Having studied gender a bit in college, and then seeing how much having a female dominated group affects our gameplay, I was curious if it affected the rest of yall the same way.
We have a male gm, female shammy, female face, and male...well he's hard to describe. The guy wants to shoot everything, but the shammy and I just negotiate through it, use trickery, or something like that.

Well, our group was fighting an Evil Physad ™ and the female member of our group was the one who absolutely refused to leave without completely insuring his death…

~J

Mixed:

One regular female gamer killed about as often as the guys, and was a pretty good roleplayer.

The other tended to fall into the "shooting solves everything" category of rollplayers. After a while, her PCs would generally stop killing things when the male players asked her nicely for a little more discretion ("Shooting the bartender won't give us the information we're after..."), but there was a learning curve.

As an initial disclaimer, as tempted as I am to make broad generalizations about women— and I'm not trying to be mean, but everyone knows that men are just smarter and better than women— well, I'll hold off.

The girls I've played with may not be indicative of girls in general, but two of the three were extremely inexperienced with RPGs in general, and, at least initially, they were, without a doubt, the most ludicrously vicious, cutthroat, mercenary players I'd ever run into. As one eventually became more familiar with RPGs, this let up and she was less bloodthirsty, but even her last character was occasionally a little uncomfortably sociopathic. The third I've played with was very experienced with RPGs (moreso than me, by far, though she was more of a heavy DnD/LARP person) and was more or less average in terms of her play style, leaning slightly towards less violence.

Seriously, I refuse to accept that gender is a determinant in this. Gender via social conditioning, popular culture, and familiarity with the medium and narrative media in general, absolutely, but not gender as an exclusive.

Chicks are psycho. Every last damn one of 'em. That's why I dig 'em so much. Well, that and the happy fun parts... but that's to be expected.

That aside, yes, women have a tendency to be a tad bit more vicious than men when they first start gaming in my experience especially on the sexual side of things -- escape from repression is a beautiful thing. But as they gain experience in gaming (as opposed to characters), they often become just as rational as anyone else... and that's why I chose the third option. Despite superficial and hormonal differences, they're just like guys. At least those who aren't busy trying to hide their true selves.

I have noticed they tend to play elves quite a bit, though. Damn elves.

Quick note, I am not referring to Gender as in XX vs XY, but rather more as encompassing what was earlier described, ie socialization, life exps.

That being said I'm surprised to hear so many with a feminine gender are so bloodthirsty. Perhaps it relates to preconceived notions, or perhaps it's a reaction to social repression of aggression. (Ok, enough big words for my day). Another thing I wonder, are girls who are likely to play shadowrun or any rpg more likely to be have aggressive tendencies?

They tend to role play better than me


Then again, everyone tends to role play better than me.

For what it’s worth, out of the two least-bloodthirsty female gamers I know, one of them has decided she’s transgendered.

~J

I have only played with a few female gamers abut in my experience they don’t do things by halves. Characters seem to be ether extremely violent of almost pacifistic. The tendency is towards violence but that is true of male payers as well but wether violent or sociable authoritarian or meek female gamers have in my experience taken the more extreme road. Often different extremes for different characters and in one case different extremes with the same character (very nice lady almost deserved pacifist until you find here vindictive streak).

Edward

I have played with 7 girls in my life, every last one was crazy, evil, or goth. Normal, well adjusted girls don't roll play (at least not this kind of role play) and I have never met a girl who played shadowrun. They were all into Vampire, and LARP.

.....

Vampire. Psch. Figures.

Now chicks are a race? (And elves have +2 Charisma, but who's counting?)

The SR campaign I run has 2 guys and 3 women. Go figure.

Doctor Funkenstein, I'm pretty sure mfb referred to this thread: Gender modified limit?

Hmm, well I'm not goth, and my husband says I'm not psycho all the time, so it must be the crazy.

I don't have issues with looks....I just refuse to touch a girl who has any extra fat, does not work out, or is not really hot. I myself need to go to the gym and stuff to feel good about myself....I don't have isssues....don't say things like that.....

ok...maybe I have issues.

You are a gamer. I think its time to come back to reality and set your goals a little lower when it comes to females.

LOL, It may sound funny but really. I am ex millitary, martial artist, did personal body guard work, now a insurance adjuster who is married with two kids.

My wife is very hot and I have found that as much as I usto like having wild times with hard bodies I like having fun playing with my kids more and its nice to know you have a reliable women at home who you really like to be with.

I think this is off subject. Sorry. LOL

Maybe you didn't get it the first time. You are a gamer. This means that you live in your mom's basement, with your bookshelf full of RPG books and comics. You are at least a hundred pounds overweight, a long shaggy beard, and more pimples than a fourteen year old. Oh yeah, you haven't showered in at least a month either.

(Those who have ever been to a gaming convention know just what I'm talking about. )

<just shakes his fist in the air towards those bloomin' faeries>

damn elves.

see sig for solstice quote

I've been lucky to have the same gaming group for almost 8 years now and we've always had just one female in our group. I love her to death, but she's always the most pacifistic character in any game. On one hand, she picks up on more of the emotional content of our games, however this same quirk normally stays her hand when a snap action combat response is necessary. As the eternal GM for our group, its fine by me... the group does their fair share of rolling their eyes though.

Article plug!

It's about women and roleplaying. Someone posted this a while back, and I had found it pretty interesting. Seems like the appropriate thread to bring it back up.

I hate that article so much.

