My Name is Tim O...and I play D&D

Tim: "I wanted to talk to you about something."
Cute Girl: "Sure, is everything okay?"
Tim: "Absolutely." [frightened look]
Cute Girl: "Are you sure?  This doesn't sound good."
Tim: "Well, it's something that I think I ought to tell you about...I mean, I really like you, I enjoy all this time we've been spending together, and I think things between us could really lead somewhere.  You deserve to know..."
Cute Girl: "Were you in prison?"
Tim: "No, I've always been a law-abiding citizen...actually I..."
Cute Girl: "You don't have herpes do you?"
Tim: "No, I'm disease-free.  It's actually about..."
Cute Girl: "Oh my God, you're married, aren't you..."
Tim: "Definitely not.  It has to do with..."
Cute Girl: "Holy crap, you're into some crazy S&M stuff I bet!  That explains the whips!"
Tim: "I already explained to you that I sponsor the Greater Wichita Whip Cracking Team."

Cute Girl: "Oh, I forgot about that.  So...what's the big deal you wanted to tell me about?!?!  You haven't been to prison, you don't have some terrible disease, what is it you are so ashamed to tell me about?"

Tim: "It's...well...I play Dungeons & Dragons.

Cute Girl: [long silence]..."Do you, like, run around the park with swords and stuff?"

Tim: [deep sigh] "No, it's really quite fun actually. You see, we sit around this table and..."

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It's important for you to know that many of us are really quite normal.  We just have a hobby that much of regular society considers VERY nerdy.  In fact, almost the nerdiest thing possible.  The only thing nerdier than Dungeons & Dragons (or, D&D as we call it) is something called LARPing (Live Action Role Playing).  Those would be the people that act out their medieval fantasies in their neighborhood park.  If you've seen the movie Role Models, you'll know what I'm talking about:

That is not what we do.  What we do is...well, it's kind of hard to explain.  You see, we create people out of thin air.  We use dice to determine their abilities, i.e. their strength, dexterity, constitution, charisma...and finally intelligence and wisdom (two different things, I assure you!)  We roll dice for their height, weight, and age; though usually these "characters" start out as adults somewhere around 18-21 years old.  Once we figure out what these characters are good at, we can decide their "class", i.e. their job.  If they have great strength, maybe they'll be a fighter.  High dexterity often leads to the creation of a thief.  Super intelligent characters make excellent wizards.

Then what do you do?  Well, someone has to figure out what these characters are going to do.  That person is the Dungeon Master, or DM.  Nowadays, a lot of the young whippersnappers use the term Game Master, or GM.  But, I prefer to embrace the even nerdier term.  I'm a Dungeon Master.  There, I said it.  I'm the guy that decides what these characters get up to.  Ideally, a set of characters can last months or even years.  The course of those adventures is called a "campaign".  The characters in my campaign live in a pre-made world called Greyhawk.  You wouldn't believe the intricacy of the maps and the vivid descriptions of the towns, monsters, and people that have been made about this world over the last 30 years (ah, when you are standing in the Cairn Hills, watching the sun set over the Nyr Dyv Sea, it's breathtaking). Because Greyhawk has so much depth to it, you can place the characters into this world and be confident there are plenty of interesting places to see, and, of course, monsters to slay.

I usually make these adventures on my own, although you can also buy pre-made adventures called "modules".  I prefer to come up with a grand plan for my players and then, over the course of months, we follow that plot where it leads us.  Scratch that.  More often, we follow where the players actions take us.  I never know what the characters will decide to do.  Sometimes, they do very foolish things...and we run with it.  A good DM knows how to lead them back to the story arc, and I will eventually guide them back there, unless they get themselves killed.

What happens when these characters run into a goblin or two?  Well, we've got rules for that.  Lots of rules.  Hit points, Armor Class, THAC0, Savings Throws, Initiative, and lots of dice rolling...especially 20-sided die.  Needless to say, a lot of this is complicated.  The good news is the players don't really need to know much...as long as their DM knows the rules, it works pretty well.  And it sure helps to have a Dungeon Masters Guide and Player's Handbook...the two bibles that help me figure out whether that Red Dragon can gain "surprise" against my players, who gets to attack first, and how much damage occurs. And don't even get me started on the different sets of rules for each edition (I'm a 2nd edition man, myself).



There are six of us in our group, all pretty accomplished, well-adjusted, cool people.  No zeroes, misfits, sociopaths, or extreme loners in the bunch.  There's even one pretty girl in the group.  Though, in full-disclosure, the guy/girl ratio in D&D is usually pretty skewed to the y-chromosome.  So, why do we choose to spend hours doing all this?  Because it's a lot of fun...and friggin' hilarious.

Hilarious?  Slaying dragons?  How so?  Well, actually, you don't run into dragons much, and they are very hard to kill, but that's neither here nor there.  Let me explain how comedy happens...The players make up the personalities of their created character.  If you play with clever people, as I do, then this leads to great hilarity.  As in, the arrogant cavalier (a type of knight) who looked down on everyone, and would speak through his helmet in a haughty tone of voice.  The player would create this effect by speaking into a plastic cup.  He decided to name his character's charger (a type of horse) Antonio Gates (you NFL fans will appreciate the joke) and insisted on bringing the horse everywhere, including an underground dungeon.  This eventually led to a comical scene of the horse being hoisted out with ropes.

Players will come up with all kinds of odd personality traits for the characters.  There was the fighter who loved bacon and was freaked out by halflings and their hairy feet (think Frodo)...the eager-to-please priest that addressed everyone as "m'lord"...the lothario who bedded every reasonably attractive female he ran into, inevitably causing problems for the party...the alcoholic who specialized in poor decision-making...and the creepy wizard who was always collecting body parts.  As DM, I throw in Non-Player Characters (NPCs) to interact with the player characters.  My personal favorite recurring NPC is the over-the-top effeminate sphinx named Ron, who, when not speaking in riddles and granting wishes, works as a doorman at a bar.

Much of the fun that we have is dependent on the players coming up with ingenious schemes to get what they want.  My favorite scheme was the time the group got their hands on a magical box that would fold out into a 24-foot boat when a special command word was spoken.  While scouting out the enemy, one of the players was flying overhead (the Wings of Flying came in handy that night) and decided to say the command word as he dropped the box on top of our hapless foes.  I set the scene by describing the bad guys as chatting with each other when an oar falls in front of them.  One of the guys says, "Hey, where'd that come from..."  In unison, they looked up...Squish.

The truth is, there are few things I enjoy as much as D&D.  Much of the joy comes from the creation of another person, whom you inhabit and act through.  But, even more than that, it's the fun we have as a group together.  The social aspect of the game is the best part.  Interacting with each other, we make the world come to life.  It's like reading a book, or watching a movie...except you determine the plot.  Perhaps, the next time I meet a girl I like, I'll tell her about my D&D habit right away.

No, probably not.