When I was a kid, the country went through a full-fledged Dungeons & Dragons hysteria, where the fantasy role-playing game was accused of everything from turning kids onto Satanism to encouraging them to kill themselves.
Decades later, we’ve now reached a point where D&D is seen as sort of a harmless, if incredibly geeky pastime.
But isn’t there a third option? Dungeons & Dragons isn’t a dangerous, evil force in the world, nor is it just harmless fun; it’s actually one of the most worthwhile activities ever created, and there is literally nothing better for turning a kid into a thoughtful, creative, passionate, open-minded adult.
Almost everything I know today I learned from Dungeons & Dragons. And almost everything I’m passionate about, I first discovered while playing the game.
I started playing Dungeons & Dragons at age twelve, when my friend Tim asked for, and received, a "starter" box set of the game for Christmas.
I immediately loved it. It gave a focus to all those lazy afternoons with my friends. It was something for us all to be passionate about, an endless countryside for us to discover and explore — endless because we made it up ourselves.
But it didn’t just focus those afternoons with my friends; it focused the rest of my life too.
Before the game, I’d had little interest in reading for pleasure. For me, books were something that were assigned in school — staid, musty tales that said nothing about the things I was interested in and had absolutely no relevance to my life.
But because I was so enamored with the world of D&D, I started reading fantasy books. For the first time in my life, I realized, "Hey, books aren’t necessarily boring! Sometimes they can even be really, really interesting!" It was a revelation. In months, I was devouring every fantasy book I could get my hands on — even long, complicated sagas that I wouldn’t have looked twice at before (Stephen R. Donaldson was, and still is, my favorite author).
In school, I’d always hated history. It had always been presented to me as nothing more than a long list of dates to be memorized.
But in the world of D&D, in the adventures we were concocting for each other, history came alive. And why wouldn’t it? We were literally living it! And like almost every virgin D&D player, I immediately embarked on my own extracurricular study of weaponry, of myths and fables, of medieval life — even castle-building.
There's more if you're interested, so read the rest!