Rollplaying defended, gender examined

Rollplaying defended, gender examined, REAL MEN ROLL PLAY! RAARRHHH!

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Wounded Ronin

Feb 18 2006, 01:28 AM

Post #26

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QUOTE (mintcar)

Wounded Ronin: I think you're on to something with the connection between munchkinism and pop-cultural stereotypes. Interesting point. Your conclutions about how gender figures into this are screwed up though. Were ever you stand on the debate about the differences between men and women, you have to realize that level of generalization is just pointless. How do people keep thinking these things are true? Surely just knowing and speaking to different women will quickly enough prove that they're not all sensitive and weak.

Aha, but I'm *not* arguing that all women are sensitive and weak. Of course that's silly. The idea that I wish to *explore* is much more refined, and I'll clarify its points.

*Tabletop RPG gaming tends to attract certain personality types.
*Of the small group of people that get into RPG gaming, an even smaller group within that group is female. Female role players seem to be quite rare in my experience.
*Of this tiny group of women who get into role playing, an even tinier amount are crazed enough to do something like write Shadowrun fiction, or something along those lines, or more generally something as dorky as well-researched historical fiction that nevertheless has fantastical and heroic characters.

Therefore, we are not talking about women as a whole, but the tiny, highly unusual group who get very very deep into roleplaying.

Well, that, and I was also intentionally being a little over-the-top and controversial-sounding in order to be more entertaining.

Mr.Platinum View Member Profile	Feb 18 2006, 01:51 AM Post #27
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 751 Joined: 7-June 02 From: Hamilton.LTG.on.ca Member No.: 2,853	After reading the first entery, i though tot my self. What happenes when a Gay feller who is the bitch in the duo writes a story?

Guest_MK Ultra_*	Feb 18 2006, 02:44 AM Post #28
Guests	My experiance with female rpg-players is also quiet small, since there are not many of them in my FoF-Network, too (I´ve got the impression that the ratio is higher in WOD, but I don´t play this stuff, so..). 9 all together in some 15 years. Most of them fell in one of 2 categories. Either the aggressive or the non-participating. I had only one female gm, just for 3-4 sessions, and that was when i just started rpg, at the age of 11 or so, and she was 20 or something, the older sister of my buddy and quiet experienced in rpg as fare as I could tell at that time, but I´m really not capabel of judging the performence now. One girl participated actively without being overtly aggressive, she was the sole exception. 1 or 2 were "killer-brides" and 1 was kind of pc-rpg-like in style (but was no pc-gamer to my knowledge and it was befor the advent and great popularity of mmorpg), mostly interested in loot. The other 5 were quiet unaggressive and more or less non-participating in general. However, 2/3 of them were new to rpg (and most others probably weren´t regular gamers, too), which tends to corresponds with these two types of play in general.

SL James View Member Profile	Feb 18 2006, 03:59 AM Post #29
Shadowrun Setting Nerd Group: Banned Posts: 3,632 Joined: 28-June 05 From: Pissing on pedestrians from my electronic ivory tower. Member No.: 7,473	I can't help thinking that by far the smartest, most challenging GM I've ever had is a woman. I wouldn't call her sadistic (not like I am, anyway), but she has no qualms about throwing horrible things at PCs as part of the run, be it an army of shedim or a half-dozen cyberzombies.

Nikoli View Member Profile	Feb 18 2006, 04:07 AM Post #30
Chicago Survivor Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 5,079 Joined: 28-January 04 From: Canton, GA Member No.: 6,033	My limited experience with women and RPG's prompted me to coin the phrase, "Never trust a chick that goes for the battle-axe." I've played with 4 women, 1 was over zealous in her desire to prove she was one of the guys, to the dtrement of everyone's game, she caused many a TPK through foolishness. The 2nd thought the entire adventure, even against mobs of slavering ghould hell bent on devouring your flesh should be solved with talking and hugs. The Third felt every thing must die horribly in the first 5 minutes of the game through explosives. The fourth just sorta hid in the background and didn't do anything unless the GM specifically adressed her and only then he had to prompt her to make an action.

nezumi View Member Profile	Feb 18 2006, 12:45 PM Post #31
Incertum est quo loco te mors expectet; Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,546 Joined: 24-October 03 From: DeeCee, U.S. Member No.: 5,760	I've played with two women long enough to have an opinion of them. The first was pretty much an observer, standing back and easily frustrated when she was expected to act (but still seemed to enjoy the games). She's gotten better with practice, although her characters are still a bit wooden. The second was fascinated by the world, character interactions, describing herself and her actions to others, etc. SHe didn't shrug away from combat or death, and actually took quite a liking to it, but DID avoid numbers and long-term planning (so never got too into SR, unfortunately, which is heavy on both). She loved Arcology Shutdown because no planning was involved and I made all dice rolls, etc. behind the scenes :)

mintcar

Feb 18 2006, 07:46 PM

Post #32

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QUOTE (Wounded Ronin @ Feb 17 2006, 08:28 PM)

