If you were doing a talk on your hobby

[Captain NeMo]

Thanks to a school project/assignment thingy-ma-bobba I've been thinking about D&D and roleplaying as a whole. The gist of it is that I have to deliver a talk on my chosen subject for 5-10 minutes and I will be graded on clear speech, good use of language, props etc.

If you haven't figured it out by now, I have (rather foolishly) chosen Dungeons and Dragons as my subject of choice. And that's where I'm coming to some problems. I know WHAT the main body of the speech will be; thanks to the guidelines on the talk I must present a brief history concerning the topic, what it is, why it appeals to me and a bit of general information. Naturally this means an explanation of TSR, Gary Gygax, the various editions, the cartoons and the like as well as a potentially embarrasing mention of what it is to be a roleplayer.

Perhaps if you've had to do something similiar, my fellow ENworlders could help me learn from thier mistakes and let me know a good way to word things, how to capture their interest and not make a fool of myself...if that's even possible.

Thoughts, pity and cruel taunts are all appreciated.

 

[DonTadow]

I've done a couple of reports in college on my subject. As with any paper start with your thesis in your first paragraph and gain some focus. If I"m going to talk soley about the history then I'd break down into the late 70s, I'd talk about dungeons and dragons and the several spinnoffs in the 80s and 90s and then end with the upsurge in the late 90s, 2000.

Or you can go a different route. You can really talk about your hobby only touching on the history in the first few paragraphs. Also, I liked to use my time to always dispell rurmos about dungeons aand dragons. I"d even put a bit in my speech starting off( calleda faux paragraph) about what dungeons and dragons isn't... to the effect of
"Dungeons and Dragons, a game where me and my friends don trashcans on our bodies and carry wooden sticks into steaming sewers. Several of my friends have died in those sewers but we still play. We still manage to get down there and summon a demon every now and then though.

Of course I am kidding, but, if you read reports from the earlier 80s this is what many of the public believe the game is. This is not the case Dungeon and Dragons is perhaps one of the most popular tabletop games on the planet rivaling games such as Monopoly and Scrabble."

Then I"d go into my three topics
My three things are. Brief History Why people play, how people play (make sure you cover today's dnd'rs in your report.)As a journalist, I like to lean away from books as reference material and use live interviews which , for me, come off more current.

Hope that helps

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Hmmm, how academic an audience?

I have compared RPGs to la Comedia del Arte and to Advanced Let's Pretend depending on my audience. Both are equally valid comparisons in my estimation.

The Auld Grump

 

[Captain NeMo]

Academic as in "they are currently in school" just about covers it. If it helps, none of them have never even heard of it before aside from brief comments I've made.

 

[MonsterMash]

Academic as in "they are currently in school" just about covers it. If it helps, none of them have never even heard of it before aside from brief comments I've made.

Given that you're in the UK it might be worth mentioning GW and Warhammer as a related hobby.

 

[DonTadow]

I've called it in papers the eventual eveloution of 1500s folktales. Dungeons and Dragon's is nothing more than elaborate group story telling similiar to the cultural folktale fires.

As it is a speech, you can also, and i never tried this, but try to engage your auidience by asking three people in the front row or so to begin a story. Then another finish. Then another. YOu kill 2 minutes, get your audience involved and then you can come around and say, that is essentially all dungeons and dragon's is.

Man now i'm all exicted wish i was writing this paper

 

[CarlZog]

Given that your audience has little knowlegde of it, I'd focus on explaining what it is and how it works. Skip the history.

An explanation I've been finding useful with younger (under 30) audiences lately is, "It's like an online video game that you play in person around a table." Ironically, this makes sense to a crowd that's more likely to know Everquest than D&D.

Carl

 

[bubbalin]

I've called it in papers the eventual eveloution of 1500s folktales. Dungeons and Dragon's is nothing more than elaborate group story telling similiar to the cultural folktale fires.

As it is a speech, you can also, and i never tried this, but try to engage your auidience by asking three people in the front row or so to begin a story. Then another finish. Then another. YOu kill 2 minutes, get your audience involved and then you can come around and say, that is essentially all dungeons and dragon's is.

Man now i'm all exicted wish i was writing this paper

firstly, not a paper, otherwise you couldn't engage your audience.

Secondly, I would warn against this, because unless the group is mature (both the group and the individuals) this could fail quite spectacularly. It only takes one idiot or a whole group of nervous people to make this crash.

 

[DonTadow]

firstly, not a paper, otherwise you couldn't engage your audience.

Secondly, I would warn against this, because unless the group is mature (both the group and the individuals) this could fail quite spectacularly. It only takes one idiot or a whole group of nervous people to make this crash.

Point taken. In a college course though, i exept everyone to be mature. PErhaps even the last two years of high school. It's up to the speaker to gauge his audience.

As a speaker you want to try to engage your audience with jokes or some type of participation that makes them apart of the speech.

 

[der_kluge]

I did a speech on D&D in college. I don't really remember what I talked about, but I passed around a set of dice for everyone to look at. The only comment I got back from the instructor was that I shouldn't have passed the dice out, because it distracted people from my speech.

One way to start would be to describe an ancient set of ruins, or something. Really elaborate on the detail, time of day, what the place smells like, and then describe a dragon in said ruins. Then tell the audience that they'd basically just played D&D, and the only thing that was missing was their next course of action.