The Role Playing Public Radio Forums
General Category => RPGs => : Arvandus December 18, 2011, 09:39:44 PM
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Hey Guys,
First a shameless plug then a question.
This is Jesus Rodriguez, creator of the Fandible Roleplaying podcast. Because I have seen very few actual play podcast sessions featuring Female GM's, I thought I would link to our play sessions of Hollow Earth Expedition GM'ed by one our crew, Angela.
Please listen and comment if your so inclined.
Hollow Earth sessions on Fandible: http://www.fandible.com/?tag=hollow-earth-expedition (http://www.fandible.com/?tag=hollow-earth-expedition)
With that out of the way, I am curious and want to know the communities opinion on something. As I was posting the second session of our Hollow Earth Game, I was suddenly struck with the thought that I have known very few Female GM's. I have also heard very few podcast actual play sessions with Female GM's.
So, the question I have for you ladies and gentlemen is whether there are factors preventing women from feeling comfortable GM'ing games? Or is it simply tied to the fact their are far fewer female pen & paper gamers vs male gamers, which is another problem entirely.
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Karee GM'ed a few games for the RPPR crew when we still lived in Springfield.
I would say that you're pretty much right with the idea that there are fewer female pen & paper gamers than male. Most of the female gamers I've known that are really HC are MMORPG players.
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At the GUMSHOE Panel at GenCon we met this really awesole woman who is the GM for her group, she was pretty atypical of the type of girl you might stereotype as a Gamer. But in the game we played with her she knew her shit and was a great RPer. There were so many female GMs at GenCon it was amazing.
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Val over at YSDC was the GM for the great "Walker in the Wastes" campaign.
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Life is involving and fun enough without RPGs; there is no need to put a special label to a part of life and call it "rpg"
I think that accounts for the perceived difference as presented in the OP
(Mythogenic connection: in Genesis, Adam went around naming everything, thereby cutting off the world's wholism and making it discrete and analytical...)
(Possible science connection: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMJgZ4s2E3w )
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Semi-related: My girlfriend and I are going to be separated across the country/globe all summer, so I suggested doing a sort of "play-by-email" with her. She's never played RPGs before, but she definitely has that interest in creative, collaborative storytelling, so I think she might just get really into it. And she's full of crazy ideas, so I'm hoping she might GM some stuff when she gets more familiar...
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Generally speaking, I think the issue is that it is a male dominated hobby. Only women can answer why-- anything else is speculation.
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I've had three different women run games. Hell I think by this point I've ran games for more women than men. Might just be the area you're in.
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Theoretically my group will have a woman run a game or series of games in the near future - we'll see, people other than me always seem to say they'll run a game and then it never materializes. :P
Helps that my current group is half female, though, eventually some game's going to be run by a chick.
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So there's an "online gaming convention" happening soon where all the events and games are run by women: http://www.contessaonline.com/
It seems maybe a little gimmicky but pretty cool overall. If you're a dude you're welcome to play in games and watch the events.