Confessions of a Part-time Sorceress: Most Retarded Book Ever?

[Person_Man]

OK, this just made me laugh (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/dndacc/215407400).


Confessions of a Part-time Sorceress is a smart, humorous examination of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game from a female gamer's point of view. The book delves into the myths and realities of gamer stereotypes. It explains how to build a character for a D&D game, how to shop for gear, how to play, and how to find the perfect gaming group, all the while exploring the things that make the D&D game a rewarding and recurring social experience for both men and women.

I asked the three women in my gaming group what they thought of this, and they told me that they found it retarded, patronizing, and funny (in a sad way). Sorta like making a Barbie video game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbie_%28video_game%29) in an attempt to draw more girls into playing Nintendo. It's like a Player's Handbook, except written in such a way that "women will get it." Brilliant!

I'll be the first to admit that D&D, like comics, sports, and computers, tends to be dominated by men. But last time I checked, the women I know who enjoy "male gendered" activities don't need a special book to tell them how to play them. And when I worked as a social worker (a "female gendered" occupation) before getting into my current line of work, no one had to give me a special book on how men can do "a woman's occupation."

But hey, I'm just a guy. So maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm missing something.

Discuss.

[Zincorium]

Yeah, I don't the book would help any of the female gamers I've played with, and given that it's going to be associated with D&D, I don't think it's going to reach the audience that actually would benefit.

[Merlin the Tuna]

I don't see it as a book for D&D players, really. I picture it as a book designed to reach out to the general populace as an interesting read, rather than a book for already-gamers looking to get a laugh -- and I don't necessarily doubt it will fail at that, either. At any rate, it seems to have the kind of Jane Goodall approach that may cause the curious to pick it up, if only to see just how ridiculous gaming really is.

Cover art's nifty too, even despite the fact that it looks like it was designed to be attractive to 13 year old girls. That one of the review quotes is from a YA Librarian is hardly surprising. (Though the fact that the others are from D&Ders notable almost solely for being D&Ders is a bit strange, if troubling.)

[Ralfarius]

If you don't like it, you could always get Dungeons and Dragons FOR DUMMIES.

Yeah.

[Mr Pants]

Seems silly to me
Hell, when i first saw it i thought it was a joke

[DrummingDM]

I actually ordered this for my wife a few weeks back. She's a D&D player, but only because I've indoctrinated her into it. We game with some good friends, who have been more-than-willing to show her the ropes, but I have no doubt that a woman who understood the rules could have explained them to her in a way that would have made infinately more sense to her. Things that guys take for granted in the rules, she scrunches up her nose and has to look over twice before she gets it.

I'm actually looking forward to reading the book, personally. If only to see the game from a female perspective, to help me tailor my game in a way that is more accessable for my wife (and for one of my player's wives who I suspect is getting more and more curious about what we're doing at her house every other session).

As for the cover art...it's not aimed at "13 year old girls" as Merlin the Tuna said - it's done in the style of "Chick Lit" cover art. My wife reads all these books about successfull, assertive, independent women who have all sort of messed up love lives and a great group of supportive, just-as-messed-up friends. (I'm paraphrasing with an obvious bias, of course ;)), and all the books have similarly styled cover art to Confessions. And I can assure you, those books are geared squarely at women in their early-to-mid 20's.

[AKA_Bait]

I might read it. It's really impossible to tell if a book like this is drivel or pretty good without actually reading the book.

[Tengu]

I can't help but think of this article (http://www.tasteslikephoenix.com/articles/women.html) (already mentioned several days ago). Especially this part:

Don't -- and we can't emphasize this enough -- assume that just because a woman is not familiar with roleplaying, that she is incapable of learning it. Computer game manufacturers have made this mistake time and again when trying to market to young girls. When girls didn't buy shoot/beat-em-up games like Quake and Mortal Kombat, the manufacturers assumed they were too fast-moving or hard to learn. In response, they put out games designed especially for girls, where instead of shooting gore-dripping monsters, they shot at fluffy marshmallow bunnies.
Needless to say, these failed miserably. Purple Moon Games then actually asked girls why they didn't play the other games. Not a single girl had found them too hard, but every one had found them too pointless.
Similarly, we have yet to meet a woman who couldn't learn an RPG because it was "too complicated." However, we have met many who never bothered to learn the combat system, even after years of gaming, because it didn't interest them and they could always ask someone else in the group.
In our own experience, there was a point when Chris tried to get Jenny interested in AD&D after she'd done Shadowrun and Vampire, and began explaining the system. She said, "I don't get it." Patiently, he started re-explaining it, and she said, "No, no, I heard you. I just don't get why anybody plays like this when you can have a success-based system that makes combat go faster, uses one kind of dice for everything so you don't have to memorize it all, and has a definitive scale that tells you what the numbers mean in real-life terms."

