I loved the article about some of the designers of Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition and noticed the female names and faces credited as the minds behind this great game. I'm old and women game designers is not something I grew up nor grew old with. I am not sure what the ratio of men to women designers are with this title but, I have had an easier time getting female gamers and female non-gamers to play this game that any other game ever. A number of women in our group commented on being happy that they could play a female character and not just a female character's cleavage (I love you Jenny Barnes and Mandy Sharpe), they appreciate the depiction of women in respectful poses and the variety of female characters...

I'm turning forty right away here and I have to say my hobby has been sadly very male dominated, but times they are a changing!! I'm loving it. Women in game stores still makes me smile and catches me off guard. I sat in an watched two scenes played by an all female DND league.

I am not sure if female input and direction in this game was what helped it form into something more relatable to women or not but if that's the case. HIRE MORE OF THEM PLEASE.

Astounding Tales of Gaming with Girls

The boys at the table had too many wobbly pops during the game and looked up to realize the women at the table were single handedly running the entire show and the entire game. AWESOME and coulda heard a pin drop.

My friend's wife (at the time not a gamer) phoned me to ask if we could play mansions of madness on the weekend. I nearly lost three sanity

Came home to the ladies setting up the game and was able to snag the last seat as it began. (4 women and me the odd duck out)

The women at the table asking us boys to shut up and pay attention cuz our lack of attention was costing everyone the game. errrrrr?

Came home to my wife and her girl friend sitting in my living room having a glass of wine and discussing strategy for upcoming games

My wife building my 40th birthday party around a Mansions of Madness theme. Costumed characters of men and women getting the "in" jokes and chatting about Star Spawn and how donuts aren't even the same.

Thanks for this. Best couples game to date. Great family game!!! Nice and multi cultural too WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!!!!

Quote

I am not sure if female input and direction in this game was what helped it form into something more relatable to women or not but if that's the case. HIRE MORE OF THEM PLEASE.

Definitely agree here. Gender distribution at work in any sort of cultural or entertainment production really helps. As a comparison in quite the same field, Conan raised concerns in this shut up and sit down review for having an excluding effect. There's the argument that the designers wanted to keep the game true to Robert E. Howard's fiction, but then again they did make a choice to part from the very same genuinity when (appropriately) toning down the very dated expressions of racism. My guess as to why is that this is the team. They may be nice guys, but i think it's fair to say the gender distribution isn't in favour of interpolating different life experiences and biases. The concerns raised made me think what i reacted to in another game by another company (apart from the rules being rather rickety in some spots); Zombicide. Not only are the female zombies running around in panties, the manual have "jokes" of the "wives doesn't understand board games so we tried to make the game simple" variety. That left me less eager to play, but i had already bought it.

I sometimes gig a workshop in Nintendo Entertaintment System graphics and level design for young people. While it's open to anybody, special care is made to encourage girls - they're generally the ones who've found most enjoyment coming up with characters, graphics, maps and original ideas. I think that's so because they're filling up a vacuum of culture this way and create something for themselves when a large part of the computer/video games industry looks another way. This is much like how the punk DIY spirit can be seen as an expression for creating content that wasn't readily available. It's not even so much about some specific gendered content, as it is about being taken seriously, being seen, taking place, and getting targeted by cultural products and expressions.

I'm simply longing for the day when there won't be need for any of these posts. Beware, I'm not saying either of you said something offensive (I'm actually on your very same page), but I'd really welcome the day when people say "[NAME] is a great designer", without anyone blinking at the fact whether NAME is a male or a female, because the interesting part is that that person is a great designer. The fact that we need to talk about this, and highlight the fact that there's more women in the hobby and in the industry mean that we're noticing a change, but that we're still not accustomed to this.

In any case, the two ladies working on Mansions right now (Grace and Kara) are two brilliant minds and two marvellous persons (had the privilage to test with them a few Mansions scenarios), and I do wish we'd see them active more and more in the future, even on different game lines. Not because they are girls, but because our hobby needs visionaries that are not afraid to push boundaries and create different stories and different engines.

