How to have female players enjoy an SR Game ? Options

[treehugger]

Hi all :)
Like some might have read it in other posts, i have a gaming table with half my players that are female.
My problem is that i have a hard time making the female players like Shadowrun.
In the other games i've GMed (L5R, 7thsea, Vampire to name a few), my female players seamed really to enjoy the game, but i really think it was tightly linked to the game's background.
I've noticed that they usually are interested in a few points in RPGs but they seem to be lacking in SR :

- Looks. Having a character with great look, like in historical movies, seem to be appealing for a few of my players.
While it is possible to have very "fashion" characters in SR, for some reason, they all keep a "corporate" profile, because it seems more "professional".
On another level, playing an orc, troll or dwarf isnt quite interesting in regards to their "good lookingness" ...

- Highly coloured NPCs. In the other games I ran, the campaign usually was part of a greater scheme, and so the players would meet important figures. For some reason, interaction with such characters allways appealed most of my female players.
Since shadowrun stories are usualy unconnected, at least at first sight, and do not involve recurent important NPCs (note the "usualy" there are exceptions i know), it is hard to give them this aspect in an SR game.

- Epic story. Most games i've ran where very epic, big battles, rebellions, tragedies etc ... where taking place in the stories. SR isnt epic at all. Actually, most runners are not heroïc at all, they are criminals, sometimes with ethics, but mainly hired killers or mercenaries.
It is hard for my female players to indentify themselves with this kinf od characters, not because they are "evil" (because they are not), but because they have to be selfish, greedy and hearless. I know its not an obligation for a character in SR to be that way, but for some reason they are certain they have to be that way in an SR game.

So, what must i do ?
My female players arent as found of my SR games as they where of the other games i used to run (2 of them where actually harassing me to run my other games ...)
Of course, its the beginning, and i need time to adapt my game to their wishes, but how can i give them what they really want in a game ?
All the aspects i've mentioned are hard to apply in an SR game, but maybe some of you have ideas to do it ?
Or maybe there are other aspects, unique to SR, that appeal to a lot of female players ?

Any help on the matter would be appreciated.
Ah and in case some are wondering, the male players seem to enjoy the game a lot, so while i'm probably not the best GM for SR, i suppose i can do something good with it.

[Kagetenshi]

Looks: play Shadowrun the way it was intended. Don't ask players if they have interesting hair, ask them which they have: a mullet or a mohawk. If a mohawk, ask them what colour. A hi-top fade is acceptable, but you may not want to offer it by name.

NPCs and Epic Story: you could run Harlequin's Back, I guess.

~J

[treehugger]

I cant get my hands on Harlequin's Back :(
On the "hair" subejct i dont really undestand ...
Besides, as a GM i consider i have to give my players what they need to enjoy the game.

[adamu]

I think you have done a pretty good job of identifying some of the things that apply to a lot of female players, but where you have gone wrong is assuming that those things cannot be applied to an SR4 game.

They ALL can.

Looks: They can play elves or humans, and the rules pretty much allow characters to be as HOT as they want. They can wear as little as they want, put as much money or magic into fashion as they care to allocate, and even if they are streeters, there are no shortage of pixie-faced urchins or buffed-out gang girls that can look real good (in conventional terms) without breaking type.

Colorful NPCs: Yikes, look through the fluff material for all manner of fancy-pants movers and shakers. You don't have to run a strict street-level corp espionage game. I've got a team searching for a missing nun, and the search so far has led to a celebrity-studded porn awards ceremony and a hardcore S&M bar in the Barrens. They have met all manner of colorful people at these locations, with more to come - and that's just one brief story arc.
Send them on a search for a sorority girl (college Greek and disgruntled professor NPCs) that joined a religious cult (Satanic fanatic and Catholic cult-buster NPCs) only to try to escape on her own but run afoul of slavers down at the docks (bloodthirsty pirates and inhabitants of wherever they took her and sold her). For recurring characters, have a rival team also after the girl - the PCs run into them periodically and become enemies but build a grudging respect.

Epic story: Easy - even if they are low powered, they can get a job in some part of the world (fluff is full of them) where there is indeed such an epic tale taking place. Allying with one or both sides can give them small, doable jobs but still let them develop relationships with major NPCs and have an interest in and impact on larger events as they unfold. Like, send them on a simple merc job to Cambodia, and while there they fall in with the naga kingdom that is fighting the government. The nagas need metahuman operatives for special missions throughout Southeast Asia.

