Open Letter to Shelly Mazzanoble
November 3, 2008 by e
Filed under About e, Dungeons & Dragons, Geek Life
Dear Shelly,
I’m not sure it’s possible for me to explain how I feel about you. If you’ve visited this blog before, you may have noticed that I read your book, Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress, and in my review compared it to cheesy, vapid girl magazines. In case you don’t want to read the whole thing, the gist of my angst is summed up in this paragraph:
Mazzanoble reminds me of the ditzy blonde cheerleader who can’t add two and two but can rattle off the histories of her favorite celebs like they are family. If I were her DM or any of her fellow gamers, I’d probably smack her upside the head every time she refers to the vendors in town as “the mall” and complains about her sorceress Astrid having to run around in her Jimmy Choo heels. Give me a break.
But dear Shelly, you have something I want – a job writing for Wizards of the Coast. Most girl-on-girl hatred is a result of jealousy and yep, you could color me green. So in typical female fashion, I stalked you, followed your career, read your articles. I tried to hate you, Shelly. I really did. I looked for reasons to smite you and your girly-girl ways.
My main beef is I’m not entirely sure I trust you as a writer. You’re like that friend who has a crazy story for every possible keyword. How many stories are true, how many are spun from truth, and how many are pure fantasy? Are you seriously evangelizing to the girl at the makeup counter at Nordstrom and wearing D&D skullcaps in 60 degree weather? It’s stuff too strange for reality, but yet, there’s no disclaimer saying it’s fiction either.
But despite all this, your writing was entertaining. Sure, there were times it was downright idiotic. There were times that even being associated to you by gender made girl gamers everywhere turn our heads and do the walk of shame. But most of the time, you made me laugh. In fact, I just went back and re-read your first DMing experience and while the adventure plot line was a little questionable, it really made me feel better about my recent loss of DMing virginity.
As it stands, I’m not sure if I should love you or hate you. You stand with one foot in the D&D world, a world I love dearly, and with the other foot in Girly-Girl land, a place I only visit under extreme coercion, bribery, or desperate boredom. Then again, I think the combination of your girly-girl side and my jaded tomboy side would quite possibly create some sort of weird WonderTwins of D&D writing power.
So what do you say, Shelly? Want to pen an adventure together? Email me.
E. Foley is a geek girl extraordinaire. She writes great online dating profiles for geeks and non-geeks, helping clients all over the world find love. She is the National Online Dating Examiner, columnist at Dating Sites Reviews, and a ghostwriter for several other dating & relationships sites. She lives in Maryland with DaveTheGame and her two adorable cats, Mr. Peanut and Don Juan. (Email e, or follow @geeksdreamgirl on Twitter.)
Hmmm… I’m not quite sure what it is you wanted to achieve here. Make friends with her or insult her?
Maybe its just Monday morning and I fail to see the humour underlined in this.
I’ll never get this women hates women thing.
After reading your post I started to wonder in Ms Mazzanoble is indeed female. Maybe Shelly is a creation of WotC? A character, who is a girly-girl who has learned not only to love D&D, but also buy all the core rule books, miniatures, supplement books, etc.
I am not one to “hate on” WotC, but I know they are are out to make a buck. If they can turn D&D into that shopping mall board game and get another slice of the population buying their stuff, then why not create a fictitious female gamer who: came upon D&D by accident, was convinced the guys playing were a bunch of dorks, then discovered how much D&D could be like playing house? After all, D&D can be whatever you want it to be, so why couldn’t it be The Hills?
Darius Whiteplume´s last blog post..Archaic Game Material of the Week
“I’ll never get this women hates women thing.”
That about sums it up… and I’m with you brother.
Just last night my wife and I stopped in to this LAN center gaming place. They also play WH miniatures and D&D there. We were only there for a few minutes talking to the guys that worked there and getting general info about the place. After we left my wife mentioned that the one chick that was in there kept on giving her dirty looks. And I made a joke about it being “her turf”. Or maybe she was just jealous “because you already snagged a geek and she hasn’t gotten one yet.”
Who knows the real reason? I find it’s better to not even try to understand inter-woman politics, our feeble male minds are unable to grasp the inanity, errr– intricacies of it.
My marketing radar lit up like a village that did not sacrifice a virgin to the dragon when I saw this book. Female gamers are clearly an under-served market and this book smacks of crass marketing to draw in the “Sex and the City” crowd. Most of the female gamers I met over the years seemed smarter than that.
