The Gaming Den

This thread is brought to you by another thread linking to the My Little Pony RPG.

That page brought up a reference I've seen before, that part of the reason there aren't as many female gamers is because of the hobby's focus on competition rather than cooperation. It does bring up the question of what (if any) RPGs exist that at least provide support for such a model.

I know one woman that commented that D&D would be more attractive if its art had more cuteness and prettiness; and would probably instantly buy an actual MLP RPG (brand collector). She didn't say it needed to be primarily that, but the it shows an inherent bias that if it's cute, it's either very weak or it's just a shallow disguise for an inherently ugly nature.

I've heard other people say that the big book of rules and fiddly numbers is a distinctly male quality as far as enjoyment goes, which I personally find to be an ignorant assessment.

On a broader note, while I've seen a few blogs mention the male dominance and what should be done about it; it feels to me that it boils down to the bigger question of "how do we attract more people, period, to gaming?" aka, what's holding back the industry as a whole? Is the insular nature of the established demographic more to blame than any of the above reasons? I know of guys who turn away potential gamers solely because they're girls. I know too many gamers who are system whores, refusing to play anything but PF (or 4E, or 3.X, or WoD, etc).

That page brought up a reference I've seen before, that part of the reason there aren't as many female gamers is because of the hobby's focus on competition rather than cooperation. It does bring up the question of what (if any) RPGs exist that at least provide support for such a model.

I call bullshit.

If you want to have more women in gaming, have games that don't objectify women, and make it so there are less jackass sexist gamers.

That second part is impossible.

I have no idea how to make an RPG that appeals to women's interests. I like my RPGs crunchy and with rules to kill monsters. Women generally don't play FPS games or RTS games or RPG games or any videogames, so I wouldn't expect them to like an RPG that I would like.

virgil wrote: I know one woman that commented that D&D would be more attractive if its art had more cuteness and prettiness; and would probably instantly buy an actual MLP RPG (brand collector). She didn't say it needed to be primarily that, but the it shows an inherent bias that if it's cute, it's either very weak or it's just a shallow disguise for an inherently ugly nature.

Vampire is neither cute nor cuddly, yet attracts a steady stream of female gamers, up to and including LARPs, which is sneered at by normal RPG fans. You can't even chalk it up to white wolf games, since at least in my experience the frequency of female gamers almost approaches zero as soon as you play (or cross over) into werewolf or mage.

Even Call of Cthulhu has a higher ratio of female gamers than D&D does in personal experience.

If the subject of the game is something that appeals to women, then women will play it. Women as a whole tend to not get excited over characters with comically large breasts and chain mail bikinis, with driven, persistent wholesale slaughter of everything the players encounter, and many of the other D&D tropes. Yes, there are exceptions to the rule, but D&D isn't generally appealing to women based on the subject matter.

If you want more women and more gamers in general, come up with game settings that appeal to females and gamers in general. Most traditional fantasy RPGs do not appeal to the general public, and haven't since probably the early to mid 80's. Even sci-fi is on a low ebb right now.

DragonChild wrote:I call bullshit.

So do I.

A) I have had plenty of female gamers in my various RPG groups, they are as competitive and bloodthirsty as any gamer. Maybe more so.
B) RPGs, outside of Paranoia actually already ARE highly cooperative games.

As to my little ponies, cuteness and objectifying art... you can't have it both ways.

Too much of the coolest art in the hobby has ALREADY been turned into grungy shit because of a patronizing attempt by ignorant patriarchs trying to appeal to female gamers by removing the sex appeal from their imagery.

Sorry. Sex appeal alone does not offend women. Enforcing it on THEIR characters, and theirs alone, that may offend them. But chainmail bikini's who the hell cares? Do it right and the female gamers will just shrug and ask if you saw what Conan is (not) wearing on page 4?

And really we men shouldn't be concerning ourselves too much about appealing to female gamers, especially at the cost of removing things WE already KNOW that WE like in gaming.

Yes we should try not to be offensive, we should try and be accommodating and nice. But telling women what they do or do not want, and making decisions and censoring vast swathes of "objectifying art" FOR them, often as not without even ASKING... that's stupid, that's patronizing.

You want games that appeal to more female gamers? Get more female gamers onto your design team. End of story.

and make it so there are less jackass sexist gamers.

We should definitely work on that though. It's easily the biggest problem. By far.

I bought an rpg at PAX-east that was about relationships and was based around the screwball comedy rpg.

It involves a lot of world building. I haven't really playtested the rpg yet. But it seems a pretty interesting game.

PhoneLobster wrote:

and make it so there are less jackass sexist gamers.

We should definitely work on that though. It's easily the biggest problem. By far.

Agreed. I know several people that up and quit because of one or two guys that weren't exactly accommodating. Things like "Hurr durr, you wrote female for your character, that means you have higher CHA and lower STR!" don't help.

Edit: Fixed quote tags.

