What makes Dungeons and Dragons fun

More people are starting to play Dungeons and Dragons than ever before in order to find out what makes D&D fun. This resurgence was due to the popular show critical role being streamed for a new generation to watch.

When you have a bunch of voice actors roleplaying other people, the game should be entertaining to watch, and it was. Many people saw how much fun the group was having and wanted to replicate the experience with their friends.

I have many reasons why you should play all split up into sections. Here is the just of it.

What makes D&D fun is that you can do anything, learn, think creatively, interact with others, have complex narratives, and have a fun time with friends!

Anything

“What do you do?” Is a powerful question. Other games try to ask the player this question but can never match Dungeons and Dragons. Most of our games, society, and life has rules that don’t actually allow us to do anything we want. Dungeons and Dragons lets you do these things.

If the town mayor asks you to help kill sewer rats in most games you would choose yes or no. In Dungeons and Dragons, you can chose “I seduce the barmaid while starting a bar fight with the mayor.” This is not a standard or even sane option, but this is allowed in dungeons and dragons.

Should you always do whatever you want? No, you should not and any dungeon master worth their salt will use consequences to bring back your senses.

Being able to do anything is a powerful concept that encourages everyone to have fun at the table. It can also lead to….

Thinking creatively

When asked what makes D&D fun, I always end up talking about creativity. Most of the time games or activities try to constrain the person into doing what they are supposed to. Not Dungeons and Dragons. A player shouldn’t go about murdering everyone, but they shouldn’t be a mindless drone.

A great example is basketball or any other sports. You have specific rules to accomplish the objective. The main objective is to win, but you are restricted in how you do so. If we were not restricted in how to do so there would be jet-propelled balls, nets thrown over people, or even deflated balls when the enemy team gets a hold of them. All of that is fair in Dungeons and Dragons.

Here you are meant to win or achieve your goal, but you are not burdened by extra rules. You do have to abide by the rules of the world, but that is a given. Even if we could have jet-propelled balls gravity would still keep people on the ground. These rules must be obeyed, but everything else is fair game.

To illustrate the point, let’s say that this is D&D and you have to stop a necromancer. Do you have to kill him? No, that requires effort. Instead, you can cause a riot within his ranks having them dispose of the evil overlord, persuade him to give up his evil ways, or just find a cheat with magic like teleporting him far away to be someone else’s problem.

Being creative with almost no restrictions is an amazing part of Dungeons and Dragons that separates it from everything else.

The secret way to learn

I was young once. I had to go to school and didn’t learn that much from school overall. Instead, I was weird and learned things from books, television (history channel when it was about history), and tried to learn how people interact. This all was done and started in grade school. Why was I such a giant nerd back then? Dungeons and dragons.

My friends and I played Dungeons and Dragons at a very young age and it forced me to read faster since I was the dungeon master who ran modules. Not only did I learn to read faster because of modules, but I learned how to do math a lot faster.

I learned how to socialize with people and friends, experimenting with NPCs about how people would react to various situations.

That was directly from Dungeons and Dragons, but what about indirectly?

The game made me curious about monsters so I read the monster manual late into the night. These monsters had to come from somewhere, so I learned about mythology through these creatures. In learning about mythology I learned about history and how people lived. I found it odd that people lived differently back then and learned about technology.

This kept going on and reached politics, economics, and learning about different countries and cultures. All on a basic level, but by the time I was in 6th grade I was at a 9th or 10th-grade level in almost every aspect.

Dungeons and dragons made me learn far more than school ever could, and it was more valuable than most of my schooling. Adults can keep learning as well. Hopefully, Dungeons and Dragons inspire some adults to learn by the same means.

Storytelling

How do you get people to listen? How do you get others to remember something? Us humans are great at remembering stories and experiences. Numbers and lessons are much harder for us to recall, but a good story can be drilled into us.

