how can we get more girls to play

[twelwe]

read the title......

[damiac]

[insert chauvinistic joke here]

[XuaXua]

What makes you think there's more than one male playing?

Heck, what makes you think that the rest of us aren't just one really busy person?

[nilsbloodaxe]

What makes you think there's more than one male playing?

Heck, what makes you think that the rest of us aren't just one really busy person?

Yeah, I thought we were all minmay!

[twelwe]

What makes you think there's more than one male playing?

Heck, what makes you think that the rest of us aren't just one really busy person?

i can cite my sources can you cite youres....

[moocowmoocow]

Pizza tornado brings all the girls to the yard (get coding)

[Siegurt]

I recently met up with a girl at a bar, and gave her the link for DCSS.... I'm not sure how common of an option this is for some of our players, but one at a time eh?

(Ok, Ok, the girl was already one of my buds, and the DCSS link was after a conversation about how her EX didn't like how she would get way into gaming and not pay attention to him)

[XuaXua]

What makes you think there's more than one male playing?

Heck, what makes you think that the rest of us aren't just one really busy person?

i can cite my sources can you cite youres....

yes for the same reason you can cite youres

[tasonir]

I've trained my girlfriend to allow me to talk to her about dungeon crawl by saying that I understand she hates the game and doesn't understand what I am talking about, but will put up with it for my sake. So I can say things like "I finally won an octopode after killing 7 of them!" and she'll be like "congrats", roll her eyes, and then go back to her usual suppressed seething hatred of me that is our normal relationship.

She isn't interested in playing, I've already tried. I guess Siegurt has had more luck in that endeavor. I did get her to play one of those phone rpg games which is basically a grind or pay us money for better cards sort of game.

It certainly seems like abstract, difficult games tend to be prefered by men, although why I'm not sure. I'd love more female dungeon crawl players, but since it's single player, it wouldn't really change that much. It's not like you'll be playing with/against them

Also I'd just like to confirm that is it true, I am in fact the same person as XuaXua.

[Sar]

I can say things like "I finally won an octopode after killing 7 of them!" and she'll be like "congrats", roll her eyes

she's probably all like "oh an I bet you also went chei again"

[Leafsnail]

Smash the patriarchy?

[Hirsch I]

I tried to get my GF into games by teaching her Crawl and Dorf Fort. bad strategy.
but I did have her play MTG, and we are making our first cosplay together! somehow I feel she did not have any real hobbies, so she took mines.

[twelwe]

What makes you think there's more than one male playing?

Heck, what makes you think that the rest of us aren't just one really busy person?

i can cite my sources can you cite youres....

yes for the same reason you can cite youres

[1]

[1] http://www.roguetemple.com/2014/06/19/2 ... y-results/ 2013 Roguelike World Survey Results, June 19th 2014, Slash

0wned b1tch

[nilsbloodaxe]

Rogue Legacy and Spelunky are not roguelikes though.

[twelwe]

Rogue Legacy and Spelunky are not roguelikes though.

oh okay the entire study is useless then. girls must be playing since spelunky is not a roguelike. the guys who ran that are probably totally incompetent.

[nilsbloodaxe]

Rogue Legacy and Spelunky are not roguelikes though.

oh okay the entire study is useless then. girls must be playing since spelunky is not a roguelike. the guys who ran that are probably totally incompetent.

Not questioning the girls part, just the survey in general. Of course, I would do that on pure statistical grounds, too. It isn't a census nor is it randomized.

[dck]

mybe they were plying teleglitch or ftl then

[Sar]

define "girl"

[Hirsch I]

like "boy" but with "boobs".
...
...
...
damn, TIL I'm a girl.

[XuaXua]

0wned b1tch

R1ght, we distributed our survey answers predictably , especially since "we" conducted the survey in the first place.

[Tiktacy]

define "girl"

The thing that sneak your house at night and leaves the milk out thinking you wouldn't notice.

[Nemora]

I'm female.

*shrugs*

I've been playing roguelikes since I was 8. Started on Nethack, later played ADOM, Dwarf Fortress, Dungeons of Dredmore, DCSS, and Tales of Maj'Eyal.

We're around.

[Hirsch I]

oh, hi. good to know.

[Sphara]

My twin sister once asked me "are you still playing that gay-clown-nerd game"?

She remains as an only female, who knows i'm playing this ********* game.

[Hopeless]

My twin sister once asked me "are you still playing that gay-clown-nerd game"?

She remains as an only female, who knows i'm playing this ********* game.

Wouldn't she be surprised to know there are gay clown nerds playing this game? You should tell her you met some and see how she responds.

