First, I want my readers to know that I am pretty unbiased on this. As far as games go, I've played them all. Board games, card games, tabletop games, and sports. And don't think that I am biased when it comes to dungeons and dragons.
I'll give you a little history, so you can plainly see my game experience. I played one DnD campaign over a summer two years ago, and had a blast. I am also more than familiar with modern, computer role playing games, with experience in Baldur's Gate, the Lord of the rings games based on the Peter Jackson films, elder scrolls, and 3 years worth of World of Warcraft (I quit after they destroyed the dignity of my favorite character, Arthas). I'm a fan of Starcraft, Halo, and Assassin's Creed. I played soccer, ultimate frisbee, and fencing (if one can "play" fencing. I like tripartite sentence structure too much perhaps). I've played a ton of board games, and I often play magic the gathering tournaments. I hope this establishes that I've had plenty of experience in the field of games, and yet I am confident that Dungeons and Dragons is the best of them.
Now that that's out of the way, let me tell you why I have this strange and dramatic opinion.
First, dungeons and dragons allows the player to do anything. "the only rule is: there are no rules" quite literally. It's not perfectly so, of course, but the rules that are in place are flexible, and there is no penalty for breaking them, and everybody breaks them. Many modern people will ask what the difference between a modern crpg and DnD is, and it is mostly this. DnD players are not constricted to buttons corresponding to specific actions, dialog trees, or anything. You want to tell that questgiver his mother is disturbingly fat? You can! Want to eat a sandwich in the middle of battle? You can! What else are you going to do when the sandwich monsters from the rye dimension attack your party? Hey, look at that? A segway!
ANYTHING can happen in a DnD campaign. That's right, ANYTHING. I know no better way to explain this than an example from my campaign:
John, questions, and James are camping out in a case when they are attacked by a pack of four wolves. Questions attempts to climb a tree, but falls on his back and a wolf jumps on him and starts tearing him apart, before it was shot by John, as James easily dispatched the other three. Suddenly, ten or more bandits appear out of the forest and attack our group. Four of them throw ropes around James and pull him to the ground, a net is thrown atop questions, John flees. Smiles arrives, riding atop his camel to save the day, but he is clotheslined and bound.
Hannas the wizard meets John, and they follow the bandits to their camp. In an incredible burst of magic, Hannas puts all of the guards to sleep (I mistook the range on my sleep spell, the group rolled with it) and, rather than bust through the front door, they decide to go down the river and climb into a mill adjacent to the camp. Meanwhile, the captives have found a way out of their cage, and James bursts forth, tackling the first thing he sees. It\'s John, the prison was in the mill.
The reunited group walks right past a treasure chest and enter the camp. They are faced with a rather large tent from which they hear music. James bursts through the cloth and smashes the first thing he sees. It\'s a jukebox. The company is confused that there is a jukebox in a fantasy setting, but they get to fighting, all except for questions, who peeks into the next tent over, and sees a man in black robes saying a chant. The clack man disappears and a vortex takes his place and begin s to such questions into the tent. Questions rolls a percentile die to get away, and rolls 99. He still gets sacked in, and soon the rest of the party is too. They end up in the far future, after the man in black has taken over the world.
Would you honestly expect any of that to happen from that simple beginning, "a group in a cave attacked by wolves"? I didn't think so. Every game out there that has a story is completely predictable, primarily because there is one storyteller: the creator of the game, the one who made the levels, the environments, and the only path that the player can follow. In Dungeons and Dragons, there are as many storytellers as there are players, and there are no limits on what any of them can do, and a good DM will make a really fun game.
Aside from the actual mechanics of the game, Dungeons and Dragons is a social experience. First I feel a need to break the stereotype for those readers who have never experienced the game. (HINT: it does not involve hairy nerds in viking armor in some old lady's basement)
The game is usually organized by one player who has a setting and story in mind, and will act as Dungeon Master. He usually (these things are flexible) finds a location to meet for the game, and brings with him the materials he plans to use to make the game fun for everyone: books with monster stats, a handmade gameboard (1 inch graph paper works well for this), character and enemy miniatures (army men and pebbles work fine), and a set of 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 20 sided dice. The other players usually (again, flexible) bring some food or drink to share, maybe some epic music, the information on their character, and sometimes a dice set or some books, if the player has been doing this for a long time.
As you can see, this process is only moderately "nerdy", and just as reasonable as if some friends were getting together to play some friendly poker, or football, or discuss a book, or anything else that involves friends getting together to have fun, each one bringing what the collective group needs? Except in Dungeons and Dragons, we get to create.
How many things are there in the world that get a group of friends together every week to write stories and have fun? Most people who have regular hangouts will go to a sports bar to watch a game every week, how sedentary! Maybe they will go to a book club and talk about something everyone's read, how unoriginal! Certainly, reading and discussing and rooting for the Philadelphia Eagles are noble endeavors, but what is more noble than creation?
Creation is hard. In creating art, music, structure, really anything, we approach the divine: this is the one opportunity for man to really imitate God. Collective storytelling under the guidelines of Dungeons and Dragons is no different. Each player has to invent a detailed and three dimensional character, and then guide that character through an adventure. The Dungeon Master has to invent a setting with secondary characters and a weekly challenge for the "main cast". The best part is that the final product is not even the purpose, it only exists in the memory. We play the game for the sake of exercising our creative storytelling faculties.
If you think this is not true, how about we talk briefly about some people known for their creativity who are fans of the game.
Hansi Kursch (singer Blind Guardian)
Dwayne Johnson (actor and pro wrestler)
William Shatner (actor and cultural icon)
Ben Afflek (stage actor)
Vin Deisel (film actor)
Stephen Colbert (comedian)
Marilyn Manson (musician)
Matt Groening (cartoonist, writer, and producer of "The Simpsons")
Bruce Reyes-Chow (presbyterian minister and writer)
Mike Tremonti (guitarist Creed)
Robin Williams (actor, lead in every family comedy since 1980)
All of these well known people advocate the game, and Vin Deisel, Stephen Colbert, and Robin Williams have said that the game has helped them in their careers to become better actors, to get to know how people work, and to improve their storytelling ability. Vin Deisel will even teach other people in his films how to play the game in their down time between scenes.
So, Dungeons and Dragons allows the player infinite options, anything at all can happen, and it provides valuable social and creative experience that can help in most careers, but especially artistic ones. I would say that this is one incredible game. Sure beats Halo, if you ask me.
Oh, and one last note, before DnD was invented in the 1980s, in the 1930s there existed a group at the University of Oxford who got together every week to write, called the "inklings". I can name three members that anyone who knows anything about literary history should know. Christopher Tolkien, JRR Tolkien, and CS Lewis. Before that, Lord Byron invited his friend Percy Shelley and his wife to his castle on a particularly rainy night, and they talked about storywriting together and had a contest. The result? Frankenstein.
I apologize that this article was published prematurely, I'm getting used to some of my new technology.
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