You asked~Female gamers

[Wolfspider]

When it comes to gaming, I think I have had a rather atypical experience. The people I've gamed with have been mostly female.

Let me see if I can name all my female gamer friends here and describe their gaming preferences:

Randi (role-player)
Amy (my best friend; role-player)
Mel (hack n slash)
Tracy (my girlfriend; hack n slash)
Spring (an ex-girlfriend; role-player)
Laura (hack n slash)
Lauren (my ex-wife; hack n slash)
Rebecca (role-player)
Vanessa (role-player)
Jean (hack n slash)
Sonya (role-player)
Sue (hack n slash)
"Wicket" (can't remember her real name; role-player)
Diane (pretty balanced)
Pamela (my mom; ruthless hack n slash)
Kim (ex-girlfriend; hack n slash)
Tara (role-player)
Gertrude (my grandmother; hack n slash)
Rachel (hack n slash)
Tori (my 6 year old daughter; role-player)

Now here are my guy friends:

John (best friend before he burned his books;role-player)
Eric (hack n slash)
Jason (hack n slash)
Chuck (role-player)
Shawn (role-player)
Aaron (role-player)
Scott (hack n slash)
Daniel (role-player)

As you can see, the people I've played with don't really fit any gender-based norms as far as RPGs go--which is probably why I find such things ill-suited to describing my experience. Of course, like I said, my experience may be freakishly abnormal.

As far as psychology goes, I've never taken a psychology course in my life, even after eleven years of college, mainly because I'm afraid of what I'll find out about my own twisted psyche.

I have taken plenty of philosophy classes, and my philosophic mind recoils at the idea that I or any other human being is a slave to the impulses of the flesh.

 

[BMF]

1. Men and women both like or dislike violence on a personal level. We all pretend non violent men and violent women are both a rare exception; but if you sit down and start counting you'll find it balances out failry well though can be influenced by cultural factors.

That is simply not true. Look at crime statistics. Women are less prone to violence than men for a whole long list of reasons.You are right that cultural factors are an influence. But so is estrogen. So is social groups and social roles and schemas and learned behavor. All those those things affect behavior, but at the end of the day, the net result is, as I have stated, women who watch Lifetime instead of TnT.

2. If the advertising industry and sales are any indicator women like nude and erotic women in their imagry more than men do.

Actually, men also like handsome good looking men in advertisements too. The reason women's bodies are used more in advertising is because they are seen by both genders as being more visually appealing. However, you will also notice a focus on men's faces in advertising. Very rarely will you ever see a whole body shot of a man. Often, it is a close up on his face. By contrast, you will almost never see a close-up on a woman's face in advertising unless she is a pop figure.

But that doesn't have anything to do with the topic.....

 

[Nikchick]

And here's the first battle axe:



Notice how eager you are to fight???

Battle axe? You, sir, have an issue. If I was "fighting" you'd know it. In this case, I was merely calling BS on your generalization.

I've been involved in more Women in Gaming projects that I care to recount. I was one of four fulltime staff principly involved in bringing Vampire: the Masquerade to market in the early 1990s. I co-hosted the Women in Gaming Forum on America Online for a short time. I've carefully followed the changing demographics in gaming over the last 15 years. I'm not just using my own preferences to generalize about women who do and don't game.

Nicole

 

[BMF]

Of course, like I said, my experience may be freakishly abnormal.

I would say gaming with your grandmother might be a little on the freakish side.

Seriously though, your list proves my point. The majority of women you have gamed with were hack and slash players. As I said a few posts ago, the game appeals to that sort of mentality, so even though the majority of women in the world may be more inclined to role-playing, those who are more prone to hack and slash are the ones who end up gaming, most of the time.

 

[Wolfspider]

I would say gaming with your grandmother might be a little on the freakish side.

You haven't heard anything yet: She played a dwarf named Jim Croce.

Ahhh, those were the good ol' days. How I miss my grandma.

If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I'd like to do
Is to save every day
Till Eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you

 

[Wolvorine]

LufiaLillystorm said:
I mentioned art before and I wanted to talk a bit more about it, because I was a bit vague.
Art work like on page 13 of the Players handbook shows the various women for the races. All of them are wearing very little, even the half-orc <does a bit of a shiver on that one>. It just seems like there is an over exageration that women are supposed to be this exotic thing during this setting :-/

It was, in the past moreso than now, an unfortunate fact that RPG art was very much about blood and breasts. I think the original RPG artists came from a primary background of Pulp readers and fans as kids, the art in which was about 168% pin-up bondage nude layouts, from what I've seen of it. Luckilly, we artists nowadays try to take into consideration that not everyone wants watered-down porn in their RPG books (at least I do).
Then again, it's also true that the artist isn't usually the final word on the images (unless they do something silly like wait until the deadline's up against the wall, and then turn in their assignments, leaving the client no time to ask for alterations. But that'll just get you a lack of future assignments). This doesn't clear any 'blame' for any such problems of course -- but there are times when the client wants either more or less cleavage, beefcake, whatnot.

barsoomcore said:
Originally posted by Mistwell
We can break into the mainstream of entertainment.
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Here's where we disagree. But perhaps it depends on how you define "mainstream". Will D&D ever be more popular than video games? Never. Passive entertainment (TV or movies)? Never. Yahtzee? Never.

