[Fiction] The Dungeon Master by Sam Lipsyte (from... The New Yorker!)

[Krug]

Sam Lipsyte: “The Dungeon Master” : The New Yorker (Warning: Language might offend some)

Wow talk about D&D going upmarket.. though it also paid a semi-leading role in Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Not a bad short story, with an open ending. Examines the dynamics between a DM and the players in the group. Well worth a read.

 

[Krug]

The writer answered some questions about the story:
The Book Bench: This Week in Fiction: Sam Lipsyte : The New Yorker

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I agree, not bad.

Unfortunately it reinforces the idea that D&D is for nut jobs and young losers. Then again, I have played with a couple of people not all that different from the characters in the story.

 

[Dire Bare]

Unfortunately it reinforces the idea that D&D is for nut jobs and young losers. Then again, I have played with a couple of people not all that different from the characters in the story.

Literature isn't marketing, it's not the job of the story to present D&D in a positive light. Or any kind of light, for that matter.

The story resonated with me, because it reminded me of playing D&D in middle school. A lot. The kids I played with weren't as messed up as the "Dungeon Master" in the story, but only by degrees. And I've met plenty of folks in the years after public school who DID game with kids that messed up. In the 80s, at least, D&D was a refuge for the socially awkward and those who didn't fit in. Doesn't mean everyone who played it was in that category, but a heck of a lot us certainly were.

And this short story is about that.

I loved when the main character was discussing how the adult world viewed the game, that it was weird, creepy, possibly occultish, and caused suicides . . . . the Dungeon Master replied that he felt it prevented, or at least postponed, suicides. It probably did.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Here's what I like about it: the fact that it is a story involving D&D that is in The New Yorker.

This means that the game has a certain level of brand awareness that has permeated that periodical's market...and that means that the game has probably reached a new level of penetration into the fibers of the tapestry of American culture.