Here There Be Dragons

                Last year, I looked into Dungeons & Dragons for the first time. The most important thing I have learned about D&D is not to judge a game by its 40-year-old apocryphal myths.

                Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) has always interested me. Not the actual game, but all the mystery and hatred and vitriol that surrounds it. The only Lizzy McGuire episode I remember ever seeing (though why I admit to remembering or watching Lizzy McGuire is beyond me) is where one of the characters discovers a group of people playing a game—which I later figured out is supposed to be Dungeons and Dragons—and joins them. Soon the character is forgetting to eat, ignoring his responsibilities and friends, unable to sleep, and is pretty much brainwashed into a cowl-wearing zombie. The message was quite clear on D&D: It’s bad news and destroys lives.

                Growing up in a somewhat traditional Christian community, that was the picture I saw for most of my formative years. I was nerd, yes, and I played a lot of games—video and otherwise—but I was not SO far gone that I played Dungeons and Dragons. From what could tell from media (mostly the comic strip Foxtrot), the game didn’t even look fun. It looked complicated and weird. And one of the players doesn’t even actually play the game? What is that about? I didn’t know anyone who played, probably because those people never left their basement, right?

                By the time I was in my 20s I assumed that the game had died with the rising popularity of video games. It wasn’t until around 2 years ago that I started seeing it EVERYWHERE. I am not sure what happened, although I had noticed a general rise in the popularity of nerd culture for the past few years, mostly surrounding sci-fi TV shows and movies. Still, I hadn’t have any contact with actual D&D players or opportunities to play until maybe a year ago.

                I know there have been a lot of extremely violent, negative views on D&D. People have called it demonic and said that it caused people to murder their parents. But I had also heard the total opposite. Last year, I met several strong Christians who play the game regularly. When a game provokes such wide-ranging views, I like to do my own research and form my own opinion. Here are a few things about D&D that have surprised me.

                (Two notes: First, when I refer to a “Dungeon Master” (DM) I am referring to a unique aspect of D&D. The DM creates an imaginary world and story into which the real-life players can place their own characters. Through their characters, the players interact with and change the story. Second, I had the following insights BEFORE I played a game of D&D. The following was conceived after reading the rules of D&D and talking to players. I have since played some and still stand by these initial impressions.)

This game can actually be fun.

                This is not a supportive argument for the game, this is just a fact. I have played MANY board games, video games, and group games. I am fascinated by the mechanics, and have always been on the search for that perfect mix of exciting, fun, and rewarding. I feel like I have become pretty good at reviewing and analyzing games from an objective viewpoint. Before even playing D&D, I read the rules and watched YouTube videos and was struck that this game had the possibility of being FUN. It allows for the complete freedom of imagination, tempered by the randomness and surprise of dice and a DM. Again, this is not support for the game. I still saw D&D as something to handle from a distance. I had the immediate thought, “Huh. I bet this game is easy to get lost in.”

This game is surprisingly normal.

                Based off all of the hate I had seen for this game, I expected demon worship and evil abounding. I was kind of surprised at how normal the game is compared to what is popular these days. The game has magic and evil and non-Christian-religion and monsters and such, but not more than most popular fantasy novels or video games—and much less than some. The thing that surprised me most is that D&D doesn’t even necessarily have to have those elements. I discovered that D&D, at its heart, is a set of very boring rules on gameplay. That’s it.

                It was kind of a let-down until I realized that that was the source of the game’s funness. It didn’t start with a magic-filled story and then add mechanics; it just gave the mechanics to translate any action into something that could be simulated with dice. The DM creates all the specifics. The story, religion, monsters, and even the magic system are added on a game-by-game basis. Technically a DM could write a D&D game that simulated a plane crash in the middle of a jungle, or a group of friends navigating the politics of a first-world country. It would be hard to make that very fun, but you could do it. Yes, most of D&D has magic, but I was surprised at how similar it was to a normal fantasy book or video game, and how controllable it was. (I think magic is so popular in books and games because it provides options not available in real life, similar to super advanced technology.)

This game is centered around choices.

                This may seem kind of obvious, but I didn’t actually fully understand what this meant until I did more research. This game doesn’t provide a world of demons and magic to sucker punch you into changing who you are. There are always choices. Not only are there choices, there are choices where the consequences are accurately simulated, in a safe place, and WHERE GOOD CAN ALWAYS PREVAIL. There is a reason why role-playing is used in therapy and psychology. It can teach extremely valuable lessons about who you are and what you want in a safe environment

                After doing research, I actually came to the conclusion that this aspect of the game can be BETTER for you as a person than other game options out there. (Or worse. More on that later.) In some video games, you can be trapped between Bad and Worse choices, with no other options written into the code of the game. Whichever one you choose, you have no choice but to watch your character perform a bad action. In D&D, you can ALWAYS choose good over evil. 

                I was very surprised at my conclusions about this game. The game was SO much farther from demonic than I was expecting. In fact, I am not sure why it is still thought of that way. I think it is very similar to video games in that it is easy to get lost in, but someone would have to already have a very broken mind for D&D to change the way he thinks or enslave his mind. The most important factor is the nature of the player, not the nature of the game. If someone’s mind is broken enough to succumb to the “dangers” of D&D, then his mind is just as likely to separate from reality due to something completely different, and the blame cannot be placed with D&D alone.

                There is really only one thing I would be worried about with D&D, and I think it is a very rational fear. As with video games, Instagram, or work, I think D&D can become an idol. Just as with video games, Instagram, or work, D&D will become an idol easier to some people than others.

                I wanted to be careful when learning about D&D because I KNOW that I love escapes. I love fantasy books and movies and video games, and it has been a real problem in my life to keep those things prioritized correctly among God and my personal life. My initial views on D&D were closer to the haters’ than to the supporters’. But I knew that I should start learning more about it before I formed opinions on it, especially since I knew strong Christians who regularly played.

                I think, used wisely, this game is one of the better games to play. When comparing it to video games, I think D&D has more positive qualities and fewer negative qualities. (I don’t even mean mechanical qualities, but social and behavioral qualities.) Where video games love to show blood and gore, D&D includes as much or as little as you want, depending on the DM. Where some video games have dark endings that cannot be avoided, the world in D&D can always be saved, depending on the DM. Where videogames can be played for 18 hours without stopping, it would be much harder to do that with the kind of group needed to play D&D. And those 18 hours would be spent talking and laughing and building community rather than in the dark (yes, depending on the DM).

                The most important things to consider when playing D&D are that you guard against its becoming an idol, you play with a DM you can trust, and you play with the right kind of people.

                I think if you want to learn more about D&D, find someone who plays with whom you would enjoy traveling the world.

                I think if you are a parent who is worried about your kids playing it, try playing it yourself, and then playing with your kids. I have been surprised at the number of “normals” (there go my nerd sensibilities) I have seen play D&D and then ask to play again.

                If the magic is what bothers you, I have seen a successful game replace all the religion and magic with techno-counterparts.

                I promise that there is no aspect of D&D that will change who you are by playing once. (You have the same chance of being changed by a video game that you play once.) But playing once will give you valuable insights into what YOU think about the game, without relying on the thoughts and opinions of people who have never played.