Posted by This post will be about my experience of about a year playing Dungeons & Dragons and the main lessons I think can be learned from the game. Some people will know what Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is about, some will not, so I will start with the basics.
What is Dungeons & Dragons?
Dungeons & Dragons is a tabletop role-playing game, and a very old one. The rules were born as a modified version of the rules for previous games – designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, the first set of rules were published in 1974 and since then have been through several editions, the last one being the 5th one, published in 2014. The game has four main components: the books, the characters, the players and the dice.
The books have two types, rules and stories. Rulebooks are where the rules are written (surprising, I know!). The most important rulebook is the Player’s Handbook, it explains how to build characters, the races, the classes, how to fight, use skills, magic and everything a player needs to know to play D&D. Other rulebooks include the Monster’s Manual and the Dungeon Master’s Guide, these three are the “Core rule books.” The story books, as their name suggest, contain pre-made games usually placed in The Forgotten Realms (the original world of D&D).
The characters are what represent the players in the world. They usually have different races and classes. Players use some form of the Character Sheet to keep track of their characters when playing. The Sheet includes the character’s name, level, race, physical features, it’s skills, what it can do, what it can’t. It also includes what the character is carrying, like food, money, supplies, it’s type of clothing. Literally everything. So when playing most players will know basic stuff of their characters like the main way they use to attack, their race and class, but will need the Sheet for everything else.
The players are divided into two “groups,” the Dungeon Master and the party. The DM is the one who will run the story, they will play the monsters and act as the NPCs. They are responsible for guiding the story in the right direction. But not everything is work, in exchange for this, they are the ones who will also decide if players are allowed to do what they intend to. They will set the difficulty of what the players are trying to achieve and will tell the outcomes of their actions. They are basically gods of their world. The party on the other hand, are the main characters of the story; they are the heroes – or villains, depending on the type of story the DM is running. They will control one character each and will make decisions for them.
Finally, the dice. D&D uses the d20 system, which consists of a set of 6 dice with different shapes. The dice are named based on the amount of sides a dice has; d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 and d20 – which gives the name to the system. The d20 is the main dice used in the game, it is used to make every decision. The player wants to attack? Throw a d20. The player wants to climb a wall? Throw a d20. The player wants to seduce a npc? Throw a d20. The DM (or the story) will set a number based on the difficulty of the task and the player has to get a result greater than the set number to succeed. The rest of the dice are mostly used for fights and choosing between options randomly.
The Lessons
The player’s job is to ruin the DM’s plan
The DM always has to prepare the sessions before the day they are going to play, sometimes the plan includes a few sessions ahead. When players start playing your story, you never know what is going to happen, and it will probably not be what you thought. When planning, a DM can think “the party is going to get to this castle, enter through this door, ascend several floors and meet the boos at the top, all set.” Then the party comes and one of the players say “I want to try and throw a rope to the ceiling, climb and enter through there.” There goes your plan.
What I learned from this is two things. The first one is to plan with flexibility, don’t go into too many specifics about how things are going to happen, have the general idea of where you want to go with the story. The second, and most important for me, is to improvise. You are doing nothing if you plan with flexibility but when something unexpected happens, you have to stop the flow of the game to look for what to do. With a little practice, any DM can learn to come up with ideas on the spot and make them look natural. This will keep the game flowing and your party engaged in the game.
In life you will have to plan business meetings, social events and even what you want to do tomorrow, be prepared for the unexpected. If your car won’t turn on, take an uber, or the bus. Your business meeting can start a little late, or get out of topic, and you can’t always interrupt to get back on track. Leave some room for improvisation.
Not all fights can be won
The party arrives at a new town and they start hearing of a dragon in a nearby ruin. One of the group is obsessed with dragons, you can guess what happened. They went to see the dragon and yes, they all almost died and had to escape. Since D&D is a game, you might think “let’s go kill that monster” but this is not that kind of games. In D&D you can die pretty easily, and you don’t respawn. You have to pick very carefully when to fight and when to run away or get help.
Life is pretty much the same, you have to estimate if you will be able to handle a challenge or task and if you can’t, you have to know as soon as possible when you have to give up or get help. Some people start a business without calculating the risks correctly. Soon after, they start losing money, but they never stop to think if they need help or if they should give up that specific business. They might lose much more money if they keep at it than if they turn around and start over.
But…
You can try
It might sound contradictory with the previous one, but it’s not. In D&D, one of the basic rules of being a DM is that whenever a character/player asks to try something always say “You can try.” It might sound stupid, but it’s D&D and the dice might bless the player and allow them to achieve what they intended.
I hear you “but we don’t have a DM in real life” and believe me, I know. But the idea is to keep an open mind. Even if the odds seem to be against you, no one ever achieved greatness without going against the odds. It might sound like it doesn’t make sense or that you can’t do it but sometimes you will surprise yourself. Evaluate the risk, how much you will lose if you fail, how much you can gain if you succeed and what is the possibility that you will fail. Often you will gain way more if you succeed that what you will lose if you don’t. So remember, you can try.
Everyone has a purpose
In Dungeons & Dragons there is no defined way of creating a party. Players can choose whatever combination of race and classes they want. They can all be the same or they can be totally different. In both of those cases, everyone will have a different role. Some will be more strategic, some will be more on the fighting side, there’s the smooth talkers. Everyone will have something different and each will shine in their turn.
In reality you are always surrounded by people and most of those times you will have to work with them towards a goal. Always look for the best way in which you can add something to the team and also let others show their colors. For the team to get the best results everyone has to understand what are their strong sides and when they need help.
“Let’s talk about it”
Even if the game seems all about fighting, killing monsters and raiding dungeons, players don’t have to always fight. Most encounters can be handled without drawing a sword, players can talk with NPCs to try and solve conflicts without getting physically aggressive and sometimes it can have even better results.
In life most conflicts with other people are because the two sides haven’t communicated correctly and haven’t heard the other’s opinion. So the first step should always be to talk. Hear the other person out, you will probably find a middle ground were both can agree, even if to disagree. This can help you save time that otherwise you will probably lose in endless discussions, and both you and the other person will end happier that you could express your opinion and be heard.
It’s all about the story
Dungeons and Dragons is a game where you don’t win or lose. Situations will happen and players will lose some battles and win others, some characters will die on the way and some others will join the party. In the end, what matters is the memories, the adventures all the players lived together and the story they are building.
Enjoy life while it happens. Some plans will work out, some not so much. Just as in the game, you don’t win or lose in life. The only thing that matters is that you are enjoying your adventure and walking to your ultimate goal, who you do it with and the stories you all build together.