I love what you said about exclusive elements in other games. The comments I usually hear is that women don't notice those things . That has not been my experience. In fact I've noticed the crestfallen look on my female friends faces when a game has nothing but over sexualized bimbos in tiny pieces of armour to play, or my favourite when there is simply only on female character (Booooooo! Hisssssss!!!!) Are you kidding me?

I can handle a sexist tropes from "bygoing" eras and as far as I can tell so can most women as long as all the funny isn't directely aimed at them. Funny sexist tropes are funnier when there's one for everyone to chuckle at and if your game isn't about sexist silly characters or you don't have room for them I say, leave 'em out. Lets get some focus on making it fun and funny for everyone. If you gotta have women in their panties in your game, balance the scales. Girls like to chuckle too and its only funny when everyone gets to laugh together

Eat up that underdeveloped space ladies. Its high time we see what you guys think gaming should look like.

42 minutes ago, Julia said:

but I'd really welcome the day when people say "[NAME] is a great designer", without anyone blinking at the fact whether NAME is a male or a female, because the interesting part is that that person is a great designer.

Agreed Julia and no offence taken. To reach this point there must be more designers and more attention to their achievements till it's a new norm and therefore unremarkable. . It took 40 years for it to change enough that that my nervous system reacted. The next generation will see it differently still. My boys will grow up without it crammed down their throat in every game They will also grow up seeing women at the gaming table as over half my crew is now female They will grow up fighting alongside Mommy and Auntie's characters. They will hear good ideas and good RPG riffing coming from female players Mom's been branching out into GMing so better than average chance that more than a few Ogre and Orcish Queens will have menaced them and perhaps even the"Lich Lady of the West. RPGS and board games won't be boys toys to them just a great way to share time with friends and family

Wife and I are off to play Arkham Horror LCG as soon as the kids go to bed.

Just yesterday I was painting figures from the game while listening to some H.P audiobooks, and thought of the irony of MoM being a game which seem more relatable to women, when the works of Lovecraft can often come across as sexist (the racist parts have been mentioned enough).

To be honest, I bought the game with the expectation that you would almost always have some non-violent solution to the scenarios, and this assumption came in part because of the female designers (because I assumed this is something many women would like in a game like this.)

A slight letdown there from what I have seen so far, we already play Descent, which is great for slaying monsters, so I was hoping for some sort of 'hide' mechanism in Descent (there are the barricades ofc!).

Still, yes, it is interesting how many prejudices and preconceptions one still have when it comes to women and gaming (at least as a man who grew up when... times were different).

Raising a topic from the dead but I was enjoying it so without further ado....... Yi-nash-Yog-Sothoth-he-lgeb-fi-throdog-Yah

I just bought a new board game for five players with ONE female option. I am one of those very very lucky gaming guys that has a 3 to 1 ratio of women to men in my gaming circle, partly I suspect due to my efforts to give a **** about this kind of nonsense and a players sense of exclusion or disappointment. The 70s and 80s tradition of a token spunky female with low strength and a whip is over.

Now I have to figure out what I'm going to do, many of the women in my group are not fond of playing male characters. Me I love playing the female as it is novel and I'm never pressed into it. Its a choice. One of my transgendered gaming friends really hates this discrepancy and glares at the piece thinking "OH GREAT THIS AGAIN". It's gonna get less table time because of this seemingly small issue. The game is chosen by me to suit the compliment of attending adventurers. Games like Fury of Dracula (5 players one female) make them sit in mint condition on my shelf, while I weap gothic undead blood tears in all the shadowy places of my crypt rather than fangs beard chasing my friends around Europe. Dracula gets a pass due to story constraints but only just barely.

The ratio I always hope for is at least 2:3 female to male options and at least one "Other". Some kind fo monster or rat person? Im not picky but lets try and meet a few more of the archetypal character tropes out there.

