Why You Need to Play Dungeons & Dragons
Playing Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is unlike anything you’ve ever experienced, and today I’m going to tell you what makes this game so unique, why it’s special, and why you should try it. It’s time to jump in, and it’s never been easier to do it.
Note: D&D is a tabletop RPG, and there are many available on the market. My experience has primarily been with D&D though so that will be the primary focus of this post. Any time I say “D&D,” it’s meant to be synonymous with “tabletop RPG.”
It’s your story
The best part about playing D&D is your story.
If you’ve played a video game, read a book, or watched a movie, you know what it’s like to step into someone else’s shoes. You can reenact their heroics, and experience their joys and pain. Ultimately, you can picture yourself saving the world, falling in love, or doing any other amazing thing while living out their story.
But it’s still their story.
No matter how spectacular the outcome, no matter how joyous the adventure, it still belongs to someone else and you just see it through their eyes. That “someone” probably spent a lot of time in a writer’s mind (or a team of writers) becoming fleshed out so the you can relate to them.
You create your own story in a game like D&D, because you’re creating a new you.
You no longer have to imagine yourself doing what someone else thinks is heroic. You no longer have to look how someone else thinks you should look. You’re in charge of that. You’re in charge of all of that, and everything in between.
Why do you have a scar? Is it from a bar fight? Is it because you put yourself in harm’s way to save someone you cared about, only to have them disregard your efforts? If it’s either of those options (and those are just the ones I chose — there are many more options), then the next question is, “Why?”
Why did you get in a bar fight? Did you provoke someone or were you just defending yourself? Why did you put yourself in harm’s way? Did you do it for romantic reasons? Did you do it to protect a family member?
And then, “How?” And “What?” And on and on it goes — let your story play out because you get to be whoever and whatever you want to be.
Well, it’s their story too
And by “their story,” I mean everyone else at the table. You see, D&D isn’t meant to be played alone (although every time you played make-believe as a child, you were playing D&D in a way). It’s a multiplayer game and the other players are sitting around you.
While you get to figure out all the nuts and bolts that make your character tick, the handful of other people at the table are doing the same!
Some of the most memorable moments I’ve had playing D&D come from my character’s interactions with another. That witty one-liner I just threw out? Well, it was returned in kind. Or that one time I barelybytheskinofmyteeth pulled off an impossible maneuver? It was used to save one of my compatriots. Moments like these are cemented in my mind by the laughs and gasps at the table.
And speaking of the table — that’s a big part of it too. Countless articles have already talked about how technology is making social interactions increasingly distant even though it’s supposed to be doing the opposite, so I won’t go into it here. A game like D&D helps players sit down, and talk to each other in the same room. There’s something refreshing about that in this increasingly disconnected world.
I will say, however, it’s still nice to have options to play D&D over Skype in case anyone decides to move away…
The Dungeon Master
Another unique aspect about D&D is the Dungeon Master (DM). While it’s true the story is up to how you and your fellow players define it, it’s the DM’s job to set that up for you. The DM creates the puzzles for you to solve, the monsters for you to fight, the dungeons for you to explore, and everything in between.
What do I mean by everything? I mean everything. Literally.
They create the world — the mountains in the distance, the statue of a mysterious creature that’s stood for thousands of years, or the mysterious lake on the outskirts of town that’s believed to be haunted. All of these things come from the DM’s imagination, and all of them are yours to play with.
A lot of these things are available for purchase so you don’t have to put yourself through the pressure of creating a whole world. Check out our editor-in-chief’s excellent campaigns on her DMs Guild page!
And the DM doesn’t just create the world; they create all the interactions that you have within it. Only the human mind is capable of the decision making and improvisation that comes up during a D&D session, and it’s the DM’s job to play that role.
In a video game, if the developer doesn’t think you should be able to jump over a fence, guess what? You’re not jumping over that fence, and you’re left wondering why you can kill hordes of zombies but you’re stumped by this dang fence.
In D&D, the DM will let you jump that fence, because they know that an adventurer such as yourself surely wouldn’t be phased by that small obstacle. The DM might not know why you’re jumping that fence, and they’ll have to quickly think of what happens once you do. Do you fall into a trap? Do you find a group of sleeping goblins? Or, do you twist an ankle in your attempt? All of this is possible and it’s up to the DM’s discretion.
Now take that example and apply those endless possibilities to everything that happens in a game: the people you talk to, the encounters you have, the places you explore. The things that can happen are limitless.
The graphics are mind-blowing*
*Having a vivid imagination is helpful here.
D&D exists in your mind.
Sure, you’ve got a few books, some tables, and maybe a notebook or two. And if you’re lucky, the DM might even provide a map or some miniatures.
The rest of it plays out in that big ol’ noggin of yours.
That might seem like a drag in a world of “cutting edge” 4K graphics, but it’s actually a blessing! Artistic preferences are subjective by nature, so the cartoony video game graphics I enjoy might be looked down on by someone else. Conversely, the realistic graphics they enjoy might look silly to me.
D&D doesn’t have this problem because everyone is imagining the scene differently. I might picture battles the way they were portrayed in Lord of the Rings because I want them to be grand and epic in scope. Someone else at the table could be picturing it like an anime because that’s what they enjoy.
Through this lens, D&D will never look outdated — the scene I’m imagining is exactly how I want it to look, and it’ll be influenced by all the artistic mediums I find most visually stunning.
You’ve probably heard of D&D in pop culture by now. It’s not uncommon to see it being referenced in shows like Stranger Things or The Big Bang Theory, and if you’ve ever wondered what it’s all about, I hope I’ve answered some of those questions while simultaneously piquing your interest about this beautiful, and occasionally messy, game.
If you want to learn more about what it’s like to play through a game of D&D, check out popular shows like Critical Role and The Adventure Zone! Also, you can read through a narrative based on the last campaign that the Planar Shift team played through at The Tavern Burners.
