Marc W. Miller co-founded Game Designers' Workshop and was the lead designer of the first successful science-fiction role-playing game, Traveller (1977). People still play it.
In 1979, Miller was asked to submit thoughts on role-playing games to the new magazine Different Worlds (#1). In this short, reflective piece, he made one of his main points about "the subject of sexism in gaming." He wrote,
Wargames (by that, I mean the boardgame end of the wargaming spectrum) are generally played by males; women simply aren't interested. Fantasy role-playing games are an entirely new field, and don't yet have the barriers to women that the other games do. I think it's very important to keep the FRP field open to women, and that means an almost conscious effort on the part of designers. If you look at modern fantasy literature, you can easily find women working and fighting as central characters, not as hangers-on. Such activity is rarely historical, but it is a reflection of what modern fantasy is. I think that role-playing games should reflect this as well. All it needs is a simple caution that the roles covered need not be restricted by gender, and some attention to pronouns throughout the game.
I think Miller's remarks, published just five years after the appearance of Dungeons & Dragons, speak for themselves. What is more surprising, perhaps, is how forty-one years later, this is still an issue, though much less egregiously than it was then. I think Miller's prescription for change is a good one. I'm sure that other means of inclusion are possible, too, but this was a good start at a time when the great majority of players were male. Notice that Miller puts the burden on game designers who require conscious effort to resist sexism.
I think his main point was right on. However much our real lives bind us in social roles we inherited, fantasy can be a response to sexism.
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