Confessions of a Part-time Sorceress: A Girl's Guide to the D&D Game (Dungeons & Dragons)

I just picked up D&D (Well, to be specific, I picked up Pathfinder which is equivalent to 3.5 rules blah blah blah) after years of wanting to. My boyfriend bought this book for me, since I am also a part-time Sorceress, and I haven't laughed so hard in awhile.

While I am significantly less girly than Miss Mazzanoble, I could relate to a lot of what she was saying. I was blessed to grow up without thinking that D&D was a boys' club that met in basements, but I know the stereotypes that still linger about. Luckily, I found the only DM in existence than hates Doritos are much as I do.

I think this is an excellent way to break the ice about RPGs, especially to those girls who do think that D&D (and the like) would be a "boys only" sort of show more thing. I've already given this to the girl that introduced me to Pathfinder, but the rest of our all-girl group (minus our lovely DM, who has the unfortunate job of trying to keep us focused), and so far, it's been a hit.

Definitely keeping an eye out for anything else Miss Mazzanoble writes. show less

Summary: Shelly Mazzanoble's only knowledge of the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons were the pervasive stereotypes: D&D is only played by overweight, pimply, Cheeto-dust-encrusted adolescent boys that live in their mother's basements. So imagine her surprise when she was invited to play by a co-worker... and her shock when she found herself enjoying it. In this book, Shelly relives her fledgling days as a gamer as a means of introducing newcomers to the basics of D&D: everything from creating a character, supplying your character with weapons and magic, going on adventures, and engaging in battles with the baddies.

Review: I am, without question, a nerd. (Or a geek; I'm not going to argue the distinction here.) I like nerdy things. show more I hang out with other nerdy people, and we spend our time doing nerdy things and making nerdy jokes. However, one of the gaping holes in my nerd-dom is role-playing games. I have been aware of their existence at least since high school, but never in all of that time have I gotten into an RPG... nor have I even been tempted to do so, despite the fact that many of my friends are avid gamers. And, while Mazzanoble's book didn't immediately make me run out to buy my own set of dice, I am now at least entertaining the notion of joining a game.

Which is pretty impressive, given that I'm about as far from the target audience of this book as I think you can be and still have two X chromosomes. While I am without question a nerd, I am also without question NOT a girly-girl. I dislike shopping (unless it's for books), my daily makeup routine consists of Chapstick, and I wouldn't be able to identify a pair of Jimmy Choos if one of them kicked me in the face. So, all of Mazzanoble's efforts to convince girly-girls that D&D is really all about teamwork and gossip and shopping was wasted effort, and a lot of her jokes really fell flat with me. (Also, her character Astrid struck me as kind of obnoxious, and I'm a little surprised only one of her fellow players was tempted to abandon her in a dungeon somewhere.)

On the other hand, the descriptions of her gaming group's sessions seemed like a lot of fun, and something I could see myself participating in. Since I've never actually played, I can't say how effective or complete it is as a guide to D&D, but now I at least have a basic sense of the way the game is structured and played. All in all, it was a quick and light read, and funny when it wasn't trying too hard. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: I think I would recommend this most for experienced gamers... to give to women they want to introduce to gaming. show less

As my husband and I are jumping into the D&D games (accompanied by my best friend and her boyfriend), I figured this would be an excellent intro for me to the game. Mostly, it was. Mazzanoble does a fine job of explaining D&D vernacular and slang, giving advice on weapons, class, fighting and interactions with team members. The writing was humorous at points, even earning an out-loud chuckle a few times. My qualm with the book is two fold, however. 1. The endless pop-culture reference got old. fast. The constant barrage of girly-girl nonsense (Prada-this, Oprah-that, Pedicure-this, High Heels-that) was funny the first few times, but by the second and third chapter, I was done. I wanted more information about the game and less show more omg-my-magic-boots-are-jimmy-choos! 2. While she breaks the stereotypes for D&D players, she simultaneously builds them for girls! Not every girl is going to interrupt the DM to ask about shopping or bring low-fat granola or whatever. I felt this book had a very narrow target audience, and wasn't for all girls or ever most girls, but a small sliver of girls - the ones who wear Jimmy Choo shoes. For my part, I will recommend it to new girl D&D players, but I will give it a disclaimer due to these 2 facts. show less

I probably wouldn't have picked up this book on my own. However, as virtually my entire gaming group had read it (males and females, both), I felt somewhat obligated (not to mention left out). While I liked the book and found it quite amusing, ultimately it wasn't as useful as I had hoped or anticipated from the reactions of the rest of the group.

Shelly Mazzanoble is a self-proclaimed, stereotypical "girly-girl." She uses this stereotype to her advantage in breaking down the stereotypes of the typical Dungeons and Dragons player (i.e. geeky, unkempt, teenage boys hanging out in the basement eating Doritos, etc.) The reality is that all sorts of people play Dungeons and Dragons: men, women, young, old, students, professionals...the list show more goes on. There is no one single kind of Dungeons and Dragons player, and Mazzanoble proves that.

