Sexism in Tabletop RPGs

I try to avoid being topical, preferring to leave real life take care of itself while I get on with my gaming. However, recent events surrounding women in gaming (and comics, and media, and movies, *sigh*) have inspired me to recall my own life growing up as a nerdy woman delving in a male-centric world. Rather than my less than pleasant gender related experiences in online roleplay, I thought I’d tell you what my personal experiences are in tabletop roleplay. Along the way I’ll go over a few strategies I used to deal with gender differences and how they affected my gaming. Don’t worry, this won’t be a hate piece, nor will it include any banner waving ;-).

There is no doubt that tabletop RPGs carry much the same social perception computer gaming do, in that it is primarily a hobby for men and that women are a recent inclusion. I have to admit, my own personal experience is that I find fewer women who roleplay than I do guys. The funny thing is that many women have tried tabletop RPGs and most enjoyed it, but fewer seem to continue playing. It’s more like “Oh yeah, I used to play that with my boyfriend,” and things like that. Why didn’t they continue? Often, they just didn’t enjoy the experience as much in a larger male dominated group.

In my experience, every group has teething issues when introducing a female gamer. Guys just tend to get more rowdy when in an all-male group, and most women (myself included) don’t actually enjoy the lewd ego stroking and chest beating common to an all-male group (not to say all-female groups don’t have their own versions of it). Introduce a woman and the guys feel they need to start behaving themselves, with some of them not enjoying the game as much, or so I am lead to believe. Yet once you get past that initial barrier of social expectation things are very different on the inside.

One thing many tabletop men understand is that women can play a strong role in the fantasy world. A woman can be a powerful queen, ruling in her own right and not just as servant to a king. A woman can be a fearsome warrior or beguiling mage, or even a deadly assassin. The male tabletop gamer doesn’t have the same level of disconnect male computer gamers seem to suffer. Online, most males assume that a female character is probably still being played by a male, so even if a female acts in a traditionally heroic manner, men just don’t connect that with womanhood. Whereas the male tabletop gamer usually reads a lot of fiction and has a firm background in the fantasy genre, which allows for strong female characters. This makes the tabletop gamer more willing and able to accept a woman into their group as an equal, at least in my experience. However, there are often initial issues, especially if you’re their first real live ‘girl’ in the group.

Introductions to a new group

I find the worst part of being a female gamer is that initial awkwardness when entering into a previously all-male group. This has definitely lessened a lot over the years as maturity and experience has already primed men for the experience, but back in my younger days, there were ‘issues’. The first issue is the perception that women just don’t understand the game. Maybe they had a woman in their group before, but she was dragged along by a boyfriend and treated like an idiot. She wasn’t there for the game and she didn’t care about the stupid ring of Asmodeus your party seems strangely excited to find, she’s there to spend time with the boyfriend. As a result, she doesn’t learn what dice to roll, cannot tell her ThAC0 from her Save vs Death and ultimately becomes a burden at the table. Some guys learn to expect that from all women, so they treat all women with a certain level of disdain. Your first step is to stay relaxed, play it cool, and show (don’t tell) that you are actually rule savvy, competent and goal oriented.

Once you show that you actually know the game, the guys will usually relax and start treating you as an equal right away. The next stage is more difficult as you have to work out who the problem people are going to be. Sorry, even to this day most groups still have problem people, though the mix of them will vary. Less common today is the single guy who immediately sees your shared interest in gaming as an opportunity for romance. These days most of the guys are married off, but in the early days they were all single, and even if in a relationship with another woman at the same table they still acted single. Try to knock this one on the head early by making it clear you’re there to game, not pick up. I actually adopt the same policy in gaming as I do at work; never date in-house. If a work relationship falls apart it’s hell, if it happens in a gaming group then bye-bye group, one of you are out. Not worth the risk, don’t do it. That’s not to say I won’t game with a boyfriend, but that has its own set of issues I won’t go into here.

As with life, there is no easy answer to unwanted advances, just apply your usual life skills and be upfront about it. The one pitfall you must be aware of is that many people (both men and women) have a tendency to project an in game relationship onto real life. I learnt the hard way to work it the other way around and apply my real life policy of “don’t date within the group” into the game, and avoid starting character romances. This kind of sucks to be honest, but unless you can trust how the guy will take it, just don’t do the romance thing.

Ok, so you’ve identified the single guys and marked them for management. By now you will already have noticed the next hazard, the Alpha Male. I hate alpha males, but thankfully few true shaved apes actually roleplay, as it’s a bit highbrow to them. Instead there may be the proxy alpha of the group who may try to use the fantasy world for a little chest pounding and general penis waving. He’ll be the one trying to rally people behind his lewd comments and casual misogyny. If you have already developed real life tactics for dealing with these guys (and you should), then those tactics apply. However, this is a fantasy world so more options are available to you.

Regardless of what you play, the system should have equipped you with a character possessing amazing and deadly skills. While I have played and have enjoyed all character classes, I tend to favour the mage and thief types. I enjoy clerics the least, especially the early versions of cleric as you really were nothing more than the party ‘stitch bitch’ and you had no real respect. However, a mage has awesome spells able to twist the mind of people or just burn them to a cinder. As a thief, even if you elect not to end them while they sleep, you have an array of nasty toxins which can make life hell for the poor proxy alpha. What I’m saying is that if they want to act like a chauvinistic pig in game, your own in game counter-threats now carry the weight of a half-pound of dice.