THANKS AGAIN MANSIONS OF MADNESS TEAM. We are sleeving the game cuz the cards are getting destroyed through use. People, not just women, like options and character choice is often one of the major and sometimes ONLY real decision a game will afford you. I want games that make all my friends feel included and this one always does.

I am a practicing psychologist and I know how I feel when I am stuck playing Carolyn Fern. Big scowl! Makes gaming feel like work <Chuckle>

Some of the new options are awesome and I can see the ones coming are even more awesome, a wicked cool female combat character. I'm gonna paint it up gorgeous and watch the ladies scramble and argue over who gets to try her first. Chuckle.

If a person (player) is allowed to not be fond of playing a male character, than another person (designer) should be allowed to not be fond of designing a female character.
If it's sexist for a designer to design more male characters then it's also sexist for player to play more with female characters.

Back in the common sense realm. I prefer to play with female characters but it's easier for me to design male characters. I suppose it's just more simple for me to imagine a realistic male character due to being male myself and having male experiences I can build on. As all sexes and genders are equally valuable to me I wouldn't think that someone might have a problem with this. I was stunned when I learned that some people actually calculate the male/female ratio in games. Most Mansions of Madness characters were designed for Arkham Horror by male designers. They could be affected by a similar phenomenon.

Sexism is a discrimination on the basis of sex.
Female players who don't like male characters are sexists. This of course goes other ways too.
Players who are offended by a game having more male characters are sexists. This also goes other ways.

I have to say I agree with that sentiment tsuma534. I was rather perplexed by the comments by Bibbles both of the women in the group not wanting to play male characters (obviously sexist), when Bibbles (I want to talk to you directly but it's a bit difficult in the written media with replies and so on) is obviously conscious and purposefully trying to avoid being sexist, and then at the same time having a transgender friend in the group who was upset at the uneven gender ratio in a new board game? One might think that there we have someone who should care the least about those things? Must be some interesting social dynamics going on with the women being obviously sexist (which I don't think is a horrible offence) while having a transgender person in group? Dunno, each to their own, no offence meant. I'm just a dumb and confused shoggoth.

And speaking of, Bibbles, you want "Some kind of monster or rat person" as Investigator? If you have someone in your group that finds a shoogie or Brown Jenkins more relatable than any of the current Investigators, I fear for their sanity!

But back on track. I'm a bit sexist and prefer playing male characters, simply because the little plastic piece is supposed to represent a male. I don't mind playing female characters, but the gender of the figure weighs in on my choice of character as much as their stats and abilities (we usually draw two characters randomly for each player and they get to pick one secretly, No optimisation here!).

When we played Decent 2ed the first time, my gf immediately picked the Dwarf with a beer keg and a big axe (she likes beards sooo). My poor always-plays-the-dwarf-in-all-games friend was a bit upset! He played the halfling instead, it was not the same thing! ;D

I think it's really nice that Mansions somehow manages to appeal both to typical male geek gamers, women geek gamers and in the case of my group, even non-geek women gamers! Quite the feat!

But I think it manages this by simply embracing a bit of sexism, but applied both ways. Most women prefer playing women, and most men prefer playing men. Sexist of course, but most of us are sexist. Just look at halloween costumes. At the parties I go to, at least half the women dress up in something rather sexy when given the choice of outfit. No harm in that as long as people get to make their own decisions and do not feel forced into a role they are not comfortable with. I mean, if people were not sexist, they would not mind games were all playable characters were men.

This entire topic balances on the edge of the political issues of sjw, pc, sexism and all that, but it's interesting, even though it could tip over into the abyss at any moment i guess. I am trying to keep my input civil, and if I caused any offence I apologise in advance. It's a tricky topic, made slightly worse by not being able to speak directly to each other.

I do not agree that wanting to play with a character that somewhat represents your identity can be called sexist. Picking a look for yourself is not about how you treat others based on their appearance, but more like dressing and styling yourself. And I've never heard a man being called a sexist for not wearing a dress or a woman for not wearing a beard.