[Crazy_Uncle_Doug]

Hmmm ... I'll have to bounce this off the women in my group. See what they think with their varying viewpoints.

[Dragonmuncher]

Hm... depends on its tone, I suppose.

If it's something like, "Well, you know how you need to find the exact shade of lipstick before you go out dancing? Choosing your gear before an adventure is just like that!" Then... it's stupid.

If it's a little more tounge-in-cheek, more of a book ABOUT D&D, instead of just an instruction manual, then it might be interesting or amusing.


You haven't read it, right Person_Man? You were just talking about impressions based on that page. Wasn't quite clear on that.


I found this quote from the page a little suspect:


“I had some gamer friends over the other day flipping through the [book], and they were all laughing their heads off. My husband and I have also enjoyed reading bits of it out loud to each other. . . . .”
—Spring Lea Henry, library consultant and former editor of YAttitudes, ALA’s journal for YA librarians

That could either be a good or a bad thing. And Monte Cook gave his endorsement, so I'm at least inclined not to dismiss it entirely...

[DeathQuaker]

My female-gamer-indignation meter is rising rapidly.

I know I shouldn't pass judgement until I get a chance to read some of it, but at a glance, it does indeed look like crap.

The cover art especially makes me want to puke. This is Dungeons and Freaking Dragons, not "The Devil Wears Prada."

Here's my book about getting girls to game:

1. Don't feature games where the males are all heroes and females are all victims.

2. When a woman asks about gaming, don't stare at her boobs, look at her like she's crazy, or speak to her in a patronizing way, or write obviously patronizing books about getting her to game.

3. Be respectful.

And they all lived happily ever after.

THE END

[AKA_Bait]

Yeah, I didn't get the impression from the blub that was linked that this was a book really aimed at getting female gamers into D&D. More that it was a book written by a female gamer about playing that is reasonably funny.

If it were 'the players handbook for XX chromosomes' I'd be ready to mock it off the bat since it doesn't seem to be from the blurb I'm not going to dismiss it so quickly.

Of course... none of us have actually read the thing, I think, so this is kinda silly.

[Name_Here]

Eh I don't know it might be a good read for me because getting the women around me to even consider playing in my campaign has been one of the most maddingly hit or miss undertakings ever and I can never quite tell why exactly they don't want to play.

Take my campaign over the summer. I was a little low on players so I asked my co-workers if they wanted to play. The females ran the gamut from slightly interested but ignorant of even the basics of what and RPG is to dismissing the idea outright. I tried explaining the point of the game, how the game was played and various other concepts about the game and failed utterly. So utterly infact that about a mounth later one of the women I had spent time explaining the game was actually shocked when it came out that there were published rules for Dungeons and Dragons.

[Jerthanis]

Uh... I reconsidered my post

[Starbuck_II]

My female-gamer-indignation meter is rising rapidly.

I know I shouldn't pass judgement until I get a chance to read some of it, but at a glance, it does indeed look like crap.

The cover art especially makes me want to puke. This is Dungeons and Freaking Dragons, not "The Devil Wears Prada."

Don't diss the Devil wears Prada. Great movie. But as a guy maybe it might be different to girls. I liked the plot personally.


Here's my book about getting girls to game:

1. Don't feature games where the males are all heroes and females are all victims.

2. When a woman asks about gaming, don't stare at her boobs, look at her like she's crazy, or speak to her in a patronizing way, or write obviously patronizing books about getting her to game.

3. Be respectful.

And they all lived happily ever after.

THE END

Might work. Though, isn't it condensending to assume that a guy might look at a girl's boobs. Than again, some guys might.

[bosssmiley]

What a putrid, meretricious piece of cover art. Looks like a placeholder.

"...gaming from a girl's perspective."

*eyeroll*

"...she advances fearlessly on the mostly male bastion of Dungeons & Dragons and comes through it with nary a scratch on her."

What utter drivel! An acceptable prejudice to hold in the '80s. :smallfurious:

"Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress will be the first official product to bear the new 4th Edition logo..." (from the D&D September previews page (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4pr/20070905a)).

*facepalm* What a way to poison the well.

And as for calling this overblown Cosmo' article a "D&D Supplement"; WOTC should be ashamed of themselves. It's a publicity puff aimed at an under-exploited market segment and nothing more. I note there's no "Discuss this in the WOTC forums" link on the page either. :smallannoyed:

Hey Shelly Mazzanoble, here's an alternative view for you, and it comes from a real gamer, not some slumming magazine writer:

We are gamers. We game. Our dice and minis don't care how soft or rough the hand that handles them is, or what colour it is, or who's hand it holds when not gaming: nor should we. The quality of your gameplay is the only meaningful discriminator among our kind. Anyone who things otherwise in 2007 is ridiculously behind the times. :smallmad:

[Fixer]

Might work. Though, isn't it condensending to assume that a guy might look at a girl's boobs. Than again, some guys might.
Even those of us who have learned to look straight into a woman's eyes while also looking at their boobs are looking at their boobs.

