The World of Avlis

Something on the bioware boards made me think - are females in NWN PWs a higher percentage of the number of players than in PnP sessions around the world? It seems to me that when I played PnP it was very very very very male dominated and had I been female I would not have wanted to enter the room, let alone play the games. I also wonder if there are more women on the freeform platform of PWs than in the stand-alone adventures and whether Avlis has more females than a less RP oriented world...

Thoughts?

Fifty wrote:Something on the bioware boards made me think - are females in NWN PWs a higher percentage of the number of players than in PnP sessions around the world? It seems to me that when I played PnP it was very very very very male dominated and had I been female I would not have wanted to enter the room, let alone play the games. I also wonder if there are more women on the freeform platform of PWs than in the stand-alone adventures and whether Avlis has more females than a less RP oriented world...

Thoughts?

Well, I have to say in hish school I was the only female, in college I was one of two, when I started my own PnP game not only was the first female DM any of the players dealt with, I was the only female in the room. Later, I met more women in the games I played (moreso after I got engaged and we found other like-minded couples), but I'd say it's still rare.

I am glad to know that there are many more women here in Avlis, but my other experiences (and my husband's) esp. on the less RP-oriented worlds, women are a lot rarer.

Of course, that's just my experience, but I've been playing these sorts of games for over 20 years now...

-Tyger-
And I am NOT old.

Agree 100%.

I think a big reason is that males can play female characters on NWN without anyone actually knowing their gender compared to PNP where the group obviously knows so and so is a male.

Female RPers: They do exist!

My PnP group had until recently 2 female players (out of 8 total participants). One of them is my girlfriend, the other was Eef. I speak in the past tense because she had to move across the country, which is a bit too far to still play PnP on a weekly basis with us. (We'll miss you Eef. ). My girlfriend doesn't play on Avlis (not much of a computer gamer), but we all know Eef of course.

If I look at other PnP players and groups I know here in Nijmegen I can point out another two female PnP players. That brings the total to 4, on a general total of about 20 PnPers that I know of (which is by no means all of the Nijmegen RPers).

I played PnP with boys until college then I had another girl join.
I'd play PnP now if we had people in town that we knew that played.

maybe it's because females in the same room as males are obviously female (well usually at least) - and therefore potentially subject to discrimination and / or unwanted romantic attentions; whereas females on NWN are gender anonymous if they want to be, and therefore less likely to be subject to this behaviour.

My school gaming club is about 55% female/45% male. 31 of us gamers in all. We are all DnD fanatics, playing one or two sessions a day.

No idea why really. It's not like us guys who play(ed) PnP in our teenage years are/were immature or perverted or anything...

tygermoon wrote:Later, I met more women in the games I played (moreso after I got engaged and we found other like-minded couples)

Can I make this my sig?

-Grunt

((I found in college a PnP group that was evenly split, male and female. About 10-12 people in the group. So it's out there, but PnP is being buried by online gaming as far as interest because of the convenience factor. I remember some online DnD stuff that was chat room based on a BBS I used to log into. They had a diceroll command for when you needed to roll, and the DM could roll his privately. It took a lot of description and all to play, but was good. This had about 10 guys and 3-4 girls playing...))

Aradan Kir wrote:maybe it's because females in the same room as males are obviously female (well usually at least) - and therefore potentially subject to discrimination and / or unwanted romantic attentions; whereas females on NWN are gender anonymous if they want to be, and therefore less likely to be subject to this behaviour.

See I would see this as the opposite... a female online seems to instantly attract attention to herself. if a female joins a gaming group offline, the face is there, there is a real person there, and the groups might be less apt to act the way that groups do when a female comes ina chatroom and the A/S/L???? questions start flying.

After all a chatroom is the only place I've ever seen a girl enter the room and 2 people asked her what size her breasts were and if they could have pictures. Well, other than that frat party back in 1991...but that doesn't count.

PnP romantic advances would probably be harmless like...

Johnny: So uhh... Lady Silverleaf...

Lisa: You know, you can call me Lisa, Johnny.

Johnny: Oh. yeah. Uh...cool... anyway...Lady...uhh... Lisa. I was thinking of going home after the gaming session and studying the Monstrous Compendium. I was uhh..wondering if you'd like to come along?

Lisa: The Monstrous Compendium? Oh... Well Wyatt already asked me to come over to his apartment and check out his new figurines. He's got a new dragon he said...

Johnny: Oh? Uh...ok...cool...I'll go home and uhh...practice my dice rolls I guess.

Fifty wrote:I also wonder if there are more women on the freeform platform of PWs than in the stand-alone adventures and whether Avlis has more females than a less RP oriented world...

Thoughts?

Absolutely, I never played PnP but when I was looking for a NwN PW I looked for one with strict RP and name rules.

I played a MMORPG where every female avatar was named after a porn star and guilds called themselves rape gangs and spammed chat with macroed leetspeak. If I ever reacted to the constant sexual harassment it was just letting them know they could get to me and they would do it more. It seemed like enforced RP and strict DMs would minimize that kind of thing.