A character in a game is not a person, it is an avatar you pick for yourself. And "wearing" a character that you like to be for the time of the game can be very important for people. Heck, I've seen people get into arguments over getting "their" color of meeple. Or "their" Monopoly token. Not because they have prejudices against thimbles or wheelbarrows or the color green, but because they enjoy being able to express their own taste with their game piece.

And offering a wide range of choices can be advantageous for a game, the same way computer games can make a boatload of money just by giving people a choice of skins, costumes and accessories for their avatar. People will pay ready money to wear just that hat or turn their sword into an umbrella. Choice and individuality is a reason why people identify with and care about their game pieces. This is why they will pay to own a Star Wars themed chess game or a Game of Thrones poker deck although they are functionally identical to chess games and playing cards they already own.

Now, most people will probably not play a horrible game because of the likeable characters or refuse to play an awesome game just because the game pieces are not appealing. But this is a golden age of board games and there are much, much more great games than anyone can play. Given a choice of great games, there is nothing wrong with picking the one that offers everyone in the group someone they like to be.

5 hours ago, tsuma534 said:

If a person (player) is allowed to not be fond of playing a male character, than another person (designer) should be allowed to not be fond of designing a female character.

Yes, absolutely. Still, you have to take into account that these are different roles. A player has to take into account only their own tastes. And tastes differ. A designer has to take into account the tastes of a wide variety of possible players.

It is as if you say that if a customer is allowed not to be fond of chocolate cake, strawberry ice cream or Planter's Punch, a business should be allowed to limit itself to only one kind of cake, ice cream or cocktail. Of course it should! But the owner at the "Planter's Punch Only" cocktail bar has no right to be mad if people take their business to the competing "Cocktails for every taste" cocktail bar. And there is competition nowadays. Lots and lots of it. And potential customers come in a staggering variety of age, sex, body type, skin color, gender, culture, wealth, sexual orientation, needs, ethnic groups, life styles and tastes. It is plain good business sense to take that into account.

What Samea said. The fact that male or female should prefer or not playing with this or that character is not sexist per se, because a character could be seen as a neutral entity (it's a bunch of numbers on a card), could be seen as someone cool whose adventures you'd love to live (so, sex doesn't matter either), could be seen as an alternative yourself (and then you might wanna mantain your sexual identiy. Or not). There's a ton of reasons why you could be willing to pick this or that character, so, it's not sexist per se. But it's the duty of a company to guarantee inclusion. FFG in general is good at this, both in terms of equality in number of female and male characters, and in terms of representing, when possible, the heterogeneity of our society. I'd personally love to see even more variety in characters, with specific religious traits being portrayed, and different sexual orientations (something that's finally happening slowly in some games, but it's still very shady).

I don't even tend to allow my group to pick characters. Especially in games where player power comes into consideration. I don't like for someone to learn how to abuse any given power that one might have over another. I basically take the characters and make them roll a die at random to determine who they are going to be. That being said I do agree that a good balance of gender roles can help to bridge the choices available to those who want to put themselves into the mindset of the story.

Though 'inclusion' is of course a positive thing, having a specific demographic in mind is pretty much a must when designing a product. If your chosen demographic is "everyone", you will need to have a pretty awesome product.
Games, be they board games, pc/consol or otherwise, are a form of escapism, and that means what appeals to some might not appeal to others. For example, being the sexist I am, I would think that Descent 2d is aimed more towards the typical gamer male than any other demographic, due to the game-play basically being "Diablo 2 the board game", and the majority of people who got hooked on Diablo 2 were male gamers.

MoM2ed is aimed more towards people who like Lovecraft and co-op board games, and there they wouldn't really have any reason to expect a noticeable divide in appeal between the genders (except that board gaming in general is a bit more common among males), so it makes perfect sense to try and appeal to both.
But when it comes to sexual identity, 'inclusion' is as said a good thing, but reading the wikipedia page on homosexuality, I see one study from 2006 that found that between 2-3% of the population identifies as gay, and a study from from 2013 by the CDC put the number of gays and lesbians at 1.6% and bis at 0.7%. Some other studies have found higher numbers, but still.
Those low number fit my experience pretty well (and I live in Sweden, one of the most homo-friendly places in the world). I have a few hundred friends on fb (I only befriend people on fb that I have met IRL at talked to, and preferably shared some fun experience with too), and... hmmm.... 4 are gay. It's not all that common to be fair.

