'Master' is only a gendered term in the bedroom. Nobody ever refers to a female code guru as a 'mistress programmer'. Some gals may adopt the term Dungeon Mistress because it makes them feel spicy, but yeah. The term has never had any gendered-language connotations for me.
Dungeon Mistress 😂😂😂
I only call my wife that. And she hates D&D. 😂🤣😂🤣😂
Heck, as far as I’m concerned “dude” has become a gender-neutral term. I call both my mom and my female best friend “dude.” They both call other female friends dude too.
I like using the title DM because it sounds less intimidating. Sometimes I'll even use "Game Manager" as a self-title. But, in my circles of experience, Dungeon Master has been unquestionably applied to male, female, and non-binary DM's alike (see? it's that much of a habit!).
I do know that there is a lot of progress to be made; such as some of the experiences listed by above posters, concerning respect for female DM's from players. But I do think that D&D culture as a whole can continue to be guided in the right direction with enough awareness/encouragement.
The thing is, there isn't any possible way to centralize this. Each individual game group has to be respectful. It's like saying there shouldn't be wangrods in games or there shouldn't be cheaters or something. Nothing WTOC does, nothing we say on this forum, nothing anyone in a centralized type of position could say or do, can achieve this for individual groups.
So yes, of course, DMs should be respected because they are the DM, not based on gender or ethnicity or any other non-D&D metric. However, that has to come from the game group. It can't come from anywhere else.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I must be an oddball. I have been playing since I begged my dad to buy these weird books from the neighbor (late 80's early 90's). I have never assigned a gender to DM. I just took it as this mythical all powerful being over the game I was playing in.
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I just want to tell everyone "happy gaming" and actually mean it. Whatever your game is, just have fun with it, it is after all, just a game.
The thing is, there isn't any possible way to centralize this. Each individual game group has to be respectful. It's like saying there shouldn't be wangrods in games or there shouldn't be cheaters or something. Nothing WTOC does, nothing we say on this forum, nothing anyone in a centralized type of position could say or do, can achieve this for individual groups.
So yes, of course, DMs should be respected because they are the DM, not based on gender or ethnicity or any other non-D&D metric. However, that has to come from the game group. It can't come from anywhere else.
I agree that there is no "central command" for this kind of thing. Nor do I think that would actually be effective or even necessarily ethical. Nevertheless, it can be a fruitful topic of discussion that indirectly leads to more mindful decisions on the part of some DMs or people who plan gaming conventions. What are the primary constraints on people that would prevent them from being GM?
Time
Space
Money
People
How do these factors impact the likelihood that more women/girls to step up to be a GM?
Women traditionally haven't played or GM'ed, or in general participated in the RPG hobby for the same reason women haven't participated in a lot of things. They have been kept out. But I don't believe it was the traditional sexist "man" barrier that was the root cause, in particular in private clubs/troupes.
A lot of has to do with the social awkwardness that gamers have always felt about their hobby. Back in the day you didn't even want the guy delivering the pizza to know that everyone there was playing D&D let alone allowing someone outside of the circle, in particular girls to find out you were playing an RPG. Letting girls find out let alone inviting them to a game was certainly out of the question, it was social suicide, but it had very little to do with sexist thinking and more to do with the stigma of geek culture. I know for a fact however that geek culture wasn't some male dominated concept, women were just very good at hiding it and I think though they wanted to be part of it, it was sheer awkwardness and social risk that kept them away, after all, it was a big risk for them as well to reveal themselves as it was for anyone else. The stigma of being a D&D nerd was extremely harsh for a very long time, I really believe it was the root cause of the male oriented paradigm and not sexism that made this a male oriented hobby for so long. I have never met any role-players then or now that would have blocked a female gamer from joining a gaming group, quite to the contrary, but I also didn't know any that would be so brave as to reveal their nerdiness to invite one into a game either. Even now I can remember the anxiety of even considering something like that.
