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May 16, 2005
FTotW: Perpetuating Single-Sex Play
There's an interesting thread at the Forge about perpetuating single-sex games and whether that's good or bad. There's some talk about all-female groups, which is a gaming variant I'd love to try, and more about all-male groups.
One of the factors that nobody has discussed, and it's not relevant to the sorts of discussions they have on the Forge or I'd post it to the thread, is that a single-sex group is often as much about social issues as it is about how we game. One of the men in the thread says something about how gaming is all-male for some groups just like poker night. My immediate thought is that, as a woman, I'd take a 'no' from that group as an "I don't want to socialize with you", which is never nice to hear. That was exactly what I got from of the junior high boys who refused to game with me, although I suspect now that it was adolescent fear of girls more than personal hostility. I wonder whether men and women perceive the social value of a refused game invitation differently in that light.
If I were running an all-female group, I think I might invite a man who wanted to join into a different group or to other social events to make it clear that a refusal wasn't personal or a social slight. Unless, of course, the group was willing to open up the space to the man in question, in which case we'd just stop being all-female.
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Comments
Single-gendered play seems like a valid thing to do, but ultimately restrictive if it's all you have. Just like with any kind of group you'd care to assemble based on a single trait. Like, I could assemble a group of humanists and play some sort of humanist game with them, addressing humanist issues. But that would get old and if I only played with those people, I'd lose touch.
Posted by: Jasper McChesney at May 16, 2005 4:29:58 PM
I am currently running a game with all female players (and characters, though that was not necessarily by design) and we actually do touch on quite a few female-specific issues. Granted, this is a Dark Ages: Fae game where the PCs are all women/girls in a medieval French village and as such, such issues are bound to come up because of the societal role of women and specific the types of women the players play. One is a girl on the edge of nubility, and we've had quite a few stories about her parents' plans to marry her off advantageously. Another character is a mother (adding another twist to it is that she is a captive selkie, whose husband holds her shawl). And the third is a widow, who have always had a unique place in patriarchal society. Yep, it's the maiden/mother/crone thing, again, totally unintentional.
I did choose these players by design, and yes, partially because they were all female. I've actually run quite a few all-female games (not necessarily by design) in the past: both my Buffy and Changeling irc games started as all female (and then added male characters as we went). There's an unquantifiable different vibe to these games that I can't quite put my finger on, that's different from all-male or mixed games. Something about IC problems being talked out among the group more than mixed or all-male groups. I wish I had more than a certain "feeling," but there you go.
Posted by: Michael Grasso at May 16, 2005 4:55:21 PM
But your group is not all female, Mike. You're the GM.
Not that the dynamic isn't interesting and your comments aren't valid - it just struck me as odd that you'd refer to this game and others you've run as "all female" and not "mixed."
Posted by: Rob at May 16, 2005 5:51:11 PM
True. I was looking at the players-as-subject-group dynamic.
Posted by: Michael Grasso at May 16, 2005 7:53:01 PM
Is the "No girls allowed" really a ... hostile thing? Is it always viewed that way by women?
The comment that it would "get boring" assumes that you are playing quite a lot. What if this is your once a month thing when you live and work with mostly women, and it's nice to get out with "just us guys" once in a while?
Just askin'...
Posted by: Darel at May 17, 2005 9:38:43 AM
I would love to play in a game like that. As a girl gamer, often I'm the only woman in the room; it'd be nice to have a different dynamic for once. Thanks for the link; more substantive comments after I've read through it.
Posted by: Loriel at May 17, 2005 3:39:47 PM
I wonder whether men and women perceive the social value of a refused game invitation differently in that light.
Probably not, in my experience. One of the biggest problems with socializing with gamers is this strange idea that all players are welcome at all times in all games and all players want to play in all games. Whenever someone asks me to join a game and I don't want to, I have to come out with this mealy-mouthed nonsense about how, oh, Thursday nights aren't good for me or whatever.
Making it possible to say "no, Jane Gamer, the Thursday night group is pretty much a guy thing -- but how about we start a new game," or "but how about you come do X with us some other night" would probably reduce that problem...
Guys (straight guys?) often feel like they need a pretext to socialize with other guys, and that they ought not to talk about friendship. This makes it very hard to say "I value this time for bonding with my male friends," which can lead to letting a girl into an all-guy group and then punishing her for spoiling the camaraderie, or alternately coming across like you hate women.
Now, of course, some groups just have that one guy that acts like a jackass around women. The socialization of many gamers is a big, dirty, ugly mess.
Posted by: James Holloway at May 17, 2005 7:20:08 PM
Is the "No girls allowed" really a ... hostile thing? Is it always viewed that way by women?
I can't speak for "women", but I can speak for me. My experiences are that it is kind of hostile, and I suspect from anecdotal comments from other women gamers I know is that some of them would feel the same way. On the other hand, I know a lot of old-school gamers who put up with real hostility from male players, especially in the 80s when there weren't a lot of us. YMMV, and so may that of other women.
The other thing I object to about male-only groups is that I find it's a short step from "my gaming/poker group is a guy bonding event" to "girls can't game/play poker" and while I'm OK with the first statement, the second statement is offensive. On the other hand, it's a really easy filter for men who act like jackasses around women, and I'd rather not game with them anyway.
