Quote from: GrimGentMasquerade and the rest of the WW fare remains popular, yes, and the same is true of generic high fantasy; but all in all the full range of LARP is just about as diverse as the genres of tabletop play, and it doesn't necessarily involve elaborate costumes or special props. For instance, one advantage of mafia-style live-action games is that they can take place out on the streets without alerting public attention.

But the point still stands that there are considerably more females that are appealed by Vampire/WW LARPing than mafia game LARPing (or other types of LARPing).

My point is solely is that there are things that women tend to prefer, and the statistics suggest that. Whether or not women would prefer storygames if aware of them, I don't know, but IMHO I do see enough evidence in our hobby to suggest that women are pulled by certain things more then others...
The storygame vs trad game distinction is a hypothesis on my part, but I think the distinction is clear when comparing White Wolf games, LARPing, MMORPGS vs. everything else.

Quote from: LancerBut the point still stands that there are considerably more females that are appealed by Vampire/WW LARPing than mafia game LARPing.

Let's put it this way... There are currently 45 games scheduled on the calendar of the Finnish LARP association SuoLi, and they cover everything from Regency melodrama to space opera. 28 of those are being organized and gamemastered by women.

Quote from: LancerIf this is accurate,  I wonder if the low representation of women in storygames (at least in cons) is just a direct result of the relatively low percentage of women gamers in general. Storygames are a niche themselves within a niche hobby, and I wonder how much of it is actually due to simple ignorance. Storygames, after all, are designed dominantly by relatively obscure indie developers.

As I mentioned, both story games and D&D seem to have lower participation of women than RPGs in general -- at least from my observations.  So I don't think either are derived from the lower average.  I don't have any solid numbers for participation outside of conventions, but my impression from online forums is roughly consistent with what I saw there.

I think theme certainly has some influence, but I suspect system does to.  Both Amber and the Scandanavian larps are very light on mechanics, whereas many story games tend to be more rigid in their mechanics compared, say, to White Wolf games that assume more subjective GM decisions.  

Quote from: Kyle AaronNow think of the guys you knew in your high school or uni game group. Not exactly super-hot.

So, a young woman comes to university, is looking for an interesting hobby to join, looks at the athletics club, the roleplaying club, church group, whatever - the gamer blokes at the ages of 17-21 are about the least appealing, being in poor physical shape, dressing sloppily, staring in lust at every female who drops in, etc.

Because they don't join in at that age, just like males who don't join in at that age, they tend not to join in later.

It's a vicious circle.

Well, it's not like the typical gamer girl is super-hot either.  So if there already is a predominance of boys, then this effect might serve to maintain or exacerbate the situation.  Still, there are other factors causing the initial imbalance, or else it would be just as common for a guy to try to join the group of geeky girls playing.

Quote from: LancerAnd that's what I want to find out. For those who have GMed/played both trad games and storygames, and have made an honest attempt at attracting females for both modes of play, do females tend to prefer one over the other?

Those women that I've known that gamed at all before I met them preferred neither. LARPs and MMOs is where the girls are at.

All this "women are all about artistic expression" is kinda bull IME. Girls want to beat the crap out of a bunch of folks with foam swords, or kill yetis for their pelts, or whatever. But my experience is kind of limited to girls from ages 16 to 20, so... yeah.

EDIT: I'll add that the one girl I know who is into tabletop gaming outside of DnD doesn't do the storygames thing. But then... if we're only going on my experience, story games don't actually exist outside of the internet.

Quote from: GrimGentLet's put it this way... There are currently 45 games scheduled on the calendar of the Finnish LARP association SuoLi, and they cover everything from Regency melodrama to space opera. 28 of those are being organized and gamemastered by women.

One caveat is that one needs to be wary about extrapolating demographics from a very specialized environment filled with hyper-gamers(i.e  conventions, ) and applying it to the hobby at large. Most often these aren't very reflective of the gaming community.
Most gamers, I gather, don't attend (much less gamemaster) conventions. I certainly have yet to go to one myself despite my 15 years in this hobby..

Not to mention I don't know how some of these events were arranged. For instance, the convention hosts may have specifically been targeting female GMs for that event thereby skewing the demographics strongly toward females...28 out of 45 GMs that are female is unbelievably high, even for LARPS! Certainly, in my games, I don't have over 50% females in them (much less GMing) which is what your Finnish LARP demographics seem to suggest.


