“Why do you play D&D?” I was once asked, “Isn’t Dungeons & Dragons where you dress up and pretend to be wizards or something?” To which I replied with a slight chuckle, “You can certainly dress up if you would like to. Sometimes it helps people get into character.” The person that asked me kind of had a bewildered look on their face at my answer. “Why don’t you come over and see for yourself how the sessions go down, you might be intrigued to say the least.”
For the longest time in my life, I once thought the same thing about Dungeons & Dragons. “Oh, that is the game that people play as wizards and magic and use little figures and stuff,” was my usual thought process. As I grew older, I began to add in the fact that I would poke fun at the people that enjoyed playing it, not knowing that later in my life I would become both a player and Dungeon Master myself. However, what never occurred to me was that I was enjoying RPG games loosely based on some of the concepts of what D&D brought to the world. Throughout my time in High School, I enjoyed playing first/third person shooters like Call of Duty and Battlefield, along with tactical games like SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALS, Ghost Recon, and Splinter Cell. I never really dipped my toes into the RPG game world until later after I joined the Air Force. I did have a friend who was very into The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion when it released, and he was constantly playing it. I watched a few times and it never appealed to me at the time. It wasn’t until I tried Fallout 3 that I started to see the appeal in RPG games. And of course, once The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim released, that was the one that truly sucked me into RPGs. But I still never considered D&D. I still thought it was for the ultimate nerds and I wasn’t part of that crowd, or so I thought.
As the old saying goes, “As you grow older, your interests tend to change.” During my time overseas was probably when my tune changed toward D&D. I was invited to sit down and just observe how a session went. At first, it all seemed like a massive load of information at once, especially for me as someone who had never played. However, as I paid close attention to how things went, I understood more about it. The first thing that clicked for me was that it is a person telling a story and the players react to the story told accordingly. I was always the person who loved a good story. While fast paced action was still fun for me, the story and lore behind a story resonated with my on a much deeper level. Once the session was over the player that invited me over asked me what I thought about it. I told him that, “My eyes have definitely been opened. There is way more to this game than I thought.” Btw, no one dressed up either. It was just a group of good friends sitting down together and enjoying each other’s company while playing a very story detailed board game. I walked away with a new look on the game itself, realizing that I also enjoyed doing the same thing with my friends just over a LAN before Xbox Live and Play Station Network became as big as they are now.
During the rest of my time overseas I got into more RPG games as well as a few MMORPGs. Star Wars: The Old Republic was the go to choice for me, being an avid Star Wars fan. However, there was something that I also struggled with as well, depression. The last year I spent overseas before returning to the US was extremely difficult. I turned to alcohol and tobacco more often than not to cope with the depression. While it wasn’t crippling, it was still enough to make it hard for me to enjoy things I normally enjoyed. Being able to escape reality through videogames helped quite a bit. After returning home, attempting college, and ending up back on Active Duty, I almost found myself right back to where I was before. I was still able to find an escape through videogames, but I noticed that D&D was getting more popular thanks to the hit Netflix show Stranger Things. At one point I finally decided to try it. I was finally going to try the one game I used to make fun of people for playing, that I once thought was just something not for me.
My first actual dip into the world of D&D was through a home brewed one shot that a buddy of mine had put together to pass the time. I kept my character as easy as I could and chose to be a Human Ranger Beastmaster. The idea of being a person that was one with nature, like the Druid, resonated with me personally as I am a avid outdoorsman. I enjoyed my time playing and found myself wondering if I could pull of being a DM. I ended up helping a few friends of mine who were very avid D&D players create a story for some one-shots they wanted to try and DM. But, the first in depth D&D extravaganza happened with myself and a few colleagues that become very close friends of mine when we were all down in Florida attempting to make our way through Explosive Ordnance Disposal School.
While we were attending this extensive training, I brought up the idea of hosting a D&D campaign at my apartment over the weekends to help us decompress and hangout outside of training. It was also my attempt to give the younger enlisted a chance to get away from the hustle and bustle of barracks life as well. We had one of our fellow classmates DM for us since he had experience, and we gathered every Saturday afternoon for D&D. After some disagreements later in the campaign, I ended up being a co-DM and having my player character act more of an NPC toward the end of our time in Florida. Once we said our farewells and see you soons, I kept it in the back of my mind to make an effort to bring us together again to either finish what we started or start something new.
After playing in another campaign, with some good friends at a new duty station before coming off active duty and going to reserve status, from start to finish, I was completely hooked. I looked forward more to our Friday night sessions that most other things until the campaign was finished. I found that I really enjoyed the aspect of role playing and escaping reality for an evening. Plus, I enjoyed the company at the table I played at. It was a type of therapy that I never thought I needed. However, the depression was not far away after leaving active duty. Many who have served know the feeling and shock of the post separation. The, “Well now what?” question always seems to come to the forefront of our brains. I struggled with this after leaving active duty for good and going reserve. While the reserve weekends did help, it was a struggle to find purpose and meaning in things. D&D ended up being the therapy I needed in a sense. Having a creative mind be idle with nothing to do is a personal hell for me. Luckily, I have a loving wife and family that were there for me helping me to get back on my feet so to speak.
I use D&D as a total escape from reality. A way to bring together people and friends to accomplish goals and tell a good story. Even share a few laughs, or many laughs for those that are in my current campaign. I absolutely love being the DM for my current players, it is incredibly rewarding to watch them struggle through puzzles and combat only to come out victorious by the skin of their teeth or when a light bulb comes on in their eyes and they finally figure something out or understood an important plot point.
So, why do I play? I play to bring people together, but also to give those that need an escape from the world a chance to escape. Not only because I need an escape from reality, but I know others do as well. I play to give those a place to be something else entirely through their character, to give them the opportunity to create a new story to help them cope with real life. Those of us at my table use it as way to stay in touch and share laughs from all over the country. We all need a little escape from day-to-day life, a way to decompress. That is why I play D&D, The World’s Greatest Role Playing Game.
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