I played my first game of Dungeons and Dragons when I was in eighth grade. Having discovered the game via the web series “Fantasy High,” I immediately fell in love with the theater of it all. D&D seemed to create stories with a level of absurdity and sincerity that I just didn’t find in other shows or books, and I was determined to try my hand at it. After finding a friend who was interested in being a dungeon master (DM) and another who was interested in playing, we sat down for a three-hour, one-session game.
It was a blast. I played a rogue (my favorite D&D class to this day), and being set loose in a world where the only thing keeping me from pushing every button was the DM and the dice was incredible. Lying, cheating and stealing my way throughout the story sated the impulse demon in my brain (later to be diagnosed as ADHD) like nothing before, and successes and failures alike had the table in hysterics as we all became bolder and bolder in our antics. There, at that little table in a smoothie cafe, we created magic.
Unfortunately, the ultimate enemy of D&D parties isn’t actually dungeons or dragons but scheduling, and we never got the chance to play again. In the meantime, I kept watching D&D and other tabletop roleplaying game shows like Critical Role and Sword AF, and observed how the characters interacted with each other and how the actors at the table worked to spin a narrative. I was a serious kid who grew up into a serious teen, and I took pride in that. I knew how to get shit done and how to get people to take me seriously, but as far as plain social interaction went, I was embarrassingly clueless — it turns out only talking to people in the context of schoolwork isn’t a recipe for friendship. The charisma of the shiny actors in the huge blockbuster movies seemed unattainable. The people on these shows, though, their sociability was attainable.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I made some friends through the fandoms of a few D&D shows, who were interested in running a full campaign. I was a bit unsure about joining at first, as I was against activities unrelated to school or college prep at the time. I eventually agreed, however, the allure of high fantasy being too strong. As opposed to my initial experience, this was my first exposure to people who were actually good at the game. It felt a bit like the shows I loved, but this time I was in the front row. The other players knew the game inside and out and took over their character roles with mesmerizing ease. Comparatively, I felt like an awkward little duckling; the first time the DM asked me to role-play a charisma check, I remember freezing and feeling panicked and embarrassed, my mind blank. What if I wasn’t funny enough? What if what I said sounded weird? What if I didn’t get a good grade in D&D, something that is normal to want and possible to achieve? In the end, I gave an awkward laugh and half-mumbled a reply, vowing to do better next time. I watched other members of the party establish themselves in the world of the campaign, forming connections with NPCs and each other. From these observations, I formed what are now my five rules of success in D&D:
- Know your character. This goes beyond knowing their abilities and stats; what do they want? What do they like? What drives their quirks and approach to life?
- Take risks. In D&D, failures are just as important as successes. In storytelling, you get back as much (or as little) as you put in and — in the words of the hit 2015 musical “Hamilton” — you get nothing if you wait for it.
- Engage with the world. The world around you isn’t a museum to just look at. Touch things, knock things over and be present. Poke the bear to find out what makes it tick.
- Learn to improvise. It’s common knowledge in the TTRPG community that plans rarely work regardless of meticulous plotting. This ties into number two: Make bold decisions.
- Be a bit stupid. You can’t account for everything in a world of magic and impossibility, so allow yourself to match the ridiculous fantasy setting. Plus, committing to the bit is much funnier.
As the world adjusted to virtual communication and work and school once again took over our schedules, this campaign also fell victim to impossible scheduling (as I said, deadly killer). I eventually escaped high school and moved 10 minutes north to the University of Michigan. Even though I could effectively walk to my high school campus, college truly felt like a fresh start, and I wasn’t going to waste it. I threw myself into a 17-credit first semester, arguably joined too many clubs and tried to talk to as many people as I could. The issue is that I was a nerd with no social experience and, to make it all worse, I hadn’t really talked to anyone face-to-face in about two years. Feeling a familiar panic, I thought back to the most social thing in my life in the past couple of years — D&D. Towards the end of the campaign, I’d started feeling a lot more confident in talking with my party members and NPCs using my observations, so maybe I could take that confidence with me to real life college. And it worked! For the first time, I felt like I made friendships that didn’t have a background in academia or work. Eventually, one of these new friends put together what is now my current D&D party.
Playing in an in-person full campaign is weird. I’ve never had the classic experience of being around a table and looking people in the face while playing, but I’ve had enough experience over the years that I technically count as an experienced player. That being said, I put my rules into practice. I try to engage with the world as much as possible and encourage our newer players to do the same. I try to emulate what the more experienced players of my old party modeled for me, with varying levels of success. Our game has a pretty harsh setting, but even still, I find myself taking risks and loving the consequences that come with it. In the last session, my character lost a limb because of in-game choices I never would’ve made four years ago, and I’ve been having a better time than I ever was back then. I’ve never laughed so much, and by figuring out how to overcome both mundane and epic challenges, and honestly just by being goofy, I’ve grown my friendships out of the game with my party members — shoutout to Sara.
Dungeons and Dragons is about more than just dice. Sure, the story determines your path, but it takes devoted acting and role play to turn the dice rolls into a cohesive story. You have to know your character well enough to make split-second decisions and lifelong commitments in their stead, whether or not the correct decision optimizes the character’s stats or not. Of course, there is something to be said of min-maxing, but even then you need to be able to justify character development with story. In short, being a player character is taking a deep dive into the specific brand of human nature your character has and embracing the ridiculous and vulnerable nature of humans. When I first watched “Fantasy High,” I never expected for this game to change my life to such a degree. Through a veil of epics and mythos, it taught me the ordinary magic of forming human connections. So to my fellow nerds: Get to know yourself, get to know others and be able to laugh at yourself when you roll those nat ones.
Daily Arts Writer Lin Yang can be reached at yanglinj@umich.edu.