In a pay-to-play game the DMs/CSRs are making a negative financial impact on the company every time they ban someone so they end up erring on the side of allowing a player to send them money a bit longer. Here I think most of us view playing as a privelige not a right and that makes a huge difference.

Avlis is extremely female friendly and it means a lot to me.

I dont think PnP is very popular in uk, for young people that is. Still up to today (im 20) I have yet to hear a single thing about PnP in real life, maybe its due to there being games instead, type of people i hang around with or its too dated and oldschool, dorky? and i cant imagine young people my age and younger doing it either, the whole thing is taboo in the place society i live (south-england). And also girls playing games doesnt happen often here, every girl seems to be barbie girl (make up, sex, hair etc). atleast all the girls i know are like that (havent heard of a single girl who plays online games IRL either)

I played PnP once or twice, and there were mainly two things that kept me from getting into it. One is that the other players in the group were long-time pros. The friend who invited me was very helpful and understanding as I was trying to learn how it worked, but the other people were impatient. The second is that I felt like I was on display. Aside from my friend and the DM, I had only barely met one or two of the six or so people there. I felt like they were watching me more than playing the game, this mysterious female who is interested in this sort of thing. So yeah, I didn't go back for more.

I think that RP-heavy worlds like Avlis are going to pick up on females who are not necessarily PnP types. Take a look at a game like the Sims where the percentage of males and females is almost 50-50. A world like Avlis is going to attract a lot more of the females who would be into a game like the Sims than a non-RP-heavy PW. If that made any sense.

Aradan Kir wrote:maybe it's because females in the same room as males are obviously female (well usually at least) - and therefore potentially subject to discrimination and / or unwanted romantic attentions; whereas females on NWN are gender anonymous if they want to be, and therefore less likely to be subject to this behaviour.

Kind of right...
IRL playing so called male-games is a bit difficult for every female...I was always interested in computer games, cars, car races, rollerskating, climbing trees and walls, SF. I knew how to make bow, I used to play football, I renewed roof and built garage with my dad, carrying heavy concrete and repaired his car several times. Each time another mechanics, roller-skaters, computer geeks, football players, crazy drivers etc. (ALWAYS males) looked at me ODDLY.

And each time I was somehow forced to prove, that yes, I KNOW how to play football properly, I KNOW how to drive fast and safe, I AM able to carry concrete and I CAN distinguish HDD and FDD.

In NWN (or online generally) it's much easier - the only thing I should do is a good roleplay.

That's why I love it

And probably that's the reason of higher females' activity online I guess...

<--- PNP nerd of all kinds!

Sadly, I am usually the token female in the Campaign though. But everything from Star Wars to DND to White Wolf (Demon, Vampire, Werwolf, Changeling) to d20 System to Mechs to Deadlands to FarScape etc etc etc.

I kind of like being the only female. It adds an, "Alpha Female" feel to things. I start to get uppity when there are other girls around to compete with

And then there was LARP.

<3 - Chantel

Mechs.
mmmmmmm

Madcat... And the clan philisophy, how can you go wrong with that?!

The alpha female thing is really interesting to see/watch. It's pretty obvious in most cases. Not saying its a bad thing of course, just interesting to see.

My gaming group in college was half female (a lot of couples). My current group, when everyone shows, is half female.

I am a male who is half female

I have to refer to a post I made a while ago:

strickp wrote:

afterhours wrote:damn maybe i should've said i was a woman to help out their numbers....... i have to say, in over 20 years of table-top gaming i can only remember one woman who's taken an interest.

why ladies?

I haven't a clue. My best friend and I played from eighth grade (1980) on through college and beyond. Til now, actually. And she and I both now play on Avlis.

Tell you what...some of the coolest guys in our school played. While the other girls were batting their eyelashes and hoping that some of those guys would ask them out, my friend and I were knee-deep in pizza and chips and curled up on couches with them for hours.

One word. D'uh?

I like the alpha female idea, silverbrooke. Definitely applies to me, especially now......

I've always played PnP....I was a DM of my college group from 1988-1992 when we were all still living in the same area and playing regularly.

In high school (1981 - 1985) my friend and I weren't the girls that were popular and into all the clicque-ish sorts of things; that never appealed to us...we were the types to get all absorbed in the latest issue of X-Men. We were a little offbeat so DnD -- fantasy and roleplay -- really interested us.

Thinking about it, though, none of the guys in our groups really hit on us. The cute and popular ones didn't and those that weren't so cute or popular didn't either. It was the one place where status didn't matter. In retrospect that was very nice. The guys felt comfortable with us no matter that we were female and I don't remember an instance when a comment was made about my gender. It didn't matter. We were all there for the game and the camaraderie.

I believe there are more females online than in table top Pen and Paper games for several reasons:

1. Females that do want to play are not intimidated ... they get to focus on playing and not on the guys watching them from accross the table. Further, the rules of Avlis (and other worlds) make sexual harrassment a thing of the past... very few will be stupid enough to try it. Females are more comfortable playing now. They remain annoymus, noone following them home and they can shut down the computer anytime someone gets too close.