I always give my characters a wicked edge of some sort. I have been told I have a most wicked impish grin in real life which tends to be fair warning if you are crossing a line with me. In one game of Rolemaster my warlock responded to one males’ persistent anti-female policies by cursing his character with erectile dysfunction. When he persisted I made him pee green slime. As he suffered the jeers of his male companions he learnt not to cross me and somehow, that made him respect me more from then on, even carrying that respect into other games as I continued with the group.

I played a mage in Shadowrun who was a prostitute, running the shadows in an effort to change her life and get away from the streets. I thought it was an awesome character concept, but her original profession incited the men to act in a disrespectful manner, making jokes such as “wondering why my cunt aches after I astral travel” (during astral travel you leave your body for a time and are not aware of what’s happening to it). Their characters hadn’t taken physical action in game, but I wasn’t having fun and things seemed to be escalating. When my normal management tactics didn’t work my character took a risk and spend some nuyen to summon a Force 8 Earth Elemental (Damn powerful by our party level). Next time my character went astral she left the Elemental instruction on what to do should her body be tampered with. The GM, seeking to bring order to his group and understanding my discomfort, really played up the manifestation of my elemental when their jokes started to edge towards action. The Rigger had to pay a nominal amount for repairs to his van suspension but the party got scared witless and the ‘jokes’ dropped off. My character was treated with a lot more respect after that. Suddenly all those awesome things she was doing to support the party started being seen as valuable. That’s life in a bottle really isn’t it? *sigh*

My point is, always take a gun to a knife fight. Just the threat of it is usually enough to maintain your place in the pecking order of the group.

Does Tabletop RPGs support female gamers?

In a word, yes. Ok, as with online games the artwork does tend towards the inappropriate in most cases, but I find it’s less so than in computer games. I distinctly recall many excellent pieces of art in the Dungeons and Dragons boxed sets (circa 1983) that depicted women in full plate armour. Even back to the first ‘Red box’ with the female cleric in plate mail and helm wielding a mace. I was excited and inspired to see women depicted as realistic contributors to the world (thank you Larry Elmore). I’ll never forget Aleena the Cleric, my first real look at a strong female character, realistically attired in a fantasy setting. Female warriors in full plate armour were put on book covers, not posing seductively with broken backs, but going toe to toe in battle with dragons! I loved it, and better still, other guys were able to see that sort of thing for themselves. As I look over some of that art I’m impressed with how the art allows the viewer to project either gender into the image.

In most fantasy worlds I can name, women tend to play real roles in the world, not just as adjuncts to male characters, but as powerful individuals in their own right. Ok, still plenty of buxom wenches and such, but that’s fine, it’s realistic. That was balanced out by shirtless barbarians and mincing bards, so it all felt … balanced. Ok, the original AD&D capped female characters as having a lower Strength statistic than their male counterparts, but I was never offended by that to be honest, it actually felt accurate enough to me and if I played a female fighter, she would be more agility based in her approach to combat. These distinctions didn’t come across to me as sexist, just an attempt to reflect real life, because men at peak potential are stronger than women. I think female characters might have been superior in other areas, but it’s been too many years since then for me to remember and an ex-friend has stolen my original players handbook so I cannot look it up :-/.

In most online games female characters are designed for the male eye. They have tiny waists, huge breasts and our choice of outfits range from skimpy to near nude. Sure, we can play a warrior and have exactly the same stats as our male counterparts, but we are not equal. In fact, based on game attributes nothing differentiates the characters other than appearance, so we are back to putting the focus on being top heavy and wearing an armoured g-string. But I said I wasn’t going to do any banner waving so I’ll move on.

Tabletop games are much more gender friendly and although there are certain preconceptions to overcome, men in Tabletop tend to be more accepting of female gamers.

Final Word

I really want to see more women give tabletop RPGs a fair play. I think you’ll find male tabletop gamers very welcoming and much easier to wrangle than say … the average guy at a nightclub. I have seen many women take this too far and use their wiles to abuse men. That’s wrong and it brings the community down for the rest of us, so stop it, or at least leave it in character.

Does sexism exist in tabletop gaming? Of course it does, and it does go both ways as well, with male characters being depicted in stereotypical ways as shaved gorillas unable to use anything but brute force to reach their goals. Yet that sexism is, in my experience, less about how game developers depict gender roles in their worlds and more about overcoming long term preconceptions. This gender equality isn’t a new thing to table top gaming, it’s been there all along. Age has given wisdom to gamers also, with gender being a near complete non-issue in the average mature gaming group.

When it comes to integrating into a new gaming group my advice is to let action speak for you. Don’t waste time telling people you actually know how to play, get in there and just play. You don’t need to defend your gender in order to be accepted into the group, it’s not like being accepted into the footy team. Also, you are playing in a fantasy world so if you do encounter issues of sexism, try to keep things in game where possible. Never lead guys on, especially for any perceived in game advantage. I’ve seen fellow female gamers try to use their gender to coerce male GMs into providing advantages in game. It’s just sad, have some respect for yourself and just don’t do it. Whatever you gain from the GM you lose in respect from your party members.

Over the years I’ve gone from being the only woman in the group through to the present day where the average group is maybe 33-50% female. I’d like to see a solid 50-50, it honestly makes for better games for everyone involved. If you have ever thought about tabletop RPGs, whether you are male or female, it’s worth seeking a mature group and giving it a go. While computer games tend to snatch up many potential tabletop gamers before they can discover the joy of throwing dice, there are still dedicated groups of tabletop RP gamers out there. I’m sure they would love to introduce you to the nail biting adrenaline rush of walking into a dragon’s lair without the benefit of a save function or a respawn point, all of Tabletop is hardcore mode.