Trask
Trask´s last blog post..Interview: On the Lamb–Publisher of "Legendary Realms"
It does seem that when you get two female gamers in a room with each other long enough…
I wasn’t sure if you were trying to insult her either. Like you said, she already has what you want “a job writing for Wizards of the Coast” so why would she bother replying to this gruge match letter? But I also am jaded, I gave gave this book to my non-gamer girlfriend and she loved it. It gave her a whole new level of understanding of the game. How is that bad? I keep seeing long time gamer girls, the ones who have been playing since childhood because they like it not because their significant other plays, trashing this book and the author. I keep thinking to myself this book was not meant for you! It was meant for the girl who is a little leery of the boys with all the dice and who want to tell her about their 9th level Paladin. It is for the girl who thinks it might be fun to chop up monsters but has never played. I think Ms. Mazzanoble hit her target audience perfectly. I did read this book before I gave it to my girlfriend and my opinion is as follows: If you are a girl and a gamer, kudos! I wish there were more of you. If you are a girl and have never played an RPG but you’re thinking about it, READ THIS BOOK!
B.G.´s last blog post..LoTS: Legend of The Seeker premier
“After reading your post I started to wonder in Ms Mazzanoble is indeed female. Maybe Shelly is a creation of WotC?”
Uhh, several friends of mine and fellow bloggers have met her in person. I never cease to be amazed at some of the conspiracy theories leveled at WotC. I hope you’re not being serious.
Dave T. Game´s last blog post..Mean Things I Have Done in Horror RPGs
I’ve read and re-read your letter and I keep coming to the same conclusions: You don’t like Shelly Mazzanoble, you don’t trust her as a writer, some of her writing amuses you, and you don’t like her personally even though you have never met her. Yet, because she has something you want, you are brazen enough to ask her to write an adventure with you. No offense but if I were her, I’d stay away from you. I would not want to work with someone who so obviously didn’t like me and was only interested in furthering her own interests.
Tony Law´s last blog post..Blogger Blood Bath 2008
After 4e rolled around, another friend and I took the opportunity to see about boosting our SOs into the gaming lifestyle. So while I was happily spending a Barnes and Nobel gift card on some dungeon tiles, I spotted this book and thought it’d be worth a go. Sure it was for the old edition, but I thought maybe it’d have a bit of reading to help get a leg up.
For the most part, the book was okay, considering it was for the old edition. Reading the play experiences was a bit brutal, with the inner DM in the back of my head screaming “Not in my house!”
Seeing my girlfriend read it, interestingly enough was along the same experience. She found it interesting, was captivated by the idea of magic missile meatballs, but was… annoyed with the table behavior.
I have to admit that now that I’ve been reading the column on the WotC site, I’ve noted that she’s integrated better into the culture, which admittedly is hard to grasp. I remember my feeble beginnings, wondering if I was “doing it wrong.” And the awkwardness that it made.
I went to school with Logan Bonner, played in a few games with him, so I feel the “Job with WotC” envy too. ^_^
@ Dave T. Game
It wouldn’t be the first time gamers faked being female to get somewhere
. A lot of WoW guys play chicks so their fellow nerds will supply them. Just because she’s a real person does not mean she’s the real author… (that is admittedly conspiratorial thinking).
Regardless, the book is a ploy to sell more books. Whoever the author is, ultimately the idea is to get a segment of society into the game that is not currently involved. Just because Wizards sells something that is fun does not mean they are not in business. Besides, aren’t they are owned by Hasbro? The company that likely put out the Shopping Mall game in the first place?
Darius Whiteplume´s last blog post..Archaic Game Material of the Week
*grin* Look at the little mess I’ve caused.
Haha! I’ve read some of shelly’s stuff, and some of your articles from the rpgblogger netword and somehow I thought this was shelly mazzanoble’s blog.
@ Phil – Good question. I know the answer.
@ Darius – I have several eyewitnesses who can say that Shelly is indeed a real woman.
@ Silent – It’s about 50/50 inane/intricate. Sometimes intricately inane.
@ Trask – Your analogy made me LOL.
@ B.G. – I was talking to Graham (criticalanklebites.com) about exactly your point last night… the target audience of her book ISN’T the typical girl gamer, which is why we’re all kind of insulted by it. I think once we get over the fact that it’s for those OTHER girl gamers, then maybe we’ll be happier.
I’m slowly getting over it. Slowly.
@ messerole – Yep, unless both are married or one is definitely hotter than the other. Sad, no?
@ Dave – You know, you’re not really cool until a conspiracy theory is centered around you.
@ Tony – Not saying I don’t like HER personally. I just don’t happen to care for girly-girl stuff. I have some girly-girl friends (one that sells Mary Kay and would gladly bedeck her entire house in pink) and I love them dearly. It’s just not my bag.
As I said, though I have tried to hate Shelly, she has wormed her way into my heart through her writing.
@ kaeosdad – somehow? how how? I will admit, she’s a better writer than I am. It’s pretty easy to tell our work apart!
