Mazes of Madness
Real Talk 9000- I forced my husband to record our D&D episode of Horror Hoarders three times. I was worried that I would do something that would be blasphemous to the nerd community- make D&D boring.
Although I’m relatively new to playing Dungeons and Dragons, I understand that the community is a dedicated one. There are people that have played for decades and have characters that they have played for 10 years or more. So the pressure was on to make an entertaining podcast that wasn’t pandering and talking down to people who weren’t familiar with the game, but I also didn’t want to alienate people who weren’t. I started off recording two episodes that followed my unique train of thought. I decided that I wanted to to focus on the “dark side” of D&D. Having played D&D for a little while, and being stoked at the upcoming Baldur’s Gate game, I noticed that there is indeed some creepy things in the game and yeah, some borderline satanic stuff that could have led to all the panic in the 80’s. However, it may not be what people are thinking. As a player, my first thought was, “What is religion like in this universe?” Then, “Is there a heaven and hell?” Followed by, “What are demons like in the D&D universe?” These questions were all fascinating to me. They lead to hours of research on different planes of existence, heavens, hells, gods, and dragons. I was so excited about it. Then I got to recording and realized I was boring my husband- who has played D&D for 20 years. I was letting myself, the audience, and D&D vets and newbs alike down. I decided to try again. This time, I would still start with my strange thought patterns where I posed the big, existential questions of all creatures great and small in the D&D universe, but I was a little bit more brief on the cosmic shit. It was still wrong. It was still isolating. I imagined listeners turning off the podcast thinking that D&D is fucking weird and they didn’t want to ever play that.
I remember being terrified to pick up a collection of 7 polyhedral dice because I thought that I would never be able to figure out the rules. 5th edition is streamlined and accessible. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I’m too dumb to play any of the other versions, I’m just saying I ask a lot more questions. I still ask questions in 5E, but I feel a little more capable. D&D can feel really daunting for newbies. Before I started, my friend showed me a literal binder stuffed with adventures, characters, maps, and notes. I knew I could never do that. And I never have. Today I keep up with things on an app called D&D Beyond. I also made a vow never to DM, or lead a campaign and I’ve pretty much stuck to that. I didn’t want to make anyone feel that way. I wanted to bring people into the fold, to tempt people into trying the game- like a white van with FREE CANDY painted on the side. Talking about the fantasy cosmos and gods wasn’t doing it, no matter how cool I thought Wee Jas and the Lady of Pain are.
So I started again, this time flipping the script. Starting small then ascending to the cosmos, the way a player would. You don’t learn about the different planes or gods or goddesses until much later in your experience, if you do at all. They’re footnotes when you’re creating a character if you’re deciding which deity will bless you. Sometimes, creative DMs will put you through an adventure that leads to another plane or involves you meeting a deity or demigod, or noticing their effects on the world. They are interesting and you can spend hours looking into this lore (trust me), but starting off with that as your introduction to the game isn’t the best way to be introduced to it. You start with building a character. This is my favorite part of video game RPGs, so I enjoy it in Tabletop RPGs just as much if not more. Then you meet NPCs and monsters. So I tried to make that the way that the podcast went, the way that a player would discover the world. It still may be boring to some, but I hope it’s less boring than it could have been and I hope that a few people at least decide to chuck a D20 and discover how much fun it can be to have a critical hit and how heartrendingly hilarious it can be to experience a critical miss.
Roll on, my fellow nerds!
