Greetings!

Yes, I have had to create entirely different forms of nightlife and other such entertainments for women in my campaigns, as compared to men. The women want romantic picnics with elves and fey creatures; they want shopping malls with all kinds of women's clothing, jewelry, perfumes, cosmetics, and toys for women. Stuff that women think are cute, sweet, fun, or sexy. The women want romantic balls and masquerades to attend, with groups of their girlfriends that they can coordinate matchmaking and hookups with, and enjoy endless giggling about sordid gossip amongst their girlfriends. The women want elaborate dinners and costume parties; they want to have all kinds of dances, and to know how good they are at doing dance "X". They also like upscale dance clubs, and restaurants, filled with lots of handsome men, with lots of exotic food and crazy drinks that they can get hammered with. The women also like going to theaters and artistic performances, where they can hob-knob with actors, musicians, storytellers, and performers, as well as getting hooked up with all the drama and gossip going on.

I can--and have--spent entire game sessions where the women just prance about, day and night, indulging all of this kind of stuff. The women love it, and often seem somewhat reluctant to tear themselves away from it all, to go out into the dirty, harsh wilderness, pursuing adventure. Oftentimes, the women can get into all kinds of "adventure" just by visiting a local bathhouse with some of their girlfriends. Add a rival woman or two, and a few dozen handsome men to oggle at, and the fireworks never stop.

I have a merchant district in one city, with an enormous trade center, it's like seven stories high, capable of holding like 10,000 people at once, or more, shopping. there's exotic goods there from all over the place that are available. The women often view a sight like this with huge smiles and looks of excitement--like they just found a dragon's treasure hoard! LOL.

The men, I have to say, are entirely different. They tend to indulge the above stuff out of deference to what the women want to do. Left on their own, the men want to go to a seedy bar, get drunk, have a look about for thieves or spies, or cultists, and take a trip to the local brothel. Then, they want to hurry the fuck up and get their weapons and head back into the wilderness, pursuing adventure. The men tend to be interested in hanging out in town for about an hour, maybe two--before they get chomping at being back out in the wilderness, or crawling through ruins.

You guys have different kinds of adventures or downtime like this with your groups? How elaborate do you get with various downtime activities and adventures? Doyour groups tend to meet lots of different people and seek forming various relationships? Do they ever seek out making money, or starting businesses?

Or do they also like to hit up nightclubs, go shopping, flirt, and chasing gossip? LOL.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Do you like GMing the girly stuff SHARK? I like a bit of gossip and intrigue, but I'd get bored spending an entire session on 'girl's night out'!

A lot of my female players are relatively male-brained, that's why they like D&D, so they tend to like the same stuff as the male players, though there is certainly a lot of variation. I had a gay male player who was a lot of fun as he liked both the gossip-and-intrigue AND the hacking giant monsters into kibble. In my current Primeval Thule game, for the players who like hanging-out stuff or gossip-and-intrigue stuff, I generally run it either at the end of the session or blue-book it via PM away from the table. Lady Aeridnis Vorzin (female player) likes gossip and intrigue with the female members of her family and the nobility of Quodeth, while Finnris of the Narthan Highlanders (male player) likes hanging around the fighting pits, drinking with manly gladiators and setting up blood matches.

Quote from: S'mon;1079742Do you like GMing the girly stuff SHARK? I like a bit of gossip and intrigue, but I'd get bored spending an entire session on 'girl's night out'!

A lot of my female players are relatively male-brained, that's why they like D&D, so they tend to like the same stuff as the male players, though there is certainly a lot of variation. I had a gay male player who was a lot of fun as he liked both the gossip-and-intrigue AND the hacking giant monsters into kibble. In my current Primeval Thule game, for the players who like hanging-out stuff or gossip-and-intrigue stuff, I generally run it either at the end of the session or blue-book it via PM away from the table. Lady Aeridnis Vorzin (female player) likes gossip and intrigue with the female members of her family and the nobility of Quodeth, while Finnris of the Narthan Highlanders (male player) likes hanging around the fighting pits, drinking with manly gladiators and setting up blood matches.

