Gender in Gaming (WisCon 30 panel) - Revision history

Lquilter: cat

2007-07-30T18:09:14Z

cat

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	==categories & tags==		==categories & tags==

	[[category:WisCon 30 ~~Panels~~]] [[category:Games and gaming]]		[[category:WisCon 30 panels]] [[category:Games and gaming]]

Lquilter: Gender in Gaming (WisCon 30 Panel) moved to Gender in Gaming (WisCon 30 panel)

2007-04-24T20:11:03Z

Gender in Gaming (WisCon 30 Panel) moved to Gender in Gaming (WisCon 30 panel)

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2007-04-24T20:03:56Z

categories & tags

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	==categories & tags==		==categories & tags==

	[[category:WisCon 30 Panels]] [[category:~~Gaming~~]]		[[category:WisCon 30 Panels]] [[category:Games and gaming]]

Lquilter at 02:27, 21 June 2006

2006-06-21T02:27:26Z

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	Cabell: Something about online MMORPGs is that the anonymity can be very normative. Since people don't know the gender of who is really playing, they can dismiss the actions of female players who do not act according to their preconceptions. (i.e. ''If you don't act girly, then you aren't really a girl.'')		Cabell: Something about online MMORPGs is that the anonymity can be very normative. Since people don't know the gender of who is really playing, they can dismiss the actions of female players who do not act according to their preconceptions. (i.e. ''If you don't act girly, then you aren't really a girl.'')

			==categories & tags==

			[[category:WisCon 30 Panels]] [[category:Gaming]]

Lquilter: /* Original Topic Description */ basic info

2006-06-21T02:26:45Z

Original Topic Description: basic info

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	==~~Original Topic~~ Description==		==Panel Description==

	~~" ''~~Gender dynamics in-character and out of character in role playing games and LARPs can be pretty complex. This panel will discuss gender perceptions and how they affect plotting, characterization and game play; delving into experiences of play and into theory.~~'' "~~		59 Gender in Gaming
			Feminism, Sex, and Gender•Conference Room 5• Friday, 10:15-11:30 p.m.

			Gender dynamics in-character and out of character in role playing games and LARPs can be pretty complex. This panel will discuss gender perceptions and how they affect plotting, characterization and game play; delving into experiences of play and into theory.

			==Panelists==
			M: John H. Kim, Bill Humphries, Heather Kinast Porter, Victor Jason Raymond, Gregory G. Rihn

	==Moderator Comments==		==Moderator Comments==

162.83.198.150: /* Transcript (Incomplete) */ added credits

2006-06-21T01:28:22Z

Transcript (Incomplete): added credits

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	* Heather Kinast Porter was a second-generation gamer, who had		* Heather Kinast Porter was a second-generation gamer, who had
	* John Kim described himself as a "gaming slut" who had played		* John Kim described himself as a "gaming slut" who had played

			Original transcript notes by Liz Henry - please correct or fill in or add commentary

	==Transcript (Incomplete) ==		==Transcript (Incomplete) ==


	The panel began with the moderator asking everyone about their history of dealing with gender issues within gaming.		The panel began with the moderator asking everyone about their history of dealing with gender issues within gaming.

Jhkim at 17:52, 2 June 2006

2006-06-02T17:52:26Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 10:52, 2 June 2006
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	==Original Topic Description==		==Original Topic Description==

	''Gender dynamics in-character and out of character in role playing games and LARPs can be pretty complex. This panel will discuss gender perceptions and how they affect plotting, characterization and game play; delving into experiences of play and into theory.''		" ''Gender dynamics in-character and out of character in role playing games and LARPs can be pretty complex. This panel will discuss gender perceptions and how they affect plotting, characterization and game play; delving into experiences of play and into theory.'' "

	==Moderator Comments==		==Moderator Comments==
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	Cynthia: Playing in that Buffy campaign, I didn't switch. i played the same age and gender as myself -- a middle aged woman i can do. It was my first role-playing game.		Cynthia: Playing in that Buffy campaign, I didn't switch. i played the same age and gender as myself -- a middle aged woman i can do. It was my first role-playing game.

	Bill H.: Magic item that caused ~~peopel~~'s souls to become deeply "intertwingled".		Bill H.: Magic item that caused people's souls to become deeply "intertwingled". laughter This was a side effect of a spell that... the PCs of the group switched bodies.
	laughter
	~~Bill H.:~~ side effect of ~~the~~ spell that... ~~we body swapped~~.

	Jennifer: in later d&d... i play a warforged.		Jennifer: in later d&d... i play a warforged.

