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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Reynard" data-source="post: 8255250" data-attributes="member: 467">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?</blockquote>

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