Women Gamers vs. PCs/DMs Significant Others

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

Although not a direct response to your question, I am curious about something else in the same vein: how important a motivation for staying with the hobby is the constant ego reinforcement female gamers receive concerning their desirability? This seems a strong, often-seen social dynamic in gaming communities I have encountered. In fact I recently witnessed another such group and described it to a friend as "the women with low standards and the men who love them."

At the risk of sounding totally stuck up and self centered:

When I was introduced to role playing, I was dragged into the game by a friend who played with at least 4 other guys and one woefully unattractive woman in most sessions. In my first D&D game, I found that the game was secondary to the amount of attention that I, a tall blonde, recieved from the 4-6 high school/college aged nerdy types that I was playing with. It was a RUSH. I had gotten attention from guys before, but never like I did then...

Though I don't believe it to be a conscious choice, I probably returned for my second, third, and fourth adventures with this group because of the attention... and eventually found that I really enjoyed the game.

I would like to say "oh, I began playing because I am creative and love fantasy." But, in the end, that is probably the reason I *kept* playing, as opposed to the reason I *started* playing.

However I got to this point, one fact remains: I really love role playing.

 

[Belen]

My wife started playing as a way to spend more time with me on the weekends, although she now runs her own games in addition to mine and intends to start running games at the Game Days as well, so I do not think I am the catalyst any longer.

At the moment, my group, has three women. The other two women both got into gaming on their own.

My wife's group has two women and two guys. The other woman in the group started gaming on her own. In fact, she was the second player I ever recruited for my first attempt at GMing.

Very few of the women I have known as gamers started because of their SO, but all but one were married.

We male gamers tend to snap them upo pretty quickly.

 

[kenobi65]

I've known quite a few female gamers, of all stripes...

First of all, my wife. She started playing D&D with her high school friends, years before I met her. (In fact, I met her through one of her HS friends, who became part of my D&D group when he went off to college...but I already posted that in the "Love Story" thread in the Off-Topic Forum). We've been married for 12 years; in that time, she's gotten more and more into RPGs. I'm sure part of it was a desire to share my hobby with me, but she's now the person who pushes me to run games more often. She loves writing her characters' backstories, and now, I'd bet that she'd even consider playing in a game without me, with the right DM.

My ex-girlfriend was a gamer, too. She was dating one of the other guys in our group, and he brought her along, into the game -- so, she did start out as a "SO gamer". But, she rapidly became more "into" RPGs than her boyfriend was. About the time he dropped out of our group (due to serious personality conflicts -- he was a jerk), she broke up with him, and stayed in our group (and started dating me, too). Even after she and I broke up, she kept playing for many years. I've lost touch with her over the past few years, so I have no idea if she's still playing today.

Three of my best friends are female gamers, whom I've played with in various groups over the years. In each case, their husbands are also gamers. In two cases, the women (while single) joined gaming groups, and met their future husbands in the group. In the third case, the woman started gaming through co-workers, and dragged her husband along into it.

In the groups I currently play with, there are two other female gamers. One is single, and started playing with us years ago, when a (platonic) male friend, who's in our group, invited her to join us. She enjoys playing, but I suspect she's in it more for the camaraderie than for the game itself. The other woman is a friend of my wife's. Last year, I bought the Stargate SG-1 RPG, and she saw it at our house, and asked if we were going to play it (she's a huge Stargate fan). Well, I'm not running Stargate, but I invited her to join one of our D&D groups, and she's having a ball -- though, I suspect, if my wife wasn't there, Barb wouldn't be there, either.

 

[Yair]

In my current gaming party there is one girl, and 4 guys. The girl was brought to the party by one of the guys, but she was not his SO - in fact, she was recently married. She came out of love for Tolkein, fantasy, buffy, mysticism, and all that kind of stuff.
I suspect she and the guy that brought her were not strictly platonic for a while, but this happened sometime after she joined the game, and she is rather... ehm... free spirited [looks at Eric's grandma *hi!*]

 

[Afrodyte]

I am curious about something else in the same vein: how important a motivation for staying with the hobby is the constant ego reinforcement female gamers receive concerning their desirability?

Less than none. In fact, I would rather not combine my love life with gaming. Or anybody else's for that matter. I certainly don't enjoy guys speaking of their conquests or romantic interests in front of me (at least without asking me about my own), and I'm not attracted to the gamer guys who have expressed interest in me. I actually prefer to game with married men. I don't care if the woman is in the group as long as she's there for the game and not for schnookums. Often, it's a breath of fresh air to game with other women as long as there is clearly no actual or perceived competition.