Today as the stigma of geek culture is lifted, I think RPG culture is showing just how welcoming it can be and though of course there is always sexism in every aspect of life, I believe that RPG culture is extremely welcoming to women in gaming. There is still awkwardness however and just like it was back then, it can be perceived as sexism. You can turn geek culture into a mainstream, accepted world where there is no stigma, but you can't erase decades of geek culture living in the cellar. I honestly believe that there is such a thing as Geek PTSD where people are literally traumatized by years of hiding their geeky secrets.
yes.
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“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
The stigma of being a D&D nerd was extremely harsh for a very long time, I really believe it was the root cause of the male oriented paradigm and not sexism that made this a male oriented hobby for so long. I have never met any role-players then or now that would have blocked a female gamer from joining a gaming group, quite to the contrary, but I also didn't know any that would be so brave as to reveal their nerdiness to invite one into a game either.
This, and all the rest of it.
Let alone female gamers, I do not recall any time that my game group ever kept anyone out of it. We never really had "enough" players (people were always bailing, couldn't make it, etc), usually making do with 1 GM and 3 players, which really is not enough (often in D&D, we ran 2x characters each just to make a bigger and more interesting party). Any time someone wanted to play with us, we would let him. Several people joined us who we weren't really friendly with in school but wanted to "try" it. Most of them didn't last (we usually played 2x a week back then and it was more than most casual RPers wanted to play). But I don't recall ever saying no to anyone who wanted to play D&D.
I also, though, definitely recall that we didn't advertise that we were playing D&D, especially as the years went on. It wasn't such a bad thing to do in 7th-8th grade, but by high school we were expected to "grow out of it". There were probably 5x as many "regular" nerds in my high school as there were D&D nerds -- even most nerds wouldn't play D&D and thought it wasn't very cool. Let alone the rest of the school. No, the D&D nerds were way on the bottom of the social ladder. A woman (who was a D&D nerd herself, and is about my age) on a podcast I listen to once described it like this: In high school there is a very rigid, very important, social ladder. The regular nerds are on the bottom rung of that social ladder. But to find the D&D nerds, you have to look down the manhole cover next to the ladder and into the sewer below. That's where the D&D nerds are relegated.
And everyone knew that if they dared play D&D with us, they'd end up down in the sewer with us. Beyond that, once you go down there, you can't come back up. There is no returning from it once the word gets out that you play D&D. It's not like one of the cool kids could try it for a while, and then come back to the ladder.
To this day, I do not advertise I play D&D to other people in general. One person at work knows, who also plays D&D, and is in my game group. My very good friends know. But I wouldn't say it out loud to other people at work or in my profession. Maybe that's silly now, but it is a gut instinct at this point. Only people I can trust with that information know I play D&D.
To this day, I do not advertise I play D&D to other people in general. One person at work knows, who also plays D&D, and is in my game group. My very good friends know. But I wouldn't say it out loud to other people at work or in my profession. Maybe that's silly now, but it is a gut instinct at this point. Only people I can trust with that information know I play D&D.
"THIS is the best kept secret in mankind's history. If it ever is revealed to the public, whole civilizations will be brought to their knees." *Opens massive vault door, and inside is......BioWizards collection of 4e books* (Even the 5e players gasp)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
I think another barrier that has traditionally stood on the way of women and girls enjoying this hobby was how poorly men in the hobby often treated them. I remember in highschool, when some of the guys found out the a girl/young woman was interested, half of them would turn into the male versions of that Jessica Rabbit lookalike. “IT’S A GI-IRL!” and practically run into walls trying to get to them. Who wants that?!? No bueno. The rest of us did enjoy a more diverse group, but we also knew how the behavior of that other half of the comunity reflected on all of us.
But I also remember spending many a long night RPing in one of the local diners right out in the open in front of everyone. Of course this was in our late teens and 20s (so the late ‘90s-2000s) and attitudes had already started shifting by then too.
