"Ten plus your bonus, that's thirteen, cast Magic Missile!"
Sigh. Got home from the con on Sunday night to find an e-mail from the guy who was starting a roleplaying campaign. I was wildly enthusiastic and "Pick me, pick me!" before I actually met the people involved. The potential GM of this game is an earnest, friendly man. I made an appointment to meet him the week before last and talk over the campaign and the game world. He had a loud, braying voice that went right through my head, and a domineering manner, and he sat me down and held forth to me for an hour about the game world without apparently breathing at all. It was like he was trying to impregnate me via my ears. (Why yes, he did look at me as if he had never met a woman socially before, why do you ask?)
OK, I already know I'm not interested in getting involved. I've just been dragging my heels about saying "No" because the idea was so hazy and potentially perfect before I actually met the guy, and because confrontation is hard. But if I get involved I know it'll be a rerun of the longtime game of D&D I played at my bookstore in 2008-2009, where I tended to sit there as silent as a lamb while the GM and one of my louder game mates talked over my head. Or I'd try to force a word in edgewise and be flooded over. Because I was polite, and neither of them had such a constraint. I'm still bitter. That was a frustrating time. It could have been a lot more fun if the GM had actually kept order and stopped the other gamers from running back and forth over me and telling me what moves to make. Oh yes, that was a good one. There was this idiot who joined the game in the last couple of months and was pretty much the reason I left, and he would. not. stop. reading my dice over my shoulder and telling me what spells to use. I get pissed off just typing about him. I did have, several times, to tell him, "Stop telling me what moves to make and let me make 'em!" and he would cringe and apologize and then do it again the next time. The GM never noticed.
This is a frustrating subject for me to talk about because I imagine people reading this far and going, "She should be more assertive," and writing me off as a wimp. It's not that simple. I think I can fairly claim I'm not a wimp. I have seen myself be pretty damn assertive, too--trust me, I was there. I snap at drunks in restaurants to leave me alone; I talk to strangers; I hail the waiter; I refuse in certain terms to do things that make me uncomfortable. Also, I am polite. It takes a physical effort for me to interrupt people. You know what? This is not a weakness on my part. I like myself this way. But other people, like the idiot gamer, perceive it as a weakness.
It's taken me all this time to realize that I wasn't being treated fairly. I should have asked the GM to keep order between us; the GM should have noticed that the two domineering guys were taking over the game, and restrained them. But I thought that was the way gaming had to be. Well, it doesn't. I've played in a few shorter campaigns since then, and seen some good GMs in action. seyeh is an excellent GM, if he doesn't mind my saying so, and so are the owners of the bookstore, who hosted daylong campaigns on occasion. I took part in those, I liked them, and I made a mental note to start my own campaign someday.
That's probably not going to happen, because I have a limited amount of creative mojo and I want to put it all towards writing or performing. But I would like to GM for a change, and do my best to address the problems I saw in that first campaign years ago. Most of the problems are pretty basic: men condescending to women, more experienced players patronizing the new players and backseat-driving instead of letting them learn by experience, and loud people hogging the air time because they assume that's fine. Maybe a one-shot game for a single afternoon sometime.
Also, it was a bit of a come-down to remember the Loud GM after a weekend at a con, because I'm busting at the seams with ideas and inspiration and what I really want right now is someone to listen to me. The Loud GM was like the representative of a big deaf opinionated world. Good listeners are so rare! I try to be a good listener, whenever I can. I think I do that often enough that I have the right to be listened to sometimes myself. (Heh. "Right". There is no greater judge keeping score of these things. I think I deserve it, in whatever moral system "deserve" occupies. I think I'm not a dreadful loudmouth myself.) When I do meet someone who will listen to my ideas and gently draw me out in conversation, how I love them! I treasure people like this. But instead, most people are like my former game-mates, uninterested in me for any reason than to cram my ears with their opinions. The world at large seems to be like this. /snarl
OK, I already know I'm not interested in getting involved. I've just been dragging my heels about saying "No" because the idea was so hazy and potentially perfect before I actually met the guy, and because confrontation is hard. But if I get involved I know it'll be a rerun of the longtime game of D&D I played at my bookstore in 2008-2009, where I tended to sit there as silent as a lamb while the GM and one of my louder game mates talked over my head. Or I'd try to force a word in edgewise and be flooded over. Because I was polite, and neither of them had such a constraint. I'm still bitter. That was a frustrating time. It could have been a lot more fun if the GM had actually kept order and stopped the other gamers from running back and forth over me and telling me what moves to make. Oh yes, that was a good one. There was this idiot who joined the game in the last couple of months and was pretty much the reason I left, and he would. not. stop. reading my dice over my shoulder and telling me what spells to use. I get pissed off just typing about him. I did have, several times, to tell him, "Stop telling me what moves to make and let me make 'em!" and he would cringe and apologize and then do it again the next time. The GM never noticed.
This is a frustrating subject for me to talk about because I imagine people reading this far and going, "She should be more assertive," and writing me off as a wimp. It's not that simple. I think I can fairly claim I'm not a wimp. I have seen myself be pretty damn assertive, too--trust me, I was there. I snap at drunks in restaurants to leave me alone; I talk to strangers; I hail the waiter; I refuse in certain terms to do things that make me uncomfortable. Also, I am polite. It takes a physical effort for me to interrupt people. You know what? This is not a weakness on my part. I like myself this way. But other people, like the idiot gamer, perceive it as a weakness.
It's taken me all this time to realize that I wasn't being treated fairly. I should have asked the GM to keep order between us; the GM should have noticed that the two domineering guys were taking over the game, and restrained them. But I thought that was the way gaming had to be. Well, it doesn't. I've played in a few shorter campaigns since then, and seen some good GMs in action. seyeh is an excellent GM, if he doesn't mind my saying so, and so are the owners of the bookstore, who hosted daylong campaigns on occasion. I took part in those, I liked them, and I made a mental note to start my own campaign someday.
That's probably not going to happen, because I have a limited amount of creative mojo and I want to put it all towards writing or performing. But I would like to GM for a change, and do my best to address the problems I saw in that first campaign years ago. Most of the problems are pretty basic: men condescending to women, more experienced players patronizing the new players and backseat-driving instead of letting them learn by experience, and loud people hogging the air time because they assume that's fine. Maybe a one-shot game for a single afternoon sometime.
Also, it was a bit of a come-down to remember the Loud GM after a weekend at a con, because I'm busting at the seams with ideas and inspiration and what I really want right now is someone to listen to me. The Loud GM was like the representative of a big deaf opinionated world. Good listeners are so rare! I try to be a good listener, whenever I can. I think I do that often enough that I have the right to be listened to sometimes myself. (Heh. "Right". There is no greater judge keeping score of these things. I think I deserve it, in whatever moral system "deserve" occupies. I think I'm not a dreadful loudmouth myself.) When I do meet someone who will listen to my ideas and gently draw me out in conversation, how I love them! I treasure people like this. But instead, most people are like my former game-mates, uninterested in me for any reason than to cram my ears with their opinions. The world at large seems to be like this. /snarl