Women gamers

[polypterus]

I've never figured out why these women in gaming topics come up some much. I personally don't really care if woman are playing RPGs or not. Most women aren’t into it and many consider it childish or geeky. I couldn't care less. The game goes on!

Alaric

 

[kafka47]

Naturally, the game goes on...

But, your approach is rather off handed and ignores at least 50% of the world's population. What makes these threads interesting is that there seems to be a gender divide which games fall into. If Traveller is to grow it must expand and grow.

My intial reason for posting this thread was market research. Now we know all about GDW's infamous policy of enforcing gender parity but I really wondered if that made an impact.

For me personally, I think the hobby would grow in spades if we could get more women in. Look at SF conventions, as a rule...traditional male territory.

Venturing into gender equity...we come up with Star Trek...the franchaise mushroomed. And, if you look at Conventions of Star Trek all genders are equally represented. Now, wouldn't we like that type of success for Traveller.

Similarly, it is not RPGs that are the "turn off" as noted in the early part of the thread, Call of the Cthulhu & AD+D (especially, Dragonlance) are very popular with women gamers.

Originally posted by kafka47:
Just sitting a table chatting with a Ref, one to one rather than actually having a lively crowd of gamers...I think says it all.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sounds more fun than role-playing.

I think that you misread my post. Sitting around the table in the gaming room. Not sitting enjoying around a glass a wine or a pint elsewhere THAT certainly would be more fun.

 

[robject]

Very interesting, good Mr. Kafka... then perhaps it is the mythos or storyline that attracts different kinds of people? (Am I using the word 'mythos' wrongly here?)

 

[polypterus]

I'm not ignoring anyone. All are welcome to play. Sometimes my friend's wife plays. We also have another gal that plays. However I didn't have to drag anyone to the game. These are people who have played RPG for a long time just like the rest of us guys. I am quite sure that more men play RPG then woman. I am also quite sure that more women take up knitting than men. It's just the way things are and I don’t' see it as a problem. I certainly don't see any reason to specifically encourage more women to play. I am just as happy having overweight geeky guy sitting across the table.

Alaric

 

[Andrew Boulton]

"I am just as happy having overweight geeky guy sitting across the table."

I can see that in the mirror, I'd rather look at something nicer during the game...

 

[Jame]

I wouldn't mind having a woman or two in my group. Of course, I also wouldn't mind having a girlfriend, but I'd rather bring my girlfriend into Traveller than the other way 'round.

 

[polypterus]

I'd rather look at something nicer during the game

I'd rather actually play the game and not have anyone saying things like "this is boring, lets go out" which has happened in the past. If anyone isn't into it, it's better they aren't there.

Alaric

 

[Maladominus]

Originally posted by Alaric:
I'd rather look at something nicer during the game

I'd rather actually play the game and not have anyone saying things like "this is boring, lets go out" which has happened in the past. If anyone isn't into it, it's better they aren't there.

Alaric

The first rule of GMing a roleplaying game is:

Get rid of any players with negative attitudes.

Get rid of them. Tell them to leave. Shoo! Go home. Get lost. We don't want you here.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

First, find out what's wrong. Maybe it's a fixable problem.

 

[Rossoneill]

Andrew i think you are right .
In the past its the new person female or male who used the above comment to make me realize i had a problem with my game (D&D or Traveller ,Etc ).
Lot of times the regular players dont tell you about problems until the game is on life support
and almost dead .

 

[polypterus]

As I said before there is no real problem. It's just that people who don't like RPG games should not be playing them. I have no issues with my regular players. In fact I am always pestered about when I'm going to run the next game. This only comes up when some guy drags his girlfriend to a game which lasts several houses and tries to get her to play. Of course she is bored. She's not into RPG. It's not even her fault. But once she's there it's just a distraction since she would rather do something fun with the guys then sit for hours and play this game she hates.

Again I see no reason for specifically encouraging women to play. If anyone man or woman has some interest they can try it. Otherwise they should go do something else they enjoy more. If more guys than woman like RPG games, that's just the way it is.

 

[Eak]

Originally posted by Alaric:
It's just that people who don't like RPG games should not be playing them.

I can agree whole heartedly that people who don't like RPG's should not be playing them, however I feel there exists a great potential to attract new players to the game who 'will' like it regardless of gender.

Originally posted by Alaric:
I see no reason for specifically encouraging women to play.

If, as Kafka47 has stated on Aug 30th, few gamers seem to recognize the Traveller franchise and vendors consider it an "old game" then it seems we have our work cut out for us to attract young blood of either gender. As for specifically targeting women, I could think of several reasons off the top of my head it would be desirable to do so.

1.) Women make up a 'significant' portion of the human population so why should we not, at the very least, be taken into consideration?

2.) While it might not necessarily be true, I believe it's easier to attract men to any RPG than it is to attract women. So by targeting the more difficult 'sell' we aren't damaging our chances of attracting men. They'll continue to express interest regardless.

3.) I personally would like to see more women gamers get into Sci-Fi so I don't feel so alone when I sit down at a table and I'm the only woman there. Not that you guys are bad or anything... I just don't like being such a rare exception to the rule.

4.) There are very few things in the world that couldn't benefit from the female perspective. Traveller isn't one of them.

