It all started because I wanted to be cool.

I was hanging out with my friend Chris, and he brought up that he was planning on playing Dungeons & Dragons that night with friends. At the time, I had heard of the game (due to my interest in fantasy and my crippling loneliness) but I had never really sat down to play it. But since I wanted my friend to think I was cool and hip, I acted like I knew what I was talking about. I told him I had played a few time before, and I usually preferred warriors over magicians because ‘I liked the build of their character class’.

Yeah, I thought it sounded intelligent too…

In the end though, it was convincing enough to have Chris invite me over to play with his group. I only had a few hours to do a quick AskJeeve’s search on the rules of D&D!

I ended up playing a rogue… and I barely was able to follow the rules while we played. However, the group was amused with me, and slowly but surely, I was adopted into my group of high school friends. Every weekend we’d meet up on Friday or Saturday and we’d run an adventure. And while I usually ended up becoming the comedic character of the group (I was notorious for having David Dice Syndrome (DDS) back in the day), I had fun. We had fun.

Dungeons & Dragons gave me an outlet in high school to explore a lot of things I never got to explore. It allowed me to be more outspoken. Negotiating a fair price for a stay at the inn as my rogue helped me find confidence when I was trying to debate during speech and debate class. While I never wanted to sacrifice myself in real life, I felt the slight rush of it when I decided to sacrifice my level seven (It took a half a year to get there!) warrior to save the party from being devoured by a plaguebearer beast. And yes, while it might sound a bit corny to say, facing off again two ogres and a horde of goblins did help me learn some level of bravery when I had to face off with punks at my school who thought I wouldn’t fight back.

I eventually moved on from playing Dungeons & Dragons. I played Vampire the Masquerade where I learned the art of backstabbing and wearing tight pants. I played FATE where I learned that freedom is another word for anarchy and I relied on the backhand from hard-set character creation rules. I even helped create a roleplaying game along with Chris, and I learned there that I’m not very good with number crunching and turning things in on time! The point is, roleplaying games taught me a lot of things about myself that I don’t know I would have found without it.

I know next week is Thanksgiving for us Americans. And yes, I know that is when I’m suppose to raise my goblet of wine towards the turkey and say what I’m thankful for, but Fandible has always been about bucking tradition: I’m raising my goblet right now – yes, I have a goblet at my work cubicle! It’s not weird. – and I’m saying ‘thank you’ to Dungeons & Dragons and roleplaying games in general. You taught me a lot about life and about myself and, strangely enough, about the breeding practices of goblins (I don’t want to talk about it…)

So. Thanks. I guess?

I know I’m not the only one that gained something from roleplaying games. I’m sure each and every one of you has been able to explore things or learn things from roleplaying games. So, I’m going to leave this post today with the following question: How have roleplaying games touched your life? What positive things have you learned from it?

Oh – I should also probably mention that I’m thankful to roleplaying games for introducing me to Angela and yada-yada-yada.

I look forward to reading your responses, Fandlites!

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