[Bloax]

define "girl"

it's an abbreviation for some really hot stuff

Spoiler: show

it's grill in real life

just don't touch the coals afterwards you knucklehead

[Lasty]

Some things that wouldn't hurt include not assuming each player is male and not posting as though only men will read posts. The Tavern is better than a lot of gaming forums in my experience, but often can be fairly alienating from a female perspective -- especially once people start talking about things like trying to take into account female perspectives.

I've had almost exactly the same amount of success getting my friends of all genders/sexualities interested in traditional roguelikes, which is to say, very little.

[Kismet]

Some things that wouldn't hurt include not assuming each player is male and not posting as though only men will read posts. The Tavern is better than a lot of gaming forums in my experience, but often can be fairly alienating from a female perspective -- especially once people start talking about things like trying to take into account female perspectives.

I've had almost exactly the same amount of success getting my friends of all genders/sexualities interested in traditional roguelikes, which is to say, very little.

Why would you assume that each player is an individual entity, instead of an otherkin whose essence is spread across multiple instantiations in space and time? Please avoid triggering exclusions in the future.

[TehDruid]

My twin sister once asked me "are you still playing that gay-Klown-nerd game"?

Ftfy.
No offense meant to Klown as well as gay people.
And, anyhow, we do have gay clowns, they are rainbow coloured and jump around like crazy. If that's not gayness (happiness), idk what is.

More on topic, as I've mentioned on another thread, I got my gf into DC:SS a little, whenever she plays she always picks Felid Berserker, because *freaking cats!!!*, but she finds it too complex to sit down and actually learn how to play it well. I consider her very smart, so I just think she's not particularly into it, not that she lacks the mental capacity to grasp the game's concepts. She's not what you'd call a hardcore gamer in general anyway, so no big surprise.

[Kismet]

This issue has been considered by Wikipedia when they were trying to get more women to participate in editing. Their main finding was that most women show a strong preference for collaborative or 'helping' leisure activities, and editing Wikipedia (or playing video games) didn't fit the bill.

[Hopeless]

My twin sister once asked me "are you still playing that gay-Klown-nerd game"?

Ftfy.
No offense meant to Klown as well as gay people.
And, anyhow, we do have gay clowns, they are rainbow coloured and jump around like crazy. If that's not gayness (happiness), idk what is.

More on topic, as I've mentioned on another thread, I got my gf into DC:SS a little, whenever she plays she always picks Felid Berserker, because *freaking cats!!!*, but she finds it too complex to sit down and actually learn how to play it well. I consider her very smart, so I just think she's not particularly into it, not that she lacks the mental capacity to grasp the game's concepts. She's not what you'd call a hardcore gamer in general anyway, so no big surprise.

I think the main reason for that has to do with acculturation and gender roles training. Men for the most part, across most cultures, are trained to be aggressive, enjoy "strategy" and war games and many women are trained to avoid conflict, seek non violent solutions and aren't at all fascinated by the gore/danger involved in war games.

That said, these statements fall apart as soon as we look at specific instances because there are certainly plenty of men who don't enjoy any kind of games, much less "juvenile" ones involving death, destruction, mayhem, etc and plenty of women who do enjoy these things as much or more than most of us.

Also you will occasionally run into someone who defies the norm for their gender role to some extent but still clings to parts of it. A distaste for boring detail for example kept my GF from learning how build her own decks in MTG but as soon as I limited her options and gave her choices she chose the most optimal ones and enjoyed kicking my butt regularly. We only stopped because I sold off my collection. Likewise she was interested in D&D and variants as long as she didn't need to do the bookkeeping. Where as I think for many of us (men and women) the bookkeeping is part of the attraction. She has absolutely no interest in playing crpgs or any computer based games for that matter. (But that might be generational.)

[TehDruid]

I think the main reason for that has to do with acculturation and gender roles training. Men for the most part, across most cultures, are trained to be aggressive, enjoy "strategy" and war games and many women are trained to avoid conflict, seek non violent solutions and aren't at all fascinated by the gore/danger involved in war games.

That said, these statements fall apart as soon as we look at specific instances because there are certainly plenty of men who don't enjoy any kind of games, much less "juvenile" ones involving death, destruction, mayhem, etc and plenty of women who do enjoy these things as much or more than most of us.

Also you will occasionally run into someone who defies the norm for their gender role to some extent but still clings to parts of it. A distaste for boring detail for example kept my GF from learning how build her own decks in MTG but as soon as I limited her options and gave her choices she chose the most optimal ones and enjoyed kicking my butt regularly. We only stopped because I sold off my collection. Likewise she was interested in D&D and variants as long as she didn't need to do the bookkeeping. Where as I think for many of us (men and women) the bookkeeping is part of the attraction. She has absolutely no interest in playing crpgs or any computer based games for that matter. (But that might be generational.)

