What do you think is the female vs male participation percentage of the rpg gaming sessions of 4 to 8 persons of the various settings?
What setting do you think attracts female players the most?
And what setting do you think female players would enjoy playing most as per the standard 4-8 persons gaming session.

Make of it what you will, but 90+% of the female rpg gamers I have met since 1977 have been Vampire LARP players. From examination of this phenomenon I have concluded that "women like" games which allow throwing an aura of fantasy and glamour over what would be normal social activities, i.e. they are goth chics who would be hanging out with their dressed-in-black friends anyway and the WOD gives them something more interesting to talk about than another round of 'who sucks most , Marilyn Manson or Rob Zombie"?
(It is unfortunately this social specificity that has largely kept me out of it. If you aren't a part of the 'teenage-goth-dress-in-black routine it really isn't for you.....)

On the topic of systems rather that settings I would say "women don't like'" (please notice the quotes) games that resemble the American 1040A tax form and are organized around wargame oriented priorities.

There are plenty of female Tolkien fans for instance. How about a Tolkienesque fantasy LARP game? But it wold have to be something essentially that would be an analogue for a real world social gathering not the 'go into the guilded hole and kill stuff' that 95% of rpg-ing is stuck in. The meeting at Rivendell rather than the mines of Moria to use the Tolkien comparison.

Other than this I cant say. The number of female rpg-er's I have seen in 25 years who are NOT Vampire larpers can be counted on the fingers of one hand....so I can't make any other comments on what such a small sample prefers.

I must have significantly more fingers. I've known dozens of female non-vampLARP RPers (I happened to marry one, as a matter of fact). I do not believe you can easily generalize ANY group. I know women who love the thrill of battle, hack-n-slash. Some prefer social aspects (SCA, for instance, has no lack of female participants, but one might compare it to a LARP itself), some adventure, some deep plots, some just... fun. If you want a setting that will appeal to women, make it rich, vivid, and not your typical male fantasy (I.E. barbarian women in armor that wouldn't protect them from a cold who can wield a sword competently but still must be saved in the end by the male hero. Bleah). It's not a matter of setting so much as the game itself; know your players as individuals, not by their gender or their backgrounds or what-have-you. This will tell you what each is looking for in a game.

I think women represent about 20-25% of the overall hobby, but what I usually find is that you have two kinds of groups: 50% female and 0% female. I've rarely seen just one woman playing in a group of all guys. I think this makes sense... no one wants to be odd man (or woman) out.

I haven't seen a gender-based genre preference, though I have noticed that many women are more entertained by emotional/relational conflicts than most men. LARPS seem to cater to this preference a little more than tabletop games. This isn't to say that the women I've played with don't like to grab up their swrds and take out the bad guys just as much though.

But it's really pointless to talk about generalities if you're thinking in terms of your own gaming group. It may be more useful if you're thinking about how to build female interest into your game, but if you're going to do that, I'd recommend finding an existing niche and catering to it.

Hello,

Xechnao, this thread isn't going to be helpful unless you can clarify two things for everyone. For purposes of this thread (which means, everyone, don't quibble about X's answers, just take it and like it):

What are the qualities of "female players" that you are hoping to speak to or correspond with, for a given setting?

What role would setting play in the game? Would the conflicts of play arise from the setting, as in HeroQuest or Castle Falkenstein? Or would they arise from initial character decisions, as in Sorcerer?

If this thread represents a bunch of free-associated "well I think" posts, then it will serve no purpose at all. The clearer you can be about those two questions, the more focus and utility we'll achieve.

Best,
Ron

Dear xechnao,

To your second question: Women appreciate human games. I mean, games which connect to the concept of humanity, as being superior to the apes. Most games feature apelike PCs versus apelike NPCs.

To run a human game, you have to be honest, and willing to explore those areas of the mind not regulated or bound to rules, but rather operating in terms of principles.

A good analogy for women, here, is that of alleys, the swirly glass kind, you know, that children play with. A man will look at a cat's eye alley and start dividing it into parts, and compare those parts. A woman will appreciate the colour, the swirly-ness, and so forth, taking the entire alley as a gestalt.

So with games. If the game is predominated by colourless number-crunching, women will tend to avoid it. If the game is predominated by an appreciation of how the totality of human relationships affects the lone man or woman, women will tend to gravitate to it.

"Vampire" is the benchmark, because the characters start off having /lost/ to begin with, and their relationship with the entire world is presented with great embellishment, as being a function of the totality of their environment. They are not lone rebel questers in the manly sense, they are emotionally adrift, unsure of what they want, but keenly aware that they /do/ want.

To accommodate women, accommodate the human part of yourself, and run a human game. Include romance, colour, narrative, dream, family relationships, the concept of the powerful /being/ ("princess") rather than the powerful /doing/ ("prince"). Then women will more likely appreciate it in spite of the numbers, or, better, realise that the numbers themselves have wonderful colours of their own.



Cpl Ferro

I do have something to add, outside of what X's answers are to Ron's questions.

I read some time ago that Men can't think and feel simultaneously. That is, if they are thinking about something, they aren't experiencing emotion. Conversely, if they are in the grips of a strong emotion, they aren't thinking or being very rational. It's one or the other.

