Agreed, Dan. We see very little diversity at the major conventions and it's a great question as to why. I have to assume that interest in military history is a topic that should appeal to anyone, regardless of race!
I am a woman who loves miniature gaming whether it's sci-fi, fantasy or historical. On large and skirmish scale. I GM a lot for our gaming group and teach games. We have a good group of women in our group but they're out of my age range and really mostly stick to boardgames. I do find myself wishing there were more women my age in our gaming group. Especially ones who play miniature games.
I am truly blessed to have an historical miniatures war gaming wife. She owns 4 DBA armies and has started working on another. We play Commands and Colors games with miniatures together at home and at our club meetings.
the smells ( BO ) and the creepy looks kept my wife and especially my daughter out of the hobby! I almost got into a fight with a 20 something year old guy once at a GW store cause he was almost drooling while never taking his eyes off my 12 year old daughter...and once my adult son saw it he almost did the same.. thank God for the GW manager escorting the creep out of the shop it would have escalated..... women would join men like me if the other men were more "adult" about things and not FREAKING CREEPY! and using some basic hygiene practices
I used to play 40K professionally in the GT circuit globally. I stopped playing completely because of the attitudes of letting "mundanes" normal people playing the game. Their overall conduct to other players was unacceptible Personal hygiene is a real issue and it has gotten WORSE over the years.
@@KortovElphame You're an idiot and likely part of the problem. Just because you never saw it means it didn't happen? So b/c I don't see crimes happening means that this world is crime free?
@@KortovElphame Right!!! LOL reality is usually hard for some the see... bottom line there is a reason at cons & table top games events you rarely see women... and when i've been at them the #1 complaint i hear is BO ...#2 is creepy eyes... I'm part of a group that frequents cons and plus this hobby community and very often those are the to primary complaints from women... There is the simple reality that women usually aren't drawn to strategy games ...that's a social concept for sure...but if you really haven't attended very many events you wouldn't know about the #1& #2 I mentioned.....I have for over 30 years...so no virtue signaling from me just facts.. you should stop it ...or move along...nothing to see here
Love this! My wife on the other hand refers to my hobby as 'My husband loves painting and playing his GI Joe toys'....or, 'Dave is playing with dolls, let me go get him for you.' Every wargamers secret wish was to marry a woman that loved history, and love to paint and game.
@Nick Smith My e-wife (Divorced due to wartime deployments note gaming) used too call it my nerd group. I told her this was my hobby and all men have them. There are many pastimes for guys to have that are far more expensive and destructive.
not cool,she's showing a lack of respect for you, simply explain that you will now be attending the local strip joint with the guys twice a week to watch the game. see how her attitude changes.
My other half calls my wargaming as Buena Kings (little soldiers in Portuguese). My group loved the sound of it so much that we all now call wargaming Buena Kings.
Another thing that is sad is hobby stores at least around me have gone away or have turned into a specialty store, so the exposure of different hobby/gaming is going away. I miss the huge stores that had every kind of game you could think of, and seeing games and miniatures and all that exciting stuff in person, for me at least made me want to try new things. And now its all online and if you dont know about it you may never find it.
I believe that you have touched on a lynchpin to the answer, "exposure". Honestly, not many men know about the hobby, and with that the case, then even fewer women would be informed of it as well. Secondly, Wargames have fairly rigid rules, and are only concerned about the interactions of the little dudes on the table, unlike D&D, for example.which has great leeway for storytelling and nuances of characterized relationship building, pushing around tin soldiers has far less appeal as it is more a matter of "facts (the rules and dice) than feeelings (nuanced explorations of relationships). You are an outlier and an exceptional case.
@@bobjames3748 Table top RPGs and wargames. Everything from Fantasy to Romans and midwar and WW2 tank battles. My son and his best friend have started to play too, they're 11 and 12
My experience with wargaming has shown me that RPGs seem to be were one will find a closer 50/50 ratio of women to men. an anecdote which i think contributes to this phenomenon. The store i game at is in central Montana, around the time seventh edition dropped for 40k a new kid came in with some nids and wanted to get into the hobby. I played a couple of fun non-competitive games with him, a week latter he played the local asshole who brought a top tier Eldar jet bike list and proceed to wreak him in the first turn, and then say "oh it was a great game". The kid had sold his nids to the store owner by the weekend. Those kind of people are what new comers see/hear about, and because as people we like to paint with a large brush "if one person in that group is like that they must all be like that".
I find that the GW crowd is highly competitive and abusive at times. Games using more historical themes seem to Welcome women more. Not sure if it is the younger crowd or what but 40K/WFB seems to attract a lot of jerks. Now I have been is many RPG games over the last 40 years and ladies seem to comprise about 40 to 50% of a lot of groups. Even ran a game for a friends group back in the 80's where I was the only guy in the room. One thing I will say is they have a different take on things at times and do things guys would never have thought of. Many guys may think it is stupid or wrong but you will be surprised how many times their trick works (on top of them almost always being underestimated). Makes one wonder if wargaming is looked on by a lot of our crowd as a men's club, our one retreat where women should not follow. That would explain some of the annoyance when the ladies show up and try to join us. Most seem to be wives/girlfriends/daughters meaning someone from the group/club has vouched for them. It is changing though so I think his data is showing a trend towards more ladies getting involved in gaming (likely the start was roleplaying). That would explain the age groups as it has only been building for the last 30 years or so.
Nice video. Good of you to look into the theme. The situation is the same here in Norway. One thing: when you say you will invite the women back to discuss it further, that is laudable, but I got an idea: Why not invite them to play a game on your channel?
I think Veronica and Amanda kinda hit the nail on the head. Not many woman seem interested in war and military history, maybe for cultural reasons, or maybe because woman are less combative in nature. Also fantasy and gaming in general have culturally not been seen as the domain of woman for a long tine, and only recently is that changing. Personally I feel it’s also war gaming is very competitive and can be quite confrontational at times; which woman seem less interested in (just look at chess demographics). My wife is a pretty big gamer, all about casual board games and loves D&D, but wargaming is something she has been very bluntly uninterested in for this reason (and behold she loves the painting and hobby side of it). It’s sad to hear that some women feel a bit pushed out and belittled, which is totally not cool. But speaking from experience, my whole war gaming life I have been belittled SO many times and I’m THE demographic of war gamer. I think no matter who you are it gets that way. Generally the hobby is full of egotistical dudes who think they know better then you and are willing to list the ways you are wrong and how this makes you a bad person. I’ve had dudes move my models, and make assumptions that I am a rookie, try to teach me the fundamentals, all sorts. Sometimes it feels like it can be a nerd dick measuring competition, and guys will try to out do you in rule or lore knowledge. Like I sometimes feel judged that I’m just too casual, and I’m talking to THE most hard core of gamers and I’v stepped into his kingdom or something. It sucks and it would be great if it changed. My wife sees these interactions that I have and wants no part though she has never even tried it.
Good topic. It's a shame Becky has had such a bad experience. Although, there are some jerks out there that treat everyone that way, regardless of gender. I know as a kid I didn't want girls to know I wargammed, lest they think I was a geek. Now I embrace it but I missed the chance to draw others in.
My wife likes historical miniatures gaming as well though limited right now to Wings of Glory and War at Sea miniatures.But she is open to more as she says simply I like rolling dice and winning and having fun.
My follow up question would at that point then be about her female friends and family... has she tried to introduce them to the hobby? Does she see other women in gaming regularly or is it really just you and her playing and not so much a community of men and women?
@@SciFiPorkChop28 I'd be willing to bet the more women that "turn on" other women to wargaming is all it will take to increase numbers. nice places to play helps. women wont play at a dark,creepy, game location.
thebjorn42 I have been going to gaming conventions for almost forty years. There are always people there, of all ages, who do not know what the word “hygiene “ is, let alone what it means. And let’s face it, when you are in a packed gaming area, even one with high roofing, that is appropriately air-conditioned, under the Australian sun, the smell of stale sweat, and worse, is largely unavoidable after a couple of hours... :(
Some great points being made in this video. I think the old "Women are just not interested in wargaming" doesn't hold true though. We see it massively with Dungeons and Dragons and see it to a lesser extent in the Warhammer community recently: Women are coming in at a steady pace, but often they do their own thing, are not too fond of male dominated spaces etc. and create their own ways of enjoying the games and hobbies, thus also being less visible. This is a general problem, people don't go to wargaming/roleplaying clubs that much anymore but tend to game more at home with their friends.
Even more so with videogames where a LOT of women can be find even in competetive game and teams from Starcraft to stuff more action focus like Overwarch, PubG etc And definetly in D&D and Boardgames and TCG I play all the above and locally we have a lot on most of them except wargames where the older, white 40+ is the normal.
@Nick Smith I disagree in our role-playing rounds we have easily 50% or more women. The same goes for tabletop. So it is either a coincidence or the way we play that might be different to how others play.
Like others have said, I don't know how you're comparing women playing DnD to be the same thing as women playing a wargame. Just because someone's interested in role-playing doesn't mean they will also be interested in a wargame. The mechanics, method of play, rules, and requirements are vastly different. I would wager that there are far more role-players than there are wargamers, something that can easily be seen by the popularity of groups like Critical Role and Acquisitions Inc.
Awesome video! As a father of two young girls that received Avatar minis and board games for Xmas and birthdays, this is really cool. I run a D&D table with 5 girls and one boy and its good to see these initiatives. Regarding the ladies testimony, I dare to add that what could also be contributing to woman being more interested in sci-fi and fantasy games is the increase in woman protagonists in related movies and TV series. Keep up the good job.
Some of my favorite wargaming memories are playing War of the Ring with my mom and oldest sister. I helped them get started with painting and they collected their own armies. We played for a year or so before life (work, kids) got busy and we stopped playing. I think it all comes down to community. There is a constant rate of attrition in any hobby, and the key focus of every gaming community (or store) should be recruitment, and there is a vast, largely untapped population of potential female gamers. Welcome them in and grow the hobby!
Very fine approach from three different female perspectives to a similar subject. In the end everyone in the room is a "wargamer"; who cares about gender, race and what not. The entire subject why we are there is to wargame. If it is a strict historical event expect bar to be low. If it is a "games with miniatures" expect bar to be high. Personally always had female presence in the hobby club stores i went to. Two of the places were actually run by women ( both fine painters first and players in games as second activity, but their love for the hobby lay in painting) but yes, places weren't focused on historical wargaming but rather fantasy and scifi.
It is funny how nothing changes. My last HMGS convention was Cold Wars 1995. I remember from 1988 to 1995 every wargaming newsletter happily mentioning the number of women who came to each convention. My own fiance has played Fire and Fury and reenacted too. She has excellent modeling and painting skills which are great assets for this hobby but she does not regularly play. Ladies, join in!
I don't personally know any women that wargame. The women that I do know will play boardgames or RPGs rather than hardcore wargames. However, myself and my wargaming mates (all three of us) have remarked in the last few years that we have seen a massive increase in the amount of women who are present when we attend conventions. When I say 'massive', I mean it's still a tiny minority, but they are actively engaging in the games and buying stuff, not being dragged by a husband and looking bored to death. One of the big voices in female wargamers is Annie of Bad Squiddo, who's company is really going from strength to strength and she does a lot within the hobby. I think it's excellent to see.
This is a dam fine idea. I support anyone, man, woman, kids, of any ethnicity that wants to war game. And I firmly believe 99% of you agree with me. Nothing more fun than history being turned upside down in a game.
I teach a conflict simulation design course at McGill University. Around half of the students who take the course are women. I know the same was true of Phil Sabin's legendary wargaming course at King's College London. In large, mass participation political-military megagames, around 25% of the players are typically women. In professional (national security) wargaming, the proportion of female wargamers is around 15%. In all three of those areas, sexist behaviour is very likely to get you called out for it by fellow participants, the organizers, or your boss. Clearly--as the video nicely shows--the hobby has a problem with being diverse and welcoming if only 1-2% of hobby wargamers are women.
hmm idk if that is a problem of people not welcoming enough or just being too picky about things. But i would call out sexist behavior because its just annoying. essentially we are just gamers trying to play a game and murder each other on the table, no need to do that in real life
"-the hobby has a problem with being diverse and welcoming if only 1-2% of hobby wargamers are women." Therefore: Large, mass participation political-military mega-games have a problem with being diverse and welcoming if only 25% of participants are women. Professional (national security) wargaming has a problem with being diverse and welcoming if only 15% of participants are women. What is the correct percentile, Rex? 55%? There is usually, statistically slightly more women than men in a population. So should the number be nearer to 55%? What if women are less confrontational then men by nature? Wargames are a confrontation of two or more forces. What if women are less competitive then men by nature? Games are competition. - Competitive. Of course! There are always those who do not follow the trend, and there are those who have a greater amount of confrontation or competitiveness than members of their opposite gender! However, we are talking in broad terms and statistics here, not individuals. It's interesting that the % is higher in the game containing the political aspect. Perhaps you have something there. Maybe no one makes games that contain enough things, like negotiation, diplomacy and communication that women might find more engaging? Maybe the problem isn't the hobbyists , (Some hobbyists here are feeling like they are being accused of not being inclusive), maybe its the aspects of the games don't appeal to the nature of the female gender as much as they do to the male one. Perhaps if you want more females to take up this hobby the answer is to make games that appeal to them? (Most wars are fought by men, maybe we should have more women fight wars?) As someone who seems to be an authority on this subject, I would be interested in hearing your reply, Rex.
In my experience, the vast majority of female wargamers report that (a minority of) male gamers can be unwelcoming. That's what the video suggests too. I think we should listen to their concerns, and I hope we can all agree that we would like to make the hobby welcoming to everyone who wishes to play.
But the vast majority of female wargamers is only 1.6% of wargamers... Wargaming is a niche hobby. So small is the number of wargamers that people often struggle to find other players and have to play solo. However, of the 1.6% of female wargamers that have had a negative experience, this is still a very small number of people and they are already in the hobby! So could we just chalk up these experiences with male wargamers, (which everyone says are a minority), with some people are just socially inept? Rude? Sexist? Whatever you want to call it. That's not going to grow the number the female wargamers... They won't multiple by some odd form of osmosis! I think the real reason there are not more female wargamers is that wargaming doesn't appeal to them. It doesn't engage with their nature (at least of the majority of women). My proof for this is your statistics of male/female participation and the type of game being played, the vast majority of which are tabletop wargames which revolve around the use of military might, not other aspects that on the whole women find more engaging, such as diplomacy, negotiating and communication. Furthermore, I think that many wargamers return to the hobby because they have done it as adolescents. Very few wargamers pick the hobby up late in life. It is a strange phenomenon often discussed in wargaming circles. Again, without taking up too much time with the text, I would surmise that model kits and wargaming do not cover subjects that engage with the female sex as much as it does the male one. I can't ever remember seeing a model kit that I thought targeted anything other than males and what they would like I really don't know!? Its the subjects and processes in the games that are appealing to men rather than women. If women want to play, that's fine with me. We are all wargamers first and foremost, not male or female.
@@2d6wargaming13 I agree that as many of our games stand, they do not appeal to the classic idea of what men and women prefer... stereotypically, men prefer these 'winner take all' contests that revolve a lot around numbers and spacial awareness.. while stereotypically, women prefer more story line and character development. There are outliers from both groups and I don't mean to imply that the stereotypes are not based in truth. That all said, the point here is that for being such a niche hobby, can we afford to ignore 51% of the population? Is it possible to work towards inclusive gaming that may be more appealing to more women or players who are not just into the game for the numbers and straight forward fighting? Obviously we are not going to move away from what is an integral part of the hobby... but if we want to grow our numbers and not always be a niche hobby with very little interaction with any of the half the people on the planet that might find our hobby enjoyable, then we should look at what can be done to change those numbers. Also, I'd like to point out that your idea that we should just 'chalk up these experiences with male wargamers' as something that is acceptable because it is such a small part of the total population is not appropriate and is part of the problem we hear from women gamers again and again. No one of any gender should have to be forced to deal with inept, rude, or sexist behavior from anyone while they are trying to enjoy the hobby (or at any time). I am not saying it will be possible to police every action in every game store and game club across the world... but we (We Gamers, We Men, We as a Community) need to be aware of what others around us are doing and saying and speak up when we see, here, or suspect ANYONE is being rude, inept, sexist, or whatever you want to call it. Any attempt to sweep that under the rug or discard those concerns is ultimately detrimental to all of us.
I know very few guys and no women who play wargames. I suppose it starts with having an interest in military history. I then want to play a game that details a conflict or battle to find a greater understanding of the difficulties faced and empathise with those who took part in the battle/conflict. I've been to war and it sucks! Maybe people find it difficult to differentiate between model soldiers/counters and real life people and the horrors faced by the poor souls who have to fight wars. I know my wife doesnt. She also is too tired to learn pages of rules and isn't prepared to spend hours playing a wargame. Great topic by the way and keep up the good work!! I think wars should be played and not fought! Regards to all!
It also depends where you reside to find other wargamers. i live in the rural area of NW Ohio and have to go to Toledo or Cleveland just to find A hobby store that could supply me with the miniatures or even to meet other wargamers. If it's not RC CAR,Trains or RC planes or Boats...I'm out of luck
There are a few female generals, in ancient history. Boudica led the Trinibantes against the Romans. Deborah led the Canaanites to a series of victories (it's in the Old Testament). There was a Greek queen who led an army, during their many bouts of in fighting. The Soviet's had all female tank regiments, commanded by women, during WW2. Perhaps staging battles where women were historically leading & fighting in battle, would help draw more women into the hobby.
