So Jelly
I’ve missed you, Brett.
I love gaming with ladies at the table.
There is a whole new dynamic when men and women share a gaming table and this is especially true with RPGs. In my experience, the group and overall campaign just seems so much more developed as opposed to a pure sausage party. This may not be the case for everyone but I love it.
I am actually in the process of changing things with my weekend gaming group and prepping to launch into a second bi-weekly campaign. I love to DM and the desire to create adventures and a campaign world is hitting me hard. I am planning to run two separate campaigns that indirectly (and in some cases directly) effect both groups. I yearn for good story and the kind of sessions that encourage players to role-play their characters. I want players to be invested. I’ve achieved such things in the past and I believe I can do so again. The only difference this time is the events take place not in my beloved Greyhawk but a homebrew world.
Commenters: What is your typical men/women ratio with your gaming groups and which ratio do you prefer at the table?
Betty White is a treasure, I love her like she was my own grandma. They share a dirty mind and a love of expletives.
Out of 8 players 3 are women. While they aren’t all as animated as some of the guys it is nice to have a mix. They add some class, some wit, some looks, and lots of fun to our game.
Hypothetically I’d love a 50/50 split at the table, but there aren’t that many lady gamers in my social circles. Right now there’s only usually one in the game I currently play in. The CoC game I played in was about 1/4 lady, and the Dr.Who game I run sporadically is 50/50, but that happens only about once a quarter.
It’s a pendulum: either no girls or just shy of 50/50. Right now, my old group is 5/8 girls, but it was 2/5 when I DMed: I think the secret to higher women ratios is lead with your women, make them run the game. It seems to effect player recruitment in my limited experience.
I’ve had at least the one token female in every group, and they can be quite enjoyable to game with.(as per your example)
However, if they are in a relationship with one of the other players, that can get touchy. DM’s girlfriend gets a lot of loot/story attention/breakups being… well nasty for the group dynamic. I had one group disband because of a breakup, and without the both of them it was hard to actually get the people to play.
Course, when everything works out awesome, it works out awesome. (Message brought to you by the redundancy department of redundancy)
So far, in the few games I have been able to play, its been all guys. We did have one girl, but she quit after the first session.
Then again, all these games are done online through Skype and such, so perhaps its a bit more skewed because of that.
Don’t go down that route Brett. You been doing better since you became Santa. Do not go back to Brett-ass.
I’m more often than not the only woman at the table and I’m very comfortable that way, I don’t get along all that well with women in many cases. My weekly group has another female player.
Character ratio is different because we have quite a few players who like to genderbend. I always play male characters and a couple of the men in my groups sometimes play female characters and they are better than I would ever be playing women.
Of my current group, there are 5 players, with two of them being female.
…of course, that leave three guys to give one of the girls a reason to exclaim, “This is why girls don’t play D&D!”
My group’s M/F number tends to run 2/2, although that sometimes will be 2/4 when the two men’s wives play. I have no preference with them, because we are all friends, and I enjoy their company whether we are gaming or not.
Hey I like sausage! Wait…that came out wrong…
My table is 2 woman & 4 men (not counting myself). It’s rare for everyone to show up, though (I think it’s only happened once). Most game nights it’s 1/3.
I started gaming after I got engaged, and my husband DMed a game with me, another girl, and a guy. We were all three relative beginners, so we made mistakes and bonked rolls together. After we moved, our new gaming group was six guys and me, and I was welcomed in with great good cheer. I tend to be the only female PC as well, but whoever’s DMing has never had any issues with it.
Let’s see….2 girls, and 2 or 3 guys depending on who has what night off. We don’t get together often enough. And unfortunately our fearless leader doesn’t emphasize roleplay. He tends to treat the whole thing more like a board game then anything else.
Wish I had a better group but it is difficult in this area to find players at all, let alone that can handle playing in a room with toddlers. (Complicated circumstances.)
I typically have a 40% women and and 60% men split. I did have one group that was reversed of that but schoolwork for most of the players caused some issues to meet up.
My gaming tables have run the gamut over the years. At one point I GMed an entirely female table, which was a lot of fun and frankly not as big a change from an all-guy table.
Currently my Thursday night table is all male, but I play in a Saturday group with a female GM and party member. And another table I GM is 50/50.
I’m definitely past the point where it seems like a novelty. I just enjoy the different perspective and carry on gaming.
Is it crazy to think that “Betty White is a Goddamn Treasure!” would make an awesome t-shirt?
Sorry – didn’t fulfill the feedback request on M/F ratio. Sadly we usually just have M’s and no F’s. It’s a real treat when we get a female player but it’s only happened on two occasions in the past 10 years (and even then the tenure was abbreviated). I’d love more diversity at the table and I’m sure all the current M players would agree.
my group has no girls, but it’s split almost half-n-half gay/straight, which gives a similarly diverse result, I would imagine.
our group currently carries 2 girls and 4 guys. I’m pretty happy with that.
My lat three groups had 2 (out of 6), then 1 (out of 4), then 0 (out of 5).
Betty White is awesome. Take Lake Placid for example…
We have one woman out our regular table. The guys all like her a lot; she’s glad to be there.
In case anyone hasn’t seen Fear of Girls, this part fits in nicely with the discussion:
My tabletop gaming history has mostly been no girls at the table, then I moved to a different group with one or two depending on the night, but I just started playing in a new, hopefully long-running campaign with.. four dudes and four ladies. The fourth guy was actually a late addition, so guys were outnumbered until last week.
And one of the guys is the Storyteller so we’re actually still outnumbered on the players’ side of the table. It promises to be an interesting game.
My group’s ratio varies quite a bit depending on availability. Of the 7 players, 2 are women, and our DM is also a woman. She’ll run so long as we have at least 4 players available, so it can be as high as 60/40 (F/M) and anything lower than that. Unfortunately, it’s also likely about to break up with the end of school year. 4 players (including our kick ass DM) are about to move away. Ah the joys of gaming in a University town…
We have a group of 4 couples that’s been playing for 30 years – so that 4 female / 3 male PC’s and a male DM. One of my current campaigns I am running for my college-age daughter and and friends is all female (except me). Other campaigns run about even split. So ya, women game.
Our game is currently 5 girls to 1 guy.
Right now my group actually doesn’t have any guys playing. Our DM is the only one, and what a lovely guy he is. We’ve also got a few folks sitting outside the boundaries of ‘man’ or ‘woman’