Roleplaying by girls

welsh

welsh

Junkmaster
I know what you are probably thinking.
:naughty:

Get your mind out of the gutter.

When it comes to computer based role play, it seems girls are more into the fantasy based while guys are more into post-apocalytpic and other possible genres.

NOTE- Fantasy does not mean "Hey babe, how about you get to be the French Maid and I get to be the butler."

Rather I am talking more along the lines of- women are more likely to play Baldur's Gate while guys might play Fallout.

Is this true? Why?
 
Guys naturally tend to want to be immersed in an environment that is hostile to life and "prove themselves" somehow..

hoo boy.. still remember the first time i played fallout thinking the outdoorsman skill was useless... was only after i died of thirst i realised i was wrong..
 
I dont know about the other girls, but, Welsh, have you tried to play fallout (the crpg) with a female character?

Gee, I was very set aback by the game first time I tried to play it. Too depressive, too hostile, women treated like garbage... It took a bf I had at that time to convince me to play again and after I gained a few levels and all, I got addicted to the game (specially when I won that championship in New Reno - those stupid guys only understand the language of strengh :rule:
The humor of the random encounters and pop culture references was interesting.

I only totally felt amazed, though, at the end of the game, when I realized how deep consequences the actions in the game had (frankly I expected an ending on those lines when playing Planescape and BG but the endigns were in a whole different fashion. I like PLanescape endings a lot, though.)

I think the game is a turn-off for females at the beggining because the initial part (temple, etc) is too action directed and because as I mentioned women are treated very badly in the game (no woman likes being called a bitch) - Of course this changes as the game proceeds.
 
On a totaly diferent subject, now we can se Elissar's crowbar in his avatar! :)



....Uh? What?
You perverts!
 
Well, I recently got my girlfriend into playing it.

This is the first RPG shes ever played, and she kinda...well, sucks at it, to say it plainly.

I still remember her squel from the other room the first time i got her to play FO1

"Babe, the rats are trying to kill me!"

and then, about 10 minutes later:

"GIANT FUCKING SCORPIANS!"


i could barly breath from laughing so hard
 
Personally, I think it might have something to do w/what type of films and other media have been set in that type of environment. Basically, the High Fantasy genre was for years pretty much an all-male domain. Not surprising when you look at some of the early works like Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian. As the genre softened a bit and more women started writing books for it -- and gender lines started to blur a bit in society as a whole -- you started to get more women interested in it. This hasn't happened to the Post-Apoc genre yet, but I think it eventually will.

Zoe said:
I only totally felt amazed, though, at the end of the game, when I realized how deep consequences the actions in the game had...
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You used to post on the old FO2 boards as "Leela", right? If so, I remember how ardently you were trying to save Broken Hills from becoming a ghost town. Several of us tried very hard w/some pretty creative solutions, but it just wasn't to be.

OTB
 
Ah Conan, probably the only fantasy I'll still read, everything else seems to be a limp wristed politically correct rip off of Tolkien or blatantly aimed at teenage boys and their hormones.

One thing no one's touched upon is the simple fact there's a whole lot more fantasy based CRPGs (or at least so called RPGs) than Post Apocalyptic CRPGs. Just as there's a whole lot more fantasy fiction than PA fiction, so fantasy CRPGs will probably always have a higher percentage of women players.
 
requiem_for_a_starfury said:
One thing no one's touched upon is the simple fact there's a whole lot more fantasy based CRPGs (or at least so called RPGs) than Post Apocalyptic CRPGs. Just as there's a whole lot more fantasy fiction than PA fiction, so fantasy CRPGs will probably always have a higher percentage of women players.
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If you're meaning that since High Fantasy is generally the gateway into roleplaying and females are relatively new to this area so most of them are still sitting at the gateway I'd have to say you may be onto something.

On the other hand, I don't think that if all that was out there in the High Fantasy realm was Conan and LotR w/no Anne McCaffrey et al to balance it out, I don't think we'd see quite a many women interested in High Fantasy as we do, even w/females getting more and more into areas traditionally reserved for males.

OTB
 
I mean that there's just a hell of a lot more fantasy CRPGs out there. Many of them recently released. Any new gamer, Male or Female is more likely to buy the, at hand, recent release. Then if they discover something they like, then go and hunt down older games that offer the same sort of enjoyment. We haven't reached equal gender saturation yet, so in most genres there are going to be probably more male players and PA CRPGs are a niche market of a niche market.

All the real (offline) women I know only play the most commercial of games, whatever is in the top 10, no matter the genre.