The opening comments by Becky Ensteness were disheartening. Repositioning her troops? Asking her not to play? Outrageous and appalling! Even if it is just a small handful of male gamers who are that obnoxious, it is no wonder that there is such a low number of female gamers.
The real question is, "how many times did this happen"? I believe that this was a one=time event and it has been blown out of proportion. As a male, I have also had my pieces moved by an exasperated GM during a game he hosted at a regional convention. He was a testy sort of a fellow at any rate, and we kicked him from our club for other unrelated, but similarly relevant issues.
You know it’s weird but I think rude people have also been rude to male gamers in the past. So why do they keep playing? I look forward to seeing a little wars vid on it soon.
Great topic to talk about. But another topic is, people of color in wargaming. I am an African- American, and I have been historical wargaming for 40 years. Wargaming, and military history, are my two passions. But I am the only person of color in my wargaming club, of 8 people. I am a member of HMGS, but whenever I go to a convention I rarely see another person of color, attending the same event. I think in 40 years, I seen about two other people of color at wargaming conventions. One thing that was not talked about, in this video, is there is never a discussion on non-male military leaders. Sure, Queen Boudica's name comes up, every now and then, but not often. It is harder to draw people in, when they have nobody to look up to; who looks like them. I have this same problem. Sure there are African, Middle-Eastern, and Asian generals in history, but their names rarely come up. Most people want to talk about, Caesar, or Alexander the Great, or Napoleon, or Lee, or Grant, or Rommel, or Patton. Sure, Hannibal's name comes up; but I have had debates with friends, who say he is not black. So I will say again, that it is hard to draw people in, when nobody else looks like them. Females, or People of Color.
@@ColonelHoganStalag13 That's not what he said though. You are more likely to identify with a subject & find it interesting (eg History) if you can identify with the actors.
@@ColonelHoganStalag13 I think you have a warped view of identity politics. It seems you don't understand the concept. Sure you can make off the cuff statements like that, because you probably grew up with experiences that match your environment around you. Do you regularly attend events where you are the only guy in the room? Be honest! Do you regularly attend events where nobody else in the room, is your race. American history has shown that there is a current need for identity politics, and rejecting it is trying to hide the ugly side of American history. The guy that wanted Nazi flags on his Napoleonic Prussian, was just plain crazy! I have a devil of a time as it is, finding flags for my Napoleonic Prussian Landwehr regiments!!
Thanks for offering this thoughtful perspective. It's obviously a very applicable point to African-Americans as well as women when scanning back through military history. I mentioned Joan of Arc in an earlier comment as a very rare example of a female leader in military history.
Excellent point. I think finding examples and putting on games where people can see people like them in leading military roles is a great idea. I'll try that in my next few games that I put on.
@@reglavcor "I think you have a warped view of identity politics." No, GStates has the exactly correct view of identity politics. I think if you're in a room of like-minded people enjoying a hobby and all you can seem to think about is their skin color, perhaps you're the one with racial identity issues. It's odd that the people decrying the supposed resurrection of "White Supremacy" in America always think the answer is pushing more race-based social engineering. Apparently none of them have looked at the racial demographics of this country to extrapolate the end result of boiling every interaction down to racial identity. Have you ever stopped to think that playing a game where the rules are "everyone gets to consolidate social and political power based on their race, except white people" won't really work to smooth over that "ugly side of American history" you disagree with?
This is a serious topic and I am happy that Little Wars TV is taking it on. I think the insight provided by fellow war gamers is important regardless of gender, race and age. I hope that this video and next week’s video draws a large viewing audience. Anything we can do to expand the hobby and ensure that we tackle any of the barriers that make people feel unwanted or not welcome should be addressed immediately. Thank you again for a great video!
Revelation you are clearly entitled to your opinion and I am entitled to mine. They have broached a subject that I guess could be controversial, but they did so with the overall hobby in mind. I am just happy to see people actually fired up about wargaming for a change. I don’t encounter any progressive agenda, but I am the typical war gamer. I am looking forward to when everyone is included in the “typical” column.
Sadly, dealing with jerks and cheaters is part of the hobby that everyone has to deal with. It has nothing to do with who you are, and everything to do with who they are, they tend to be equal oppurtunity jerks. Every wargamer has stories of dealing with jerks and cheaters. I personally dislike conflict and dealing with jerks and cheaters during what is supposed to be a relaxing past time, so I intentionally avoid tournaments (guaranteed to run into a jerk or your money back) and mega battles unless I know the people involved (for whatever reason, even with no prizes involved, big events bring out jerks, no clue why). Until TOs, community members, and event organizers seriously crack down on jerks and cheaters, it will be a problem for everyone, not just women and minorities, everyone in this hobby deals with this, and everyone should be working to either reform or run off the offending parties.
Great video and I'm looking forward to the next one. I own a store in upstate New York and we do mostly 40k and fantasy (there's only a few of us historical gamers and most are FoW :( ) I have only seen a couple girls playing and they seem to be the boyfriend got them into it or they liked the painting of the miniatures and that's what got them into the hobby. The group they play with are all friends and are all encouraging to each other. When someone is looking to get into the hobby we usually send them towards that group to learn from.
I primarily play Warhammer 40K, Age of Sigmar and Gaslands. Nothing historical. But I have noticed that there are far more women interested in Warhammer than anything else. I think it is right what is said, that something narrative can be used to forge one's own story and maybe on some level is more appealing to women. Our own Warhammer club has about 20 active members and we have 3 or 4 women who do on occasion do come down for a game. They are out there, we just need to get them out of the woodwork and playing.
Marcos Castellanos that’s a great thing to do when their little (begin the indoctrination early), sharing stuff you love with your kids is awesome. have done the same with my son. Hope politics doesn’t ruin this hobby.
Marcos Castellanos im 100% sure in the future there will he way more women in tabletop gaming because of how standards for genders have changed overtime
To each their own. I think anyone can get into this hobby, it just takes an appreciation of history/lore, order and subtle details. I would happily play my favorites with any respectable entity. With so few war gamers in general, we cannot afford to be discriminatory in the least.
That is my point. They are treating it as if it was some quota that needs filling. Leave people alone and let them find their own way... and if it turns out that mostly (or even entirely) men just partake of this hobby, then so be it. Don't force people into it to sooth your broken mind.
The implication that its somehow mens fault that there aren't enough female wargamers is ridiculous. Are the few gaming girls treated weirdly? Sure. But i haven't seen that in my gaming club. And we have more than 1-2% in it. How about the simple fact that women, as a whole dont show as much interest in wargaming as men do? Isn't that more rational? Why they dont show such interest ofcourse is a different discussion and there are definitely social prejudices in there but those are brought as much from women as they are from men. When you hear women calling us wargamers "nerds", you have your answer. Enough with the forced diversity already. And why do we "have to" bring new women to the game room? Isn't it enough to say, "hey, girls are welcome" and leave it at that? Those "have to" and "find ways to" smell of political agenda. I will have none of that on my gaming table thank you. I am perfectly fine enjoying the company of either men only or men and women when gaming(or just women for that matter, but this has never happened to me). It seems weird to me to "have to" have girls on your table.
Dread Cthulhu of course your right their is no big push and everyone knows it’s not really about equality or fairness. But why is little wars jumping into politics rather than doing wargaming stuff?
If people want to get into the hobby, they do. A lot of my mates have seen all my stuff, appreciate it, thinks it's cool, but they aren't into it. Different strokes for different folks.
Great video. Some food for thought: 1. Growing the hobby. I do not know if the hobby is growing or not, but imagine if we could get that >2% up to say, 5%. Assuming normal churn, this would be an increase in the number of actual historical mini players. These people buy rules. These people buy miniatures. These people pay for hotel rooms to go to conventions. An increase in female and non-binary players would be good for the health of the industry. 2. The attitudes that keep women out of the hobby disproportionately affect single mothers or women in non-traditional couples where both partners are women. These non-"traditional" (whatever that means) families have children who could be part of the next generation of players and that is money that is being ignored or actively told that it is not wanted. 3. There are many women in the game design field, designing for other and competing game sub-genres. Imagine if their abilities with all phases of design and company management could be put to use in Historical Miniatures? 4. I would be curious to see the percentage of historical gamers who are People of Color. I imagine the numbers are similar in terms of participation. Are the same excuses I see in other comments valid there? Let me reiterate; great video. Leaving all the social baggage out of it, just from simple economic terms reaching out to women to grow the hobby makes sense. They have money and they have talents and they have the interest IF they were made to feel welcome. And it is going to be up to the men who have influence the hobby to make space for them. And I for one think that we should.
Thanks for these reasoned comments. We knew it would be hard when posting this video to avoid tripping over the "social baggage" that some viewers might bring to this topic. But it's a complicated one. Multiple commenters on here picked up on your (4) observation regarding African Americans and how they may find themselves in a similar situation when looking at the historical wargaming community.
Sean Hillman excellent points, especially from an economic standpoint. The industry, such as it is mostly a cottage industry, would benefit the quickest.
I 100% agree that the increase in women gaming in Video Games, RPGs, and Board Games is going to slowly spill over into the Table Top Wargame side of things.. but I honestly think it is going to be a slow transition as full table-top gaming including collection, assembly, painting, and playing is a large barrier to any possible wargamer... not just women. While video games and RPGs tend to offer a lot more story (and even some board games do a great job of that) that may appeal to gamers (including more women) who maybe are not as interested in the collection, construction, and then destruction (via gaming) of small armies of warriors. I think that as a hobby community, if we want to see more inclusion of women in table top gaming, then we are going to have to be looking at games that have more story to them than "I show up and try to shoot you off the table". Other things that will help include easier entry points to the hobby with possibly preconstructed or pre-colored or prepainted models to allow new players to avoid some parts of the hobby they may find intimidating. This change in gaming styles is also difficult when re-enacting large scale historical wargames. Yes, there are GREAT stories behind so many battles... but they are just that... Battles. There is generally one win condition and truly playing historically, there are limits we place on ourselves to "get it right" vs the flexibility to change the game up and vary the win conditions to potentially make it more accessible to new gamers of all genders like we see in RPGs, some board games, and more interactive video games these days. That said, we also need to realize that social interactions are NOT the strong point of a LOT of our fellow hobbyists. There are a LOT of podcasts and blogs that touch on the difficulties that we, a predominately male group, have in finding and keeping regular gaming opponents and regular gaming friends because so many of us want different things out of our hobby. Some people are ultra-competitive.. others story driven.. others just want to model and paint.. others just want to hang out and drink beer and eat pretzels.. so we are a divided group that is THEN also trying find a way to make our hobby appealing to people of all genders that may not have the same interests and goals in the hobby as we do. The goal, which isn't going to be easy to achieve, is going to be to identify what type of gamer you are.. and then try to identify what type of gamer the new person (again, of any gender, age, etc) might ALSO be... and find someone who might be able to identify with them in that regard and integrate them into the hobby if that isn't you. If I am NOT a super competitive player, I'm not going to do a good job of highlighting how you can win with that army... if I am not a story driven, scenario driven player, I'm not going to do a good job of recruiting those type of people into the hobby. So it is only with attention to our own strengths and weaknesses and some knowledge of a possible new players interests that we can actually expect to recruit and hopefully maintain new players.. who then if we are lucky, will recruit their own friends into their new hobby in a similar manner.. but only if more and more of us recognize our shortcomings and the challenges that come with this potentially rewarding, but intimidating, hobby we have chosen.
@@Patrick-lu2fy As I posted above, "That said, we also need to realize that social interactions are NOT the strong point of a LOT of our fellow hobbyists." Thanks for making my point for me.
In the UK it is a similar situation with very low numbers of female wargamers or BME wargamers for that matter. At the Devizes and District Wargames Group we have one female member who has sat on the committee for the past couple of years; she plays historical games. Apart from that we have only had two other female members of the club over the past 47 years. One bright shining light for the cause of female wargamers in the UK is Annie Norman of Bad Squiddo Games, who has been inspirational to gamers of both sexes.
Philip Mackie honestly who cares? It doesn’t matter what gender you are. It doesn’t matter what race. It will only matters to you if you think sex and skin colour is the way to judge someones worth and that is a bad way to be.
My total sympathy I give to Becky, because while I've had viscous arguments over tactics, nobody has tried to move my miniatures for me. I am glad Veronica and Amanda have had better experiences. When I was painting Warhammer figures with my nephews, my parents' neighbors' kids came over to join them (8 year-olds can truly come up with fantastic color schemes). I set out skin tone to follow American percentages with the occasional albino thrown in (goblins are various shades of green, except for the occasional albino). The oldest of the neighbors' kids noticed the peach-colored paint was marked "Flesh" (his flesh was Moccassin Brown). Fifty cent paint has no right telling anyone what color flesh should be.
Curse you GW you racist paint makers!! Up with taco and down with the patriarchy! Rabblerabble. It's a game system they invented. If the dudes fighting in their lore were white then surprise surprise it will be white "flesh" colours named. Find something useful to get antsy about.
lol. Stop. These war games are primarily a function of white/western culture. That is a good thing not a bad thing. Our skin color is flesh. Stop drinking the koolaid
I mean, look around at these comments to see why women steer clear of wargaming spaces. The women in this video say things that make tons of sense - that culturally we socialize male and female children differently (I had army men and GI Joes and stuff before I can even remember, my sister had dolls growing up, long before it would have or could have been a conscious choice on our part), that even women working booths at cons or representing companies or running video channels face people who doubt them constantly etc. But in the 70 comments on this video as I write this I can find a bunch of people saying that maybe women don't have the brains or the interest or the competitive nature or the hunter instinct of men, or they should stick to girly activities like being a hairdresser or just watching Real Housewives - all of which is dumb, and wrong, and a profound misunderstanding thinking that cultural values and norms are laws of nature for all time. All of which, I'm sure, was written before watching and genuinely thinking about the subject, just a defensive reflex against outsiders. Some of this can change over time and probably is changing as nerd culture is diversifying in general. But to all the people saying why does this matter, don't you just want more people to play with? That should be reason enough, but also it's just a kind a respectful thing to both be welcoming and an active recruiter. There's people here saying that anyone can approach their table. Great! Do randos walking by know that? Or do you seem insular and self absorbed or distant? That's a barrier all on its own. No one owes you proof they belong. No one needs to be super well versed or heavily invested in your game of choice or gaming in general to join or be respected.
We knew when we posted this video that there would be a few predictably negative, knee-jerk reactions. But it's nice to see that the vast majority of the commenters on this video are offering positive, constructive thoughts. The internet is often not the place to go for nuanced, complicated conversations....
@@LittleWarsTV I agree - it's good to see most of the comments here being positive. And I think your video is good and helpful. My point was that even in a space being very positive overall, there's still a non-zero amount of people still being the problem. They're all over the place, and they are plenty comfortable speaking their minds, and they get plenty of positive reinforcement. I just wanted to point to that, to not let it slide unnoticed but also to not give those people the positive reinforcement of direct interaction.
@@ancientsociety79 Literally it's in the video. 1.6% doesn't happen by accident. Listen to the stories in the video. It's right there, and this isn't even the last word on the subject. There's so many more stories just like it.
I just think there are hobbies and topic men are inherently interested in and there are hobbies and topic women are inherently interested in. As Veronica states, there are plenty of women in history (hell most of the people my History courses were women) but they all had absolutely zero interest in military history and focused more on the sociological side of history, fashion history etc. I think your say Games Workshop store for example, could do everything right, yet not see any meaningful increase in female players. At best I think you may see the female market for wargaming maybe top out at like 4-5%. There has been a narrative pushed in recent years that basically men and women are identical in every way and it's only really social conditioning that really make people different, but frankly, I'm not sure there is much truth to this (and more recent studies are starting to back this up), the way boys and girls do play even as young children is inherently different and hell, I looked after my nieces every day in their young formative years (2-7) and I tried hard to raise them as gender-neutral as possible but they always went for the dolls, tea party sets and frozen anything over more competitive games that you see young boys the same age play like Nerf, Soccer, competitive board games. This is backed up by more recent studies as well. This isn't to say all women this and all guys that, but in general, as in I think 95%+ would fall into pretty typical gender norms when it comes to interests. I would love to see more women in wargaming, I would love if any of my SO's over the years took any interest beyond painting once every so often, but yeah, I don't see it ever happening. If someone does pull it off though, that is one hell of a Blue Ocean market.
I got into warhammer at the same time as my little sister. We spend more than half a decade most saturdays in our local hobby shop painting and playing. I never saw anything untoward (I would not have tolerated it!) so I asked her. Fortunately she was very positive about that time and nothing like some of the ladies described ever happend. Concerning historic wargaming. It has only been in recent years that a passion for history has blossmed in her. Which has made her interested in historical battles. Who knows, might get her to do some games again. At least in other former 'nerd' hobbies I have seen a remarcable shift. Especially now that D&D has basically become mainstream I see an almost equal mix of men and women which is nice to so. Hope this presses on.
PLEASE NOTE: While reasoned comments about this video--negative or positive--are absolutely encouraged, negative comments directed at other commenters will be removed.
@@GuyInnagorillasuit The video itself opens with a woman insinuating that the few bad interactions she's had with individuals means that the (majority male) hobby has a problem with "female gamers". We already saw this very thing play out during Gamergate. As the old saying goes "You run into one a******, you ran into one. If all you run into are a******s....."
@@ancientsociety79 Gamergate kind of proved how childish some men can be when women enter traditionally male spaces. I'd like to think that historical wargaming isn't as toxic of a culture.
