Dungeons and Dragons Made Me a Better Scrum Master
If you draw a Venn diagram showing the sort of folk who become software developers and the stereotypical basement dwelling mouth breathers who play Dungeons and Dragons, you would probably expect a reasonable overlap, if only because in days of yore, these two callings were considered the realm of the nerd.
Nowadays, both are enjoying something of a renaissance. Writing code may not be cool in the traditional sense, but it is certainly trendy. And spurred along by its adoption into mainstream cultural landmarks such as Stranger Things, D&D has attracted hordes of new players who might have otherwise passed the hobby by. It was thanks to that particular show that my wife and I were asked by a couple of our friends about D&D in the same way that the uninitiated might tentatively ask about sex toys or drugs. I have learned since then that if you casually mention your hobby to “mundanes” (think muggles), they will often take you off to one side for a discrete conversation to ask how they get started, and would you mind running a short game some time to show them the ropes. So it was that I began running a regular game of Deadlands for a group of colleagues and their families, who were stuck indoors due to the Coronavirus lockdown. Thank Gygax for Roll20.
When I say D&D, I often mean the hobby rather than the specific game by Wizards of…