Greetings!

LOL! Well, like you, I enjoy a decent measure of gossip and intrigue. Like with cooking, such serves as a good "spice" to break up the steady diet of bloodfests. Running extended sessions of girly stuff--to be honest, it's also like spices in cooking. Specifically, much like salt. A little is fine, too much and it can get kind of trapped inside its own kind of socialized hampster wheel. Lots of socialization, lots of shopping, lots of "relationship development"--but not much actually being accomplished professionally, class-wise, or making any significant campaign developments, if that makes any sense. The other guys are a lot like myself--a little of it is fun, and can serve as a break from the constant danger, fighting, and bloodletting--as well as providing a foundation to create more depth in relationships and that kind of thing, though the guys definitely get hungry for action faster. So, having said that, I tend to allow some indulgence for it, because much like the guys look forward to the violence and action, the girls yearn for the "girly stuff." The "girly stuff" seems to satisfy something in the girls, providing them with more drama and relationship stuff, which they typically have a keen interest in. The girls are often far more interested in helping their girlfriend get hooked up with some handsome guy, and navigating a social environment with some female rival, while shopping for new, cute stuff, and developing friendships with interesting people and creatures, as opposed to mowing down more orcs. LOL. I indulge the girls with just enough, then it's time to get back to work. Watching the different dynamics play out between the guys and girls is interesting for certain. Then I get them all back on the same page, and progress. LOL.

I have noticed that the women tend to be more interested in particular motives or reasons for going into the Caves of X, while the men are more content with more generalized motivations--there's evil monsters and treasure there, so let's go crush them and plunder them! The women like to know they are helping "Farmer John" and saving his daughter from being plundered by the nasty, mean orcs. Toss in saving the "Strawberry Grove" and "Bruno, the Happy Unicorn", and the women go for it.

Which that all is kind of amusing, because the women can get very invested and passionate about those kinds of motivations, where, ironically, the men can often have a more casual and pragmatic approach. *That* then can blossom into some entertaining inter-party drama, as the women are less than amused by the men not taking the unicorn's feelings seriously enough, or caring about the Strawberry Grove dying, or you know, lots of that "deeper, emotional, relationship" angle. The men are more focused on slaughtering the villains, and gaining gold and treasure. Conversely, the women are more focused on the relationships and feelings involved, are their friends happy and safe, and less concerned about what kinds of treasure they get along the way.

Which is not to say I think it's bad--it's just a different set of priorities, and how those priorities are *ordered*. The men are more into developing the campaign like Lord of the Rings or a Conan novel, while the women tend to drive it more like a romance/drama novel. Both approaches actually contain all of the same elements, but the way in which they are ordered and prioritized is different, and the focus provided to each particular element is a bit different.

I often laugh at some of the contrasts. Guy player A can tell me his character's wife's name, she's hot, and she likes practicing magic, and she likes rubies.

Woman player B can tell me her lover's name, what preferences he has, a full description, his history, and extensive detail about his family, and the relationship web involved there, as well as a detailed chronicle of meaningful highlights of their own romantic relationship.

Your Lady Aeridnis chick sounds funny! I can just imagine it!

LOL. Crazy, I know.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I was a bit surprised that nobody has come by to lecture you on how men and women really are not different in any way. But then I remembered that this is theRPGsite.

Quote from: Trond;1079897I was a bit surprised that nobody has come by to lecture you on how men and women really are not different in any way. But then I remembered that this is theRPGsite.

Greetings!

Hey there, Trond!:) So true, huh? Yeah, in my experience, there's definitely some overlap in them having fun, and pursuing goals--but the priorities and how they approach things can be very different. Along the way, of course, I've had an occasional woman player that eschewed the "girly stuff" and was very action-focused, as well as being very competitive. Similarly, I've had a guy or two that enjoyed doing all the "girly stuff", intrigue, going to noble balls, and doing a bunch of social stuff. Definitely they were outliers though.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Different in aggregate? Sure. Different individually? Not necessarily. It's not like all men (or all women) like the same things. I know more women than men who like to shop, but of the two people I know in real life who most like shopping one of them is a guy.