When it comes to playable characters, unless they make the sexual identity of a given character explicit (with a backstory like "Butch Buchannon, the handsome and roguish smuggler. His demeanor is excessively male, and he lives for the thrill of getting into bed with a new woman every night") every character is available to those who identify as gay, lesbian or even trans. I mean, only one of my male gay friends acts in a feminine way, so an explicitly gay character really is appealing to a minority within a tiny minority.

What I'm trying to say is that including a character that is explicitly gay is excluding towards everyone that is not comfortable identifying as gay, while just leaving the sexual leaning of the characters open leaves them appealing to everyone. And given the demographic, I don't see how explicitly appealing to gays instead of to everyone would make sense?

This is a family adventure game. I doubt that sexuality of any kind will ever be explicitly mentioned.

More to the point, all characters are portrayed as daring investigators of the occult, any kinds of love interests, partners or spouses remain mostly unmentioned. Even if there is a relationship in some background, like between Mark Harrigan and Sophie, it remains vague — from what is explicitly said in most places, Sophie could have been Mark's wife, lover, sister, childhood friend or pen pal. And investigators are always shown as equals, colleagues and allies against the Mythos, never in context of any romantic (or, for that matter, personal) relationship. Every Disney movie goes farther than this.

Of course, when you are emptying a drum magazine into some otherworldly horror while running and screaming in terror, it doesn't really matter how queeer or straight you are. And that means that if it matters to you, you can imagine the love life of your character any way you want.

And I bet somewhere on the Internet, there exists AH slash fiction.

BTW just read this article . Apparently, other game companies also realized that there are lots of potential customers that happen to not identify as straight white males. Who'd a thunk it?

Always happy when there is an effort to bring the hobby I love to a wider audience. ?

An interesting post and series of discussions that has followed. My wife Board Games with us, which was new for me, as she was the first woman I personally knew, who liked to do so. Given that Eldritch Horror was our first game, followed by Arkham Horror, Mage Knight, Game of Thrones 2nd edition and Zombicide Black Plague. I think the majority of all those games have allowed her not only to choose between a host of male and female characters, but quality ones at that. I suppose I had not even thought about the fact that at some point I will encounter a game that either has only male characters, or has limited female options. Looking at the games we have coming up, Dead of Winter, Cosmic Enocunter, Game of Thrones Catan and Arkham Horror the Living Card Game, I don't believe this will be an issue for us either. Clearly FFG seems to have taken the step of having more choices, at least in Arkham and quality choices at that. When I choose a character, I am looking at stats and what I want to accomplish, so the gamer in me is more about winning with whichever character best fits my strategies. Guess we are just entering a solid period of inclusivity, such that I was not even aware that it was occurring.

On 12/15/2017 at 3:43 PM, Samea said:

On 12/15/2017 at 9:50 AM, tsuma534 said:

If a person (player) is allowed to not be fond of playing a male character, than another person (designer) should be allowed to not be fond of designing a female character.

Yes, absolutely. Still, you have to take into account that these are different roles. A player has to take into account only their own tastes. And tastes differ. A designer has to take into account the tastes of a wide variety of possible players.

That's a good argument. I would just replace "has to" with "should" or "would be wise to" and it would be a great argument.

On 12/15/2017 at 3:43 PM, Samea said:

I do not agree that wanting to play with a character that somewhat represents your identity can be called sexist.

If a person discriminates on the basis of sex, it's sexism. That's just what that word means. That's not necessarily bad as a fictional characters don't have feelings that could be hurt.
Basically any choice where sex is a criterion is a sexist choice. But we most often use this word for it's negative connotations so I'll try to clarify myself with that in mind - not what is sexist but rather what makes sense.
Wanting to play with a character that somewhat represents your identity is perfectly fine.
Buying a game without verifying whether it fits your gaming group is unreasonable in most cases.
Unnecessarily limiting your game's target audience is unreasonable.