As she states towards the beginning, "I somehow managed to find myself working in the games industry as a promotions coordinator at a company called Wizards of the Coast." As I see it, it was really only a matter of time before someone invited her to play Dungeons and Dragons. Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress provides an insiders view of the game from the perspective of someone completely new to Dungeons and Dragons (and someone who never expected to ever play, besides.)

The book makes for a very good introduction to Dungeons and Dragons--giving enough information to communicate the basics without so much detail that it will scare a new player away. In addition to the more technical aspects of Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress, Mazzanoble includes a light-hearted narrative highlighting her group's gaming sessions as well as a final chapter documenting her successful attempt to trick her friends into playing through a Dungeons and Dragons scenario.

While the book will probably be most useful to newcomers to the game, players of all levels will be able to get something out of it--even if it's only a good laugh.

Experiments in Reading show less

Confessions of a Part-time Sorceress - a book about girls and gaming (of the Dungeons and Dragons variety) - is probably not something I would have picked up on my own. But my little brother got hold of it and thought I might enjoy it, so he passed it my way.

And it's kind of fun, for the most part. Granted, I've never been the kind of girly-girl that Ms Mazzanoble is (and certainly not the kind of girly-girl she seems to be writing for) - but I am a girl (alright, a woman then), and I do enjoy gaming... so I was willing to not only give it a go, but stick with it to the end.

Basically, the book acts like a a grass roots primer on what gaming (and, more specifically, D&D) is - how it works - and the process of creating a character, show more adventuring, taking part in combat and dealing with loot. And it describes it all with a sense of humour that can be... to be brutally honest... hit and miss. Basically, for every bit that made me giggle, there was another bit that made me grimace - but again, that may be because I'm just not the target demographic.

As far as I can tell, the book's aimed at a rank beginner... I strongly suspect that no one who's played more than a single D&D game will learn anything new from it, so (for the majority of my friends at least), it would be less a question of how informative it is, and more whether this particular brand of humour tickles their funny bone. Personally, on that front, it often felt like Ms Mazzanoble was just trying too hard, and the constant references to Jimmy Choos, pedicures and lattes just started feeling annoying, rather than being funny - although of course YMMV.

Actually, if you can imagine a beginners book on D&D that sounds as though it was written by Cordelia Chase, circa. Angel s1 (a Cordy who'd just discovered, to her complete surprise, that she quite liked this gaming thing, but couldn't quite get beyond the social outcasteness of said liking), you'd probably sum this book up in a nutshell.

Would I recommend it to friends? Yahnomaybe? As a guide to learning what this D&D thing is all about, no - I'd just recommend they try it out themselves and learn by doing. Purely for the funny? Again... maybe. It would totally depend on the friend and how girly she happened to be - and I don't have a lot of truly girly friends.

Saying that, however, is probably more of a reflection of the calibre of my friends than a seething indictment of the book. Overall, I think I'd rate it somewhere around 6/10 - because it *is* a reasonably decent primer for someone who's never had anything to do with D&D or gaming; and it *did* have me giggling in more than a few spots. show less

Despite the complaints of many who voice concerns about stereotypes and preconceptions, the honest truth is that Dungeons and Dragons does not have a very appealing image to a vast number of people who have friends or loved ones involved with the hobby. Even those that wouldn't consider themselves socially awkward or more than privately geeky may have trouble explaining what it is about a game with such a terribly dorky reputation to such folks in their lives.

This book is a slightly irreverent, certainly humorous, work by a woman that came to D&D through her job at the company that publishes the game giving her account of how she went from someone that only knew the game (and gamers) by reputation to someone that is themselves a gamer. show more She also makes an effort to explain what about the game appealed to her, an individual that's certainly not the stereotype, in an attempt to reach others like herself that might have dismissed it, explaining game concepts and rules along the way.

Yes, it's "girly girly"... but despite what some gamers may want to think, there are plenty of perfectly nice/smart/creative/cool girly girly (self-professed, even! Gasp!) ladies out there. Some are already gamers, some aren't.

My wife had already been brought into the gaming fold for a few years when I picked this up, but based on her own experiences of getting used to gaming and her minimal knowledge of D&D itself she thought it was a pretty funny and interesting little book. A friend's wife, with a similar gaming background but absolutely no D&D experience, thought it was great, and at least one person I correspond with online claimed that his sister actually told him that she finally "gets it." Make of that what you will.

At the very least, it's an entertaining and short read. show less

Interesting how the high class girl from high school would view D&D later in life. Amusing and entertaining all in one book.

Its kind of like Sex and the City meets D&D.