	Audience : whats a warforged?		Audience : whats a warforged?
	- 8 guys ~~barrel up~~ to answer what a construct is. - liz yells at them to let her answer -
			- Several guys try to answer what a construct is. - liz yells at them to let her answer -

	Jennifer: a construct without a gender... and...		Jennifer: a construct without a gender... and...

	Victor R.: When gaming first began in the mid 70s... some of this stuff got explored almost ~~instantaenously~~. Lee Gold... and people would write about their campaigns right from the very start. dealing with isues of gender. because the rules themselves were not very explicit about any of this stuff. over time this led to... this is not reflected in the official rules till much later. in early issues of dragon. what to do about having female characters. also what if you want to do something else. from very first issues of ~~alarms a nd excursioun s~~ and the wild hunt. these discussions taking place below the official level		Victor R.: When gaming first began in the mid 70s... some of this stuff got explored almost instantaneously. Lee Gold... and people would write about their campaigns right from the very start. dealing with isues of gender. because the rules themselves were not very explicit about any of this stuff. over time this led to... this is not reflected in the official rules till much later. in early issues of dragon. what to do about having female characters. also what if you want to do something else. from very first issues of alarums and excursions and the wild hunt. these discussions taking place below the official level.

	John K.: Lee Gold had an article about self-censorship and homosexuality. She had a norse game and a japanese setting game, and researched and had a bunch of material on homosexuality which she left out by herself. Though she found out by talking to the publisher much later that they would have taken it out anyway. I want to bring out one more thing. There are much greater possibilities for gender in gaming. When I went to the scandinavian conventions there are much more gender pushing articles out there in scandinavia. Melan Himmel Och Hav ("Between Heaven and Sea") was a live action game run in Sweden. Everyone was recast as morning people and evening people, rather than male or female. They had different social mores and stereotypes. They could have sex, but they had sex with their hands. There was a code where you could have.. within the game, you could have sex by touching up to the point of the shoulders. The game was 72 hours long, a lot of alienation in it. Within the fiction, it was 4 days since the days were 18 hours. By the accounts, it was very powerful. for everyone to go into this.. they all went to sleep and woke up and were in character for 4 days with all their interactions and then left. everyon it described it as a		John K.: Lee Gold had an article about self-censorship and homosexuality. She had a norse game and a japanese setting game, and researched and had a bunch of material on homosexuality which she left out by herself. Though she found out by talking to the publisher much later that they would have taken it out anyway. I want to bring out one more thing. There are much greater possibilities for gender in gaming. When I went to the scandinavian conventions there are much more gender pushing articles out there in scandinavia. Melan Himmel Och Hav ("Between Heaven and Sea") was a live action game run in Sweden. Everyone was recast as morning people and evening people, rather than male or female. They had different social mores and stereotypes. They could have sex, but they had sex with their hands. There was a code where you could have.. within the game, you could have sex by touching up to the point of the shoulders. The game was 72 hours long, a lot of alienation in it. Within the fiction, it was 4 days since the days were 18 hours. By the accounts, it was very powerful. for everyone to go into this.. they all went to sleep and woke up and were in character for 4 days with all their interactions and then left. everyon it described it as a

	Victor R.: that gets back to... 's idea of psychodrama.		Victor R.: that gets back to... idea of psychodrama.

	Phredd: i was playing queer characters and switching gender 20 years ago. what i find more intersting is that there are systems coming out that you solve problems not by the end of the sword.		Phredd: i was playing queer characters and switching gender 20 years ago. what i find more intersting is that there are systems coming out that you solve problems not by the end of the sword.
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	Greg Rihn: amber. diceless. never sold a lot of supplements... you don't need a whole lot... well rule bloat, one of the oldest jokes in		Greg Rihn: amber. diceless. never sold a lot of supplements... you don't need a whole lot... well rule bloat, one of the oldest jokes in

	~~Heazther~~: for people who aren't good at fast ~~takling~~, we can have a mix of dice rolling and actual fast talking. if you aren't good at it, you can try, and if you do well you might get extra experience for it.		Heather: for people who aren't good at fast talking, we can have a mix of dice rolling and actual fast talking. if you aren't good at it, you can try, and if you do well you might get extra experience for it.

