| Tuesday 08/30/2005 9:42:18am |
| Name: |
Theresa Smith |
| E-Mail: |
Thevail@hotmail.com |
| Referred By: |
Web Ring |
| Location: |
Bellingham, WA |
| Comments: |
I
liked the fact that you had an article on female gamers. Thanks from
one of the "old crew". I am a female gamer, and I've been gaming since
I was 15 years old, about 22 years now. And that,let me tell you,is a
lot of orcblood under the bridge. Here's my opinion on some of the
changes in D&D, as well as a lot of other systems, over the last
couple decades. This is only my opinion and all standard disclaimers
apply.
When I started out, a green and callow youth, we all killed
the gazebo..know what I mean. Kill first ask questions and get loot and
experience later. But then after a while like say 2 to 3 years we'd
killed everything, and gotten to play the 16th level fighter/12th lvl.
thief. It was so boring. We still loved to play and the group stuck it
out for another year or so, but it got hard.Many of us tried other
systems, but for me it wasn't always so easy to find a group interested
in her roleplaying ability rather than her chest. I have honestly gamed
with geeks who couldn't tell you after a year what color my eyes were.
No kidding. Then finally in their early twenties the miracle
happened..The GM's grew up!
I mean they started to think of
including stories and plots (other than the all too hackneyed) that
dealt with past characters or favorite NPC's or locations. (Goddess
bless Ed Greenwood!) The fiction books based on D&D really helped
expand the horizons of many GM's. Also GM's are by nature ( I should
know I've been one) attention hounds and control freaks.
And due
to the simplicity of the game experience and the complications of the
system the GM's were losing their audience. So like any performer they
got better. The games and the settings became bigger, more complex,
cooler.
And so GM's and players needed less math intensive and time
consuming ways to cope with the reams of information and stats needed
to run and play in the new and improved worlds the GM's were creating.
This goes for a lot of systems at that time. There were so many
freakin' charts it felt like doing astrophysics instead of doing
something fun, and a single combat for six players could take hours.
So
the games got less math intensive and the world's became immeasurably
enriched by all of the author's who wrote sagas and set them loose on
the minds of GM's. Players demand a good time ( male and female alike)
and GM's love to provide it and sweat and write and erase and revise to
do so. And everthing gets better as it goes along and develops a
skilled base of creative people to draw from and rely upon. D&D has
been no exception.
And girl gamer's were few and far between for a
long time. But a lot of the girl's I knew couldn't see beyond geek and
freak to be bothered hanging out with "those guys". It was way too
uncool. Their loss, in my opinion. |
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