Girl gamers, girly gamers, and D&D
This September, WOTC will be releasing Confessions of a Part-time Sorceress, a book dealing with making D&D a good experience for female gamers.
This is long overdue. I have to say I'm somewhat disappointed that the writers of the D&D game acted like it was still the 80s and ignored female gamers (even when female gamers are now so commonplace that Wizards of the Coast had to make mini-tees for one of their shows!). They still play, but not with the same enthusiasm as when the World of Darkness games were popular.
Here are my hopes:
My first hope is that story becomes emphasized and that it is the main theme. Female gamers (and girly guy gamers like myself) are attracted to a rich setting, good stories, and good characters. That was why girls came in droves to play in the World of Darkness: it had a good setting and had character archetypes that screamed to be made into Mary Sues. That's why girl gamers love the Final Fantasy series (even though FF is NOT an RPG; its a fantasy adventure game), because it had good characters and storylines.
So far D&D, while 3.5 d20 has been a great system, it has been missing the point. Emphasis has been placed on dungeon crawls and over-glorified miniatures combat to an extent that even I feel uncomfortable. This becomes even more apparent with published mods and adapted convention games, where roleplaying becomes reduced to a d20 diplomacy check.
My next hope, is that if the book contains things like this and more, and has good advice, that guy gamers will read it. This especially goes for RPGA mod writers.
Comments and observations certainly welcome. ;)
This is long overdue. I have to say I'm somewhat disappointed that the writers of the D&D game acted like it was still the 80s and ignored female gamers (even when female gamers are now so commonplace that Wizards of the Coast had to make mini-tees for one of their shows!). They still play, but not with the same enthusiasm as when the World of Darkness games were popular.
Here are my hopes:
My first hope is that story becomes emphasized and that it is the main theme. Female gamers (and girly guy gamers like myself) are attracted to a rich setting, good stories, and good characters. That was why girls came in droves to play in the World of Darkness: it had a good setting and had character archetypes that screamed to be made into Mary Sues. That's why girl gamers love the Final Fantasy series (even though FF is NOT an RPG; its a fantasy adventure game), because it had good characters and storylines.
So far D&D, while 3.5 d20 has been a great system, it has been missing the point. Emphasis has been placed on dungeon crawls and over-glorified miniatures combat to an extent that even I feel uncomfortable. This becomes even more apparent with published mods and adapted convention games, where roleplaying becomes reduced to a d20 diplomacy check.
My next hope, is that if the book contains things like this and more, and has good advice, that guy gamers will read it. This especially goes for RPGA mod writers.
Comments and observations certainly welcome. ;)