I am old enough to remember being the ONLY person at a convention of serval thousand under the age of 20 (or so it seemed). I can remember the first time they "allowed" non-historical games into a regional convention and the "stir" it caused. ...and when we allowed dem' crazy RPGer's into the convention back in the 70s well there was no turning back! ;)
I had an opportunity to spend a lot of time in the life of a black man. (I was his personal nurse he has Muscular Distrophy making him almost completely paralyzed. His body was badly broken however his mind was very sharp. I also was able to spend time with his friends as a sort of background person. There but not there. Most of the reason for the "lack of diversity" has nothing to do with prejudges. It is simply cultural differences. If you are white most of your friends are likely to be the same. If you are black the same holds true. Most people are introduced to hobbies by friends. War games and RPGs are a mostly white hobby. Nobody is stopping others from joining, and on the occasions I have seen ether women or other than WASP people at cons I have done my best to make them feel at home. I do not change anything, I am the same person no matter who I am talking with or gaming with. I think more than anything else it is a cultural divide that is a natural extension of people tending to spend time with people of there own race and culture.
the real truth is no many women are interested in playing war games and not very many men are interested in playing war games all games or a very niche unique hobby with a very small amount of people that are interested in them
@@Malt454 more to play Vs happy days. But I know of exactly 2 women who play and are interested. Weirdly enough I am aware of many more women who see it as playing with toys.
@@beanspud88 - I think a lot of women are turned off by the subject matter, and a lot women (and many men) are probably also turned off by players' approach to play itself. Navigating your way through frequently inflated egos isn't a lot of people's idea of a good time.
Malt454 99% of women don’t care about military history. 99.9% don’t care about wargaming and would do almost anything else in preference. That does explain the numbers.
Malt454 By your rational then sewing and dressmaking dominated by women because the sewing circles must filled with vile egotistical women who want to shut out all men. Are they evil sexists? Or do men prefer to do things like wargaming and women prefer things like sewing? Ridiculous.
I've never seen anything like what your opening described 😱 someone a bit different was always very much welcomed where I've played before. I guess I've been very lucky 😳
Because War Games for the longest time where considered to be "nerdy" and "not cool" and most women stay faraway from things that may hinder there social status.
@@Guciom and? I don’t care whether a comment is generalizing men or women to a huge degree, I’ll still respond that it’s an over generalization. People just shouldn’t over generalize each other, period.
Amanda's point of view is really interesting. The narrative/thematic/storytelling aspect is actually a plus for me in historical games vs. Fantasy or Sci-Fi ones. So often I feel like Sci-Fi and Fantasy games (and Warhammer is PARTICULARLY guilty of this) tend to make a game that feels totally divorced from the lore that exists, and it leads to a lot of moments in games that really break the immersion, at least for me. With historical games the focus is on building a game around the 'lore' and I feel like that generally translates into what amounts to feeling like a more believable, engaging narrative to me. The real irony is based on the background in her set, Amanda plays the same faction that got me out of Warhammer for good. It felt like there was such a stark disconnect between the lore and representation on the board that it was insulting to fans of the race. Living armor suit possessed by the combined souls of tens of thousands of dead super-soldiers who devoted themselves only to battle, combining all their experience and bloodlust into the living wearer, who is, themselves a creature who can move faster than human eyes can see... all the while using the most advanced technology within the setting? Yeah. That's equivalent to a Space Marine sergeant. Makes total sense /s. Golems made entirely out of a substance the setting says is harder than adamantium? Easier to kill than big tough guys wearing adamantium armor. Meanwhile with historical wargaming, I can count on my Gallic charges being fierce, but I know that they'll soon break if forced into prolonged combat with Roman legions, because that's what historical accounts speak to. I know my Parthian light horse will be nigh uncatchable skirmishers that can put a ton of hurt on anyone who chases them. When I put them in those situations, I usually get an outcome close to what should rationally be expected. It gets even worse when you realize that sci-fi and fantasy games rarely ever reward maneuver, flanking or rear attacks, or even proper use of cover. At least for me, it's impossible to get a good narrative out of sci-fi and fantasy games, because they're more interested in making an accessible game than a simulation of the setting they present.
I think wargamers as a group can seem very insular and self absorbed, which can be pretty intimidating to outsiders or newcomers of any kind. We need to be more welcoming to any potential new people- of any sex, age, race , background.
Great upload! I think most women aren't interested in war gaming. Though I really hope more start to take an interest in the hobby and more of us men encourage them to do so.
i would argue that it should just be a general form of respect for gamers to just not touch each other's stuff unless you're just helping them move stuff across the table if they cna't reach it. But i would say that people should just have fun. I personally like to see massive armies fight massive armies. I particuarlly stay within Flames of war (no particular army group) and Team Yankee which i modeled loosly to the Washington 81st Brigade Combat Team
Wargaming can be an intimidating place. As a white male who's spent 30+ years in the hobby, I am still intimidated. I can only begin to imagine how women gamers must feel. The faster the wargaming demographic widens (and this is true of every aspect of life, right?), the more open it becomes. Thanks for doing this video - important stuff.
Can you explain why wargaming is intimidating in your prospective? I've been a gamer since I was 7 years old and I'm never intimidated by ANYONE. I've faced (and beaten) world champions in a competitive miniatures game. Is it the learning curve, the MONTHS of assembling/painting armies or something else that's intimidating?
@@jomama900 Not really. I guess it's just a personal thing. The wargaming culture here in the UK is slanted very heavily toward older men, often of strong, sometimes conservative, opinions. An outsider coming in to that can be either confrontational, or intimidated. I'm glad your experience has been positive though. There's certainly room for a mixed demographic, and this video shows how many clubs and individuals are doing great work.
Yeah agree with the video/poll. There are 8-10 shops in Las Vegas and 2-3 have crotchety old men. You get what you get with that. ONLY positive side is they are gonna stay/come back and play. Where as the younger schlubs here get side tracked by shinny and new things often and you spend 2-3 sessions training them only to never see them again... So there are 2 sides to every coin. :)
I'm a male gamer. After seeing how women who do enter a gaming store are treated, I can totally understand why they're rare. At best they're ignored and excluded, at worst, they're drooled over and talked down to. As guys, we really need to learn to be a way less awkward around women and treat them the same as any other guy who walks into the store before we'll ever see the numbers pick up. One particular case I saw when a girl walked into a store and was trying to find out more about warhammer, it wasn't super obvious, but all the guys kinda turned up the geek to 11. They got louder than normal and were throwing out extra "Blood for the blood god!" and "Waaaagh!" and dropping tons of jargon and in-jokes. It was clear she didn't understand any of the references, but to her credit she actually asked what they meant. Instead of explaining stuff about lore and background, they kinda chuckled and moved onto something else like it was a big secret. They all kinda avoided eye contact with her when they spoke to her. It felt almost like they were threatened and trying to prove that they had an insular little club that she just couldn't understand. She was very open minded and interested when she came in, but by the time she left I strongly doubted she'd ever be back.
We are sometimes 2 women and 2 men gaming. But we are not in a club and are coming all more from a historical perspective. We are all reenactors and the historical background is more in our focus than painting etc..
Great video! I've seen every one of your videos and have been following from the first season and this is one of your very best. I'm a little sad to see that some are resistant to removing barriers to entry for others to thrive, but also excited that most are. And I applaud you championing change. This is how we create a future for our hobby. As a GM who runs games at cons, I'm very interested in what I can do to be more inclusive and especially how I can stir more interest and leave players with an experience that sticks with them regardless of who they are. Amanda's comment about how she liked more narrative is something tangible that I think I can work with. Some of the commenters had great points about finding battles with diverse leaders. And as Becky talked about, creating a safe place is important. Looking forward to the next episode and getting more ideas. Suggestion: maybe film a game organized, played and run by women? I would be interested to see what they choose, where the focus is, and what we can learn. Thanks again!
Thanks for making this! I recently got back into table top gaming in general after being away for about 15 years, and while much has changed for the better as far as RPGs and board games, this is a pretty sad state of affairs for wargaming. Hopefully the hobby will grow enough, like RPGs did, and board games are currently, that the old school "he-man woman haters club" nerds will get usurped.
I've only met one competent female player. The rest had crap armies (both in construction and composition) and they used the game as social hour and dragged it out to hours. They had no grasp of the background and genuinely did not seem interesting in the game. You know what they say about one bad apple? Now imagine its just one good apple in the batch. It pretty sums up men's experience with female wargamers. A handful demand to be taken seriously when the vast majority aren't worth the time.
An idea- make a scenario for your Ravenfeast rules, with Athelflaed. History may be less relatable wargaming genere, as it was so male dominated. In sci-fi and history they have so many female characters of factions to relate to. Maybe giving more exposure to warrior-queens's like Aethelflaed, Boudica, Tomyris or Zenobia would help get them immersed and invested in historicals... and the second reason I want that scenario is the fact that her Footsore model is sooo awrsoke. Please LWTV give me a reason to buy and justify buying Aethelflaed's figure.
I love wargaming and military history, but 'yes' the number of times I have had men change my orders or pick up my figures and put them in a different formation is a turn off.
I think that's a douche thing to do. Though i don't really care for what a formation is suppose to look like or this or that as long as the rules and book allows it. Go for it. All i want to see is stuff die on the table. Massive armies fighting against massive armies.
Rule 1: You don't touch someone else's figures without permission. I'm male and been wargaming for over 30 years and I've always loved seeing girls taking on us boys. There are some very capable female wargamers out there. Personally if someone came up and started rearranging everything I have on the board, I'd take that as them being arrogant and inflexible due to being formula players. At that point I'd just annihilate their tactics out of a sense of annoyance and the desire to watch someone's army burn to death lol. Eventually at some point those "tacticians" will mature their decentralized command structure and execute some adaptive maneuvering and critical thinking. Wargame meta must remain dynamic. Players should avoid "the formula" and new doctrine should be encouraged. Those games are interesting. Keep at it. Glad to have more female gamers in the community.
@@rickybell2190 - I had a clue about formations. I have been gaming for nearly twenty years. It is all about particular men seeing a woman at the table and assuming she does not know s**t.
@Nick Smith - Why assume I have a bias? I was there. You were not. I know exactly why it happened. Most of the guys I game with are cool and open to gaming with women, but there have been a few 'friends of a friend' who came to some of the games I was playing in, and at a table full of men, there was only one player they did that too. I am sorry if it does not fit your narrative, but sexism still exists.
When I started with RPGs back in the 80's, the numbers were pretty similar... but they have changed over the years. I think it's quite possible we have an emerging younger generation of female gamers and the numbers in the 30+ age bracket are low because the base was never there to begin with. Virtually nobody gets into this hobby in their 30's or later, you have to grow into it. As for the female miniature hobbyists I've run across, they mostly seem to be interested in the painting and modeling aspect and not really gaming.
I totally agree with you about the changing aspect in RPGs... but do you find your 2nd point to be true for women in RPG as well? Are the women you game with or see gaming in RPGs also mostly interested in painting and modeling and not actually playing? If that isn't the case, then why are they comfortable playing RPGs, but not miniature table top wargames?
@@SciFiPorkChop28 I haven't been playing RPGs in a few years myself so I can't really say. My daughter plays D&D but she is not really interested in painting miniatures -- despite being an art student who does canvas paintings and doll houses. But if I would venture a guess, it would boil down to one word: tournaments.
As a woman who loves painting models, I can say that it can be fun to play but it can just be a little one dimensional killing. I do agree that some gamers are a little creepy, smelly and awkward at times but many aren’t, my friends aren’t like that and are very inclusive and want to have fun. My main criticism is that it can be quite one dimensional - fact based, rule based but no emotional or philosophical element which is a little frustrating for me.
This is nothing but a modern sickness. We are not the same... not remotely.. and that goes for men and other men, not just men and women. Nobody in the past was against women doing things - America loved Amelia Earhart because she WAS special. If we made EVERY woman fly a plane... guess what? We would have lost her uniqueness. And others down below saying things like "They don't know what they are missing." YES THEY DO. They don't like it. The problem isn't them, it's YOU. Why can't you accept the fact that women, in general, are not overly into history and they are especially not into war. When I was young and played wargames heavily (in the 1970's) this asinine a question never even came up - you were happy just FINDING an opponent... you didn't care what sex they were, or go looking for a different one if you got one you didn't like. (or their color either) We're supposed to be so "advanced" now and yet EVERYTHING in our lives has to be put thru the sex-color filter first. You ALL obsess over race and sex. That NEVER happened in the past, and frankly, I'm am sick and tired of it. Stop forcing "equality" and let people be happy doing what they want, and accept them for what they are. What's next, are we going to force Grandpa to bake the cookies on holidays? Good grief.
Amelia Earhart flies plane. Normal people, "wow she's really something" shows women can fly planes, just like men, (A good thing), the woke weirdos ,"We need more women flying planes, how can we make that happen?" Adding more X in Y because 'reasons' does not yield good results, allowing and accepting the X that want to do Y will always engender power to the individual. An individual is not representative of their sex or race. People like what they like and trying to force diversity will not produce the desired results.
"let people do what they want." Are you talking about the women in the early 1900s who were not allowed to vote? The blacks that wanted to fly fighters before WWII? Or did you assume that since they weren't there they must not want to? Did you ever bother asking them if they wanted to? You didn't see those things until someone said damn the consequences and made it happen. You are clearly a man of your age. Don't be shocked when your age has passed and everyone that younger is moving on.
Man I'm so glad that my wife tries out almost every game I come up with. And I can tell you, that is a hard task. Starting with Magic The Gathering, years ago, we played different board games (like Descent 2nd Ed.) very often and really frequently play skirmish level miniatures games for round about 3 years, now. It is amazing how her opinion changed and defined with every new game: "I don't wanna play such stuff at all" (Said before trying at all) > "I don't like all that distraction through third parties (Zombies)" (Last Days ZA / Project Z) > "I prefer medieval settings to sci fi" (Necromunda / Strontium Dog / Terminator) > "This is easy and fun!" (Song of Blades and Heroes / Warstuff) > "I think I prefer cooperative to competitive play" (Frostgrave > Rangers of Shadow Deep). Although this all has nothing to do with historical wargaming, in paricular, I think it is totally possible to get girls into wargaming at all. With curiosity, interest, patience in finding the right game and a lot of love. That should work in any other setting, too :-D
As a game master, I don’t care who you are; if you want to play my game and want to roll dice and blast your opponent to scrap metal, then you are welcome. Mostly for my Gundam game, I have had military, fans and young boys come and play and a few casuals. But to turn someone away or change their orders cause they are a woman is entering a hole territory.
@@toserveman9317 hmm idk if this particular standard is correct or not, but i also don't believe there is a massive culture of excluding females. War gamers are generally just want to see stuff die on the battlefield. Its about the game to have fun. So come and have fun. Just have general decorum and we won't have problems. be an asshole and i'll just punt you through a field goal
Agreed. If anyone were to have a sudden rush of stupid to the brain and pull a absolutely dimwitted move like that during any wargames or RPG campaigns that I'm running, the first warning would be a polite reminder that it is rude and never acceptable to touch another wargamer's figures unless expressly invited to do by said wargamer. Second warning would be to enlighten their dim view of the world as to the impending consequences of defying the GM. There would be no third warning. I'm a veteran and have little tolerance for people who can't exercise basic self discipline and manners. If someone were to turn away any female wargamers from a match, I'd walk over, join their team, have all of us sit down at said table, and then politely inform the GM of what side we will be playing in their game. Our hobby needs new players and it can ill afford to be the old boys club that use to be. If wargaming remains in that mindset, then that portion of the player community will get left behind in their niche corner as the community advances forward into expanding the hobby. It stagnated during the 90s and 2000s. It's only been recently that we've seen this new golden age of table top and we need to take advantage of that and mature as a community.
There are rude people in every aspect of life including all hobbies. I don’t believe for a second that the world of gaming and rpg’s has a anti female cabal directing men to be horrible to women. That is ridiculous! Think of some of the young men who like modeling military vehicles etc (nerds I’m looking at YOU!) you think their going to turn young women away? This is their number one fantasy. This whole thing is ridiculous. ‘Some one was rude once’ my god, what a joke!
Complex games and hobbies are a wonderful escape. For some people, it's escape from normal stresses. For other people, they might be escaping from depression, problems at home and sometimes worse. This is true of ALL hobbies. Unfortunately this is a huge bummer when the need to escape is comorbid with social anxiety or problems in social situations, these kind of situations arise. For example, someone cheats to win, because their self worth is so low. So it's not anything specifically, this happens in all hobbies. (And the traditionally male dominated space is a barrier to entry on top of that). The answer is EMPATHY. Be a friend first, and treat others well. Treat yourself well. Encourage other people to grow and improve, stand up for people who feel out of place. This isn't just wargaming advice, but as I become one of the older guys in the gaming store, I'm surprised how often someone just needs someone to listen, to notice that they are improving, and to let them enjoy themselves in our silly toy soldier games.
