Quote from: noisms;514542Sad as it may seem to say it, but I do think that a license like Twilight or Harry Potter could really work wonders; and without such a thing, it's difficult to think of something that would have the reach to make it something that 10 year old girls would even know about.

You make a good point. There is a lack of RPGs out there at the moment which at least seem to take into account a modern, young female audience. This is especially weird as that IME audience takes to RPGing like a duck to water, possibly more than the equivalent male audience.

I agree that the modern, young female audience will enjoy many of the RPGs that are on offer but they are first presented with a somewhat unfriendly front for the hobby. Most of this can be overcome once the person has entered the hobby by a considerate GM and gaming group, but it does present a hurdle especially if they go out to explore things on the net themselves. Of those RPGs that do cater to that audience, many seem to receive an outright hostile reception such as Blue Rose and Witchgirl Adventures. And that's even before we get to related activities that seem to have a higher proportion of female players (LARPs and a number of story games I can think of).

This is only anecdotal but I run games at a local high school. There are a few girls from the ages of 12 to 15 that play. They generally preferred character based games over questing ones IME. Games with less mechanical character structure tended to fare better, especially if they placed the PC in an evocative situation and environment from the get go.

The games I found that did exceptionally well for them were those:

- Blue Rose - the advantage here is that it can handle both character based and questing styles of play easily
- Exalted - its fantasy with modern tropes and a focus on character and drama
- The One Ring - Tolkien seems to transcend gender, possibly as its so ubiquitous and well regarded, and the rule system and its focus and presentation worked very well

World of Darkness wasn't of much interest to them, and think this is due to its differences to the genre as it has been popularised. Warhammer-verse or D&D related RPGs suffered poorly for their rigid designs and zero to hero story arcs.

I also have two young daughters and on my list of games to run for them is Lone Wolf Multiplayer Game, Faery Tale and Blue Rose.

Quote from: Skywalker;514551The games I found that did exceptionally well for them were those:

- Blue Rose - the advantage here is that it can handle both character based and questing styles of play easily
- Exalted - its fantasy with modern tropes and a focus on character and drama
- The One Ring - Tolkien seems to transcend gender, possibly as its so ubiquitous and well regarded, and the rule system and its focus and presentation worked very well

World of Darkness wasn't of much interest to them, and think this is due to its differences to the genre as it has been popularised. Warhammer-verse or D&D related RPGs suffered poorly for their rigid designs and zero to hero story arcs.

It makes perfect sense that those 3 things would be the most popular for that type of group. I hate Blue Rose and Exalted, for what it's worth, but if they work for a certain type of audience and expand the hobby, great.

The One Ring, I haven't played. But I'm reminded of hearing an anecdote about a group of girl geeks at a Tolkien fan meeting who had learned Elvish to the point that they could write poetry in it. Tolkien really does transcend gender, in a way in which I think Harry Potter probably would too if only JK Rowling wasn't so possessive of the IP.

4th edition D&D does seem popular with the female players at my Meetup, FWIW.  In particular the Ravenloft 1st level one-shots have been very popular with new female players and DMs, the tables have been around 50% female. This is so even though the 4e combats are clearly much too long.

Quote from: S'mon;5147304th edition D&D does seem popular with the female players at my Meetup, FWIW.  In particular the Ravenloft 1st level one-shots have been very popular with new female players and DMs, the tables have been around 50% female. This is so even though the 4e combats are clearly much too long.

4e does seem to do pretty well in attracting female players in my experiences too.

I think it would be wrong to assume that mechanically involved RPGs or those with combat or tactical elements are unattractive to female players. I think other factors are at works.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;514211So who's publishing the Void then? noone?

One of the Wildfire writers said on their forums that we can expect to see the Void soon on DTRPG in PDF and POD. This was followed by an edit, where he said 'Very Soon'.

Quote from: Skywalker;5147314e does seem to do pretty well in attracting female players in my experiences too.

I think it would be wrong to assume that mechanically involved RPGs or those with combat or tactical elements are unattractive to female players. I think other factors are at works.

I think the 4e art style has mostly been effective, also I think female players tend to like 4e's relatively durable 'Big Damn Heroes' PCs, not many female players like "Fantasy Fucking Vietnam".   The mood & feel of 4e as presented seems fairly effective in general, although there's too much emphasis on fight-fight-fight.

GMing 4e has the advantage that fights take so long, you don't have to create that much content per session.  OTOH pre-3e D&D makes content creation at table easy via random generation.

Quote from: noisms;514699It makes perfect sense that those 3 things would be the most popular for that type of group. I hate Blue Rose and Exalted, for what it's worth, but if they work for a certain type of audience and expand the hobby, great.

