A look at the prevalence and effects of sexism in tabletop RPGs, such as DandD. How are female players and their characters treated by their male counterparts during a game session? How does this differ from a female character played by a male player, if at all? Some women who play RPGs have gone to certain lengths to avoid sexism during game play, such as forming all-female leagues. How is extreme sexism that wouldn't otherwise be tolerated in everyday life by male players justified during a game? There are many routes this could go, but it is, I feel, a fascinating subject with many points that could be taken away by various audiences.
I would definitely read an essay on this topic. I wonder how a person would go about getting the information, though. Are there internet discussion boards on the topic? Or existing articles? Or some other easy-to-access resource? Ideally, interviews or observations -- I'd love to play some D&D and call it "field ethnography"! -- would be be used, but that would take a lot of time and effort. – JamesBKelley7 years ago
^ The idea originally sparked for me when I was reading a discussion thread on reddit between female RPGers, so I expect there will be online discussions or people who would be willing to talk about their experiences with someone exploring the topic. I see your point, though. Some time and effort will definitely need to be put into finding reliable sources of information. – Analot7 years ago
As always 'Critical Role is' a great show to look at for these discussions. Currently voice director Sam Riegel is playing a female character - a goblin rogue, and so far it has been very interesting and very respectful. I agree that finding authoritative sources will be difficult, but if you developed your own case study based on observations from different shows currently available through YouTube or Twitch and then as Analot observed, look at the discussions in Reddit this would make for a really interesting piece. – SaraiMW7 years ago