The answer to the question of why more women don’t participate in historical miniature gaming isn’t because of some societal influences outside the scope of the wargaming community such as learned gender/cultural roles. True those anachronistic ideas we older gamers were taught as children about who “could” do what might serve to limit the interest among certain generations. But that’s ancient history & not the issue here. That women (or for that matter POC, kids, sci-fi/fantasy gamers) who cross that imaginary threshold into the realm of historical gamers frequently are not only not welcomed but are often met with derision, condescension and flat out rejection is the reason. Period. Unless you want your hobby to die off you must not just introduce new people to the hobby but make those people feel welcome & accepted so that they come back. Our hobby is graying rapidly & without an influx of new people there will someday be no historical gaming as we know it. That’s a fact. While it would be short-sighted, to put it politely, to bar someone from your local group because of their gender, skin color, etc, what you do in private is your business. That said, those of you who would deliberately be rude, mistreat, or abuse someone at a con because you don’t want “those sorts” gaming with you need to crawl back under your rock. You are what’s wrong with our hobby & our world. Those outmoded ideas belong in the dustbin of history and there should be no place for you in the community at large. Yes, I said it, someone needed to & I’ll stand by it. Invite people to play a game with you at your local club. If someone shows any inkling of interest in your game, be it at a Con, the local game store, anywhere that the public has a chance to learn about our hobby then reach out to that person. Try to get them to push some lead & roll some dice if they’re willing. At the very least say hello, introduce people & ask if they have questions. Don’t tolerate those who claim there’s no point because historical wargaming isn’t a thing “those people” will enjoy or stick with. And if you see someone trying to play gatekeeper or creeping on someone, or trying to discourage someone from being included clap back, HARD! That person is ruining our hobby for all of us. So if we truly care about the future of our hobby and having another generation to carry on we need to stop making excuses, & start being proactive, both in outreach & policing our ranks against those who would give us all a bad name. When we are all doing our part to not be the problem then, & only then, can we start looking at what else is keeping us from growing the hobby we love.
This exact argument was used to open up videogames to the masses and it caused irreparable damage to the integrity of the hobby. Historical wargaming is not going anywhere, it has and always will be, a niche interest.
I think that part of the problem is that up until very recent times warfare was a very much a male pursuit so to speak. most armies in the world were and are still a masculine environment and its only in the last 10 or 20 years that combat roles have been open to females. even the Israeli forces where integration of the troops date back to before the 60's figures released in 2014 show that only 4% of combat roles are held by females. since the general populous seem to regard wargaming as "being a bunch of guys playing at war" it only follows that they would feel that it is a male oriented pastime. I also feel that as Amanda pointed out there is a shift in wargame dynamics with a more fantasy element coming to the fore this has a more narrative story that appeals to a greater audience that may bring a greater female participation in games. our other large elephant in the room is how we appear at conventions, my ex Wife used to love coming to conventions, not because she liked to game but to see what she described as the multitude of sad fanboys who attended and that made me appear super normal in her eyes
Almost like women are not built for warfare? Case in point isreal put it's top of the line female only unit Vs a bunch of male recruits in a war game and got stomped. Woops.
Rob Broome yeah several female IDF soldiers are suing their government. Apparently they get injuries at a super high rate, way above their male counterparts. One young woman became infertile after working her body to hard for to long. Check out the USMC trial of female and mixed units. It’s a bit of a joke.
My local club is very lucky that we have a nice mix of male and female players, it's still slightly favours men but there is a healthy amount of women playing games such as warhammer 40k and ages of sigmar. Some delve into the historical side of wargaming but the main focus is in the fantasy and sci-fi systems, as others have said in the comments some have spoke to the organisers about previous members of the club who cause them to feel uncomfortable or created a feeling of being a fish out of water. While a club can try it's best to make things as welcoming to players it's really the people that make it work well in the long run thankfully the people with problems moved on to other clubs and the core of about 15-20 people we have regularly is a nice laid back group who just want to be there for the joy of the hobby not to gate keep. One positive thing that I can say is that a very nice lady called Eileen who is 67 and very much enjoys Napoleonic's. She by far is the most ruthless general ever to command the French army in our club it's genuinely incredible to face off against her as she knows her force inside out and can use them to deadly effect while having some of the best banter I've enjoyed.
Watching miniatures,then found a tabletop miniature gameboard being made(didn't know it was a thing,I think it's cool).I wanna play,but where do I start once I do learn how to?(Someone help please)
Why can we not just let people do what they like to do? If somebody wants to join in, play well and honestly, doesn’t try to ruin it for other players then let them. Whatever their gender, race, age etc. It can only be good for the pastime. Maybe there is a novelty factor and maybe it’s a good thing. Also let’s face it. War gamers are mostly cool. Who doesn’t like cool women? More interaction with women means more opportunities to get together. Getting together is cool too.
Sorry, but this topic of lack of diversity in our hobby does impact historical war gaming. It impacts historical war gaming the most. So it is about historical war gaming. You could have skipped the video.
2D6 wargaming did you miss my first three sentences? He wanted to “get back to historical wargaming”. My take was that this topic WAS about historic (and other) wargaming and that the first three sentences indicated that. The attitudes that are spelled out by these women impact all of us war gamers. If that specific topic was not to his liking, he was not required to watch it. Again, how was I being not inclusive? It’s not that I didn’t like his comments, I disagreed with them. There is a difference.
Very interesting. And I´ve got the same opinion as Amanda said in regards of historical vs. non-historical games. I turned away from historical (starting with DBA back then) as I realised I could change the narrative of a (my!) world in this way. And I include imagi-nations (although I play mostly sci-fi and fantasy currently) in this,
How many wargamers here have daughters? Have you introduced them to the hobby? This seems an obvious step towards increasing the number of female wargamers.
Is it an imperative to increase the numbers? If so why? All of the females I’ve ever encountered playing games (role playing, miniatures etc) including my wife were only doing it to put up a front. Once they broke up with my friends, their boy friends, they were never seen again and even used it as a means to attempt to demean their exes for their stupid nerd games. My wife doesn’t do that to me but she doesn’t play anything anymore. I said what happened she laughed and said you know how it is when you are dating. She is quite feminine and history is not of interest to her. I don’t understand why there seems to be a desire to shoehorn people. I can see trying to get your wife or girlfriend interested so she isn’t as likely to protest all the time you spend at the hobby shop or a business into selling miniatures and rule books etc wanting to expand the market but I don’t see a problem with men having men spaces. There are things my wife does that I don’t have an interest in participating in and I have yet to hear a clamor from anyone trying to shoehorn men into it let alone women saying we need men participation.
@@PNZV We have six years of data to show that the historical wargaming hobby--a narrow subset of overall tabletop gaming--is a shrinking community. As active members of that community, we thought we might explore avenues for how to find new players. Women seemed like one possible avenue, though by no means the only one. Is it an imperative to get more women involved in the hobby? No. But it is absolutely an imperative to get more players over the coming decades, whomever they may be.
I appreciate your data and desire to add more players to really what amounts to an already small niche hobby. I have run into many people in my day mostly males who I’ve tried to get interested in the wargamming hobby even nurturing them by helping them build armies for various games and every time it has been for naught. Why? I don’t know. I do know some did not have an intellectual bone in their body. They could care less about history or getting into the minutiae of rules and painting a piece accurately. My local hobby shop is all science fiction gamers to a man. I’ve tried to introduce flames of war,, Hail Caesar, and talked about the new Black Seas but they are just not interested. I ask why and usually hear it’s not my thing. They likely didn’t pay attention in history class and do not care now. I know my interest was not through anyone bringing me into the hobby it was purely another way for me to learn more and connect further with what I was studying at the time. I did civil war reenacting for the same reason. When my boys are old enough and even my daughter I’ll introduce them to all of my Wargames. I try to introduce anyone and everyone to my hobbies when an opportunity arises. That may be a better approach. We hopefully won’t miss anyone but also be willing to except the outcome when we run into more not interested than interested. I wish my wife would play because it’s hard for me to get enough sometimes any players at all and believe me I’ve tried.
@@PNZV I agree. Somehow, the mistaken notion has taken hold that men and women, in general, like the same things. My wife and daughter have no use for my games. They'll play once in a great while. However, they generally are of no interest to them. As an aside, they go against the female trend in that they hate chick flicks. None of this is to say we should treat women poorly who are interested. But, wargaming is more of a guy thing. Having guy things is not some inherent evil. As you point out, no one is clamoring to get guys into hobbies women typically dominate. Letting it be a guy space, and attracting younger males to the hobby is probably more productive than worrying about female participation.
I'm a guy and even I've been put off by the behavior of some folks in the hobby... there are still a lot of grouchy/arrogant/stick-up-their-ass fellows who manage to scare away the newbies.
Great video and great approach to the topic! One interesting aspect to look at I think is how women are actually represented - on - the table. How many female figures are found on a Napoleonic battlefield? Probable zero. I can imagine that factors into how much women are drawn to purely historical games. The fantasy and sci-fi scene have more to offer in that area as female (warrior) figures are becoming much more main stream, looking at GW's Stormcast for example, which is totally a good thing.
Absolutely. Two of the women we talked to for this video (who declined to appear on camera) both mentioned this as a major point. And since military history is dominated by male figures, it's hard to argue. Joan of Arc would be a rare example that comes to mind.
I came to the same conclusion- in fantasy and sci fi there are women represented on the battlefield in movies and books; therefore they can imagine themselves in the mix. A friend enjoys commanding a Sky Galleon in the skies of Mars as Lady St. John,but I know she would not play the Confederates. Also, when it comes to imagining themselves my impression is that the ladies tend to not like playing the “bad guys”. (Even I can’t play some games and sides because I am troubled by that particular army or nation.)
I would point out that large numbers of wargamers (of any description) didn't really show up until the late 70's and 80's (and it was immediately labeled as "nerd" culture), so that drop-off in the 50 and older bracket may be simply due to that.
1. Amanda is right about the two families, so to speak, of wargaming. Even for men, I think that there is little overlap between wargamers who like historical games and wargamers who like sci-fi/fantasy/etc. games. It would be interesting to see the actual data on this. 2. About 5 years ago, there was a rather popular TH-cam wargamer named Joey Berry. If I remember correctly, she got into WHFB because she walked into a GW store one day and decided to pick up Wood Elves. Thereafter, Necrons for 40k, then Malifaux 1st edition. I'm not sure what happened to her, but she seems to have. I suspect that after she had her kid, she didn't have enough time to play (or make videos). Anyway, back at one Adeptecon she did a collaboration with Wargamer Girl, where Joey taught Miranda Malifaux and Miranda taught Joey Warmahordes. Miranda might be a good person to talk to about wargaming. She seems to be one of the bigger female wargaming TH-camrs. 3. Do you think that there might be a third category of wargamers - the plug and play ones (meaning, they buy pre-painted miniatures, so there is little to no "hobby" aspect to the game for them). I remember X-Wing by Fantasy Flight making a huge splash a few years ago. I suspect that the demographics for that category tends towards younger players and tend towards fewer women (because most of the women involved in wargaming that I know either got into it via painting models, or only like the "hobby" aspect of wargaming). 4. I think you are right that the age gap for distaff wargamers is a good one. Back when I got started, Dungeons and Dragons was the hobby of outcast nerds, but said nerds now have families. We have seen an increase in women playing RPG's, so I would guess that we should see more younger female players. The social stigma (always more of a concern for women than men) has been lessened to the point of disappearance, and girls could very well be introduced to wargaming theough their parents - the nerds of the '80's and '90's. 5. This affects the fantazsy/sci-fi/etc. side much more than the historical side, but I think that getting more women into wargaming should be similar to how men get into wargaming. Their coming to the hobby should be organic. I believe that if the game companies chase a potential customers by SJWing-up their games, the will lose the customers they already have. See e.g. Disney Star Wars.
Wargaming in and of itself is incredibly niche. Even when looking at the juggernauts of the industry like Games Workshop you're still only talking about maybe a few million across the globe tops. Historical wargames are a niche within a niche. Not to mention that generally speaking, women aren't as interested in war, fighting, or competition as men are. On top of this, nerdier pass times like model building, board games, card games, video games, etc etc are all far more attractive to guys than they are to gals. At the end of the day, the way you get more women to get into the hobby is to get more people into the hobby in general, as you push the awareness of it for more people to be drawn too. I'm not a lady, but I didn't even know that wargaming was a thing until around 5 years ago and I was always a little nerd with interests in fantasy/sci-fi, video games, reading, board games, etc. Yet, it wasn't until I stumbled across videos from Beasts of War did I suddenly find myself introduced to a whole new dimension of Nerddom that I hadn't the faintest clue even existed.
I for one encourage anyone to play miniature wargames but I'm not convinced it's important who does. The lack of females in the hobby has always been glaringly apparent and I imagine over time this will not be massively altered. I was a little dismayed that women might feel inhibited or not as well received by other wargamers but then we have more than our share of 'awkward' colleagues whose social skills might not be up to scratch. The lady from Pennsylvania (?) pretty much summed up her reasons for wargaming and it could have been me describing why I game. One day you fellas need to go global and see what's happening elsewhere. Another really good episode.
In general women are interesting in people and men are interested in things. Wargames are into tactics and weapons. Look at articles on wars. It is about tactics and weapons (how to use things and things). If articles are centered on the personality of soldiers and generals, women be more interested in wargaming. There was an experiment done by researchers. Ask boys and girls to write about an alien invasion from outer space. Boys tend to write about the alien weapons and technology, while women tend to describe the experiences of the human population during the invasion,. So to get more women into wargaming, concentrate on the historical characters of history.
I play in Cardiff at Firestorm games, usually on a Tuesday or Thursday evening. It's a big space with sections of the room/hall being given over to different types of games. In my experience there are a fair amount of women playing roleplay games then a very small amount playing tabletop then its picks up again at the various card/board game tables. Having spent time sat waiting for friends and hearing the kind of conversations that go on on the tabletop tables I can see why a lot of women (or to be fair most sane people) avoid them. It's very confrontational and there will be a smattering of Rule Geeks around the room picking up on the wrong colour of models or use of rules. The tabletop game can be a very toxic place, you just have to search on here for people tournament experiences to see that. Like any hobby there are some deeply unpleasant men that hang out at any FLGS, unlike most hobbies though tabletop gaming will force women (in this case but really any new gamer) to interact with them (rather than being able to walk away) as tournament or journeymen leagues force interaction. Sorry if that turns out to be an incoherent ramble. I'm both ill and a new father so sleeps been at a premium recently.
There isn't to many of us " African American " folks playing either. I have yet to meet another Black gamer face to face. I have met 2 online.
Dan Holwerda That is an excellent point. The crowd at various cons is not very diverse at all.
@Revelation it's stale and not very inviting. That's what is wrong with it.
@Revelation I've been a wargamer for over thirty years. I'm not about to give it up now. More diversity and fewer people like you is a good thing.
@Revelation So because I'm not a bigot, wargaming is not for me? Gotcha.
Agreed, Dan. We see very little diversity at the major conventions and it's a great question as to why. I have to assume that interest in military history is a topic that should appeal to anyone, regardless of race!
I am a woman who loves miniature gaming whether it's sci-fi, fantasy or historical. On large and skirmish scale. I GM a lot for our gaming group and teach games. We have a good group of women in our group but they're out of my age range and really mostly stick to boardgames. I do find myself wishing there were more women my age in our gaming group. Especially ones who play miniature games.
Have you ever had any negative situations with male gamers before?
Maybe apart from asking women who are in the hobby in the video they should have asked women who are not to learn what is keeping them away.
What is your favorite fantasy and 40k Warhammer factions?
@@ronaldpagar6513 Space Wolves and Sisters of Battle
Well evolution is against you, get over it and why are you so sexist? who cares who you are playing with?
I am truly blessed to have an historical miniatures war gaming wife. She owns 4 DBA armies and has started working on another. We play Commands and Colors games with miniatures together at home and at our club meetings.
You are Blessed:)
the smells ( BO ) and the creepy looks kept my wife and especially my daughter out of the hobby! I almost got into a fight with a 20 something year old guy once at a GW store cause he was almost drooling while never taking his eyes off my 12 year old daughter...and once my adult son saw it he almost did the same.. thank God for the GW manager escorting the creep out of the shop it would have escalated..... women would join men like me if the other men were more "adult" about things and not FREAKING CREEPY! and using some basic hygiene practices
I used to play 40K professionally in the GT circuit globally. I stopped playing completely because of the attitudes of letting "mundanes" normal people playing the game. Their overall conduct to other players was unacceptible Personal hygiene is a real issue and it has gotten WORSE over the years.
Or maybe you're just white knights...
Never saw any of that in GW stores.
You're virtue signaling..
Stop it.
@@KortovElphame You're an idiot and likely part of the problem. Just because you never saw it means it didn't happen? So b/c I don't see crimes happening means that this world is crime free?
@@KortovElphame Right!!! LOL reality is usually hard for some the see... bottom line there is a reason at cons & table top games events you rarely see women... and when i've been at them the #1 complaint i hear is BO ...#2 is creepy eyes... I'm part of a group that frequents cons and plus this hobby community and very often those are the to primary complaints from women... There is the simple reality that women usually aren't drawn to strategy games ...that's a social concept for sure...but if you really haven't attended very many events you wouldn't know about the #1& #2 I mentioned.....I have for over 30 years...so no virtue signaling from me just facts.. you should stop it ...or move along...nothing to see here
@@Dimythios what are “mundanes”?
Love this! My wife on the other hand refers to my hobby as 'My husband loves painting and playing his GI Joe toys'....or, 'Dave is playing with dolls, let me go get him for you.' Every wargamers secret wish was to marry a woman that loved history, and love to paint and game.
@Nick Smith My e-wife (Divorced due to wartime deployments note gaming) used too call it my nerd group. I told her this was my hobby and all men have them. There are many pastimes for guys to have that are far more expensive and destructive.
I am very luck as my wife plays warmachine too. I am more than happy to assemble and paint her minis for her, as she is more interested in sewing.
not cool,she's showing a lack of respect for you, simply explain that you will now be attending the local strip joint with the guys twice a week to watch the game. see how her attitude changes.