I've never understood the hatred of Blue Rose. It was designed to emulate a particular type of fantasy fiction, the best known of which is Misty Lackey's Valdemar stories. I understand the "Magic Deer" objection, but a "Magic Deer" is a major trope of this type of fantasy fiction. If you don't like this type of fiction, you aren't going to like any game designed to emulate it. From reading Blue Rose, it looks like the basic setting is close enough to Valdemar that anyone familiar enough with Misty's Valdemar fiction could run a campaign set in Valdemar. That looks like good game design to me.

Quote from: RandallS;514739I've never understood the hatred of Blue Rose. It was designed to emulate a particular type of fantasy fiction

From what I can tell, all of this is correct. Emulation, setting, specific type of fantasy.

I don't hate BR, I just don't like it because I don't like that brand of fantasy. It's a matter of taste, not an absolute declaration of objective quality made by the RPG gods.

'Course, people who hate that brand of fantasy might have a good reason to hate BR.

(For the record, I don't like chocolate cake either. Doesn't mean it's inferior, just not my thing.)

Quote from: S'mon;514736I think the 4e art style has mostly been effective, also I think female players tend to like 4e's relatively durable 'Big Damn Heroes' PCs, not many female players like "Fantasy Fucking Vietnam".   The mood & feel of 4e as presented seems fairly effective in general, although there's too much emphasis on fight-fight-fight.

Yeah, that's probably a part of it. I think part of the appeal comes from 4e having capable PCs from the get go that can leap straight into the story and do stuff in a particular way.

4e also also has very little mechanical restriction around non-combat character ability and story elements allowing a lot of creativity in terms of these elements. It also pretty much discards a lot of elements that can bog them down like encumbrance, equipment, skill ranks etc.

The combat system may well be a draw for some female players too, who are equally likely to enjoy that side as their male counterpart. However, I have also seen plenty of 4e games run without that fight-fight-fight mentality and those have been successful too.

That is not to say that earlier editions may not have female fans or elements that are attractive to female players. Its always hard to draw conclusions from such a diverse group of people and games. These are just things I have observed.

Quote from: RandallS;514739I've never understood the hatred of Blue Rose. It was designed to emulate a particular type of fantasy fiction, the best known of which is Misty Lackey's Valdemar stories. I understand the "Magic Deer" objection, but a "Magic Deer" is a major trope of this type of fantasy fiction. If you don't like this type of fiction, you aren't going to like any game designed to emulate it. From reading Blue Rose, it looks like the basic setting is close enough to Valdemar that anyone familiar enough with Misty's Valdemar fiction could run a campaign set in Valdemar. That looks like good game design to me.

I don't hate it for game design - I just despise that kind of fantasy fiction. So, what you said, basically: I don't like that type of fiction, so I don't like the game.

But more power to it if it gets people playing.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;514740(For the record, I don't like chocolate cake either. Doesn't mean it's inferior, just not my thing.)

Wait...impossible...all pigs love chocolate cake.  

Quote from: Ram;514894Wait...impossible...all pigs love chocolate cake.  

Warpig is a tank.

(And a greedy arms merchant.)

Quote from: TristramEvans;514126There's games like Wuthering Heights, Witchgirl Adventures, Maid, etc that focus almost entirely on character interaction with minimalized or no combat or quests involved.

Well... Strictly speaking, combat's just another form of character interaction, too. In fact, Maid uses that term for all conflicts and opposed actions, the damage mechanic in the game makes no distinction between hurt feelings and bodily injuries, and actually improving your relationships might involve gunning down hordes of evil cyborgs from the future which are trying to assassinate your SO.

However, the folks behind the English version are currently working on releasing another game from the same designer, Yuuyake Koyake, under the title "Golden Sky Stories." From what I gather, it's all about magical animal spirits who try to help local people with their everyday problems, and very much non-violent.

Quote from: GrimGent;515421However, the folks behind the English version are currently working on releasing another game from the same designer, Yuuyake Koyake, under the title "Golden Sky Stories." From what I gather, it's all about magical animal spirits who try to help local people with their everyday problems, and very much non-violent.

It was pitched as the Miyazaki RPG and looks very cool.

Quote from: Skywalker;515432It was pitched as the Miyazaki RPG and looks very cool.

The Japanese term I've seen bandied about for that sort of peaceful gaming is "honobono" (meaning "feelgood" or "heartwarming").

In this case, the system seems to be based on diceless resource management, with pools of "Feeling" (for mundane actions) and "Wonder" (for supernatural feats) which are replenished by the relationships between the characters and increased through "Dream" points awarded by the other players for helping people and otherwise supporting the game's themes.