In regards to Shark's question…

Quote from: SHARK;1079710The women want…

I've seen female players want some of these things. Some male players too. One of the adventures in my Honor + Intrigue game that the players most liked was where their musketeer-type characters had to run all over Paris picking up special gifts (a special vintage of plum wine, bon bons from one specific shop, and the type of flower that the mistress likes, which was definitely not roses). Drunkenness, duels, house breaking, and seduction ensued during their pursuit.

QuoteI have a merchant district in one city, with an enormous trade center, it's like seven stories high, capable of holding like 10,000 people at once, or more, shopping. there's exotic goods there from all over the place that are available.

While it might sound interesting as a location in a setting, as a GM I'd quickly get tired of having to generate lots of unique, exotic jewelry and knick knacks.

QuoteLeft on their own, the men want to … take a trip to the local brothel.

I haven't really seen this in game.

QuoteYou guys have different kinds of adventures or downtime like this with your groups? How elaborate do you get with various downtime activities and adventures? Doyour groups tend to meet lots of different people and seek forming various relationships? Do they ever seek out making money, or starting businesses?

It all depends on what the players at the table are interested in. Some players like many of the things you have mentioned. Some like only a few.

It also depends on the setting. For example, if the characters are members of the Rebel Alliance in Star Wars (my current campaign), than leaving the Rebellion to set up a business doesn't fit what the game is supposed to be about. But if they are running smugglers or other fringe characters, if they want to set up a business that's OK. Of course they'll likely have to borrow money from a Hutt or a loan shark who is hooked up with Crimson Dawn or Black Sun. So at some point, some sort of trouble is highly likely to ensue .

Hmm... what if you give the female players a compelling reason to go adventuring?  Present sympathetic person/creature unfairly set upon by cruel forces, and then set them loose.  

Jordon Peterson has remarked that the female nervous system seems to be wired not for their own sake, but for the sake of their "offspring" - which makes sense as human babies are basically helpless.  If this is true, speaking really REALLY broadly, men are "self-driven" and women are "other-driven" - which is not to say they aren't self-motivated, they just need a focal point outside themselves.  Develop an emotional connection to someone else and then put that someone else in jeopardy.

It's funny, but I thought this thread would be about men and women IRL pursuing different hobbies and self-segregating by gender. In my experience this is a real thing, especially once you get married and have kids. My Sat night D&D group is definitely a guys night out thing. Just as my wife's dinner club is a girls night out. We'd definitely be breaking a social contract if she joined my D&D group, or I showed up to one of her dinners. Normal adults find this perfectly, well, normal. It's only dogmatic progressives - presumably single and/or childless - who find this sort of gendered sorting surprising or offensive.

I've been enjoying the Glass Cannon Podcast lately, and it has come under fire from the usual suspects for the group being made up of five white dudes. As if it's really so shocking or problematic that a group of good friends are the same age, gender, and background, or that one of the qualities common to a lot of RPG tables is that the players are friends.

But in terms of game content, I've noticed a difference in the kinds of content the players in my mixed campaign want vs the players in my all-guy campaign. Women who play seem to be more interested in romancing, partnering up, etc. Guys I've played with have zero interest in that stuff.

This is reflected in the way the big RPG companies write their adventures in recent years. Paizo, in particular, includes all sorts of background for NPCs about former flames, current romantic interests, couples, in-laws, step-parents, jealousy, rejection, etc. I've always been baffled by this stuff, until I ran a mixed campaign and saw that some women were actually into those elements of the setting.

Of course not every woman who plays is interested in romantic roleplay. As with all of this stuff, it's a tendency that will be noticeable at the population level.