All this is why I am more interested in finding out what your own personal gaming experiences have been like with female gamers, as opposed to deriving statistics from cons that aren't necessarily representative.

Quote from: LancerOne caveat is that one needs to be wary about extrapolating demographics from a very specialized environment filled with hyper-gamers(i.e  conventions, ) and applying it to the hobby at large.

I specifically excluded the likes of conventions, courses and camps. Those 45 games are all individual events, although sometimes part of long-running campaigns.

(Still, this is what Kenneth Hite wrote about his trip to a Finnish con back in '06.)

Quote from: jhkimI think theme certainly has some influence, but I suspect system does to.  Both Amber and the Scandanavian larps are very light on mechanics, whereas many story games tend to be more rigid in their mechanics compared, say, to White Wolf games that assume more subjective GM decisions.  

Hmm.. Do you suppose if WW games were more rules-heavy, less women would play them?

QuoteWell, it's not like the typical gamer girl is super-hot either.  .

Hehe... Agreed..Although they are rare, I have actually known a "couple" that are hot, literally. Like drop-dead hot. Thing is that she is geeky too! Imagine that a hot geeky girl!

Quote from: beejazzThose women that I've known that gamed at all before I met them preferred neither. LARPs and MMOs is where the girls are at.

Yeah, this is what I had been noticing.. I am still hoping against hope that a similar trend can be seen in tabletop rpgs aside from just girls like White Wolf games.

QuoteAll this "women are all about artistic expression" is kinda bull IME. Girls want to beat the crap out of a bunch of folks with foam swords, or kill yetis for their pelts, or whatever. But my experience is kind of limited to girls from ages 16 to 20, so... yeah.

Well, it doesn't seem they change much as they get older.. I know quite a few women in their late 20s and early 30s that don't know sh!t about RPGs yet can kick my butt in WoW... Go figure, they are already working on getting yet another character to level 70 (or soon 80).

QuoteEDIT: I'll add that the one girl I know who is into tabletop gaming outside of DnD doesn't do the storygames thing. But then... if we're only going on my experience, story games don't actually exist outside of the internet.

I wasn't even aware of the storygame phenomenon myself until last year when I started joining these RPG forums.

Quote from: LancerI wasn't even aware of the storygame phenomenon myself until last year when I started joining these RPG forums.

...Whereas over here the local library has copies of My Life With Master, Dust Devils, The Shadow of Yesterday and The Mountain Witch, and they seem popular enough.

(Hmm. Primetime Adventures, too, apparently. Hadn't noticed that before.)

Quote from: LancerAll this is why I am more interested in finding out what your own personal gaming experiences have been like with female gamers, as opposed to deriving statistics from cons that aren't necessarily representative.

One caveat is that one needs to be wary about extrapolating demographics from a very specialized environment filled with hyper-gamers(i.e  conventions, ) and applying it to the hobby at large. Most often these aren't very reflective of the gaming community.

Well, I'm glad to share.  However, I don't think anecdotes from people on an online forum like this are going to be any more representative than conventions.  (theRPGsite has almost no women, for one.)  I'm have two main gaming groups (bi-weekly) at the moment, and two less frequent.  The one that I'm GMing currently, which I and my wife and my friend Bill formed, has 5 women and 2 men.  The others are gaming groups that I joined already created.  The bi-weekly Harn game has 5 men, the monthly Call of Cthulhu game has 1 woman (the GM) and 4-5 men, and the irregular GURPS group has 4 men.  

Well, I don't think that conventions are completely representative.  For example, the 1998 WotC survey -- which is the closest thing to real demographic data on gamers since it was based on a random sample of average people -- found 19% women gamers, whereas major conventions have more like 10-15%.  Still, if fewer women attend story game gatherings than attend other conventions, I think it does suggest something.

More fuzzy, anecdotal evidence:

Every female I've ever played with has been an inveterate hack 'n slasher. Whether it be games of political intrigue, social mobility or subtle investigation they all loved tearing the heads off of npc's.

The last girl I gamed with was solely interested in getting into the dungeon and slaughtering whatever crossed her path. It was kind of cool to watch, especially when a couple of the blokes in the group were trying to earn points with her by showing their sensitive sides. She wasn't having any of it, and her attitude helped my Wilderlands game become exactly the kind of Conanesque mayhem I'd originally envisaged.