QUOTE (mintcar @ Feb 17 2006, 04:49 AM)

Wounded Ronin: I think you're on to something with the connection between munchkinism and pop-cultural stereotypes. Interesting point. Your conclutions about how gender figures into this are screwed up though. Were ever you stand on the debate about the differences between men and women, you have to realize that level of generalization is just pointless. How do people keep thinking these things are true? Surely just knowing and speaking to different women will quickly enough prove that they're not all sensitive and weak.

Aha, but I'm *not* arguing that all women are sensitive and weak. Of course that's silly. The idea that I wish to *explore* is much more refined, and I'll clarify its points.

*Tabletop RPG gaming tends to attract certain personality types.
*Of the small group of people that get into RPG gaming, an even smaller group within that group is female. Female role players seem to be quite rare in my experience.
*Of this tiny group of women who get into role playing, an even tinier amount are crazed enough to do something like write Shadowrun fiction, or something along those lines, or more generally something as dorky as well-researched historical fiction that nevertheless has fantastical and heroic characters.

Therefore, we are not talking about women as a whole, but the tiny, highly unusual group who get very very deep into roleplaying.

Well, that, and I was also intentionally being a little over-the-top and controversial-sounding in order to be more entertaining.

Fine. You're talking about a specific group of women (and men), and you're trying to explain their behavior based on their gender. My question is; why? What's to gain from identifying what is typical male or female behavior as roleplayers? Especially if it's done based on personal experience and not research? Nobody likes to have gender stereotypes shoved in their face, and being told that's how they're supposed to act.

I'm not saying gender roles doesn't exist or that they shouldn't. In fact I'm rather into the macho myth of the male gender role. Off course when someone says "a real man does" this or that; I expect it to have something to do with "doing the right thing"—and not just doing what men commonly do, like in the thread title. ("real men roll play" I know that line is a joke though, but I'm making it an example anyway). The thing is that individuals choose what parts of a stereotype they want to live up to. I think women are tired of being peged based on their sex. Because the female gender role has evolved in a patriarcal society and is therefor far less appealing. We men have a pretty good role to live up to. Still, I've had women tell me that, because I'm a man, I can become the victim of my own urges at any time and rape someone. I don't want to hear stupid things like that.

It simply doesn't matter what can be identified as common male or female behavior. I don't understand were the interest lies.

Arethusa

Feb 18 2006, 11:48 PM

Post #33

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QUOTE (SL James)

QUOTE (mfb @ Feb 16 2006, 07:50 PM)

one thing i've been pondering trying is making archtypical macho-type characters--the reclusive, badass loner; the maniac combat monster, etcetera--and playing them 'realistically'.

Or you can not play something so retarded and avoid even the slightest whiff of being the kind of tool who does play such a worthless piece of shit character.

INTERNET TOUGH GUY DETECTED.

SL James View Member Profile	Feb 19 2006, 02:31 AM Post #34
Shadowrun Setting Nerd Group: Banned Posts: 3,632 Joined: 28-June 05 From: Pissing on pedestrians from my electronic ivory tower. Member No.: 7,473	Or maybe I'm just sick of bullshit. Nah... Or maybe I think it would be a waste of mfb's time to mock and point out the weaknesses of lame characters. It'd be as useful to his time as watching 99% of all action movies.

Vagabond View Member Profile	Feb 19 2006, 03:43 PM Post #35
Target Group: Members Posts: 71 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Georgia Member No.: 1,112	I think this thread is drifting to the point I was about to make which is, tongue-in-cheekness aside, I think it's more about the individual, rather than about the gender, or even being a minority in a gender. As someone pointed out, I think most of the developed "Barren-baby" characters in Shadowrun canon have come from the creative "womb" of male authors. Also just by looking at all these "these are what the females from my group do" stories, we can see their actions (or inactions) are the same types of personality traits we see just as often from male players. So I think we can generalize the females in this manner. There are two types: those that game with us, and those that don't. I will give you props, Ronin, for a relatively entertaining post (I definately got my money's worth), but it really isn't much more than that.

