I'm a fairly new D&D gamer (about two years). I started gaming with my husband and a few of our friends. There are four women that game in the group and my daughter also wants to join the group now. I stayed behind for this year's GenCon (pregnancy induced bed rest) and browsed the Internet. I found the Ladies of Hack and was excited that there was some where for female gamers to go and hang out. I told my friends and they all want to order the Ladies of Hack shirts. The Ladies had a meet and greet during GenCon and it sparked some excitement, especially when Megury and Emily joined them.

So, I've jumped on the bandwagon to try to help get a more visual appearance at GenCon Indy 2007. Megury suggested checking here for ideas on where to start. I guess the first thing to ask is what do female gamers want to see at the convention for them? For that matter, what would male gamers like to see at GenCon in support of female gamers?

Some ideas I've thought of:

Booth with female game designers, DMs, etc. Yes, there are women in gaming!

Female oriented t-shirts. Something that shows a little more respect for women than two d20's and the caption, "yes these are natural across" the chest of the shirt.

I know there have been seminars in the past regarding women in gaming, but I haven't seen anyone post any follow up on any of the seminars and the last time I looked, they had very low registration.

I'd love to hear more thoughts, suggestions, etc. I AM going to GenCon Indy 2008 and I would love to see something to encourage and support women in gaming.

Stepping down from the soapbox. Next up?

Sephera

You've have seen some of what you're asking for at the Forge booth at GenCon 2006!  Emily Care Boss and Meg Baker rocked the joint.  It's no accident that I went home with a fat stack of their games.

Welcome to the Forge, Sephera! 

If you have not yet checked it out, Meg has some comments posted on her site about the Gen Con meetup.

I completely support what you want to do.  I'd love to see more women designing games, and it saddened me a little to hear that Emily and Meg didn't get a ton of positive feedback for their accomplishments at that meetup.  I bet that changes by Gen Con 2007. 

Yup, and it's Meg Baker that suggested I post here. (AKA Meguey, I meant Meguey earlier, sorry for the spelling error earlier) How do I edit?

Sorry about that, I should have checked.  And about editing - you don't!

Ok, another edit to my first post. I'm sure I will go to GenCon Indy 2008, but my goal at this point is 2007. LOL!

Hi Sephera,

Way cool!  It seems like there were some events oriented toward this topic, but that they got lost in the shuffle.  I never made it through the whole program.  I wonder if the events are listed ahead of time online somewhere, so we could make a "women at GenCon" event digest online for folks planning on going, or make fliers to pass out when we get there.  I am not sure who we would talk to to get something more official as part of the proceedings.  Kat and Michael Miller have been doing a lot to organize mini-events such as the Games on Demand table and GC 06 and the Indie Games Explosions events at Dreamation, Dexcon et al.  Amazing Millers--any tips on who/how to contact about this kind of thing or how to get on the radar?

And t-shirts seems like a great way to go. Before we went 2 yrs ago, Meg and I came up with a mess of good slogans to put on shirts which I've now forgotten. She made a bunch of shirts herself that are awesome ("I make things up", etc).  It would be fun to come up with some snappy one-liners. 

all the best,
Em