Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1039244I don't know where the hell you were or how old you were, but college gaming groups in the 80s, at least in the Midwest, were close to 50/50.

I was in jr high in '83. Dozens of boys in my school played. A bunch played in high school too. Didn't see a single girl play, though. And at the local D&D tournament I went to, ages 12 to 40-something, there were about 3 or 4 women out of 100 players. This was in an educated, affluent, large Canadian city.

I don't see a lot of girls in this camp, either, circa 1985.

Are you honestly claiming D&D has always had a close to 50-50 gender split, or are you just being a contrarian?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1039244I don't know where the hell you were or how old you were, but college gaming groups in the 80s, at least in the Midwest, were close to 50/50.

So are you suggesting all the WotC efforts have actually driven women away from the game (down to only 40%)?

New players are a great thing for the hobby.

Puff pieces are good for WotC and the hobby.

But laughable puff pieces deserve mockery, and if you can't tell the difference between mockery and outrage...then you're gonna provide me lots of LOLz!

Quote from: Krimson;1039177In my experience, there is only one demographic which needs to be escorted off the property by security.

Koreans? Sicilians? Fans of Shannara?

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1039189A talent I have yet to master-bate.

That is hysterical!

Quote from: happyhermit;1038430While Hasbro has almost nothing to do with the running of Wotc, let alone D&D, it has been mentioned before that they helped them with market research.

um... Hasbro has WOTC often on a very tight leash. And if I recall correctly they mandated that if 5e didnt do well that was the end of D&D. Theyve also handed a few board games over to WOTC to handle. Which WOTC then botched a few of and they havent given WOTC as much since.

Quote from: Haffrung;1039280Are you honestly claiming D&D has always had a close to 50-50 gender split, or are you just being a contrarian?

No, that is, quite literally, not what he claimed. He made a very specific statement about gaming in a specific time, place, and demographic (80s, Midwestern, college-age).

QuoteI was in jr high in '83. Dozens of boys in my school played. A bunch played in high school too. Didn't see a single girl play, though. And at the local D&D tournament I went to, ages 12 to 40-something, there were about 3 or 4 women out of 100 players. This was in an educated, affluent, large Canadian city.

That is a good counterpoint anecdote. And I think it highlights the difference. Those who started gaming in jr. high (or in grade school, which I was in '83, and also saw mostly boys playing) probably saw a mostly male gaming demographic. Those who got into it later than that probably saw a more even split. And the real question is which part of the gaming demographic has the most weight, and how far does the demographic that is mostly male drag the average away from the more even split (and I don't think anyone here really knows).

It's not unlike all sorts of other nerd phenomenon. Growing up, most of the people I knew who liked Star Trek and Star Wars (enough to make that clear to others) were male, but the overall trend has consistently shown (and as pop culture, there are a lot more studies on this I am sure) to be only very slightly male-favoring.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1039355Fans of Shannara?

Indeed. They are a menace.

We had somewhat around a 50/50 ratio in college and later, contrasted to very rare participation by females in middle school and high school, and the answer was simple:  Our venues at the earlier age were mostly limited to peoples' houses, playing all night.  No way the parents involved were going to allow a mixed group in that environment, at that time.  When we did have a public venue, female participation did hit close to 50%.  There were no equivalent all-female groups in our area not because of lack of interest in players, but the lack of a female GM.

If you market a game to the 10-18 crowd, and you have a sizable chunk of that market with limited options in play spaces, of course it is going to affect your demographics.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1039434We had somewhat around a 50/50 ratio in college and later, contrasted to very rare participation by females in middle school and high school, and the answer was simple:  Our venues at the earlier age were mostly limited to peoples' houses, playing all night.  No way the parents involved were going to allow a mixed group in that environment, at that time.  When we did have a public venue, female participation did hit close to 50%.  There were no equivalent all-female groups in our area not because of lack of interest in players, but the lack of a female GM.

If you market a game to the 10-18 crowd, and you have a sizable chunk of that market with limited options in play spaces, of course it is going to affect your demographics.

Mmm. I hadn't thought about that angle.

