Dungeons and Dragons……Fun?

The very first time I played Dungeons and Dragons (DnD), I was completely surprised! This game that I had made fun of for most of my high-school years was now becoming something I enjoyed as a young adult! I had all of these assumptions of the game that were not true, and I personally like listening to people play it as much as I enjoy playing it myself!

To help illustrate my point, I am going to explain the very most basic mechanics of DnD. The whole goal of the game is for you to play out your character. The leader of the game (the Dungeon Master or DM), is in charge of telling a story. He explains the context your characters are in, he lives out the characters that are interacting with yours, and he sets up the situations and trials that you face throughout the narrative of the story. The players of the game each have a character. These characters have different stats, abilities, personalities, backgrounds, and opinions. For you to do different actions with your character, you have to role a 20 side dice to find the outcome of whether you were successful in completing that action (I.E. Hitting someone with a sword, deceiving someone, convincing someone, climbing a rope, or doing some crazy acrobatic stunt). Each character will get extra or minus points on those roles depending on their characters strengths or weaknesses. In short, those are the very BASIC mechanics of the game.

The whole point is this: DnD is all about experiencing a story together. And this story is crafted by the players interacting with their DM (Dungeon Master). In the world that is created before you, you can go and do whatever you please, and the story may take you all over the place, meeting new people, conquering new enemies, and experiencing it all with your friends. The best part is that none of this had to be programmed in a computer, and it is something that is crafted by all of the individuals.

In short, I believe that Dungeons and Dragons is one of the most intuitive and adventurous games anyone could play, and it doesn’t require a gaming console or PC. I highly suggest giving it a try! Find somebody who has experience so that they can get you started well. The more I begin to interact with DnD, the more grand adventures become part of my experience!

This is Daniel James, Signing Out.