“For decades, friends have collected in basements to fight zombies and goblins, find enchanted treasure, and save countless realms — armed only with paper and dice.”
“This is Dungeons and Dragons , the roleplaying game that has swept nerddom by storm.”
“But at its core, D&D is a device for storytelling, an oral tradition of collaboration and cooperation, crafting some of the most epic tales of the modern era.”
“Dungeons & Dragons (D&D for short) is a roleplaying game, meaning each player inhabits one character.”
“Players improvise actions and invent plot while acting as their characters, rolling a die, usually a 20-sided die, to see if they are successful.”
“The game runs smoothly with the guidance of a Dungeon Master (or DM), who acts as the game’s referee and storyteller, maintaining the setting and world where the adventures happen and playing the role of the people in the world.”
“The producers of the D&D podcast Join the Party — Eric Silver (the DM), Amanda McLoughlin (moon elf rogue Inara Harthorn), Brandon Grugle (warforged barbarian TR8c), and Michael Fische, aka Fish (half-elf warlock Johnny B. Goodlight) — sat down to talk about the relationship between the game and novels, the fears behind writing and playing, and what D&D can do that that reading and writing can’t.”
“MF: Right. The game evens the playing field between the story creator and story consumers. I think if you imagine the Dungeon Master to be an author and D&D players to be characters within the story, you see how D&D gives the characters a power that they wouldn’t have in any other story. Roleplaying game characters have more power over what’s happening and their own destinies than they ever would in a typical fiction story.”
“AM: It’s the most extreme example of your characters coming to life as a writer.”
“AM: When I played pretend with my siblings I was very prescriptive: “This is what you do now.” I was dictating how they were playing in the universe. But on the other extreme, I would also get bored working on theater shows where the same thing happened every night. Unlike actors, I don’t get the idea that you can discover new meaning every night. Actors’ know what to say next, but also kind of feel through that decision or revelation for the first time over and over again every performance. I would just get bored running the same lighting cues over and over again. But in D&D, when you all sit down together, you know nothing is going to go the way anyone thinks. We’re making the magic together. There isn’t a script to follow. It’s the best compromise between “Here is a blank page, good luck!” and “Here is a script you have to follow.””
“ES:”
“I love this idea that you’re playing within a structure of a game, but everyone is working together to create a story, even as enemies and conflicts are being thrown out in front of you.”
“ES: Since no player is trying to impress an audience, everyone has their own ideas and goals coming in. It’s the collision of everyone’s thoughts that make this thing complex. Have you ever read a novel where you knew exactly what they were trying to get at on the first few pages? Like “Oh wow, this a really cool critique of capitalism.” (Everyone laughs) “I’m excited to read 300 pages about how capitalism is bad.” But when everyone’s ideas are coming together, trying to get what they want, that’s very beautiful. It challenges the story.”
“AM: The game can be tailor-made for you but also surprising at the same time. It’s not a boring book where I can’t get past the first chapter and try again and again, and I’m continuously bored. Like, if that’s the case in D&D, then I’ll run out of the castle and try to seduce the barmaid.”
“ES: CLASSIC AMANDA.”
“AM: Listen, guys, gotta borrow from real life to make good character choices.”
“ES: The stories we make also hold up later. It’s not just this insular thing that only the people around that table can enjoy. I don’t know if every D&D game would hold up as a novel since there’s so much acting involved, but fans can flock to other people’s games when they’re adapted in a smart way to auditory or visual mediums.”
“AM: That’s a perfect point to end on. You can listen and get inspired and play that same afternoon, which is kind of open and daring. D&D requires you to imagine yourself in the stories you consume. It’s so natural to want to participate in the stuff that you think is awesome. That was so easy to do as a kid — every kid writes fan fiction of some kind, or plays pretend in the universe of their favorite movie, or dresses up like Buzz Lightyear at school. And this is, I wouldn’t say a grown-up way to do it… it’s just a more structured and communal way to play pretend and still challenge yourself. We’re maintaining that spirit of play and saying, yes, I have a right to shape the stories that I consume. It’s nothing but awesome.”