2006-05-15: girl gamer thread
by Emily
I know Meg has another post that will *way* trump this, but I just noticed this thread over at rpg.net and since it fits our mission statement, I thought I'd link over:
[rpg.net]The Girl Gamer Thread
ladypimpernel writes in the thread:
Actually, it was a little shocking the first time I was treated differently for being a female gamer, which was at GenCon. A friend and I played in a D&D game and the rest of the group, all male, kept asking if we were there with our boyfriends, and explaining the rules to us in great, condescending detail. (She knows D&D pretty well, I'm mostly familiar with White Wolf.) Shortly beforehand, I'd had a guy at a booth ask if I played roleplaying games after I'd asked him a fairly detailed question, and been hit on (agressively) a few times when I was just trying to play the game I had signed up for, so I was already a little grumpy.
But in general, while the stereotypes exist, it doesn't seem to be that hard to find a group that doesn't even think about it.
2006-05-15 17:06:43 Meguey
Hm. I read the thread, and it just reminded me of much bigger the world of RPGers is.
Slight but related thread hack: There's a group of 3-4 teenage boys two houses up who are *obviously* doing RPG stuff, including using pool noodles as boffer swords. I'm torn between wanting to help them w/better swords and/or games, and not wanting to embarass the living hell out of them by being a mom-next-door who games, trying to meddle in their boy-world. Ick, really.
2006-05-15 19:47:33 kat
Its a little hard to reach out to budding young gamers. There is the fear of coming off creepy.
2006-05-18 22:01:05 ScottM
Speaking of girl groups, how's your Buffy game going?
2006-05-18 23:18:06 Emily
Hey Scott,
Thanks for asking. We finished the season. It ended quite well. My character turned evil and bit it big time. Our party had fissured across dark magic lines, and the two good characters took her out. I got fan mail for narrating my own death (that was cool). We figure that they'll probably bring her back for season 2, or else Julia's character will be the big bad.
I think that we did hit some of the roadbumps I thought we might: playing in a genre show creates wierd expectations about what is true in the world vs. what you make up in play. And, we had currents of pacing that emulated the show running athwart the up-for-grabs collaborative nature of the game.
But overall, it was a good game. The players new to PtA really loved it, and are raring for more. Two of them will be playing Dogs on Friday night & we seem to have really brought Julia over to the dark side, since she's been doing AG&G regularly with us. : ) (success!)
The Dogs game is a kind of public event. Joshua & Vincent are running a couple tables of it at a local game store on Friday night. I think half the signees are women, including three of the players from that game. So, too, we're doing our part to de-segregate gaming in Western Mass.