Women, on the other hand, do think and feel simultaneously. That is, thoughts tend to have an emotional timbre, while feelings tend to have thoughts and reasoning hoooked to them.

This is obviously a pretty large generalization, and clearly doesn't hold for everybody on any side of the various gender lines that people can draw.

But it does suggest something. It suggests that there are people who prefer a clear seperation of plot and events versus relationship and social interaction. And then there are people who prefer an integrated whole, where social interaction, relationships, plot, and events are all connected in an organic whole. I suppose there's probably more like a continuum between these two poles, with most people able to appreciate a wide range of experiences, and probably prefering a variety of focus all along it. But not everybody is going to be centered in the same place.

I think a lot of 'Standard Fantasy RPG'-type stuff ends up having a pretty strong seperation between the two approaches. But at the same time, look at the number of female Trekkies, Anime fans, Xena fans, Farscape fans, X-Files fans, and Renaissance Faire/SCA/LARPers. It's not the subject matter or the genre turning women off gaming. It's the approach and focus, IMHO.

First I am answering Ron's requests.

1)The qualities is just that of being female players. Players means that they are going to deal with this which means buy and/or speak about it which means promote trends about it. Female means belonging to the female part of the population so having what qualities this assumes. I guess I should put a target age to focus so let's say the 16-46 interval.

2)I am sorry but I can't see the actual difference you are talking about. If there is something to care that matters could you explain it?

I wanted to make the thread to see what people could know about this matter of female interest for the established settings* and thus try to understand if there could be some norms about it.
From the replies I got I admit I got a bit confused about the complicity of things about this matter. The imagine I got is that it does matter the type of game that goes along with the setting for studying the possibilty of some type of norm female-setting related wise. As if it was that a norm could only be researched on the basis that females preffer specific combos over others, for example the card games going along to a thriller setting and vice-versa and a comic setting going along to a LARP game and vice-versa.

I don't agree with this. While I believe that also game wise there are some norms about the matter of female preferences I can distinguish an independent study of setting preferences.
For instance, from my experience I could say, but to not the specific degree that females preffer horror, thriller, romance, fashion-style, modern, romance settings over fantasy, sci-fi, war, action settings.
I was hopping to analize better this with you and why not, take over the analisis and through specific examples-works setting-wise (like Jurrasic Park film, Blade-Runner, Millenium's End, Cthulu-Mythos, ...) in regards of female-interest attractivity to them.

*I could say settings of the hobby but because this settings originate from various others trends I didn't.

Female players whom I have known have, by and large, been into games with a significant amount of social interaction: Amber, one World of Darkness game or another, Tekumel, Pendragon, Over the Edge, Albedo, Glorantha, Star Trek, Star Wars, Castle Falkenstein, Teenagers from Outer Space, LARPs based on any of the above...

RaconteurX wrote: Female players whom I have known have, by and large, been into games with a significant amount of social interaction: Amber, one World of Darkness game or another, Tekumel, Pendragon, Over the Edge, Albedo, Glorantha, Star Trek, Star Wars, Castle Falkenstein, Teenagers from Outer Space, LARPs based on any of the above...

um, guys. I'm not a moderator. I don't even play one on tv.

But this doesn't seem like a Forge thread.

Making half-baked assumptions and generalizations about half the world's population (and thus making half-baked assumptions and generalizations about the other half of the world's population), seems like it would be better served at some other site.

That said... Good luck, y'all.

Christopher

Christopher Kubasik wrote: um, guys. I'm not a moderator. I don't even play one on tv.

But this doesn't seem like a Forge thread.

Making half-baked assumptions and generalizations about half the world's population (and thus making half-baked assumptions and generalizations about the other half of the world's population), seems like it would be better served at some other site.

That said... Good luck, y'all.

Christopher

xechnao wrote: What about if it came out that females have indeed preferences in some type of settings and dislike some others? Wouldn't that help you to balance better the setting of a game you want to make if you want to achieve a greater enjoyment propability from part of the females? If you have a link to some other site that gives answers to this question please post it.

Dear Mr. Kubasik,

What /really/ doesn't belong on this board is the modern disease of the mind, that impells its sufferers to try to gag others on a pretense of moral superiority, after mounting a flimsy soapbox of "all opinions are equal" and saying as much that "truth can never be found, only eternally quested after", which is what you're really saying with your girlish, lip-biting post. So take your own advice and stop passive-aggressive moderating, yes?

Sincerely,



Cpl Ferro

John Kim wrote: Neither of these really addressed genre, though. We can look at non-RPG sources for this, though it might or might not be relevant. For example, there is a survey of genre preference in film at http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/sfischo/media3.html . This study suggests that men show a preference for Action-Adventure (20.2% vs 12.5%) and Sci-Fi (10.7% vs 4.6%), while women show a preference for Fantasy (9.3% vs 6.5%), Musical (5.7% vs 3.1%), Romance (15.0% vs 9.6%). Numbers for Horror, Comedy, and Thriller/Murder were roughly the same.

I wouldn't make too much of this. I would note that in this survey, women prefer the fantasy genre more than men, with equal preference for horror... but among RPGs, Vampire is rumored to have more women players than D&D. I would agree with Anya that it is the approach more than the setting that makes a difference.

