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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Piratecat" data-source="post: 3563321" data-attributes="member: 2">I estimate that women make up approximately 20% of D&D players. I game with about 5 or 6 women (and as many men) on a regular basis, but that figure is higher than average. Like any hobby, like attracts like -- and if one woman is a gamer, she's more likely to invite her friends as well.If I was going to introduce a new player to gaming (and we have, including an all-female group comprised of friends who had always wanted to try it but found the concept of gaming with strangers to be unappealing!), I wouldn't start with D&D; fantasy just isn't the most accessible genre in my opinion. There aren't enough cool role models for new players to know what to do. As a result, we start new players out with either Spycraft (a secret agent RPG) or Feng Shui (a Hong Kong action movie RPG.) Everyone's seen James Bond! That means that it's an easy transition; when in doubt, the new player can simply ask herself "What would a super spy do?" It's a neat way to introduce the concept with a minimum of fuss.Until recently I was a management consultant specializing in fatigue and alertness (we were the folks you'd call when your nuclear control room worker fell asleep at 3am); I've switched industries, and now have a much more fun job doing video game design for THQ. The creativity in video game design is great, but it's not as immediate as RPGs like D&D.I've been playing D&D for about 26 years. My current game is about to hit the 15th anniversary. I credit D&D with helping me build a spectacular community of friends across the country, hundreds of folks, people I've first met through this site or at gaming cons and have since become close friends with. At its heart D&D is a social game, and that shows. It's hard to emphasize how rewarding this is to me; it's not just people with whom I share a fun hobby, it's people who love most of the same things I do, and who are smarter and more fun than I am.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> My wife plays D&D as well (and did before I met her). Our groups play bi-weekly. Part of the joy is in seeing my friends on a regular basis, and part of it is getting to stretch our creativity and imagination every week.  I'm spiritual but not particularly religious. I've known quite a few ministers who gamed, however. Reconciling D&D and faith didn't seem to be a problem for them, but obviously I can't speak for them myself.</blockquote>

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