20×20 is running a series of posts on Women in Gaming.
I guess this was never much of an issue for me. Though it was the early 80s, I started gaming in college, so the Girls are Scary/Icky thang was never much of an issue.
In most of the games I played in, women were a definite presence and influence. Some of them (usually the less successful) were there strictly as girlfriends of the GM or other players, but there were definitely a goodly number of strong women players involved — one of whom turns out to be my wife.
(The couple of exceptions, a few one-shot thangs early on, were not all that enjoyable, as they were mostly power-gaming uber-alpha-geek killer dungeon crawls. Bleah.)
I even ran a campaign (ADRPG) back in California where the majority of the players turned out to be women. Me and the other token male were not only unthreatened, we enjoyed it.
Here in Colorado, between Margie and Jackie and Lori (and the other Lori, whom I’ve not played with, and the now-moved-away Juli, [update: and Amanda who I’d love to run in another game some time]), there have always been plenty of women-folk at the table. Frankly, I can’t imagine it any other way, nor do I particularly want to, and I suspect that Katherine will, with time (and, hopefully, interest) join us there.
Never have given it much of a second thought, to be honest. Just the way things are.
I was gaming long before I was interested in boys.
I have found good times and bad being a girl gamer, but I think that’s the same for any person really. I do know that when my group was looking for new people, I got the honor of putting my name up on the board at Attactix because I was “a girl and we’ll get more calls that way”. That’s how I met Rick actually.
Having been in situations where the GM’s girlfriend got special treatment, I have always strived to not be that person. Honestly, Rick gets more heat from me about the games he runs, but it certainly isn’t because I’m not getting my props as prima donna.
I’m glad to see that there are more woman gamers out there. Our current “regular” group is 3 couples and an extra male gamer. Makes for good times by all I think. I do think that over all things are better than the were 20 years ago, but there is still a long way to go. I also have to wonder if part of the reason for the change is the fact that we are all getting older. There is a generation of younger gamers out there, but the core at the conventions I have been to seem to be in the 25 – 40 range or older.
And, of course, apologies to Amanda for leaving her out of my list of Colorado gamers I’ve played with, she having had a key role in my Amber campaign.
Thanks Dave. 🙂
I loved that game. Meeting you and Margie was a highlight of Rick and my gaming experiences in Colorado.
One of these days …
Maybe I’m just really lucky that I came to gaming with the group that I did, but I’ve never thought much about being a women gamer. Gaming still reminds me of theater, which is part of what drew me to gaming. Though I was only filling in for an absent player on my first game, I was playing a male character, and it never crossed my mind that I couldn’t do that as well as the regualr player. As a player, I resent anyone who doesn’t pay close enough attention to the game do what was necessary, regardless of whether they are male or female.
During my college playing days, the few male players who didn’t want to give as well as they got from women didn’t hang around our games very long. And there were major hack and slay campaigns going on around our group, but they never interested me much. (Killing your own party members is really low — unless they’ve been cursed to be a duck, then it’s funny.)