At this point the 'woman-starved teenage boy gamer' stereotype is just as done as the 'fluffy bunnies and Barbie dreamset girl gamer' stereotype. Neither is really accurate any more. When I was a teenager myself my friends (not me) were definitely ladies' men. (I was socially awkward, I will admit, but still managed to get dates every now and then and was never as bad as just staring at boobs.)

The target audience of the book is women who do not play RPGs, probably will never want to play an RPG, have heard about RPGs and want to know what the hell the whole thing is about enough to understand what they hear some people talking about and are too proud to admit the subject is one they are ignorant. This is likely not a book directed at people who would come here and read this board: i.e. gamers who know a thing or two.

[AKA_Bait]

What a putrid, meretricious piece of cover art. Looks like a placeholder.

"...gaming from a girl's perspective."

*eyeroll*

"...she advances fearlessly on the mostly male bastion of Dungeons & Dragons and comes through it with nary a scratch on her."

What utter drivel! :smallfurious:

And as for calling this overblown Cosmo' article a "D&D Supplement"; WOTC should be ashamed of themselves. It's a publicity puff aimed at an under-exploited market segment and nothing more. I note there's no "Discuss this in the WOTC forums" link on the page either. :smallannoyed:

Hey Shelly Mazzanoble, here's an alternative view for you, and it comes from a real gamer, not some slumming magazine writer:


Might I suggest restraining our vitriol against a book until after reading it?

Sure, the cover art looks like a hundered other female marketed novels. So? I have a recollection of this saying about books and covers...

One other thing, do you know Ms. Mazzanoble? Do you know she's a 'slumming magazine writer' rather than a magazine writer who also happens to play D&D after being introduced to it by friends? I don't and I'm not going to assume either thing until I've actually read the friggin book or met the lady.

[bosssmiley]

Fair point AKA_bait. I'll wipe the foam from my chops now. :smallsmile:

Sorry, but I see no need for this book, other than it being a marketing tool. There have been well written explorations of gamer culture before (and they placed gaming in its wider social context). This just seems like a puff piece. :smallconfused:

[AKA_Bait]

Sorry, but I see no need for this book, other than it being a marketing tool. There have been well written explorations of gamer culture before (and they placed gaming in its wider social context). This just seems like a puff piece. :smallconfused:

I see no need for that 900th biography of Abe Lincoln, (the one from the gay/female/minority perspective, you know which dozen I mean) either. But hey, some of those are enjoyable reads that might say something the others didn't. Can't really know until reading the book.

Is it partially a marketing tool? Sure it is. So are the various D&D novels by and large imho. I don't see the problem with that really. WotC is a major company, therefore they market and try to expand their customer base. What's the problem here?

[Dausuul]

There's a review here (http://www.timewastersguide.com/review/1587/Confessions-of-a-Part-Time-Sorceress), for what it may be worth. (An actual review, not a publicity piece from WotC...)

[tainsouvra]

I'll be the first to admit that D&D, like comics, sports, and computers, tends to be dominated by men. This is actually a minor stumbling block for me. Up until a game that I only joined two weeks ago, I had never been in a roleplaying group that was predominantly male. The idea of it as a "male-dominated activity" seems purely abstract...even in that mostly-male group I just joined, the one who's been playing the game in question the longest is female :smallconfused:

I do honestly wonder sometimes if the biggest reason most male gamers think of roleplaying as a mostly-male activity is simply because they don't have the skills to recruit female gamers to their group. Regarding the book, I know of two who would buy it and think it was funny, two who would buy it and probably be offended, and one who might actually benefit from it. I'll save the link, and my thanks to the OP.

[Green Bean]

There's a review here (http://www.timewastersguide.com/review/1587/Confessions-of-a-Part-Time-Sorceress), for what it may be worth. (An actual review, not a publicity piece from WotC...)

Well, from the review it sounds like it's a combination of a autobiographical non-geek's entry into DnD, and DnD for Dummies. Personally, I have absolutely no problem with the personal tale. I've heard some pretty interesting stories about what brought people into DnD, and the reviewer obviously thought this was one of them.

