Dnd - Then and Now

I bought the third edition Dungeons and Dragons players handbook on 18 October 2001. I know this because twelve-year-old William wrote down the date he started reading every book he owned inside its front cover. I know I finished it in 23 days for the same reason. 

Where it all began

I didn't just 'finish' those 285 A4 pages in three weeks, I learned them off by heart. I could tell you the spell list, saving throws, base attack bonuses, and abilities each class had available at any level. I spent my free time poring over every statistic out of the kind pure love reserved for prepubescent children and golden Labradors.

That sparking passion was doused in petrol when the Fellowship of the Ring premiered about a month later. The wonders and dangers of D&D became much more vivid. The scant sessions I was actually able to play with friends became lucid dreams where we fought dragons, tricked goblins, got tricked by wizards, rolled a 20 to manage an impossible jump over a chasm, or rolled a 1 and had a fatal trip over an errant tree branch. One friend even sold us into slavery on occasion. Our absolutely absurd sessions regularly ended in someone shouting something along the lines of "OKAY! so the average pillow case is 20 inches by 31 inches which means that we can fit about three dismembered babies in there... We're gonna sell so much weed!"

The inside jokes grew into enduring tropes. All of us have fond memories of the suspicious glances our mothers gave us while loudly wondering whether we were worshiping the devil. Luckily Facebook mom groups did not exist back then. All we had were uninformed bible groups without access to Google.

The game's beauty was in having a safe space for children to practise their imaginations by approaching fantastical scenarios as problem solving exercises. There was always some challenge to overcome with the set of tools you gathered as part of your character progression.

You wrote a story with your friends of good overcoming evil (or vice versa), and like any good book, your stories were punctuated by death and other real losses. They touched you emotionally. There's something to be said here one of therapists' approaches to traumatised children: Acting out scenes in your imagination as a vehicle to express yourself where you don't otherwise have the space or toolset to. D&D was that to us too, our amateur group therapy sessions where we sometimes ended up talking about each others parents' divorces.

Over the years I lost touch with many of those friends, and my new friends weren't predisposed to the world of D&D. The barrier to entry was higher than they liked, and a lot of it seemed either cringy, or like too much homework. And it was too much homework. When we became adults, nobody had the time to study nearly 250 pages before doing something fun. What we did have was tequila. Alcohol doesn't need you to give a detailed character backstory, and it's more likely to get you laid.

But then fifth edition came around, heavily simplified (which, to many purists, was the equivalent of Darth Jar-Jar). Suddenly popular podcasts dedicated an episode or two to playing the game. Some of them like The Adventure Zone, became dedicated D&D shows that made it to the top of the Spotify podcast lists. Shows like Critical Role had guest appearances from Vin Diesel (for a session of D&Diesel), while Dave Harmon (creator of Community and Rick and Morty) created his own D&D show, Harmon Quest.

The game came back in a big way, and at some point last year, a friend on a Discord server idly asked whether we've ever played.

It took my a few seconds to process the question. Was he really asking? Was i about to do some homework at 30 years old?

But I already knew what time it was.

I DMd a once-off session to see whether they liked it, and then, fast forward a few months and I'm hundreds of dollars deep into the Curse of Strahd source book , Tarokka deck and player friendly maps. We have a dedicated Discord server for the campaign.

And it's awesome. Playing the game as an adult has been different, but so much fun. Every session comes with a proper gourmet meal, properly financed miniatures, detailed maps, and ambient music. it's no longer a phylactery for children's imaginations, but it's a way for a group of friends to shoot the shit while solving some problems, spontaneously creating inside jokes, and catching up with one another when work and life schedules would make it nearly impossible. It gives us a reason to make plans, and I'm damned glad we're back in it.