"THIS is the best kept secret in mankind's history. If it ever is revealed to the public, whole civilizations will be brought to their knees." *Opens massive vault door, and inside is......BioWizards collection of 4e books* (Even the 5e players gasp)
LOL...
I wish... I would love to have all the books of the older editions just for ideas and reference. But I only have the hardcovers of 3.5e PHB and DMG. Which I used for reference when making mods for NWN. My AD&D books are long gone, as are the basic/expert sets. Sad but true.
I remember in highschool, when some of the guys found out the a girl/young woman was interested, half of them would turn into the male versions of that Jessica Rabbit lookalike. “IT’S A GI-IRL!” and practically run into walls trying to get to them.
Although I never did that, nor did anyone in my group -- because it was into college before any girl ever wanted to play (not D&D but Champions) with us, and that was the kid sister of one guy in the group (so it's not like you can behave that way with (a) a minor, and (b) someone who is your friend's kid sister) -- I'm gonna defend the D&D nerds here for a minute.
First of all, nerds were not the only boys in high school behaving like baboons in heat around girls. You're talking about teenage boys here -- Alan Thicke once described them as "Hormones with feet." Expecting a 15 year old boy in the throes of puberty to act like a grown up, mature, reasonable person around a 15 year old girl is quite literally a denial of reality. Expecting the D&D-playing boys to somehow be different from all the other boys in high school at the time is equally reality-denying. Boys are boys. They are not girls, and they are not men. They are teenage boys, and they're going to act like teenage boys. I'm not on board with condemning them over it.
Second of all, the set of D&D-nerds you are describing have been stuck down that sewer below the social ladder for a long time -- years, perhaps. They've been there by themselves, just the few of them who play D&D, and probably other than walking past them in the hallway on the route to a class, never interact with girls their own age -- at a time when pretty much all boys want to do so, and desperately. Just because they play D&D, doesn't mean they wouldn't like to also go on dates and have an otherwise-normal high school experience, but they've not been given a chance to do so, because they play D&D (and for my group, watch Star Trek, which was also not cool in those days long before TNG came out, collect comic books, etc.).
Now you expose them to the one girl, maybe in the entire high school, probably in their entire lives, who expresses interest in the hobby that has up to this point made these boys social lepers - what do you expect them to do? Of course, they will all hit on her. They probably figure she is the only girl in the whole school who won't automatically and permanently dismiss them for playing D&D -- because she plays it too.
Finally, how many of those boys in the group had something more than just regular teenage nerd social awkwardness just in general? I don't know what the #s are in D&D groups, but I know in related nerd-based groups such as among scientists and mathematicians, there is a much higher proportion of the population with conditions like Asperger's or Autism, than there is in the general society. So how many of the boys who acted this way did so because they were (back then, almost certainly undiagnosed) on the spectrum?
I'm not going to say that any of those reasons for the boys' behavior would have made it any more fun for the girl. However, I have a hard time blaming the D&D nerds for their "IT'S A GIRL!" behavior -- I'm not sure, given all the social conditions in place at the time, along with everything else, that any other outcome was really even possible.
Well, as I recall the student athletes enjoyed more female attention and therefore had more practice interacting with the opposite sex. As did the “theater nerds” and even those of us on the debate team. Of course both of those groups were also trained in interacting with others.
Heck, even the guys in the science or AV clubs acted more mature when interacting with girls. I was on the debate team, and Mock Trial team, and the science club (I can make a one-person hovercraft out of a leaf blower), and the AV club. It really did seem to be the gaming club nerds (of which I was also a founding member) that seemed to struggle the most. In fact, it was usually the ones who were also on the speech & debate team that didn’t act a fool.
But I remember once a girl walked into the room, got swarmed almost immediately, and quickly left to never return. Heck one of the guys literally tripped over a desk trying to get to her. And I’m sorry but “boys will be boys” may be a perfectly valid excuse for fights in the parking lot, but it is no excuse for treating a young woman like the finish line in a foot race. It was like watching seagulls trying to get at a discarded ham sandwich on the beach. It was cringey.