	Audience: i'm married to the guy who wrote the little brown books. and i misunderstood the title of the panel because i thought it woudl be about women gamers and guy gamers. and at Gen Con... we were sitting htere.. we were the bait. people would walk in and go !!!!!!!!! girls!!!!! there was thiscrowd aroudn our table.		Audience: i'm married to the guy who wrote the little brown books. and i misunderstood the title of the panel because i thought it woudl be about women gamers and guy gamers. and at Gen Con... we were sitting htere.. we were the bait. people would walk in and go !!!!!!!!! girls!!!!! there was thiscrowd aroudn our table.
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	various discussion of sex and violence, why okay to kill your friends pretend but not have sx with t hem pretend.. violence is clean and sex is dirty		various discussion of sex and violence, why okay to kill your friends pretend but not have sx with t hem pretend.. violence is clean and sex is dirty

	Greg: ...		Greg R.: ...

	Bill: no matter how you look at it, I'm flirting with Jim.		Bill H.: no matter how you look at it, I'm flirting with Jim.

	Victor: as a sociologist there needs to be some comment on that that it's more complex than that.		Victor R.: as a sociologist there needs to be some comment on that that it's more complex than that.

	[I so much want to talk about female characters being defined by their rapability. when i play a female char...]		[I so much want to talk about female characters being defined by their rapability. when i play a female char... -- Liz H.]

	Victor: permission to play something other than what we are.		Victor: permission to play something other than what we are.
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	John K.: um		John K.: um

	Victor: I'm not done... i'm not done. frame of interactions. between our chars and between ourselves as individuals and we don't have mechanisms for dealing with that collision of frames , EXCEPT for the social mores we've developed within our own social group. that having been said, one coudl argue that ~~withthe~~ frame of giving ~~yrself~~ permission to play something different that eventually that ferame collision will fade ~~b/c~~ you're ~~stariting~~ from a deeply held impression ~~t hat~~ you are different. it's ~~simliar tow hat~~ an actor has ~~tto~~ do to take on a role. does that help?		Victor: I'm not done... i'm not done. frame of interactions. between our chars and between ourselves as individuals and we don't have mechanisms for dealing with that collision of frames , EXCEPT for the social mores we've developed within our own social group. that having been said, one coudl argue that with the frame of giving yourself permission to play something different that eventually that ferame collision will fade because you're starting from a deeply held impression that you are different. It's similar to what an actor has to do to take on a role. does that help?

	Paige: yes. because if i'm a chauvinistic black man who's straight..		Paige: yes. because if i'm a chauvinistic black man who's straight.

	Liz H.: arrrgh i keep busting in. but it does matter because you're playing your concept of what you think a chauvinistic black man is and you're not one and that does matter...		Liz H.: arrrgh i keep busting in. but it does matter because you're playing your concept of what you think a chauvinistic black man is and you're not one and that does matter...

	Woman in ~~audience~~: i've worked in miniatures and gaming industry for years and tabletop war gaming and by extension strategy wargaming. i was probably the only girl i knew who had any interest in playing war games unless they were attached at the hip to a boy who was playing. i've noticed from the manufacturing end that there seems tobe a ~~growoing interseing~~ in ~~miature~~ gaming among women. i'm not re because of the painting end of it has been ~~dominateed~~ by women very laguely at GenCon in the last few years. and women are thinking, oo, painting, i can do that, ooo i could build a whole army of little naked catwomen! laughter		Woman in Audience: i've worked in miniatures and gaming industry for years and tabletop war gaming and by extension strategy wargaming. i was probably the only girl i knew who had any interest in playing war games unless they were attached at the hip to a boy who was playing. i've noticed from the manufacturing end that there seems tobe a growing interest in miniature gaming among women. i'm not re because of the painting end of it has been dominated by women very laguely at GenCon in the last few years. and women are thinking, oo, painting, i can do that, ooo i could build a whole army of little naked catwomen! laughter

	Audience: psychological warfare		Audience: That's psychological warfare!

	Wargamer: and my groups were half men and half women.		Wargamer in Audience: ...and my groups were half men and half women.

	~~Guy~~: there are a lot of women now, it is increasing.		Man in Audience: there are a lot of women in gaming now, it is increasing.

	John K.: in the surveys there is a perception that women do roleplay and don't wargame, but the numbers are equally low... about the same.		John K.: in the surveys there is a perception that women do roleplay and don't wargame, but the numbers are equally low... about the same at 15-20%.

	Wargamer: my guy friends are more surprised that ~~i liek~~ wargaming but not ~~roleplayign~~		Wargamer in Audience: My guy friends are more surprised that I like wargaming but not roleplaying.

	John: maybe once there's a foothold there's a lot of 50-50 groups and a lot of all male ~~grups~~		John K.: maybe once there's a foothold there's a lot of 50-50 groups and a lot of all male groups.

	Woman in green shirt: your surveys may not reach the female role-playing gamers because they aren't in the same communities.		Woman in green shirt: your surveys may not reach the female role-playing gamers because they aren't in the same communities.

