Way to get girls (?!): the new column for the new Dragon.

[Samnell]

The humorous grognard elitists are allowed to stay, and should also be given a column with which to entertain us.

I have been informed that humorous grognard elitists are very concerned with the level of traffic on their lawns and the intrusion of the youth thereon. Thus a true grognard will burst from his domicile, robe aflutter amid uncomfortable breezes, crying, "I abjure thee, callow trodders on the verge!"

 

[Alnag]

I am not a native speaker, so this might be a reason, but I have a serious problem to follow the text. I understand the words and sentences, but it is too incoherent to bring together some meaning or something. Maybe girls (or women) would read it with less problems but somehow I don't get it.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

I have been informed that humorous grognard elitists are very concerned with the level of traffic on their lawns and the intrusion of the youth thereon. Thus a true grognard will burst from his domicile, robe aflutter amid uncomfortable breezes, crying, "I abjure thee, callow trodders on the verge!"

That's it.

"You durn kids. When I was your age, we walked to our D&D game. Uphill both ways! In the snow. While drawing our maps in pencil. Pencil I tell you! Our own maps. None of these fancy digital downloads while you stay warm in front of your computer. We had an abacus."

 

[kiznit]

I have been informed that humorous grognard elitists are very concerned with the level of traffic on their lawns and the intrusion of the youth thereon. Thus a true grognard will burst from his domicile, robe aflutter amid uncomfortable breezes, crying, "I abjure thee, callow trodders on the verge!"

If he's humorous, he does so with a twinkle in his eye and possibly with a senile lack of underwear.

 

[Ycore Rixle]

What was the point of the article? Seriously, I don't know why it's there. I guess it is supposd to entertain us. Is this some new column that is supposed to be about girl gamers, or gaming from a girl's point of view? I shouldn't have to wonder what the point of a column is. An introduction or something would have been nice - even an end-note author bio that is something other than inane.

Ah, now I went back to the column heading page and see that "Shelly Mazzanoble, author of Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress, brings a fresh perspective to the Dungeons & Dragons game. Join her as she shares her experiences in a new 4th Edition campaign."

What exactly is this fresh perspective? Female? There have been female gamers writing and working at WotC/TSR for decades.

 

[AffableVagrant]

"I got lucky in 5th grade. No, not that kind of lucky -- it was 5th grade!"

After those first two sentences, I stopped caring. If you want to crack a joke about 10 year olds having sex, it better be funny, otherwise it's just tacky.

 

[psionotic]

What exactly is this fresh perspective? Female? There have been female gamers writing and working at WotC/TSR for decades.

Sure there have been. But there haven't been a lot of them with a regular column in Dragon, so we don't usually hear from them publicly. Shelly's perspective is trebly interesting because she's relatively new to the game, and because she certainly falls outside of the stereotype of the typical female gamer, what with her self-description as the quintessential 'girly-girl.'

But besides all of that demographic stuff, I'm on board for as long as she's funny, and if her column is half as good as her book is, that should be for a long, long time.

 

[broghammerj]

I am not a native speaker, so this might be a reason, but I have a serious problem to follow the text. I understand the words and sentences, but it is too incoherent to bring together some meaning or something. Maybe girls (or women) would read it with less problems but somehow I don't get it.

Don't worry, I am a native speaker and couldn't make sense of it. I have to remind myself why I want to spend $10/month on DnD insider content.

 

[Ycore Rixle]

Sure there have been. But there haven't been a lot of them with a regular column in Dragon, so we don't usually hear from them publicly.

True, there hasn't been a regular column in Dragon written by a female. But we hear from female gamers, and in particular female WOTC/TSR staffers, publicly all the time. Heck, the editor of Dungeon magazine was a girl back in the day. More recently, there are zillions of books and articles edited by Penny Williams. We hear from her all the time. Not to mention Gwendolyn Kestrel, who was WOTC's freelance coordinator up until this summer, and as such had a huge hand in virtually all the 3.5e books over the last few years. Not to mention Jennifer Clarke Wilkes, Amber Scott, Jean Rabe... these are just off the top of my head. We hear from female gamers constantly.

*shrug* I guess that tastes differ. I enjoy neither Shelly's style nor her content, at least in this article.

This is not to say that I don't think a column on men, women, and sex issues in gaming is a bad idea. I'd love to see a Camille Paglia-style take on DnD. But that's not this article. This article and its heading seem to say, Read this because it's about games and it's written by a girly-girl. That strikes me as immature, condescending, and misguided. Anyone who has played DnD with girly-girls knows that they are just as likely as the next gamer to be screaming for kobold blood and fighting over the treasure hoard. Where's the fresh perspective in that?

 

[Vigilance]

What exactly is this fresh perspective? Female? There have been female gamers writing and working at WotC/TSR for decades.

I found it fresh. It was funny, and bright and written in a conversational style that really communicated that feeling I've had when I was between groups... "is it me"?

It's a lot like the feeling one has when looking for a date, which is why the style of the article made sense to me.

It wasn't what I expected, not anything like I've seen in a gaming column before and I liked it.