Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Review: Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Dungeons & Dragons



The perfect book for any gamer! 

Well, maybe, maybe not.

Shelly’s brand of D+D is probably not what gamers are used to at their tables. She is very much the feminine type that embraces her love of shopping, shoes, and trashy tv, but also Dungeons and Dragons. It is that love of the game, and her mother’s apparently endless effort to improve her daughter’s life via self help books that inspired this book.

Everyone has issues. How we deal with those issues is often a very personal journey. Being able to tackle those issues with role playing isn’t new, but the way Shelly goes about it is probably a little more unique than most. She actively, and with the support of her friends and coworkers, uses the game to attempt to make changes to her life. Some are more successful than others.

While I am clearly not the target audience for this book, I did find it enjoyable.

*For those who don’t know, Shelly Mazzanoble works for Wizards of the Coast in the marketing department, so there is a certain amount of making everyone look good, especially her bosses and DMs. That isn’t to say that they aren’t genuinely good people and need any spiffing up, just that it should be taken with a grain of salt.

5 comments:

  1. A shot question off topic: Where'd you get that nice "Reaction" thing below your article?

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  2. @Dave

    No book written by a person who works for WotC is going to be objective towards the persons/company that signs their paycheck -- that's only to be expected.

    And self-help books are a dime for two dozen, so that pretty much makes this a "non-purchase" book for me.

    @Clone

    I've seen that Reaction bar on several of the sites I visit. I always click on one, it's only the polite thing to do. ;)

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  3. Me too. And I want to have it on my blog, too!

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  4. @TheClone - When you are in the layout section, click "edit" on the blog posts frame. The option to turn on the reactions is there.

    @MS - This isn't really a self help book, it's more about how she used D&D as self help. Plus, I got it from the library!

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Comment Moderation is in place. Email notifications are spotty... might be a bit before this gets published. Sorry.