Quote from: SHARK;1079710You guys have different kinds of adventures or downtime like this with your groups? How elaborate do you get with various downtime activities and adventures? Do your groups tend to meet lots of different people and seek forming various relationships? Do they ever seek out making money, or starting businesses?

Or do they also like to hit up nightclubs, go shopping, flirt, and chasing gossip? LOL.

My dragon apocalypse game somewhat mixed this. There was an apocalypse where the surface world was devastated by a plague of dragons, so there weren't any stores or nightclubs to hit up. However, there were a bunch of NPCs who travelled with the PCs - and so the downtime was scenes with the other survivors, and figuring out how to live. There were a pair of barmaids who were eyed by the players - and they enjoyed the idea of having them around, but none of the players were into having romantic subplots. (They were all guys, for what it's worth.)

Other player groups have been very into romantic subplots, though. Some is preference, and having the the gender of the opposing GM or player match preferred gender helps. My friend Janyce had a number of long-running Call of Cthulhu campaigns with mostly male players, who were often into romantic subplots.

I do know a number of players get into resource management which can be downtime activities - like Ars Magica research projects or Traveller merchant trading. This blends into some character creation and advancement, like building headquarters in Champions. In the book Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering, the author describes many RPGs as being essentially "fantasy shopping for guys".

I think this blends a bit into S'mon's thread "Need for a Home Base". I think a lot of games benefit from having at least a token home base where there is progressive development of some sort - projects, resources, relationships, or other.

My next Sunday game currently has rsvp'd 4 gals and 1 guy - will see if they play any different than 4 guys and 1 gal!
Personally I like the romance and relationship stuff in game with anyone who's into it. I pretty much never* get the chance as a player, as GM as long as the player is comfy I am too. I did recently have a male player courting an npc (Goliath barbarian courting goliath princess) get a bit embarrassed so we quickly ended the scene with "You make out... fade to black."

*Except my tanuki paladin, who even recovered from a calimitous sex change to live happily ever after with his fellow racoon-dog true love. The female GM is one who likes romance plots and even gave me a tanuki statuette at the end of the game!

Quote from: Bren;1079903Different in aggregate? Sure. Different individually? Not necessarily. It's not like all men (or all women) like the same things. I know more women than men who like to shop, but of the two people I know in real life who most like shopping one of them is a guy.

In regards to Shark's question...
I've seen female players want some of these things. Some male players too. One of the adventures in my Honor + Intrigue game that the players most liked was where their musketeer-type characters had to run all over Paris picking up special gifts (a special vintage of plum wine, bon bons from one specific shop, and the type of flower that the mistress likes, which was definitely not roses). Drunkenness, duels, house breaking, and seduction ensued during their pursuit.

While it might sound interesting as a location in a setting, as a GM I'd quickly get tired of having to generate lots of unique, exotic jewelry and knick knacks.

Greetings!

Hey there, Bren! Man, the whole urban Musketeers thing sounds awesome! I can definitely get into urban based adventures. I watched this series, "Musketeers" I think it was called, by the BBC. It was a fantastic series. Very well acted, and very well done all the way around. I do mix in various urban adventures when possible. The whole shopping fest, yeah. LOL. Coming up with ever-new and exotic clothes, shoes, different perfumes, cosmetics, fine jewelry, and the wierd and cute knick knacks. Yeah, I have to mix in some blood and assasination and evil plots now and then to keep that stuff entertaining for *me* damn it! LOL. The girls sometimes roll their eyes at it, while at other times, they chomp on it with great enthusiasm!:)

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Brendan;1079980Hmm... what if you give the female players a compelling reason to go adventuring?  Present sympathetic person/creature unfairly set upon by cruel forces, and then set them loose.  

Jordon Peterson has remarked that the female nervous system seems to be wired not for their own sake, but for the sake of their "offspring" - which makes sense as human babies are basically helpless.  If this is true, speaking really REALLY broadly, men are "self-driven" and women are "other-driven" - which is not to say they aren't self-motivated, they just need a focal point outside themselves.  Develop an emotional connection to someone else and then put that someone else in jeopardy.

