What Dungeons & Dragons Taught Me about Real Life
We kill goblins every day.
When I was twelve years old, I became obsessed with Dungeons & Dragons.
I had the red box, one of the original iterations of the game, in my hand. I opened the box and found a couple books and some dice and a white wax crayon to fill in the indented numbers on the dice. The book taught me some basic rules and included a short solo adventure. I killed some monsters, found some treasure, and fell in love with a brand new hobby.
I have played the game on and off ever since.
I have, of course, changed in many ways. Now a man in my forties, married to the woman of my dreams, teaching young minds, I still play. My game has also grown in maturity. No longer content with mere monster bashing, I want a good story.
The game has evolved too. Now in its fifth edition, the game is more popular than ever before. I watched the game go from nerdy pastime to an open obsession for many others.
I think the game has many appeals, but I think people are learning one of the great aspects of all good fantasy — in our escape, we learn about things real.
What have I learned?
1. Dungeons & Dragons taught me a systematic way to level up.
As one goes out into the world, one experiences many obstacles, and each time we overcome them, we gain something. Sure, in D&D, those obstacles look like monsters and traps, and then we gain Experience Points along the way, but this idea isn’t too far from real life.
In real life, the monsters include self doubt, career hurdles, bad relationships, and societal woes. Once we overpower these monsters that may have seemed insurmountable at first, we level up. We gain confidence. We win the girl or boy. We get the career promotion. Or we find our first client. It seemed scary at first, but then we prevailed.
A little D&D can teach us this pattern. We have a goal, we meet the obstacles and defeat them, and we win the reward. Isn’t that what life is all about?
2. Dungeons & Dragons taught me that I can’t do it alone.
D&D gamers have a saying: “Don’t split the party!” Whenever your character in the game attempts to “strike it alone,” inevitably that character dies. You quickly learn that there is strength in numbers, and every man for himself doesn’t work. You must learn to cooperate.
D&D has become an excellent tool to teach children this very thing. Teachers, myself included, take students on quests where they must learn to cooperate or suffer the consequences.
And so it is in life. If we try to strike it out alone, we will struggle. Every success story, every millionaire, even a Bill Gates, had an adventuring party to support them and uphold them. Trust me, there’s no Bill Gates without a Melinda Gates, no Warren Buffet without a Charlie Munger.
Who is your adventuring party? Will they help you fight the obstacles? If you’re not sure, you need to find your fellow adventurers in this game called life, so that you don’t have to face all the monsters alone.
3. Dungeons & Dragons taught me that the dark times shall pass.
Once upon a time, people thought Dungeons & Dragons was a game for the vulnerable loner, the outcast who couldn’t find a friend. D&D could even lead to satanic worship and suicide, or so the narrative went.
Such sentiments have largely disappeared today. The dark times are over. We see this in games. We see it in real life.
Once, my players were fighting a desperate battle against a group of ghosts. It was looking to be a TPK (that means, Total Party Kill, or when everyone’s character dies). Two characters were unconscious, and the two remaining players were barely hanging on. Then something happened. The dice changed their trajectory, and they managed to fend off the ghosts, rescue their unconscious friends, and they survived.
Sometimes bad things happen in the game. A character betrays another character. A battle goes south. The trail of an adversary disappears. A character dies.
And sometimes bad things happen in real life. We lose a lover or a job. A best friend betrays us. Someone close to us dies.
D&D teaches us to weather the storm. This too shall pass.
We know that at some point our luck will change. We literally learn to roll with the punches.
4. Dungeons & Dragons taught me that the lows make the highs even better.
Not only does D&D help us learn to deal with setbacks, we realize that part of the joy of life is overcoming obstacles.
When you play the game, the most satisfying moments come when you accomplish something major. You finally defeat a villain who has been thwarting your group for months. You reach a destination that has taken several months of gaming to find. You save the village or the world from imminent destruction.
We know as gamers that none of these victories are satisfying unless we have been tested. At times we may have even given up hope, but once that triumph comes, it tastes so sweet. In fact, you might even say:
The joy of the victory directly correlates with the struggle of the challenge.
And so it is in life. People who get everything handed to them, who never face a true challenge, very rarely find happiness. They usually wallow in inertia, never finding any kind of satisfaction.
The lows make the highs.
5. Dungeons & Dragons taught me that success depends on luck and perseverance.
Sometimes the dice are against you. Sometimes you reach a critical moment in the game — you need to hit a creature to win the battle, you need to find the trap in order to pass the hallway — when a good die roll makes all the difference.
And you fail.
Now, normally, this doesn’t spell the end for your character. Usually, it’s just a setback. So you find another way and you hope for a better roll. Even if the worst happens and your entire party dies, you get through the disappointment and make up new characters, and then try, try again. Unless the game comes to a grinding halt, you almost always succeed.
Most things in life aren’t life threatening. Most of our goals won’t kill us if we don’t succeed. Therefore, we just need a little perseverance. One bit of bad luck isn’t usually enough to stop us unless we let it.
Keep up the good fight and keep waiting for those natural 20’s.
6. Dungeons & Dragons taught me that the real reward was the journey.
We rarely play D&D to “win.” Winning actually represents a nebulous achievement in D&D. Sure, we may gain Experience Points and treasure, but the real joy is the journey — the characters we may meet along the way, the fantastical landscapes to explore, the joy of small victories, the riddles and the magic. We love the game because of what it does for our imagination.
We can meet life in the same way. It’s not always about the status or the bank account or the achievements. Instead, it’s about the people who helped us, the joy of working hard, the mysteries of new places and new possibilities. The magic in real life may not be as obvious, but it’s there. Look for it!
As the cliché goes, it’s not about the destination, but the people you meet along the way.
7. Dungeons & Dragons taught me that everyone has an alter ego that must be nourished.
D&D reveals the alter ego. More often than not, certain themes come out even when a person plays multiple characters. Perhaps a person plays someone with a jaded past. Perhaps they like to play the “jerk” with the heart of gold. Whether someone plays an elf or a dwarf, a warrior or a thief or a wizard, a male or a female or something else, certain archetypes come out: the Protector, the Fool, the Leader, the Wise One, or any other of the numerous types we might play.
These types say something about us. Perhaps they represent a dark shadow within ourselves that needs some form of safe expression. Perhaps they represent something we aspire to or that excites us. We need to express these alternate personalities to reach wholeness.
If the great psychologist Abraham Maslow knew about Dungeons & Dragons, he might say playing this other character helps fulfill our most loft need: self-actualization. By playing someone else, we find ourselves.
And there you have it. I hope you have enjoyed and see yourself in some of these lessons, and please be sure to comment below what you have learned from roleplaying. I would love to hear from you.
