Currently listening to “Happy Is A Yuppie Word” by “Switchfoot”
Currently stressed
Twenty-five years ago the Dungeons & Dragons role playing game system was born, much to the dismay, joy, chagrin and chaff of millions of people worldwide. This unique system has captured the imaginations and the fears of more people than any game in history. It’s unique flavor has spawned many imitators, some of which have improved upon the original design greatly, some of which have failed miserably to capture it’s essence, but all of which have taught D&D and its players important lessons.
In the 25 years since its inception the Dungeons & Dragons game has taken its lessons from players and critics alike, and has evolved, changed and met its many challenges with an adventuresome spirit. It has survived attack from those who feared what they didn’t understand and called it “evil,” and “demonic.” It has lived through the criticism of its own players, who grew frustrated with increasingly complex and conflicting rules. It has repeatedly taken on the challenges the world has thrown at it for being the new and innovative form of entertainment it was born to be, and won time and again because it has always been a system that was designed to grow, to change, to adapt, improvise and overcome.
There is a good chance that your kids have heard about D&D, and if the recent sales of the new Edition of the game are any indicator, there is also a good chance that they know someone who plays the game. It’s even pretty likely that your child, at some point, will be invited to play in a D&D game. If you’ve never played the game, this might be a little worrisome for you, what with all the myths and rumors that have been circulated about D&D over the past quarter century or so. Let me assure you that you have nothing to fear, and that your child, should they learn to play D&D, will be set on a fantastic journey that will benefit him or her their whole life. Your first question, quite likely, will be simply “what is D&D?”
Dungeons & Dragons is a unique and fascinating form of entertainment that is aimed primarily at those who delight in the use of their intellect, imagination and creativity to solve problems. For the mature player it offers an adventuresome spirit that harkens back to their youth; for the young it offers challenges and lessons for life in a fun and exciting way. Let’s talk about some of those lessons now, and discover some of the great things Dungeons & Dragons does for young people.
1) Creativity. Dungeons & Dragons inspires young minds to creativity like no other pastime. Over the course of an adventure a player will encounter fantastic situations and creatures, interesting characters, terrible villains, great heroes, and good DM permitting, complex storylines with political intrigue and ethical dilemmas. Many players of D&D go on to write fantasy stories, and one need only glance at the fantasy section of your local bookstore to see that plenty of them become published authors.
2) Curiosity. By playing a character in a D&D fantasy setting, young minds learn to explore, experiment and test the laws of this strange, new world because often enough they must do so in order to succeed and survive. This is an important lesson that directly translates to real life, and by teaching young minds to explore their world and all its possibilities fearlessly, D&D helps to create tomorrow’s visionaries.
3) Care. D&D involves a great deal of exploration, experimentation and bravery, but it also is a great teacher of the idea of being careful in the course of that exploration. Players of the D&D game learn-and very quickly so-that if their characters are going to survive to see success they must be choosy about where they stick their necks out and select their risks wisely.
4) Diplomacy. In the course of any given D&D campaign characters are going to meet NPC’s (Non Player Characters) played by the DM, and many of these are going to be very important to the success or failure of the characters in achieving their goals. As a result, players learn that how they behave toward others, how they treat them, is of the utmost importance.
5) Teamwork. 99.9% of all D&D games involve the interaction of more than one player with the DM. In most cases there are 4 or more players as well as the DM involved in the game, usually friends. During the course of play there will be many times when one character’s skills aren’t enough to achieve the goal and he or she will have to rely on the other members of the party to get things accomplished, or even to save their lives. Especially for the young players this lesson of teamwork is very important, and carries with it a certain level of respect for other players (and their characters) that is directly relevant to real life.
6) Virtue. Most D&D campaigns center on heroic characters who are “good” in alignment and who inevitably battle against the forces of “evil.” In most contexts this is a matter of such issues as life or death, freedom versus slavery, justice versus injustice, with the heroes on the side of truth, justice and liberty. In these games the players do what is right and good because it is right and good. They are concerned with matters of right and wrong and they do their best to live up to those high standards, and these standards are a strong influence on the players developing views on life.
7) Tolerance. D&D is the game of utmost diversity, with characters, places, races and inventions as diverse as can be imagined. In D&D, players can choose from a wide variety of races and cultures for their characters, from simple humans to elegant elves, brutish orcs, angry dwarves, adventuresome halflings and more, each with their own culture and history and psychology. The experience of role-playing these diverse characters with the characters of the other players and the NPC’s the DM introduces is a lesson in how and why differences can and should be seen as strengths, not weaknesses, and prejudices eventually give way to camaraderie. Every character, race, class, alignment and idea brings something new and unique to the gaming table, something useful to the adventure and to the players involved. Truly the great variety of things in D&D is a celebration of all things diverse.
8) Ingenuity. Truly, D&D rewards ingenuity, cunning and cleverness above all other things. You hear sometimes that Dungeons & Dragons teaches kids to “pillage, plunder and murder,” and this is something that, in my experience, is wholly untrue. In most D&D games, the notion that you can get by simply by killing and stealing at random will get your character exactly one thing: a quick death. More often the focus tends toward sorting out problems and finding solutions in ways that maybe aren’t so obvious as force. Surely there are moments when force is the only way to get the job done, but usually this is as a last resort and comes after trying everything else first. Finding a clever way to solve a problem, particularly if it’s in a way that the DM didn’t foresee, is one of the best ways to make your character, and consequently your player, a success at Dungeons & Dragons.
9) Ethics. In D&D, as I’ve mentioned, the characters are usually “good,” and of course this means more than just charging off after the bad guy. It also means not doing things that are evil, such as stealing, murdering innocents, killing one’s teammates, etc. Players are rewarded for performing “good” acts, but they are also punished for committing evil acts, and usually in great disproportion, too. In D&D characters who become or act evil suffer greatly from alignment changes, the loss of key abilities, disrespect of their fellow players and characters, and in many cases the character ends up paying the price with their life. Perhaps only life itself is a greater judge of consequences than the D&D game, and these lessons, too, carry over into life.
10) Cause & Effect. D&D is, last but not least, a system of rules. Like the rules of life, some can be bent, others broken, and still others are inviolable. By observing the rules of the game and learning how best to operate within the confines of these rules, players learn an important lesson that is directly applicable to life itself. They learn that some rules exist for very good reasons, while others may be less clear and that everything that goes on in the course of the adventure has consequences; every action has a reaction, that a creative person can find the way to use the rules to their advantage. By realizing the analogous nature of the game’s rules and real life’s rules, young players can take a tremendous lesson in how to live by playing the game.
There you have it, the short list. So next time you hear your teenager or other young child mentioning that friend who plays Dungeons & Dragons, or if they should even decide to try it out themselves, don’t worry: unless they’re already deranged you have nothing to fear ;)
Taken from 3rdedition.org
http://www.3rdedition.org/articles/viewer.asp?ID=18
PS: I started playing D&D since last year. Played 4 campaigns so far ~