The question mark, for me, appears with the guidebook side of the book. Ideally, part of it will be gender neutral. The article mentioned a table stating what you can do during your turn. There's nothing sexist about that; I was pretty confused about how battles worked early on myself. Mechanical mini-guides are totally alright with me. The book's not just targeted at women. It's targeted at women who are beginners. Where problems arise are if they start pigeonholing gamer women into certain archetypes. If there's advice saying you shouldn't flirt with the DM to get your way, that's patronizing and sexist.

To summarize: "How I got into Gaming"=good
"Here's the basics of DnD mechanics"=good
"You're a girl gamer so you'll probably be intimidated by all the men around you"=bad.

[ocato]

I do honestly wonder sometimes if the biggest reason most male gamers think of roleplaying as a mostly-male activity is simply because they don't have the skills to recruit female gamers to their group.

I have to say that this seems likely. I freely admit that I've played D&D with a girl in the group one time, and she was my friend's wife. We played a few other times with my other friend's girlfriend hanging out but not playing and it was very uncomfortable. Infact, I usually hide my gamer side from other people, especially women, because frankly it gives people a certain vibe about you based on stereotypes that probably do not apply. The reason D&D players think that women don't play is that some, if not many of them probably are too embarassed or afraid to ask girls if they play, or if they want to play with them.

As for this book, I will withhold judgement as I've yet to read it. Hopefully it is respectful and interesting.

[Person_Man]

I can't help but think of this article (http://www.tasteslikephoenix.com/articles/women.html) (already mentioned several days ago). Especially this part:

Don't -- and we can't emphasize this enough -- assume that just because a woman is not familiar with roleplaying, that she is incapable of learning it. Computer game manufacturers have made this mistake time and again when trying to market to young girls. When girls didn't buy shoot/beat-em-up games like Quake and Mortal Kombat, the manufacturers assumed they were too fast-moving or hard to learn. In response, they put out games designed especially for girls, where instead of shooting gore-dripping monsters, they shot at fluffy marshmallow bunnies.
Needless to say, these failed miserably. Purple Moon Games then actually asked girls why they didn't play the other games. Not a single girl had found them too hard, but every one had found them too pointless.
Similarly, we have yet to meet a woman who couldn't learn an RPG because it was "too complicated." However, we have met many who never bothered to learn the combat system, even after years of gaming, because it didn't interest them and they could always ask someone else in the group.
In our own experience, there was a point when Chris tried to get Jenny interested in AD&D after she'd done Shadowrun and Vampire, and began explaining the system. She said, "I don't get it." Patiently, he started re-explaining it, and she said, "No, no, I heard you. I just don't get why anybody plays like this when you can have a success-based system that makes combat go faster, uses one kind of dice for everything so you don't have to memorize it all, and has a definitive scale that tells you what the numbers mean in real-life terms."

This makes a lot of sense to me. The women in our gaming group enjoy roleplaying more then combat, and during combat they tend to be very "what would my character do" oriented, rather then "how do I win combat" oriented. Thus they can just tell the DM what they want to do, and the DM tells them the best way of doing it and what dice to roll. And everything moves along fine.

But that leads me to believe that you don't need a special book to explain "complex" D&D "in women terms." You just need to make D&D more transparent and streamlined, so that statistics actually mean something in real world terms, and so that any action can be resolved by a single die roll.

[DeathQuaker]

Don't diss the Devil wears Prada. Great movie. But as a guy maybe it might be different to girls. I liked the plot personally.

I am not dissing The Devil Wears Prada. I am noting that the cover art of the book we are discussing is similar to that of the Devil's cover art (it was a book before it was a movie), and noting that I don't feel the same style of cover art for a book on gaming really works.



Might work. Though, isn't it condensending to assume that a guy might look at a girl's boobs. Than again, some guys might.

Possibly. But as a woman, when I walk into a gaming store, I find it disconcerting when a number of eyes turn towards me -- and then downward towards my chest. It doesn't upset me (you know what? Sometimes I look at girl's chests too, and I am a girl), EXCEPT when it seems that is all the person is interested in, which can and does happen sometimes, and makes one feel very uncomfortable to be around the people you were thinking before of trying to find a game or discuss gaming with. I never said that all guys (I never even mentioned guys in fact :smallwink: ) stare at women's breasts. I just advised against doing it (just in case it came to mind :smallamused: ) when trying to encourage a woman to game.

The real point I was trying to make was -- and I admit I did a very bad job of doing it -- we would not need books that serve as a "guide for girl gamers" or explain the fun of D&D to would-be female gamers if the gamer community just made a little more of an effort to be inclusive and respectful. And marketing towards female gamers doesn't need anything "special," no books to explain it in small words for them. They just need to put out a good product that refrains from using sexist (or any other -ist) stereotypes... which as a matter of fact, they've been better and better about doing all the time -- and make sure it's advertised in places where people of all kinds will see it.