Greetings!

Excellent observations, Brendan. Indeed, I would say that is generally true with women players. They are far more motivated by some kind of emotional connection to an NPC. That isn't to say that men aren't also motivated by such--but merely to highlight the tendency towards men being far more comfortable pursuing adventures of a general nature, loosely tied to profit, loot, triumph, whatever--without leaning too much on some kind of emotional connection to an individual or group of NPC's. I've found that women really get motivated by that emotional connection. It usually means that I have to design adventures which embrace several different themes or access points, to fully engage both men and women players. I've done some more simplistic adventures, and the men are like, "Woot! Cool, brother! Let's crush them!"--whereas the women are often responding with, "Why are we going out to kill these creatures? Why do we want to take their treasure? Can we be friends with them? Can't they hunt and eat in the forest? Why must these humans have it all?"

More than once, there has been some inter-party conflict between the women players and the men players. The women often want to find ways to heal creatures, make friends with them, or intervene somehow and negotiate peaceful relationships, and listen to the different creature's and their grievances and problems, either with other creatures, or with the humans. The men are often more like, "Fuck 'em. The Lord says they are evil, they have been opposing civilization--and we get gold, too. Crush them all!" The men often accuse the women of being too emotional, too trusting, too peace-loving, and too willing to disregard the progress and wealth of the human community, in favour of being sweet and nice to the monsters or humanoid creatures. The women often get wrapped up in wanting to help the talking deer, or the band of rainbow sprites, and could give a damn about the uber wood the humans want, or the wealthy mines that the humans want to dig into. The men are like, hey, we need to crush these creatures, and secure these resources for the human community. If we don't do this, the evil orcs on the other side of the hills will get it all, and the humans will be fucked then, down the road. The women snort at the men, and say, "What about the talking deer? What about the ancient rainbow sprites that have been there forever? We need to be friends with them, and help them protect their homes and their families!" LOL. Yeah, I have been amused as they argue back and forth through all of this stuff. You'd be surprised at how passionate they can often get! LOL.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Haffrung;1079983But in terms of game content, I've noticed a difference in the kinds of content the players in my mixed campaign want vs the players in my all-guy campaign. Women who play seem to be more interested in romancing, partnering up, etc. Guys I've played with have zero interest in that stuff.

This is reflected in the way the big RPG companies write their adventures in recent years. Paizo, in particular, includes all sorts of background for NPCs about former flames, current romantic interests, couples, in-laws, step-parents, jealousy, rejection, etc. I've always been baffled by this stuff, until I ran a mixed campaign and saw that some women were actually into those elements of the setting.

Greetings!

Hello Haffrung! Yep, Totally, my friend! The party in one of my campaigns recently met an Elven Sorceress. The men were interested in what magic items does she have? What kind of skills does she have? What are her spells? What kinds of knowledge does she have about the region, and different creatures in the area?

The women? Does she have a lover right now? Who was her past lovers? How is her relationship with her parents? What kind of relationships does she have with her siblings? What is her relationship like with local sorceresses, or any sorcerer organizations? Can she get us hooked up with parties with the local elves and faeries? Would she love to go with us to the exotic bathhouse in the city, and go shopping for goodies with us? We can have so much fun getting new clothes and dressing up to go to the Peppermint Rhino together! Woot! Woot!"

The women players interest in the female elf is entirely different from what the men are concerned with. The women, largely, could care less about her magic items, skills, or what spells she knows. That all is *way down* the list of priorities for them. They have even told me, "Yeah, yeah, that's all good. What we *really* want to find out about her is A, B, and well, C, too. *giggles*"

The guys just roll their eyes at me, and shake their heads as they laugh. The women are quite ernest though, and serious. They look to me, like, well, DM! We talk to her around the campfire. What do we find out? A woman *knows* this kind of stuff, SHARK! We want to know all the good stuff!" LOL!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: jhkim;1079984My dragon apocalypse game somewhat mixed this. There was an apocalypse where the surface world was devastated by a plague of dragons, so there weren't any stores or nightclubs to hit up. However, there were a bunch of NPCs who travelled with the PCs - and so the downtime was scenes with the other survivors, and figuring out how to live. There were a pair of barmaids who were eyed by the players - and they enjoyed the idea of having them around, but none of the players were into having romantic subplots. (They were all guys, for what it's worth.)

