Someone asked me “what’s it like to be a girl gamer?” Odd question, but I suppose fair enough. At the risk of sounding like some old coot, we chicks had it a lot harder back in my day. Gaming was virtually unheard of, and the only store in the mall that carried gaming stuff was located on the bottom level of the mall in a mazelike area. “Kathy’s Gaming Shop,” which later changed its name to “The Dungeon Masters’” was the only place you could meet, game, and shop all in one place. Kathy became a surrogate mother to about 100 kids and knew us all by name. She more or less babysat us Friday evenings and from mall’s opening to close all day Saturday. She was a sweet lady, and now nicely retired on the countless dimes and dollars we kids willingly gave her hand over fist back in the day. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning.
Blog IV
TO BE A GIRL GAMER
It is a time when no one knows what gaming even is. 1980.
Only the very few, perhaps a handful of kids in each school, even own a copy of the Dungeon and Dragon‘s box set. My two brothers and I represented all of the gamers in the private, Catholic school my parents broke their backs to send us to.
I first learned of Dungeons and Dragons from my mom when she asked me if I had ever played it or knew anything about it. I confessed I hadn’t, but that it had a neat name (yes, I said the word “neat”). She said she saw it and picked it up, thinking that the family could play it together, but it seemed to be missing the board and cards. She gave me the box and I examined the contents. There were a couple of books and some weird looking dice, but true enough, where was everything else? We sat down at the dining room table, she and I and my two brothers. We took turns reading the books and trying to wrap our minds around this new idea of a game. Eventually, we got it. We rolled up characters and during dinner explained to Dad how it all worked. He was tired from working ten hours in a meat locker all day, but sat down with us and rolled up as close to Conan as he could make. My mom was my first game master, and my Dad and two brothers my first gaming group. That first session is one of my favorite childhood memories: Mom losing control of the table when Dad tried to cheat and us kids uniting and killing his character. Not too Freudian, right?
Time passed and eventually Mom passed the screen to my brother Vince. With the new GM, Dad dropped out from the game, still holding a grudge for the miserable career of his failed Conan-lite character. Kathy’s shop was where all of us gamers went and eventually, new friends were made. I was invited to join in another game, and another, and another. And I wondered why everyone was asking me to game with them. And then it hit me-I had boobies.
In what is the painful reality of the “real world,” I was a pokey, tom-boy of a girl who was not well liked at all by teachers; neighborhood kids; or her female classmates, a flock in possession of blond hair, blue eyes girly, frilly things. However, when I went to the mall and entered into the shops on the lower level where the gaming and comic book shop was, I was regaled as a princess. Or a goddess. Or a Princess goddess. Admittedly, I was the only girl who entered into those shops, so pickings were slim on their behalf, but not for me Boy-O!
As I got a little older I began to appreciate that I was one of but a scant few girls who frequented the gaming shop. Not so much because I could have had my pick of the guys who where there (because I did) but because they already knew something about me – that I am a gamer. Trust me that was a HUGE social sigma at that time, and to be a girl gamer, why, that was grounds for social-excommunication
I have gamed more or else once a week since the first time I played. I love it. I married a game designer. I have written supplements for games, and even wrote a script for an upcoming comic book. I am still a princess goddess gaming geek.
I have to say that being the only girl at the table was sometimes a bit hard. As a girl I tend to like the drama of character interplay and conversation. I like the storytelling. Guys, being guys, like the hack-and-slash. It was hard to be at the table sometimes. I wanted to make characters, no matter the system, that were fun to role-play. That is what the R in RPG stands for. When I was younger and gaming with guys my age, it was nigh impossible to get any relevant dialogue out of my gaming group at the table that didn’t end with “die, eleven scum!” Fortunately, (and I can’t believe I am saying this) I got older and matured. And so did the boys I gamed with. These day the guys at the table are all about the cunning plans and sneaky assassinations, which, finally, thankfully required role-play. It took some 20 odd years, but I am finally gaming in nirvana. Oommmmm. Ommmmm.
But what I have noticed now at the gaming events and tournaments I take place in is that you chicks have it easy thanks to innovators like me, thank you very much. Guys no longer trip over their tongues when a girl sits down to game. Gaming, in its many forms, is a widely known and acceptable recreation for kids these days. I remember having to lie to the nuns that I was not playing Satan’s Game (D and D) while my mom was my GM. On Saturdays at the mall while the other kids took a dinner break to grab some burgers up stairs in the food court my brothers and I ran to the mall chapel and went to Saturday night mass.
I have to say that I am glad that girls are gaming, I really am, but I know that they don’t see the significance of why. For me it was liberating, a way to meet and speak with people who were like minded in a controlled environment. It was a rare something that I did that my parents approved of. My mom had no qualms at all of my being out till midnight with five guys on a Friday or Saturday night, she knew we were gaming in someone’s home, and we safe.
So, here’s to you, girl gamers everywhere. I hope you all have a wonderful time at it and get to make friends that you keep for a life time.
QtR – Theresa Bane, vampirologist & gamer
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 Just One More Level |
Theresa,
I can identify with your love of gaming, but I’m a generation older, and for me it was science fiction. (Until I read Tolkien in college, fantasy meant Grimms’ fairy tales to me, where effective women were evil and good women fainted at the sight of blood.) I read Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Van Vogt as a kid, and those same hours you spent in the mall gaming, I spent in the two shelves of science fiction at the public library. I remember being the only girl in fifth grade whose favorite literary character was “Slipstick” Libby aka Andrew Jackson Libby aka Elizabeth Libby Long, among other names I didn’t learn until later. It seemed to be a males-only world until college, when people like LeGuin brought “softer” science into their fiction. But it was only a few years until people like Cherryh wrote all kinds of science fiction and fantasy. Nowadays, the edge of science is so inaccessible to most of us that hardly anyone writes hard sci-fi anymore. That’s OK, too, because some of the best fiction is crossover. As Clarke said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is inistinguishable from magic.” What more can you ask for than a noir novel or twelve about a wizard in Chicago?