[Beleriphon]

I am not dissing The Devil Wears Prada. I am noting that the cover art of the book we are discussing is similar to that of the Devil's cover art (it was a book before it was a movie), and noting that I don't feel the same style of cover art for a book on gaming really works.

I don't think its a gaming book. Its a book about gaming written for women that don't already game, but might be interested in doing so. I'm sure there are probably several husbands out there that might be wanting to get this book for their wives in an effort to try and get them to understand what all the little plastic men are for and why dice have more than six sides. I've certainly had women ask what I was doing, and why I kept calling a dodecahedron a die.

[Rachel Lorelei]

What utter drivel! An acceptable prejudice to hold in the '80s. :smallfurious:
Sexism is alive and well, and moreso in the gaming hobby than in other places.


And as for calling this overblown Cosmo' article a "D&D Supplement"; WOTC should be ashamed of themselves. It's a publicity puff aimed at an under-exploited market segment and nothing more. I note there's no "Discuss this in the WOTC forums" link on the page either. :smallannoyed:
There was a forum, "Astrid's Haven", for it and other female-gamer issues. It was locked (and, I guess, taken down), because of flaming. Apparently, the guys felt threatened.


Hey Shelly Mazzanoble, here's an alternative view for you, and it comes from a real gamer, not some slumming magazine writer:
So... because she's a magazine writer, she can't actually be a gamer? And because you're a "real gamer", your views on gender interactions and biases in gaming are automatically more valid (despite the fact that you've never been a female gamer, yourself)?


We are gamers. We game. Our dice and minis don't care how soft or rough the hand that handles them is, or what colour it is, or who's hand it holds when not gaming: nor should we. The quality of your gameplay is the only meaningful discriminator among our kind. Anyone who things otherwise in 2007 is ridiculously behind the times. :smallmad:
"Nor should we"? Yes.
"The quality of your gameplay is the only meaningful discriminator among our kind"?

If you really think that, wake up. Gaming didn't develop its sexist reputation for nothing. Do you really want examples? The fact that the article Tengu linked has to include point #6 or 7 should, I think, be enough for you.

I'm sure you and your group are all fine players; that is NOT representative of the hobby at large--much less a guarantee that you'd be good at introducing women who haven't gamed before to the game.

[JackMage666]

Since I started playing D&D, the female players have outnumbered the males in my groups, every time. Also take note that I live in Central Texas, in farm lands, where prejudices are pretty heavy. D&D is still considered a devils game around here by alot of people. I don't think sexism in gameing is nearly as prevalent as people make it out to be, but that could be the same reason racism is supposedly more prevalent in Police as they say it is. Attention is brought to the sexist/racist moments, and they're steriotyped and expanded far beyond whats really there.

"He pulled me over and arrested me, because I'm black!"
"Uh, no, he pulled you over for drive 65 in a 45 zone, and he arrested you because you have a crack rock in your passenger seat."
"...It was profiling."

"They hate me because I'm a girl, that's the only reasons."
"You were completely munchkining the entire session, you were even fudging every roll."
"...Just cause I'm a girl."

I dunno, seems pretty similiar.

[Dausuul]

I haven't done any studies on the matter, and I doubt anyone else here has either, so all evidence is anecdotal. That said... I have to admit that I would not feel entirely comfortable introducing a novice female gamer in my current gaming group. (We did have a female player for a short while, but she was an experienced gamer already, and that campaign imploded rather quickly for unrelated reasons.)

On the other hand, I've played in groups where I would have had no hesitations about bringing in a novice of either sex. So much depends on the group dynamic.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

I've gamed with plenty of girls (at least one in nearly every session), but they always make me feel awkward. I was brought up to really believe in all the tenents of chivalry, and beyond the old saying "chivalry is dead", it's also quite outdated, as I've unhappily realized growing up. The whole "always protect women" thing is so hammered into my head that it takes considerable effort on my part to challenge them as much as everyone else in the group, and their greater inclination to take up romantic subplots with NPC's tends to feel something like all the blood in my head draining out my nose all at once, followed by great pity that I'm a better lover while roleplaying NPC's then in real life. So, take what I say with a grain of salt, as I have a sort of natural sexism that's been tough to get over.

The book doesn't seem like that bad of an idea, really. So long as it wasn't just some PR guy hiring a female writer that he happened to find out played D&D, I think it's safe to say that the writer is going to be speaking with good conviction and honesty on the subjects she's chosen. I know a little about writing books, and trust me- you can't write an entire novel's worth about something you don't know. That review posted earlier sounds like the author isn't really forcing some sort of cliche girl chic stereotype, it's just that the publishers apparently thought it would sell better given that sort of atmosphere. I'd be more inclined to trust the reviewer's opinion then my own, or anyone else's, on the cover and it's accompanying back text- which is more often then not written by the publisher.

