The Importance of D&D (for Dummies)

D&D is a widely popular role playing game (at least among us nerds); where friends gather together to essentially tell a group story. In the game there are players who create characters that they will control in a realm designed by a special player, usually known as the Dungeon Master (The DM). The DM will set up a plot which is unknown to the players and ask them to make decisions to direct the story based on what they think their character would do in a given situation. This means that while certain events in the plot are set by the DM, the players may choose how to get to those given points. The DM must be able to bend to what happens and guide the players along. 

To keep the poor DM from being the ruler of utter chaos, there are rules and limitations to what each player can do. When creating a character, players must select their character traits and abilities from a given list. Once those traits and abilities are decided, they can be added to but not undone. Players are also limited by luck. The DM will often ask players to role dice. You need to role higher than a certain number in order to perform an action. You are rewarded more dice to roll if you choose to be skilled in something: ex- If one of my abilities is theft and I am rolling for the chance to steal something, I would get more dice to roll because it betters my odds of success. It all sounds very complicated, and it is. So why do it? 

D&D, which stands for Dungeons and Dragons, has been around for decades and the story-telling is usually set in a Tolkien-esk fantasy realm. This means that not only are you limited by the rules and limitations of your character, but you must have a fairly good background knowledge regarding fantasy creatures in order to cope with the setting of the story. 

It seems to me that we like D&D BECAUSE of the structure it affords us in a world that no one has a complete grasp of because it’s make-believe. In our own society we can’t control everything and it drives us nuts. It’s not just me and my OCD self, people need to control things. We seek structure as a species dependent on one another. Civilization is the opposite of this savage, primal animal that we are trying to escape. Order, Rules and laws, Control is what we instinctively reach for in our struggle for evolution. In our struggle to better ourselves. We like D&D because magic is pretty awesome, but it is also really scary –unless you control it or understand it.

This is really important I think, so I will repeat it. Magic is awesome when YOU control/understand it. D&D allows for a regulated magical environment where you can manipulate your own identity to fight or wield magic. It is a tool that helps us explore how we might deal with scary situations involving magic, without actually ever getting that close to it. You are separated from the action of the story by your character. It is like acting. Instead of being you and responding as you would, you are pretending to be someone else and responding as they would. It is hard not to put yourself into your character because sometimes you have to figure out how you would react before you can figure out how they would.