20 hours ago, Julia said:

equality in number of female and male characters

That's one thing that always puzzled me. Why it's the number that's important? Why do you put quantity over quality?
For example, in my opinion, male characters are heavily underrepresented in Eldritch Horror*. I would sometimes like to play with a male character for change but many of them just suck.
Statistics seem to confirm it. 7 out of 8 most effective characters are females. 6 out of 8 least effective characters are males. I think it's ridiculous.
But then I keep hearing how Eldritch Horror has more males than females. It does. But, at the same time, it has more playable females than males.

* I do remember it's a Mansions of Madness forum but we hove gone far into offtopic many posts ago.

13 minutes ago, tsuma534 said:

That's one thing that always puzzled me. Why it's the number that's important? Why do you put quantity over quality?
For example, in my opinion, male characters are heavily underrepresented in Eldritch Horror*. I would sometimes like to play with a male character for change but many of them just suck.
Statistics seem to confirm it. 7 out of 8 most effective characters are females. 6 out of 8 least effective characters are males. I think it's ridiculous.
But then I keep hearing how Eldritch Horror has males than females. It does. But, at the same time, it has more playable females than males.

* I do remember it's a Mansions of Madness forum but we hove gone far into offtopic many posts ago.

So it was not just me that noticed this! I was a bit annoyed at this when I tried out Eldritch Horror. My initial thought was: "If someone released a game with about 50/50 men and women character, but made the women characters suck and the male ones be awesome, people would be outraged. So how can this be reasonable?"

To me that issue in Eldritch Horror felt like a case of pc going overboard. In an effort to make the game appealing to women, they made sure the female characters were all fun to play, with the result that the females are much better than the males. Though i don't think it was done maliciously, but it still suck for those of us who prefer to play male characters.

2 hours ago, totgeboren said:

So it was not just me that noticed this! I was a bit annoyed at this when I tried out Eldritch Horror. My initial thought was: "If someone released a game with about 50/50 men and women character, but made the women characters suck and the male ones be awesome, people would be outraged. So how can this be reasonable?"

To me that issue in Eldritch Horror felt like a case of pc going overboard. In an effort to make the game appealing to women, they made sure the female characters were all fun to play, with the result that the females are much better than the males. Though i don't think it was done maliciously, but it still suck for those of us who prefer to play male characters.

While I hear what you are saying, nobody in our group drew that connection. I did not even know there were more females than males, or even make a distinction as to how much more/less useful they were compared to one another. Sometimes decisions are made and folks just enjoy what is presented without even thinking about things until other point them out. I like that I was playing a game that was more diverse than normal and didn't notice this. I am not sure I understand the point somebody else made about not considering dynamics when choosing a game for the group. I always choose whatever game I think we will enjoy based on the mechanics. Not sure anybody we play with cares all that much about the rest as we just play the games and have fun. To each their own.

7 minutes ago, tsuma534 said:

Basically any choice where sex is a criterion is a sexist choice.

I disagree. Sexism is about prejudice and discrimination, that is the textbook definition. That is not the same as treating people differently.

People are different in many ways and may have different needs and tastes. Treating all people equally is different from treating all people the same way. To treat different people in an equal way, you have to acknowledge and accommodate their differences.

For example: You design a kick-*** t-shirt that lots of people want to wear. Now, you could say that it is fair to offer only one size for everyone — everyone gets the same amount of t-shirt for the same price, everyone gets an exactly identical product, so nobody could complain, right? But in the real world, people are different in size and body shape. Actually the best way to give everyone the exact same t-shirt experience would be to manufacture a bespoke shirt for every single person according to their individual measurements. So, a scenario where probably no two people get the same shirt would result in everyone having an equally fitting shirt.

So, paying two people different wages for doing the exactly same job: Sexist, because based on prejudice. Treating two people for the same ailment with different medication, based on their different biological makeups: Not sexist because accounting for actual differences.