[StickMan]

I don't think this book is aimed at gamer girls so much as girls that have become gamers latter in life say do to the fact they were geeks before and there boyfriend/husband got them in to it.

[SadisticFishing]

Makes sense to me. I've had several female players, and while some wouldn't find this useful, others would.

A woman wrote it, so clearly she believes someone might need it somewhere.

[Charity]

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/images/following-instructions-for-dummies.png

[Khanderas]

I didnt even attempt to look into this book, but it seems to me to be aimed towards girls who have NO clue what her boyfriend is doing those thursday evenings with the dice and "Roll initiative". Perhaps to get her intrested, or even lure her in.
Not so much as a guide to girls who play do play D&D, they are problebly above the average anyway.

[DeathQuaker]

Okay, rather than continue to indulge in idle speculation, I decided to seek out some information. Here's what I found:

Reviews
http://www.timewastersguide.com/review/1587/Confessions-of-a-Part-Time-Sorceress
http://zbooks.blogspot.com/2007/08/confessions-of-part-time-sorceress-by.html
(Sadly, couldn't find any more than two with the amount of time I had)

Informal Review, Discussion of a Related Thread at Wizards forums, and other comments
http://cerise.theirisnetwork.org/?p=179
(The discussion about the Wizards forum thread is quite sad, but very believable)

Interviews with the Author
http://www.wandsandworlds.com/blog1/2007/07/interview-shelly-mazzanoble.html
http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/2007bea-sorceress.shtml

Author's Web site
http://www.shellymazzanoble.com (http://shellymazzanoble.com)

My Comments
- Positive review remarks and other comments indicate that the book does a good job at what it sets out to do, and maintains a balance between humor and information. One of the reviewers was a female gamer with a background similar to Mazzanoble's and thought it hit the mark on several points.

- Her Website and her interviews impress upon me that she is an articulate writer.

- Negative review remarks noted the book falls to stereotyping certain kinds of women and glossing over stereotypes of gamers. There is a good question about how well the book will make it out to its intended audience - the girl who *might* game, but isn't really into it, which may be a somewhat narrow margin.

- I note that Mazzanoble is apparently a WotC employee (though didn't start gaming until she began work for that company). It's great to have a new-to-gaming woman talk about being a girl gamer, but when there appears to be a shallow marketing effort behind it, it makes the line harder to swallow. Indeed, reviewers and other discussants note things like fact that she discusses WotC's D&D minis line as if they are the only gaming miniatures to exist, and other passages that read more like ads for WotC's products.

PS: I still think the cover art's ridiculous

[Were-Sandwich]

I think a strong assertive girl would be OK in my group, but a quiet wallflower would feel uncomfortable, but no because we're all "OMFG, B00bs!" or "'Live long and prosper' *snort*",but for the same reason they'd be uncomfortable at a guy's night in watching football. We're all boisterous, extroverted and hyper. If she can join in (not necessarily be 'one of the guys' but just let go and relax) and have fun, ok, but if she is intimdated by guys being guys, she might have trouble. Or if she was a Serious Roleplayer, but thats more of a game style thing.

[Person_Man]

I do honestly wonder sometimes if the biggest reason most male gamers think of roleplaying as a mostly-male activity is simply because they don't have the skills to recruit female gamers to their group. Regarding the book, I know of two who would buy it and think it was funny, two who would buy it and probably be offended, and one who might actually benefit from it. I'll save the link, and my thanks to the OP.

Well, I've been playing D&D since age 12. My first gaming groups were all boys because at age 12, girls had cooties. By age 17 though, our group was about 50/50, because girls were obviously the most important and special thing to ever happen to anyone ever.

But believe me, no one in our group had any skills. Quite the contrary - we raised our freak flag higher - this let other gamers and the natural allies of gamers (Ren-fair enthusiasts, band geeks, theater tech people, computer geeks, girls obsessed with unicorns) know who we were, thus drawing our groups together and leading to geek cross pollination.

Anywho, Deathquaker and Rachel have convinced me to reserve further judgment until the book actually comes out. Obviously I have no need to buy it, but if its good, maybe I'll buy it as a gift for new women who join our social circles, who are interested in gaming, but haven't actually played anything yet.

