On Sat, 28 May 2005, Joseph R. Dietrich wrote: JRD>Also late, and probably not directly on topic (is there a Gamers list JRD>archive?): Yes. If you visit the hasn't-been-updated-in-a-coon's-age Gamers site at http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/ you'll find a menu bar, which has "archive" on it, and which will take you to the current archives. At the moment, that's http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/2005/05/ or so. JRD>In all cases I've noticed no difference in gaming style that could be JRD>attributed to male/femaleness. Virtually every difference seemed more driven JRD>by personality traits unrelated to gender. Sometimes. In the group I was thinking of, the women were all... well, giddy. Which is a personality trait, I guess, but not one I associate with the male of the species. JRD>On a tangential note: It seems to me that more important to the success of a JRD>gaming group than a question such as gender is finding people you *want* to JRD>play with, and that are compatible with you in terms of personality and life JRD>outlook. Right. But the problem I had, in these parts, was that gamers of my gender weren't compatible in terms of personality (I am reasonably sure I'm never giddy. I could be wrong, but I am *entirely* sure I do not pursue it as a way of life...) Now, it's a sort of self-selecting sample... I know gamers through other gamers, and gamers mostly know people that are compatible with themselves. As I said upthread, JRD>I have only ever regularly gamed with friends, or strangers that were JRD>friends of other friends (and therefore were already vetted in terms of JRD>personality, sense of humor, and so on). I've only gamed a few times with JRD>people I didn't really know, and in every instance I can't say that I JRD>enjoyed myself. I've had fun at some con games, though I'm generally not an outgoing enough person to do so reliably so it's very much a crap shoot. And it's been probably, uh, close to ten years since we went to a convention. We were *supposed* to have another Phoenyx Gathering, at GenCon this year, but that would probably have to happen without us at that point (Carl's job situation is up in the air, my sister's moving, my mother's moving, his mother's in and out of the hospital, und so weiter). JRD>One of the things I never really liked about online shared-world-games is JRD>that you are forced to play with a bunch of people that aren't your friends. JRD>Sure, you can meet some nice people and make some new friends, but much of JRD>the time you just run in to total bastards. By my definition, that's called JRD>"Real Life", and for me the whole point of role-playing is to avoid *that* JRD>for a few hours of the week. Yeah, if the Phoenyx ever went for that (HA!) (Okay, I shouldn't say that, it may happen *someday*, but it's certainly not plausible right now) we'd be picky about who we let in, or something. Trust metrics, maybe. The pay sites probably have that finely balanced between "kicking off paying customers" and "having paying customers quit in disgust." -- Karen J. Cravens silver@phoenyx.net ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