---

Also, as you say, a character in a book, film or game is not a real person. It has no rights whatsoever, it exists only for the benefit of the audience/players. Most stories exist on the premise that it is perfectly fine to do whatever you want to a character. When playing MoM, we are not acting immorally when we send out investigators into dangerous situations just to see how good we can do or how the story ends or just to have fun.

So when you pick a character, you do not have to like it like you would a person. It does not have a personality or feelings you have to respect. It exists only for you. Picking a characters is not like picking friends, it is really like picking t-shirts. They have to fit your requirements and tastes and way you want to represent yourself.

The same way different people will want different t-shirt sizes because of their differences, people will identify with different characters because of their different tastes. And just as picking a t-shirt that fits my size perfectly is not discrimination against other t-shirt sizes, picking a character that is most to my liking is not in itself discriminating against other people's choices.

---

Given a selection of somethings, everyone will take their favorite pick — of clothes, of ice cream, of movies, of characters. Sexists are people, too, they will do so, too. But having a personal preference does not automatically exclude respect for other preferences. This is the difference between liking strawberry ice cream and thinking that everyone who likes lemon ice cream instead is a barbarous heathen who should choke on his devil-lemons, while your strawberry-loving friend Mary is a fine person despite her unfortunate puppy-strangling habits.

2 hours ago, tsuma534 said:

Statistics seem to confirm it. 7 out of 8 most effective characters are females. 6 out of 8 least effective characters are males. I think it's ridiculous.

I don't know Eldritch Horror very well. But I know statistics.

Just take a look at the first 2 "best" characters: Luke Robinson with 67% victories and Ursula Downs with 65%. Does that mean that Luke is slightly better than Ursula? Well, it could. But for Ursula, we have results from over 1200 games, for Luke only from around 200. So can we trust Luke's 67% to the same degree that we can trust Ursula's 65%?

Also, Ursula came with the first expansion, Luke years after that. So perhaps people played Ursula when they were pretty new to the game, but played Luke with years of experience. Generally, female characters had around 1000 games on average, male characters around 800, so perhaps players have just more experience with the girl 'gators than with the boys. Also, on average all female chars win in 57.4% of these games and males on 54.7%, which is not really that far apart.

And these statistics do not account for a lot of factors. When where the characters played by whom in what constellation in which scenarios with which expansions available and which included? Any of those factors could influence chance of success, independent of the investigators' sex. It could just as well be that the investigator's stats and ability have much less influence on the outcome of a game than the skill of the player.

---

That is not to say that there is nothing to it. The data do not discount the possibility that there is a direct relationship between investigator sex and chance of success. But this is far from being proof . For that you had to find a way to exclude the other factors as much as possible and then gather statistical data in context of this hypothesis.

But even if there was a direct association between investigator sex and probability of winning, I would question, how noticeable the effect would be while playing the game. Even if the statistics here were absolutely accurate and Wendy did reliably win 6 out of 10 games and Norman only 5 out of 10, how many games would you have to play before you even knew the difference?

3 hours ago, totgeboren said:

In an effort to make the game appealing to women, they made sure the female characters were all fun to play, with the result that the females are much better than the males. Though i don't think it was done maliciously, but it still suck for those of us who prefer to play male characters.

This is plain conspiracy theory.

1) The statistics are no proof that male characters are worse than female characters.

2) Even if they were, there is no proof that this would be by design. Whenever you divide a sample into arbitrary categories, there are bound to be differences.

3) Even if there was an agenda to make the game more attractive to female gamers (and less attractive for male ones), this would be a pretty dumb way to do it — this "feature" is advertised nowhere and you'd have to play for a long time and through different expansions to even notice it (if it would exist). I'd guess that someone who has gotten this far is already into this game anyways and needs no further encouragement.

