What Makes Dungeons & Dragons Worth the Excitement // Dana Ewachow

Dana Ewachow writes about what makes Dungeons & Dragons so captivating as she wraps up her month as guest-editor at TheTown Crier.

Dungeons & Dragons may be filled with mythical beasts and cantrips, but it’s not magic. It’s just a game. It’s a guidebook with extensive instructions about everything from currency to map-making.It’s character sheets with portions filled out in pencil, erased, and filled in again. It’s a collection of polyhedral dice that will eventually have the corners weathered down. On its face, it’s no different than any $60 board game that you can play in one weekend and then store in your hall closet forever.

So, what’s so special about it? Is it the foray into a fantasy world?It’s an appealing element of the game, but the inclusion of monsters and sorcery isn’t completely ground-breaking. Upon closer investigation, some of the adventures set up by modules are stifling.The stories are familiar. The descriptions of classes and races are often overdone. Everyone recognizes the fantastical tropes—elves are wise and beautiful, goblins are ugly and evil, etc. The end goals are usually violent—destroy your enemy, fight off the horde—as if the best soldiers and thinkers can’ t come up with better solutions than firing spells and slashing swords straight ahead. You can see the same valiant knights, brooding rangers, and lovable rogues repeating the same lines you’ve already heard. It can feel more like replay than role play.

The thing that makes D&D so special, so endearing, so life-altering is that you have the freedom to change it all. How could you not love a game that hands you a heavy guidebook and gives you the chance to ignore it? You can modify the rules, waving off obstacles and inconveniences, or letting the consequences smack some sense into those “murder-hobos.”You can swap the tone, turning a lighthearted journey into a tense, nail-biting mission at a moment’s notice. You can customize races, create magic items, and invent a long history of lore. And if you have the time and energy, home brew the entire campaign from the very beginning. The boundaries on your grid-map may be strict, but the ones inside of the game are endless.

I just finished playing a session. The manuals, notebooks, and miniatures are all sitting on a chair. The game table is folded up and tucked out of sight. It was a long day filled with political intrigue, building ambitions, budding romance, grand reveals, tender moments, and even a shocking character death. You can go through incredible highs and lows within a few rolls of the dice. One second, you’re getting a magical item that you’ve waited months for—the next, you’re being dragged off of your horse and thrown in a jail cell. You get to have a little piece of everything.

I wouldn’t feel the way I do about Dungeons & Dragons if I didn’t have the right table. It makes it easy to let the hours slip by, to shift weekend plans, and forget that you’re an adult playing pretend. As you can see by many of the pieces put up this month, the people sitting at the table are what makes the game captivating. JeremyLuke Hill plays with his family, letting his son Ethan Hill take the helm as the DM. Ian Baaske reminisced about playing the game with his father. Hannah Lee Jarvis turned her table into a new, chosen family. After all, a game is only as good as its players.

Dana Ewachow is a copywriter living in Toronto with her partner Christopher and two black cats. Her writing has been featured in The Town Crier, Mooney on Theatre, Rabble, Le Shindig, and Graphite Publications.

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