My other half calls my wargaming as Buena Kings (little soldiers in Portuguese). My group loved the sound of it so much that we all now call wargaming Buena Kings.
@@kevinoswald4136 There's nothing wrong with a little gentle ribbing in a relationship. OP definitely doesn't seem offended.
Another thing that is sad is hobby stores at least around me have gone away or have turned into a specialty store, so the exposure of different hobby/gaming is going away. I miss the huge stores that had every kind of game you could think of, and seeing games and miniatures and all that exciting stuff in person, for me at least made me want to try new things. And now its all online and if you dont know about it you may never find it.
There's a cool one like this in Pasadena
People really need to start supporting their local stores and ease off on the online shopping if we want to keep a healthy local gaming culture.
I believe that you have touched on a lynchpin to the answer, "exposure". Honestly, not many men know about the hobby, and with that the case, then even fewer women would be informed of it as well. Secondly, Wargames have fairly rigid rules, and are only concerned about the interactions of the little dudes on the table, unlike D&D, for example.which has great leeway for storytelling and nuances of characterized relationship building, pushing around tin soldiers has far less appeal as it is more a matter of "facts (the rules and dice) than feeelings (nuanced explorations of relationships).
You are an outlier and an exceptional case.
Exactly war gaming in niche as it is, now you wonder why more girls don't play?
I'm from Denmark. I've personally known and played with 14 gamers over the course of my life, of which 6 were female (including myself).
Is this mainly RPG , fantasy, or space gaming? Cards like Magic?
@@bobjames3748 Table top RPGs and wargames. Everything from Fantasy to Romans and midwar and WW2 tank battles. My son and his best friend have started to play too, they're 11 and 12
My experience with wargaming has shown me that RPGs seem to be were one will find a closer 50/50 ratio of women to men.
an anecdote which i think contributes to this phenomenon.
The store i game at is in central Montana, around the time seventh edition dropped for 40k a new kid came in with some nids and wanted to get into the hobby. I played a couple of fun non-competitive games with him, a week latter he played the local asshole who brought a top tier Eldar jet bike list and proceed to wreak him in the first turn, and then say "oh it was a great game". The kid had sold his nids to the store owner by the weekend.
Those kind of people are what new comers see/hear about, and because as people we like to paint with a large brush "if one person in that group is like that they must all be like that".
pantherace1000 I think it only merits a vid if that were to happen to a girl or woman. Because‘oppression’.
I find that the GW crowd is highly competitive and abusive at times. Games using more historical themes seem to Welcome women more. Not sure if it is the younger crowd or what but 40K/WFB seems to attract a lot of jerks. Now I have been is many RPG games over the last 40 years and ladies seem to comprise about 40 to 50% of a lot of groups. Even ran a game for a friends group back in the 80's where I was the only guy in the room.
One thing I will say is they have a different take on things at times and do things guys would never have thought of. Many guys may think it is stupid or wrong but you will be surprised how many times their trick works (on top of them almost always being underestimated). Makes one wonder if wargaming is looked on by a lot of our crowd as a men's club, our one retreat where women should not follow. That would explain some of the annoyance when the ladies show up and try to join us. Most seem to be wives/girlfriends/daughters meaning someone from the group/club has vouched for them. It is changing though so I think his data is showing a trend towards more ladies getting involved in gaming (likely the start was roleplaying). That would explain the age groups as it has only been building for the last 30 years or so.
Nice video. Good of you to look into the theme. The situation is the same here in Norway.
One thing: when you say you will invite the women back to discuss it further, that is laudable, but I got an idea: Why not invite them to play a game on your channel?
I think Veronica and Amanda kinda hit the nail on the head. Not many woman seem interested in war and military history, maybe for cultural reasons, or maybe because woman are less combative in nature. Also fantasy and gaming in general have culturally not been seen as the domain of woman for a long tine, and only recently is that changing. Personally I feel it’s also war gaming is very competitive and can be quite confrontational at times; which woman seem less interested in (just look at chess demographics). My wife is a pretty big gamer, all about casual board games and loves D&D, but wargaming is something she has been very bluntly uninterested in for this reason (and behold she loves the painting and hobby side of it).
It’s sad to hear that some women feel a bit pushed out and belittled, which is totally not cool. But speaking from experience, my whole war gaming life I have been belittled SO many times and I’m THE demographic of war gamer. I think no matter who you are it gets that way. Generally the hobby is full of egotistical dudes who think they know better then you and are willing to list the ways you are wrong and how this makes you a bad person. I’ve had dudes move my models, and make assumptions that I am a rookie, try to teach me the fundamentals, all sorts. Sometimes it feels like it can be a nerd dick measuring competition, and guys will try to out do you in rule or lore knowledge. Like I sometimes feel judged that I’m just too casual, and I’m talking to THE most hard core of gamers and I’v stepped into his kingdom or something. It sucks and it would be great if it changed. My wife sees these interactions that I have and wants no part though she has never even tried it.
Good topic. It's a shame Becky has had such a bad experience. Although, there are some jerks out there that treat everyone that way, regardless of gender. I know as a kid I didn't want girls to know I wargammed, lest they think I was a geek. Now I embrace it but I missed the chance to draw others in.
My wife likes historical miniatures gaming as well though limited right now to Wings of Glory and War at Sea miniatures.But she is open to more as she says simply I like rolling dice and winning and having fun.
My follow up question would at that point then be about her female friends and family... has she tried to introduce them to the hobby? Does she see other women in gaming regularly or is it really just you and her playing and not so much a community of men and women?
@@SciFiPorkChop28 Yes she does and yes we have other female friends of her's that play Historical and non Historical miniatures both
@@SciFiPorkChop28 I'd be willing to bet the more women that "turn on" other women to wargaming is all it will take to increase numbers. nice places to play helps. women wont play at a dark,creepy, game location.
@@SciFiPorkChop28 Yes she has and we have some of her friends play as well
I think more people in general would be more attracted to the hobby if a large portion of it started a basic hygiene routine.
Absolutely!
This is more of an issue for me...
That is a extremely generalized view based on a very small minority of the community.
thebjorn42 I have been going to gaming conventions for almost forty years. There are always people there, of all ages, who do not know what the word “hygiene “ is, let alone what it means. And let’s face it, when you are in a packed gaming area, even one with high roofing, that is appropriately air-conditioned, under the Australian sun, the smell of stale sweat, and worse, is largely unavoidable after a couple of hours... :(
Bgg chat is why people don’t enjoy gaming in the hobby. Personalities are awful
Some great points being made in this video. I think the old "Women are just not interested in wargaming" doesn't hold true though. We see it massively with Dungeons and Dragons and see it to a lesser extent in the Warhammer community recently: Women are coming in at a steady pace, but often they do their own thing, are not too fond of male dominated spaces etc. and create their own ways of enjoying the games and hobbies, thus also being less visible. This is a general problem, people don't go to wargaming/roleplaying clubs that much anymore but tend to game more at home with their friends.
Even more so with videogames where a LOT of women can be find even in competetive game and teams from Starcraft to stuff more action focus like Overwarch, PubG etc
And definetly in D&D and Boardgames and TCG
I play all the above and locally we have a lot on most of them except wargames where the older, white 40+ is the normal.
@@AceDRoses those games are far more easier and casual...
Role playing etc.
@Nick Smith I disagree in our role-playing rounds we have easily 50% or more women. The same goes for tabletop. So it is either a coincidence or the way we play that might be different to how others play.
D&D is not remotely like a military war game.
Like others have said, I don't know how you're comparing women playing DnD to be the same thing as women playing a wargame. Just because someone's interested in role-playing doesn't mean they will also be interested in a wargame. The mechanics, method of play, rules, and requirements are vastly different. I would wager that there are far more role-players than there are wargamers, something that can easily be seen by the popularity of groups like Critical Role and Acquisitions Inc.
Awesome video! As a father of two young girls that received Avatar minis and board games for Xmas and birthdays, this is really cool. I run a D&D table with 5 girls and one boy and its good to see these initiatives.
Regarding the ladies testimony, I dare to add that what could also be contributing to woman being more interested in sci-fi and fantasy games is the increase in woman protagonists in related movies and TV series. Keep up the good job.
Some of my favorite wargaming memories are playing War of the Ring with my mom and oldest sister. I helped them get started with painting and they collected their own armies. We played for a year or so before life (work, kids) got busy and we stopped playing. I think it all comes down to community. There is a constant rate of attrition in any hobby, and the key focus of every gaming community (or store) should be recruitment, and there is a vast, largely untapped population of potential female gamers. Welcome them in and grow the hobby!
Very fine approach from three different female perspectives to a similar subject. In the end everyone in the room is a "wargamer"; who cares about gender, race and what not. The entire subject why we are there is to wargame. If it is a strict historical event expect bar to be low. If it is a "games with miniatures" expect bar to be high. Personally always had female presence in the hobby club stores i went to. Two of the places were actually run by women ( both fine painters first and players in games as second activity, but their love for the hobby lay in painting) but yes, places weren't focused on historical wargaming but rather fantasy and scifi.
That is it! @6:33 "Battleship" and "Stratego" ARE our gateway drugs to more wargamers!
Add Risk to that list
Don't forget battletech for people who don't prefer historical
It is funny how nothing changes. My last HMGS convention was Cold Wars 1995. I remember from 1988 to 1995 every wargaming newsletter happily mentioning the number of women who came to each convention. My own fiance has played Fire and Fury and reenacted too. She has excellent modeling and painting skills which are great assets for this hobby but she does not regularly play. Ladies, join in!
I don't personally know any women that wargame. The women that I do know will play boardgames or RPGs rather than hardcore wargames. However, myself and my wargaming mates (all three of us) have remarked in the last few years that we have seen a massive increase in the amount of women who are present when we attend conventions. When I say 'massive', I mean it's still a tiny minority, but they are actively engaging in the games and buying stuff, not being dragged by a husband and looking bored to death. One of the big voices in female wargamers is Annie of Bad Squiddo, who's company is really going from strength to strength and she does a lot within the hobby. I think it's excellent to see.
This is a dam fine idea. I support anyone, man, woman, kids, of any ethnicity that wants to war game. And I firmly believe 99% of you agree with me. Nothing more fun than history being turned upside down in a game.
i enjoy death and destruction on the battlefield, win or lose, As long as there's just destruction and dice rolling shenanigans, it is fun
I teach a conflict simulation design course at McGill University. Around half of the students who take the course are women. I know the same was true of Phil Sabin's legendary wargaming course at King's College London.
In large, mass participation political-military megagames, around 25% of the players are typically women.
In professional (national security) wargaming, the proportion of female wargamers is around 15%.
In all three of those areas, sexist behaviour is very likely to get you called out for it by fellow participants, the organizers, or your boss.
Clearly--as the video nicely shows--the hobby has a problem with being diverse and welcoming if only 1-2% of hobby wargamers are women.
hmm idk if that is a problem of people not welcoming enough or just being too picky about things. But i would call out sexist behavior because its just annoying. essentially we are just gamers trying to play a game and murder each other on the table, no need to do that in real life
"-the hobby has a problem with being diverse and welcoming if only 1-2% of hobby wargamers are women."
Therefore:
Large, mass participation political-military mega-games have a problem with being diverse and welcoming if only 25% of participants are women.
Professional (national security) wargaming has a problem with being diverse and welcoming if only 15% of participants are women.
What is the correct percentile, Rex? 55%? There is usually, statistically slightly more women than men in a population. So should the number be nearer to 55%?
What if women are less confrontational then men by nature? Wargames are a confrontation of two or more forces.
What if women are less competitive then men by nature? Games are competition. - Competitive.
Of course! There are always those who do not follow the trend, and there are those who have a greater amount of confrontation or competitiveness than members of their opposite gender! However, we are talking in broad terms and statistics here, not individuals.
It's interesting that the % is higher in the game containing the political aspect. Perhaps you have something there. Maybe no one makes games that contain enough things, like negotiation, diplomacy and communication that women might find more engaging?
Maybe the problem isn't the hobbyists , (Some hobbyists here are feeling like they are being accused of not being inclusive), maybe its the aspects of the games don't appeal to the nature of the female gender as much as they do to the male one. Perhaps if you want more females to take up this hobby the answer is to make games that appeal to them? (Most wars are fought by men, maybe we should have more women fight wars?)
As someone who seems to be an authority on this subject, I would be interested in hearing your reply, Rex.
In my experience, the vast majority of female wargamers report that (a minority of) male gamers can be unwelcoming. That's what the video suggests too. I think we should listen to their concerns, and I hope we can all agree that we would like to make the hobby welcoming to everyone who wishes to play.
But the vast majority of female wargamers is only 1.6% of wargamers... Wargaming is a niche hobby. So small is the number of wargamers that people often struggle to find other players and have to play solo. However, of the 1.6% of female wargamers that have had a negative experience, this is still a very small number of people and they are already in the hobby! So could we just chalk up these experiences with male wargamers, (which everyone says are a minority), with some people are just socially inept? Rude? Sexist? Whatever you want to call it. That's not going to grow the number the female wargamers... They won't multiple by some odd form of osmosis!
I think the real reason there are not more female wargamers is that wargaming doesn't appeal to them. It doesn't engage with their nature (at least of the majority of women). My proof for this is your statistics of male/female participation and the type of game being played, the vast majority of which are tabletop wargames which revolve around the use of military might, not other aspects that on the whole women find more engaging, such as diplomacy, negotiating and communication.
Furthermore, I think that many wargamers return to the hobby because they have done it as adolescents. Very few wargamers pick the hobby up late in life. It is a strange phenomenon often discussed in wargaming circles. Again, without taking up too much time with the text, I would surmise that model kits and wargaming do not cover subjects that engage with the female sex as much as it does the male one. I can't ever remember seeing a model kit that I thought targeted anything other than males and what they would like I really don't know!?
Its the subjects and processes in the games that are appealing to men rather than women. If women want to play, that's fine with me. We are all wargamers first and foremost, not male or female.
@@2d6wargaming13 I agree that as many of our games stand, they do not appeal to the classic idea of what men and women prefer... stereotypically, men prefer these 'winner take all' contests that revolve a lot around numbers and spacial awareness.. while stereotypically, women prefer more story line and character development. There are outliers from both groups and I don't mean to imply that the stereotypes are not based in truth. That all said, the point here is that for being such a niche hobby, can we afford to ignore 51% of the population? Is it possible to work towards inclusive gaming that may be more appealing to more women or players who are not just into the game for the numbers and straight forward fighting? Obviously we are not going to move away from what is an integral part of the hobby... but if we want to grow our numbers and not always be a niche hobby with very little interaction with any of the half the people on the planet that might find our hobby enjoyable, then we should look at what can be done to change those numbers.
Also, I'd like to point out that your idea that we should just 'chalk up these experiences with male wargamers' as something that is acceptable because it is such a small part of the total population is not appropriate and is part of the problem we hear from women gamers again and again. No one of any gender should have to be forced to deal with inept, rude, or sexist behavior from anyone while they are trying to enjoy the hobby (or at any time). I am not saying it will be possible to police every action in every game store and game club across the world... but we (We Gamers, We Men, We as a Community) need to be aware of what others around us are doing and saying and speak up when we see, here, or suspect ANYONE is being rude, inept, sexist, or whatever you want to call it. Any attempt to sweep that under the rug or discard those concerns is ultimately detrimental to all of us.
I know very few guys and no women who play wargames.
I suppose it starts with having an interest in military history. I then want to play a game that details a conflict or battle to find a greater understanding of the difficulties faced and empathise with those who took part in the battle/conflict.
I've been to war and it sucks!
Maybe people find it difficult to differentiate between model soldiers/counters and real life people and the horrors faced by the poor souls who have to fight wars. I know my wife doesnt.
She also is too tired to learn pages of rules and isn't prepared to spend hours playing a wargame.
Great topic by the way and keep up the good work!!
I think wars should be played and not fought!
Regards to all!
USN HMC (FMF) retired Rah!
I hope i read it right
If someone can't tell the difference between models and actual soldiers they are insane.
It also depends where you reside to find other wargamers. i live in the rural area of NW Ohio and have to go to Toledo or Cleveland just to find A hobby store that could supply me with the miniatures or even to meet other wargamers. If it's not RC CAR,Trains or RC planes or Boats...I'm out of luck
There are a few female generals, in ancient history. Boudica led the Trinibantes against the Romans. Deborah led the Canaanites to a series of victories (it's in the Old Testament). There was a Greek queen who led an army, during their many bouts of in fighting.
The Soviet's had all female tank regiments, commanded by women, during WW2.
Perhaps staging battles where women were historically leading & fighting in battle, would help draw more women into the hobby.
The opening comments by Becky Ensteness were disheartening. Repositioning her troops? Asking her not to play? Outrageous and appalling! Even if it is just a small handful of male gamers who are that obnoxious, it is no wonder that there is such a low number of female gamers.
The real question is, "how many times did this happen"? I believe that this was a one=time event and it has been blown out of proportion. As a male, I have also had my pieces moved by an exasperated GM during a game he hosted at a regional convention. He was a testy sort of a fellow at any rate, and we kicked him from our club for other unrelated, but similarly relevant issues.
You know it’s weird but I think rude people have also been rude to male gamers in the past. So why do they keep playing? I look forward to seeing a little wars vid on it soon.
