D&D General The Washington Post interviews five celebrities about their D&D memories

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

For Dungeons & Dragons, the magic is in the memories

The Post talks to CNN anchor Anderson Cooper; Lev Grossman, author of the Magicians trilogy and the (wonderful!) Bright Sword; actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt; Critical Role Dungeon Master Matthew Mercer; and Dimension20 cast member Ally Beardsley.

My brother, Carter, two years older than I was, came to it first after our father died in 1978. It allowed us to lose ourselves together and gave us a brief respite from the sadness that had descended on us. When we were playing D&D, we weren’t stuck in the silences of not talking about him. We could talk about D&D.

Then one day my friend Ben called and said his brother had a copy of the game. Did I want to play? I did. I hung up the phone — it was a rotary phone, the kind that’s firmly attached to a wall — and solemnly announced to my family: “This is the greatest day of my life.”

And as I’ve grown from a 13-year-old D&D player into an adult in the working world, that spirit of collaboration has only revealed itself to be more and more valuable. These days, I put much less weight on my own ideas and much more on what becomes of them once other people join in the game.

One by one, they stopped coming to play. Folks who had never tried it canceled at the last minute, feeling awkward about joining something they didn’t understand. Experienced players who were looking forward to making characters and building a story together struggled to explain to their partners why they needed to spend hours away with their “work friends” to play make-believe. The D&D campaign I had poured myself into fizzled to nothing. I wasn’t angry at my friends, but I was worried about the death of this passion that had meant so much to me.

I created a character for the campaign who was transgender. I had started going by the gender neutral they/them pronouns at work and among friends, but sourcing hormones or getting surgery seemed equal parts expensive and invasive. A fun thing about fantasy is stripping away the crunchy, real-world limitations and asking yourself: “What would I do if I could do anything?”

 

[Reynard]

We might as well do ours:

When I was 10 years old, my dad brought home the 1983 Basic Box. After guiding me and my 2 older brothers through the solo advneture, he helped us make characters and ran us through the first proper adventure. My cleric, Clarion the Bright, was killed in the first few minutes of play by the carrion crawler hiding under the ruined gate.

My dad lost interest early and then my oldest brother was our DM for the first couple years. When I eventually cajoled everyone into letting me try and run the game, I fell deeply in love and have been a GM first and foremost ever since.

 

[Seramus]

I toddled in on my father playing the original gold box Pool of Radiance, and asked him what it was. He nerded out a bit and talked about the characters he made in the game (named Elrond, Bilbo, Gandalf, etc), and a few stories about the original characters the names were based on. He let me sit in the chair and create a few characters of my own, and I loved every minute of it. Not long after, he gifted me The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings books so I could see those stories for myself (I was a big reader).

After that, by complete accident I stumbled across the original Red Box rules sitting in someone's garage sale. Tattered and worn, I read through every page of that book until I could almost recite the rules by memory. I scrounged a few adventures, read those, and saved my lunch money to buy Dragon Magazine. The rest is history!

 

[Reynard]

I'm just going to bump this so other folks see it and add their own stories.

 

[Dire Bare]

Thanks for the link, the sections on Cooper, Grossman, and Beardsley were pretty interesting. Didn't know Gordon-Levitt had D&D in his backstory, but it doesn't surprise me.

This bit in the piece about Grossman I found interesting:

I was raised with no particular religion, and the suburb of Boston where I grew up was an arid, unspiritual place. D&D supplied me with something I was desperately missing: a mythology. I was overflowing with surging pre-pubescent feelings that were beyond my ability to manage or understand, but D&D activated in me vast, hitherto dormant realms. I was learning how to navigate the dungeons of my own subconscious, with their many maps, where the dragons lived, and how to survive there.

I've been non-religious since I was a kid . . . I wonder if that is part of the reason why I'm so fascinated by mythology and fantasy literature, including D&D. I also wonder if that's why the extreme religious right in the US fears D&D . . . mythology competition. Just thinking.

 

[Clint_L]

Thanks for the link, the sections on Cooper, Grossman, and Beardsley were pretty interesting. Didn't know Gordon-Levitt had D&D in his backstory, but it doesn't surprise me.

This bit in the piece about Grossman I found interesting:

I've been non-religious since I was a kid . . . I wonder if that is part of the reason why I'm so fascinated by mythology and fantasy literature, including D&D. I also wonder if that's why the extreme religious right in the US fears D&D . . . mythology competition. Just thinking.

Same - not a religious person, nor is most of my family and all of my immediate family. But I've always loved stories of the fantastic and the supernatural, despite being an extremely rationally minded person. I think I am removed enough to just see them as really good stories. I don't want to get into real world politics, but I do think a lot of the folks who have traditionally opposed D&D take the potential threat of supernatural evil influence much more seriously than someone like me does.

 

[sevenbastard]

I was in kindergarten and my brother DMed the Caves of Chaos using the Moldvay Basic set. He had played it at boy scouts so knew a little about the game. I couldn't read, but still loved it. Played a thief named Gojack and a magic user named Wandolf. I was hooked.

 

[aco175]

The gnolls had a gate the fell and split the party in half. The killed one half and then the other. I was going to run away after the first half was killed ,but listened to the other players and tried to save them- and died. My father bought the red box the next week and we rounded up several neighborhood friends.