This post is written by guest contributor Joshua Mays, a senior conservation biology major.
The jokes about people who play Dungeons and Dragons write themselves. I should know because I’ve recently become one of them. Now that I’ve worked my way into the inner circle (i.e. asked to get added to the group email), I feel like I’m allowed to make the jokes. But I don’t. I’m very serious about Dungeons and Dragons.
The first time my friend Will invited me to play, I instantly agreed. I love trying out new things — the more niche the better. From polo matches to waterboard yoga to powerviolence shows to pro wrestling in a musty storage unit in North Georgia, I’ll do almost anything for a good story. I guess I thought Dungeons and Dragons would just be a good story to tell. Fast forward four hours to my character (a half-orc with a six pack) slicing a zombie in half with a giant axe. I was hooked.
In real life, I do not have a six pack. I also don’t have a giant axe or a pet owl that I can magically merge with. These are all unfortunate facts, but I deal with it. When I was a kid, I didn’t have goblins in my backyard, there wasn’t a house elf living in my parent’s closet and I definitely wasn’t the king of a medieval empire. I had to deal with these facts too, and I dealt with them by imagining. I loved imagining more than anything. Some nights I would go to bed early just to lie awake and make up adventure stories in my head. I can remember some of these adventures as clearly today as when I was eight years old.
The problem with imagining is that not everyone can see what you’re seeing. My two older sisters would listen politely when I monologued about fairies and dragons, but they could never quite participate in my games. Eventually I stuffed that part of myself away and replaced it with more socially acceptable fixes. Sitting quietly and thumbing through Lord of the Rings is a lot easier to get away with than swinging around a tree branch sword.
That first time I rolled a set of Dungeons and Dragons dice, a decade’s worth of stuffed-down imagination games came bubbling up. I didn’t even try to play it cool. The nostalgia came crashing down like a tidal wave. It was painful to watch. If you’ve never played Dungeons and Dragons, there are a few things you should know. One person has the job of moderating things to make sure that the action follows a loose plot. They create the world, they write the rules, they guide everyone else along. Everyone else creates a personal character to play as. The rest is up to your imagination. There are no limits except for your own creativity. That sounds idealistic. Let me be more honest. This is a game that lets nerds pretending to be elves sit across a table from nerds pretending to be kenkus (bird-like humanoids for those who don’t know) for hours at a time without feeling bad about it. Let me reiterate so that I’m not misunderstood: I am very serious about Dungeons and Dragons.
Our game lasted for about four hours. We weren’t even given a break for lunch, but I didn’t care. I didn’t even care that everyone’s character inexplicably talked with an affected English accent (why is that a thing?). All I cared about was that for the first time in my life, I had someone to imagine with.