Guest_MK Ultra_*	Feb 19 2006, 04:08 PM Post #36
Guests	@mintcar First off, while I´m convinced that there are genderbased differences in human behaviour in general (of which there is statistical proof), this does in no way mean, that every woman would do so-and-so, while every man would do somhow-different in exactly the same way. There is a large deviation from the middle and the groups are largely overlapping, but there are significant differences. While you are probably right, that the excange of singular anecdotes does not even aproximately show how the real situation may look, it´s at least interesting, which is, why I´m on this forum. And it may even show a trend. Now how would such knowledge be of any use? Well, my personal experiance was, that tere are differences in first-session players concerning gender. It was generally harder for me as a gm, to integrate female players into the game and I´m interested, if others had the same experiance and how they coped with it. If most female players have another style as most males have, than a gm would probably have to take that into account, to kreate a gameenvironment, that does serve these different preferences. While this can easily be done on an individual basis once you know the style of a female player, you don´t have this previlege on the first to n´th encounter and need to have a working hypothesis. The simplistic workinghypothesis "male and female players do react with a given action to the same statistical probability" has not worked out very well for me. This touches the greater topic of stereotypes, which, while they were often misused are only workinghypothesis for the interaction with foraign persons. It is bad to try and enforce those stereotypes on everyone or use them degrade people, but they are in some cases usefull as a starting point. I.e. if you are going to buy a birthdaypresent for a child you do not know and have no chance to consult anyone, it is probably a good thing to start with the gender of the kid. A boy will probably not like a Malibou Stacy, whereeas a girl is less likely to enjoy playing with a Transformer-Cannon. This does not mean, that no girl on the planet will ever want to play with a Weapon-Robot-Toy, but I´d think it´d be good advice, not to choose this in the above situation with the child being female. So fare, for short.. 8)

hyzmarca View Member Profile	Feb 19 2006, 05:30 PM Post #37
Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456	Concerning geneder, it is very important to seperate gender roles from gender identity and biological sex. Gender roles are purely social constructs and they vary greatly from social group to social group. Gender identity is a psycological construct influanced by both society and biology. Contrary to popular belief, it is a spectrum rather than simply one or another. Biological sex is a set of physical, genetic, and hormonal characteristics that also runs a wide spectrum and cannot easily be clasified. For our purposes here, gender roles are by far the most important topic, although the others can't be ignored. An individual who grows up in a social group will devolp an understanding of gender roles that is normative to that social group. An individual will then accept and internalize these roles based on the individual's gender identity. Of course, this is more complex than I make it out to be. There are always several social groups vying for phycological control of an individual so no one will perfectly conform to a single set of gender roles. In regard to the doll vs giant transforming robot issue, it is true that in traditional western society a girl will prefer a doll and a boy will prefer a giant robot, more times than not. However, that is simply due to the gender roles that western society had devolped. The opposite would be true in a culture that considered dolls to be masculine and giant transforming robots to be feminine. Today, gender roles are less rigidly defined and one finds a great deal of variation between otherwise similar subgroups and between individuals. However, the most basic gender expications within a culture are very difficult to change so there are still some things that are to be expected.

mintcar

Feb 19 2006, 07:17 PM

Post #38

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QUOTE (MK Ultra)

Now how would such knowledge be of any use?
Well, my personal experiance was, that tere are differences in first-session players concerning gender. It was generally harder for me as a gm, to integrate female players into the game and I´m interested, if others had the same experiance and how they coped with it. If most female players have another style as most males have, than a gm would probably have to take that into account, to kreate a gameenvironment, that does serve these different preferences. While this can easily be done on an individual basis once you know the style of a female player, you don´t have this previlege on the first to n´th encounter and need to have a working hypothesis.
The simplistic workinghypothesis "male and female players do react with a given action to the same statistical probability" has not worked out very well for me.

That's actually a pretty good reason.

I don't think you'll find a hypothesis about how to handle female first time players, though. Not one that works universaly. What you need is a way to determine how individual players are going to react to different playstyles. Perhaps you could design a starting adventure that has some heartfelt roleplaying and some hardcore action? Then you try to see what different players respond to.

mfb View Member Profile	Feb 19 2006, 09:15 PM Post #39
Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670	the only common thread i can find that all female players have in common is that i can't accurately guess what type of character they'll play. with guys, i'm usually pretty good at figuring out ahead of time the general type of char they'll play--i've never been surprised, at any rate. with chicks, i'm always wrong. i'll have one pegged as a hardcore beat-em-up fighter type, and she'll play a priestess of the love goddess. i'll have another pegged as a social butterfly type, and she picks a half-goat archer. like, wow.

