Last weekend I went to go see the D&D movie, the one starring Chris Pine, Hugh Grant, and Michelle Rodriguez. I list those names because I for one never imagined a movie about a tabletop roleplaying game would attract genuine movie stars; it feels out of place somehow, even though acting and roleplaying at a table are very, very similar1.
But I have to say, by way of review, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves absolutely exceeded my expectations: it was just a lot of dumb fun. It didn’t get up its own ass with meta-table bullshit (outside of the marketing), and its only agenda — moral, political, economic, etc. — was just showing how fun and goofy the world of D&D really is2.
A confession: When I first moved to New York, one of the only things I wanted to do was play D&D. I imagined myself as a person with a group that met regularly and seriously; someone who could say, with pride, that one of their fun hobbies was imagining themselves as a wizard, or something. Back in 2016, a few years after I’d moved, I explained some of this to an interviewer at Cosmo3.
This particular story has a happy ending, because I did manage to eventually find a group to play D&D with. We played a few sessions of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd edition (if I recall correctly); I believe I once managed to vaporize my character and a friend’s with a terrible roll on a fireball.
That edition of the game is very funny, because from a modern point of view it feels brutal — akin to the video games of that era, which were inspired by the arcade boom and were meant to kill you just quickly enough to earn a stable stream of quarters. But yeah, you have 3 hit points and just about anything can kill you. Great stuff.
The later editions are much more forgiving, thank god. And it’s a lot of fun to roll up a character and play through an adventure. I think probably the hardest part of the later editions is just finding a group of people to play with consistently. But in case any of you reading this are considering starting one, I’d say it’s absolutely worth doing. It’s like acting and improv but with way lower stakes; if you’re a person who enjoys collaborating on creating a world, TTRPGs are for you.
Anyway, it took me until 2019 to find my group — the Fun City podcast crew. Though we play Shadowrun, which is a bit like a cyberpunk version of D&D with many, many more rules4. We’ve been playing together ever since, and it is one of the most rewarding things I do every week. At the moment I’m running a miniseries in a different tabletop system for them, which you’ll be able to hear at some point in the future5.
To me, tabletop roleplaying still feels meaningful — something that hasn’t lost its sheen, even as it’s become a pretty regular part of my life. It feels futuristic and nostalgic, out of time and topical, magical and also very grounded. You get to be whoever you want in a world you create with your friends. What’s better than that?
As ever,
Bijan
Depending on how hardcore your game is, I guess. And whether or not you’re playing it for an audience.
This is definitely a 5e take.
As a crush or a confession, who knows.
You can find our pandemic miniseries here. It’s honestly incredible.
omg the Cosmo pic!
My husband and I have been playing narrative D&D (we dice out fights but not much else) for like eight years now. When we first started dating he got me into it by letting me build a princess who immediately did nothing but accidentally destroy things, then we did a sort of split perspective season where I also played a bookish wizard who was trying to clean up the princess mess. Years and years later both in our lives and in the game, I'm now playing the wizard's daughter. We made a whole world together and changed it together and it's so deeply nerdy but honestly one of our most beloved hobbies.