D&D General What IS Dungeons and Dragons?

[Reynard]

No. This is not the thread where we argue about one-true-wayism, or bad-wrong-fun, or any of that.

Rather, I want to know what D&D is to YOU. And, preferably, how that definition may have changed over the years. This thread is about folks personal relationships with D&D, which means that we should take care to be kind to one another.

Anyway, I am inspired to post this thread after reading through the original three D&D little brown books. They were made briefly available on DriveThru and I snatched them up quickly because I have never played or even read OD&D before. I started with Metzner's Red Box and have since gone back and played and studied AD&D 1E, B/X and even Holmes Basic, but never the original. Having just read through the original books I have discovered a strange and wonderful and at times fascinatingly opaque sert of rules that are truly more like guidelines. Which is weird because from my experience as previously described, AD&D was Gygaxian Dungeons and Dragons to me, but that set of rules is VERY different than OD&D. And so it got me to thinking that if even Gygax can have differing ideas about what D&D is, we all can.

And so I am interested in what D&D is to you. Personally. I want to read your opinion, sure, but also anecdotes about your gaming life. I want to know about your first interactions with the game as well as how your relationship to the game has changed over time. i want to explore what it means as a game but also as a social activity, about the friendships and lifelong relationships you have developed.

Here's the thing as I see it: role-playing is a very intimate activity. Even when you are just smashing orc skulls in search of gold pieces and magic swords, you are expressing deeply held creative preferences with your fellow players. You bad Scottish accent and desire to steal from the haughty Paladin PC are kind of confessions to your fellow players. Unlike any other kind of game, RPGs ask you to expose yourself. That's worth talking about, i think.

For my own part I will open with this: to me, D&D is a language I use to communicate ideas about the importance of storytelling as a human activity. I certainly wouldn't have put it that way most of my life, but I can see even back to the very first introductions to the hobby that's what it was. Storytelling may be the most human thing ever, and there is evidence for it that goes far, far back into deep time. RPGs do storytelling in a way that is both completely novel and deeply ingrained. Through D&D we grab the Big Myths (whatever their paint job) and place ourselves in them. That is something pretty special, IMO. We aren't just talking about Achilles and Arthur, we ARE Achilles and Arthur. That's bigger than it feels like it should be.

Of course, I am coming from a Literature background and many, many years of playing D&D so maybe I am over-selling it.

What do you think?

 

[BookTenTiger]

To me, D&D is like a big box of Lego's that I invite my friends over to play with.

We can create just about anything with those Lego's. But there are rules governing some limits of what we can create. And of course, it's collaborative, so whatever I make my friends are going to interact with.

I guess what I'm saying is that D&D is, at its core, a way for my friends and I to play a game together. But it's also a set of rules that are fun to think about and tinker with. And it's a culture that I get to interact with others (especially online) about.

 

[Campbell]

Personally I do not really have a personal connection to Dungeons and Dragons as a brand. I like some games that bear that name (Moldvay B/X, D&D 4e), am not so crazy about others (AD&D 2e, D&D 3e), and am mostly ambivalent to its current iteration. I love some D&D adjacent games like Worlds Without Number, Pathfinder Second Edition, Freebooters and The Nightmares Underneath. I do not necessarily see too much connective tissue other than some setting elements. I think remarkably different games have borne the name over the years.

 

[Stormonu]

This is a charged subject, be ready to bail on this thread by about the 8th page.

I've played all the versions of D&D, several other fantasy RPGs and even beyond those walls. I know what I want from my D&D, and when I'd rather use another system for something. I can certainly tell you what is my favorite version ...and which isn't. I use D&D (and the edition) for what it is, without trying to bend it too hard out of shape. The game has limitations and I have no qualms using another rules engine (Savage Worlds being my favorite) to emulate a certain type of play.

So what is D&D to me if I had to put it in a sentence? It's a chance to crack some skulls and cast some spells while pretending to be someone far more interesting yourself in a game that plays out like a story. Sure, you could do that with a half-dozen systems, but D&D does D&D itself the best - the mix of classes, races, monsters, spells and lore make it a unique thing.

My life with D&D...

