Dungeons and Dragons

So I'm starting up a D&D game with my friends. It's been at least six years since I last ran a game and I'm a little nervous because I want them to have a good time as most of them have never played before. And while I was worrying about that I was like "there's a blag post in there..."

You see, most people, when they hear the phrase/word D&D get a picture in their head of a bunch of nerdy looking dudes leaning over a table filled to the edge with weird manuals, miniatures and dice.

Good God, the dice.

While this can be true, a good portion of the time you have people who play D&D who are not really nerds. I consider myself a nerd because I can tell you in detail how to beat Zelda: Ocarina of Time, what's the best gear in WoW (not really, I stopped playing a year ago--but at the time I could), have arguments with Trekkies about how Star Wars in superior (IT IS, I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE PREQUELS) and yes my extensive knowledge of D&D (Chaotic Good for life, bro).

But then you have guys like Vin Diesel who play D&D. Would you EVER look at a guy like that and go "He is such a nerd. He will never get laid." Of course not. The guy sweats testosterone. The pheromones coming off him alone will snag him some tail.

Another thing that comes to mind about D&D is that it's all about slaying monsters and rolling dice. Yes, that is a large part of it. But if that is the only part of it, the Dungeon Master is not doing his job.

For those of you who are not familiar with D&D, this is the role the Dungeon Master plays: First, he gets a cape. Why? Because I said so. Mental note: get a cape. Second, a decent Dungeon Master's job is to make the sad suckers in front of him feel like they are in another world ramming large pieces of metal into monsters. A good Dungeon Master will make his players into a tightly knit group, experiencing real fear when one of their number gets hurt. He gets them to work together in such a way that when one of them die in a fight they actually get angry and curse and sometimes cry. A good DM will make it possible to solve the situation with solution other than "lets kill our way outta this mess." A good DM will let the players kill their way outta this mess, if they want. A good DM basically makes it safe to play pretend, which is basically all D&D is.

Yep. I said it. D&D is playing pretend. You know, that thing that five year olds do? "Let's play pretend that I am Spider-Man and you are Superman and we have to fight Docotor Ocotopus(sic)." Remember that? Or, for girls, "Let's play pretend that Barbie is mad at Ken because he was holding hands with (name)."

I'll say it again; D&D is playing pretend for grown-ups. Something happens to people as they grow and they just can't sit down and have fun anymore. They need stuff to have fun. When you were 5 all you needed was a friend and a mouth and you had hours of fun. Then you're 9 and now you need that friend and a baseball. 12 rolls around and now you need a baseball bat and a yard. Etc. They are all crutches to allow you to have fun.

"Well, now, McK, that's not true! It's just that as you mature you need more stimulation!"

Eh. We all daydream. I have fun doing it. I bet each of you have daydreamed about a certain female/male acquaintance that you would love to be much more than an acquaintance. How come you don't need action figures, video-games or a field for that activity? Because you do it by yourself.

Other activities best done alone.

Now let's say you're not daydreaming about boning the hot redhead in accounting, but of being a warrior named Grogga with a six foot sword and more body hair than Robin Williams. This would be really fun to play out, and even more fun if you had another person to play it with. Unfortunately, that is something "only kids do" and if anyone caught you doing it they'd think you were weird, crazy, perverted or all of the above.

So D&D is a well devised scheme to allow grown-ass men and women to play pretend. The manuals, the dice, the minis, the cards, maps, dungeon grids, capes... they are all there so that when someone catches you playing pretend, it looks like something other than what it is. "We're playing a REAL game with REAL RULES and it's SOPHISTICATED!"

Whatever. I call 'em as I see 'em and playing D&D is a big old game of pretend. When I'm not DMing I'm usually a wizard because I love the idea that if someone fucks with me I can turn him into a hampster. I'm already a large man that can kill with my hands, so there's no real appeal in being a fighter class (aside from monks, but only because they are AWESOME).

So when I DM I invent things to make the game more fun and I bend/break the rules of the game if it so happens to help the story I am telling or will make the game more interesting. My next post will be about how I game if this one goes over well.

-McK

P.S. This post looks different from my other because Blogger took a dump yesterday and I had to copy and paste this from a couple other editors until it came back up.