2. Males that want to test their roleplaying skills can play a female character and have every chance that other players will believe they are female... this is a true test of acting.

3. When I played PnP there was rarely a focus on differences between males and females. Most of my PnP happened when I was growing up and the group was interested in girls... we did have one girl in a group of six of us who dated another player. Even this girl was 'just one of the guys'... we never made the distinction. It was about gold and magic and dragons... not about the sexes. It was about visuallizing in your own imagination how the encounter was taking place (based on the DM's description) and how your gear looked... countless hand-drawn art during the PnP sessions.

4. This online stuff becomes so time consuming that many of us seek to make it very real... even seeking relationships in-game... sometime to feed our own loneliness; sometimes just to give that added dimension to our character. Now that we know what thinks look like and where things are (due to the great computer graphics) we need to have some things to develop... like personality.

5. Chances are you put more depth into your character when you roleplay with others that are great roleplayers. Most of my PnP experience was with hack-and-slashers. I seldom had the opportunity to define a character and add those personality traits... this included sexuality. I would no sooner say "_ restrings the longbow" when the guy across from me would say "what are we going to kill next?" The people I PnP'd with definately did not focus long enough to develop a personallity. Then again, when you meet once a month for 3 hours you try to cram in as much adventure time as you can... forget the roleplaying.

Further, there was so much switching in and out of character with PnP... you really had to say what your character was doing or the DM did not take it as a character action. The big stall was making jokes or going to the bathroom to decide how to handle that monster the DM just dropped in front of you... online is real time while PnP is turn-based.

6. The real reason there are more female gamers... online you have social interaction... see this article on female gamershttp://news.designtechnica.com/news_pri ... y2635.html

Very interesting article.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/ ... 66,00.html
Note the reference to RP gaming.

Erm.

PnP is a completely local phenomenon. In my last gaming group, we had three women and four men (regular players). In other areas, and in other circles of friends, you'll find very different numbers. E.g. if your gaming group are a bunch of sexist jerks, they're unlikely to find a lot of women who want to play with them. No, I'm not suggesting that's the case for anyone here, just making a general observation about demographics.

In online games, there are a LOT of female gamers, because online games are a global phenomenon. This is quite well documented in a lot of MMORPGs, as well as other types of online games. Women are still outnumbered by men there, but the numbers of "real" women you meet online might be dramatically higher than you'll ever see in your gaming group. Or, as compared to my example above, you might never play an online game that's nearly half female.

Put another way, if you live in Alaska, you won't have many women in your PnP group. Location and personality make a huge difference in PnP membership. Neither location nor personality prevent people from trying online games (though the ambient culture of the world, or "playerbase personality") will obviously have an impact.

Anyhow, oranges are the orange things with the seeds all throughout, and the pithy outer covering. Apples are red and green, have the seeds in the core, and have a soft crunchy skin.

- Aloro

I guess I'm the odd man out here.
Hmm... bad idiom for this topic.

I get rather put out when people don't realize that I'm a girl. I loved being one of only four females in Civil Air Patrol. I loved begin only one of six females in AFROTC. I loved being one of three females in our PnP games.

And I still love to go down to one of the game shops in town and stand around browsing the books. After a few minutes you'll hear a silence settle over the place. Then you'll see a eye or two peek around the corner of the gaming area. Then the head is withdrawn suddenly and the silence turns to a series of low whispers and perhaps even a muffled shout. The words "real girl!" can usually be made out.

Another silence descends, followed by one poor guy getting pushed out of the gaming room. He then approaches, trying not to sweat, running his finger around the collar of his Anime T-shirt, and he stammers out, "Can.. can I help you?"

Dang it. I know I'm evil. But it's so much fun!

Oh here you go... an article about relationships ... people finding people online they become attracted to. An excerpt from an Evercrack... er, Everquest study:

"(D)rawn from nearly 2000 Everquest players... 25% of female gamers in this study reported falling in love with another player and an additional 20% reported falling in love with an actual character. This compares to 18% of male gamers who reported either of the above two events, suggesting that perhaps females are able to find more meaning in virtual friendships. In a related statistic, nearly 50% of all male gamers have a character of the opposite sex in their MUD, whereas only 25% of female gamers reported such a character. This may indicate how gender roles and identity differ between the sexes. "

You can read the whole article here:
link

Melindha wrote:I played PnP once or twice, and there were mainly two things that kept me from getting into it. One is that the other players in the group were long-time pros. The friend who invited me was very helpful and understanding as I was trying to learn how it worked, but the other people were impatient. The second is that I felt like I was on display. Aside from my friend and the DM, I had only barely met one or two of the six or so people there. I felt like they were watching me more than playing the game, this mysterious female who is interested in this sort of thing. So yeah, I didn't go back for more..

A side note for you on this.. it was more likly that they were trying to figure out why you didn't get what they new so well... its sort of like an idiot-savant mathamatitian trying to teach you algebra. Most gamers have no idea how to help bring in other new gamers and add to that the fact that you are female... eek... intstant major "whats up at the other end of the table"