I'll be honest, I'm really lost as to what the actual question is for this thread- but I do know that all the generalizations I've seen about women wanting touchy-feely, or "humanised"... or whatever... games does not match my gaming experiences for the last 20 or so years, but especially for the last 5 years. For the last 5, I've been playing with a group that has consisted primarily of women, ranging from ages 14-40, playing a range of games from D&D (2nd) to Deadlands to Paladin to WoD (Vamp and Were) to Cthulthu to...well you get the point. In this time I've consistantly seen the female players not spend a minute more than the male players on issues like socializing or romance or any of the other "womenly" traits frequently ascribed to them. So, I'm confused about this whole issue...or did I get off the track somewhere? Why are the so few female players? My opinion, your typical gamer teen/college guy wasn't trying to actively find female players, he was looking for someone to have sex with.

Anthony I wrote: My opinion, your typical gamer teen/college guy wasn't trying to actively find female players, he was looking for someone to have sex

xechnao wrote: About the settings you metioned I still see a lack of sci-fi interest. Indeed I asked my girlfriend (20 years old) about her literature interests last night and it was something like that. She always prefered the social problems with a background of any setting but sci-fi. About fiction films she enjoyed Indiana Jones and Interview with a Vampire a lot and wants now to see the Pirates of the Caribbean. But she doesn't want to see Terminator and Star Wars she dislikes. Although she liked Stargate film I could say that she stills doesn't like sci-fi because the film was of a more Indiana Jones feel. Finally I' ve showed Alita manga and even if it speaks about a girl and the social human problems she wasn't interest a bit in it propably because she saw all that ultra-tech action. Well all this doesn't mean a lot but I feel all the most influenced by this thread that female dislike the imagination of the evolution and application of super-technology in the society.

Heather...

Thank you! That's exactly what was needed. My troup is a 60-40 mix of female to male, and what any one of the women wants out of the game changes from session to session. Same with the guys.

What I think you should do, X, is simply design your game so that any particular theme a group likes can come into focus. Magic/science, social intrigue, combat, heroism - these are all easily doable. Some systems make one or the other more significant by how they're presented in the rules.

But now I'm getting into my own pet projects, so I'll shut up. It's not on topic...

Aidan

Heather Manley wrote:

xechnao wrote: About the settings you metioned I still see a lack of sci-fi interest. Indeed I asked my girlfriend (20 years old) about her literature interests last night and it was something like that. She always prefered the social problems with a background of any setting but sci-fi. About fiction films she enjoyed Indiana Jones and Interview with a Vampire a lot and wants now to see the Pirates of the Caribbean. But she doesn't want to see Terminator and Star Wars she dislikes. Although she liked Stargate film I could say that she stills doesn't like sci-fi because the film was of a more Indiana Jones feel. Finally I' ve showed Alita manga and even if it speaks about a girl and the social human problems she wasn't interest a bit in it propably because she saw all that ultra-tech action. Well all this doesn't mean a lot but I feel all the most influenced by this thread that female dislike the imagination of the evolution and application of super-technology in the society.

You know, you're making a lot of broad generalizations based on very few data points; as the saying goes, the plural of "anecdote" is not "data". Quite frankly, it's bordering on the offensive. I find most fantasy boring and write, GM, and play in scifi games, but I'm not about to run around saying that all women really want science fiction games and find epic fantasy dull just because that shows up in my current experience.

While I do find it interesting to look at what women want in the hobby, it sounds more like you have a theory you want support for rather than looking for actual answers. You say that women don't like scifi, and then when talking about a woman you know who likes a scifi show, dismiss it as being "because the film was of a more Indiana Jones feel"?

Your girlfriend may not like science fiction. I happen to like science fiction. These are two data points and they are still not telling us anything about "what women want in an RPG", even if "women" could be judged as some single-minded mass with significantly common interests. Given that there are very few comprehensive surveys on this issue that anyone can proffer--and seems that those which do exist, people already have suggested--I can't really see what you're asking for beyond more people's anecdotal evidence, which consists of nothing more than personal experience. If I had to go by personal experience I would say that all male gamers seem to be interested in fantasy games and dislike scifi and horror games, but that would be rather inaccurate, no?

xechnao wrote: Haha if you feel offended I suggest you change page. I just posted a personal experience of mine on the matter and what I seem to be thinking about it. It's my right, no?
I like sci-fi too. I have lots of friends that I know they like it but are all male. Indeed I have no female friend that likes sci-fi. I think I never saw in cinema a female group while a sci-fi movie: latest one I saw was matrix-reloaded(let's consider it sci-fi). I saw male groups, couples and father with son. This alone doesn't say a lot but if the most around here agree and share this common base then it does add some bricks in the wall.

So none should ever speak of his personal experiences or even bother compile a statiscal interview questionaire brochure. No, this is not the right spirit. I understand that the practical possibilty of this forum is limited to an extent but we can still try to make the best of it.

xechnao wrote: So none should ever speak of his personal experiences or even bother compile a statiscal interview questionaire brochure. No, this is not the right spirit. I understand that the practical possibilty of this forum is limited to an extent but we can still try to make the best of it.

