We've heard the modern narrative about RPGs not being inclusive, or barely inclusive, but only with the coming of White Wolf. The uninformed idiocy has gotten to the point where Green Ronin is breaking federal discrimination law by hiring only female writers for their next game.

I was going through some old shiznack and found the original 1982 MAGIC WORLD RPG by Chaosium.

Here's the playtester list:

Playtesters (in no particular order) – Alan LaVergne, Debra LaVergne, Keith DeBisschop, Doug Pharr, Hal Moe, Charlie Krank, Rory Root, Ken Kaufer, Tony Hughes, Hilary Powers, Gigi Ward, Tadashi Ehara, Fred Malmberg, Deanna Sue White, Mark Swanson, John Sapienza, Kathy Wood, Marcie Smith, Jerry Suminsky, Karl Maurer, Mike Skinkle, Al Hattlestadt, Steve Henderson, T. O. Green

We can assume Debra, Hilary, Gigi, Deanna Sue, Kathy, Marcie are all female. Don't know about TO Green.

That's 6 females out of 24 playtesters. That's 25% back in dark timeline of 1982.

We should thank these ladies for making tasty sandwiches and snacks for the mighty disco lads while they gamed. Because they certainly couldn't have been having fun, testing out rules and adding to our hobby...like the dozens of other women named in games and publications in the early days.  

Don't believe the revisionists. Women have been a major part of the RPG hobby from its earliest days.

The very first time I played D&D, fall of 1972, one of the players was a woman, and her elf was already a Hero/Magician.

Quote from: Spinachcat;956369Don't believe the revisionists. Women have been a major part of the RPG hobby from its earliest days.

Lies. Before 2017, women were used as currency by patriarchs.

Well, seeing as how Jacob bought his wives with fourteen years of labor, yes.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;956381Lies. Before 2017, women were used as currency by patriarchs.

[video=youtube;odK20vQB-7o]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odK20vQB-7o&index=131&list=PLF84F7E8A02EBFD57[/youtube]

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;956386Well, seeing as how Jacob bought his wives with fourteen years of labor, yes.

But how many wives could he fit in his wallet?

Peterson, 2012 documents: At least the California scene had many women right from the get-go, via SciFi fandom. It's a settled issue.

The first big splash for women gamers seems to have been Fletcher Pratt's Naval wargame, though. That's also well known fact. After that, not so many women in wargaming or Diplomacy. But in the SCA and thereby the California RPG scene. Plus others.

Quote from: Spinachcat;956369Green Ronin is breaking federal discrimination law by hiring only female writers for their next game.

Take it from a three-time business owner: this is not necessarily true. It wholly depends on how Green Ronin handles their hirings. I would hazard a guess that the folks they 'hire' are independent contractors.

When a business hires an independent contractor, they do not have to honor federal or state guidelines. FLSA, FICA, FUTA, COBRA, workman's comp and other miscellaneous requirements goes out the window, as do other standard employee protections.

Are playtesters actually a "major party of the rpg industry"? I agree with your basic premise, that there have always been women gamers (and designers). But it's still mostly men, probably 80% or so. For instance, out of the Dragon Module contest in 1980-81, there were 5 winners listed in Dragon 53. One was a woman (published in #61, Quest of the Midas Orb)

My personal guess it that most women who game who have aspirations of being a writer tend to write fiction, which is currently dominated by women writers. P.N. Elrod used to be a big contributor to Dungeon Magazine before she started writing awful vampire novels (long before the current craze).

I'm an ex-headhunter. I can't speak to all states, but in California, you could not previously advertise discriminatory hiring for contractors. The bona fide exception holds.

It is very true that contract employees forego lots of federal protections, but the EEOC standards on how you advertise for hiring was inviolate in previous years. Maybe that's changed, but we had to be extremely careful about wording in job postings back in the early 00s for Silicon Valley contractors - even when our employers hinted extremely they were looking for XYZ gender or ABC skin tone to be approved for this or that gov't contract.