			John K.: Well, I agree about that, but most write-in surveys find less than 10% women. The 1999 Wizards survey, which used random polling to avoid that bias, found 19%.

			''I had to leave the room a few times b/c of phone calls so this is v. incomplete. - Liz H.''

	* I had to leave the ~~room a few times b/c~~ of ~~phone calls so this~~ is v. ~~incomplete~~. - LH *		Cabell: Something about online MMORPGs is that the anonymity can be very normative. Since people don't know the gender of who is really playing, they can dismiss the actions of female players who do not act according to their preconceptions. (i.e. ''If you don't act girly, then you aren't really a girl.'')

Jhkim at 22:51, 1 June 2006

2006-06-01T22:51:10Z

Show changes

Liz Henry at 00:24, 1 June 2006

2006-06-01T00:24:56Z

Show changes

Liz Henry at 00:12, 1 June 2006

2006-06-01T00:12:26Z

New page

GENDER AND GAMING

... came in late

Bill H: buffy game. gender mixy uppy. how much our community, how much game? partly the game. if you want to kick vampire butt they you play a slayer.
german gaming. mixed gender play. not super rules heavy simulationat divisional level of the eastern front. that's where the more sophisticated is going
heather kinast porter - my gaming ggroups - 2 .. gaming club. 1/3 female 2/3 male almost everyone palys gender bent character. 90% people play gender bent char...
me: gender bent? or other gender than they are?
john : opposite gender rather than transsexual ...
Lee a.: or other genders than male or female
heather yes.
heather: females better at playing male chars than males are at playing female chars. although i know some.
john: i want to get thru my end and then one more round of questions.
for myself, for most of my history i dont thnk gender has been an overt issue for groups that i was in. some exceptions but that ws the generality. where i got interested in it was, a period when i was away overseas fora few weeks and got invovled with mudding.
bill: define mudding
john: multi user dungeons. their gender switching, you really dont know the actual gender of the pwerno playing. that was fascinating . people woudl have .. they woudl assume that you were female in real life if you had a fem char. you could see all sorts of gender dynamics there. that's actually a really big issue for online games. people don't ... they know about dont' realize the impact.
me: was the impact that you felt the impact for the first time of being treated like a girl? in asexist way?
john: i guess maybe... you could log off and come on again as a male char and hang out with the same people. people who log into chat rooms pretending to be 13 year old girls are usually
audience: Policeman. *laughter*
john yes... hahaha... and ... vinland game. girl dressed as man to get revenge, most other players did not know her char was a woman. theh player was a woman. we went throught he campaign with people not knowing. so gender was an issue. and more in the buffy game.
lee: what are you takling about... give us examples of gender issues in the buffy game
John: slayer and her girlfriend had a baby.
Lee: how do you deal with a pregnant slayer?
john: the process of birth itself was super easy: it's like pulling off a bandaid... she's a slayer...
cynthia: the child care issues were the big thing.
john: how do i take care of the baby and fight evil? she convinced her partner max to split her with a duplication spell. so she coudl be split into her fighting self and her mommy self.
audience: that makes t hings easier.
cyn: not really.
john: who had issues.
cyn: i didn't switch. i played the same age and gender. middle aged woman i can do. it was my first game.
bill: magic item that caused peopel's souls to become deeply intertwingled.
*laughter*
bill: side effect of the spell that... we body swapped.
jennifer: in later d&d... i play a warforged.
audience : whats a warforged?
*8 guys barrel up to answer what a construct is.* *i yell at them *
jennifer: a construct without a gender... and...
victor : when gaming first begani nthe mid 70s... some of theis stuff got explored almost instantaenously. lee gold... and peoepl woudl write abouttheir coampaings right from the very start. dealing with isues of gender. because the rules themselveswere nto very explicit about any of thist tuff. over time this led to... this is not reflected in the official rules till much later. in early issues of dragon. what to do about having female characters. also what if you want to do something else. from very first issues of alarms a nd excursioun s and the wild hunt. these discussions taking place below the official level
john: lee gold had an article about self-censorship and homosexuality in jaapand nd she had a norse game and a japanese setting game, and researched and had a bunch of material on homosexuality which she left out. she found out by talking to the publisher much later that they would have taken it out anyway.
I want to bring out one more thing. there are much more, when i went to the scandinavian conventions there are much more gender pushing articles out there in scandinavia. Melan Himmel Ach Ov Between Heaven and Sea. sweden. live action game. everyone was recast as morning people nad eveningn people. no genders. different... they could h ave sex, but they had sex with their hands. ther was a code where you could have.. within the game, have sex touching up to the point of the shoulders. and it was 72 hours long, a lot of alienation in it. it was 4 days. theh days were 18 hours. and so it was very powerful. for everyone to go into this.. they all wnet to sleep and woke up and were in character for 4 days withall their interactions and then left. everyon it described it as a