AnyaTheBlue wrote:

xechnao wrote: So none should ever speak of his personal experiences or even bother compile a statiscal interview questionaire brochure. No, this is not the right spirit. I understand that the practical possibilty of this forum is limited to an extent but we can still try to make the best of it.

Sigh.

Xechnao, what exactly is your goal with this thread?

Genre is only one of many many factors that influences anybody to like (or dislike) anything.

For any given genre, you can find both men and women who like and dislike it.

For any given style of play you can find both men and women who like and dislike it.

For any given set of rules mechancis you can find both men and women who like and dislike it.

For any given combination of the above qualities, you can find both men and women who like and dislike it.

I think Heather's point is that you seem to be approaching this topic with the point of view that genre is the important thing, and you want to get some sort of idea of the general distribution of female interest in rpgs based on genre alone.

I (and I suspect most of the rest of the people who have answered you) think this is naive and borderline offensively stupid (I'm not trying to be antagonistic or put words in anybody's mouth, I'm just trying to describe my impressions of what you are trying to say).

I am a very atypical woman in many respects. But I started playing RPGs with D&D, just like lots of other people. Some games I play because I like the people I'm playing with. Some games I play because I like the mechanics. Some games I play because I like the setting or genre or whatever. Some games have all of those things going for it.

It's not so clear cut as finding a single genre, set of mechanics, game focus, or anything of the sort that will appeal to the mysterious group known as 'females'.

If you reread my earlier post, you'll notice I said that what I was relating was an over-generalization, but that it sort of lends itself to categorizing two different sorts of people. Both men and women can fall into both of those categories. It's not a binary "guys over here, girls over there" sort of thing. It's almost never that simple.

As Anthony sort of alluded to, one of the reasons there aren't more women gaming is probably one of culture. Members of 'typical' gaming culture frequently do not socialize well with anybody, let alone with women. Part of that sort of socialization skill is what Taalyn touched on -- structure your game so that you can provide the players with the things they are looking for, instead of providing a specific set of things you are interested in and only ending up with players who are interested in those exact same things. And by 'things' I mean genre, setting, levels of socialization, nuts-and-bolts, characterization, moral conundrums, etc, etc, etc. Pay attention and be sensitive to what your players are interested in, and give it to them, regardless of whether those players are men or women. Provide a mix of what each of them finds fun and what you find fun. Doing this requires getting to know your players as people, and actually being able to figure out what they find as fun, and what they find offensive.

So, what are you trying to determine or discuss with this thread?

Are you trying to get anecdotes about what genres have lots of women playing them?

Are you trying to get anecdotes about what sorts of mechanics the games that most women play have?

Are you trying to figure out why there aren't more women playing RPGs? Are you trying to figure out why there aren't more women playing in your games?

Are you trying to figure out how to change your own games to attract women to play in them?

If you can't answer this clearly, I'm not seeing a lot of point in continuing this discussion, because what I've read up till now seems to indicate that you have a pet theory you don't seem to want to explain, yet you are looking for validation that you're right.

I apologize in advance if this post has been overly harsh or offensive. I'm just trying to be as clear as I can.

his thread is started to study the genre only question in grounds of female approach, that is genre approach indipendently from the other factors, period.
snip
Actually my games not as my gaming sessions but as my game products. This is why I can't find any good in the advice to get to know my players as people over this matter. I am only interested in the magiority of population tendencies, I am only interested in the most generalized and generic rules if there can be found any. Maybe at first gathering a bunch of peoples knownledge could seem an irrelevant gathering of anecdotes but in the end there is very good propability you get to achieve some new knowledge either way.

Um, to summerize what many people are saying: you can't make games for a specific gender. You make games for a specific kind of audience, and if women happen to make up a larger portion of that audience than men, you might have a "female-friendly" game (but that's a horrible term, *blech*), but that doesn't mean much in an 80% male hobby.

For example, games that have been typically considered "female friendly," such as Nobilis, Changeling, most LARPs, Castle Falkenstein, etc. still have majority male consumers, in my experience. Hang out on the Nobilis mailing list and you find mostly guys. However, there are significantly more women involved than would be in a D&D or even Vampire game. You just swing the balance a bit towards the other direction.

If you talk to Michael about his HeartQuest audience, I think you'll find the same thing. Note that HeartQuest isn't a game specifically targeted at a female audience, even though its based on comics that, in Japan, are specifically targeted at a female audience. In Japan, women make up a significant portion of comic readers and there are traditions that divide things into "boy comics" and "girls comics" and then "general comics." In roleplaying, we have "boys games" and... Well, we have "boys games," and ever so often someone will make one for a mixed audience. That's the point that the industry is at. There's a similar situation with comics, if you're paying attention to developments in that industry.

Personally speaking, I'm running a game with all female players right now, where I've got the only penis in the room. And it ROCKS! Why? Because playing with players who aren't traditional geek-out sexually-frustrated power-crazed gamers is such a breath of fresh air. Don't think I'll ever go back. But again, I didn't write up my campaign in a way that was specifically designed to appeal to women, but women were mostly the ones who expressed interest in it (we did have one other guy).

