There's More to D&D Than Meets the Eye

Well, apparently writing here every two weeks is harder than I thought… Maybe going from posting twice a year, to posting twice a month, was a bit too ambitious. I think I’ll aim for once a month instead, at least for now. Adjusting a New Year’s Resolution is totally different to failing at it, right?!

Ah, well. Onward!

I’m about to start a new D&D campaign, and it’s gotten me thinking about the way I've seen the game characterized, and the perceptions of it I've heard from friends who don’t play - and about the many ways in which my experience with D&D paints a very different picture from the one I've often seen presented. Of course, I’m sure there are some players and campaigns living up to the image - it has to come from somewhere - but it’s certainly not inherent to the game.

So, I wanted to share my experience with D&D. I do fully admit that this is simply an opinion piece - an attempt to get people seeing RPGs in a different light, yes, but hardly an attempt based on research and statistics and stuff. I’m just talking about things I like! :)

A note before I begin: I’m going to just keep calling all such RPGs, “D&D” in this post, for the sake of ease. I have also played Pathfinder, though - my upcoming campaign, in fact, is Pathfinder - and I know there are even more options out there. But… I like synecdoche I guess? Haha, no, honestly, it’s just that D&D is (I think) the most generally recognizable of the type of RPG I have the most experience with am focusing this post on. So D&D it is!

And my experience with D&D has taught me the following...

It’s not a boys’ club - or at least, it doesn't have to be. 

D&D is not (necessarily) the male-dominated world it’s often painted to be - really! I have been part of three campaigns (well, two campaigns and one mini-adventure), and will be starting my fourth campaign in a couple of weeks - and only once have I been vastly outnumbered as a female. My first campaign and my upcoming campaign involve different groups of friends, but have the exact same ratio: 6 players total, with 3 women and 3 men. In both campaigns, one of the men is the DM - the narrator of our “choose-your-own-adventure” story - so the adventuring party itself (the characters in the story) actually has more women than men, at 3-to-2.

My second campaign officially had more men than women: 5-to-3, counting the DM; 4-to-3 without him. But, two of our players did not come to every session; of the regular players, we were back to that 3-to-3 ratio, with female party members outnumbering male party members 3-to-2.

Yes, there was the mini-adventure I took part in, and there I was well and truly outnumbered: out of 7 total players (DM-inclusive), I was the only girl, making it a 6-to-1 party in favor of the men. But I’d hesitate to call even that group a “boys’ club” situation - it’s not like I was ever singled out for being the single female in the party. (Then again, I never expected for a moment that I would be, since my friends are, you know, nice people… So nice that I wrote a whole post about it!)

So, at least in my experience, there’s certainly no rule that a group of D&D players will be made up of mostly men - and even when the group demographically matches that stereotype, that doesn't mean there’s a no-girls-allowed attitude. Everyone can get involved!

And when I say “everyone…”

It’s not just for your stereotypical fantasy-loving geek.

Not a “gamer”? Not a problem! For example, as someone who has done some acting herself, I strongly believe that actors should play D&D: not only is it an amazing improv game (given that players must behave as their characters without any script to follow or any foreknowledge of plot developments), it’s also a brilliant character study exercise. D&D players have to accurately represent their character at all times: all decisions made by a player, for their character, must be something the character they created would actually decide to do. A player needs to understand how their character’s past experiences, areas of expertise, family values, etc - their backstory - would inform and affect the choices they make. I think this is great training for actors, as understanding why a character makes the choices they do is very important to portraying that character convincingly (in my acting experience, at least).

Not to mention it affords actor-players the opportunity to practice all other aspects of getting into character… But more on that later!

