alternatehistory.com

I've been watching Netflix's Montauk for the first time ever, and it gave me a what-if idea: For those that don't know, Montauk has as central characters a group of female friends that are trying to find their missing member, Winona. Since it's set in the 80's, and sells itself as an homage to the culture of the very same, the show of course introduces the group while they're playing a Pen & Paper campaign that one of them, Mary, has written. True to the attitudes of the time, or at least playing to the tropes, when Eleven, the strange boy they find while on their hunt, struggles to communicate something to them (he has a very limited vocabulary due to the conditions he was raised in), Dustanne tries to offer him an analogy from their lore book, to which Lucy objects "Boys don't play P&P, dummy."

While a few boys back then did play P&P and systems like it, the threat of being accused to be effeminate by classmates kept it very limited. How might roleplaying have evolved if the hobby was more gender-neutral, or even slanted towards boys? Wargames have been around for centuries, and were obviously dominated by boys, might a different form of P&P, perhaps focused much more specifically on combat, have grown out of these?
Top