Wounded Ronin

Feb 19 2006, 09:43 PM

Post #40

Great Dragon

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QUOTE (mintcar @ Feb 19 2006, 02:17 PM)

QUOTE (MK Ultra)

Now how would such knowledge be of any use?
Well, my personal experiance was, that tere are differences in first-session players concerning gender. It was generally harder for me as a gm, to integrate female players into the game and I´m interested, if others had the same experiance and how they coped with it. If most female players have another style as most males have, than a gm would probably have to take that into account, to kreate a gameenvironment, that does serve these different preferences. While this can easily be done on an individual basis once you know the style of a female player, you don´t have this previlege on the first to n´th encounter and need to have a working hypothesis.
The simplistic workinghypothesis "male and female players do react with a given action to the same statistical probability" has not worked out very well for me.

That's actually a pretty good reason.

I don't think you'll find a hypothesis about how to handle female first time players, though. Not one that works universaly. What you need is a way to determine how individual players are going to react to different playstyles. Perhaps you could design a starting adventure that has some heartfelt roleplaying and some hardcore action? Then you try to see what different players respond to.

Well, this is what comes to *my* mind. Remember Blue Rose, that Green Ronin product with the Magic Deer? Wasn't that designed to try and grab more female market share/pull more women into tabletop RPGs? And wasn't the mechanism of that to de-emphasize rules detail, especially combat rules detail? Blue Rose is basically stripped down D20 set in pastel colors with omnipotent wildlife, evil patriarchies, and a sample adventure in the sourcebook where the characters are, like, set up to conflict with each other in-character because of some frumpy ghost of a mother.

I'm not saying that was the right approach or wrong approach, or that the Green Ronin people even had the right idea. What I am saying is that there at least seems to be the *perception* that a female-centric RPG product will need to emphasize certain things or de-emphasize others.

I think it's even more widespread than just Green Ronin. I remember reading a couple of magazine articles about the evolution of gaming and often times the authors would conflate emotional or interpersonal content with greater female interest and involvement.

Again, I actually don't know for sure if that's true or just social expectation. But, it's a pretty widespread idea. I think the interesting question is, what do you think of THAT?

Guest_MK Ultra_*

Feb 19 2006, 11:53 PM

Post #41

Guests

QUOTE (hyzmarca @ Feb 19 2006, 12:30 PM)

Gender roles are purely social constructs and they vary greatly from social group to social group.

I´d have to disagree. While the gender roles in diferent culters do vary, there are allso many similarities in different current and past cultures. This in turn indicates, that gender roles may in part (not completly) be influenced by biological predisposition.

QUOTE

In regard to the doll vs giant transforming robot issue, it is true that in traditional western society a girl will prefer a doll and a boy will prefer a giant robot, more times than not. However, that is simply due to the gender roles that western society had devolped. The opposite would be true in a culture that considered dolls to be masculine and giant transforming robots to be feminine.

I can´t second that either. I don´t know how familiar you with this topic, but you may be surprised how prevelent the stereotypical toy preferences are even in native cultures, where there are no prefabricated toys. I.e. girls of the bushpeople (don´t know the correct english name) in afrika use hollowed out pumpkins as dolls, so do the girls of the Yanomami with corncobs, which they handel like babies, etc., the girls of the !Ko-bushpeople prefer dance- and ballgames, while boys in that culture prefer experimentation with objects, playfull brawling and contesting against each other. Allso spontanious pictures of the last culture show a difference. While girls draw mostly flowers and huts, boys prefer animals as well as cars and planes (which they kneew only recently since reserchers visited these people). Toy-preferences are allso evident with very young children, even before there was much time for socialisation to influence the child.

SL James

Feb 20 2006, 04:15 AM

Post #42

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QUOTE (mfb)

the only common thread i can find that all female players have in common is that i can't accurately guess what type of character they'll play. with guys, i'm usually pretty good at figuring out ahead of time the general type of char they'll play--i've never been surprised, at any rate. with chicks, i'm always wrong. i'll have one pegged as a hardcore beat-em-up fighter type, and she'll play a priestess of the love goddess. i'll have another pegged as a social butterfly type, and she picks a half-goat archer. like, wow.

Sounds like a male gamer I know.

mintcar

Feb 20 2006, 07:51 AM

Post #43

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QUOTE (Wounded Ronin)

I think it's even more widespread than just Green Ronin. I remember reading a couple of magazine articles about the evolution of gaming and often times the authors would conflate emotional or interpersonal content with greater female interest and involvement.

Again, I actually don't know for sure if that's true or just social expectation. But, it's a pretty widespread idea. I think the interesting question is, what do you think of THAT?