@ James – I just rescued your comment from the Spam filter! Sorry it was approved so late!
lol…First I was gonna avoid this one like a stinkpalm…then I was going to snidely comment on how hot Shelley is…Instead, I am just gonna throw some words around, and try and sound intelligent
I see nothing unusual here, love/hate, grudging respect, admitted jealousy. Sounds pretty human to me. Personally, I’d smile all I had to to get an entry level WotC employee into a dark alley…only to go all Sylar on his ass and get ME one of those there fancy schmancy jobs
Kudos to ms. geek dream girl for being honest. I read it too, and thought it was a near worthless, nonoptimally configured pile of toilet paper. My parting thought was to wonder if there was anyone out there that would actually gain anything from it. I can only wonder, as nice as she is said to be in person, I could only sense vapidness through the pages.
Of course, if the worst thing that could be said about my rambling gibberish was a sense of vapidity, I would count myself a winner!
I am still wondering why one’s plumbing makes any difference in either how or why you play. I’ve gamed with pretty girls, ugly girls, mean girls, nice girls, fat girls, skinny girls, and girls who think they are men. I could make a longer list for the men I have gamed with. I’ve gamed with all kinds, as I am sure you all have as well…so why do the stereotypes persist even within our own community?
I see the cattyness inherent in the estrogen based lifeform, as the macho instinct is for my own. So chill out guys
Good post ms. geek, love or hate, it has stirred some thoughts, apparently.
Donny_the_DM´s last blog post..4E makes monster creation fun again! – Revised
@ Donny – I think that list of gamer girls would make a pretty hilarious post. You should get on that!
I like her articals on the website about 1st time dm’ing and the weird carry your dice around stroies the horrible cute save the dogs adventure randomness,
I also thought hwo the heck does a cluss girl get in to work for WOTC?
to be honnest i’ve thought about the book for my girlfriend needs push in to the rpg world and who like you is not a girly girl. so no sure how it will hit, she used to my overt underhand trying gaming techniques ..
personly i’d leave out the love hate and the job jelousy and the stalking bits and stick with the colabiration share stories and ideas and getting ahead with writting for WOTC and rephrase the “you didnt like the book” but have since enjoyed the style or previous articals and you were not the target audiance..
what are you tryign to get out og the letter?
advice?
just a vent your jelousy?
a job? -better sending your CV adventure synopisis to the right people, shelly maynot be the right person but maybe get her to have a browse for advice and pimping feedback?
and DND is diffrent for everybody, girlly girl, (Gayly Gay sheesh some of the battle shouts i’ve heard from them!)people who play comics, brutes, romatics, so want fun some want social interaction some one gritty epic adventure Dnd just kinda briong people together that way, and she is just telling it her way, at it probably is a rare viewpoint, but still a vaild one,
it compare it to writing the my favorite tv show or book or some such and complaing to an actor that he should have been better or i can do better, let me act in the next show with you it will make us both look good..
dunno if i have or point or have made one. good luck..
p.s if you keep up this blog and keep sending in artical ideas i sure you’ll make it i don think you just as good and funny and serious as shelly some times.
Lisa finally read the book.(your copy that I never gave back :p)
She absolutely loved it and wants to play all of a sudden. My wife to be IS a “girly girl” but she is also a nerd, an academic nerd to be specific. Coming from a predominantly church family she never had the exposure that I did to gaming, when she did get the exposure, it was from the one side…”Them are devil games”.
After meting me and witnessing some of the gaming sessions in my home she changed her way of thinking, she realized that this RPG games are harmless and even stood up to her family when they would make comments like…”you be careful of them games he plays”. But because of her upbringing she was hesitant to play. I’m not sure if it was because she was unsure of her own imagination or her family’s voice in the back of her unconscious psyche.
When she finished the book she came to me and ask if she could join the next game. I rejected the idea because the current game we were 3.5 Eberron 14Lv and that is WAY to mush for her fist game. Instead I quit that game and started a new group with 7 new players, 3 couples and one single person, the single person is the GM. :p
She book made me barf but I have to thank the book, it’s writer (and you for lending it to me) for getting the two thing I love most together…my fiancee and gaming, two things that I thought would never come together.
@ Loky – I think part of it was that game of Inn-Fighting that she almost won.
@e
I’m sure that also had a lot to do with it but the book was what really did it for her. I think the book finally made her realized that a PC can really be anything you what it to be.
We had a 3 day marathon of StarWars movies before we started the gaming group. We are playing the Saga edition and she is having a blast with her Soldier. We are having fun with the inversion of roles, as I am a Force Prodigy(weak and fragile) and she is playing the strong and tough character.
@ Loky – that’s an inversion of roles? *ducks and runs away, giggling*
E and I talked this over tonight. And it’s more of the “we’re not the girly-girl new gamers” that this book was designed to reach. We just feel a little left-out, that’s all.