Many people may say that storytelling isn’t an important part of life, but we all tell stories. What did you do today? Did you ever recount an experience to someone? When you recounted an experience, do you do so in a logical way, or do you tell a story?

Storytelling is an amazing way to convey ideas and messages. This amazing game helps us not only create but learn how to tell stories of our very own. In doing so, we can communicate with our fellow human beings easier and become even more charismatic.

Interaction

I know that I mentioned being social as a pro already, but how many times do kids interact outside of school now? What if your kid is extremely nerdy and into games? This isn’t like the old days where kids around the neighboorhood would gather to play kick the can or some other game. Now kids can stay inside and never interact with others.

Dungeons and Dragons gives face to face interaction with others. In a world where we all are connected by technology, learning how to interact with others is an important skill that every child or adult should learn and perfect.

I know I have been catering to children a lot, but all of these apply to adults as well. If I didn’t have Dungeons and Dragons I could become absorbed in work and not meet a soul for weeks. Social interaction is very important to people, and we need it. Dungeons and Dragons is a great way to interact with friends and relieve some stress.

Combat

Who doesn’t love a good fight? We all watch marvel movies so don’t you lie and say that you are better than me! If you are better than me, you can role-play your heart out and this section isn’t for you but most of us like fights done well.

Note how I said done well? This is something that is hard to find in a lot of fights. Most fights in movies, games, or even real life are just fights that involve two people or creatures bashing each other’s face in. A well-done fight is much more than this.

Well done fights are extremely fun, tense, and are a huge part of what makes D&D fun. What is at stake? This should always cause some level of tension or excitement to flair up in the players if the fight is done well.

Why are people even fighting? There should be ideologies and reasons behind every fight to add weight and make the game extremely fun even if you are bad at combat. If you want to read more about well-done fights, read here.

Goofing off

We all need a way to relax and Dungeons and Dragons is a great way to relax. If you have ever thought of a group of nerds huddled around making tense strategic decisions about how to save the world, you are missing 90% of Dungeons and Dragons.

Most games in Dungeons and Dragons are about how badly the party screws up, and how they either leave the situation to let the town burn or how they fix the screw-up. Sort of. The fix might be worse than the original problem, but the original problem was fixed, right?

In life, nothing goes according to plan and neither does anything in Dungeons and dragons. The game name should be changed to ‘epic screwups’ in order to more accurately reflect the setting.

Once you start to play the game, you find this out very quickly, and it is a lot of fun.

Moral choices

In our normal every day lives we have to be careful about the morality of our choices. Should you in Dungeons and Dragons? Yes, you should, but wouldn’t it be better to see what would happen if you didn’t make the moral choice?

If you worked retail and have been on an 18-hour shift, have you ever wanted to yell at a rude customer who is taking out their frustrations on you? Most people would want to, but most people cannot. What if you could? Dungeons and dragons lets us explore these situations from whatever moral choice we desire. It can be a lot of fun, but a huge pain.

Most of the time, choosing the wrong moral choice is a bad idea and not worth the hassle. Dungeons and Dragons teaches us this and gives us perspective for when we need to make those moral decisions.

These experiences help us make the moral decision when that customer is mad at us or helps us make the right decision when we have a bigger impact.

Not only can moral choices in Dungeons and Dragons be fun, but they can also help us be better people and have a better life. Pretty good deal for a lesson in morality.

Conclusion

What makes D&D fun? Dungeons and Dragons is not just a fun game to play with friends, but it is also a game that can help teach and influence your life. You will learn valuable life lessons and find ways to improve yourself.

But is Dungeons and Dragons fun? Goofing off, combat, social interaction, and almost every aspect of Dungeons and Dragons is a blast!

So why should you play Dungeons and Dragons?

Because it is amazingly fun, educational, and something that can only benefit you in your life.

I hope that you have decided to play Dungeons and Dragons. If you have kids, I hope that I have convinced you to let them play Dungeons and Dragons as well.

This has been Wizo and keep rolling!