<p>I've recently taken up learning some C# and wrote a Yahtzee clone.  My next step (now that the game logic is in place and functioning correctly) is to integrate some method of keeping stats across all the games played.</p>

<p>My question is this, how should I go about storing this information?  My first thought would be to use a database and I have a feeling that's the answer I'll get... if that's the case, can you point me to a good resource for creating and accessing a database from a C# application?</p>

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<p>Storing in an XML file actually makes more sense to me, but I thought if I suggested that I'd get torn apart ;).  I'm used to building web applications and for those, text files are generally frowned upon.</p>

<p>So, going with an XML file, what classes should I be looking at that would allow for easy manipulation?</p>

A database may be overkill - have you thought about just storing the scores in a file?
If you decide to go with a database, you might consider
SQLite
, which you can distribute just like a file. There's an open source .NET provider -
System.Data.SQLite
- that includes everything you need to get started.
Accessing and reading from a database in .NET is quite easy - take a look at
this question
for sample code.