I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head there. I do love games where I do "bookkeeping", I can safely say that character creation and development is the biggest part of the game for me in every crpg. If it lacks in that field, I feel disappointed, no matter how good the graphics, music or gameplay are. Of course I love pen & paper rpgs too, I haven't attempted to get my gf into that. For now we play Minecraft together whenever we both have free time.

[Nemora]

This issue has been considered by Wikipedia when they were trying to get more women to participate in editing. Their main finding was that most women show a strong preference for collaborative or 'helping' leisure activities, and editing Wikipedia (or playing video games) didn't fit the bill.

Yeah, that's a crock of shit.

If you want more women to participate in your community, you need to actively make it more welcoming to women- and that doesn't mean making it more collaborative or "helping" or whatever.

I've checked out on more than one geeky/gaming community because it was either directly or indirectly hostile to me in ways that singled me or other women out as not really welcome. This includes, but is not limited to, 1) male players challenging me after their male friends lost to me because they wanted to "prove" how bad their friends were for losing to a girl; 2) not taking me as seriously as male players around same numbers/ratings; 3) continually telling sexist jokes in my presence, 4) telling me that it's "just a joke and I should get over it" when I mention the jokes make me uncomfortable; 4) telling me that I'm not "like other girls" as if that's supposed to be a compliment (it's not); 5) saying to my face that women "just aren't gamers"; 6) talking me up until they find out I have a boyfriend then completely ignoring me, thus leaving me out of the group entirely; 7) asking my boyfriend questions about geek fandom things he knows nothing about, but I am basically a walking encyclopedia for- and then continuing to ask him even after he not only redirected them to me but I answered every one of their questions...

I could go on.

These things and more have happened to me numerous times.

Now, the communities that I've remained in- either one of two things tends to happen. Either despite its issues, the community is large enough that I can band together with people who do not tolerate this sort of behavior, or two, the community itself is not rampant with this. And even if it's just a "few bad eggs" or whatever- how the community deals with these bad eggs tells me volumes about whether or not this is a place I can stay. Because, see, I deal with this stuff on an everyday basis. Gaming is my escape. And I don't want to have to walk into things like that all the time and have my day ruined when I just wanted to have a good time.

I'd also second everything Lastly said.

So yeah.

*steps off soapbox*

[Arrhythmia]

This issue has been considered by Wikipedia when they were trying to get more women to participate in editing. Their main finding was that most women show a strong preference for collaborative or 'helping' leisure activities, and editing Wikipedia (or playing video games) didn't fit the bill.

Yeah, that's a crock of shit.

You didn't like instantly pick up on that when like the eighth word was "Wikipedia" whose editors could be corralled into a museum and (correctly) catalouged as "The World's Largest Collection of Sexless Autists"?

[Nemora]

This issue has been considered by Wikipedia when they were trying to get more women to participate in editing. Their main finding was that most women show a strong preference for collaborative or 'helping' leisure activities, and editing Wikipedia (or playing video games) didn't fit the bill.

Yeah, that's a crock of shit.

You didn't like instantly pick up on that when like the eighth word was "Wikipedia" whose editors could be corralled into a museum and (correctly) catalouged as "The World's Largest Collection of Sexless Autists"?

Fair. *grin*

In all seriousness, though, those kinds of responses are not uncommon in response to the question of, "where are the women in this community?" People say that kind of shit and mean it all the time. And after a while, it gets tiring.

[scorpionwarrior]

Yeah, it sucks that there are so many shitty dudes in gaming communities. Even if they're convinced to shut the fuck up they bring out their ignorant opinions in other ways, a lot like how racist views are still rampant irl, it's just that most people have been conditioned to not be blatant about it. Most people are inherently self-centered assholes and I fear theres not much that can be done about it :(

[Kismet]

This issue has been considered by Wikipedia when they were trying to get more women to participate in editing. Their main finding was that most women show a strong preference for collaborative or 'helping' leisure activities, and editing Wikipedia (or playing video games) didn't fit the bill.

Yeah, that's a crock of shit.

Well, the Wikipedia study in question was led by a WOMAN, namely http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sue_Gardner. I guess she is just ENTHRALLED TO THE PATRIARCHY. So go crock her shit.

Also, notice the language used. "Most women." It's great if you aren't most women. Most people aren't most people. It's unresponsive to the claim and something of a red herring to go on the warpath about how you don't fit the particular claim and therefore it's invalid.

[cerebovssquire]

Completely independent of whether on not that finding on wikipedia editing is accurate: whether or not the person who leads a study on women is a woman is completely irrelevant. The simple fact that you belong to a certain gender does not mean that you automatically know about the preferences people of that gender are more likely to have, and it doesn't protect you from making mistakes in conducting a certain study.

