Yeah, I know it isn't always. But it is. Maybe I'm a product of our eeeevil patriarchal society, but when I think "protagonist" I think male. And yes, I can think of plenty of counter- examples too, but the default is still... male. I best like games that feel like 80's action-adventure TV, only with a fantasy or sf flavor (and that's different from 80's sf TV, need I say). Unrepentantly aimed at the the male demographic. The main characters are male. Ergo, the characters I feel like building in similar RPGs are male. (That also may tie into my static-character thing... TV-show characters, at least in the 80's before the rise of story arcs and all that, weren't supposed to change too much so you didn't have to show the episodes in order.) Okay, so if I like "guy stuff" like that, it shouldn't be a problem for me when roleplaying games are "guy stuff." And it usually isn't... except that I'm not a guy. And my characters (all the good ones, anyway) are. Makes for some cognitive dissonance in face-to-face gaming, and in at least once instance resulted in a fellow player calling me "he" post-game at Denny's. In front of the waitress. -- Karen J. Cravens silver@phoenyx.net ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
Karen J. Cravens wrote: > Yeah, I know it isn't always. But it is. Not half as much as either model railways or going to prog-rock gigs. More women are into roleplaying than trains or music in 11/17 time that nobody can dance to.... Returning to the subject, it's been my experience that roleplaying *isn't* totally male dominated. Most of my FtF roleplaying is at conventions nowadays, and games without at least one woman are the exception rather than the rule. OTOH, there's currently only one woman in the 12 players in my two Kalyr games, but there are five female PCs. Then the one woman player is the one playing the munchkin combat monster. ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Sun, 18 Dec 2005, Tim Hall wrote: TH>Not half as much as either model railways or going to prog-rock gigs. TH>More women are into roleplaying than trains or music in 11/17 time that TH>nobody can dance to.... Well, the first part is at least because serious model train geeks are *way* scarier than gaming geeks. The second part I dunno about; I figure that has more to do with my age than my gender. TH>Returning to the subject, it's been my experience that roleplaying TH>*isn't* totally male dominated. Most of my FtF roleplaying is at TH>conventions nowadays, and games without at least one woman are the TH>exception rather than the rule. Well, yeah. There are non-male roleplaying games out there, but that's different. I don't like those, by and large. -- Karen J. Cravens silver@phoenyx.net ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
Karen J. Cravens wrote: > Well, the first part is at least because serious model train geeks are > *way* scarier than gaming geeks. How many serious train geeks do you know? Come to think of it, I know as many train enthusiast Goths as gamer goths. I think there are actually lot of similarities between the two communities, although this is drifting off topic a little. ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Sun, 18 Dec 2005, Tim Hall wrote: TH>How many serious train geeks do you know? Come to think of it, I know None, well. But I've been in train stores. Scary people, some of them. TH>as many train enthusiast Goths as gamer goths. The train-obsessives seem all but indistinguishable from the gamer-obsessives, yeah, though I dunno about the goth thing. (I imagine it's easier to be goth around London than around Wichita...) TH>I think there are actually lot of similarities between the two TH>communities, although this is drifting off topic a little. I imagine it's different in different places, too. -- Karen J. Cravens silver@phoenyx.net ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
Karen J. Cravens wrote: > The train-obsessives seem all but indistinguishable from the > gamer-obsessives, yeah, though I dunno about the goth thing. (I imagine > it's easier to be goth around London than around Wichita...) I've seen exhibition layouts operated entirely by Goths with multiple piercings and fishnet stockings (Although overweight women in corsets several sized too small have so far been restricted to game conventions) Aso I've met (briefly) both E Gary Gygax and Cyril J Freezer (who's the Gygax of trains, at least in Britain). What struck me is how similar they were. (Not that either of them are any kind of Goth) ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Sun, 18 Dec 2005, Tim Hall wrote: TH>I've seen exhibition layouts operated entirely by Goths with multiple TH>piercings and fishnet stockings (Although overweight women in corsets TH>several sized too small have so far been restricted to game conventions) There are times I'm happy to live in Kansas. Mostly the scariest thing at train or game conventions is plumber's butt. (Well, there *was* the guy in shoe polish