Women Gamers

[Timerover51]

Comments about women and Traveller showed up in another thread, but I was thinking that it might be of interest to the forum as a whole. The following is some of my experience and observation. The summer class mentioned is intended by my co-teacher and I to teach history, as well as a lot of other things, through the use of board games.

Generally, based on the summer gaming class that I have been working with since 2003, in the 6th grade through 12th grade age bracket, the girl gamers clean the clock of the boy gamers about 90% of the time. Note this is not role-playing games, but board games such as Axis and Allies (with some modifications to the standard games), History of the World, War: Age of Imperialism (out of print by Eagle Games), the various Mayfair railway games, and similar type games.

In the games design class that I have taught, it has been about 2/3 boys and 1/3 girls, with the girls interestingly enough, focusing on the role playing games, while the boys go more for the war games.

The gaming group as the Milwaukee School of Engineering has a considerable number of women in the group, playing computer games, board and card games, and roleplaying games. Of course, that is an engineering school, where the males outnumber the females by 4 to 1, so I am not sure if that is a representative sample.

Are there any other groups or examples of women playing Traveller? They do make up about half of the population.

 

[McPerth]

Generally, based on the summer gaming class that I have been working with since 2003, in the 6th grade through 12th grade age bracket,

Please, for those of us that are not US citizens, would you be so kind as to tell us what ages do this represent?

In the games design class that I have taught, it has been about 2/3 boys and 1/3 girls, with the girls interestingly enough, focusing on the role playing games, while the boys go more for the war games.

The gaming group as the Milwaukee School of Engineering has a considerable number of women in the group, playing computer games, board and card games, and roleplaying games. Of course, that is an engineering school, where the males outnumber the females by 4 to 1, so I am not sure if that is a representative sample.

Are there any other groups or examples of women playing Traveller? They do make up about half of the population.

In the gaming club I was on (also both board games and RPGs) women were an exceptional occurence (in fact I only remember two of playing there). This was some years ago, though, as now my time table don't allow me to attend, so I cannot tell you if this has changed.

 

[Timerover51]

Please, for those of us that are not US citizens, would you be so kind as to tell us what ages do this represent?

Sorry about that, the age group would be roughly 11 to 18, but we do allow a bit of a fudge factor for the younger kids.

In the gaming club I was on (also both board games and RPGs) women were an exceptional occurence (in fact I only remember two of playing there). This was some years ago, though, as now my time table don't allow me to attend, so I cannot tell you if this has changed.

We average about 4 to 6 girls per afternoon gaming class, but have had up to 10. Class size is not running about 40 to 50. We also are doing a detailed study of World War 2 in two morning classes, where I have worked up a detailed WW2 simulation derived from Axis and Allies, and there we have about 4 or 5 girls out of a class of 25.

 

[aramis]

My player base has been, fairly consistently, 1-2 women in each group.

My wife likes Traveller. My other female players, as a rule, aren't thrilled with the OTU, and are neutral about the various Traveller game systems.

 

[navanod]

I met my wife through my gaming buddies back in the day, and we gamed a lot for several years. My daughter has played a few times, and one of my sons ex-girlfriends is currently a gamer. I can't speak to Timerrovers experience with strategy board games; I have, however, resigned myself to getting whooped on a regular basis after teaching my wife air combat flight sims, first person shooters, and strategy games on the computer. That trend seems to have continued, with my daughter becoming every bit as skilled as my wife with any FPS involving a sniper rifle.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

We had two women in our gaming group in college. (RIP Sandy) They were not ... of a conventional mold. I never had any in our high school groups.

 

[McPerth]

My wife likes Traveller.

You're a lucky guy then .

My wife doesn't understand nor does she care about games, and accepts my liking of them as a quirk that comes with the lot.

 

[DangerousThing]

Are there any other groups or examples of women playing Traveller? They do make up about half of the population.

My current group has 2 women, one girl (13), and two males, including me. I finally got my wife to agree to play.

 

[madmike]

My wife is an active member of my Traveller group and our son-in-law's D&D campaign.

Her character in Traveller is a female doctor with very good small arm skills, whilst in D&D her character is a female elven ranger.

 

[DangerousThing]

My wife is an active member of my Traveller group and our son-in-law's D&D campaign.

Her character in Traveller is a female doctor with very good small arm skills, whilst in D&D her character is a female elven ranger.