Writers should get in on this, too, as a character creation exercise. It’s a great way for writers to delve into the psychology of characters they create, as they’ll need to know how their character would behave even in situations they, the writer/player, haven’t invented. And personally, I've often found that, as my characters navigate the unexpected twists and turns of the plot, they grow and develop all on their own - sometimes in ways I never expected (despite the fact that I created them!). I imagine that watching characters come to life in this way could be a good experience for writers, as a reminder that just because they think they have a firm grasp of who the characters in their novel should be, doesn't mean all of the characters will agree as the story progresses. (Though I admit that I’m hardly a fiction writer, so hey, I could be wrong…)

Very brave writers can even try a hand at DM-ing a campaign - where they’ll get to write and lead the plot! (I say “very brave” simply because the idea of DM-ing seems overwhelming to me, to be honest - but plenty of people love it, obviously, so maybe I’m just a chicken.)

You don’t have to be a method actor*.

I know I just said that D&D is great practice for actors, but players don’t need to be great actors. As long as they make decisions their character would make, they’re good to go - beyond that, their “performance” can be as simple or as theatrical as they’d like.

More to the point, players are not required to be constantly in character; at least, that’s never been the case in campaigns I've played. While the game is on, players are in character; when the game is not on, they are not. And “not on” doesn't only mean “between sessions” - it includes short breaks during the session, and yes, even real-world conversations during the game. So, when the game takes a break, players don’t need to continue calling each other by their character names; even during gameplay, if player A just wants to ask player B to pass the soda, real names can certainly be used. (In fact, in the campaigns I've played, we all expected to use real names outside of gameplay… In fact I think we’d have gotten very strange looks if we didn't.)

And no - costumes are not required, either!

It’s not just for kids, or people who still act like kids.

I do wish I didn't need to point this out, because I wish it were obvious… But my post would be remiss if I don’t mention what I think might be the most common, pervasive stereotype of D&D players.

It’s absolutely inaccurate to assume that D&D players are childish or immature; that they’re adults trying desperately to cling to some final vestiges of youth as they live out their fantasies in a make-believe world of, well, dungeons and dragons. In my experience - and that of friends I've spoken to - most of us are, honestly, self-sufficient, mature, totally integrated members of society, and not living in our parents’ basements. I promise. :)

That said, I will be the first to admit that D&D has a lot in common with the games of make-believe I played as a child: getting together with a group of friends to create and play in an imagined world of magic and monsters is childhood in a nutshell (well, at least it was for me). But I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all. Who says imaginative play ceases to be important after your 18th birthday? (Or as the Doctor once said, “What’s the point of being grown up if you can’t be childish sometimes?”)

It’s not called an adventuring “party” for nothing.

I've seen D&D portrayed as extremely Serious Business at times; almost as if the players really believe that it’s a life-and-death situation. And to be fair, depending on the campaign (and the people playing), it often is the case that if a character dies in combat… Yeah, they’re dead. There are chances for a player to try and save their character (ranging from magical options to medical triage), but those rely on lucky dice rolls - and if luck isn't on their side, they’re, well, out of luck. (Never fear; the player can always create another character. But that original character is properly gone.)

But that kind of in-game gravity shouldn't be confused with the same atmosphere outside of the game. Because D&D is, in the end, exactly that: a game. A party game, at that; one that involves spending time - often many hours - with a group of close friends. There’s food! There are drinks! There are jokes! There are absurd situations! There are laughs! There are wonderful memories of friendship and joy created! It’s great!

Yes, when it comes down to it, D&D is a chance to hang out with friends, eat, drink, and be merry. Oh yeah, and to collaborate with them on an epic story, while performing a role written just for you, by you, where you get to play in a world so much bigger, crazier, and more fantastic (in every sense of the word) than could exist in reality**, where you can do almost anything you ever dreamed was possible.

And if you can put aside the common conceptions of the game for a moment, and give it a fair chance, I think that the reality is something a lot of people can support.

*Author’s note: I’m using this term the way it is popularly understood; not, strictly, for its correct definition. As far as I know - though anyone with more acting training than I have should please feel free to correct me! - the whole idea of “never-ever break character ever until the play/film/project is done,” isn't actually taught as part of the Method. It’s something that grew out of the Method’s core concepts, but it is not part of the training itself.

**Author’s note: Well, hey, you never know… I believe in dreaming :)