The beauty of the SR world is that you can totally stay within canon and play literally any style of game you want.

[Sphynx]

Strange, I have the opposite problem. The females in my group tend to have other things to do when we play anything but Shadowrun, and in Shadowrun they're the only ones I know will show up for every session.

I think the problem is that Shadowrun is about planning and out-witting the GM. My games aren't like that, I prefer a more apocalyptic feel and often run stories in Aztlan or in some DMZ like a bug-infested Chicago where survival is a struggle, and heists are something you do to get food, not paid.

The females tend to not be so keen on thinking in a 'how to break/fix something' manner (no offense to any females). But they do like struggle and working things out. At least, that's my take on it.

[Ryu]

Don´t play SR as a tactics game, play up the style. Most games are very corporate, and anything that gets you noticed+remembered gets you dead. Disbelieve the consequences of a unique style and give your NPCs/PCs obvious cyberware, hair style etc. Chrome is king! Think kid stealth legs.

[Gothic Rose]

SR has plenty of room for awesome looks. Your players prefer a fantasy style? Let them play adepts who wear ballistic plastic armor and wield swords (weapon foci). If they like modern/future, no issues, same if they like punk...Any look can be done in SR.

NPCs: Why can't you have recurring NPCs? Hrm? Do you see the same people day after day at work, on the bus, living next door? Of course you do. Flesh out the people that your players interact with on a daily basis! BLAMMO, recurring NPCs! Plus...Dude, I mean, come on, CONTACTS. They ARE recurring NPCs. Flavo-Fy them!

Epic Story: Have the PCs foil some giant plot by AZT or get in the way of another apocalyptic cult like Winterknight was. There's PLENTY of places for epic SR! They like tech? Develop a story about what lurks in the Matrix, about technomancers and Deus! How more epic can you be than an AI that wants to become a God and in trying caused the downfall of civilization (for awhile at least)? SR is UNIQUE in that there are SO MANY different ways of telling an epic story. You can tell a Corp driven epic, a tech driven epic, a magic driven epic, a political epic...so on so forth.

[Lazarus]

Adamu pretty much nailed it with those good suggestions.

I'll just say it's all in how you play it. One thing you might want to consider is talking to your players about what they don't like about Shadowrun and what they do. Getting feedback will probably help you more then reading what we write since we're not your players. (Or are we? :wobble: )

One of the cool things about SR is that you can have either sci-fi or fantasy. It's built into the world. You just place emphasis on which one you want.

For myself my games are more professional then punk. I like playing ex-military, government spook types set in the dystopian SR world where everything is corrupt and there are no good guys or bad guys. I like gritty realism with a sprinkling of fantasy.

That being said I also like themes of personal loyalty and ethics which are a part of several of my characters and campaigns. If you don't want to run a campaign where everyone is greedy, selfish, brutal, etc then don't. Tell your players that you want to run a Hood campaign for example. You can play the opposition like typical a**holes but use it more to contrast to the players what they aren't.

Hope that helps.

[treehugger]

Wow a lot of nice answers :)
Lazarus, I too like the gritty realism of SR, my male players too, but it seems the female ones arent really appealed by that mood.
I dont know who said "It's not a run until you havent been fucked up twice" but my male players seems to enjoy this kind of game (and when they dont get triple crossed they dont undestand what went "wrong" ... and think they've missed something).

Regarding the appearance of characters in SR, of course you can have really "fashion" and "hot" characters, but that's not what i was thinking about. We are between 30 and 35, with kids and all, so i dont think my players would appreciate a "spring break" run (hmm btw that could be a good basis for a run ^^ ) or any kind of "teen-movie" story.
When i mention looks its more stuff like classical historic movies costumes etc ...

Anyway, i should run an "all lady" game in a few weeks, since i got that request from my girl friend that is intimidate to play with more experienced players.
I was thinking of running Queen Euphoria, since they know nothing about "Insects".
I've played it long ago, but i remember it has some "show buisness" feeling, and is quite uggly in the end.
The horror theme with bug spirits should be enjoyed by a few of them.
Anyone has other ideas of what "official story" i could GM ? (we're still in 2052 )

[hyzmarca]

From my experience, women love long-haired metrosexual pretty-boys in puffy shirts and pink waist-coats, particularly when they're being sexually violated by many-tentacled monsters but start to enjoy it half-way through.