As another note, clearly sexism is alive and well, both economically and socially. But I wonder - are books like this one helpful or hurtful for tearing down those barriers? One of the best ways to destroy gender stereotypes (All gamers are unappealing geek boys, so girls should stay away from them) is to simply point them out and show how ludicrous they are. But simply replacing them with other slightly more palatable stereotypes (making a character is a lot like shopping) isn't really helpful. I can't say that this book does that, but clearly there's a whole industry of magazines, books, movies, and television shows that explicitly try to fight negative female stereotypes by creating slightly newer female stereotypes. Won't we just be trying to destroy them as well in a few years? Shouldn't we just be saying, hey, you can be or do anything you want regardless of your genitalia and/or gender identity. So figure out what you want to do, do it, and tell anyone who tries to stop you because you're a woman to STFU?

[DraPrime]

Hmmmm, it seems like a sort of ridiculous idea. I don't really think that girls need a special book to introduce them to D&D. The only books anyone needs are the core books, and some help from experienced players is always useful. As far as my experience goes, the 2 of the 4 people in my gaming group are girls. And they didn't need a special book.

[horseboy]

and make sure it's advertised in places where people of all kinds will see it.

Ultimately this is why D&D was male dominated for so long. Women can and do have an interest in RPG's. It just wasn't advertised to them. Things like this Cosmo book are attempting to rectify that.

Am I interested in this? Not in the slightest. I'm too old for pop culture to be used to help me "get it", since I don't get pop culture. I'm a guy, so I don't really care since it's not marketed to me. Though if I met her at a convention I'm sure we'd swap stories back and forth, like all gamers.
For that $14 I would get a Pratchett and a Moorecock.

[tainsouvra]

But believe me, no one in our group had any skills. Quite the contrary - we raised our freak flag higher - this let other gamers and the natural allies of gamers (Ren-fair enthusiasts, band geeks, theater tech people, computer geeks, girls obsessed with unicorns) know who we were, thus drawing our groups together and leading to geek cross pollination. ...taking that approach is a sign of good social skills in action, at least as far as social networking goes. Apparently someone in your group had networking skills, but the group just didn't know that's what they were called. :smallamused:

[Mugen Nightgale]

Well sounds fun to me. Girls usually have some problems in getting used to the medieval scenario. They don't like to slice 'n dice or all the combat stuff. And make some instructive jokes about it is the best way to make them understand and accept the concept. I'm not sexist, my DM is a girl and she loves to engage us into suicidal battles. But her kind of girl is rare sadly. It's very important to say that the book is for non-player girls who want to know about DnD world.

[Ravyn]

Understand the sentiment, Mugen, but a little less on the generalizations, hm? We're not quite as rare as you might think, and most people who think we are just haven't figured out where or how to look.

[tainsouvra]

I will present to quotes that appeared in the same post, without ruining their context, in an attempt to highlight the issue I raised earlier:
Girls usually have some problems in getting used to the medieval scenario.
They don't like to slice 'n dice or all the combat stuff.
And make some instructive jokes about it is the best way to make them understand and accept the concept.
my DM is a girl and she loves to engage us into suicidal battles. But her kind of girl is rare sadly. ...and then the crux of the issue...
I'm not sexist And now, for a definition:
Sexism is commonly considered to be discrimination and/or hatred against people based on their sex rather than their individual merits, but can also refer to any and all systemic differentiations based on the sex of the individuals. Mugen Nightgale, I am not singling you out as an ill-intentioned or mean-spirited person. In fact, I suspect the opposite is the case, I suspect you're a good person with good intentions. However, you are sexist when it comes to women in gaming, and quite clearly so. It's not always about hatred, sometimes it's merely creating blanket distinctions, such as those I quoted above.

Again, this is not a jab at Mugen Nightgale, who clearly did not have any bad intentions. It is instead a way of showing how easy it is to approach the issue of gaming in a way that alienates female gamers. To reiterate an earlier statement in a way suited to this post, I suspect the biggest reason male gamers think of roleplaying as a primarily-male activity is that they don't have the social insight needed to recruit female gamers to their groups.

[JackMage666]

Wouldn't, by that definition, reducing males and females to the seperate names Boys and Girls, or Men and Women, be sexist? It's seperating the differences based on gender, so the titles would be inherently sexist.

Face it, everyone's sexist.

[tainsouvra]

Wouldn't, by that definition, reducing males and females to the seperate names Boys and Girls, or Men and Women, be sexist? It's seperating the differences based on gender, so the titles would be inherently sexist.

Face it, everyone's sexist. In most contexts, no, since the "systemic differentiations" they were referring to are a difference in treatment, rather than in the words used to identify them. As absurd as that may sound, that's technically true if the context is linguistics, and there are actually people who do find such terms offensive within that context and have invented their own terminology in order to avoid that linguistic issue.
I kid you not.

[Raroy]

There are two types of humans: Male and Female. Of course, they come in different flavors(race and perhaps other things). We Define them because they have differences (Physical or other wise) no matter how minor. We all can't be called the same thing to its exact specifics because we are all not the same person. You can't be an anything for calling a person based on broad categories. Defining them as what they are is when you become a something defined in the negative sense (Did this make sense or does it confuse people more?)