I don't think the arguement was for 'more popular' so much as it was for 'equally accepted'. We can most likely never hope for more-popular, but I think we stand a real good shot at equally-acceptable to mainstream society. Especially in this day and age where most people will scoff at the idea that RPGs are evil satantic devices, and turn good kids into evil homicidal maniacs.

Wolfspider said:
"These are innate traits that are caused by our gender. Men are inclinded to be dominating, forceful and heroic. Women are inclined to be pragmatic, understanding and prosocial. "
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If men tend to be innately heroic and women do not, then why would most women be interested in heroic fantasy in the first place?

This was replied to before, but I'll toss my hypothesis into it. I think he's basically right here. Why are women, in this case, interested in heroic fantasy? My guess would be that some are partially because it's what they grew up reading. My s.o., for instance, is fairly well-read in older Heroic Fantasy because as a little girl, it's what there was lots of around her, and she was a serious reader. It wasn't until she was older than she was more exposed to female fantasy writers, who tend to write a slightly different type of fantasy overall. It's seemed to me that typically, women are attracted to personalities and situations (the dashing heroic rogue, the playful and slow seduction and ensuing relationship between them, as a gross example), whereas men are attracted to power and force (gots'ta get me that vorpal katana, then the captain of the king's guard will be thinking twice before he calls me a lowly dirt-kissing peasant!). Again, naturally, it's not universal. But to quote from Seanbaby.com (concerning sterotypes), "We don't have time to get to know every single person we see. We have to stereotype people in certain ways to know which one of them wants to kill us for our wallet, which ones can't drive, and which ones enjoy the taste of falafel. If we didn't have stereotypes, we'd be doing stupid like walking up to bikers and asking who won today's tennis match.".

Wolfspider said:
"But also, I don't understand things they say in those books. It doesn't have anythign to with being a girl but they are confusing, then they put everything everwhere, the 3e books were much better"
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This is also not a gender thing of course. Plenty of people have low reading comprehension. I see it all the time in the players around my table and on the boards. Some people get intimidated by it and leave the hobby. Others just learn to accept it and sometimes even overcome it and improve their reading skills.

This is an interesting truth, too. Myself, for example. I have a fairly above-average reading comprehension in general, and I read voraciously all the time. However, I haven't actually been involved with a gaming group (and thus, no game) for years. This lead to my own problem with the rules of all the RPGs I own. I have pretty fairly mastered the Character Creation rules, and anything else I can sit at the table and ask the DM how I do something if I ever get into a game. The rules don't strike me as cryptic or overly complex, and I've read the 3E PHB and DMG cover-to-coverover 2 dozen times. It's just not important info in my situation. I've known alot of people of both sexes who don't retain alot of rules info because it's not important to playing.

 

[DMaple]

Hmmm. Maybe it's the type of women I game with, but every woman I have ever gamed with has been WAY more blood-thirsty and hack-n-slash minded than the guys.

Same here, I won't go into details of what one female player did to an NPC gang member with her "Chain-Ripp" in Cyberpunk its enough to say all the male members in the group crossed their legs.

 

[BMF]

I've been involved in more Women in Gaming projects that I care to recount. I was one of four fulltime staff principly involved in bringing Vampire: the Masquerade to market in the early 1990s. I co-hosted the Women in Gaming Forum on America Online for a short time. I've carefully followed the changing demographics in gaming over the last 15 years. I'm not just using my own preferences to generalize about women who do and don't game.

Well then you are exactly the person we need to talk to!!

1. Is it true that Vampire puts more of a focus on role-playing and story-telling than d20 does??? And if so, why???

2. Is it true that ther are more girls that play Vampire than d20?? If so, why???

3. Your first post included comments only on your personal opinions. If you are involved with Women in Gaming organizations, it doesn't really prove your point, becausd I'm talking about women who DON'T game, and why. As I've said twice already in this thread, I'm sure that the majority of femle gamers are hack-n-slash types. That's because that is the mentality that gamign appeals to, regardless of gender.

Once again, I'll also point out that we are discussing groups. Whenever you do that, individuals go out the window. We all know that there are more differences between individuals than there are between groups, but unless you disput the fact that women are an obvious minority in gaming, I think you need to cite some reason for that discrepency, rather than just saying that you disagree with my assertion because you know a lot of female gamers.

I'm sure you know a lot of female gamers. But like I said, before, the majority of those girls are not representative of all women as a broad demographic group.

Why, pray tell, is it that less than 20% of all gamers are girls?? To answer that question, you have to talk about women as a group. And, once again, when you talk about groups, individuals get left out.

Perhap we should wonder why gaming is not enjoyed by other demographics rather than those defined by gender. But that would be off topic....

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I'm not going to get into how gender affects the propensity to violence - that's just a flame war gearing up. However, if one gender is less prone to violent behavior, isn't that a point in that gender's favor? Isn't it a step backward for both genders to be violence-prone? Wouldn't things be thrown out of balance if both genders tended towards the same behavior? (I'm a very Yin-Yang oriented person, so maybe my views aren't widely-held; I could be wrong).

EDIT: Now that I think about it, maybe things are out of balance in general - not just in regards to gender differences. Just a small epiphany that's been staring me in the face for years.

 

[Kichwas]

Then again, in my current college group, we don't particularly make a big deal of sex differences (except for the one girl who didn't feel like describing her character, and said she was just a nebulous pair of breasts with a sword).

This comment inspired me to create the following image:

http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=156017