Now, again, I admit that I don't really know Eldritch Horror that well. But I can see no arguments here that would convince me of the idea of a secret plot to spoil a game for half of the customer base just for the heck of it, but that at the same time is so insidious that you can only notice its effects if you tilt your head, squint your eyes and look at some numbers juuuuust the right way. Frankly, put this way, this sounds ridiculous.

I think the issue with delving into the Eldritch Horror statistics is they are completely unscientific. Shoot, the 57.4 to 54.7 statistics are within the common margin of error. While I like looking at those numbers as an aid, they are in no way indicative to anything definitive. Our party generally has two males and one female, there has been no difference in games where it was 2 males and one female or two people used females to the one male. In fact, we only play one expansion and therefore a limited number of available characters each game, which further skews our numbers as we have never consistently had the same number of investigators from game to game. S

Still I love the discussions had here and the ability to discuss things without anybody getting angry. It is a welcome change of pace.

36 minutes ago, Samea said:

This is plain conspiracy theory.

1) The statistics are no proof that male characters are worse than female characters.

2) Even if they were, there is no proof that this would be by design. Whenever you divide a sample into arbitrary categories, there are bound to be differences.

3) Even if there was an agenda to make the game more attractive to female gamers (and less attractive for male ones), this would be a pretty dumb way to do it — this "feature" is advertised nowhere and you'd have to play for a long time and through different expansions to even notice it (if it would exist). I'd guess that someone who has gotten this far is already into this game anyways and needs no further encouragement.

Now, again, I admit that I don't really know Eldritch Horror that well. But I can see no arguments here that would convince me of the idea of a secret plot to spoil a game for half of the customer base just for the heck of it, but that at the same time is so insidious that you can only notice its effects if you tilt your head, squint your eyes and look at some numbers juuuuust the right way. Frankly, put this way, this sounds ridiculous.

You misunderstand me, and perhaps I should have phrased myself a bit more carefully.

For me to think there was some sort of conspiracy, there has to be a hidden agenda, which I don't think there is. There is an explicit agenda to make board games more appealing to women. I just thought that perhaps the designers were careful not to make the female characters 'boring' or 'bad' or 'stereotypical' to play, simply because the characters were female.
That is, I mean that it was not a conscious decision, but perhaps the good intention to make women feel that female characters are as able and appropriate for the epic adventures the games are supposed to represent meant that a bit of extra attention was given when designing these characters, even if it wasn't done consciously and definitely not maliciously.

The thought was basically a spin on the phenomena that for example fear of being regarded a racist can make people treat other ethnicities by a lower standard than they would otherwise do. Like, it's the best of intentions behind the behavior, and it's not conscious, but the end result is a systematic deviation from 'fair' treatment.

But it could just be random chance too.

Statistics really means nothing. I never lost a game against Rhan-Tegoth when playing Arkham Horror, but I lost games against "easier" Ancient Ones. And in Arkham Horror, I'm on my way to win against every Ancient One - Herald combo with a completely randomic party every time, to prove that all characters have a fair chance against the Mythos. My win-loss record with Omens of the Deep (Elder Sign) is 100% victories, and yet players struggle to decrypt that expansion. And in Mansions I think I've lost one game over more than 60 played. Does this mean these games are too easy to the point they are broken? Or does this mean that my knowledge of the games is solid? Or that I cheat the H_ell out of my bum? Statistics would be significant if we had a representative sample of values collected from the same player pools having all the same skill level.

4 hours ago, totgeboren said:

You misunderstand me, and perhaps I should have phrased myself a bit more carefully.

Ok, I get, what you are saying.

Still, there is no proof that there even is an effect. We have no idea where these statistics come from and if they are representative of the game in any way. Even if they were up to standards, they would only be able to suggest a hypothesis that would need further statistical testing to be rejected or accepted.

From what was said here so far, I don't know that female investigators in EH actually are overpowered. A discussion of reasons why they are overpowered would be based on assumptions.

47 minutes ago, Julia said:

And in Mansions I think I've lost one game over more than 60 played.

Me and my gf must really suck at this game. We most often play just the two of us (though a few four and five player games too), but we win like.... half? A third?