Great topic to talk about. But another topic is, people of color in wargaming. I am an African- American, and I have been historical wargaming for 40 years. Wargaming, and military history, are my two passions. But I am the only person of color in my wargaming club, of 8 people. I am a member of HMGS, but whenever I go to a convention I rarely see another person of color, attending the same event. I think in 40 years, I seen about two other people of color at wargaming conventions. One thing that was not talked about, in this video, is there is never a discussion on non-male military leaders. Sure, Queen Boudica's name comes up, every now and then, but not often. It is harder to draw people in, when they have nobody to look up to; who looks like them. I have this same problem. Sure there are African, Middle-Eastern, and Asian generals in history, but their names rarely come up. Most people want to talk about, Caesar, or Alexander the Great, or Napoleon, or Lee, or Grant, or Rommel, or Patton. Sure, Hannibal's name comes up; but I have had debates with friends, who say he is not black. So I will say again, that it is hard to draw people in, when nobody else looks like them. Females, or People of Color.
@@ColonelHoganStalag13 That's not what he said though. You are more likely to identify with a subject & find it interesting (eg History) if you can identify with the actors.
@@ColonelHoganStalag13 I think you have a warped view of identity politics. It seems you don't understand the concept. Sure you can make off the cuff statements like that, because you probably grew up with experiences that match your environment around you. Do you regularly attend events where you are the only guy in the room? Be honest! Do you regularly attend events where nobody else in the room, is your race. American history has shown that there is a current need for identity politics, and rejecting it is trying to hide the ugly side of American history. The guy that wanted Nazi flags on his Napoleonic Prussian, was just plain crazy! I have a devil of a time as it is, finding flags for my Napoleonic Prussian Landwehr regiments!!
Thanks for offering this thoughtful perspective. It's obviously a very applicable point to African-Americans as well as women when scanning back through military history. I mentioned Joan of Arc in an earlier comment as a very rare example of a female leader in military history.
Excellent point. I think finding examples and putting on games where people can see people like them in leading military roles is a great idea. I'll try that in my next few games that I put on.
@@reglavcor "I think you have a warped view of identity politics."
No, GStates has the exactly correct view of identity politics. I think if you're in a room of like-minded people enjoying a hobby and all you can seem to think about is their skin color, perhaps you're the one with racial identity issues.
It's odd that the people decrying the supposed resurrection of "White Supremacy" in America always think the answer is pushing more race-based social engineering. Apparently none of them have looked at the racial demographics of this country to extrapolate the end result of boiling every interaction down to racial identity. Have you ever stopped to think that playing a game where the rules are "everyone gets to consolidate social and political power based on their race, except white people" won't really work to smooth over that "ugly side of American history" you disagree with?
This is a serious topic and I am happy that Little Wars TV is taking it on. I think the insight provided by fellow war gamers is important regardless of gender, race and age. I hope that this video and next week’s video draws a large viewing audience. Anything we can do to expand the hobby and ensure that we tackle any of the barriers that make people feel unwanted or not welcome should be addressed immediately. Thank you again for a great video!
Revelation you are clearly entitled to your opinion and I am entitled to mine. They have broached a subject that I guess could be controversial, but they did so with the overall hobby in mind. I am just happy to see people actually fired up about wargaming for a change. I don’t encounter any progressive agenda, but I am the typical war gamer. I am looking forward to when everyone is included in the “typical” column.
Sadly, dealing with jerks and cheaters is part of the hobby that everyone has to deal with. It has nothing to do with who you are, and everything to do with who they are, they tend to be equal oppurtunity jerks. Every wargamer has stories of dealing with jerks and cheaters. I personally dislike conflict and dealing with jerks and cheaters during what is supposed to be a relaxing past time, so I intentionally avoid tournaments (guaranteed to run into a jerk or your money back) and mega battles unless I know the people involved (for whatever reason, even with no prizes involved, big events bring out jerks, no clue why). Until TOs, community members, and event organizers seriously crack down on jerks and cheaters, it will be a problem for everyone, not just women and minorities, everyone in this hobby deals with this, and everyone should be working to either reform or run off the offending parties.
reducing bad behavior and the number of bad actors in the hobby will do more, I think, to bring in more people than anything else out there.
Agreed
Great video and I'm looking forward to the next one. I own a store in upstate New York and we do mostly 40k and fantasy (there's only a few of us historical gamers and most are FoW :( ) I have only seen a couple girls playing and they seem to be the boyfriend got them into it or they liked the painting of the miniatures and that's what got them into the hobby. The group they play with are all friends and are all encouraging to each other. When someone is looking to get into the hobby we usually send them towards that group to learn from.
Wish I could have met a young wargaming lady in my youth. You are all blessings to this hobby. stand strong.
My wife tells people i paint little men for fun. Shes gotten some weird looks lol
As a willing midget, tell your wife's friends to buzz off, lmao
@@marine76a Screenshotting this.
I primarily play Warhammer 40K, Age of Sigmar and Gaslands. Nothing historical. But I have noticed that there are far more women interested in Warhammer than anything else. I think it is right what is said, that something narrative can be used to forge one's own story and maybe on some level is more appealing to women. Our own Warhammer club has about 20 active members and we have 3 or 4 women who do on occasion do come down for a game. They are out there, we just need to get them out of the woodwork and playing.
I have started introducing the hobby to my 8 year old daughter.
Marcos Castellanos that’s a great thing to do when their little (begin the indoctrination early), sharing stuff you love with your kids is awesome. have done the same with my son. Hope politics doesn’t ruin this hobby.
Marcos Castellanos im 100% sure in the future there will he way more women in tabletop gaming because of how standards for genders have changed overtime
Get them while they're young.
To each their own. I think anyone can get into this hobby, it just takes an appreciation of history/lore, order and subtle details. I would happily play my favorites with any respectable entity. With so few war gamers in general, we cannot afford to be discriminatory in the least.
That is my point. They are treating it as if it was some quota that needs filling. Leave people alone and let them find their own way... and if it turns out that mostly (or even entirely) men just partake of this hobby, then so be it. Don't force people into it to sooth your broken mind.
I think you speak for most people here.
The implication that its somehow mens fault that there aren't enough female wargamers is ridiculous. Are the few gaming girls treated weirdly? Sure. But i haven't seen that in my gaming club. And we have more than 1-2% in it. How about the simple fact that women, as a whole dont show as much interest in wargaming as men do? Isn't that more rational? Why they dont show such interest ofcourse is a different discussion and there are definitely social prejudices in there but those are brought as much from women as they are from men. When you hear women calling us wargamers "nerds", you have your answer. Enough with the forced diversity already. And why do we "have to" bring new women to the game room? Isn't it enough to say, "hey, girls are welcome" and leave it at that? Those "have to" and "find ways to" smell of political agenda. I will have none of that on my gaming table thank you. I am perfectly fine enjoying the company of either men only or men and women when gaming(or just women for that matter, but this has never happened to me). It seems weird to me to "have to" have girls on your table.
Im not seeing any studies or big pushes to get more men into female dominated hobbies. People just like different things
Well said! Little wars tv seems to be virtue signaling. What a shame!
Dread Cthulhu of course your right their is no big push and everyone knows it’s not really about equality or fairness. But why is little wars jumping into politics rather than doing wargaming stuff?
@@Patrick-lu2fy Pointing out problems is virtue signalling now. Got it. Way to pretend you're not the issue
If people want to get into the hobby, they do. A lot of my mates have seen all my stuff, appreciate it, thinks it's cool, but they aren't into it. Different strokes for different folks.
JvC Paints exactly!
Great video.
Some food for thought:
1. Growing the hobby. I do not know if the hobby is growing or not, but imagine if we could get that >2% up to say, 5%. Assuming normal churn, this would be an increase in the number of actual historical mini players. These people buy rules. These people buy miniatures. These people pay for hotel rooms to go to conventions. An increase in female and non-binary players would be good for the health of the industry.
2. The attitudes that keep women out of the hobby disproportionately affect single mothers or women in non-traditional couples where both partners are women. These non-"traditional" (whatever that means) families have children who could be part of the next generation of players and that is money that is being ignored or actively told that it is not wanted.
3. There are many women in the game design field, designing for other and competing game sub-genres. Imagine if their abilities with all phases of design and company management could be put to use in Historical Miniatures?
4. I would be curious to see the percentage of historical gamers who are People of Color. I imagine the numbers are similar in terms of participation. Are the same excuses I see in other comments valid there?
Let me reiterate; great video. Leaving all the social baggage out of it, just from simple economic terms reaching out to women to grow the hobby makes sense. They have money and they have talents and they have the interest IF they were made to feel welcome. And it is going to be up to the men who have influence the hobby to make space for them. And I for one think that we should.
Thanks for these reasoned comments. We knew it would be hard when posting this video to avoid tripping over the "social baggage" that some viewers might bring to this topic. But it's a complicated one. Multiple commenters on here picked up on your (4) observation regarding African Americans and how they may find themselves in a similar situation when looking at the historical wargaming community.
@@LittleWarsTV I think it is to your credit for asking the hard questions. Keep it up!
@@seanhillman1016 Interesting comment. I thought in a similar direction but decided against making those points in my comment. Thanks for doing it!
Sean Hillman excellent points, especially from an economic standpoint. The industry, such as it is mostly a cottage industry, would benefit the quickest.
meh. People engage with what they like. i doubt the sewing circle quandaries why theres no men in the group. people do what they are attracted too
I 100% agree that the increase in women gaming in Video Games, RPGs, and Board Games is going to slowly spill over into the Table Top Wargame side of things.. but I honestly think it is going to be a slow transition as full table-top gaming including collection, assembly, painting, and playing is a large barrier to any possible wargamer... not just women. While video games and RPGs tend to offer a lot more story (and even some board games do a great job of that) that may appeal to gamers (including more women) who maybe are not as interested in the collection, construction, and then destruction (via gaming) of small armies of warriors. I think that as a hobby community, if we want to see more inclusion of women in table top gaming, then we are going to have to be looking at games that have more story to them than "I show up and try to shoot you off the table". Other things that will help include easier entry points to the hobby with possibly preconstructed or pre-colored or prepainted models to allow new players to avoid some parts of the hobby they may find intimidating.
This change in gaming styles is also difficult when re-enacting large scale historical wargames. Yes, there are GREAT stories behind so many battles... but they are just that... Battles. There is generally one win condition and truly playing historically, there are limits we place on ourselves to "get it right" vs the flexibility to change the game up and vary the win conditions to potentially make it more accessible to new gamers of all genders like we see in RPGs, some board games, and more interactive video games these days.
That said, we also need to realize that social interactions are NOT the strong point of a LOT of our fellow hobbyists. There are a LOT of podcasts and blogs that touch on the difficulties that we, a predominately male group, have in finding and keeping regular gaming opponents and regular gaming friends because so many of us want different things out of our hobby. Some people are ultra-competitive.. others story driven.. others just want to model and paint.. others just want to hang out and drink beer and eat pretzels.. so we are a divided group that is THEN also trying find a way to make our hobby appealing to people of all genders that may not have the same interests and goals in the hobby as we do.
The goal, which isn't going to be easy to achieve, is going to be to identify what type of gamer you are.. and then try to identify what type of gamer the new person (again, of any gender, age, etc) might ALSO be... and find someone who might be able to identify with them in that regard and integrate them into the hobby if that isn't you. If I am NOT a super competitive player, I'm not going to do a good job of highlighting how you can win with that army... if I am not a story driven, scenario driven player, I'm not going to do a good job of recruiting those type of people into the hobby. So it is only with attention to our own strengths and weaknesses and some knowledge of a possible new players interests that we can actually expect to recruit and hopefully maintain new players.. who then if we are lucky, will recruit their own friends into their new hobby in a similar manner.. but only if more and more of us recognize our shortcomings and the challenges that come with this potentially rewarding, but intimidating, hobby we have chosen.
Joshua Hatch I agree and you should do more dress making and macrame!
@@Patrick-lu2fy As I posted above, "That said, we also need to realize that social interactions are NOT the strong point of a LOT of our fellow hobbyists." Thanks for making my point for me.
I've had similar experiences when I play Wargames, but also on the Gun Range it's been a bit over the top.
In the UK it is a similar situation with very low numbers of female wargamers or BME wargamers for that matter. At the Devizes and District Wargames Group we have one female member who has sat on the committee for the past couple of years; she plays historical games. Apart from that we have only had two other female members of the club over the past 47 years.
One bright shining light for the cause of female wargamers in the UK is Annie Norman of Bad Squiddo Games, who has been inspirational to gamers of both sexes.
Philip Mackie honestly who cares? It doesn’t matter what gender you are. It doesn’t matter what race. It will only matters to you if you think sex and skin colour is the way to judge someones worth and that is a bad way to be.
My total sympathy I give to Becky, because while I've had viscous arguments over tactics, nobody has tried to move my miniatures for me. I am glad Veronica and Amanda have had better experiences.
When I was painting Warhammer figures with my nephews, my parents' neighbors' kids came over to join them (8 year-olds can truly come up with fantastic color schemes). I set out skin tone to follow American percentages with the occasional albino thrown in (goblins are various shades of green, except for the occasional albino). The oldest of the neighbors' kids noticed the peach-colored paint was marked "Flesh" (his flesh was Moccassin Brown). Fifty cent paint has no right telling anyone what color flesh should be.
Curse you GW you racist paint makers!! Up with taco and down with the patriarchy! Rabblerabble. It's a game system they invented. If the dudes fighting in their lore were white then surprise surprise it will be white "flesh" colours named. Find something useful to get antsy about.
lol. Stop. These war games are primarily a function of white/western culture. That is a good thing not a bad thing. Our skin color is flesh. Stop drinking the koolaid
I mean, look around at these comments to see why women steer clear of wargaming spaces. The women in this video say things that make tons of sense - that culturally we socialize male and female children differently (I had army men and GI Joes and stuff before I can even remember, my sister had dolls growing up, long before it would have or could have been a conscious choice on our part), that even women working booths at cons or representing companies or running video channels face people who doubt them constantly etc. But in the 70 comments on this video as I write this I can find a bunch of people saying that maybe women don't have the brains or the interest or the competitive nature or the hunter instinct of men, or they should stick to girly activities like being a hairdresser or just watching Real Housewives - all of which is dumb, and wrong, and a profound misunderstanding thinking that cultural values and norms are laws of nature for all time. All of which, I'm sure, was written before watching and genuinely thinking about the subject, just a defensive reflex against outsiders.
Some of this can change over time and probably is changing as nerd culture is diversifying in general. But to all the people saying why does this matter, don't you just want more people to play with? That should be reason enough, but also it's just a kind a respectful thing to both be welcoming and an active recruiter. There's people here saying that anyone can approach their table. Great! Do randos walking by know that? Or do you seem insular and self absorbed or distant? That's a barrier all on its own. No one owes you proof they belong. No one needs to be super well versed or heavily invested in your game of choice or gaming in general to join or be respected.
We knew when we posted this video that there would be a few predictably negative, knee-jerk reactions. But it's nice to see that the vast majority of the commenters on this video are offering positive, constructive thoughts. The internet is often not the place to go for nuanced, complicated conversations....
@@LittleWarsTV I agree - it's good to see most of the comments here being positive. And I think your video is good and helpful. My point was that even in a space being very positive overall, there's still a non-zero amount of people still being the problem. They're all over the place, and they are plenty comfortable speaking their minds, and they get plenty of positive reinforcement. I just wanted to point to that, to not let it slide unnoticed but also to not give those people the positive reinforcement of direct interaction.
Literally no one here has said anything that would "steer women clear of wargaming spaces". But don't let facts get in the way of your narrative.
@@ancientsociety79 Literally it's in the video. 1.6% doesn't happen by accident. Listen to the stories in the video. It's right there, and this isn't even the last word on the subject. There's so many more stories just like it.
@@LittleWarsTV and you can completely ignore anything that doesn't line up with what you believe I am sure.
I just think there are hobbies and topic men are inherently interested in and there are hobbies and topic women are inherently interested in. As Veronica states, there are plenty of women in history (hell most of the people my History courses were women) but they all had absolutely zero interest in military history and focused more on the sociological side of history, fashion history etc.
I think your say Games Workshop store for example, could do everything right, yet not see any meaningful increase in female players. At best I think you may see the female market for wargaming maybe top out at like 4-5%. There has been a narrative pushed in recent years that basically men and women are identical in every way and it's only really social conditioning that really make people different, but frankly, I'm not sure there is much truth to this (and more recent studies are starting to back this up), the way boys and girls do play even as young children is inherently different and hell, I looked after my nieces every day in their young formative years (2-7) and I tried hard to raise them as gender-neutral as possible but they always went for the dolls, tea party sets and frozen anything over more competitive games that you see young boys the same age play like Nerf, Soccer, competitive board games. This is backed up by more recent studies as well. This isn't to say all women this and all guys that, but in general, as in I think 95%+ would fall into pretty typical gender norms when it comes to interests.
I would love to see more women in wargaming, I would love if any of my SO's over the years took any interest beyond painting once every so often, but yeah, I don't see it ever happening. If someone does pull it off though, that is one hell of a Blue Ocean market.
I got into warhammer at the same time as my little sister. We spend more than half a decade most saturdays in our local hobby shop painting and playing. I never saw anything untoward (I would not have tolerated it!) so I asked her. Fortunately she was very positive about that time and nothing like some of the ladies described ever happend. Concerning historic wargaming. It has only been in recent years that a passion for history has blossmed in her. Which has made her interested in historical battles. Who knows, might get her to do some games again. At least in other former 'nerd' hobbies I have seen a remarcable shift. Especially now that D&D has basically become mainstream I see an almost equal mix of men and women which is nice to so. Hope this presses on.
PLEASE NOTE: While reasoned comments about this video--negative or positive--are absolutely encouraged, negative comments directed at other commenters will be removed.