A coincidence!

Lee is playing a doctor/spy. Most of the time her spy work is courier work because she goes to a large number of medical conferences, but she can use a pistol, especially a laser pistol. However her Medic skill is absolutely astounding.

Another woman in the campaign is playing more of a trickster/spy.

And they can both use martial arts.

 

[Independence Games]

When I was in high school in a small town in the mid-80s, the idea that there were female gamers was a shock and surprise to me. Once I got to college, I discovered lots of them. Most of my college-age gaming groups were 75% male and 25% female.

Currently, our gaming group consists of myself and about 10 regulars (6 males, 4 females) with several who show up intermittently (of which, in that group, there are 4 males and 3 females).

 

[aramis]

When I was in high school in a small town in the mid-80s, the idea that there were female gamers was a shock and surprise to me.

In high school, group 1 (at school) was all guys. Group 2 (at church) had 1 routine female, and 2-3 others who showed up from time to time.

 

[Murphy]

Roleplaying games are unknown where I live; it seems my club is the only one in the entire city. The ratio of males to females in it is roughly 1:1.

 

[Jame]

My fiancee plays Traveller with me but freely admits she doesn't like the 2d6 system it uses. She plays an ex-Army sergeant that our Ref provided. I plan to run a 2300AD (MGT rules) for her, eventually.

She does run a Pathfinder game regularly with another woman in it (there are 6 men and a teenage boy in also); the other woman has admitted playing one of the WH40K RPGs (Deathwatch/Rogue Trader/etc).

 

[madmike]

A coincidence!

Lee is playing a doctor/spy. Most of the time her spy work is courier work because she goes to a large number of medical conferences, but she can use a pistol, especially a laser pistol. However her Medic skill is absolutely astounding.

Another woman in the campaign is playing more of a trickster/spy.

And they can both use martial arts.

Lee's character sounds of similar bent to my wife Lori's character

Essential stats are;

Doctor (trauma surgeon) Josaphynah "doc" Joletris 8B9BD9 Age:43

Terran born Imperial, ex merchant sector line (owned by her father) and free trader

Essential Skills; medical-4, pistol-4, admin-3, trader-2

She uses a pair of custom 10mm auto pistols (a gift from her main squeeze, Markus Farradaye) most effectively when necessary.

Our D&D gaming group now has two lady players (my wife and another lady). Both love takin' it to the bad guys...

Lori also plays a character in Runequest and Tunnels & Trolls

 

[DangerousThing]

Lee's character sounds of similar bent to my wife Lori's character

Essential stats are;

Doctor (trauma surgeon) Josaphynah "doc" Joletris 8B9BD9 Age:43

Terran born Imperial, ex merchant sector line (owned by her father) and free trader

Essential Skills; medical-4, pistol-4, admin-3, trader-2

Lee's character, Dr. Wynn Gagneuron, was created in T5. She went to med school, the Navy, and ended up as a Scholar. She was picked up by the Intelligence branch after Med school.

Most of her intelligence work is basically courier and observation work, but she can defend herself. My father might say: if you're broke, she'll fix you -- if you're not broke she'll break you, then fix you.

The campaign hasn't started yet, but I'm hoping to get her to play something one on one while we're in Cleveland for her hernia surgery. I just want her used to her character and to have an idea about how good she is in combat. She's never played a role playing game before.

 

[Icosahedron]

Most times there have been female characters in games I've been in or run, they've been played by men, of necessity.

I've had a couple of women play in online games. They seemed to prefer role play with a lot of conversational interaction and highly descriptive backgrounds whilst disliking combat and dice-rolling.

Too small a sample to draw conclusions, perhaps, and I've never met a woman in a FtF game.

Maybe I should get out more.

 

[HiverLord]

We had a female gamer in our old group (25+ years ago) who actually made a (fantasy) campaign based on... wait for it... a romance novel! While we geeks didn't deal much with the romance-thing back then (and some may argue we still don't get it!), it was a fun setting, and well run. She was a great gamer, too.

 

[Dragoner]

At some point in the late 70's my sister convinced me to play in their D&D campaign; depending on where and how, my group usually has had a few females. PBP I don't think so, but wouldn't know for sure.

 

[Limburger59]

I see a trend with MadMike's and DangerousThing's experience with ladies playing characters with medical skills. My 23-yr old daughter likes to play a Medic also.