Porn Chicks Playing D&D?!?!

[MKMcArtor]

Originally Posted by Ed the Coastie

Wow. That kind of turns the whole "Quest for the Girl Gamer" thing on it's head.

I honestly didn't know that was still a concern. I guess my group of friends (and thus potential players) is a little unusual, but I actually have more trouble finding guys to game with than ladies.

Granted, that wasn't always the case, but maybe Seattle is just such a mecca for nerds of all stripes that I've become quite spoiled by its gamer diversity. :\

[knarf]

Originally Posted by Qoltar

Thats too easy ...she's used to help out Flying Buffalo at their booth for years. A version of her was used in their 'Fighting Fantasy' duel books.

Pretty sure that both Larry Elmore and Keith Parkinson have used her as a model for gaming artwork. Look for the name ' Amara Wintersword'.

http://www.chainmailgirl.com/index2.htm

and on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=...id=31959767491

there used to be calendars:
http://chainmailgirl.com/calendars.htm

Looks like imdb has a listing for her:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3761041/

...and....:
http://www.chainmailgirl.com/

So, yeah, attractive intelligent women who are comfortable not wearing that much liking gaming and gamers - not really a new phenomena.


- Ed Charlton

Okay. I now realize I have unwittingly encountered yet another gaming celebrity at a con.

[Bruno]

We've got a respectable number of women in our group too.

I think the myth of the "girl gamer" has a lot to do with age groups rather than actual gamer gender distribution.

It definitely starts with the D&D majority, who are as a whole younger than, say, the GURPS playing demographic which appears to be at least college age if not post-secondary. Teenagers do a lot of "hanging out" with mixed gender groups, but they still tend to gender segregate for a lot of hobby activities. Teenage boys are usually still working on the whole "talking to girls" thing (and vice versa with teenage girls) - gaming is a social activity, and if the boys and girls are still feeling awkward talking to each other, or have trouble with doing anything in mixed gender groups that doesn't involve potential dating, they're just plain going to have trouble with mixed gender gaming groups.

Couple that with perhaps some historical male-heavy bias from 20 or so years ago, and I personally think it's an illusion ;)

[Irish Wolf]

Maybe the D&D stigma does have something to do with it - when I started gaming in college in the early '80s, the two hottest girls in the group eschewed D&D (one was a big Champions fan, the other liked Twilight: 2000)...

I did play a fair bit of D&D with my first wife, but it turned out she had even bigger issues than that lurking in the background. When I met H, she was willing to play D&D rather than not play at all, but a) she ran with some really atrociously bad player-types at the time, and they soured her on the game, and b) she always liked the moodiness of Vampire better. (Although she is willing to indulge a certain sense of humor about the game, provided you're not just being silly for silliness' sake - had our V:tM chronicle continued, for instance, she had already approved my Malkavian who believed that the Embrace had turned him into (fanfare) a superhero! - and had an opposite number amongst the antitribu, because every good superhero needs a supervillain, right?)

[Ed the Coastie]

Oh, I never had problems finding girls who played RPGs; my wife has been gaming since we were engaged, my sister still plays Champions on as regular a basis as her schedule allows, and most of my groups tend to have at least one female player in addition to my wife.

But on the other tentacle, I knew way too many guys in high school and college who fit the classic "Dead Alewives" gamer stereotype -- hygienically-challenged troglodytes who dwelt in mommy's basement (we didn't call them "man caves" back then) and lived on Cheetoes and Mountain Dew. For them the "gamer chick" was an elusive creature akin to Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster...there were reports of sightings, but always by other people.

[Pmandrekar]

Originally Posted by Bruno

We've got a respectable number of women in our group too.

I think the myth of the "girl gamer" has a lot to do with age groups rather than actual gamer gender distribution.

