Deb Attwood wrote: >I know that my style has always differed greatly from a lot of the *people* >I've gamed with. And from people I still do game with. I'm heavy into the >character interaction, although god save me from GMless games where there >is all emphasis on conversation and no GM intervention whatsoever to save >us from ourselves. *chuckles* I have friends who are very plot-oriented >-- they lay down every possible option and plan every little last detail >out. And a lot of people fall somewhere in between. > >These styles of play have been traditionally associated with the female and >male stereotypes. Females tend (note, not all) to be more >free-associative, nurturing, more emotional, etc. Men tend to be more >logical, structured. >Hence, in-depth RP vs rules based play. >It's not an unknown stereotype, nor an out of line one, honestly. It can >be backed up by psychological data. Frankly, you'd have to back it up in that fashion. My experience has not shown me any like this. I DM 3 women, and 4 men at the moment, and I would be forced to define two of the women as being more logical than free-associative, and two of the men as being more free-associative. I recognise that you are making the point that it is a generalisation that people fall into it. And, that it's one that a lot of people don't. I just don't accept it as valid. It has not been something that is validated by my experience, although I am happy to accept that this is what most people BELIEVE is the case. > >Oh, and when I was a kid, I RPed because it came from let's pretend. I was >doing it before I knew what it was, and having a great time at it, and just >kept going. Despite the fact that it was male dominated. But I truly came >into my full all out love of it when I started to GM and started working >with character oriented plots that were far different than what the rules >recommended. And when I discovered diceless and could cheerfully toss out >mechanics that were more cumbersome than logical to me. So I guess I am >pretty stereotypical for a girl. *smiles* I, too, prefer diceless games, and am quite prepared to throw out rules. I suggest to you that it isn't a female propensity, at all. I further suggest that roleplaying games that centre around combat spring from war and board gaming, and that games that centre around character story interaction spring from the 'let's pretend' thing that you mention. This is not to say that either is better or worse than the other, just that their sources are different. In general, people who come to roleplaying games to tell the stories of their characters, within the framework of the DM's story, came to them late. Whatever purposes we put a game to currently, there's no denying that it started out as a simulation of war, at the skirmish scale. In many cases, it is still used as a model of different kinds of conflict encounter. There's little doubt that the first players of the game were predominantly male, and their interests were more to do with the resolution of a particular kind of conflict. Nowadays, more people come to roleplaying for different reasons, and those reasons have more to do with performance and art than they have to do with the size of their bonuses to hit and damage and their damage capacity. Roleplaying games have come a long way since the Seventies, and it has changed in the face of a variety of interests. At one time the only game to play was Dungeons & Dragons, because that was all there was. Interests have changed. Now, one sees games like the Masquerade, and the rest of the White Wolf line, which emphasise story, rather than an environment in which to meet monsters and introduce them to some sharp steel. I suggest that there are different roleplayers, now, that they are drawn to different things, and that the market has widened. To that end, roleplayers are no longer the same critturs that they were in the Seventies. As the demographic widens, the range of human behaviour observable within a given sample changes. ---------------------------------------------------------------- GMAST Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gmast/