Honestly, thinking in generalizations is bound to get you in trouble. Pick an aesthetic and go with it. People will respond as they will.

Anecdotes

Anecdotes are going to tell you nothing, ultimately. Here are mine.

The first gaming group was two couples--two girls, two guys--and we picked up a third couple intermittently. In the D&D game, the first RPG the group played (in our mix of card, board, electronic, and other games), one girl played an elven fighter/magic-user, one a human cleric, and one a hobbit thief--nothing similar between them. However, the male party leader decided they needed horses, and the girls went crazy over the horses. We could conclude that for girls to like games, you need to give them horses. They knew the size, color, markings, gender, tack and harness and vestment designs of those horses. Girls like horses; at least, that's my experience. The guys didn't care near as much.

We picked up a couple of science fiction games--Gamma World, Metamorphosis Alpha, Star Frontiers. One of the couples didn't play any of the sci-fi games. One of the girls who did play didn't enjoy playing the Gamma World game which her boyfriend ran; I often found it a very harsh game, but kept plugging at it. She did enjoy the others. The other girl, my wife, seemed to enjoy it. She also ran both of the other sci-fi games, brilliantly well, and enjoyed doing so enough that she ran a private Star Frontiers game for me. So we find that a third of our D&D audience wasn't interested in sci-fi, a third found some of it less than enjoyable, and a third was very interested in it--but no gender bias there.

I've got two girls in my current online game. One of them apparently prefers fantasy; she likes elves and magic, and talking about these things. I don't know how she feels about sci-fi, at least not yet, so I'm exploring this side of things. The other loves space opera--Star Trek, B5, Star Wars, she's at home in this, it's her element. She enjoyed being on a space ship. She's also really getting into being a spy now that her space flight has ended, and reports playing the latest Bond video game with her brother.

I'm afraid you've got nothing here. You've got information that proves that people are individuals, and although you can collectively make assertions about them, they don't always work so well when pressed.

As my brother loves to say, there are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide all the people in the world into two kinds, and those who don't. Yes, there are differences between men and women--they just aren't really very clear in something so general as "genre". It isn't whether girls like sci-fi, but what kind of sci-fi they tend to prefer. There's your question--not whether you do sci-fi, but what do you do with it to make it friendly to people who don't think quite the same way about it as you do.

Multiverser to a large degree lets the referee decide what the world is going to be like, but leaves it to the player to decide what the game is going to be about. Girls and guys alike find what interests them and pursue that. If you allow them to do that, you'll appeal to a broader audience. The details of setting don't matter.

--M. J. Young

I don't want to make a game for a specific gender. I just want to make a game less unfriendly possible for any gender. Since what I've been knowing and hearing is for example that girls that play d&d count fewer than the girls who play Vampire, or the girls that read fantasy literature count fewer in respect of the male readers of fantasy I supposed that even setting-wise could matter in a broad and generalized point of you the attraction in regards of female players(my interest heavies particularlly the female case since I understand that male attractivity to rpgs isn't the issue left behind in respect of the other*).
Do you find this so paranoid and out of reality?

*rpgs is an 80% male hobby today.

xechnao wrote: Do you find this so paranoid and out of reality?

<Observation> I should probably know better than to read this </observation>

I think the issue here is females in general vs females as molded by our culture.
To appeal to the first, just take the advice on the thread(do what you want, provide diversity,
avoid offencive stuff like cheesecake). To make a game that appeals to female culture would be
difficult as, as games traditionally appeal to male culture(which is offputting to most females).


Although Vampire LARP apparently managed.

Unfortunatly, I'm not sure how you manage the 'culture' of a game, as this would probably
depend on the people in an area, although you could try to avoid appealing to cultural segments you don't want.

Jonathan Walton wrote:

xechnao wrote: Do you find this so paranoid and out of reality?

Honestly... a little.

I don't think it's the setting that attracts or drives female players away from a specific game, I think it's the culture that gets built up around it. Many female players would love D&D, provided they could consistantly play with people who weren't socially underdeveloped or on power trips.

damion wrote: <Observation> I should probably know better than to read this </observation>

To make a game that appeals to female culture would be
difficult as, as games traditionally appeal to male culture(which is offputting to most females).

xechnao wrote:
Me, being "paranoid" am able to back up what I am saying by stats. Have you read the example I have written* just above and have you seen the above link with the preferences of film types? What's your advice about this in advance?

*About fantasy literature I have seen a calculation on user input ie reviews of sites like yahoo, amazon and have known the result of a great prevealance of males vs females. It wasn't the same to cases of other types of literature, products etch.

xechnao wrote: I believe females are into gaming but not to a too complicated one

damion wrote: I think the issue here is females in general vs females as molded by our culture.
To appeal to the first, just take the advice on the thread(do what you want, provide diversity,
avoid offencive stuff like cheesecake). To make a game that appeals to female culture would be
difficult as, as games traditionally appeal to male culture(which is offputting to most females).

Although Vampire LARP apparently managed.

Unfortunatly, I'm not sure how you manage the 'culture' of a game, as this would probably
depend on the people in an area, although you could try to avoid appealing to cultural segments you don't want.

What Dana said.