Well, as I recall the student athletes enjoyed more female attention and therefore had more practice interacting with the opposite sex. As did the “theater nerds” and even those of us on the debate team. Of course both of those groups were also trained in interacting with others.
Heck, even the guys in the science or AV clubs acted more mature when interacting with girls. I was on the debate team, and Mock Trial team, and the science club (I can make a one-person hovercraft out of a leaf blower), and the AV club. It really did seem to be the gaming club nerds (of which I was also a founding member) that seemed to struggle the most. In fact, it was usually the ones who were also on the speech & debate team that didn’t act a fool.
But I remember once a girl walked into the room, got swarmed almost immediately, and quickly left to never return. Heck one of the guys literally tripped over a desk trying to get to her. And I’m sorry but “boys will be boys” may be a perfectly valid excuse for fights in the parking lot, but it is no excuse for treating a young woman like the finish line in a foot race. It was like watching seagulls trying to get at a discarded ham sandwich on the beach. It was cringey.
In my personal experience, seen far more rude and reprehensible behavior from popular guys and jocks when it came to women then I ever did from the gaming nerds. Heck, as I mentioned before, women were often times the worse bullies of other women and I'm far from the only woman who has been on the receiving end of such bullying.
At the end of the day, the one thing I have learned is that people can be horrible to each other for whatever reasons they wish to have. It isn't just limited to one group. I have also learned that many people are not jerks despite whatever label we put on them.
Old high school gaming nerdbois who could figure out how to string two sentences together in front of a girl had two reactions to someone of that gender speaking to them. The first was to treat that gal as absolutely precious, pure, and untouchable. They'd do whatever they could to avoid offending her or pissing her off because they'd just found their own personal Arwen - a girl willing to give them the time of day. Which is not the way to win a friend, beeteedubs - despite what some of the more precocious ones might think, most ladies I've known are super turned off by that sort of fawning semi-worship.
The second, and more common from my own old schoolyears experience, was sullen defensiveness, simply because the overwhelming expectation was that one was being set up for a cruel prank. The expectation was that not only were girls not interested in one's Nerd Hobbies in high school, they were actively vicious about it and would make sure you suffered for daring to share.
Obviously not all girls were in this camp, but Coronet has said more than once that the girls who'd harass and punk a nerdy boy over this stuff were even worse to nerdy girls. The henpecking crowd was so eager and vicious in their persecution that both genders of Nerd Kid just kept their heads down and didn't talk. Most of us are adults now and don't give much of a shit who knows we Nerd, but back then? Keeping a lid on one's nerding was as close as a young teen or preteen kid could generally fathom to life and death.
Then again, I was on the Debate Team, and the Mock Trial Team, and the AV club, and the Science Club, and the Gaming Club.... I let my geek flag fly and never gave a crap. I get it that that level of self confidence was probably not the norm, but that was probably also why this chubby nerd had a date whenever I wanted.
Old high school gaming nerdbois who could figure out how to string two sentences together in front of a girl had two reactions to someone of that gender speaking to them. The first was to treat that gal as absolutely precious, pure, and untouchable. They'd do whatever they could to avoid offending her or pissing her off because they'd just found their own personal Arwen - a girl willing to give them the time of day. Which is not the way to win a friend, beeteedubs - despite what some of the more precocious ones might think, most ladies I've known are super turned off by that sort of fawning semi-worship.
The second, and more common from my own old schoolyears experience, was sullen defensiveness, simply because the overwhelming expectation was that one was being set up for a cruel prank. The expectation was that not only were girls not interested in one's Nerd Hobbies in high school, they were actively vicious about it and would make sure you suffered for daring to share.