I'm not denying what you or anyone else said is true, other than the fact that Anne McCaffery is not a high fantasy writer, but I think first and foremost it's down to sheer availability and the fantasy genre saturation of the RPG market.
 
requiem_for_a_starfury said:
I'm not denying what you or anyone else said is true, other than the fact that Anne McCaffery is not a high fantasy writer...
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Doh! You're absolutely correct. Anne McCaffrey is Sci-Fi. Okay, pretend I said, Elizabeth Boyer. No wait, almost no one's heard of her. :lol:

So you think that if tomorrow women went to the stores and there was one PA game for each Fantasy game that women would switch over in a short time, even if the genre itself didnt' change?

OTB
 
I do think it's true, though. If you log onto a Persistent World in Neverwinter Nights(Don't, though, Neverwinter Nights is crap...), or their community forums, you'll find a lot more females than you'll usually find in other communities, such as this one.

Why? I have no clue. I do know that I got my ex-female-neighbours into playing Fallout 1 and 2 in some weird way, so maybe women do play post-apocolyptic games.

Hmm, one thing though, might be that there aren't as many post-apoc as there are fantasy games.
 
OnTheBounce said:
So you think that if tomorrow women went to the stores and there was one PA game for each Fantasy game that women would switch over in a short time, even if the genre itself didnt' change?

OTB
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If they were of equal quality then probably yes, it all comes down to the individual after all. Hardly any of the women, and girls I've met over the years, have had what you might call stereotypical tastes. One female friend is an absolute fanatic for martial arts films and console beat 'em ups, another has virtually all the Gor books. About the only time you can generalise about what women (or men) will do is if they're in a group, and if you see a group of women coming towards you... run!!!
 
Sander said:
Why? I have no clue. I do know that I got my ex-female-neighbours into playing Fallout 1 and 2 in some weird way, so maybe women do play post-apocolyptic games.
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And what would those be? :P

My wife prefers action games over crpgs.
 
I think it all depends on the girl. I introduced a lot of my female friends to Fallout, and most of the fell in love with it. They still play it regularly. They've also played games like Everquest and stuff like that, but they all say they don't really like those fantasy based games as much as games like Fallout. It goes the same for pnp rpgs too. We all like games like Vampire the Masquerade and Werewolf the Apocalypse more than like D&D.
Some of the girls I used to role play with especially liked Changeling the Dreaming. I used to think it was because the game was based around a fantasy world that was basically wripped apart, and it takes place during modern times.
 
Zoe- actually about half the time I play Fallout I use a female character. There are more options.

But I think the answer that there are more fantasy genred games than non-fantasy explains a lot. I think if you looked at most RPGrs, most would be playing fantasy based.

But I also tend to agree with OTB. I think fallout may come from a male orientated genre while fantasy has gone through periods were female writers dominated. Whereas a lot of folks got their start in Fantasty with Conan (I did) today a lot do through TSR's Dragonlance. But I walso think that the genre of Fallout also appeals to a male audience more.

Chances are that if you looked at women-to-male players of Fallout to women-to-male ratios of other games, Fallout would probably be more male than female.
 
I haven't been following the thread until now and don't have much time left to post, but wanted to get this out quick.

Typically, females tend to like the aspects of fantasy as they have appealing aspects to nearly everyone. Men generally tend towards one, then another, as their interest often changes and yes, conflict is an interest much akin to military specs.

However, I have found innumerable exceptions to both of the above conditions, and I have to say it really is mixed. Hey, at least I did use some Mad Max lore to get a girlfriend in bed (on the first date, no less, the hot little Alaskan minx...uh...ahem...). :P

Now if an Alaskan native (though some watch movies in the winter now) knows what Mad Max is and be thrilled about it, and is cute and well-built, then I'm all for that and I really have to say that geekery, no matter what form, is never without a good dose of freakery. Alas, assignments took me elsewhere.

Hmmm, black book, black book...
 
requiem_for_a_starfury said:
Hardly any of the women, and girls I've met over the years, have had what you might call stereotypical tastes.
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None of my female friends have stereotypical tastes, alas most of the women I meet seem to. :lol:

requiem... said:
One female friend is an absolute fanatic for martial arts films and console beat 'em ups, another has virtually all the Gor books.
Click to expand...

I find that bit about your friend who's read the Gor books amazing. I'd say that I know some rather atypical females -- in fact, that term pretty much describes my circle of friends -- but I've read some of the Gor novels and I'm damn near shocked that any woman would read those on anything but an academic level. :lol:

Cheers,

OTB
 
You know I never asked why she had them or if she had read them, they're just there on her bookshelf. I've only read a couple, not something I'd willingly do again.
 
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