For this reason, I recommend a game set in one Tirs. I quite imagine that the Elf Nations are full of long-haired metrosexual pretty-boys in puffy shirts and pink waist coats and I further imagine that these elven pretty-boys get sexually violated quite often, sometimes by Trolls and sometimes by many-tentacled supernatural critters.

As a matter of style, I suggest watching Blade Runner. Just look at the clothing lists. The most popular pieces of clothing in the entire game are long coats, which I imagine all resemble Deckard's big-ass brown coat. I prefer a Sixth World in which it appears that everyone went back in time and stole stuff from Harrison Ford's 1987 wardrobe.
Personally, I recommend playing up the stereotypical 80s feel and make all elves seem like sexually-ambiguous 80s glam-rockers.

[treehugger]

[Demonseed Elite]

I think it's just a matter of finding what all your players have in common that they are interested in and focusing on that. Shadowrun is one of the more flexible game settings out there, since it mixes science fiction with fantasy. You can have fantasy-heavy plots, hard-core sci-fi, mystery and intrigue, gumshoe detective stories, apocalyptic modern horror, you name it. It's just a matter of finding out what they want to play.

Once you find that out, I think it would be easier for us to suggest plots or published adventures to you. Also, if you're looking for Harlequin's Back, I think it can be purchased in PDF form. That's a good epic, fantasy-heavy adventure where the players get to be heroes.

I don't know if this will be helpful, but I was once trying to explain to a gamer how to think of Shadowrun as a "sleek and sexy" game (it was a former Vampire player, they have a tendency to think in that framework) and I pointed to the television show Alias. It has hot characters, an epic plot with artifacts and mysteries, and global shadowrun-like operations every episode. Not how everyone plays their Shadowrun game, to be sure, but it helped that one person.

[Ravor]

Also remember that there is nothing wrong with the Pink Mohawk Crowd, so if they find being "Ice Cold Pros" stiffling, then switch gears and have them run with the other side of the isle for awhile.

[ninjajester]

Have em play gangers protecting their turf, which happens to include an orphanage. Gangers tend to be fairly colorful in their style choices, and protecting an orphanage should appeal to someone who doesn't enjoy playing a selfish, greedy, bastard. Have them interact frequently with some big corp guys who are trying to run everyone out of the neighborhood to build more soulless corporate buildings. Play the corp guys smart; they never get involved in direct fights with the players cuz that's what they have minions for. Once the bad guy's minions fail in trying to remove the pcs, maybe the bad guy invites them to lunch to discuss things, and the game slowly shifts from a combat oriented one to a social oriented one. Throw in a few awakened sentient creatures with agendas (vampires, drakes, dragons, nagas, etc) that may or may not coincide with the pcs' agendas, and you should have a pretty rocking game that everyone in your group will appreciate.

Plus give it time. My first session or two always tend to drag, as I'm concerned with making sure everyone understands the basic rules and how to use their characters. Plan something big for session 3 or 4, and start with a bang. A bomb in the orphanage ticking down at the same time the pcs are fighting some minions. Not only do they have to try to stop the bomb, but they also have to beat the minions and clear out the orphanage just in case...

I dunno, just some thoughts.

[jrpigman]

[DuckEggBlue Omeg...]

[Adarael]

All of you who can't get girls as interested in Shadowrun must play with grossly different girls than most of the ones I know.

Shit, most of them are like, "Yawwwn, boring" when I mention a non-Shadowrun RPG.

[Talia Invierno]

I'm curious -- is mine one of the opinions you are specifically looking for, here? I have noticed the posting ratios, and I know I'm traditionally both one of the non-numerical analysts and one of the scrappers, both on-line and off. (Though if you say no: I'll understand if the world doesn't revolve around me 8) )

I'll start with Demonseed Elite's:

[Lazarus]

[Fix-it]

[Wounded Ronin]

This thread is better than 95% of the crap on the internet written about "HOW DO ENTICE FEMALE RPGER!!!???!!!!!!" which just says something about not sexually harassing said female.

As Hyzmarca pointed out they instead want to hear about sexually ambiguous elves getting sexually harassed.

[Talia Invierno]

Based on the pattern of response in this thread: maybe your gender-related roleplaying issues aren't what you think they are, treehugger.

[tisoz]

[knasser]

[Lindt]