Question

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

‘Ello Poly~ I’m currently in sociology in college and we need to write a few small papers for extra credit points. One of the subjects mentioned were gender stereotypes, such as girls don’t play video games or boys don’t play with dolls, the stereotype of what society views should happen. I’d like to write about RP’ing, I’ve found that generally (at least with RL people I know) RP is thought to be a “guys” thing.

So I need some basis of statistics to go off of, so if you don’t mind can you please leave a comment with your gender?

To be clear this is optional, it’s not a huge deal as I don’t need the extra credit to pass or event get a great grade, you’re lj name will not be mentioned, your online name/real name won’t be, and where I got the info won’t be mentioned. Basically all I need is a number in real life to go off of, the number won’t event be mentioned. I just need to know which side to go with, if it’s completely absurd to think that girls don’t rp (which is what I think XD) or if it’s fairly accurate.

If you’re not comfortable with telling your gender, don’t worry about it! The last thing I want is anyone to feel uncomfortable so don’t feel like you have to!

Thanks for reading~

Comments

[elleswonderland.livejournal.com]

I'm female. I actually am in a game populated mostly by females and a game populated mostly by males. It just depends, I guess?

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

Wow that was fast. Thank you for answering~

[justice]

I'm female! I don't know about Poly, but I can say that in my 100+ person other game, males are definitely in the majority. We can list off who's male on our fingers.

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

Did you mean minority? I'm easily confused so don't mind me

[esotaria.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that pretty much all the LJ RPs I've been in have been dominated by female players. But in the RL tabletop games -- ala D&D, although I played more indie, narrative-based games -- the groups were more gender par, perhaps leaning a little towards men.

Anyway, to answer your actual question: I'm a girl. xD;;;

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

I think that due to tabletop D&D games being seen as a guy thing it's transferred over to online rp too. Alas the stereotype never seems to go away.

Thanks for answering

[hematolagniac.livejournal.com]

Female here. And I dunno about other people, but I've always thought that the whole "RPing is a guy thing" was more for tabletop and LARP than LJ arr pee.

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's just because I have no friends the people I talk to in college are mainly party kids whose main concern is shopping and thus they think anything that borders on their version of "geek-dom" is a nerdy guy thing?

[horrible-phd.livejournal.com]

To answer the question, I'm female.

The stereotype for LJ rpers is definitely that they are *female*

I think maybe male rpers tend to use more rule-based systems and female rpers tend to use narrative-based systems. But I could be totally off-base with that, mostly because I just don't know as many geek guys as I do girls.

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

Wow. That actually really fits a psychological perspective on gender roles, that men like games that are more rule based, women like things that are more deep. Hadn't thought of that connection.

Thank you~

[conjury.livejournal.com]

Female here. And Poly is kind of in the minority as far as the male/female ratio goes. It was mostly girls at last check, with only a handful of guys around. The numbers have been growing though, so I have no idea how that stands now.

Good luck with your paper though!

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

Really really interesting!

Thank you~

[icarus_suraki]

I'll play along~ I'm female.

And, just because we're all talking about it, I'd always gotten the sense that most of LJ RP and a significant portion fandom was female, but tabletop RP and a few particular fandoms were mostly male. I read a report ages ago that females like the interactive, interpersonal, communicative aspects of fandom (canon character RP, communication, discussion, fanfiction, &c), so they gravitate towards it and the internet is great for that. I should try and find that report again...on the sociology and history of fandom, basically.

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

That'd be interesting if you could find it. I hadn't actually thought of the connection there but a the viewpoint in psychology (I can't recall the particular branch) that men tend to like rules/structure and women tend to like interpersonal/deeper games.

Thank you.

[dreamsofnoah]

Female here too o/

And like everyone else is saying, my experience of LJ RPs is that males tend to be in the minority. And my brother runs both tabletop and LAN RPs, those tend to be fairly equally divided between female and male players, generally with a slight bias towards males.

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

This is very interesting.

Thank you for answering~

[lachry-mose.livejournal.com]

I'm a female too! I know a lot of girls who RP on LJ, more girls than guys actually.

