gynoid]

Well, I'm a woman (the first one to post in this thread? Surely not), and I've been playing and running games, off and on, since my teens. I take issue with generalisations about the kind of game women like to play because in my experience they're never wholly true. Some women may match those statements; certainly not all.

This is what I know: when I played at university, several years ago, there was usually at least one girl in every group. It's true that we were occasionally treated like a strange and rare breed, but for the most part, attitudes were excellent, especially when everyone got to know each other a little better. Still, it was very much a boys' club, and if I hadn't had gaming experience before I wouldn't have wanted to make the effort unless it was with a group of close friends.

Pre-university, in my mid-teens, I ran 2e adventures for my brother, a school friend, and her brother. I came to tabletop RPGs from playing Baldur's Gate, since when I looked up stats and builds there was naturally a lot of information about D&D as well. After a while (and lots of reading around on the internet) I decided that it sounded like fun, and bought the core books. I'd had previous experience in tabletop gaming from playing Warhammer.

Regarding the lack of decent female characterisation, D&D (and I assume other systems) seems particularly good at gender equality these days. I leaf through my core books and there's nary a chainmail bikini in sight! I don't think that's so relevant now, but admittedly someone might be put off by the old stereotypes and not bother to investigate further.

I don't know much about my local gaming scene and couldn't possibly guess at any numbers or ratios, but I think the situation is probably improving. My sister, currently at university, tells me that her SF&F society has about an equal ratio of men to women and that in the games she played that ratio held true.

I don't think any of this is really a problem, per se. Women will play if they are interested and are given the opportunity. There's nothing wrong with a hobby being dominated by one gender, just so long as the other gender is welcomed as equals.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I leaf through my core books and there's nary a chainmail bikini in sight!

I know right? The state of rpg art isn't up to snuff these days. There isn't anything wrong with art depicting scantily clad members of either sex, especially barbarian types. Too much PC art and not enough good old sword and sorcery flesh nowadays.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

The problem I have with the blog is that it makes many assertions, some of which run counter to my personal experience (limited though it may be) and no real basis for making these assertions.

Without somebody doing some actual research on this topic and posting some hard numbers about the profile of female gamers then survey the female gamer demographic these debates are pie in the sky handwaving and no useful data is revealed.

 

[Balsamic Dragon]

Girl gamer (woman gamer?) here. Still lurking Still running D&D, with three male players and two female players. And one male babysitter

After having a kid, I find that I lack the time to defend my (and my gender's) enjoyment of my hobby to the internets.

 

[BrokeAndDrive]

Why aren't there more men working in nursing or modeling? This is sexist and wrong. We should petition the government to force a 50% male population in these careers immediately!