Psychic Robot wrote:I have no idea how to make an RPG that appeals to women's interests. I like my RPGs crunchy and with rules to kill monsters. Women generally don't play FPS games or RTS games or RPG games or any videogames, so I wouldn't expect them to like an RPG that I would like.

yeah going to go ahead and call you a misogynist on this one.

"pfff women can't like things I like; I like manly things."

edit: also literally laughing out loud that women don't generally play any video games. this may've been true a couple decades ago but basically every college-aged and younger woman plays videogames, and a hell of a lot of older women do, too.


the problem's not with the games being things women don't like, it's more along the lines of it having a reputation as a boys-only club full of sexual harassment, body odor, and condescension.

virgil wrote:That page brought up a reference I've seen before, that part of the reason there aren't as many female gamers is because of the hobby's focus on competition rather than cooperation. It does bring up the question of what (if any) RPGs exist that at least provide support for such a model.

I know one woman that commented that D&D would be more attractive if its art had more cuteness and prettiness; and would probably instantly buy an actual MLP RPG (brand collector). She didn't say it needed to be primarily that, but the it shows an inherent bias that if it's cute, it's either very weak or it's just a shallow disguise for an inherently ugly nature.

Ew, cute stuff! While I'll certainly show up to your game table wearing pink, that doesn't mean I want to play kittens and unicorns. Though I've certainly seen a game about cats (no, really) and a game where someone played a pegasus, so maybe I'm mostly alone in this regard. If we're playing Hyperborean heroes I'll be right there signing up for Red Sonja, cheesecake brassiere and everything. You have to remember that as part of a fantasy, most women enjoy being considered sexually attractive, so playing the cheesecake heroine is not out-of-bounds. Granted, some gaming groups are composed of boys so immature (in spite of numeric ages pushing 30 or more) we might not want to discuss that.

That said, this factor alone probably contributed to Vampire the Masquerade's popularity with female gamers. "Ooh, I can play a sexy vampire! ... and STILL be strong enough to kick everyone's ass!" Sometimes playing an orc for the Strength bonus gets tiresome.

virgil wrote:I've heard other people say that the big book of rules and fiddly numbers is a distinctly male quality as far as enjoyment goes, which I personally find to be an ignorant assessment.


On a broader note, while I've seen a few blogs mention the male dominance and what should be done about it; it feels to me that it boils down to the bigger question of "how do we attract more people, period, to gaming?" aka, what's holding back the industry as a whole? Is the insular nature of the established demographic more to blame than any of the above reasons? I know of guys who turn away potential gamers solely because they're girls. I know too many gamers who are system whores, refusing to play anything but PF (or 4E, or 3.X, or WoD, etc).

That said, the most important comment I have lies here. Women are smart, and can handle math. It's not my favorite subject, myself, though I can hack it, and can juggle calculations in my head well above almost any RPGs requirements... I said almost, I've seen the kind of numbers that get thrown around in building GURPS Mecha stuff. However, if you want a more accessible game, you DO want to carefully pare down the crunch to a manageable level. Most can do plenty of math just fine, but their eyes will roll back into their skull if they actually encounter having to solve an equation involving http://www.d20srd.org/srd/theBasics.htm#modifierTypes all the possible variables in a D&D combat, not because of difficulty but simply because of how tiresome it becomes, and while rare, there are games which actually have all those variables appear, with, worse, having to correctly sort through overlapping and stacking rules. That alone has made me quit playing 3e D&D. And most girls I've played with, including myself, would rather skip ahead to the "yeah yeah, how much damage did I deal? WAS IT A LOT?!" rather than spend soul-sucking minutes calculating out their values.

This will help get more gamers into your game from first principles. A more accessible game, that more people are playing, will have more women playing, period. Maybe not by percentage, though, but honestly you're trying to reach the girls who are already inclined to game in the first place.

Wasn't Blue Rose d20 supposed to be D&D for women, sort of?

Not to stereotype, but the games I tend to see women getting jazzed up about are artsy-fartsy indie games like "In A Wicked Age".

Plebian wrote:yeah going to go ahead and call you a misogynist on this one.

"pfff women can't like things I like; I like manly things."

Are you about done making your trollthrough?

If you'd stop quoting him PR then I wouldn't have had to read him. =-(

I recall back when WotC put that out for April Fools. I was doubly disappointed since it looked interesting and at the time there still were no horse/pony mini's for the DnD mini line, and I wanted some, sparkly or not.

I'll be honest... girls game just as hard as the guys. I've had about a third of the people I've MC'd for be females, and they'll go right into the danger without any reservations, they're willing to get into their character's skin, and play anything from Summoner Vampiresses, to Acid-Pie flinging Jesters, curt rogues, and barbarians ranging from the delusionally insane to the cold-blooded.

If the girls aren't gaming with your group, it's the group that's the problem, not the game. It's never been the game, but rather the childlike mindset of "hurr durr, no gurls alowed" that gets into some groups.