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

This is very interesting. Thank you~

[morethanasuit.livejournal.com]

I'm a male and I've from what I've seen ONLINE RPing is mostly done by females. I think poly is predominantly female. Like... tabletop type RPing it's mostly guys but in my almost 10 years of online RPing as a guy I've always been in the minority.

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

This is so interesting. I should be shot for saying that so much.

Thanks for answering.

[x-hammertime-x.livejournal.com]

Female, and as everyone else has said, I think that the majority of online RP'ers of this type of RP are female.

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

Yeah majority seems to be female for sure. Thanks for answering.

[eccentric-ox.livejournal.com]

FEMALE HERE!! And in all other games I've been, the majority of the players were female. :O

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

Really interesting. Thank you!

[1inageneration.livejournal.com]

I''''m a girl. <3 GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR PAPER!

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

Thank you~

[hematophagy.livejournal.com]

Female!

I love the social sciences.

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

I enjoy it to some degree but my true love is psychology. They're actually much more different in my opinion then most give them credit for.

[dr_conscience]

Girl here.

Who is involved in all kinds of dorky things, online and off. XDDDD

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

Dorky things are awesome. Thank you~

[devastatingcute.livejournal.com]

... Female, again! And like everyone else has said, the majority of my games have had more girls than guys.

Good luck with your paper!

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

Geez this is quite unexpected, I actually didn't expect there to be this big of a difference.

[irislover.livejournal.com]

Femaaaaaale~

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

Thhhhhaaaank you

[crossshapedscar.livejournal.com]

Female!

And just from personal experience I've found that most table-top RPers I know are male, but most LJ RPers I know are female. I think it has a lot to do with the emphasis put on either end. On the rare occasion I HAVE attempted table top it's focused mostly on actions and cut out rules (i.e. how many points do you have to roll for your blow to kill the big scary monster), but all the LJ RPGs I've been in focus instead on character interactions and emotional development and cut and dry rules weren't so much a factor.

I have to laugh because I actually had a discussion like this with my ex, who did table top RP. He couldn't grasp the point of my game because it wasn't based around the rules he was used to. He kept asking if there were ways to figure out a character's strength and the probability of winning a battle. :/ I mean... we know our characters. We can figure it out. We don't need a DI to tell us. *snort*

8D I'll be quiet now. Good luck with your papers!

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

The conversation with your ex sounds like a perfect example of the difference of genders in the view of certain psychological groups. Males tend to like structure females tend to like depth.

Thank you!

[palmtoptaiga.livejournal.com]

FEMALE.

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[tofuinthesky.livejournal.com]

Answering your question, I'm female. Oddly enough, I know very few males that RP online. I can literally count them on one hand. Tabletop, D&D, etc. definitely have more males than females but also, I think what might be the issue is that offline, I don't necessarily hear people talking about RPing on the internet as much as they mention RPing with tabletop games. That's probably one reason that keeps that stereotype alive, along with the others that were mentioned.

Mmmm, sociology. I loved that class, but not as much as psych lol

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I agree.

Psychology is my love too

[mypace-musume.livejournal.com]

Male. I've been in three online RPs total and they were all >90% female.

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

I think that's two males. Which either really sucks for you or is really awesome for you XP

Kidding.

Thank you!

[haleysings.livejournal.com]

Female here! I'm agreeing with the others, I think tabletop is more male and LJ is female. My brother RPs, but he uses a d20 system on internet forums.

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

The D&D type systems confuse the hell out of me. It makes me think of math. I hate math.

Thank you.

[as_damaged]

although 4/5 of my characters here are not, I am a girl. ^_^;

[warconductor.livejournal.com]

Dude here. And yes, I often noticed such a divide. No idea why it's there. Maybe it has something to do with the hard rules? Since that seems to be the main difference I can think of.

I asume that you when we say "online RP" we refer to the kind of thing we do here vs. say, the D and D game I play in that is HOSTED online.

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

This wasn't meant to be a debate, I don't want to upset anyone at all.

I didn't realize there were D and D games hosted online. I knew they did Magic online but not that. Kinda cool. But yes I meant this.

[lady-wandering.livejournal.com]

Female, comic geek.

[i-know-stuff.livejournal.com]

Thanks