Planning a Women-Only Gaming Group
January 2008 Issue
Features
- From the Editors
- Craft Check: Gaming Gloves
- Gaming in the Media: Women Working in Games - 5 Viewpoints, 2 Ways to Play
- Market to Me: Women as players
- Gamer vs Gamer: An old debate for the new year: casual vs. hardcore
Interviews
- Industry Interview: Naomi Clark
- Blogger Interview: Mighty Ponygirl [Feminist Gamers]
Articles
- Gender & Live-Action Role Play: Reality Repackaged
Author: Samara Hayley Steele
- Planning a Women-Only Gaming Group
Author: Robyn Fleming
- Celebrating women in the industry
Author: Andrea Rubenstein
- Choosing Imitation Over Innovation
Author: Richard Pilbeam
In this ongoing series, Samara shares her experiences as a female LARPer in a male-dominated LARP Organization.
Robyn outlines the trials and tribulations of organizing an all-women gaming group.
Andrea looks at some of the influential women in the video game and tabletop gaming industry.
Richard discusses ways in which imitation and a lack of innovation help to perpetuate sexist themes in games produced by the RPG Maker community.
Gamer Stories
Reviews
- Super Mario Galaxy
- Retro Review: Pitfall!
Odds 'n Ends
I think it was Brandy’s idea, but by the end of the evening both of us were equally enthusiastic about it. We were hanging out, having dinner and chatting at my apartment, and the conversation turned to her recent experiences as a newbie to tabletop roleplaying games. She happened to be playing with more or less the same group of players I had game-mastered a long-running game for a couple of years ago, and we spent quite some time comparing notes on playing styles and telling funny stories from particularly memorable sessions.
One part of the gaming experience that we had very much in common was being the only woman in the group. But while most of my memories of gaming with that bunch of guys were from the perspective of an experienced player running the show, Brandy was coming to the table without any practice or confidence in her knowledge of the rules. On top of feeling a little out of place in the crowd of men, she was uncomfortable being the only player who had to be reminded of what dice to roll when, and who needed help with things like character creation and advancement.
I’d wanted to do another stint as game master for a while, but was craving something new. The guys from my usual group are all wonderful people – I married one of them, and count many of the rest among my closest friends – but I had wondered what it might be like to play with an entirely different set of people. Brandy was interested in a game where she’d feel less out of place, I wanted to stretch my horizons as a game master, and the idea for a women’s gaming group composed mostly of newbie players seemed like a perfect fit for both of us.
Why Women-Only?
There are a few reasons why I’m interested in giving a women-only gaming group a try. One is simple novelty – I’ve played almost exclusively with men (and boys, for a bit) in the past, and I’ve been gaming since I was a child. Every now and then another woman would join us for a session, or even for a few sessions, but I’ve never gamed with more than one other woman at all.
I’m also curious about how a difference in the gender of my players might correlate to differences in behavior. I’m not expecting much difference – I’d be absolutely shocked if a bunch of female players turn out to be any less bloodthirsty or more inherently nurturing than the male players I’m used to – but there’ve been studies that indicate that girls and women feel more confident and are more likely to speak up and assert themselves when they’re in same-gendered groups.
When I was playing with the guys as another player character and not the game master, I often felt as though I was the only person being shouted down and talked over, the only one who was ever willing to compromise or subsume my own preferences in favor of group harmony. This may have been a false impression (it can’t always have been the case, certainly), but there’s no denying that that’s how I felt. Could changing the gender dynamics of the group help women feel self-assured as players and confident that their opinions are worth sharing and being heard? Maybe. I think it’s worth a try, certainly.
Who? (And Will They Bring the Kids Along?)
Brandy and I thought a group of women who have little or no experience with tabletop roleplaying would work best together. If the players are all at a similar level, we figure, no one will feel out of place in the group because of a lack or a surfeit of experience. As the game master, I’ll be the exception to this rule, and will act in the capacity of guide for the players in more ways than one.
