A Review by Mark Chapman
“Confessions of a Part Time Sorceress” is one of the more pleasant surprise reads that I have enjoyed over the last couple of years. Okay, I know that is unhelpful as far as a review goes but, unlike a lot of the gaming material that I have digested this book is well written and not just interesting due to the subject matter. Shelly Mazzanoble has a light, conversational style that goes well with a book that intends itself to be a primer for introducing women to the Dungeons and Dragons game. This is certainly a plus since the dry, almost text book style or worse, bad flavor fiction, so prevalent in gaming books can be a turn off for most neophytes, irrespective of gender.
Oops, I’ve brought up gender in the context of role playing. I’m a bit of a grognard and so I remember the old days of gaming where a girl could scarcely be found within a three hundred grid square radius of a game table, let alone actually playing. I remember, as a youngster, thinking that, were they to exist, I would marry the first gamer chick I met.
Then I met a couple of them and I decided to marry a non-gamer and convert her. I fondly recall trying to explain the concept of an RPG to my wife (who already had several geek tendencies as well as obviously impeccable taste) and receiving blank stares and comments of “that’s interesting….” It seemed to actually trail off like that, sort of like she was trying to find a way to call me a dork but not hurt my feelings. Mazzanoble’s book would have been a godsend.
Confessions breaks down the basics of the D&D game into simple, non-jargon filled sentences that assume no foreknowledge of the subject. It manages to do this in a manner that is approachable and slanted toward the female perspective. Again, this is a positive thing. The author is witty, and again it is an enjoyable read.
That being said there are several negative points to this book.
Please allow a moment of digression. I’m going to have to get up on a bit of a soapbox for a few minute in order to give this review. There are several things I found disturbing about this book and very little of it has to do with gaming. Please bear with me.
First off, Mazzanoble list the top ten myths about D&D and D&D players. She then sets out to debunk those myths. So far, so good. I enjoy seeing negative stereotypes crushed under the heel of intelligent thought. Stereotyping leads to seeing people as caricatures.
Yet within the first few paragraphs she describes herself as a girly girl, sort of hyper feminine, and for the rest of the book she goes on to reinforce this image. More importantly she uses the “girly girl” descriptor as a way to show contrast between her and the perception of role players. She consistently refers to facets of her personality as a “normal” girl, engaged in “normal girl” activities such as shopping, accessorizing, getting makeovers and the like and relates the D&D experience in those terms.
Now I have known a lot of gamer girls over the years that would resent the clear implication through out this book that their interest in gaming and other aspects of fandom somehow either preclude them from enjoying the more “traditional” female activities of shopping and the like or that their disinterest in those aforementioned feminine activities makes them less womanly. In the example of play in the book, the author specifically points out, more than once, that the player running the groups fighter is a mother. While I understand the author’s intention was to show the escapism of getting into character, it came across as divisive.
Secondly. Ms. Mazzanoble convinces a group of her “normal” friends to play after getting them more than mildly inebriated. The transcript of the play session is so chock full of sexist and unflattering depictions of women that I found it offensive. The subjects, as she refers to them, are reduced to mere caricatures of women so that I’m not surprised that they are unnamed. Adding a minor detail like a name would add to much depth to what, frankly, reads like Sex and the City meets D&D.
I have long held to the belief that the way a player tends to portray a character of opposite gender is very revealing about how the player feels about the opposite sex. I have no empirical evidence of this, only anecdotal, but I trust what I have experienced. After reading this book I am interested in what is revealed about person’s thoughts when writing about their own gender.
Okay I am off my soapbox. Sorry for the derailment and I now return you to your regularly scheduled review.
Now the good points. The book covers all the basics very well. Well enough, in fact, that I find her explanations superior to nearly every “What is Role Playing?” section of any RPG I have ever read. The author has a dry wit that personally enjoy.
I cannot speak to the quality of the art as my copy was a promotional.
In summary. The book is worthwhile if you know a female that may be interested in the hobby and wouldn’t mind the undercurrent of sexism. It is well written and serves admirably as an intro to the game.
Caveat Emptor.