~J

So....women taste like pheonix? I didn't realize pheonix was so salty....





EDIT:

perhaps in some games, huggy might be off limits. course, huggy just wants a friend. will you be huggy's friend?

....which is what makes him all the more terrifying.

Actually, here's a quirk to throw at people. I know males tend to play male chars, but I know several significant cases of males playing female chars.

Now all the female RPers I know play female chars...does anyone know if any female RPer plays or played a male char?

I have never had a female player run a male character but I have had plenty of male characters running female chars.


This is the thing though. Male players are a lot more common and usually they only make female chars after playing for a while. So it's possible that female players not making male chars has more to do with their relative rareness than anything else.

I've had a female players play several male characters.

I don't know I think it depends on what kind of chicks you play with? Most "normal" girls I know IE my wife was pretty mundane wouldn't touch a roleplaying game if you paid them. Gaming has a certain stigma especially girls. I think then that girls that do play tend to be of the same social variety or category that guys are but there tend to be less because of the "stigma". I don't know too many prom queens who are gamers but I'm sure there out there. I think out of high school during college you get the same crowd and new folks. I think girls in college and out would be the most open. I know there have been some really scarey chicks as a few conventions I've been to. It's a wide range though as a whole. Most of my experience has been that there's been little or no difference and they just sort of fit in.

In high school in the early 90's I set up a gamers guild at my high school and we had girls who played. Two maybe three. I ran a game that "Aubrey*" played in. (For aubrey see www.somethingpositive.net for more information.) She handled herself well as a 9 foot tall troll. Although she did play the Elf Queen in the "Hobbit: The musical". I still ras her when after I graduated we hung out at her friends house and we drank, while a gamer friend of mine hit on her. (That had to be the funniest damn thing I've ever seen.) My first girlfriend was a gamer I met at a convention in Dallas. (She was uhhh a tad older at the time.) I gamed with her a few times and she was pretty normal. Maybe repressed girls tend to "break out" when gaming. Most of the girls I was friends with could hardly be categorized as "repressed".

Oh, here's another gem from that article:

Well, with the *males* (myself included) who have created and run female characters I think that there is often some element of wish fulfillment.


It can be kind of hard to find women who are combative. I've known a few in the context of judo and kickboxing clubs who were tough and wild enough to go full contact with everyone else. But by and large a lot of women aren't really into the whole physically aggressive sports thing even though they really should due to higher pain tolerance. One woman recently told me, "Girls don't think in terms of judo moves." Even though women tend to be very accurate with firearms in many cases there will be more men than women in a firearms class. If members of the general public sign up for a martial arts class but it turns out to be a pretty serious hand to hand combat class that deals with things like head throws and limb breaking there's usually a high dropout rate due to squeamishness and in many cases the female dropout rate is even higher than the male dropout rate. I blame Barbie for all that wasted potential.


But in the context of Shadowrun you can create a woman who is cooler than usual because she has Assault Rifles 6 (12).

Yeah...my characters tend more towards finess when it comes to combat than brute strenght.

The comment on rape seems to have two purposes.
1) Educating a community that sometimes lacks common sense.

Yeah, I know huge generalization. I realize many gamers have common sense, and know what to say and what not to say and how to avoid major social faux paus such as raping a female character. But many, especially teen boys, don't quite get it. I teach at a middle school. Believe me, they don't get anything we assume to be known.

2)Some studies show that as many as 1 out of 4 women are sexually assaulted in some way ( this ranges from a grope to rape).

Now I don't know about other women, but I am a relatively new gamer, and I still identify with my character a ton. So, if someone rapes my character, I'd feel threatened.

All in all a very good article.

I'm male, but I've been groped in a gross and scary way! I was at a seedy bar picking up a 40 and some crazy old woman hugged me and kissed the back of my neck. It was pretty disturbing, to tell the truth. Unwelcome kissing counts as groping, right? I feel this makes me special because while the issue of women being molested in some way gets the most attention you hardly ever hear about when it affects males.

In any case, maybe it's just because I'm jaded or perverted or something, but if someone molested one of my RPG characters I think that I'd just burst out laughing or something.

I mean, it dosen't bother me if my character is brutally killed or horribly wounded. So why should anything else bother me?

In a recent game I GMed, a player was put in a position where if he answered a riddle wrong his character's soul would be ripped out and imprisoned forever. But he kept cool, thought about it, and answered it right. Didn't seem to bother him. And that kind of thing is, well, would be a really horrible thing if it really happened to someone.

am male, hae been raped, and have since used the concept as a story plot element in games... sometimes the grimy side of a setting needs to be shown

I honestly could not believe that Do Not Rape Their Character got its own entry. That just defies all fucking reason.

Now, it's one thing to involve rape and other forms of extraordinary inhumanity in a game or any other media. That's disturbing, but with purpose, it isn't gratuitous. Rape for entertainment, on the other hand, is just astoundingly sick and disturbing. If a fellow player decided to rape my character, he or she'd better hope it serves the narrative or someone's going to be learning how to walk again.

I know a couple of people who 'really like' that movie, and especially that scene ... a little too much!

Damn. That's pretty sick.

Edward, you are so right on the money there. Also the girl I was seeing a couple of weeks before Edward hooked up with the girl in question, had the albino equivalent of the night one facial fur. it was only noticable if your eyes were within an inch and a half of her face, and at any other distance seriously ADDED to her attractiveness. so the shaving thing is not as universally adored by men as some think