As far as dating gamer guys, I don't really see that happening right now. IMO, it's healthy and important for a couple to maintain a certain degree of separateness from each other. I want someone to share my life with, not a conjoined twin.

 

[francisca]

I asked the guys in the game, and my wife, and as far as I can tell, she has never been "the DM's" wife, she jumped right in became part of the team. I attribute this to her independence and understanding of how teams work (she played big 10 basketball, she understands roles.) She has really helped the cohesiveness of the group.

Her inital concerns were learning all of the rules. These concerns were mitigated by the fact that there are 2 other new players, and I am running the 1980 Basic/Expert rules, which are easy to teach.

Having said all of that, she plays because she likes spending time with me and the other people in the group (mostly me....I think....). She would walk out of my RPGA group within 10 seconds, on the otherhand.

 

[francisca]

When I was introduced to role playing, I was dragged into the game by a friend who played with at least 4 other guys and one woefully unattractive woman in most sessions. In my first D&D game, I found that the game was secondary to the amount of attention that I, a tall blonde, recieved from the 4-6 high school/college aged nerdy types that I was playing with. It was a RUSH. I had gotten attention from guys before, but never like I did then...

Well two things: my wife is also tall (6'-2") and blonde. Mmmmm. Interesting...

But anyway, there is no special attention given to my wife, she gets no fawning over her, or gentle treatment from the DM or the other players. I attribute this to:
0) She isn't a southern belle, batting eyelash type.
1) All the players and DM are there to play D&D, not hook up with anybody.
2) Everyone at the table has at least passable social skills.
3) I run a fast-paced game.
4) They are scared silly wondering what lurks around the next corner or which NPC is going to betray them next. We're not hardcore role-players, but except for the breaks, there is very little socialization out of character at our table.

 

[Narfellus]

I convinced my long-term girlfriend to play a couple of times, but she never really got into it. She said it was too confusing, although she played her barbarian fairly well and had a great YEE! YEE! YEE! YEE! battle cry. My brother roped in his girlfriend who had the tendency to mock him and his hobby (she was a psychologist) but she turned into a pretty hardcore gamer until she got married to someone else and moved away. Another player met his girlfriend/wife at the gaming table, but when she quit playing he ended up not playing as much either. Sort of a weird situation, as i never cared if she played or not (well, prefered not). But as long as people are into it for the game, and not the spouse, there's no problem, otherwise it's just pointlessly distracting. I think it's great when a couple can share a hobby like gaming though.

 

[Ambrus]

The first time I played D&D with a girl (we were in our teens) in the group she was indeed the DM's girlfriend rather than a gamer. The poor doormat of a DM, a friend of mine at the time, allowed her to play a 13th level evil cleric when the rest of the party was still only 3rd level. He called it an "experiment" and did his best to assure us that the game would be fair for all.

It goes without saying that the campaign didn't last very long and was a complete disaster. One interesting footnote to demonstrate how game-savy the DM's girlfriend was: after we'd been playing for a while I glanced over her character sheet and noticed under the heading of Religion she'd marked down "atheist". Trying to keep from busting my gut laughing I asked her if she even knew what a "cleric" was. 13th level evil atheist cleric

In the game I now run three out of the five players are women. All of them are hard-core gamers, all of them have been playing for many years and (I believe) all got into the hobby without being drawn into it by boyfriends. One of the women is now my fiance whom I met eight years ago during a Werewolf LARP (imagine a softly growling 5 ft. 4 in. tall woman running around pretending to be a 9 ft. tall furry killing machine).

Unfortunately, my fiance is currently angry with me over an unfortunate turn of events in our ongoing campaign. Check out my "Am I a cruel DM" thread for all the sordid details.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

My wife no longer plays, but did for over 10 years. When my "big" campaign ended in 2000 and the other couple who'd been with it since the beginning divorced, she didn't want to play anymore. She got into it because of me, and was just about the best roleplayer I've ever seen. It's a shame she no longer plays.

The woman in the couple I just mentioned came into it with her husband, but she had her own background in fantasy and sci/fi, and would probably have gamed with or without him. She'd game every day now if she could, but has moved to another state and works so much she no longer has time.

We recently lost a woman player who got into because most of her friends were in my group. She wasn't anyone's SO, but played just to have an excuse to hang out with us. I did have a woman who played because she wanted to play, not because of any interest in dating anyone or was anyone's SO. She was great, but moved away. I have found out through the grapevine she's married now, and still plays.