I think it's great if these efforts can get more women to open their eyes to roleplaying games. The reason women would need something different is propably that roleplaying games has been a male (nerd) interest for so long. In theater classes however, we see a lot more women than men. It would be easier to attract women to tabletop roleplaying if it was asociated more with drama than with games, dices and little tin toys.

I don't beleive there's anything inherent in women that makes them have less fun with dice and gaming boards. If you prefer freeform roleplaying or strictly by the rules rollplaying doesn't much relate to gender in my opinion. But women may often have a preconceived notion that gaming is dorky. It may even lie deep enough that they can't just change their minds when they've tried it. But if they got over it they might still like it. It's similar to how men feel about reading Anne of Green Gables, taking dance lessons or go pony riding. Guys can (and propably would) find those things entertaining, but they still don't do it.

SL James

Feb 20 2006, 10:44 AM

Post #44

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QUOTE (mintcar @ Feb 20 2006, 01:51 AM)

But women may often have a preconceived notion that gaming is dorky.

I've been playing RPGs for more than half my life. It's not a notion that gaming is dorky. Gaming is dorky. I cringe every time I'm within a quarter-mile of the FLGS. I make one trip a year to remind myself why I despise it, and then I return to my electronic ivory tower where I don't actually have to be within the physical presence of other gamers. If someone was to drop me into the middle of Gencon, I'd probably have a stroke.

Birdy View Member Profile	Feb 20 2006, 03:17 PM Post #45
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 637 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,528	As for female roleplayers: They should be forbidden! With females comes the "All talk, no fight" style of RPG and it's "We're off to lala Land with the feys and the mages and the lil hairy footed thiefs" Not to mention "Roleplaying Challenges" like misunderstood dark elves and underaged natives in an adventurers group Gimme an old fashioned all male, "Let's kill Orks because they are Orks" group anytime! Rock and Roll and belt fed weapons! Same with female authors. I have yet to read one who is worth the price of a used book. There are no female Howards, Webers, Pournelles or Heinleins. Females just can't do that.

SL James View Member Profile	Feb 21 2006, 12:02 AM Post #46
Shadowrun Setting Nerd Group: Banned Posts: 3,632 Joined: 28-June 05 From: Pissing on pedestrians from my electronic ivory tower. Member No.: 7,473	HAHAHAHA Oh, man. That made my day. Nice one.

Wounded Ronin

Feb 21 2006, 03:24 AM

Post #47

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QUOTE (mfb)

the chicks who have rejected you your entire life for being a freak who sits at home in the dark and cleans your guns are not going to suddenly throw themselves at you because you saved one of them from the bad guys. they're going to want to continue living their normal, integrated-into-society life, and you're going to want to go back to your guns. it's not romantic, it sucks.

Rest of team: Let's go to the club to celebrate.
Ubermensch: Sorry. I have to go home to polish my veapon.
Rest of team: OK then. Thanks for killing those 30 guys all by yourself. We'll go enjoy flashing lights on nubile bodies now.
Ubermensch, as team walks off in distance, softly: I'm *crying* vhile I polish my veapon.

PBTHHHHT View Member Profile	Feb 21 2006, 04:15 AM Post #48
Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,174 Joined: 13-May 04 From: UCAS Member No.: 6,327	Heheh I can't help but laugh at the imagery of the ubermensch sitting alone crying and polishing his guns. 'course if he ever goes postal, I'm running for the hills.

SL James

Feb 21 2006, 05:06 AM

Post #49

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Tom Dowd made a great joke about this in FoF.

QUOTE

He also knows that sometimes, talking isn't enough. And he stands ready for that moment.

>>>>>(Yeah, he loves that moment. He sits in the dark, quivering, waiting for that moment.)<<<<<
-- Smiley (21:19:08/01-04-55)

hyzmarca View Member Profile	Feb 21 2006, 05:34 AM Post #50
Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456	Being a sulking ubermench ellicits a certain nurturing response in some people. The good old "I'm tough on the outside because I'm really soft on the inside and I don't want to get hurt" sterotype plays into certain relationship fantasies as well. The person who is withdrawn or abnoxious is less likely to stray in a commited relationship. Of course, it is possible for the ubermench to be an arrogant jerk antagonist character rather than a tough but sensitive protagnist and it is possible for the ubermench to walk the line between these two. The former, the arragoant jerk antagonist, natrually gets more dates because Chicks Dig Jerks. The latter who can be a bitter hardcore arrogant jerk on the outside but is really a creamy sweet sensitive guy on the inside hs the best chance at a longlasting relationship of all the hardcore ubermench characters.

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