Obviously not all girls were in this camp, but Coronet has said more than once that the girls who'd harass and punk a nerdy boy over this stuff were even worse to nerdy girls. The henpecking crowd was so eager and vicious in their persecution that both genders of Nerd Kid just kept their heads down and didn't talk. Most of us are adults now and don't give much of a shit who knows we Nerd, but back then? Keeping a lid on one's nerding was as close as a young teen or preteen kid could generally fathom to life and death.
Wow... you know, I actually have experienced high-school-nerd life fairly recently, and boy have times changed. For one of my groups 2 of the 4 players were girls, and for another its 3 girls 3 boys and 1 nonbinary. AND a female DM (a player in the previous campaign and a good friend). I don't know about you old-timers, but my generation is perfectly capable. We kept our heads down when the "popular kids" came along, but nerdy girls were neither revered nor feared, unless, of course their character is a fiend warlock with fireball, in which case both are true.
Seriously her warlock just ended encounters before they started.
I only call my wife that. And she hates D&D. 😂🤣😂🤣😂
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Agreed!
Taken.
Please do not contact or message me.
I don't know anyone who expands DM rather than just use the initials.
I always write DM because I am lazy but I often say "Dungeon Master."
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I like using the title DM because it sounds less intimidating. Sometimes I'll even use "Game Manager" as a self-title. But, in my circles of experience, Dungeon Master has been unquestionably applied to male, female, and non-binary DM's alike (see? it's that much of a habit!).
I do know that there is a lot of progress to be made; such as some of the experiences listed by above posters, concerning respect for female DM's from players. But I do think that D&D culture as a whole can continue to be guided in the right direction with enough awareness/encouragement.
💙🤍~*Ravenclaw*~ 🔮
The thing is, there isn't any possible way to centralize this. Each individual game group has to be respectful. It's like saying there shouldn't be wangrods in games or there shouldn't be cheaters or something. Nothing WTOC does, nothing we say on this forum, nothing anyone in a centralized type of position could say or do, can achieve this for individual groups.
So yes, of course, DMs should be respected because they are the DM, not based on gender or ethnicity or any other non-D&D metric. However, that has to come from the game group. It can't come from anywhere else.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I must be an oddball. I have been playing since I begged my dad to buy these weird books from the neighbor (late 80's early 90's). I have never assigned a gender to DM. I just took it as this mythical all powerful being over the game I was playing in.
I just want to tell everyone "happy gaming" and actually mean it. Whatever your game is, just have fun with it, it is after all, just a game.
All powerful, yes. Mythical, no. We exist... there is proof.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I agree that there is no "central command" for this kind of thing. Nor do I think that would actually be effective or even necessarily ethical. Nevertheless, it can be a fruitful topic of discussion that indirectly leads to more mindful decisions on the part of some DMs or people who plan gaming conventions. What are the primary constraints on people that would prevent them from being GM?
How do these factors impact the likelihood that more women/girls to step up to be a GM?
yes.
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
This, and all the rest of it.
Let alone female gamers, I do not recall any time that my game group ever kept anyone out of it. We never really had "enough" players (people were always bailing, couldn't make it, etc), usually making do with 1 GM and 3 players, which really is not enough (often in D&D, we ran 2x characters each just to make a bigger and more interesting party). Any time someone wanted to play with us, we would let him. Several people joined us who we weren't really friendly with in school but wanted to "try" it. Most of them didn't last (we usually played 2x a week back then and it was more than most casual RPers wanted to play). But I don't recall ever saying no to anyone who wanted to play D&D.
I also, though, definitely recall that we didn't advertise that we were playing D&D, especially as the years went on. It wasn't such a bad thing to do in 7th-8th grade, but by high school we were expected to "grow out of it". There were probably 5x as many "regular" nerds in my high school as there were D&D nerds -- even most nerds wouldn't play D&D and thought it wasn't very cool. Let alone the rest of the school. No, the D&D nerds were way on the bottom of the social ladder. A woman (who was a D&D nerd herself, and is about my age) on a podcast I listen to once described it like this: In high school there is a very rigid, very important, social ladder. The regular nerds are on the bottom rung of that social ladder. But to find the D&D nerds, you have to look down the manhole cover next to the ladder and into the sewer below. That's where the D&D nerds are relegated.
