Girls and DND

Back in the day... we had a group that played Pen and Paper D&D and had a girl in our group, it was not a big deal. But to be fair, she wasn´t very attractive. As wrong as it seems to say, if you put an attractive woman in the group, it would change the entire dynamic and the geeks would not feel comfortable being themselves. It is one of the funny parts of the show in that it shows the reality that at times geeks know they are being geeks and can ´clean it up´ and at other times, they are oblivious to it.

This forum is about DDO, an online game but really it is the same thing. DDO is one of the few games I ever played where ingame, default voice chat is used by many players who group. And you can almost feel the dynamic of groups change when a female is in the group. Usually it is guys being overly friendly in a geeky way, not necessarily being jerks or perverts. DDO has a pretty mature playerbase because it is such a small population, mostly the kids have moved onto whatever new flashy MMORPG is out there.

 

I am a female who plays DnD, and a lot of other girls who play. I think that recent positive coverage of DnD has sorted of shifted the public perception of it. In general, geek culture is becoming less and less "lame" and more and more normal.

 

I've always been interested in DnD, but I never really had anyone to play with. I didn't really know any of the "nerdy" kids who were into Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic and things like Dungeons and Dragons growing up, so I either played by myself or not at all. Even today I don't really know anyone who plays DnD, and I've always been too shy to seek out a group to play with by myself.

 

Gamer girls have always existed, the thing is that for some reason in the years before all ad and movie publicity was geared towards males. That's how we all have in our minds the image of two 10 year old boys playing video games after school. It was funny because even the prettiest girls in class used to play Mario or Yoshi´s Adventure, or just any game. I remember reading somewhere that the video game market was actually composed of an outstanding 53% of gamer girls. All this was back in the 1998's early 2000's. I guess the number might have increased and after big video game companies realized girls were an important percentage of the market they started making commercials that appealed to them too.

I think DnD isn't the exception and I'm sure many girls could be found playing it just as they can be found playing any other game.

 

Well I just think that you might have to look a little harder, but they are certainly out there. It is just like anything, for whatever reason the females just tend to hide better and take a little longer to find. Here it is no different, and I would say just keep your eyes open.

 

Lots of girls play DnD, and other RPGs, for that matter. My wife plays DnD, and one of my high school friends does, too. Hell, she's the one who got me into DnD in the first place, and she runs sessions for an all-girl group (four or five members strong, I believe) at least semi-regularly. Female gamers are out there.

And yeah, I'm sure plenty of females play DDO. Or did before the player base started to wane, anyway.

 

I think BBT just pigeonholes everyone - I've know quite a few girls who played DnD back in the day. Of course, I don't know any girls who play DnD online, but this forum seems to show promise

 

Yeah, a lot of girls I know played/play DND, why not? There are girls out there who game, haha, probably you've not been "exposed" to them.

 

Yes, there are girls out there who play D&D, although since that's a real life sort of game (most of the time), they tend to be... Girly? I've played with a couple of them and and only one was really interested in playing the game and adventuring, while the rest acted like they were dragged into it and didn't really want to play almost at all. And D&D is a group game, it's supposed to be fun for everyone, so when a party member's not having fun, the whole group suffers.

 

Well, no one HAS to play the game if they don't want to. Anyways, this discussion itself is a testament to the fact that girls play and enjoy DnD all the time.

 

Have you ever played DnD with a guy who doesn't want to be there? I have. A few times. The experience isn't much different. They screw around, complain, get bored, and find any excuse they can to ignore the game. You can't generalize based on gender, it's a personality thing. Some people will like DnD; some won't.

 

A majority of girls I've played with weren't interested and a miniscule minority of guys weren't interested. Yes, neither of them were fun to play with, but I'm only making generalizations based on the sample I have to work with. Like statistics work.

 

It's the same. But, I still maintain that girls who play DND enjoy their time just as much. Its just a matter of interest.

 

My professor at the JC I currently attend stated that she used to play Dungeons and Dragons. That is the reason she is such a fantasy fanatic.

 

I wanted to play it, but I just couldn't find others that were interested in playing the game with me and it isn't really much fun to try and play it by yourself. Then, other games came by and I just forgot about it and moved along.That and I'm more into Cyberpunk than Fantasy nowadays.

 

Would just like to come back and add a new experience I had with D&D. I'm playing D&D on a pretty regular basis for the last six months or so and my new girlfriend was interested in learning more about it since I spend few hours a week playing. I explained the game to her, and we played what I thought would be a small one off session. Turns out, she's crazy about it and my regular party agreed and I added her in. She's still a little shy in the role-playing stuff, but really shined in combat.

 

I actually met someone the other day who claimed that she was big into the game when she was younger. That said, though, I am pretty sure she was a little embarrassed by it, so take that for what you wish.