So there we have it... two valid reasons based on the assumption that the traveller community needs to attract new players, the second one being more of an opinion. One reason based on pure selfishness, and One on gender bias. I'm confident that others could produce even more reasons for specifically targeting women.

Can you think of any specific reasons we should 'not' target women as potential recruits into the traveller community?

Originally posted by Alaric:
If more guys than woman like RPG games, that's just the way it is.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with accepting a percieved status-quo I don't think there's anything wrong with fostering a change in the current gender ratio of the Traveller community either.

 

[polypterus]

You are certainly free to try to attract whatever new players you want to your game. I just see no reason to go out of my way to attract woman to mine. I really don't go out of my way to attract any new players. Whatever new players we get just show up because they are friends of friends etc. As for traveler being perceived as an "old game", I don't think that this has anything to do with whether women play or not. More likely it has to do with the archaic character generation and combat systems; two things I have updated in my game. In any case there seems to be enough 3rd party support (GURPS, T20, BITS etc) to keep Traveller going for a while so I'm not that worried about it's future.

Alaric

 

[Greek Letter Moshpit]

Couldn't really vote, as the two women I have introduced to Traveller will never be spouse or girlfriend - one is my sister, who dived in headfirst when introduced, and an old class mate, with her reaction being somewhat more lukewarm.

 

[Mickazoid]

I'm female and I love the game.

Some of this has to do with the almost-exclusively-male authors of Traveller. In my view, the campaign/world setting is a rather conservative, male-dominated one (yes, even with so many Queens, etc.).

 

[robject]

Originally posted by mickazoid:
I'm female and I love the game.

Some of this has to do with the almost-exclusively-male authors of Traveller. In my view, the campaign/world setting is a rather conservative, male-dominated one (yes, even with so many Queens, etc.).

Makes me wonder how Traveller could be adapted to be more female-friendly, to which I have no idea.

 

[Mickazoid]

A tough question. Perhaps to have some of the writing be done by female writers (there is a measurable, but varying, difference in tone and word between female and male writers).

Sci-fi is definitely male-dominated, so this is certainly not only specific to Traveller.

 

[stofsk]

Originally posted by mickazoid:
A tough question. Perhaps to have some of the writing be done by female writers (there is a measurable, but varying, difference in tone and word between female and male writers).

Sci-fi is definitely male-dominated, so this is certainly not only specific to Traveller.

When you say that scifi is male-dominated, in what ways do you mean?

What differences in tone and wording are there between male and female writers?

 

[Golan2072]

I'd say that "technical" sci-fi, focusing on technologies and science rather than on interactions between people (large parts of Star Trek, for example), tends to fall into the "male" category of thought; remember that, in our current patriarchal soceity, most females are enocouraged from a young age to develop more "people" skills while males are encouraged to develop more "technical" or agressive skills. So things such as Wargaming usually appeal far more to males than to females. Not that there are no exceptions, ofcourse, but the tendency of the later editions of Traveller towards the "wargame" direction, not to mention the focus on hard science as opposed to social interactions, repel alot of potential female players. I know several women who like to play "sims" (e-mail based, "freeform", story-heavy RPGs), especially in the Babylon 5 universe (which tends to have alot more female fans than StarTrek, probably due to the fact that this show focuses on alot of interpersonal and political interactions and very little on science (science is in the background, yes, but people/aliens are on the foreground).

Ofcourse, there ARE women who enjoy the allegedly "male" fields such as gearheading and grognardism, though society still discourages such behavious in women. Also, I think my mother would've easily become a wargamer if born into the right era, as she loves action films/TV series and thriller books, and was, as a child (in the 1950's), quite an avid player of "box games" (monopoly, checkers, and various games that are probably local Israeli inventions). Truth be told, she've introduced me to RPGing in a sense - she loved to play various imagination and storytelling games with me when I was a child, usually where I controlled a character and she've made up the environment/other characters (no rules, ofcourse, just freeform talking).

From my experience, women tend more to the direction of rule-light storytelling than towards wargaming.

Another problem I've encountered only seldomly but that I know of is the tendency of some of the younger RPGers (read: insecure and immature early-adolescent boys) to scare and/or mistreat women gamers due to sexist prejudice and/or inexperience in interpersonal matters. Contrary to pervailing stereotypes, most RPGers aren't like that, even at that age, but there ARE ones who acts just like the stereotype and they scare off alot of good potential female (and male!) gamers.

As for me, alot of my more recent Traveller materials (my lighter rules and the Celiran race, yo state two examples) were significantly influenced by discussions I had with my girlfriend; she has a magnificent imagination and a very sharp mind, not to mention applying her professional knowledge of biology to create logical and interesting imaginary lifeforms and interesting imaginary soceities. I think that once she'll get a good grasp of the rules (they intemidate her a bit, especially mathematical ones - she is still traumatized by college differential calculus) and of the distinction between a referee and a player, she'll make one great Traveller referee (as she has just the right kind of imagination

).

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

Certainly numerically dominated. Some genre's are almost all men (Military Sci Fi). I am personally more concerned with it being dominated by hacks/formula writers than by male or females. Sci Fi labors under demographics for many things. I believe the target audience is predominately male, but those numbers are changing.

As to tonal differences, I don't know. There is a severe tonal difference between "Lathe of Heaven" and "Starship Troopers" but how much of that is due to gender, ?