It definitely starts with the D&D majority, who are as a whole younger than, say, the GURPS playing demographic which appears to be at least college age if not post-secondary. Teenagers do a lot of "hanging out" with mixed gender groups, but they still tend to gender segregate for a lot of hobby activities. Teenage boys are usually still working on the whole "talking to girls" thing (and vice versa with teenage girls) - gaming is a social activity, and if the boys and girls are still feeling awkward talking to each other, or have trouble with doing anything in mixed gender groups that doesn't involve potential dating, they're just plain going to have trouble with mixed gender gaming groups.

Couple that with perhaps some historical male-heavy bias from 20 or so years ago, and I personally think it's an illusion ;)

When I was in middle school (1981-1983) to High School (1984-1988), there was a definite male bias in the players who were gamers. But we were of an age where there would be. We currently don't have any female gamers in our group (the wives with young children have chosen to bow out the last few years since the second children arrived in both households with children), but our group has historically ranged from 40-60% female over the past 15 years. Of course, 15 years ago, we were mid-level grad students, and the grad department in science was 55% female.

The other thing to note is yes, I did know those types of gamers who had hygene issues and gamed from their Mommy's basement. I still know of a few. But gaming as a hobby in our 20's, 30's, and now 40's has become a much more mainstream pursuit, and as we've grown and some of us have social skills, and have met actual women who are actually accomplished and attractive, and have recruited some of them into gaming (and I have), there are women gamers (and men gamers) who, on meeting them in the street, one would classify as normal.

My wife gamed with her elder brother (who introduced her to all things geeky-- Thank you Uncle Doug!) growing up, and even though she was considered attractive, good student, she holds onto some of her geek interests like gaming. She picked gaming up again when she started dating a gamer in grad school-- that would be me! :)

But here. Check out the video she did for work and ask yourself if you met her in person, would you necessarily assume that she's a gamer?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOqcEDzUFSw

-P.

[Xenarthral]

Originally Posted by Pmandrekar

But here. Check out the video she did for work and ask yourself if you met her in person, would you necessarily assume that she's a gamer?

Noo... but I would not necessarily assume she is not a gamer either.

But while we're trying to judge people by their appearances...
The picture linked to below includes:
2 people whose "gamer credentials" I am unsure of (not having gamed with either nor recalling with certainty whether they have talked about gaming within earshot)
3 people who are involved in an anthology of erotic comics
2 people who was partially responsible for a Space 1889-inspired comics-and-sketches fanzine.
There is some overlap.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...eman/FMA02.jpg

Can you tell which is which?

[ladyarcana55]

Originally Posted by Xenarthral

But while we're trying to judge people by their appearances...

I've been hit with that many times. When I was younger I was an art model, so I had to keep in shape and such. I was a gamer then but whenever I went to a convention, no one would let me join their group. No one believed I was a gamer, even when I showed them my character sheet and spoke the jargon with them. Even the guys running the convention knew who i was but I still couldn't join.

I tried joining a 40K game, I even had my own figures, but nope. No one really wanted to play with a girl, I guess...

[Qoltar]

Originally Posted by ladyarcana55

I've been hit with that many times. When I was younger I was an art model, so I had to keep in shape and such. I was a gamer then but whenever I went to a convention, no one would let me join their group. No one believed I was a gamer, even when I showed them my character sheet and spoke the jargon with them. Even the guys running the convention knew who i was but I still couldn't join.

I tried joining a 40K game, I even had my own figures, but nope. No one really wanted to play with a girl, I guess...

Really?

Wow - they were a bunch of narrow minded short-sighted idiots then.

Locally, you would've fit into the local gamer crowd just fine. (Especially the young gamer ladies that hang out at the Pirate Store)

- Ed Charlton

[pyratejohn]

Originally Posted by ladyarcana55

I tried joining a 40K game, I even had my own figures, but nope. No one really wanted to play with a girl, I guess...

It is possible. Who knows for certain. Maybe they were afraid a woman would bring forth the spectre of one-upmanship?

Also, I have noticed the demographic is different for miniatures gamers. I took my wife and kids to one of the larger east coast historical miniatures gaming cons last month, and I'd hazard to guess the male to female ratio was on the order of at least 5-to-1, if not 10-to-1.