Hey Blog! Last Friday I tried out a game I’ve wanted to play for a while, but never done – welcome to the world of Dungeons and Dragons!
Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is a roleplay game, first envisaged in the ‘70s. Roleplay is an ancestor of many modern computer games, and is based on players making choices as if in the role of a character, and rolling dice to determine the outcome of a particular task, eventually creating a story. The storyline can be as long or as short as you wish, as it is created by playing the game, and it can go on for as long as you like. It is infinitely flexible, as you can try to do anything between opening a door and flying into another universe. As its name suggests, there are mysterious dungeons and fearsome dragons in the game, as well as a variety of magic, weapons, obscure creatures and much, much more. Whether you class it as a game or not is controversial, as there is no set end – a campaign (campaigns are a long adventure – think the length of Bilbo’s journey in The Hobbit) could resolve everything, or send you hunting more dangerous, dark and dastardly daring deeds of deadly high adventure (woah, that was a lot of Ds!).
A special player, the Dungeon Master (DM), runs the game, keeping everything in order, and deciding what happens to the characters, based on their dice rolls. Everything depends on these dice rolls, and in social interaction, your words; and yes, it is very complicated! There are hundreds of rules, and I don’t think anyone can remember them all; besides, it gets even more confusing when you start making characters for you to play with – for a start, you have to choose a race (species), and a class, or profession; and then to fill out your character there are pages-long lists of spells, weapons, magical objects etc.!
The D&D game I did was with my online Humamatees tutor Jake. He is a roleplay fan (in addition to books on many other subjects, the shed in his garden is full of piles of manuals on D&D and other games!) and before lockdown, when people used to visit his house to learn regularly, he used to play with them at the end. The one I did was a beginners’ course, and Jake has said as I now know the basics I can play the game on any level, if I want to! It wasn’t the most complicated game; it consisted of four random strangers getting teleported in their dreams to a wood in the middle of nowhere. Then, there was a lake with a glowing orb in it, a leprechaun, a giant spider, a frog, and some other weird creatures! The goal was to get home – which was achieved by swimming into the lake and touching the orb – which would take you home! It was made less confusing by the fact that none of us had a spellcasting character, which helped a little – but was a very good experience for a first go!
I don’t know what my future is playing D&D, but one of my friends is planning to get a group together to play it – he has now said I might have memorised more rules than him! – and I would love to take part. I hope to play some more, but bye for now!