So, who to invite to the group? Brandy had someone in mind immediately, and said she’d feel her out about the possibility. Myself, I took the earliest opportunities of asking my friends Heather and Martelle if they might be interested in a women’s gaming group.
In Heather’s case, this meant that I asked her about it while we were at the mall, shopping for Christmas presents. It was her first night out without her toddler in tow in months. We had left the baby at my place with my husband and hers and a variety of stuffed animals and video games, ensuring that everyone would be entertained for several hours. As we made our way through the mall, Heather awkwardly steered her very pregnant bulk around all of the tight-packed holiday displays. As I write this article, she’s expecting to go into labor at any moment – the toddler is sleeping over with my husband and me so that Heather can rush off to the birthing center as soon as it’s time.
When I brought the idea up with Martelle, a good friend of mine with whom I work (and share a slightly obsessive love of unicorns), it was during a lunch break, between inquiries about the health of her school-aged daughter and step-daughter and her infant son. Two of the women I’m hoping will make up my gaming group have young children, and, like many mothers, they’re primary caretakers.
I’ve followed threads about children in gaming groups at a variety of discussion forums with interest for quite some time. I began playing as a child, myself, and have often thought about introducing tabletop roleplaying games to babysitting charges, and have fond dreams of gaming with my own future children, someday.
Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of people who argue against the presence of children during gaming sessions at all, and very specifically against permitting infants and toddlers to be nearby at game time. Kids are noisy, messy and frequently in need of attention. I had a rule against cell phones in the last game I managed, because of the distraction factor of texting and calls from friends. Being rather familiar with the behavior and care of children, I’m certain that the distraction potential is much higher.
In the case of my potential players, the good news is that the children’s fathers will likely be able to keep them at home when their mothers have a game on. But I’m hoping to make gaming sessions with this group as child-friendly as possible, nonetheless. Many women of my acquaintance who have young children decline a lot of social invitations because they don’t want to inconvenience other adults with the presence of a baby. I imagine that there are mothers out there who are turning down opportunities to play in games they’d very much enjoy because they’re unable to find a sitter. I don’t want anyone to feel that she can’t be a part of my gaming group just because she might need to bring the baby to sessions with her now and then.
But it’s important that I respect the comfort of the players without children, too. Not all women like children, after all, and many who do still want to keep their grown-up social time restricted to adults. I’ll have to help the group strike a balance that works for everyone. And while this isn’t a concern that is necessarily unique to women-only gaming groups (and likely has a great deal to do with the ages of the players – my new potential group is older on average than previous groups), I find that the logistics of childcare are inextricably bound up in the formation of this gaming group in a way that’s never been an issue I needed to resolve, before.
But When?
One of my prospective players works full-time at a job that requires a lot of long hours and has three kids at home. One works more than one job, one is a full-time worker and part-time student and one is a stay-at-home mother with two babies to look after. Myself, I work, teach martial arts and spend my evenings and weekends writing fiction and for a number of blogs, as well as editing this magazine.
On top of work, there are always the practical day-to-day considerations of life as an adult to schedule: appointments with healthcare professionals, taking time to pay bills, grocery shopping and so on. And there’s household maintenance. Several of us cohabitate with the men in our lives, which helps ease the burden of the endless fight against entropy that is housecleaning, but, like most women in the United States, we’re all probably doing a little bit more of that work than our husbands.
And, of course, we all have other hobbies and pleasurable leisure activities that we’d be loath to give up. How can we possibly stuff a roleplaying game into our packed schedules? Optimistically, I gave dice and hand-made dice bags as gifts to Brandy and Heather for Christmas (Martelle got a unicorn t-shirt, of course). But as enthusiastic as we are about the potential of our women’s gaming group, and as interested as I am in the differences I’ve observed already in planning and those that might exist in play, it may never coalesce into a reality.
But I’m hoping it will, and that this article might be the first in a series about my experiences with this group. It’s definitely possible – it’s a new year, after all.
