Can Chicks Play RPGs?

Women playing RPGs has always been a questionable subject.  Most gamers were typically male, but as the times change so do the players.  So the answer is Yes, women can play, but there are some things you might want to watch out for.

First - Classifying all women into one group doesn’t work.  Every person is different and broad generalizations don’t work.  But there are some common issues that many women face when they are first trying RPGs.  So these aren’t for every single woman who might be joining your game, but they are common themes and likely to help.  These are good ideas for teaching anyone a new game, but there does seem to be something about teaching females that forces males to make these mistakes over and over again.

A too often tried way of “teaching” someone to play RPGs was to tell them which dice to use but never telling them why.  Male or female, this doesn’t work.  Now the best thing to do (wink wink) is to just play Legend Quest, because then you only need ten-siders.  But failing that, tell them why they are using that / those dice.  If the d20 is for attacking and the d8 is for damage, tell her that.  She will get it.

Anecdotally, several of us at Board Enterprises have detected what we believe is a pattern.  There is no science behind this, but women don’t seem to be as seduced by dice as men are.  We’re sure there are women out there who also have backpacks filled with dice, but far more often a woman only wants one set of dice, maybe one for each character.  Meanwhile, guys are buying dice they don’t have any use for.  Games with more dice seem to appeal to guys and with fewer dice seem to appeal to women.  We would love to open this one up for discussion, because we’re curious why!

Somewhat similarly - we think we’ve seen this trend - women more often seem to enjoy the role-playing aspects.  This might be an education issue as males are more often (even today) steered to math and engineering, while women are steered to more personality driven careers, but whether it is cultural or genetic doesn’t really matter.  So as a GM with a new female player, expect to hear questions hovering around “why”.  Why are we taking this job?  Why should I cast heal on the guy I don’t like?  Why do you believe some drunk guy in a bar when he says he saw a ghost?  Taken outside of a FRPG trope, they make perfectly logical sense, but as hard core gamers, these might be part of your willful suspension of disbelief.  Answering why questions can often make it a better campaign, though there is always going to be that person who just wants to kill stuff.

But simply role-playing and finding out why do not lead to simplistic answers.  If the answer as to why her dwarven warrior would attack these goblin bandits without any reason is that her character hates all goblins, then expect her to ask what bonus she gets.  You know - If you were to get that enraged over the sight of some villain type, wouldn’t all that adrenaline make you stronger?  We have sometimes referred to this as role-playing leading to control, but there’s more to it than that.

If the storyline communicated to explain the why questions and the role-playing aspects appeals to her - she just might start steering the party.  For a group of role-players, that can be great, because she is probably steering the party towards the best plotlines.  But for a more jaded group of players who are more interested in how many experience points they just earned, this level of role-playing might become annoying.

Look - Any new player is likely to change some manner of the dynamics of the group.  The first female player is more likely to change the dynamics of the group.  This is NOT a bad thing, at least it doesn’t have to be a bad thing.  There is a famous quote that is up on the wall here:

“It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than a new system.  For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new ones.”
Machiavelli

This may not seem related to this post, but hear us out:  the folks who will gain by the new player(s) are going to be quiet.  Those that fear they will lose something with new players will be loud.  You as GM need to help manage this, mainly before the new player shows, so that they don’t feel unwelcome - no matter what the truth is.

Our point is really this:  more than half the people in the Western World are women.  That’s a huge group to draw players from.  If you find some who are interested in table top games, treat them with respect.  Why?  Because they deserve it, plus, others may not have.  By this one simple action, you may be able to attract fun and loyal players to your campaigns.

This post was written as part of the recently released The Zondarton Tribes:  The Fiercest Females aka All About Women in Role-Playing, the latest in our Small Bites editions.  Each Small Bites book looks deeply at one subject, a character archetype, a race/monster, a style of questing, or some other role-playing/world building subject.  This one details everything having to do with orcs, but with a mind to making them interesting and far less predictable then they have been in far too many campaign worlds.

We hope we’re getting you interested?  If you want to see the World Walker edition for FREE!! click the link here.  If we’ve hooked you and you want to get the full 48 pages of content in the Game Masters’ edition, click here.