We would like to see more players--whomever they are--discover and play historical wargames.
@@LittleWarsTV you'll have to cater to their every whim, however absurd. Get woke, Go broke.
@Achieved CHIM We'd like to see more people from every demographic in the hobby. You seeing that as "less white men" is kind of weird, isn't it?
@@GuyInnagorillasuit The video itself opens with a woman insinuating that the few bad interactions she's had with individuals means that the (majority male) hobby has a problem with "female gamers". We already saw this very thing play out during Gamergate. As the old saying goes "You run into one a******, you ran into one. If all you run into are a******s....."
@@ancientsociety79 Gamergate kind of proved how childish some men can be when women enter traditionally male spaces. I'd like to think that historical wargaming isn't as toxic of a culture.
I am old enough to remember being the ONLY person at a convention of serval thousand under the age of 20 (or so it seemed). I can remember the first time they "allowed" non-historical games into a regional convention and the "stir" it caused. ...and when we allowed dem' crazy RPGer's into the convention back in the 70s well there was no turning back! ;)
I had an opportunity to spend a lot of time in the life of a black man. (I was his personal nurse he has Muscular Distrophy making him almost completely paralyzed. His body was badly broken however his mind was very sharp. I also was able to spend time with his friends as a sort of background person. There but not there. Most of the reason for the "lack of diversity" has nothing to do with prejudges. It is simply cultural differences. If you are white most of your friends are likely to be the same. If you are black the same holds true. Most people are introduced to hobbies by friends. War games and RPGs are a mostly white hobby. Nobody is stopping others from joining, and on the occasions I have seen ether women or other than WASP people at cons I have done my best to make them feel at home. I do not change anything, I am the same person no matter who I am talking with or gaming with. I think more than anything else it is a cultural divide that is a natural extension of people tending to spend time with people of there own race and culture.
Most people know what they like and want to do. Good point.
the real truth is no many women are interested in playing war games and not very many men are interested in playing war games all games or a very niche unique hobby with a very small amount of people that are interested in them
Relatively small numbers don't explain the gender proportion though.
@@Malt454 more to play Vs happy days. But I know of exactly 2 women who play and are interested. Weirdly enough I am aware of many more women who see it as playing with toys.
@@beanspud88 - I think a lot of women are turned off by the subject matter, and a lot women (and many men) are probably also turned off by players' approach to play itself. Navigating your way through frequently inflated egos isn't a lot of people's idea of a good time.
Malt454 99% of women don’t care about military history. 99.9% don’t care about wargaming and would do almost anything else in preference. That does explain the numbers.
Malt454 By your rational then sewing and dressmaking dominated by women because the sewing circles must filled with vile egotistical women who want to shut out all men. Are they evil sexists? Or do men prefer to do things like wargaming and women prefer things like sewing? Ridiculous.
I've never seen anything like what your opening described 😱 someone a bit different was always very much welcomed where I've played before. I guess I've been very lucky 😳
Because War Games for the longest time where considered to be "nerdy" and "not cool" and most women stay faraway from things that may hinder there social status.
That’s a huge generalization
@@peknive8331 And yet life provides evidence for it being true.
@@Guciom anecdotal evidence isn’t enough to generalize a whole sex by a characteristic
@@peknive8331 Women do that constantly with men.
@@Guciom and? I don’t care whether a comment is generalizing men or women to a huge degree, I’ll still respond that it’s an over generalization. People just shouldn’t over generalize each other, period.
Amanda's point of view is really interesting. The narrative/thematic/storytelling aspect is actually a plus for me in historical games vs. Fantasy or Sci-Fi ones. So often I feel like Sci-Fi and Fantasy games (and Warhammer is PARTICULARLY guilty of this) tend to make a game that feels totally divorced from the lore that exists, and it leads to a lot of moments in games that really break the immersion, at least for me. With historical games the focus is on building a game around the 'lore' and I feel like that generally translates into what amounts to feeling like a more believable, engaging narrative to me.
The real irony is based on the background in her set, Amanda plays the same faction that got me out of Warhammer for good. It felt like there was such a stark disconnect between the lore and representation on the board that it was insulting to fans of the race. Living armor suit possessed by the combined souls of tens of thousands of dead super-soldiers who devoted themselves only to battle, combining all their experience and bloodlust into the living wearer, who is, themselves a creature who can move faster than human eyes can see... all the while using the most advanced technology within the setting? Yeah. That's equivalent to a Space Marine sergeant. Makes total sense /s. Golems made entirely out of a substance the setting says is harder than adamantium? Easier to kill than big tough guys wearing adamantium armor.
Meanwhile with historical wargaming, I can count on my Gallic charges being fierce, but I know that they'll soon break if forced into prolonged combat with Roman legions, because that's what historical accounts speak to. I know my Parthian light horse will be nigh uncatchable skirmishers that can put a ton of hurt on anyone who chases them. When I put them in those situations, I usually get an outcome close to what should rationally be expected. It gets even worse when you realize that sci-fi and fantasy games rarely ever reward maneuver, flanking or rear attacks, or even proper use of cover.
At least for me, it's impossible to get a good narrative out of sci-fi and fantasy games, because they're more interested in making an accessible game than a simulation of the setting they present.
This is quite interesting, looking forward to the next video.
I think wargamers as a group can seem very insular and self absorbed, which can be pretty intimidating to outsiders or newcomers of any kind. We need to be more welcoming to any potential new people- of any sex, age, race , background.
Thanks for a great video. Food for thought and now up to the gaming community to get more people involved. It can only help the hobby.
Great upload! I think most women aren't interested in war gaming. Though I really hope more start to take an interest in the hobby and more of us men encourage them to do so.
Why?
Most men aren’t interested in wargaming either...
i would argue that it should just be a general form of respect for gamers to just not touch each other's stuff unless you're just helping them move stuff across the table if they cna't reach it. But i would say that people should just have fun. I personally like to see massive armies fight massive armies. I particuarlly stay within Flames of war (no particular army group) and Team Yankee which i modeled loosly to the Washington 81st Brigade Combat Team
Ricky Bell why not?
When it goes woke remember you invited it...
Wargaming can be an intimidating place. As a white male who's spent 30+ years in the hobby, I am still intimidated. I can only begin to imagine how women gamers must feel. The faster the wargaming demographic widens (and this is true of every aspect of life, right?), the more open it becomes. Thanks for doing this video - important stuff.
Revelation , a bit of projection there, buddy.
Can you explain why wargaming is intimidating in your prospective? I've been a gamer since I was 7 years old and I'm never intimidated by ANYONE. I've faced (and beaten) world champions in a competitive miniatures game. Is it the learning curve, the MONTHS of assembling/painting armies or something else that's intimidating?
@@jomama900 Not really. I guess it's just a personal thing. The wargaming culture here in the UK is slanted very heavily toward older men, often of strong, sometimes conservative, opinions. An outsider coming in to that can be either confrontational, or intimidated. I'm glad your experience has been positive though. There's certainly room for a mixed demographic, and this video shows how many clubs and individuals are doing great work.
Yeah agree with the video/poll. There are 8-10 shops in Las Vegas and 2-3 have crotchety old men. You get what you get with that. ONLY positive side is they are gonna stay/come back and play. Where as the younger schlubs here get side tracked by shinny and new things often and you spend 2-3 sessions training them only to never see them again... So there are 2 sides to every coin. :)
I don't play tabletop with minis, but any woman who would commit to playing a hex-n-counter monster would be more than welcome. Just pick the game...
I'm a male gamer. After seeing how women who do enter a gaming store are treated, I can totally understand why they're rare. At best they're ignored and excluded, at worst, they're drooled over and talked down to. As guys, we really need to learn to be a way less awkward around women and treat them the same as any other guy who walks into the store before we'll ever see the numbers pick up.
One particular case I saw when a girl walked into a store and was trying to find out more about warhammer, it wasn't super obvious, but all the guys kinda turned up the geek to 11. They got louder than normal and were throwing out extra "Blood for the blood god!" and "Waaaagh!" and dropping tons of jargon and in-jokes. It was clear she didn't understand any of the references, but to her credit she actually asked what they meant. Instead of explaining stuff about lore and background, they kinda chuckled and moved onto something else like it was a big secret. They all kinda avoided eye contact with her when they spoke to her. It felt almost like they were threatened and trying to prove that they had an insular little club that she just couldn't understand. She was very open minded and interested when she came in, but by the time she left I strongly doubted she'd ever be back.
We are sometimes 2 women and 2 men gaming. But we are not in a club and are coming all more from a historical perspective. We are all reenactors and the historical background is more in our focus than painting etc..
Great video! I've seen every one of your videos and have been following from the first season and this is one of your very best. I'm a little sad to see that some are resistant to removing barriers to entry for others to thrive, but also excited that most are. And I applaud you championing change. This is how we create a future for our hobby.
As a GM who runs games at cons, I'm very interested in what I can do to be more inclusive and especially how I can stir more interest and leave players with an experience that sticks with them regardless of who they are. Amanda's comment about how she liked more narrative is something tangible that I think I can work with. Some of the commenters had great points about finding battles with diverse leaders. And as Becky talked about, creating a safe place is important. Looking forward to the next episode and getting more ideas.
Suggestion: maybe film a game organized, played and run by women? I would be interested to see what they choose, where the focus is, and what we can learn.
Thanks again!
Thanks for making this! I recently got back into table top gaming in general after being away for about 15 years, and while much has changed for the better as far as RPGs and board games, this is a pretty sad state of affairs for wargaming. Hopefully the hobby will grow enough, like RPGs did, and board games are currently, that the old school "he-man woman haters club" nerds will get usurped.
I've only met one competent female player. The rest had crap armies (both in construction and composition) and they used the game as social hour and dragged it out to hours. They had no grasp of the background and genuinely did not seem interesting in the game. You know what they say about one bad apple? Now imagine its just one good apple in the batch. It pretty sums up men's experience with female wargamers. A handful demand to be taken seriously when the vast majority aren't worth the time.
An idea- make a scenario for your Ravenfeast rules, with Athelflaed. History may be less relatable wargaming genere, as it was so male dominated. In sci-fi and history they have so many female characters of factions to relate to. Maybe giving more exposure to warrior-queens's like Aethelflaed, Boudica, Tomyris or Zenobia would help get them immersed and invested in historicals... and the second reason I want that scenario is the fact that her Footsore model is sooo awrsoke. Please LWTV give me a reason to buy and justify buying Aethelflaed's figure.
Thank you for doing this video Little Wars TV.
I love wargaming and military history, but 'yes' the number of times I have had men change my orders or pick up my figures and put them in a different formation is a turn off.
I think that's a douche thing to do. Though i don't really care for what a formation is suppose to look like or this or that as long as the rules and book allows it. Go for it. All i want to see is stuff die on the table. Massive armies fighting against massive armies.
Rule 1: You don't touch someone else's figures without permission. I'm male and been wargaming for over 30 years and I've always loved seeing girls taking on us boys. There are some very capable female wargamers out there.
Personally if someone came up and started rearranging everything I have on the board, I'd take that as them being arrogant and inflexible due to being formula players. At that point I'd just annihilate their tactics out of a sense of annoyance and the desire to watch someone's army burn to death lol.
Eventually at some point those "tacticians" will mature their decentralized command structure and execute some adaptive maneuvering and critical thinking.
Wargame meta must remain dynamic. Players should avoid "the formula" and new doctrine should be encouraged. Those games are interesting.
Keep at it. Glad to have more female gamers in the community.
Happened to me when I didn't have a clue about formations and as such people helped.
@@rickybell2190 - I had a clue about formations. I have been gaming for nearly twenty years. It is all about particular men seeing a woman at the table and assuming she does not know s**t.
@Nick Smith - Why assume I have a bias? I was there. You were not. I know exactly why it happened. Most of the guys I game with are cool and open to gaming with women, but there have been a few 'friends of a friend' who came to some of the games I was playing in, and at a table full of men, there was only one player they did that too. I am sorry if it does not fit your narrative, but sexism still exists.
I guess, on average, women are just not that interested in historical warfare, this is entirely understandable.
When I started with RPGs back in the 80's, the numbers were pretty similar... but they have changed over the years. I think it's quite possible we have an emerging younger generation of female gamers and the numbers in the 30+ age bracket are low because the base was never there to begin with. Virtually nobody gets into this hobby in their 30's or later, you have to grow into it.
As for the female miniature hobbyists I've run across, they mostly seem to be interested in the painting and modeling aspect and not really gaming.
I totally agree with you about the changing aspect in RPGs... but do you find your 2nd point to be true for women in RPG as well? Are the women you game with or see gaming in RPGs also mostly interested in painting and modeling and not actually playing? If that isn't the case, then why are they comfortable playing RPGs, but not miniature table top wargames?
@@SciFiPorkChop28 I haven't been playing RPGs in a few years myself so I can't really say. My daughter plays D&D but she is not really interested in painting miniatures -- despite being an art student who does canvas paintings and doll houses.
But if I would venture a guess, it would boil down to one word: tournaments.
Yeah most women, actually all women I’ve known to collect miniatures preferred the painting aspect of it.
As a woman who loves painting models, I can say that it can be fun to play but it can just be a little one dimensional killing. I do agree that some gamers are a little creepy, smelly and awkward at times but many aren’t, my friends aren’t like that and are very inclusive and want to have fun. My main criticism is that it can be quite one dimensional - fact based, rule based but no emotional or philosophical element which is a little frustrating for me.
What do you mean by emotional and philosophical element?
This is nothing but a modern sickness. We are not the same... not remotely.. and that goes for men and other men, not just men and women. Nobody in the past was against women doing things - America loved Amelia Earhart because she WAS special. If we made EVERY woman fly a plane... guess what? We would have lost her uniqueness. And others down below saying things like "They don't know what they are missing." YES THEY DO. They don't like it. The problem isn't them, it's YOU. Why can't you accept the fact that women, in general, are not overly into history and they are especially not into war. When I was young and played wargames heavily (in the 1970's) this asinine a question never even came up - you were happy just FINDING an opponent... you didn't care what sex they were, or go looking for a different one if you got one you didn't like. (or their color either) We're supposed to be so "advanced" now and yet EVERYTHING in our lives has to be put thru the sex-color filter first. You ALL obsess over race and sex. That NEVER happened in the past, and frankly, I'm am sick and tired of it. Stop forcing "equality" and let people be happy doing what they want, and accept them for what they are. What's next, are we going to force Grandpa to bake the cookies on holidays? Good grief.
Amelia Earhart flies plane. Normal people, "wow she's really something" shows women can fly planes, just like men, (A good thing), the woke weirdos ,"We need more women flying planes, how can we make that happen?" Adding more X in Y because 'reasons' does not yield good results, allowing and accepting the X that want to do Y will always engender power to the individual. An individual is not representative of their sex or race. People like what they like and trying to force diversity will not produce the desired results.
"let people do what they want." Are you talking about the women in the early 1900s who were not allowed to vote? The blacks that wanted to fly fighters before WWII? Or did you assume that since they weren't there they must not want to? Did you ever bother asking them if they wanted to? You didn't see those things until someone said damn the consequences and made it happen. You are clearly a man of your age. Don't be shocked when your age has passed and everyone that younger is moving on.
Man I'm so glad that my wife tries out almost every game I come up with. And I can tell you, that is a hard task. Starting with Magic The Gathering, years ago, we played different board games (like Descent 2nd Ed.) very often and really frequently play skirmish level miniatures games for round about 3 years, now. It is amazing how her opinion changed and defined with every new game: "I don't wanna play such stuff at all" (Said before trying at all) > "I don't like all that distraction through third parties (Zombies)" (Last Days ZA / Project Z) > "I prefer medieval settings to sci fi" (Necromunda / Strontium Dog / Terminator) > "This is easy and fun!" (Song of Blades and Heroes / Warstuff) > "I think I prefer cooperative to competitive play" (Frostgrave > Rangers of Shadow Deep). Although this all has nothing to do with historical wargaming, in paricular, I think it is totally possible to get girls into wargaming at all. With curiosity, interest, patience in finding the right game and a lot of love. That should work in any other setting, too :-D
I have a male friend (just friends) who knows I’m trained as an historian. He’s been mentoring me in medieval and ancient war games.
Hope the channel grows it has been stuck at 15k subs keep up the good work
They’re at 84K now! Only a matter of time before they break 100K.
I’ve noticed that there are more women miniature painters than war gamers.
As a game master, I don’t care who you are; if you want to play my game and want to roll dice and blast your opponent to scrap metal, then you are welcome.
Mostly for my Gundam game, I have had military, fans and young boys come and play and a few casuals.
But to turn someone away or change their orders cause they are a woman is entering a hole territory.
@@toserveman9317 hmm idk if this particular standard is correct or not, but i also don't believe there is a massive culture of excluding females. War gamers are generally just want to see stuff die on the battlefield. Its about the game to have fun. So come and have fun. Just have general decorum and we won't have problems. be an asshole and i'll just punt you through a field goal
Agreed. If anyone were to have a sudden rush of stupid to the brain and pull a absolutely dimwitted move like that during any wargames or RPG campaigns that I'm running, the first warning would be a polite reminder that it is rude and never acceptable to touch another wargamer's figures unless expressly invited to do by said wargamer. Second warning would be to enlighten their dim view of the world as to the impending consequences of defying the GM. There would be no third warning. I'm a veteran and have little tolerance for people who can't exercise basic self discipline and manners.
If someone were to turn away any female wargamers from a match, I'd walk over, join their team, have all of us sit down at said table, and then politely inform the GM of what side we will be playing in their game.