Hey Girl Friends.. I have been a “player” since before most of y’all were even born and I am still going strong and like my friend above me, I was one of the few sci-fi-ers in High School and College. Both reading just about everything and playing D & D and the evolving computer RPG/adventure games. (I am also a surfer, but that is another blog) I was also involved in creating one of the first “on-line” mulit-player games called Houston 2020 (I am Saleen! in the mid 80′s) These days I am a first person RPG fan.. Oblivion, BioShock, Dungeon Siege. What games are y’all playing now?
PS my students (I teach HIgh School Honors Government and Visual Communications) think it is soooo cool that they have a “lady teacher” that not only enjoys gaming, but has actually finished Oblivion, Morrowind and Bioshock!
It is wonderful to hear from other women who have shared the experience of growing up immersed in the field when so few females were found within the ranks of SF fandom and gaming. I think it made us all a bit stronger, a bit more capable in the wide world of non genre loving mundanes.
D-I’m sure you remeber a time when when who wrote Science Fiction used initials for their given names or wrote under a male penname altogether.
ElysBeth-Huzzah ! Not only do you have you earend “props” in the eyes of your students, you can have given them an example of the importance of fillowing their own star.
I am an older gamer (41 yikes!) and for me it was that natural progression from growing up reading scifi/fantasy and reading comic books. My years of playing D&D also set me up to be a natural gamer. I never got much of a reaction from my friends because most were guys who knew me as “one of the guys” (gosh, how flattering). But I still get really strange looks from the kids in the game stores when I when some new game is coming in and they find out it is for me (the grey haired lady) and not my kids. My husband and I both read gamer magazines and web sites on the lookout for our next new favorite game.
Kate-41 does not make you old by a long shot. Not in this century anyway. Are your kids gamers as well or are they turned off because mom and dad are into it?
I am a guy, 39, and this article took me back. Wow. I remember the “token” girl in our gaming group. I ran into her at a con last year and it was like being in a time machine. She was exactly where I last saw her, at a gaming table. I sat down and joined the game, “The Dark Fantasy of Shundra.” After a moment, she remembered me, actually she remembered my character’s name, not mine. After the game, we caught up and now via the internet keep in touch. Its a small gaming world after all.
I totally relate. I don’t understand why females are relegated to playing tetris clones while males have all the fun. Or maybe the men just don’t want us playing games because then who will make them dinner?
My thanks, Theresa. I didn’t start gaming until I got to grad school – but I wasn’t the only girl. In spite of finding a gaming guild at a technical institute where the ratio of male students to female was something like 7-to-1 there were still other girls at games. I LARP, so that helps. But when I got invited to play D&D, in a six player game, three of us were girls.
Recently, I’ve kind of gone backwards. I moved to a new (rather rural) area and the D&D group I’ve found is all male, aside from me. It’s a new, and occationally odd feeling. But thankfully, none of us are anything close to teenagers!
Thanks for the article, Theresa. I am one of the young(er) generation of girl gamers – and I’ve had quite a few gaming sessions that were over half girls.. and one or two that were only girls! It’s really interesting to hear your memories of gaming when that was unheard of. I’m glad too that there are girls gaming and that it’s not (as much of) a social stigma as it used to be. It’s D&D and other RPGs like it (right now it’s Call of Cthulu) that has me getting together for a great evening with my friends every week – including one of my best girlfriends!
Ok, I have never gamed. Nope, not ever, as in NEVER.
Theresa, I have looked over my husband’s shoulders many times while he is playing…lamenting over the fact that his side of the basement is a series of obstacles surrounding his gaming lair, and why can’t he pick up the socks that have been lying in the same place for the last 15 months (I’ve determined that it is a marker to see who is trespassing when he is not there). Nonetheless, I think my biggest surprise is when I find out that our next door neighbor (Don) is the tall elfen woman with the biggest boobies. Come on, now…how do you run and fight with THOSE???
I’m sure there may be a few girls (quite?) but probably not 50+ playing regularly. In the 4 hour block that hubby played, I did 4 loads of wash, started dinner, did the dishes and changed the bed linens.
Now, if I could get someone to do all the chores, maybe I could play for a while….
I remember back in the day as well when gaming always seem to be an ‘all-boy’ activity. I spent many, many evenings and weekends being the only girl in a group of rabid guy gamers who always wanted me to play the vapid, hot elf chick. Even now, I find myself often the only girl in my online guild when playing in virtual worlds. But in a way, I kind of enjoy it. I like being different than the usual.
Every time i come here I am not dissapointed, nice post
This very thing has happened to me in the past, I wrote about it on my blog. The better lookin you man is the more chances it can happen its about options.
It’s true. I started gaming way back when and there were very few of us. It was even harder, in those days, to get our hands on gaming paraphernalia. I had the pleasure of running a game store for the past four years–I have since moved on–and the tide is turning. Strategy games are now becoming the new family game…in many senses of the phrase. I think people are getting tired of rehashed versions of Life and Monopoly and are turning to something newer and different. Gaming is no longer geeky…perhaps in another ten years it will be completely mainstream.