Indeed, most people of any gender-identity/sexual persuasion don't go out of their way to advertise it, and I probably have no real sense for their actual numbers.

I suppose cross-playing would generally be better based on how much time the person has spent in contact with, or acting as the opposite gender.

However, in regards to the style of play, I would assume that's more nature than nurture-based. People want to play as they want to play - and that feeds back into how their brains are wired. A man with a woman's brain chemistry (I don't know the grammar for applying transgender and specifying which part is which gender, sorry), probably plays like a woman. If (s)he didn't play like a woman, that would be indicative that perhaps the person isn't actually transgender.

My point is, why bother pigeon-holing it by saying "the majority of male players play this way, the majority of female players play this way"? Why not just say everyone plays their own way, and sometimes they do more rollplaying, othertimes they do more roleplaying, others they go overboard and cross lines?

Because if the majority of [appropriate gender] players really do play a certain way, and that majority is significant, you gain useful information about how someone is likely to play just from their gender.

We classify things because it's useful, not because we have a drive to flatten and homogenize groups.

~J

This.

Remind me again why you are the God Mother to my oldest child.

I would think 'Charlie don't surf' would more than suffice.

You get that?

Oh yes. Apocalypse Now.

Dude I've never even seen it and I figured out the reference.

Smells like victory.

Dude, EVERYONE gets that. And wants to rock out to Paint It Black.

Mixing our Vietnam flicks, but I agree.

M-I-C / K-E-Y / M-O-U-S-E...

she's a dudette,
Who's in charge here?

If we were sitting around a table, I'd have brought some bananas from a jungle for us to share at this point. Not cavendish bananas but instead hopefully a variety that grows in Vietnam.

Because, PC nonsense to the contrary, stating a simple fact isn't always "pigeon holing" something, sometimes you're just stating a simple fact. If the majority of male players do play a certain way, and the majority of female players do play a certain way, there's nothing at all wrong with saying so. The word "majority" makes it quite clear that you're not talking about every single male or female player, so you're not, in any way, saying anything inappropriate.

I think we've seen plenty of examples here where even the label "majority" doesn't fit, like the groups with 4 girls and only one is about the roleplaying, 2 are about the blowing stuff up, and the last is a nympho.

That's a misunderstanding of probability distribution. I'm personally not confident that there are indeed significant gender-related trends in playing style, but the fact that anecdotes that don't fit can be produced isn't terribly informative.

~J

No, a misunderstanding of probability distribution is assuming something is standard without fact to back up that theory. We have more evidence, anecdotal evidence granted, that those gender-related trends do not exist than that they do, given this thread.

That's not even vaguely accurate. The problem there comes in, as you recognize, before any observations occur—there's no "probability" because the assumption is, you know, assumed.

Your implication that somehow the fact that this is fallacious means that we can then accept anecdotes as evidence is bewildering. Reality simply doesn't work like that.


But these anecdotes are even worse than usual, because they're all observations of deviation from expectation—characteristics that don't deviate are much less memorable. Even without that, we're still talking a handful of selected anecdotes.

If there's a lesson to be learned here, it's that we should probably all shut the hell up until someone does a proper study.

~J

That's because it is already known. Genetic imperative, breasts indicate that a female is of age to conceive, and thus males are attracted to them. It's quite simple really.

As for gender roles, I think you'd really have to get together more people and get more actual information. Most current thought is based simply on 'that's what I've heard/read' than 'this is what I've experienced.'

Using The Gamers 2 as an example. Yes, the female was more interested in role playing than most of the males, but it is also important to point out that she still made a character that was exceptional at rollplaying as well (As evident in the combat scene where she takes out the entire goblin army (virtually) by herself). And the GM was a male who was frustrated because he couldn't roleplay with his group because one of them was a complete rollplayer (and the other was a moron and the other was a pyro).

Obviously, but what I'm really trying to talk about here is the implications. That information is not only known, but it is considered normal. It's akin to the concept of white privilege in some ways. Straight sexual identity and whiteness are dominant cultural norms, to the point that when surveyed people who are asked to describe themselves won't even bother to point those things out about themselves unless you lead them to it, something that is often unnecessary with various minorities. Transgendered and homosexuals don't have the power of the norm making implicit explanations for their actions wherever they go. That's real noteworthy, particularly when you consider that a lot of the time when people ask "Why are you gay?" they don't really mean "Do you believe it is an acquired trait or something you were born with?" or some other academic question but rather are asking "What's wrong with you and how can you justify it?". Someone with experience like that is definitely going to have a much different relationship with sexuality and gender role topics than I will. You could basically argue that I'm free not to even consider such things in a way that they are not.

quite a few I am one of them. I also know some terrible ones. LOL
I had the fortune of having a gaming group that had a good balance of men and women. For awhile it was one-sided with 2 guys, myself and one player, and 4 women.

I have to add, when I first read the title of this thread and thought it was a thread about how it's considered to not be manly to play RPGs.

I was ready to jump in with my
"yes it sucks that RPG's are considered un-manly and geeky but fantasy football isn't???"

It's really simple: Fantasy Football is often an excuse for gambling.

oh I did have one generality I was going to mention. A LOT of female gamers go crazy about dragons. I often wonder if the inclusion of dragonborne in D&D4 wasn't just a tactic to get "more chicks into D&D"
lol

Hey, you're right! Isn't that strange? I know more than one female who is all over dragons!

I wonder what Funkmaster Freud would say about that?

It's probably my fault. I may have caused it with my Dunkelzahn/Damien Knight slash fic.

~J

That's because it has the word 'football' in it, which makes it automatically manly or something.

My guess would be Dragons are the representation of the most basic fears of humans (Teeth from tigers, claws and wings (kinda) from eagles, bodies of snakes) and thus also represent power. Women are naturally (genetically) attracted to power (Protection of offspring, offspring more likely to prosper, protection of self if that powerful person's mate, etc).

And, come on, they're DRAGONS, what's not to like?

Sometimes a dragon is just a dragon.

Just like a cigar?

Or a pipe.

A pipe I could understand more than a cigar.

A dragon's just a fancy big snake. Nothing women should be getting excited about

Freud begs to differ.

Maybe because dragons, like unicorns, are characters of princesses stories.
I guess it's time to put some streetsamurais, trolls and megacorporations in fairy tales if we want more female Shadowrun players.

There's a reason you need virgins to catch unicorns. Also, each virgin is good to catch only one unicorn..

"And then the chromed out troll grabbed his Gatling gun and said 'Payback's a female dog.' and shot the evil megacorp Johnson with a hundred round of molten metal revenge. And then he lived happily ever after. The end."

Feel your children won't be ready for the advanced challenges that a good role playing game will present them? Get them ready with Karoline's Fairy Tales.

That's getting back to the basics! Fairy tales usedto be scary and hardcore.

Well, and not for children. But only because children didn't exist, I guess.

There were no children, only serfs.