Tag: dm

Whenever people think of gaming, it’s mostly about the next generation of consoles and how many individual hairs you can make out on a character’s arm. However, tabletop gaming is one genre that is often overlooked. When you think tabletop games, a lot of people’s minds go to those classic board games such as Monopoly and Scrabble, or Cluedo. A large amount of my childhood was spent playing those games – to the point where anytime my sister suggests we play Monopoly, I resist the urge to make a run for it. Despite a keen interest for most of my life in the wider world of tabletop gaming, I never really dove into it until 2016.

Every so often, my secondary school friends and I would go to the board game café in Oxford (Thirsty Meeples if any of you ever want to give it a go) and try out all sorts of games. From exploring haunted mansions to accusing one another of being a spy, some of our favourite memories have come from those sessions and I still love to go back from time to time.

Probably the most well-known tabletop game (at least to people my age) is Dungeons and Dragons. Whether you’ve seen it being played in tv shows or been dragged into it by your partner, most people have at least heard of it, even if they have no idea what it entails. I found D&D in year 5 when I was in my primary school’s tiny library which was mostly made up of worn books from charity shops. One of the shelves had a series of books called the Endless Quest. Despite being released in the 1980s/1990’s, they’d ended up in my school and I adored them.

In the style of Choose Your Own Adventure stories (like the Sonic one I used to read almost every day as a kid),  but based in the D&D worlds, these books gave you a fleshed out character with a backstory, that you followed through to one of the various endings. I can say with clear certainty that these books sparked my interest in fantasy writing, which is a genre that I read frequently and occasionally write in. Once I hit secondary school, I watched people play D&D online and read everything I could get my hands on but never got to play until I hit university.

I’ve been actively playing D&D for nearly two years now and I can honestly say that some of my best memories have come from those sessions. Having a portion of time set aside each week to just be someone else and to face the wacky shenanigans that the DM has created, is a great comfort. I know that no matter what garbage the world throws at me, I still have something to escape to and I have friends who will be there for me, even if I’m punching their character at the time. I do love playing as a character and escaping into it, but the role of DM always appealed to me, right from the start.

From writing to art to weird ideas that pop into my head late at night, I’ve always been a creative person. I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve written in different worlds, how many odd characters I’ve sketched concept art of and full storylines I’ve fleshed out but never properly written. When I realised that my work could bring joy to others, it inspired me to do more and to improve, something that I try to apply to everything that I do. So, when I decided that I wanted to try my hand at running a session, I was both excited and terrified. Especially since I’d somehow managed to agree to a session with seven players (SEVEN IS TOO MANY I CAN SAY THAT WITH CONFIDENCE)

After several weeks of preparation, panicking and sitting down with each of my players to help them through the process of creating a character, it was time to run the session. I had created a simple world, one focused on two warring cities, leaving plenty of room for change and expansion if my players liked what I had made. More than anything, I wanted my players to enjoy themselves. Our session was in the middle of exam season and we all had a lot going on in our personal lives, so an afternoon of just laughter and ridiculous antics was something that we all needed. Looking back on it, it was probably the second-best weekend of the year (with first going to Rezzed) and probably the most I’ve laughed in a long time.

The main message to take from D&D is that it is entirely what you make of it. If you want to go all in and have a detailed backstory for every NPC, region and rock that your players come across, go for it. If you’re just making it up as you go along and only really have names for the core elements of your story, that’s great too! No player or DM will be the same, meaning that basically anything is possible. For example, my players in their attempt to escape a jail cell, decided to distract the guard by singing One Direction, then failed to steal his keys so the sorcerer of the group chose to blast half the guys face off with their Chromatic Orb spell (or as they referred to it, DEADLY BALL OF DEATH). It also produced probably the most relatable quote for all DM’s:

“You can build the most intricate world you want, but someone will throw a sandwich at it” – CaitlinRC, 2019. Just replace the sandwich with any of the weird things your players get up to and it’s far too relatable.

As overwhelming as D&D can appear to new players, there’s not actually a lot to it. Sure, the character sheet looks intimidating but at its core, D&D is about roleplaying and the luck of the dice. You can have a ridiculously sneaky thief who sets off every alarm in the building, just by them failing a roll. It’s an experience that’s hard to put into words because it’s such a personal experience. I’ve only run one session and I can say that hands down it was the most fun I’ve had playing the game yet. Even if my players did make me want to pull my hair out sometimes (looking at the player who decided to run away from literally every plot point), I can’t wait to run a game for them again.

There’s an incredibly satisfying thing about D&D. Whether it’s successfully pulling off a ridiculous manoeuvre that really shouldn’t work out but does (like using a bomb to allow you to surf your shield over a wall) or watching as your players unravel the prophecy you gave them, you feel a sense of joy and achievement. Even though it’s all fictional and often luck based, sometimes having those little wins can have a big impact on your mood. I know from experience that I’ve walked away from games with a massive grin on my face and memories that can still make me laugh to this day. Having something like that in your life can be a major boost to your mental health.

Obviously, there is so much more to tabletop games than just D&D, but I haven’t yet had the chance to explore those. I’ve had a brief run in Call Of Cthulhu and had a phenomenal time at Rezzed playing various board games (seriously the board game room at Rezzed is great, people should spend way more time in it) but overall, I have only scratched the surface of this incredible genre of gaming. If you have any suggestions of tabletop games I should try, or just regular games, do let me know, I’d love to try any and all of them!

Until next week,

CaitlinRC