Dungeons and Dragons helped me develop deeper connections with my friend groups – El Estoque

The first time I played Dungeons and dragons (D&D) took place last summer when my best friend invited me to learn the game with a few mutual friends. Even though I was in a different class and school than everyone else, I was able to identify with the group I played with, my campaign group, because we were all learning to play the game.

The game started off bumpy at first. As Dungeon Master (DM), my best friend had to facilitate the entire fantasy world in which my campaign group was located. Although we used a book that laid out an adventure for us, which made being a DM easier, it lacked experience that my best friend had shown through his narration. While we were learning, we accidentally left out some basic rules of the game in order to simplify our game. Therefore, our DM reached satisfactory conclusions that meet our needs.

The modified version of D&D we played strayed from the game’s inherent randomness and instead resembled collaborative storytelling. Typically, when playing D&D, dice rolls of various types, such as a d20 (20-faced die), are used to determine how good or bad the effects of a player’s actions in the game are. However, my best friend didn’t use dice rolls effectively and instead just thought of an effect for the player’s actions.

After my friend gave me the position of DM, I had the opposite problems: I struggled to find an overall tone and plot, but excelled at using knowledge of the rules in my campaign. Coincidentally, after I started DMing the group, another group of friends I had at MVHS also wanted to start a D&D campaign. From then on, I was able to gain experience as a DM in two very different friend groups and began to notice the intricacies of these two friend groups.

One of my campaign groups was much more organized and strategic than the other and required me, as the DM, to change my tone of voice, body language, and other non-verbal cues to be more formal. This also meant that the story I created for them had to be more concrete so that they could use their logic and intelligence.

The other campaign group I ran was much more chaotic and casual in gameplay. With them, I had to go into the meeting with the mindset that my plan could change at any time. With this group, I had to resign myself to being a little more lenient with this gamble. Most of the time it didn’t matter whether the plot made sense or not, as long as the basic rules were followed – I still felt satisfaction as I let their creative ideas come to fruition through improvisation.

It wasn’t until I started being a DM for both groups that I noticed the huge differences between these groups and, most importantly, how my own personality changed depending on which group I belonged to. Although my experiences as a DM were drastically different for each campaign, I still felt a common understanding with the people in these individual groups.

Playing D&D as both a player and a DM has shown me how, in the right environment, people can share deep personal connections with one another without having to speak directly about those connections. The contrast between adventure and fun, comedic moments that brighten everyone’s day with deep, emotional scenes allows players to look introspectively through their characters.

However, to achieve a healthy balance between tension and relaxation, the DM must plan the adventure’s agenda in advance. Because without the proper preparation for emotional moments – through close battles with enemies, friendships with non-player characters (NPCs), and a dramatic boss – players cannot feel the immersion that role-playing with fictional characters brings.

The role of DM forced me to combine the skills of empathy and the art of linear storytelling to properly lead my friend group and subsequently improve my general public speaking skills. Although being a D&D player requires a lot less work than being a DM, which may sound tempting at first, the role of DM has helped me develop the leadership skills in a group environment that I previously lacked.

Despite the fact that D&D is all about roleplaying, stat points, and even making fun noises to increase immersion, the nature and breadth of the game really brought out personality traits in my friends that I had never seen before . These included acquaintances I only knew through a mutual connection and people I had known for years. Although playing an entire Dungeons and Dragons campaign is a lot of work for both the game master and the players, it can be one of the best ways to not only pass the time, but also bring friends out of their shell and into the to immerse yourself in history.