Women Gamers vs. PCs/DMs Significant Others

[Umbran]

Well, my wife games, and it certainly isn't only because she wants to be with me. Quite the opposite, really. I was her DM for years before we got married

 

[Xath]

I started gaming almost 4 years ago, after meeting a gamer on a school trip to Paris. I was a fencer, I did martial arts, and I had read every bit of sci-fi and fantasy I had been exposed to. So it seemed that gaming was the next natural step.

Sadly enough, (I am ashamed to admit) my response to hearing about Dungeons & Dragons was "Oh, wasn't that a movie?" Boy have I learned. Now I find that I have the need to game at least once a week in order to function properly.

 

[Mercule]

My wife got into it, back in college, because it was a way to "hang out" with me (this was before we were dating -- I was not a negligent boyfriend). It's been... um... 13ish years, now, and she plays because she likes the game. I suspect that if I gave up gaming, she wouldn't pursue it, but she does it because it's fun for her.

Her sister started gaming in college. She's definitely in it for the game. The fact that her fiancee is part of the group is a bonus, but I'm almost positive that she'd be in regardless.

The third gal in the group is there for the social aspect, near as I can tell. She joined after starting to date her (now) husband, but I'm pretty sure she would have been interested independent of him.

Since my gaming group is synonymous with my core group of friends, it's hard to be sure who is there for the game and who is there because it's "what the group is doing". I know we three guys are all pretty hardcore. The gals tend to be rules-light, but that could be just a playing style rather than a show of interest.

In the extended group of friends/gamer pool, there are some pretty hardcore women gamers. One of them even got her boyfriend into the hobby before they broke up.

 

[Gunton The Terrible]

...

I understand from those WOTC marketing statistics and some theorizing of my own that RPG involvement has gradually ceased, over time, to be strongly gendered male. But for people of my generation and older (I'm 32), our perceptions of gaming were shaped at an earlier time. So I would wager that for both men and women born in the mid 70s or earlier, RPGs will always be strongly associated with the male gender (but, paradoxically not with masculinity)...

Ouch!

I belong to the early RPG generation and have gamed with a total of three females in the last 20+ years. Two of them were fantastic roleplayers and both were gaming for the love of RPGs. The third is currently gaming with us and is starting to learn more about role playing. Although I can say she is definatly not gaming because of a romantic interest. She is the daughter of one of the players. A group consisting of Seven 32+ year old men and one 16 year old young lady. She was quiet at first, but she is starting to open up a bit.

Of the seven men, four are married and none of their, mine included, wives have ever played or have shown an interest to play

 

[cathyb]

I'm a proud GM SO

I'm a female player who is married to the GM, but in our case I can definitely say that I'm not just in it to be with him since I'M the one who got HIM into gaming. When we met he was encased with a sheen of mundane normalcy (playing football, drinking beer, and going country-western dancing), but after carefully wearing away at his resistance through exposure to sci-fi/fantasy books, comic books, and computer games, I was able to sell him on RPGs and bring out the true geek potential within. Bwahahahahah. I feel like a missionary, bringing the true word to the heathens. With dice.

 

[fusangite]

Less than none. In fact, I would rather not combine my love life with gaming.

This is very much the sort of response my question was designed to "provoke" -- it seems to me that, especially amongst us older (and usually geekier) gamers, how gaming is gendered combined with the ambient level of male desperation around a gaming table should function as a barrier to entry for women who are trying to avoid unwanted romantic attention. Thus my phrasing "women with low standards and the men who love them."

I am impressed, though, that gaming really is enjoyable enough that despite this difficult and peculiar social overlay, women like Afrodyte have stayed in the hobby.

and I'm not attracted to the gamer guys who have expressed interest in me... As far as dating gamer guys, I don't really see that happening right now.

Again, this is what I anticipate has been the experience for the majority of women of my generation who have attempted to become involved in the hobby. I think that this has served to perpetuate the huge gender imbalance that exists in our age bracket within the hobby. And when it has not, it has resulted in the over-representation of women like Queen_Dopplepopolis.