[Kismet]

Completely independent of whether on not that finding on wikipedia editing is accurate: whether or not the person who leads a study on women is a woman is completely irrelevant. The simple fact that you belong to a certain gender does not mean that you automatically know about the preferences people of that gender are more likely to have, and it doesn't protect you from making mistakes in conducting a certain study.

Great, awesome. Thanks for that, it really helps our discussion of the substantive merits of the claim. Do you feel the need to bracket every claim made by anyone with that disclaimer?

[cerebovssquire]

When the fuck did you "discuss the substantive merits of the claim", all you did was post said claim and then make a shitty joke about patriarchy

[Hirsch I]

chill out guys, what pointless discussion.
here, lets eat some chili and drink some beer, like men.

[Sar]

So what do you have against sexless autists anyway, Arrhy?

[Kismet]

When the fuck did you "discuss the substantive merits of the claim", all you did was post said claim and then make a shitty joke about patriarchy

Notwithstanding whether the study is right or wrong, we might be in a simulacra generated by a supercomputer that is altering reality such that the study's rightness or wrongness is a function of the computer's modifications rather than reality qua reality. We ought to consider that possibility before discussing the study and it's relevance to this thread.

[Lasty]

Kismet, stop posting nonsense in what appears to be an attempt to dismiss or derail any legitimate point raised in this conversation.

[cerebovssquire]

Notwithstanding whether the study is right or wrong, we might be in a simulacra generated by a supercomputer that is altering reality such that the study's rightness or wrongness is a function of the computer's modifications rather than reality qua reality. We ought to consider that possibility before discussing the study and it's relevance to this thread.

You post a finding about women and wikipedia. Nemora (admittedly only with anecdotes, and calling that out is a completely valid point) says that she disagrees with it. Your response (before you edited it) was "but this was a point made by a woman". I say why I don't think it is relevant. Then you act like this is completely tangential when you brought it up in the first place. I really don't follow this line of thought.

[Leafsnail]

What the heck is a "collaborative or 'helping'" leisure activity? And how exactly is editing Wikipedia not one of them?

[TheDefiniteArticle]

I'm a white male, ergo not allowed to have opinions on things like this. I have to act like it's all a big crazy coincidence that the NBA has more black men than white women. So I'll just say that I'm not surprised in the least that roguelikes are male-dominated, and make no effort to defend my claim.

you need to actively make it more welcoming to women

The majority of the roguelike community is bad anyway, the fact that I pee standing up doesn't turn ignorant scumbags into pleasant company. Although drawing the actual line for what constitutes the community is hard. Like separating people who watch sports sometimes from "sports fans". That survey above happily equates the most casual and most hardcore players, which is the immediate reason that I find it suspect. BUT the few folks who are smart enough to be highly skilled at roguelikes are also smart enough to not be total assholes.

What the heck is a "collaborative or 'helping'" leisure activity? And how exactly is editing Wikipedia not one of them?

The second question is simple: editing Wikipedia is not an action undertaken with the goal of helping or collaborating. The first question is a trap, everybody be smart and don't answer it.

[Siegurt]

FWIW I know several women who are gamers, and a lot of times they go out of their way not to identify themselves as such in online formats, because they feel like it gets them a certain kind of abuse (Let's face it, even a fairly small number of active assholes can make an online community a terrible place ).

Also secondarily, and this is a complaint I see commonly about the Roguelike genre from men and women, is that when I invite someone to play DCSS, they look at it and say "Oh, it seems like that would be a lot of work to learn, and it's not that exciting"

I suspect that initial perception is what keeps people (in general, not just women) away.

Also the women who I know who are gamers (and this is *not* a representative sample, so take it for what it's worth please) are much more interested in relaxing and zoning out with a game, it's a way to take pressure *off* their brain, and the perception is that DCSS is a very "worky" game (It's my perception that DCSS is less "worky" than most Roguelikes, but as a genre, Roguelikes are a fairly worky sort)

[Lasty]

I'm a white male, ergo not allowed to have opinions on things like this.

Yeah, because white men are so oppressed and their opinions are never heard.

No one can stop you from having a viewpoint, and for the most part people can't stop you from expressing your viewpoint, but there's nothing to stop anyone else from calling out the problems with your viewpoint or asking you to stop expressing it. Having someone disagree with you isn't "silencing" you and isn't a form of oppression.

I have to act like it's all a big crazy coincidence that the NBA has more black men than white women.

For example, it sounds an awful lot like you're advocating gender and race essentialist sentiments here, which are sexist and racist respectively, and if that's so, I condemn you for it and request that you stop expressing these viewpoints.

[dck]

C&D