Quote from: Krimson;1039419Indeed. They are a menace.

Are they better or worse than fans of Sha Na Na?

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1039434We had somewhat around a 50/50 ratio in college and later, contrasted to very rare participation by females in middle school and high school, and the answer was simple:  Our venues at the earlier age were mostly limited to peoples' houses, playing all night.  No way the parents involved were going to allow a mixed group in that environment, at that time.  When we did have a public venue, female participation did hit close to 50%.  There were no equivalent all-female groups in our area not because of lack of interest in players, but the lack of a female GM.

If you market a game to the 10-18 crowd, and you have a sizable chunk of that market with limited options in play spaces, of course it is going to affect your demographics.

I get the decided impression that there is a core constituency where the effectively-all-male bit never changed, and the battle is really over what proportion of the norm that is.

Quote from: Skarg;1039437Are they better or worse than fans of Sha Na Na?

Sha Na Na had Bowser. That is all you need to know.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1039434We had somewhat around a 50/50 ratio in college and later, contrasted to very rare participation by females in middle school and high school, and the answer was simple:  Our venues at the earlier age were mostly limited to peoples' houses, playing all night.  No way the parents involved were going to allow a mixed group in that environment, at that time.  When we did have a public venue, female participation did hit close to 50%.  There were no equivalent all-female groups in our area not because of lack of interest in players, but the lack of a female GM.

My experiences were different. Around here, in junior high boys hung around with boys and girls hung around with girls. The only time they mixed was dating (or 'going around' as it was called then), which was pretty awkward, and certainly not something that involved nerd activities like D&D. By high school, there was some social mixing, but by the time you were hanging out with girls an extreme nerd activity like D&D was socially toxic, and kept a secret.

Then there's the fact nerd culture itself was almost exclusively male. I don't think I ever saw a girl in jr high or high school reading a fantasy novel.

Quote from: Haffrung;1039441My experiences were different. Around here, in junior high boys hung around with boys and girls hung around with girls. The only time they mixed was dating (or 'going around' as it was called then), which was pretty awkward, and certainly not something that involved nerd activities like D&D. By high school, there was some social mixing, but by the time you were hanging out with girls an extreme nerd activity like D&D was socially toxic, and kept a secret.

Then there's the fact nerd culture itself was almost exclusively male. I don't think I ever saw a girl in jr high or high school reading a fantasy novel.

Well, I'm not making any claim about how typical our experience was.  I have no way to know.  Given the interest that was expressed in the junior high/high school years, by many female players when they had the chance, I suspect if we had available a school club or something similar, things would have been similar to my later college experiences.  Certainly, we often had other co-ed things going on, such as backyard sports and the like on Sunday afternoons.  It probably had something to do with the fact that for us gaming was mostly a winter/rainy day pastime, not something we did regularly.  The times when we could have gotten together co-ed, we were either working outside or playing sports.  Might be a difference in our rural experience versus small town/city, too.  When people live 10 miles apart and don't have their own car, it changes options.

Quote from: Omega;1039362um... Hasbro has WOTC often on a very tight leash.

For D&D? All reports are the opposite.

QuoteAnd if I recall correctly they mandated that if 5e didnt do well that was the end of D&D.

That looks patently false - produce any link saying otherwise. You can tell what Hasbro cares about from what they mention to stockholders every quarter and yearly, and they never once mentioned D&D until after it was suddenly doing well. Mearls and Crawford implied D&D was sort of hidden in the umbrella of WOTC as just more "game-like stuff" prior to 5e launch (which is one reason they had so few employees dedicated to D&D).

I think you're confusing "fan speculation" with "accurate facts".

QuoteTheyve also handed a few board games over to WOTC to handle. Which WOTC then botched a few of and they havent given WOTC as much since.

You mean the board game business they are publishing these days that's booming? This one?

Damn you are seriously full of it mang. There is no sin in admitting you're kinda out of touch with the current marketplace for D&D, but at least be aware that you are!

The best way I can think of to approximate the male/female ratio would be by con attendance at the major conventions, and even that would be an imperfect way of doing it.