Posted by: Ginger Stampley at May 19, 2005 1:57:19 PM
"Guys-only" games are a fact of life. Mine is that way and won't ever change, despite possibly being perceived as exclusive or offensive. That's just too bad, from my POV, because we have invited women to join our group in the past. Not just for a single game, mind you, but as continuing members of the group.
The first of them was a great player. She really got into the character she'd created, came up with an appropriate background, read the rules often, role-played entertainingly, and generally added a hell of a lot to the group. I considered her a good friend, too, and the group would go out to play pool, drink some beers, what-have-you. Eventually I figured out that this woman had a thing for me, and was telling other players behind my back that I was making a huge mistake getting married to my fiancee. EXTREMELY awkward. When she moved away, there was great relief (on my part, especially).
The second of them joined the group for two sessions. She spent the entirety of both complaining about how she wasn't outside on such a nice day, if we were going to sit here we might as well drink wine, etc. etc. etc. She wasn't invited for a third game.
The third of them, and her husband, started as great players. But soon it became apparent that the two of them were just going to bicker all session long. When the wife threw a tantrum whose target was my minis, she was asked not to play again.
The fourth, a co-worker, was invited to join the group and seemed excited to do so. She went out and bought a rulebook immediately. In the two months she was a part of the group, she flat-out refused to do the baseline work that any player must do: read the rules & know your character. At the end, she'd never even bothered to complete her character sheet. In an awkward exchange, it was explained to her that we'd given her what we thought was plenty of time to ascend the learning curve, and she just wasn't doing anything at all. We even gave her another session after that, and still no change. So she was asked not to return.
That's my experience with females in our gaming group. Your experience, of course, is different. But I'm heartily sick and tired of reading on gaming boards that I'm a bad person, or offensive, for running a guys-only, "poker night" game.
I love my wife very much. She has no interest in gaming, but if she did I'd certainly work to nurture that. The rest of the women out there can find their own damn gaming group, because I've done my part.
Four times bitten, five shy.
Posted by: Cutter at May 20, 2005 1:29:05 PM
See, now, someone like Cutter pretty much proves my point about it being perceived as offensive. Women come to his games as representatives of their sex, not as individual players. If a male GM and male group have a huge chip on their shoulders about women, female players can generally tell. Who wants to pursue a hobby activity with people who don't want them there? It takes a very determined player to get around that.
Thought exercise: I occasionally hear comments about how gaming is a primarily white hobby in the same vein as the Forge discussion about women. Slice and dice some of the comments in this thread by race instead of sex and read the results. I did that and found some of the comments worthwhile. Others were less useful.
Posted by: Ginger Stampley at May 21, 2005 6:40:13 PM
Hey,
"I wonder whether men and women perceive the social value of a refused game invitation differently in that light."
From your post, I'm going to say yes =) I've heard many women worrying about how people would feel about being not invited to something; I've heard relatively few men worry about the issue.
In practice, I find any gender combination can work. I've certainly never thrown a woman out of a game. (well....not because she was a woman, anyway.) But, there are two problems that can show up. If one player is a women and the rest are guys, that's usually kind of a drag. Two, if a man shows up and is a pain in the ass I can deal with it. If a woman shows up and is a pain in the ass I can't.
When I game, I run into a lot of people with small egos, a fair amount of hostility, or bad social skills. If I run into a man like that, I know how to deal with him - its a mix of "you are respected here, so you don't need to be a pain" and "you're going to sit down now, because the big dogs are not impressed by the little dogs yapping." But with women like this, I just don't know what to do. This is presumably my weakness as much of anything else, but its still an issue.
Posted by: DJTiresias at May 21, 2005 8:08:30 PM
I'd have to say wrt Cutter's comment that I'm not quite sure why you've defined your issues with these players as stemming from the fact that they're women. Certainly, from your point of view, they were all problem players, but is that because they were women, or because they were just problem players? Have you never had men who were problem players?
Also, a question for DJTiresias: Could you elaborate on why a game with all men and one woman is 'kind of a drag'?
Posted by: peaseblossom at May 22, 2005 4:05:20 PM
In my experience as a female gamer, I think the game style of the players make a bigger impact in the dynamic than the gender of the players. If a group of guys are playing a hack and slash and the female who comes in wants to play a skill based player with lots of social interactions, then that will create a lot more disagreements than if it's a female player who's into hack and slash. Same with any difference in play style. Personally I've played in all girl groups (except the DM) and I've played in groups where I'm the only girl (and have the "token chick" shirt to prove it). I've enjoyed them both, because in both cases although the play styles were very different, everyone was on the same page as to what the play style would be. In my case, the female group was much more interested in character back story and convoluted, tragic pasts. The all male group tends to be more of a min/maxing, kill stuff to let off stress group. When one of the members from group B came over to play with group A for a while it didn't work too well, and that could easily have been blamed on the fact that he was a guy in an all girl game, but really it was the difference in game style.
Personally, if I ask to join a game and I'm told "we'd love to play with you but this game is full/ I want to keep with these core players/ it's my guys night out game but I'll let you know when I start up another game" I wouldn't be offended. If I'm told "you can't play because you're a girl" I will be. It all depends on the attitude of the person delivering the message.
Posted by: Mazlynn at Jun 9, 2005 10:53:15 AM