Our hobby needs new players and it can ill afford to be the old boys club that use to be. If wargaming remains in that mindset, then that portion of the player community will get left behind in their niche corner as the community advances forward into expanding the hobby. It stagnated during the 90s and 2000s. It's only been recently that we've seen this new golden age of table top and we need to take advantage of that and mature as a community.
There are rude people in every aspect of life including all hobbies. I don’t believe for a second that the world of gaming and rpg’s has a anti female cabal directing men to be horrible to women. That is ridiculous! Think of some of the young men who like modeling military vehicles etc (nerds I’m looking at YOU!) you think their going to turn young women away? This is their number one fantasy. This whole thing is ridiculous. ‘Some one was rude once’ my god, what a joke!
Complex games and hobbies are a wonderful escape. For some people, it's escape from normal stresses. For other people, they might be escaping from depression, problems at home and sometimes worse.
This is true of ALL hobbies. Unfortunately this is a huge bummer when the need to escape is comorbid with social anxiety or problems in social situations, these kind of situations arise.
For example, someone cheats to win, because their self worth is so low.
So it's not anything specifically, this happens in all hobbies. (And the traditionally male dominated space is a barrier to entry on top of that).
The answer is EMPATHY. Be a friend first, and treat others well. Treat yourself well. Encourage other people to grow and improve, stand up for people who feel out of place. This isn't just wargaming advice, but as I become one of the older guys in the gaming store, I'm surprised how often someone just needs someone to listen, to notice that they are improving, and to let them enjoy themselves in our silly toy soldier games.
The answer to the question of why more women don’t participate in historical miniature gaming isn’t because of some societal influences outside the scope of the wargaming community such as learned gender/cultural roles. True those anachronistic ideas we older gamers were taught as children about who “could” do what might serve to limit the interest among certain generations. But that’s ancient history & not the issue here.
That women (or for that matter POC, kids, sci-fi/fantasy gamers) who cross that imaginary threshold into the realm of historical gamers frequently are not only not welcomed but are often met with derision, condescension and flat out rejection is the reason. Period.
Unless you want your hobby to die off you must not just introduce new people to the hobby but make those people feel welcome & accepted so that they come back. Our hobby is graying rapidly & without an influx of new people there will someday be no historical gaming as we know it. That’s a fact.
While it would be short-sighted, to put it politely, to bar someone from your local group because of their gender, skin color, etc, what you do in private is your business. That said, those of you who would deliberately be rude, mistreat, or abuse someone at a con because you don’t want “those sorts” gaming with you need to crawl back under your rock. You are what’s wrong with our hobby & our world. Those outmoded ideas belong in the dustbin of history and there should be no place for you in the community at large. Yes, I said it, someone needed to & I’ll stand by it.
Invite people to play a game with you at your local club. If someone shows any inkling of interest in your game, be it at a Con, the local game store, anywhere that the public has a chance to learn about our hobby then reach out to that person. Try to get them to push some lead & roll some dice if they’re willing. At the very least say hello, introduce people & ask if they have questions. Don’t tolerate those who claim there’s no point because historical wargaming isn’t a thing “those people” will enjoy or stick with. And if you see someone trying to play gatekeeper or creeping on someone, or trying to discourage someone from being included clap back, HARD! That person is ruining our hobby for all of us.
So if we truly care about the future of our hobby and having another generation to carry on we need to stop making excuses, & start being proactive, both in outreach & policing our ranks against those who would give us all a bad name. When we are all doing our part to not be the problem then, & only then, can we start looking at what else is keeping us from growing the hobby we love.
This exact argument was used to open up videogames to the masses and it caused irreparable damage to the integrity of the hobby. Historical wargaming is not going anywhere, it has and always will be, a niche interest.
Tony Marano that’s not what he said.
I think that part of the problem is that up until very recent times warfare was a very much a male pursuit so to speak. most armies in the world were and are still a masculine environment and its only in the last 10 or 20 years that combat roles have been open to females. even the Israeli forces where integration of the troops date back to before the 60's figures released in 2014 show that only 4% of combat roles are held by females. since the general populous seem to regard wargaming as "being a bunch of guys playing at war" it only follows that they would feel that it is a male oriented pastime. I also feel that as Amanda pointed out there is a shift in wargame dynamics with a more fantasy element coming to the fore this has a more narrative story that appeals to a greater audience that may bring a greater female participation in games. our other large elephant in the room is how we appear at conventions, my ex Wife used to love coming to conventions, not because she liked to game but to see what she described as the multitude of sad fanboys who attended and that made me appear super normal in her eyes
Almost like women are not built for warfare? Case in point isreal put it's top of the line female only unit Vs a bunch of male recruits in a war game and got stomped. Woops.
Rob Broome yeah several female IDF soldiers are suing their government. Apparently they get injuries at a super high rate, way above their male counterparts. One young woman became infertile after working her body to hard for to long. Check out the USMC trial of female and mixed units. It’s a bit of a joke.
@@beanspud88 You should read The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexievich. Real eye opener.
@@jasonfenton8250 will give it a go. Thanks for the recommendation
The more the merrier. Come on ladies.
My local club is very lucky that we have a nice mix of male and female players, it's still slightly favours men but there is a healthy amount of women playing games such as warhammer 40k and ages of sigmar. Some delve into the historical side of wargaming but the main focus is in the fantasy and sci-fi systems, as others have said in the comments some have spoke to the organisers about previous members of the club who cause them to feel uncomfortable or created a feeling of being a fish out of water. While a club can try it's best to make things as welcoming to players it's really the people that make it work well in the long run thankfully the people with problems moved on to other clubs and the core of about 15-20 people we have regularly is a nice laid back group who just want to be there for the joy of the hobby not to gate keep. One positive thing that I can say is that a very nice lady called Eileen who is 67 and very much enjoys Napoleonic's. She by far is the most ruthless general ever to command the French army in our club it's genuinely incredible to face off against her as she knows her force inside out and can use them to deadly effect while having some of the best banter I've enjoyed.
nice, instead of making assumptions or conjecture based off collected data, you went and interviewed 3 wargaming women, to get their perspective.
it would be great to see more playing historical games instead of just normal sci fi fantasy games in small clubs I have been apart of
Watching miniatures,then found a tabletop miniature gameboard being made(didn't know it was a thing,I think it's cool).I wanna play,but where do I start once I do learn how to?(Someone help please)
Why can we not just let people do what they like to do? If somebody wants to join in, play well and honestly, doesn’t try to ruin it for other players then let them. Whatever their gender, race, age etc. It can only be good for the pastime. Maybe there is a novelty factor and maybe it’s a good thing. Also let’s face it. War gamers are mostly cool. Who doesn’t like cool women? More interaction with women means more opportunities to get together. Getting together is cool too.
Can we get back to historical wargaming now?
Sorry, but this topic of lack of diversity in our hobby does impact historical war gaming. It impacts historical war gaming the most. So it is about historical war gaming. You could have skipped the video.
@@crhkrebs Not very inclusive in your comments there.
2D6 wargaming who was I excluding?
@@crhkrebs You suggested the OP skip the video if they didnt like it and I assume not post his comment cos you didnt like it.
2D6 wargaming did you miss my first three sentences? He wanted to “get back to historical wargaming”. My take was that this topic WAS about historic (and other) wargaming and that the first three sentences indicated that. The attitudes that are spelled out by these women impact all of us war gamers. If that specific topic was not to his liking, he was not required to watch it. Again, how was I being not inclusive? It’s not that I didn’t like his comments, I disagreed with them. There is a difference.
"i have had people redo my orders, move my figures". Ya I dont believe that happened.
That illustration on the cover of "Battleship" is so emblematic. Notice how dad & son are wargaming, while mom and sis wash dishes in the background?
So true. We picked that image for a reason!
Slaughtering others should be open to everyone
Very interesting. And I´ve got the same opinion as Amanda said in regards of historical vs. non-historical games. I turned away from historical (starting with DBA back then) as I realised I could change the narrative of a (my!) world in this way. And I include imagi-nations (although I play mostly sci-fi and fantasy currently) in this,
How many wargamers here have daughters? Have you introduced them to the hobby? This seems an obvious step towards increasing the number of female wargamers.
Well said!
Is it an imperative to increase the numbers? If so why? All of the females I’ve ever encountered playing games (role playing, miniatures etc) including my wife were only doing it to put up a front. Once they broke up with my friends, their boy friends, they were never seen again and even used it as a means to attempt to demean their exes for their stupid nerd games. My wife doesn’t do that to me but she doesn’t play anything anymore. I said what happened she laughed and said you know how it is when you are dating. She is quite feminine and history is not of interest to her. I don’t understand why there seems to be a desire to shoehorn people. I can see trying to get your wife or girlfriend interested so she isn’t as likely to protest all the time you spend at the hobby shop or a business into selling miniatures and rule books etc wanting to expand the market but I don’t see a problem with men having men spaces. There are things my wife does that I don’t have an interest in participating in and I have yet to hear a clamor from anyone trying to shoehorn men into it let alone women saying we need men participation.
@@PNZV We have six years of data to show that the historical wargaming hobby--a narrow subset of overall tabletop gaming--is a shrinking community. As active members of that community, we thought we might explore avenues for how to find new players. Women seemed like one possible avenue, though by no means the only one. Is it an imperative to get more women involved in the hobby? No. But it is absolutely an imperative to get more players over the coming decades, whomever they may be.
I appreciate your data and desire to add more players to really what amounts to an already small niche hobby. I have run into many people in my day mostly males who I’ve tried to get interested in the wargamming hobby even nurturing them by helping them build armies for various games and every time it has been for naught. Why? I don’t know. I do know some did not have an intellectual bone in their body. They could care less about history or getting into the minutiae of rules and painting a piece accurately. My local hobby shop is all science fiction gamers to a man. I’ve tried to introduce flames of war,, Hail Caesar, and talked about the new Black Seas but they are just not interested. I ask why and usually hear it’s not my thing. They likely didn’t pay attention in history class and do not care now. I know my interest was not through anyone bringing me into the hobby it was purely another way for me to learn more and connect further with what I was studying at the time. I did civil war reenacting for the same reason. When my boys are old enough and even my daughter I’ll introduce them to all of my Wargames. I try to introduce anyone and everyone to my hobbies when an opportunity arises. That may be a better approach. We hopefully won’t miss anyone but also be willing to except the outcome when we run into more not interested than interested. I wish my wife would play because it’s hard for me to get enough sometimes any players at all and believe me I’ve tried.
@@PNZV I agree. Somehow, the mistaken notion has taken hold that men and women, in general, like the same things. My wife and daughter have no use for my games. They'll play once in a great while. However, they generally are of no interest to them. As an aside, they go against the female trend in that they hate chick flicks. None of this is to say we should treat women poorly who are interested. But, wargaming is more of a guy thing. Having guy things is not some inherent evil. As you point out, no one is clamoring to get guys into hobbies women typically dominate. Letting it be a guy space, and attracting younger males to the hobby is probably more productive than worrying about female participation.
I'm a guy and even I've been put off by the behavior of some folks in the hobby... there are still a lot of grouchy/arrogant/stick-up-their-ass fellows who manage to scare away the newbies.
Gatekeeping in this hobby, much like all hobbies that have a community, has always been a serious problem.
Great video and great approach to the topic! One interesting aspect to look at I think is how women are actually represented - on - the table. How many female figures are found on a Napoleonic battlefield? Probable zero. I can imagine that factors into how much women are drawn to purely historical games. The fantasy and sci-fi scene have more to offer in that area as female (warrior) figures are becoming much more main stream, looking at GW's Stormcast for example, which is totally a good thing.
Absolutely. Two of the women we talked to for this video (who declined to appear on camera) both mentioned this as a major point. And since military history is dominated by male figures, it's hard to argue. Joan of Arc would be a rare example that comes to mind.
I came to the same conclusion- in fantasy and sci fi there are women represented on the battlefield in movies and books; therefore they can imagine themselves in the mix. A friend enjoys commanding a Sky Galleon in the skies of Mars as Lady St. John,but I know she would not play the Confederates. Also, when it comes to imagining themselves my impression is that the ladies tend to not like playing the “bad guys”. (Even I can’t play some games and sides because I am troubled by that particular army or nation.)
I would point out that large numbers of wargamers (of any description) didn't really show up until the late 70's and 80's (and it was immediately labeled as "nerd" culture), so that drop-off in the 50 and older bracket may be simply due to that.
1. Amanda is right about the two families, so to speak, of wargaming. Even for men, I think that there is little overlap between wargamers who like historical games and wargamers who like sci-fi/fantasy/etc. games. It would be interesting to see the actual data on this.
2. About 5 years ago, there was a rather popular TH-cam wargamer named Joey Berry. If I remember correctly, she got into WHFB because she walked into a GW store one day and decided to pick up Wood Elves. Thereafter, Necrons for 40k, then Malifaux 1st edition. I'm not sure what happened to her, but she seems to have. I suspect that after she had her kid, she didn't have enough time to play (or make videos). Anyway, back at one Adeptecon she did a collaboration with Wargamer Girl, where Joey taught Miranda Malifaux and Miranda taught Joey Warmahordes. Miranda might be a good person to talk to about wargaming. She seems to be one of the bigger female wargaming TH-camrs.
3. Do you think that there might be a third category of wargamers - the plug and play ones (meaning, they buy pre-painted miniatures, so there is little to no "hobby" aspect to the game for them). I remember X-Wing by Fantasy Flight making a huge splash a few years ago. I suspect that the demographics for that category tends towards younger players and tend towards fewer women (because most of the women involved in wargaming that I know either got into it via painting models, or only like the "hobby" aspect of wargaming).
4. I think you are right that the age gap for distaff wargamers is a good one. Back when I got started, Dungeons and Dragons was the hobby of outcast nerds, but said nerds now have families. We have seen an increase in women playing RPG's, so I would guess that we should see more younger female players. The social stigma (always more of a concern for women than men) has been lessened to the point of disappearance, and girls could very well be introduced to wargaming theough their parents - the nerds of the '80's and '90's.
5. This affects the fantazsy/sci-fi/etc. side much more than the historical side, but I think that getting more women into wargaming should be similar to how men get into wargaming. Their coming to the hobby should be organic. I believe that if the game companies chase a potential customers by SJWing-up their games, the will lose the customers they already have. See e.g. Disney Star Wars.
Wargaming in and of itself is incredibly niche. Even when looking at the juggernauts of the industry like Games Workshop you're still only talking about maybe a few million across the globe tops. Historical wargames are a niche within a niche. Not to mention that generally speaking, women aren't as interested in war, fighting, or competition as men are. On top of this, nerdier pass times like model building, board games, card games, video games, etc etc are all far more attractive to guys than they are to gals.
At the end of the day, the way you get more women to get into the hobby is to get more people into the hobby in general, as you push the awareness of it for more people to be drawn too. I'm not a lady, but I didn't even know that wargaming was a thing until around 5 years ago and I was always a little nerd with interests in fantasy/sci-fi, video games, reading, board games, etc. Yet, it wasn't until I stumbled across videos from Beasts of War did I suddenly find myself introduced to a whole new dimension of Nerddom that I hadn't the faintest clue even existed.
My only stipulation for an fellow wargamer is that they take a shower.
During the game? Bit strange.
A very vital requirement, unfortunately. Nurgle monsters abound in city game shops no matter where I go.
@@2d6wargaming13 Gotta get into the mood for naval wargames ;P
Then watch them make a morale check at -2
I for one encourage anyone to play miniature wargames but I'm not convinced it's important who does. The lack of females in the hobby has always been glaringly apparent and I imagine over time this will not be massively altered. I was a little dismayed that women might feel inhibited or not as well received by other wargamers but then we have more than our share of 'awkward' colleagues whose social skills might not be up to scratch. The lady from Pennsylvania (?) pretty much summed up her reasons for wargaming and it could have been me describing why I game. One day you fellas need to go global and see what's happening elsewhere. Another really good episode.
In general women are interesting in people and men are interested in things. Wargames are into tactics and weapons. Look at articles on wars. It is about tactics and weapons (how to use things and things). If articles are centered on the personality of soldiers and generals, women be more interested in wargaming. There was an experiment done by researchers. Ask boys and girls to write about an alien invasion from outer space. Boys tend to write about the alien weapons and technology, while women tend to describe the experiences of the human population during the invasion,. So to get more women into wargaming, concentrate on the historical characters of history.
Excellent topic, subscribed!
Maybe its because wargaming has little to no appeal to women in general. At least that's what my wife and daughter tell me (so it must be true).
I play in Cardiff at Firestorm games, usually on a Tuesday or Thursday evening. It's a big space with sections of the room/hall being given over to different types of games. In my experience there are a fair amount of women playing roleplay games then a very small amount playing tabletop then its picks up again at the various card/board game tables. Having spent time sat waiting for friends and hearing the kind of conversations that go on on the tabletop tables I can see why a lot of women (or to be fair most sane people) avoid them. It's very confrontational and there will be a smattering of Rule Geeks around the room picking up on the wrong colour of models or use of rules. The tabletop game can be a very toxic place, you just have to search on here for people tournament experiences to see that. Like any hobby there are some deeply unpleasant men that hang out at any FLGS, unlike most hobbies though tabletop gaming will force women (in this case but really any new gamer) to interact with them (rather than being able to walk away) as tournament or journeymen leagues force interaction. Sorry if that turns out to be an incoherent ramble. I'm both ill and a new father so sleeps been at a premium recently.
I have been gaming for 50 years. Your ramble make sense to me. Finding the right mix of people to game with is a constant problem.