victor: that gets back to... 's idea of psychodrama.
phredd: i was playing queer characters and switching gender 20 years ago. what i find more intersting is that there are systems coming out that you solve problems not by the end of th sword.
audience: it depends ofn the group
phredd: it 's not just theg roup, it depends ont he rule system and game culture
victor: formalizing
john: it has a lot to do with thinternet. niche game,s , gamers bringing their ideas directly out to people rather than having to go through trraditional gamem publishing companies. which have very narrow views about what's going to sella dn how they're going to sell it and who to
victor: jonathan tweet... he wanted to use "she" ...
john: and I did a textual study of how female characters were rpresneted in d and d and they did not come out so well
michale menard: i helped write the three little brown books.
*applause*
bill: thank you for ruining my childhood.
michael: i was in a math class in 7th grade with rob kuntz who wrote grayhawk ... one thing that astounds me is that people want or expect rules for things that , back when we did the three brown books was, how can we convey t he important parts in the fewest possible words:? adn there, hi my name's michael and i'm a star wars geek. i've gotten invovled in a star wars game. it wants me to do the ... it's the most overbown turgid complicated piece of shit i've seen.. which ... *rumble in room* with gender, people wnat to write rules for stuff that .... you want to use your fast talk? well let's hear it.
*general rumble of objection*
me: there are gender problems with that
someone: you might not be good at t he thing...
michael: well then practice it.
*rumble*
greg rihn: amber. diceless. never sold a lot of supplements... you don't need a whole lot... well rule bloat, one of the oldest jokes in
Heazther: for people who aren't good at fast takling, we can have a mix of dice rolling and actual fast talking. if you aren't good at it, you can try, and if you do well you might get extra experience for it.
audience: i'm married to the guy who wrote the little brown books. and i misunderstood the title of the panel because i thought it woudl be about women gamers and guy gamers. and at Gen Con... we were sitting htere.. we were the bait. people would walk in and go !!!!!!!!! girls!!!!! there was thiscrowd aroudn our table.
heather: some
surveys.. percentage
Paige:: i've played every kind of char. and the thing i've found interestign, no one really cares. except during sex scene... maybe homophobia.. theyr'e interacting with me not t he character.
john: um. actually they are interacting with you.
*various* discussion of sex and violence, why okay to kill your friends pretend but not have sx with t hem pretend.. violence is clean and sex is dirty
greg:
bill: no matter how you looka t it, I'm flirting with Jim.
victor: as a sociologist there needs to be some comment on that that it's more complex than that.
[I so much want to talk about female characters being defined by their rapability. when i play a female char...]
victor: permission to play something other than what we are.
john: um
victor: I'm not done... i'm not done. frame of interactions. between our chars and between ourselves as individuals and we don't have mechanisms for dealing with that collision of frames , EXCEPT for the social mores we've developed within our own social group. that having been said, one coudl argue that withthe frame of giving yrself permission to play something different that eventually that ferame collision will fade b/c you're stariting from a deeply held impression t hat you are different. it's simliar tow hat an actor has tto do to take on a role. does that help?
paige: yes. because if i'm a chauvinistic black man who's straight..
me... arrrgh i keep busting in. but it does matter because you're playing your concept of what you think a chauvinistic black man is and you're not one and that does matter...
woman in audience: i've worked in miniatures and gaming industry for years and tabletop war gaming and by extension strategy wargaming. i was probably the only girl i knew who had any interest in playing war games unless they were attached at the hip to a boy who was playing. i've noticed from the manufacturing end that there seems tobe a growoing interseing in miature gaming among women. i'm not re because of the painting end of it has been dominateed by women very laguely at GenCon in the last few years. and women are thinking, oo, painting, i can do that, ooo i could build a whole army of little naked catwomen! *laughter*
audidence: psychological warfare
war gamer: and my groups were half men and half women.
guy: there are a lot of women now, it is increasing.
john: in the surveys there is a perception that women do roleplay and don't wargame, but the numbers are equally low... about the same.
wargamer: my guy friends are more surprised that i liek wargaming but not roleplayign
john: maybe once there's a foothold there's a lot of 50-50 groups and a lot fo all male grups
woman in green shirt: your surveys may not reach the female role-playing gamers because they aren't in the same communities.

*** I had to leave the room a few times b/c of phone calls so this is v. incomplete. - LH ***