Spoiler

I came into D&D with a copy of Holmes (in 4th grade, age 10, 1980) - and lost the rulebook a few weeks later, before I knew what I was doing. Played with my friends and cousins for two years, just using my imagination and the reference sheet in B2. In 6th, got my hands on B/X and started learning the rules a bit better. As a graduation present for 8th grade, got the AD&D books (from Toys-R-Us, the ones with the Easley covers). Sometime shortly after that, Unearthed Arcana came out and I got so sick of flipping between PHB, DMG & UA for rules I hand-rewrote the rules into a journal I had - basically memorizing things in doing so.

Unfortunately, shortly after finishing that project I moved to Mississippi, the no-man's-land of gaming and bible belt in the middle of the satanic panic. I eventually found a group - they started playing with my brother as DM using B/X and about six months later he turned them over to me and I took up the DMing duties using 1E. Halfway into the campaign, we switched to 2E.

Played a few more campaigns through college and beyond, switching to the likes of Vampire as 2E got long in the tooth. I got married and moved away to Georgia for a few years, where I just collected and read, but didn't have a steady play group. Did get an adventure published in Dungeon magazine, though! After two years, moved back to Mississippi, and struck back up with my old group, when 3E came out. After a couple years, that long-time group finally fell apart, and I found myself with two kids.

After a couple of years away playing Mechwarrior: Dark Age, I picked D&D back up with a new group. Played a couple campaigns with them until 4E hit, and then we decided to try various different games, eventually settling on Revised World of Darkness and Pathfinder as our favorites. Just before 5E came out, the group drifted away.

I picked 5E up when it came out, played it with family and then eventually got together another group, who I am still playing with. Occasionally, I get a bit burned out and I either take the player's seat or we switch to a different game system for a bit (last two was My Little Pony and then an Aliens one-shot).

 

[rgoodbb]

Originally for me it was just great fun when I didn't have a care in the world.
Now I have a care in the world , it's pure escapism from that world.

Originally it was get to the highest level as quickly as possible.
Now I like to slow down and enjoy the journey.

Originally it was explore the dungeon.
Now I explore myself through my PC.

Originally it was chop off some heads.
Now I like to get inside NPC's heads .

Originally my need for it was to have the greatest fun.
Now I still have the greatest fun.

 

[Zardnaar]

D&D is D&D whatever it means for you.

Of the 5 editions I've played 4 were good enough.

 

[Ogre Mage]

In the early years it was about having fantastical magical powers and doing amazing things I could never do in real life. As a youngster I had fantasies about being able to fly and turn invisible. In this game I actually could.

I still enjoy the power fantasy. But as the years progressed it also became about engaging in a shared storytelling experience with others and overcoming obstacles together.

 

[Marc_C]

I never had the dedication to become a genre writer. Instead D&D (and rpgs) has given me the possibility to present worlds (stories) I dream up to a participating audience.

 

[Shiroiken]

I've been addicted since before I actually played. I started with the D&D cartoon, followed by various NES RPG games like Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy. In Junior High, a friend of my brother's had borrowed the 1E PHB from his uncle, and I greedily read it cover to cover (okay, I admit I skipped the spells beyond level 1, which was how they were sorted back then). He was trying to get his uncle to start up a game, but that fell through. A year later, my brother joined up with his friend and a few others when they found a DM, but I was forbidden by my brother to join.

I decided "screw him," and took my knowledge of the NES games and my memories of the PHB and made my own RPG. I got two of my other friends to join me, and I DMed them. It was a VERY crude system, but with the knowledge we had, it worked out really well anyway. After a month or so, my brother's DM was over while I was running a session. My brother mocked us, but the DM was impressed. He looked over my rules and their characters sheets, and then immediately invited the three of us into his game! My brother was super-pissed, but the DM pointed out that if we were going to play anyway, we might as well play it right.

It's probably interesting to note that after only six months of playing, he decided to mentor me to become a DM (this was the normal way to become a DM, as the rules were hidden from the players). When he left town, he turned over his campaign for me to run. I ran that campaign for another 3 years, only ending it because the party was ridiculously high level, and I decided I wanted to transition us to 2E (which we'd bucked against). I've been playing and running D&D for about 30 years now, with no intention of stopping anytime soon