And everyone knew that if they dared play D&D with us, they'd end up down in the sewer with us. Beyond that, once you go down there, you can't come back up. There is no returning from it once the word gets out that you play D&D. It's not like one of the cool kids could try it for a while, and then come back to the ladder.
To this day, I do not advertise I play D&D to other people in general. One person at work knows, who also plays D&D, and is in my game group. My very good friends know. But I wouldn't say it out loud to other people at work or in my profession. Maybe that's silly now, but it is a gut instinct at this point. Only people I can trust with that information know I play D&D.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
"THIS is the best kept secret in mankind's history. If it ever is revealed to the public, whole civilizations will be brought to their knees." *Opens massive vault door, and inside is......BioWizards collection of 4e books* (Even the 5e players gasp)
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
I think another barrier that has traditionally stood on the way of women and girls enjoying this hobby was how poorly men in the hobby often treated them. I remember in highschool, when some of the guys found out the a girl/young woman was interested, half of them would turn into the male versions of that Jessica Rabbit lookalike. “IT’S A GI-IRL!” and practically run into walls trying to get to them. Who wants that?!? No bueno. The rest of us did enjoy a more diverse group, but we also knew how the behavior of that other half of the comunity reflected on all of us.
But I also remember spending many a long night RPing in one of the local diners right out in the open in front of everyone. Of course this was in our late teens and 20s (so the late ‘90s-2000s) and attitudes had already started shifting by then too.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
LOL...
I wish... I would love to have all the books of the older editions just for ideas and reference. But I only have the hardcovers of 3.5e PHB and DMG. Which I used for reference when making mods for NWN. My AD&D books are long gone, as are the basic/expert sets. Sad but true.
Although I never did that, nor did anyone in my group -- because it was into college before any girl ever wanted to play (not D&D but Champions) with us, and that was the kid sister of one guy in the group (so it's not like you can behave that way with (a) a minor, and (b) someone who is your friend's kid sister) -- I'm gonna defend the D&D nerds here for a minute.
First of all, nerds were not the only boys in high school behaving like baboons in heat around girls. You're talking about teenage boys here -- Alan Thicke once described them as "Hormones with feet." Expecting a 15 year old boy in the throes of puberty to act like a grown up, mature, reasonable person around a 15 year old girl is quite literally a denial of reality. Expecting the D&D-playing boys to somehow be different from all the other boys in high school at the time is equally reality-denying. Boys are boys. They are not girls, and they are not men. They are teenage boys, and they're going to act like teenage boys. I'm not on board with condemning them over it.
Second of all, the set of D&D-nerds you are describing have been stuck down that sewer below the social ladder for a long time -- years, perhaps. They've been there by themselves, just the few of them who play D&D, and probably other than walking past them in the hallway on the route to a class, never interact with girls their own age -- at a time when pretty much all boys want to do so, and desperately. Just because they play D&D, doesn't mean they wouldn't like to also go on dates and have an otherwise-normal high school experience, but they've not been given a chance to do so, because they play D&D (and for my group, watch Star Trek, which was also not cool in those days long before TNG came out, collect comic books, etc.).
Now you expose them to the one girl, maybe in the entire high school, probably in their entire lives, who expresses interest in the hobby that has up to this point made these boys social lepers - what do you expect them to do? Of course, they will all hit on her. They probably figure she is the only girl in the whole school who won't automatically and permanently dismiss them for playing D&D -- because she plays it too.
Finally, how many of those boys in the group had something more than just regular teenage nerd social awkwardness just in general? I don't know what the #s are in D&D groups, but I know in related nerd-based groups such as among scientists and mathematicians, there is a much higher proportion of the population with conditions like Asperger's or Autism, than there is in the general society. So how many of the boys who acted this way did so because they were (back then, almost certainly undiagnosed) on the spectrum?
I'm not going to say that any of those reasons for the boys' behavior would have made it any more fun for the girl. However, I have a hard time blaming the D&D nerds for their "IT'S A GIRL!" behavior -- I'm not sure, given all the social conditions in place at the time, along with everything else, that any other outcome was really even possible.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Well, as I recall the student athletes enjoyed more female attention and therefore had more practice interacting with the opposite sex. As did the “theater nerds” and even those of us on the debate team. Of course both of those groups were also trained in interacting with others.
Heck, even the guys in the science or AV clubs acted more mature when interacting with girls. I was on the debate team, and Mock Trial team, and the science club (I can make a one-person hovercraft out of a leaf blower), and the AV club. It really did seem to be the gaming club nerds (of which I was also a founding member) that seemed to struggle the most. In fact, it was usually the ones who were also on the speech & debate team that didn’t act a fool.
But I remember once a girl walked into the room, got swarmed almost immediately, and quickly left to never return. Heck one of the guys literally tripped over a desk trying to get to her. And I’m sorry but “boys will be boys” may be a perfectly valid excuse for fights in the parking lot, but it is no excuse for treating a young woman like the finish line in a foot race. It was like watching seagulls trying to get at a discarded ham sandwich on the beach. It was cringey.
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In my personal experience, seen far more rude and reprehensible behavior from popular guys and jocks when it came to women then I ever did from the gaming nerds. Heck, as I mentioned before, women were often times the worse bullies of other women and I'm far from the only woman who has been on the receiving end of such bullying.
At the end of the day, the one thing I have learned is that people can be horrible to each other for whatever reasons they wish to have. It isn't just limited to one group. I have also learned that many people are not jerks despite whatever label we put on them.
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
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Old high school gaming nerdbois who could figure out how to string two sentences together in front of a girl had two reactions to someone of that gender speaking to them. The first was to treat that gal as absolutely precious, pure, and untouchable. They'd do whatever they could to avoid offending her or pissing her off because they'd just found their own personal Arwen - a girl willing to give them the time of day. Which is not the way to win a friend, beeteedubs - despite what some of the more precocious ones might think, most ladies I've known are super turned off by that sort of fawning semi-worship.
The second, and more common from my own old schoolyears experience, was sullen defensiveness, simply because the overwhelming expectation was that one was being set up for a cruel prank. The expectation was that not only were girls not interested in one's Nerd Hobbies in high school, they were actively vicious about it and would make sure you suffered for daring to share.
Obviously not all girls were in this camp, but Coronet has said more than once that the girls who'd harass and punk a nerdy boy over this stuff were even worse to nerdy girls. The henpecking crowd was so eager and vicious in their persecution that both genders of Nerd Kid just kept their heads down and didn't talk. Most of us are adults now and don't give much of a shit who knows we Nerd, but back then? Keeping a lid on one's nerding was as close as a young teen or preteen kid could generally fathom to life and death.
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Maybe my experience was just different. 🤷♂️
Then again, I was on the Debate Team, and the Mock Trial Team, and the AV club, and the Science Club, and the Gaming Club.... I let my geek flag fly and never gave a crap. I get it that that level of self confidence was probably not the norm, but that was probably also why this chubby nerd had a date whenever I wanted.
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Wow... you know, I actually have experienced high-school-nerd life fairly recently, and boy have times changed. For one of my groups 2 of the 4 players were girls, and for another its 3 girls 3 boys and 1 nonbinary. AND a female DM (a player in the previous campaign and a good friend). I don't know about you old-timers, but my generation is perfectly capable. We kept our heads down when the "popular kids" came along, but nerdy girls were neither revered nor feared, unless, of course their character is a fiend warlock with fireball, in which case both are true.
Seriously her warlock just ended encounters before they started.
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