Other player groups have been very into romantic subplots, though. Some is preference, and having the the gender of the opposing GM or player match preferred gender helps. My friend Janyce had a number of long-running Call of Cthulhu campaigns with mostly male players, who were often into romantic subplots.

I do know a number of players get into resource management which can be downtime activities - like Ars Magica research projects or Traveller merchant trading. This blends into some character creation and advancement, like building headquarters in Champions. In the book Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering, the author describes many RPGs as being essentially "fantasy shopping for guys".

I think this blends a bit into S'mon's thread "Need for a Home Base". I think a lot of games benefit from having at least a token home base where there is progressive development of some sort - projects, resources, relationships, or other.

Greetings!

Ars Magica has some very good resources, Jhkim! I have a bunch of books for Ars Magica. Plague of Dragons sweeping the world? Sweet!:)

I imagine being a man with four women certainly helps the whole romance thing, too. The guys have a limited, but also an important interest in it as well, but how they go about it, and the priorities are different from the women. The women are usually very keen on specific details that the men are entirely oblivious to. Unless such and such actually presents itself somehow to the men, they are usually focused on other things about the relationship in general.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: S'mon;1079996My next Sunday game currently has rsvp'd 4 gals and 1 guy - will see if they play any different than 4 guys and 1 gal!
Personally I like the romance and relationship stuff in game with anyone who's into it. I pretty much never* get the chance as a player, as GM as long as the player is comfy I am too. I did recently have a male player courting an npc (Goliath barbarian courting goliath princess) get a bit embarrassed so we quickly ended the scene with "You make out... fade to black."

*Except my tanuki paladin, who even recovered from a calimitous sex change to live happily ever after with his fellow racoon-dog true love. The female GM is one who likes romance plots and even gave me a tanuki statuette at the end of the game!

Greetings!

LOL! Great stuff, my friend! I suspect it may be very different from nearly all guys. The atmosphere may also change over time also with the women. Women often want to get to know you better, and become more comfortable and intimate in the campaign, before they become more comfortable being more honest and open with their characters, and playing them in a dynamic manner. Also, the DM has to kind of be open to including all that romance and relationship stuff for the women, for them to feel comfortble in going for it, and seeking to develop those kinds of goals, plots and relationships.

I like the romance and relationship stuff as well. The women, honestly, are far superior as a group, in developing deep, meaningful relationships with different characters, and roleplaying their own characters in dynamic and complex ways. The men can eventually get there, too, but they seem to need more time to develop a awareness and comfort with it. The women, though, once they know they have a green light for it, they leap into it like hungry sharks!

I have found that the game session can't really be timed, or in the sense *hurried*. The women typically want some time to talk and interact with various NPC's, and not feel pressured like they have to hurry up so everyone else can "get on to the good stuff." For women, at least a good percentage of the time, having their characters attend a masquerade ball, socializing, dancing, flirting, romancing some stud, learning about who their girlfriend has their eye on, what noble guy or chick is jealous of them, or opposes thm for some reason--and other things like shopping, and dressing up in "X" and so on--all of THAT is the "good stuff!" Blend in knowledge of petty slights, old grudges and newly-developing rivalries and hatreds, as well as spicing it with genuine plots and wicked schemes of various kinds--yeah, it can be a lot of fun, and also develops your campaign, and the characters in it, to a deeper level.

There's sometimes I think aspects of my own campaign--with the women players especially--really does embrace romance novel and soap-opera elements. Fun stuff, my friend!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK