Quote from: BedrockBrendan;923744You are reading way too much into my post. It had nothing to do with looking through the credits and tallying the number of women. I always read the credits because the best way to find good books was to find the names of people who wrote stuff you like, then look for more of their stuff. Some of the big names when Ravenloft was out were, we female. My point was, at the time, since it was mostly guys I was gaming with, seeing women's names on the cover made it seem like it was a hobby that probably appealed to plenty of women as well. When I first got into the hobby, it seriously didn't occur to many of us that women played because most of the groups we saw were all guys (that changed about midway through highshool).

That idea is a common rationale though.    

It would have never occurred to me to think that the hobby only appealed to guys just because the handful of people I knew were all guys.  Seeing a female name on a game book was no surprise to me and made no particular impression.  It's not like the fantasy genre didn't have lots of female authors.  Seeing a woman's name on a fantasy book as the author was no great surprise or new thing.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;923637I'd be curious on some real numbers here simply because I am a slowly turning into a dinosaur myself and am probably a bit out of touch with what is going on in the gaming community. From my vantage point, I feel like the 90s was a highpoint in terms of the number of female gamers and the number of female creators. Locally, it seems to me that there are fewer female gamers (but my perspective is pretty limited).

I actually remember there being a ton of women designing for lines like Ravenloft in the early 90s (Andria Heyday, Lisa Smedman, Teeuwynn Woodruff, Anne Brown, etc). Lisa Smedman wrote a bunch of stuff as I recall. I haven't counted the numbers but I think something approaching half the books were written by women (maybe more if you include the novels).

   Probably closer to a third, but still a higher proportion than the typical TSR line. The novel line was almost 50-50, IIRC, and it launched Christie Golden's career--she's gone on to a lot of high-profile shared-world stuff. The line was also run by female editors for most of the latter half of its run--Cindi Rice took over from after the Grim Harvest to the end of the TSR line, and after a couple of books under "Kelly Jester", the WW line was helmed (nominally) by Nicky Rea & Jackie Cassada.

QuoteWhether that caused more women to join the hobby, no idea. I think for me, as a guy in high school it probably made me feel like women were more a part of the hobby than if the names on the books were all men, but not sure). I would agree though, people not being jerks to new players are the best way to make sure any group feels welcome (and over the years, this is something I've definitely seen gamers do to lots of people).

  TSR's 1994 catalog claimed that Ravenloft did have a higher number of female fans than the typical AD&D setting.

But will guys still guy this game, even if they already own previous editions of it? And is there a demographic of women out there that have been waiting for an all-girl-produced RPG to be made, that even know or care about crap game mechanics, and are too cheap to just buy TSR games?

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;923763But will guys still guy this game, even if they already own previous editions of it? And is there a demographic of women out there that have been waiting for an all-girl-produced RPG to be made, that even know or care about crap game mechanics, and are too cheap to just buy TSR games?

Kickstarter says "yes. apparently"

A quick spin through the "who backed this project" gallery revealed one woman out of the first 30+ backers.

Quote from: daniel_ream;923769A quick spin through the "who backed this project" gallery revealed one woman out of the first 30+ backers.

But how mainstream  and young are those 29 dudes?

Quote from: daniel_ream;923769A quick spin through the "who backed this project" gallery revealed one woman out of the first 30+ backers.

Again, most of this 'inclusiveness of women' shit isn't really women screaming about it.  It's some pathetic neckbeard desperately trying to get laid.  

About as honest and respectable as a windowless van with 'free candy' parked near a playground (I keep saying this, because it's true).

Absolutely nothing has stopped women from creating- except, of course, people saying that women have been stopped from creating.

Quote from: Ddogwood;923325I pledged on it because the OSR needs more women creators.

The fact that it pisses you off is just icing on the cake.

You threw your actual money into something because you honestly think gender has any relevance whatsoever on a product's quality, and because you believe people 'hate' women creators?

Well, it's your money.  But I can honestly say that I don't make enough of it just to 'support' a creator, especially not because of what they've got between their legs.  I'm buying products, not donating to a cause.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;923770But how mainstream  and young are those 29 dudes?

We all know this was never about the "younger and more mainstream" audience.

Stacy managed to successfully con FGG into giving her and her friends a decent paying job to produce sub-par work.  Nice gig if you can get it.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;923770But how mainstream  and young are those 29 dudes?

What? That vs. how many are SJW dudes who just pledged in order to wave their flag?
How many are S&W faithful who don't need a new book but supported it to support the game, much as some of us did with the GURPS kickstarter despite not having much interest in Dungeon Fantasy?

Will FGG ever know? Will it ever matter?

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;923755I don't know, sound like a fun experiment that will never happen: I think a lot of people would be subtly influenced into running the exact same generic fantasy system differently if it had the following covers

Especially true if one of the rules was that when your character verbally communicates - they can only sing!

Quote from: Lynn;923748Exactly. I have seen S&W many times before, but it hasn't caught my attention like LotFP or DCC RPG for example, both of which have put particularly strong stamps on the same basic system. But my group actually had a fairly long discussion about S&W primarily because of the cover. That counts for something.

I don't like the cover, but I don't think the cover of any game has ever made a difference in how it plays.

I've always found S&W rather bland compared to Dan Proctor's Labyrinth Lord, which I've played and GM'd a lot, or BFRPG which I use for the tons of great adventures. I like how LL is both a pretty strict clone, but also the property of a singular vision. My actual current old school campaign though uses Mentzer BECM (& the RC for reference).

Quote from: daniel_ream;923624When people talk about "not enough X do Y", my reaction is always "define 'enough'".  At what point is this problem "solved"?

Here's the problem I've been noticing of late, it never is enough or solved.  Simply because, the moment it is, then whatever group is pushing for 'enough' will have to move on, find something else, and most people don't want to do that.  Because that would require them to change.  And change, is evil.

Quote from: Crüesader;923772Absolutely nothing has stopped women from creating- except, of course, people saying that women have been stopped from creating.

Right. Its kinda pathetic listening to all the claims that theres no women in gaming or design or art or whatever and then you glance around and see... drumroll please... lots of.

Back in the mid 90s Susan Van Camp did this and did it better. Dragon Storm attracted a huge number of female players. All without even once crowing about how it was designed by a woman and how many women artists worked on it. The RPG stood on its own merits. And it hung in there for nearly 20 years and would probably still be around if Mark hadnt passed away. And Susan did it with this simple starter.

Well, here's my thoughts on the subject.

Quote from: Baulderstone;923587It seems a real stretch to see this as extortion. Who is being extorted?

It wasn't extortion at all. First, it was Frog God's idea. If anything, it's a cynical attempt at one last gasp at making money off a rule-set that is largely irrelevant as it no longer fits a need in the OSR today.

Second, the people involved aren't some kind of outsiders; at least, the women I recognize from the project are bona fide gamers.