Some people may prefer to treat it as a "guy's night" activity, and that's fine; but people need to know that it's not like a gaming group can have a high female to male ratio. Often, that's the norm, groups tend to either be somewhat even, or horrendously lopsided.

Getting rid of the notion that somehow only guys like to blow off steam and pretend to be kickass heroes is bullshit; I honestly see more females play fighters than casters at larps, and likewise in tabletop games. Everyone wants to be a kickass hero, to be able to beat up giants and take their shinies.

Psychic Robot wrote:

Plebian wrote:yeah going to go ahead and call you a misogynist on this one.

"pfff women can't like things I like; I like manly things."

Are you about done making your trollthrough?

oh yeah it's definitely trolling to call you out on your misogynistic "women wouldn't like the games I like, I like games with rules and killing things" bullshit

If it's not misogynistic it's shamefully and embarrassingly ignorant.

DragonChild wrote:If you want to have more women in gaming, have games that don't objectify women, and make it so there are less jackass sexist gamers.

Have games that objectify men, instead. Make them tall flat-chested dickgirls, hysterical, retarded, and flaming gay. Bam, instant success.

Starmaker wrote:

DragonChild wrote:If you want to have more women in gaming, have games that don't objectify women, and make it so there are less jackass sexist gamers.

Have games that objectify men, instead. Make them tall flat-chested dickgirls, hysterical, retarded, and flaming gay. Bam, instant success.

Again, aren't you describing the stereotype of Vampire the Masquerade?

Plebian wrote:oh yeah it's definitely trolling to call you out on your misogynistic "women wouldn't like the games I like, I like games with rules and killing things" bullshit

Is this some kind of meta-troll where you're feigning indignation to troll me because I'm calling you out on your blatant, poorly-executed trolling?

virgil wrote:there aren't as many female gamers is because of the hobby's focus on competition rather than cooperation. It does bring up the question of what (if any) RPGs exist that at least provide support for such a model.

D&D apparently is such an RPG that supports competition over cooperation. Just look at all the fighting about what is balanced between fighters wizards, one getting more of this than the other, etc etc etc.

It once started as a cooperative game, but the lack of females then was due to their treatment in the art such as to attract high school/college males, and because things like Forbidden Planet and other such movies were probably in the mind of the artists. Then the players also still objectified women.

The art problem has been fixed for the most part to where only the most hardcore feminist wouldnt be able to accept it.

The players attitude towards women has changed slightly, but when you have a bunch of males around and mostly around other males doing something, the number of males being greater than females often leads it to a predominantly male atmosphere, and the view of women will still be there as males like to joke about women in various forms with other males.

That just takes time int he group for a women to fit into it.

The competitive component, will take the players to understand the game itself. To use a phrase a girl used at a game where such an argument was had over classes doing this or that, "Stop having a dick waving contest and play the game or leave so everyone else can."

Skill challenges arent a system for cooperation, just a mechanic for that part of the game. The way to fix the competition between palyers, is for player to learn that you are working together, and the fact the wizard character is talking more often, doesnt mean that your fighter is doing nothing. so play your fighter, and let the wizard player play his/her wizard and dont worry about someone else's character, worry about your own and getting the goal done as a team.

The game is only competitive if you are.

Psychic Robot wrote:

Plebian wrote:oh yeah it's definitely trolling to call you out on your misogynistic "women wouldn't like the games I like, I like games with rules and killing things" bullshit

Is this some kind of meta-troll where you're feigning indignation to troll me because I'm calling you out on your blatant, poorly-executed trolling?

oh, yes, obviously I have to be feigning indignation that you think women are incapable of liking rulesets and videogames and pretend murder. that's the only possible explanation. couldn't be that I'm genuinely offended that you think an entire section of humanity is literally incapable of liking the same things you do because they don't have dangly bits.

Plebian wrote:oh, yes, obviously I have to be feigning indignation that you think women are incapable of liking rulesets and videogames and pretend murder. that's the only possible explanation. couldn't be that I'm genuinely offended that you think an entire section of humanity is literally incapable of liking the same things you do because they don't have dangly bits.

If you're not trolling, then you're a male feminist. Enjoy your involuntary celibacy, rofl.

Psychic Robot wrote:

Plebian wrote:oh, yes, obviously I have to be feigning indignation that you think women are incapable of liking rulesets and videogames and pretend murder. that's the only possible explanation. couldn't be that I'm genuinely offended that you think an entire section of humanity is literally incapable of liking the same things you do because they don't have dangly bits.

If you're not trolling, then you're a male feminist. Enjoy your involuntary celibacy, rofl.

ahh, yes, because you have to treat women like they're not actually people in order to have sex. this makes perfect sense because



is there any way that you are not a terrible person

I'm not sure how discussions on whether PR is a terrible person or not is on-topic.

That press release pissed me off. My Little Ponies were pretty badass back in the day; I'd play the hell out of MLP guerrillas in Tambelon.

The MLP's had a really bad-ass villain.