Best,
Ron

AnyaTheBlue wrote:

The fact that more men than women buy a certain product, or report liking a certain genre, or whatever, tells you nothing about why.

The numbers you are looking at are descriptions of behavior and you are using stereotypes, anecdotes, heresay, and opinions to decide on a reason why those numbers have the value they do.

That doesn't get you anywhere. It's not scientific, and it doesn't "prove" anything. Instead, what it does, is make it plain what your particular opinions on the topic are.

xechnao wrote: I believe females are into gaming but not to a too complicated one

The above statement is patronizing. I'm a woman, and I'm certainly feeling patronized by it. And it's this sort of attitude which would lead me to not be interested in playing any game with you, if I was given the opportunity. This single statement implies, to me, that you don't expect women to be your intellectual equals, or that they are not as interested in complicated, hard, or otherwise challenging intellectual activities. You may not actually feel that way. You may not have intended the statement to imply that. But that's how I react to it, and how many other intelligent women would probably react to it, too.

It's an off-putting attitude. And the women who won't be offended by that attitude or opinion are going to be few and far between, and probably aren't going to be interested in complicated games.

The fact that you don't seem to understand this crucial point leads me to suspect you will not be very successful in attracting women to your games. You don't seem to respect them.

You only seem interested in them as abstract consumers or lesser companions as opposed to as people.

Does any of this make sense to you? I'm not trying to be offensive or anything -- I'm honestly trying to explain a point I think is absolutely vital that you grasp if you are to make any headway in making your games and products attractive to women. Women are actually people, with all the same raw capabilties and interests as men.

Er, I think the quoting nesting got messed up in your last post, Xechnao. But I think I got the gist of it...

I'm going to defy standard Forge protocol as I understand it and go point by point because there are a number of disparate points in this post, and I'd like to hit them independently.

xechnao wrote:
Do you believe those that sponsor those researches(it's not me that calculated all this I am talking about neither did I write down the site of the link) and studies are stupid? If not, why they are doing this?

xechnao wrote:
Could I dare to say this "intelligent" could be in a manner "complessed"? By saying women are different than men in some aspect it doesn't mean that there can be a confrontation about this on a scale indicating levels of inferiority or superirity or a scale of this concept at all. So you don't have to feel offended. Can you accept this or do you want to defend ultimatelly against it?
Oh and about "patronizing" people can have some common points and be referred or regarded by them by some sort of view. This is not that bad. Mass production with no exceptions works on the this basis.

xechnao wrote:
Abstract consumers for this case. I can't get to know everybody personally that is going to buy a product I am making if it is going to interest a lot of people.

xechnao wrote:
It does but actually I think we are talking on different grounds. I accept and respect your opinions and as a matter of fact I agree with them. I believe it's our communication that fails a bit.

Wow...when exactly did the time machine arrive from 1950?

AnyaTheBlue,
I was just trying to say that traditionally RPG's appeal to more subsets of all possible male cultures than subsets of all possible female cultures. This is just bc they were developed in a subset of male cultures, i.e. new RPG's don't have this problem, but people tend to generalize from the most visible subset of a group. As you mentioned, many of the subcultures are common.
Basicly, what I was trying to say is that the 'culture groups' men and women are exposed to affect their prefernces in this area. I guess what I'm saying is that a game should not try to appeal to culture of any gender, but instead focus on things independent of that.
Sorry if it came off wrong.

damion wrote:
I was just trying to say that traditionally RPG's appeal to more subsets of all possible male cultures than subsets of all possible female cultures. This is just bc they were developed in a subset of male cultures, i.e. new RPG's don't have this problem, but people tend to generalize from the most visible subset of a group. As you mentioned, many of the subcultures are common.
Basicly, what I was trying to say is that the 'culture groups' men and women are exposed to affect their prefernces in this area. I guess what I'm saying is that a game should not try to appeal to culture of any gender, but instead focus on things independent of that.
Sorry if it came off wrong.

damion wrote: I was just trying to say that traditionally RPG's appeal to more subsets of all possible male cultures than subsets of all possible female cultures.

AnyaTheBlue wrote:
This is where I differ from you. I don't think this is true. I think that the existing RPGs as games and settings by and large appeal equally to both men and women, as well as male 'subculture groups' and female 'subculture groups'.

...<snip to avoid enourmous quote>

To be as clear as I can be: I don't think it's that the games do or do not appeal to men more or less than women. I think that it's the culture around gaming that does not appeal to (and frequently actively excludes) women. I think it's the treatment they get when and if they try to take part, both from the gamers they try to play with, and from people (both men and women) who are not themselves gamers.

Dear Dana,

In no way have you come off as any sort of "strident harriden." You have, in fact, been a veritable model of restraint and patience. I admire you for sticking it out on this one, and doing it so well.

And since I've been drawn back into this one, I'll add:

Someone (it might have been Dana), pointed out a page or two back, that the setting matters a lot less than the people one might play an RPG with. Let's be clear about this: a cool setting is not going to cover up unsuitable or annoying social habits.

Thus, any person is going to go where they feel most comfortable first (see threads about social contract), and then hammer out what setting might come into play.

I've got an unexpected tip for anyone wondering why they don't have women playing games with them: Assuming women are strange other-things you have to figure out and make consessions to ain't going to make them feel comfortable -- and in fact, will send them far, far away before you get to show them the cool cover of your "girl-friendly" rpg. (Except, of course, for any women who like being around guys who think they are strange other-things men have to figure out and make consessions to -- if there are any out there, they're all yours.)

You're going to get the kind of people who feel comfortable with *you.* It doesn't get any more simple than that.

Christopher

They aren't stupid for collecting the numbers. What's stupid is the conclusions you are drawing about why those numbers have the values they do. Does that make sense?

They tell you how the market looks right now. It doesn't tell you why the market looks like that, nor what the market might look like in a year, or five.

I'm not sure what you mean about mass production

(and I'm not sure what you mean by 'complessed' -- I think you mean 'turned into a compliment', but I could be wrong).

What's offensive about the statement I was quoting is that you seem to be trying to make such a judgement about liking or disliking something, or being good or bad at something, being a quality that belongs to Women as a group. That is something I find wrong-headed, particularly when the implication is that women as a group are generally or largely worse at something than men as a group. Because it isn't so, and it's patronizing and chauvinistic to think so.

Sure. But, then, do that. I, at least, think that trying to pitch your game products in some specific way to add appeal to women, as opposed to just making them generally appeal to a lot of people, is in itself patronizing and at worst will result in the exact opposite effect -- alienating the group you are trying to artificially appeal to.

I'm not really mad or ready to pound on anybody or anything, despite how my posts may come off. I'm trying to explain a point of view which I encounter a lot in my day-to-day life at work, where I am powerless to do anything about it, or even bring it up in a meaningful way -- I have a certain amount of pent-up frustration about this very topic, and I'm probably venting a bit more strongly than is really warranted. Sorry about that.

(I do not disagree with the views posited by Dana aka AnyaTheBlue, Gordon or Christopher. I do want to go back to the original question posted by xechnao.)

I'm still not certain what type of feedback you want. I *think* you are trying to gather information about how to design and market a rpg aimed at women as a target audience. There is general research on marketing to women, a recent example is Martha Barletta's "Marketing to women: how to understand, reach, and increase your share of the world's largest market segment." (No, I haven't read it, and I don't intend to.) I don't know that there has been specific research on what appeals to current or potential women gamers. I could give you my data points, but that won't help you much since alone they would have little statistical relevance.

I also agree with some of the other posters that genre based setting in and of itself does not necessarily create an appealing game. For example, I like horror in both film and fiction. I have played very few games with a standard horror setting. And those games were kind of bland. The most horrific game play in my experience, complete with a visceral response on my part, was part of a non-horror based Hero Wars game. I don't know how you plan for that type of experience in designing a game.

If I am correct in my assumption that you are attempting to market an rpg to women, I would like to know why you want to do this as opposed to say targeting people who like science fiction.

Julie

p.s. I briefly looked at the film genre preferences study mentioned by John Kim. I would be careful about applying the results to rpg's, for one thing I suspect that the definition of fantasy in that study would not correspond to the general view of fantasy rpg's.

Before this thread degrades too much further...

Xechnao, have you tried playtesting or focus groups of women?

It seems like one of the best ways to get usable data for this is to get together a few groups of female players and ask them what settings they like and why. Maybe get a few groups of male players together for the same questions. Anywhere you see a significant difference, you can label as a gender difference. If your groups are large and representative enough, you should have a usable sample.

I still think what you'll find is that there's more difference between different groups of women than between women in general and men in general.

damion wrote:
Agree here. I just think it's just hard to totally divorce the setting from the games, i.e. consider the role of female charachters in tolkien{not encouraging}.
(snip)
I guess my point is that if women taught to fill traditional roles(homemaker), these values are not compatable traditional RPGS(kill monsters, take their stuff).
(snip)
Or to put it another way, since men were encouraged to avoid these values, and
men made most games, their wern't games that fit them.

Christopher Kubasik wrote: In no way have you come off as any sort of "strident harriden." You have, in fact, been a veritable model of restraint and patience. I admire you for sticking it out on this one, and doing it so well.
(snip)
You're going to get the kind of people who feel comfortable with *you.* It doesn't get any more simple than that.

AnyaTheBlue wrote: Thanks! (But c'mon. Surely I must project a 'spinster aunt' vibe, right? You can be honest... =) )

Julie,

I don't intend to read it either. Anyway to answer, I don't want to make a rpg targeted for women only. I just want to make an rpg that wouldn't be hindered to be enjoyed by women as part of their interest. This thought is provoked by the fact that 80% of people that play d&d are male.
I also agree that an interesting and appealing game can be a lot more than setting. In this thread I thought to be asking about the setting part.


jdagna,

if it was to ask them only about the setting then why get to groups? This would do it more complicated. I could ask 1,000 female rpg-players their preferences and then see out if there were any interesting results. In fact I was wondering if I could make a poll over here. Ladies could vote their preferences giving a vote for every type of setting they like most. I would include thirteen different settings (action, sci-fi, hard-science, cyberpunk, conspiracy, horror, alternate reality, time travel, historical, fantasy, superhero, post holocaust , humour) and four votes of preference(to chose the four most prefered between thirteen) for each that votes (imprtant about the poll: one may not vote same choice more than once but won't have to exhaust all four votes- minimum of voting should remain to one vote).
Thus we could see if some choices would present intersting differentiations(higher or lower ratings) among the others.
I guess this need also be a question to the administrators of this board.

AnyaTheBlue wrote: (But c'mon. Surely I must project a 'spinster aunt' vibe, right? You can be honest... =) )

Hi folks,

I think that genre plays a small part in the gender balance of gamers. I'd attribute it more to a self fulfilling stereotype about "who gamers are" plus the "geek's shame" bit that further makes it gender unbalanced, rather than simply genre content.

Chris

What Ben & Chris said. By the way, Dana, I was wondering about your sig...

Is it required for one to have a vagina in order to join the Estrogen Brigade? I mean, I do have some estrogen, after all. And my favorite game designer is Rebecca Sean Borgstrom. And I go to a college where Women's Rugby is more popular than Men's Football.

Silly XY chromosomes! Off to gene-therepy!

Jonathan Walton wrote: Is it required for one to have a vagina in order to join the Estrogen Brigade?
(snip)
Silly XY chromosomes! Off to gene-therepy!

In general, I'm in the "what she said" camp and I didn't think I had anything to add. But this bit caught my notice:

AnyaTheBlue wrote: What's offensive...is that you _seem_ to be trying to make such a judgement about liking or disliking something, or being good or bad at something, being a quality that belongs to Women as a group. That is something I find wrong-headed, particularly when the implication is that women _as a group_ are generally or largely worse at something than men _as a group_. Because it isn't so, and it's patronizing and chauvinistic to think so.

Christopher,

Sorry, I wasn't being as clear as I could have been.

Sure, there are differences between men and women, just as there differences between New Yorkers and Midwesterners, Northerners and Southerners, African-Americans and Caucasians, Brits and Scots, Catholics and Protestants, etc, etc, etc.

I think Monty Python said it best:

Monty Python wrote:
Dennis: What I object to is you automatically treat me like an inferior.
Arthur: Well I am king.
Dennis: Oh, king eh? Very nice! And how'd you get that, eh? By exploiting the workers! By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society.

Christopher wrote: In the trivial case, men are better at getting jars open with no tool. They just are. Men bear superior upper body strength. The much harder analysis is one of cognitive styles and abilities.

I tend to believe that men and women do think differently in some ways and that those differences are important to understand and address. Business, education, parenting, coupling, and maybe just all facets of life stand to gain by understanding those differences. Why wouldn't game producers have a similar interest?

AnyaTheBlue,


For info only, there is an rpg game that actually endorses different stats for males and females about physical abilities. Millenium's End gives males +1 str and females +1 costitution. You could also answer if you like if you do find this anoying as a rule and why?

What I want to repeat is this:
You see, differences is one thing and social rights discrimination is another. They don't need to coincide. People should accept and aknowledge differences but without linking them to the idea of a discrimination on social rights. Should you accept this or not?
People also have common points. This means that one can address something in regards of people groups without necessarilly offending social rights. Should this makes you unhappy?

AnyaTheBlue,

Ok. My fiance's a radical femminist, and she tells me about this sort of stuff alot,
however she doesn't like gaming(She's a mega Simulationist).
However it is appears that I'm combining knowlege and experiance incorrectly, for which I apologize. Thanks for the insight.

What was getting my hackles up was the combination of "All/Most Women Are This Way" and an implication that "That Way is generally not as good as the way All/Most Men are", all bundled up with the apparent attitude that "Women" can be quantified distinctly from "people" (basically, a de-protagonization of us, to use Forge jargon).

You see, differences is one thing and social rights discrimination is another. They don't need to coincide. People should accept and aknowledge differences but without linking them to the idea of a discrimination on social rights. Should you accept this or not?

damion wrote:
Wow, if you thought I was implying anything vaguely like that, that would explain any stridentness. I wasn' trying to say anything like that, I very sorry if it came out that way.

damion wrote: Estrogen Brigade Mascot

xechnao wrote:
For info only, there is an rpg game that actually endorses different stats for males and females about physical abilities. Millenium's End gives males +1 str and females +1 costitution. You could also answer if you like if you do find this anoying as a rule and why?

xechnao wrote:
What I want to repeat is this:
You see, differences is one thing and social rights discrimination is another. They don't need to coincide. People should accept and aknowledge differences but without linking them to the idea of a discrimination on social rights. Should you accept this or not?
People also have common points. This means that one can address something in regards of people groups without necessarilly offending social rights. Should this makes you unhappy?

John Kim wrote: I think Anya took offense at drawing conclusions like "girls are smarter than boys" (based on education statistics) or "girls don't like complex rules" (based on gaming anecdotes).

To all my lovely and wonderful fellow Forge members posting on this thread,

The day is done. The points are made. The explanations of "wasn't offended" or "was offended but now I see where you're coming from" have been offered.

The sun shimmers on the waters. I'm posting like Kester Pelagius. New Age music is playing.

This thread, rest its gentle soul, is now closed.

Best,
Ron