and pointy ears, but that was more pathetic than scary.) -- Karen J. Cravens silver@phoenyx.net ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Sat, Dec 17, 2005 at 10:57:30PM -0600, Karen J. Cravens wrote: >I best like games that feel like 80's action-adventure TV, only with a >fantasy or sf flavor (and that's different from 80's sf TV, need I say). >Unrepentantly aimed at the the male demographic. The main characters are >male. Ergo, the characters I feel like building in similar RPGs are male. If I'm understanding you correctly, would it be fair to say that one of the canonical "female stories" in this sense is the romance plot? (As distinct from the subplots one tends to see in action films, in which the female lead has a gender-ambiguous name and argues incessantly with the male lead...) I ask because I like the idea of a romance-based RPG as a change of pace from the basically action- and investigation-centred games that I tend to run. I haven't seen _Blue Rose_, but reviews have been very mixed and it sounds pretty fluffy; what I'd really like to see is something to support multiple romantic genres, for example a Regency game in the style of Georgette Heyer. A big part of the problem, I suspect, would be in finding the players; most of the people who'd enjoy a game like this probably aren't already gamers. -- Roger, gaming grognard Lots of role-playing stuff: http://tekeli.li/ ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Mon, 19 Dec 2005, Roger Burton West wrote: RBW>If I'm understanding you correctly, would it be fair to say that one of RBW>the canonical "female stories" in this sense is the romance plot? (As RBW>distinct from the subplots one tends to see in action films, in which RBW>the female lead has a gender-ambiguous name and argues incessantly with RBW>the male lead...) That's one, at least. I suppose, if I follow my own analogy, "female stories" should involve whatever pop-fic women read. Which, if I take my mother as a test case, also involves things like Janet Evanovich and so forth. Now, Googling on that, I find a lot of that classified under "romance" (which IIRC it isn't, but maybe "romance" means "women's fiction" in those cases) but mostly it's "mystery/thriller." I'd throw in "humor," having read a few of them while staying at Mom's. (Until she moved back to town this summer, she lived four hours away, so I'd take our son down there periodically so she could get her grandchild fix.) Of course, in poking around on the net, I find that Evanovich is described as "a former romance writer" so maybe that's the reason for the classification. RBW>I ask because I like the idea of a romance-based RPG as a change of pace RBW>from the basically action- and investigation-centred games that I tend RBW>to run. I haven't seen _Blue Rose_, but reviews have been very mixed and RBW>it sounds pretty fluffy; what I'd really like to see is something to RBW>support multiple romantic genres, for example a Regency game in the RBW>style of Georgette Heyer. Well, the Evanovich stuff, and plenty of other stuff like it, is basically action- and investigation-centered. It's just that the action is gentler, and the investigation is really a sideline. I'd have to analyze it more (and I don't remember any specifics well enough just now), but I'd tentatively say the stories are more about the predicaments the heroine gets into. Sometimes the mysteries get solved serendipitously (q.v. especially any book with a cat on the cover, especially if the cat's name is part of the series). I'm not really sure any of that would translate well to a roleplaying game, at least one I'd be interested in playing. I do admit I like that sort of book, if I'm in the mood for lite-n-fluffy reading, though I rarely have time. RBW>A big part of the problem, I suspect, would be in finding the players; RBW>most of the people who'd enjoy a game like this probably aren't already RBW>gamers. That's the thing... I've never really been able to explain to anyone how to attract more women gamers, because I'm really not one. (And yes, I'm straight. I *said* it was a paradox...) -- Karen J. Cravens silver@phoenyx.net ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Sun, 18 Dec 2005, Tim Hall wrote:
> Returning to the subject, it's been my experience that roleplaying
> *isn't* totally male dominated.
She didn't say that roleplaying was male _dominated_. Roleplaying
games are "male" in the sense that "The Destroyer" ("Remo Williams")
series of novels is "male"... written by males for an assumed-male
audience. That some women might read them is a minor blip... it's
men's action-adventure. Roleplaying games are the same... they're, by
and large, men's action-adventure.
So the paradox is, she's a woman who enjoys men's action-adventure.
(Gaming, at least... she has derogatory things to say about "The
Destroyer". But then, I don't care for them either.)
--
Carl D Cravens (raven@phoenyx.net) Gamers List Owner
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