I love Shelly… she’s one of my favorite people, and meeting her was the highlight of GenCon for me. So don’t despair, Shelly… we love you!
stupidranger´s last blog post..Visiting the Archives: The Evolution of Your Character
As a girl myself, and having written many such letters in my life, I can attest that if anything, it’s at least therapeuthic to yourself to admit grudging respect and point out in the flaws in someone. Especially if you’ve already crossed the rubicon and begun comparing yourself to that person. That’s the point where you really start breaking down if you don’t do something. Nice blog you have here, by the way. I might read more often!
Also, a friend of mine seems to have read this post:
http://wyattsalazar.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/open-letter-to-chuck-wendig/
@ Nanoka – Nice link! I have to say, there’s nothing more fun that having your posts imitated on other blogs. Mwah ha ha.
I like this post and I love your writing style. Keep doing what your doing.
Andy´s last blog post..Get The 411 On Google
@ Andy – Thanks
Honest mistake. I mostly scan blogs and books so I get some of them mixed up sometimes. I stupidly mistook two female gamer writers for one another…
So I claim ignorance muahahaha! That and stupidity.
It does occur to me that your letter contains very little constructive feedback and reads a lot more like “I like you, but I do things differently to you – and that’s unacceptable!”. Perhaps it’s just the way I’m reading it, but to a reader, it seems to contain more venom than you seem to have intended to put in (given your comments on this page).
Irunno, maybe I’m just too anti-confrontation, but it really seems that this letter serves no purpose further than venting a frustration, something better left to being channeled into gym-work or something useful
My boyfriend got me Confessions of a Sorceress, and I was insulted. Sure, some of the stories are comical, but in an embarrassing, cover-your-eyes-because-I-can’t-believe-she’s-going-to-do-that type of way. We have a female who stresses the girly-girl stereotype at the table – one character almost died during one adventure when she decided to take a tan and therefore was prone when the assassins showed up. She refuses to take her turn on watch because she needs her beauty rest.
It’s not cute. It’s not unique or flavorful. It’s stupid, selfish playing and no one enjoys it. Sure, the men love her flirty character – until they see us come close to fail the adventure because of her silly, “girly” decisions.
Girly does not equal stupid. Shelly Mazzanoble, however, allows her character to revel in it. It’s an insult to women, and gamers.
@ Helen – I certainly agree. She has thankfully gotten better over the course of her articles for Dragon magazine.
I’m Male.
I read the book and enjoyed it alot.
For what it was. A humorous approach to girls and D&D.
I’m guessing 50/50 on the real vs. fantasy make-up of the stories.
But the articles are enjoyable.
And my soon-to-be wife enjoyed it.
And she’s playing D&D now.
This summer I got to meet Shelly at World Wide Game Day in Seattle and she seems like the perfect girl gamer geek.
So be happy in her success. It just makes it easy for your success to come next.
@ PinkRose – Oh, my time is coming… mwah ha ha!! You all just wait and see. My reign will be long and full of win.
This reminds me of an open letter I wrote to White Wolf’s Eddy Webb [Eddy Webb: I Envy You] except yours has a lot more passive-aggressive vitriol per sentence than I can fully stand to measure. Which is awesome.
I read Shelly’s book. I found it amusing; but yes, I also wanted to proverbially smack her over the head a few times here and there. Why wasn’t she playing d20 Modern’s Urban Arcana? Sheesh.
Frankly, E, you should just write your own book. I’d read it, and I’m not a girl.
Daniel M. Perez, The Gamer Traveler´s last blog ..Not Going to #GenCon, But Still Almost There
I suppose I am what E. Foley would describe as a girly-girl. The story of my entrance into the world of gaming is somewhat extraordinary and would certainly surprise both members of the girly world and tomboyish females who would have dismissed me as the kind of girl who would never play DnD, particularly as a blonde former cheerleader. (I would like to add that few people I know would call me ditzy.)
I think what troubles me most about Foley’s article is her apparent lack of appreciation for femininity. Too many girls feel like they need to be tomboyish to be accepted by the guys. Yes, Mazzanoble does in some ways refer to and even mimic “cheesy, vapid girl magazines,” but her doing so is clearly in witty jest. Femininity in the girly-girl sense does not indicate a lack of intelligence; attractiveness does not indicate stupidity.
My first DnD character had an addiction to jewelry. The guys I played with thought it was hilarious. The DM developed a mall in my character’s hometown. Any one of the guys would openly agree that they enjoyed having a girly-girl in the group.
I’ll get to the point. I have personally converted several of the “Nordstrom makeup counter” type to the world of gaming, and I’ve used Mazzanoble’s book as part of my winning strategy. I’m about to pass along the race and class quizzes to my next two converts. Wish me luck.