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...

I've always suspected this of a fair chunk of the minority of women who have become involved in the hobby at my age level. But I've never had the nerve to articulate it myself. Thanks you very much for being so honest and open with us in making this disclosure.

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.

There's a subject for another thread... what we think we enjoy in gaming vs. what we're actually there for...

 

[Desdichado]

Again, this is what I anticipate has been the experience for the majority of women of my generation who have attempted to become involved in the hobby. I think that this has served to perpetuate the huge gender imbalance that exists in our age bracket within the hobby. And when it has not, it has resulted in the over-representation of women like Queen_Dopplepopolis.

Although Naturally QD will have to confirm, I believe from reading some of her older posts that she's a fair bit younger than "our generation" of 30-35 year old gamers who started in the late 70s or early 80s. I suspect that the social environment for gaming is quite a bit different now, for people the same age as we were when we started, or even a fair bit older, like early to mid 20s. I recall having a co-worker tell me two or three years ago that it was quite the rage in his son's junior high again.

Not that your theory doesn't have a lot of intuitive merit anyway; but I'm not sure that this is a data point that supports it.

 

[Teflon Billy]

This is very much the sort of response my question was designed to "provoke" -- it seems to me that, especially amongst us older (and usually geekier) gamers, how gaming is gendered combined with the ambient level of male desperation around a gaming table should function as a barrier to entry for women who are trying to avoid unwanted romantic attention. Thus my phrasing "women with low standards and the men who love them."

Now that's just crazy talk

You know full-well how many "Gamer Girls" in this area have begun gaming specifically to get closer to Mike, Theo or Myself.

Hell man, I don't think Piers has ever had a girl at his table who he didn't widn up dating

With the exception of Christina, it hasn't even been a disaster!

 

[Amaroq]

Our group has had two female players.

My wife was one: she was willing to give it a try because I was interested, and was willing to try some of the length board-games I enjoy as well, but has quickly realized that her 'entertainment interest' reaches a limit at about two hours; she'd rather play a series of quick-and-crunchy games than one length one. I think she also felt a bit overwhelmed by the sheer number of rules to be familiar with; she ceased coming, and now enjoys taking my 'gaming days' and spending them as 'girls days' with her closest female friends.

The other is atypical. Yeah, she is the wife of one of our players, but I would characterize the dynamic the other way around: "He plays because she loves it." She's a gamer through and through, frequently attending cons and able to win competitive games at them. She hosts our game, partly because she enjoys baking stuff for appreciative gamer-types and partly for the convenience of not having to go anywhere. She also keeps the oh-so-detailed logs from which I base our story hour (Scourge of the Ratmen). She plays the character Miriel, who is very much one of the party's leaders, and to some extent its 'glue' - ties to her character keep a number of the other player characters in the party. So, not the GM, but one of the primary players, if you know what I mean.

I feel like a missionary, bringing the true word to the heathens. With dice.

I love my mental image of that! You go, girl!

 

[barsoomcore]

My wife got into gaming because I started a campaign after we were married, and we're not like Afrodyte: we do everything together. Probably grosses some people out, but that's how we like it.

I mean, together. Not gross.

Anyhoo. Mrs. Barsoom has definitely become a "for the game" player and is planning her own d20 DarkMatter campaign. She's also become my "DM Pimp" and is forever organizing new games, often with people who don't currently game at all. I owe my Stewardesses game to her efforts.

And speaking of which, there's a game with four women who are definitely NOT there for the social or relationship-y aspects -- they're there to play. They like a fast-paced, hack and slash approach but heck, they've only played three times, so I'm not worried much.

The people I game with are sufficiently advanced socially that having a person of the opposite gender in the room is not exciting enough to significantly alter behaviour. Girls don't get much ego-stroking. Nor do guys.

All ego-stroking in my games is reserved for the DM. Me. I encourage it.