My 2 cents follow.

The TML and Traveller are, alas, pretty much a boy's club.  It's in the nature of the game itself to some extent; lots of statistical information on weapons and an emphasis on structural mechanics has a tendency to appeal to young men more than young women.  The habit of building a complex, technically detailed fantasy life when "playing solo" was something I, personally, developed as a socially outcast male teenager.  Girls at that age are likely to indulge somewhat differently structured fantasy lives, even as fewer of them are totally without social circles.

That's a gross generalization of course; there are plenty of young women interested in such things, but statistics are what they are.  It's also an American game, generally, and in the US there has been an unfortunate trend towards girls being discouraged from math and science while boys are encouraged.

Fortunately that is changing.  What has also changed is the increasing female fandom of Dr. Who, Firefly, Buffy, and similar genre shows which have better balanced gender appeal and strong characters of both sexes.  Social media makes it easier to get together for those fans.  More girl gamers means more games made by girls, and that slowly seems to be penetrating the RPG market, even as its pretty much stagnant in overall appeal.

I have several women in my role playing group, but found Traveller to not be the most popular setting or system with this group; we tend to play GURPS, sometimes even GURPS Traveller, and the role-play de-emphasizes combat or mechanics-heavy interactions in favor of inter-character (PC and NPC) interviews, socializing, investigating, etc.  The stings tend to be near-future or present day.  Instead off technology, the campaigns feature supers or psionics.  No one in the group would ever think of 'hitting on' a fellow player, but then we've pretty much known each other just this side of forever, and tend to be married, or there's an old/young thing going on, etc.  Note that this does not prevent the possibility of *character* relationships being role-played.

I don't know if these are the features that would appeal in general to female gamers, obviously my sample size is too small.

Personally, I found the pelvic mount plasma gun hilarious, but not something I would implement in-game.  Too blatant :)

Pete

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxxx@simplelists.com [mailto:xxxxxx@simplelists.com] On Behalf Of The Sayat Menace
Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2015 2:38 PM
To: xxxxxx@simplelists.com
Subject: [TML] Why I hate Traveller

Below.

I met this game and this 'universe' a long time ago. It was always a boys' thing. I dealt. We all did, those who had to deal.

Twenty years ago I proposed the Pelvic-Mount Plasma Gun, well within the scope of the rules at the time. I thought it was a shake-up, a hard josh, or at least an elbow-jostle, to the 'trend' at the time. I was wrong: I was already a crazy loony alone thing. That wasn't a 'trend'. It was REALITY.

SICK MEN. That's what "Traveller"(TM etc) means to me now.

-----Original Message-----
>From: Jeffrey Schwartz <xxxxxx@gmail.com>
>Sent: Feb 5, 2015 7:55 AM
>To: tml <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
>Subject: [TML] Something for the ship's locker...
>
>http://science-beta.slashdot.org/story/15/02/04/1821207/tp-82-the-gun-c
>osmonauts-carried-on-space-missions
>-----
>The Traveller Mailing List
>Archives at http://archives.simplelists.com/tml
>Report problems to xxxxxx@travellercentral.com To unsubscribe from
>this list please goto http://archives.simplelists.com

-----
The Traveller Mailing List
Archives at http://archives.simplelists.com/tml
Report problems to xxxxxx@travellercentral.com To unsubscribe from this list please goto http://www.simplelists.com/confirm.php?u=wXekShxmSVTCu4b6cEpJiEmQkxdtG2ht