Dungeons and Dragons is the title of the game that we played for weeks 8 through 10 but it could just as well be titled as “Joe’s Favorite Game to Play with Friends”. I’ve played Dungeons and Dragons since I was around 8 years old starting with 3.5 edition. I enjoyed it then and since then have only grown more fond of the game as I’ve learned new facets to enjoy of the game that I was unaware of when I first started playing. Whether those new ideas were just role-playing or thinking of new fun character concepts. In all of this Dungeons and Dragons is related to many different aspects of leadership.
The first tie to leadership found in Dungeons and Dragons comes when creating your character. As a leader it is important to know and understand yourself. Dungeons and Dragons gives the player many opportunities to better understand their character in game as well as to develop their character throughout the game. In real life understanding who you are and what you are capable of is important as a leader to understand what tasks you can and should do as well as what you excel at. However understanding yourself isn’t the only aspect of leadership in Dungeons and Dragons.
Another tie to leadership present in Dungeons and Dragons is the amount of communication and cooperation players must have. In Dungeons and Dragons it is important to be able to talk to and understand the words of others so that you may work well as a team. That is because Dungeons and Dragons is a team game where you work with others to complete goals and objectives that you would not be able to complete by yourself. However that does not mean there is no risk and that leads to the final leadership aspect present in Dungeons and Dragons.
Risk is always present in Dungeons and Dragons. Every decision has a consequence or benefit depending on how the dice end up rolling. Therefore Dungeons and Dragons also helps teach risk management and assessment to its players as a player who does not properly assess a situation will likely end up with their character dead or worse. In Dungeons and Dragons though it is important to take risks so that you can progress through the game and to make the game interesting. Without risk the game becomes simple and boring as every task will come without consequence. But how does Dungeons and Dragons work so that their is risk present?
Dungeons and Dragons is a tabletop roleplaying game played with several players who each control a character and a dungeon master who runs the world that the players play in. The game however runs on dice. Most character statistics are determined by the dice as well as the results of actions the players take. To lie in Dungeons and Dragons is a possible dice roll, to attempt to hit an enemy is a dice roll, and so on and so forth. While a lot of stuff that happens in Dungeons and Dragons is determined by dice rolls that doesn’t mean that everything is determined in such a way.
The characters players make as well as the actions they take are all still decided by that player. In Dungeons and Dragons there is still a lot of choice that takes place. This starts in character creation where you choose your race. Basically the species of your character. You can choose to either be an Elf, Dwarf, Human, or more fantasy type races such as Tiefling or Dragonborn. From there you choose your class which ranges from sword fighting heroes, to fast handed thieves, good-hearted priests, or powerful mages. These choices are all a part of Dungeons and Dragons and determine the kind of character you can play.
In my game I played an Elven cleric. I focused most of my abilities on helping my teammates as I was fairly certain I would be playing with a lot of newer players who would be playing characters that are more damage focused than team focused. My assumption in this case was correct as I was partied with a wizard, a rogue, and a sorcerer. In the end we were able to play the game and everyone did their jobs alright. However in this game I did not have the best time.
While playing with my group there were several issues that occurred. The first issue was that besides the DM and myself none of the other players knew the rules of how to play the game. This made our first session move along slowly as many concepts had to be taught to the new players throughout the game. The issues continued as the rest of the party did little to take initiative in the game and decide the parties course of action. This made the game awkward for me as I was trying to not determine the course of every action but ended up being the main prompter of any decisions.
Overall I still think Dungeons and Dragons is fun and with more experience playing the game the other players in my game would do more and probably have a more enjoyable time. A friend I would recommend this game to and who I have been trying to get to play for a while is Zach. As a game that is great to play with friend I feel that he would enjoy the game. Also I feel like he would enjoy playing a roleplaying game.
In the end while I did not have a great time playing the game this time I still do enjoy the game itself and would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good roleplaying game to play.