[DeathQuaker]

More simply put, it is "sexist" to make unfounded broad generalizations about women (or, in fact, about men).

Unfounded broad generalizations tend to be offensive, even if intentionally so, hence the "-ist" label. The reason it's offensive is because it's disrespectful to make assumptions about people based on a broad characteristic that is not easily proven.

"Women develop mammary glands" is not an unfounded broad generalization. It is still a generalization, because who knows, there is probably someone out there with a XX chromosome who didn't develop mammary glands for some reason, but it is generally true for the majority of women out there and can be easily proven.

To continue with the previous example (sorry Mugen), "Girls don't like slice'n'dice" and "girls don't like the medieval thing" are unfounded broad generalizations. They're simply not true. The examples above indicate personal preferences which vary from person to person, let alone from woman to woman. Some girls may get upset being all lumped into a category where we may very easily not belong (personally, I just laughed at the blatant untruth of it all).

"Some girls don't like slice'n'dice" could be an accurate statement, but that's not what was said.

And just so, saying "Male gamers are sexist" is an unfair and sexist statement. That's lumping all male gamers into a category many of them clearly don't belong in. But saying that some of them are sexist is probably true, with the aforementioned example being a good one.

The important thing is to note that when someone does say "Some people are like this..." is to not assume you are being targeted.

And otherwise it's important we all try to choose our words carefully so as to be respectful.

[Irreverent Fool]

"Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress will be the first official product to bear the new 4th Edition logo..." (from the D&D September previews page (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4pr/20070905a)).

*facepalm* What a way to poison the well.


That's just terrible. I couldn't put it better, myself.

Really, I'm just... speechless at that news.

[Runa]

Hmmmm, it seems like a sort of ridiculous idea. I don't really think that girls need a special book to introduce them to D&D. The only books anyone needs are the core books, and some help from experienced players is always useful. As far as my experience goes, the 2 of the 4 people in my gaming group are girls. And they didn't need a special book.

I dunno. I'm a girl, started gaming only a couple of semesters ago (I game with college buddies) and I've noticed three things:

1.) D&D is fun.

2.) D&D combat is annoyingly filled with number-crunching and occasionally some odd terminology or seemingly weird rules - for the uninitiated, this CAN be intimidating, and still sort of is for me. :\

3.) The most important part of D&D is the social aspect - NOT the books.

For girls slightly less geeky than myself who haven't tried it, it doesn't sound that bad a book, especially with the humor. Not perfect, not right for everyone, but not a horrible book... it sounds cute.


Sidenote: the cover art I've seen looks nothing like the cover art I've seen for Devil Wears Prada, and I like it. I have no idea what people are complaining about, unless the art has changed... it's a little cartoony, but cute.

-Runa

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

It's a bit of an odd way to open the new edition, but, having looked over the available critical response (good and ill) I'm reserving judgment.

I think characterizing the move by wizards to, in whatever respect, attract more female players as a 'cynical marketing move' is, quite possibly, counterproductive.
A purely marketing move, especially a 'cynical' one, would indicate that they have no interest in attracting female players or creating female gamers other than the revenue involved; that they essentially want to hoodwink the ladies of the world into buying the core rulebooks, but serve their needs in no respect.

I find this proposition unlikely; I would assume, rather, that wizards actually does want to attract- and serve the needs of- female potential players, thereby expanding their brand and giving themselves a good name. Should they be upbraided for such an ambition? I would say no. I'm inclined to applaud the intent, if not the execution- and the execution seems to be at worst, mediocre, and at best, of high quality.

As regards the more general debate on just what those needs are that's creeping in, well, that's a difficult question.
The sexes, that is, the biological duality of our species, have differing brain wiring; it's not entirely unreasonable to assume that, yes, girls and boys are different. However, sex doesn't always correlate with gender, that is, cultural and psychological identity- and thus, attempting to market to 'men' or 'women' when each group is heterogeneous and represents, in fact, a wide spectrum of expressed traits and values....well, it's not precisely a fool's errand, but it does require a certain degree of assumption that may not be wise.

[Yuki Akuma]

"Women develop mammary glands" is not an unfounded broad generalization. It is still a generalization, because who knows, there is probably someone out there with a XX chromosome who didn't develop mammary glands for some reason, but it is generally true for the majority of women out there and can be easily proven.

I think you mean "all mammals in general" there. :smallwink: (Woo biology!)

...

I'm starting to wonder whether not differentiating between males and females is a bad thing, now. This thread has really confused me.

I need to get some unfounded, sexist beliefs just so I can keep up. >.>