But GR is in Washington so perhaps goodthink discrimination is doubleplusgood?

I can't speak whether it's legal under US law in their location, either, but I approve them putting their money where their mouth is:).

I'm not too surprised to see a women in early Chaosium playtests. Stafford and Chaosium came out of an SCA/Ren Fair kind of scene. Those kind of scenes were a good place for women to find their way into gaming, much like the Vampire scene would be in the '90s.

As an additional data point for 1982, both my parents were in a weekly D&D group at that time. As the entire group was married couples, it had a perfectly balanced male/female ratio.

My school, despite being an active part of the gaming boom of the time, had 0 female gamers though.

Maybe the first wave of college/adult aged gamers had a higher female presence, while the the generation that discovered it at 10-12 during the boom days tended more to boys' clubs early on. Kids at that age are still very aware of things being boyish or girly.

I'm not saying there were no girls at all of my generation gaming at the time. I have had two girlfriends that were active gamers during the '80s, but even they were aware of it as largely being seen a "boy thing" at the time.

Quote from: Baulderstone;956641I'm not too surprised to see a women in early Chaosium playtests. Stafford and Chaosium came out of an SCA/Ren Fair kind of scene. Those kind of scenes were a good place for women to find their way into gaming, much like the Vampire scene would be in the '90s.

As an additional data point for 1982, both my parents were in a weekly D&D group at that time. As the entire group was married couples, it had a perfectly balanced male/female ratio.

My school, despite being an active part of the gaming boom of the time, had 0 female gamers though.

Maybe the first wave of college/adult aged gamers had a higher female presence, while the the generation that discovered it at 10-12 during the boom days tended more to boys' clubs early on. Kids at that age are still very aware of things being boyish or girly.

I'm not saying there were no girls at all of my generation gaming at the time. I have had two girlfriends that were active gamers during the '80s, but even they were aware of it as largely being seen a "boy thing" at the time.

Good point about when you entered the hobby...which points directly back to the current situation today.  I head down to the FLGS, there's hardly ever an RPG table without a female or two playing.  Some nights at least a quarter of the friggin' 40k gamers are females.  Yeah, 40k, the misogynistic wargame for 14 year old future wife-beaters responsible for all social evils in the world.

So the question is, is the narrative about tabletop gaming accurate, or more like 25 years out of date, or perhaps even attempting to apply computer game industry problems to the tabletop industry?

Quote from: CRKrueger;956664So the question is, is the narrative about tabletop gaming accurate, or more like 25 years out of date, or perhaps even attempting to apply computer game industry problems to the tabletop industry?

Anectdotally, I'm know more women who play (and work on) video games than I do women who playing/run RPGs... but the numbers in both those groups far surpass the number of women I know who play straight up table top wargames.

Quote from: CRKrueger;956664Good point about when you entered the hobby...which points directly back to the current situation today.  I head down to the FLGS, there's hardly ever an RPG table without a female or two playing.  Some nights at least a quarter of the friggin' 40k gamers are females.  Yeah, 40k, the misogynistic wargame for 14 year old future wife-beaters responsible for all social evils in the world.

So the question is, is the narrative about tabletop gaming accurate, or more like 25 years out of date, or perhaps even attempting to apply computer game industry problems to the tabletop industry?

It's hard to tell about these things, since anecdotes differ. The only controlled statistical study that I've seen is the WotC survey in 1998, which found that 19% of RPG players were female. From other studies, it seems a smaller percentage than that were GMs and/or writers for RPG products.

I suspect that the 1982 playtester list from the OP with 25% women was not representative of the industry as a whole at the time. I'd guess that overall in 1982, the number of female players was closer to 10%.

As for now, nearly 20 years after the WotC survey, I'm not sure. My feeling is that the numbers haven't changed much since 1998. The popular new trends since then (like D20, 4th ed, OSR, Pathfinder, and 5th ed) don't seem to have drawn in more female players. There are small-press games that seem to draw in more female players, but I don't think they're big enough to change the overall demographics.