It's mostly a culture thing. My girlfriend and many of the other girls I know were raised to do girly things. They were also raised to not do boy things. Many girls I know were not allowed to do sports in school.

D&D is a "boy game", perhaps Vampire skirted that by not being called D&D.

It's a culture thing...it's changing but it hasn't changed yet. Things are tending to become more gender nuetral.

Quote from: jhkimWell, I'm glad to share.  However, I don't think anecdotes from people on an online forum like this are going to be any more representative than conventions.  (theRPGsite has almost no women, for one.)  I'm have two main gaming groups (bi-weekly) at the moment, and two less frequent.  The one that I'm GMing currently, which I and my wife and my friend Bill formed, has 5 women and 2 men.  The others are gaming groups that I joined already created.  The bi-weekly Harn game has 5 men, the monthly Call of Cthulhu game has 1 woman (the GM) and 4-5 men, and the irregular GURPS group has 4 men.  

Well, I don't think that conventions are completely representative.  For example, the 1998 WotC survey -- which is the closest thing to real demographic data on gamers since it was based on a random sample of average people -- found 19% women gamers, whereas major conventions have more like 10-15%.  Still, if fewer women attend story game gatherings than attend other conventions, I think it does suggest something.

Thanks for sharing your groups' demographics..
Do the women you game with show any tendencies in preferring a style of gameplay over another?

What I find interesting is that your "Gender Disparity in RPGs" article suggests that rule systems (whether they are light or heavy) really don't matter when trying to attract females to the hobby, but now you say that the system does matter. I guess system does matter but not that much?

Quote from: LancerThanks for sharing your groups' demographics..
Do the women you game with show any tendencies in preferring a style of gameplay over another?

It's hard to talk about tendencies in a group this small.  The women in my group tend to be a little more action-oriented than me and Bill, tending to call for more combat.  (Though all of us are pretty far from hack-and-slash.) However, I guess Heather is the only one really interested in mechanics much.  

Quote from: LancerWhat I find interesting is that your "Gender Disparities in RPGs" article suggests that rule systems (whether they are light or heavy) really don't matter when trying to attract females to the hobby, but now you say that the system does matter. I guess system does matter but not that much?

Yes, I think that would be fair to say.  There is a bit of distinction here.  By my way of judging things, Vampire is no more "rules light" than most story games.  However, it has a greater degree of subjective judgement in the rules than a game like, say, My Life With Master.  

So I still see no evidence that women prefer more "rules light" games, as I say in my essay.  However, that doesn't rule out some more subtle differences in system that women might on average prefer.

@jhkim and Drew,

I can somewhat relate to Drew's experiences that quite a few women do LIKE the violence and mayhem that comes with hack n' slash games...

My few experiences with women in MMORPGs seem to support this. Susan, who is normally a creative writer type, gets a blast from mindlessly hacking away enemies in WoW. Though, I suspect that in her case , the hack n' slash is fun as long as she is doing it cooperatively with her team of WoW buddies. She wouldn't play otherwise if solo. Her friends seem to hold a similar philosophy. At least in MMORPGs, girls really dig cooperative play towards a common goal. You would think this would also translate to tabletop more than it has, but I digress...

I had run some virtual tabletop (OpenRPG) adventures with my non-gamer girlfriend and she did seem to enjoy them a lot-- enough so that a lot of angry friends/family members were trying to contact her while she was obliviously lost in our game.. lol. These adventures, however, were more stealth and diplomacy-oriented, with minimal hack n' slash. I have not run a hack n' slash focused game with a female in a long time.. Maybe I should try it on her one of these days to see how she likes it.

Anyhow, jhkim's article suggests that women don't like violence much or
only in fair amounts... However, at least in MMORPGs, it looks like some women do like violence as much as males do, as long as it is done as a "team." Drew's anecdotal evidence suggest that some women like violence in tabletop games as well. So maybe women like violence more than we had originally thought?


BTW jhkim, I had read your article (Gender Disparity in RPGs) a couple of years back as well.. I have always thought it was an interesting read. I believe it is the most comprehensive study I have seen on this topic...
Kudos to you, sir.