What I learned from Dungeons and Dragons: Death nachos, imagination, education and shared experiences
The very best role playing games are a shared story developed by players and Game Masters (GMs) in a creative atmosphere wherein the story is everything. Role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) have a set of rules, a person, the Dungeon Master (DM) in D&D or GM in other games, who oversees the rules and the players who play within the world set up by the DM.
I grew up playing D&D, and it became clear that there were players and DMs who thought that the game was a competition. The DM tried to kill off the characters as quickly as possible using the least amount of force. However, since the DM has control of everything in the world that is not a player, games could be fairly short lived. If a DM decided to have a god face off against a group of new characters, the new characters would quickly wind up in some sort of state of death. Played in this way, it becomes not so much a game as an excuse to generate new characters.
When a DM felt bound by the rules of fair play and decency and wanted to create a story either with or in spite of the players, the game could go on for years with characters advancing through stages of growth. Players could form friendships through their shared experience of the game, and everyone could share stories that, while objectively were entirely made up, subjectively were as real as any beloved book or myth. The character’s actions could become something that someone was proud of, especially when the character was allowed to solve a problem or puzzle.
While there were good times to be had in middle school where my best friend and I created a shared universe that could meld our two loves of D&D – his character a ninja from the Orient, mine a rogue from the Europeanesque world – the best times were in college. Our DM Mike had three flaws in his game. He felt like it was a competition, but he never killed off a character. This made for some very memorable storytelling moments.
He also sent the story in directions that the players couldn’t appreciate. For as much as the players sometimes complained about his DMing style, we showed up every Friday and played well into the morning hours, which often included a trip to the local 7-11 for death nachos and caffeinated carbonation. It was these trips, and our time spent during the game not actually playing that we were able to form friendships, some of which have endured for 20 years and some of which endured only through college.
Either way, D&D taught me that in order for people to bond and become friends, they must share some sort of experience to bond with – even if that experience is made of pure imagination with a side of death nachos and education.
Being part of a group
Never split up the party
Academically speaking
A critical failure is success
I grew up playing D&D, and it became clear that there were players and DMs who thought that the game was a competition. The DM tried to kill off the characters as quickly as possible using the least amount of force. However, since the DM has control of everything in the world that is not a player, games could be fairly short lived. If a DM decided to have a god face off against a group of new characters, the new characters would quickly wind up in some sort of state of death. Played in this way, it becomes not so much a game as an excuse to generate new characters.
When a DM felt bound by the rules of fair play and decency and wanted to create a story either with or in spite of the players, the game could go on for years with characters advancing through stages of growth. Players could form friendships through their shared experience of the game, and everyone could share stories that, while objectively were entirely made up, subjectively were as real as any beloved book or myth. The character’s actions could become something that someone was proud of, especially when the character was allowed to solve a problem or puzzle.
While there were good times to be had in middle school where my best friend and I created a shared universe that could meld our two loves of D&D – his character a ninja from the Orient, mine a rogue from the Europeanesque world – the best times were in college. Our DM Mike had three flaws in his game. He felt like it was a competition, but he never killed off a character. This made for some very memorable storytelling moments.
He also sent the story in directions that the players couldn’t appreciate. For as much as the players sometimes complained about his DMing style, we showed up every Friday and played well into the morning hours, which often included a trip to the local 7-11 for death nachos and caffeinated carbonation. It was these trips, and our time spent during the game not actually playing that we were able to form friendships, some of which have endured for 20 years and some of which endured only through college.
Either way, D&D taught me that in order for people to bond and become friends, they must share some sort of experience to bond with – even if that experience is made of pure imagination with a side of death nachos and education.
Being part of a group
Never split up the party
Academically speaking
A critical failure is success
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