Dungeons and Dragons is for losers
Dungeons and Dragons is an abomination. In both terms and action, it has stifled the birth of emerging art forms, making it nearly impossible for interactive storytelling to move from its infancy into the realm of a mature and accepted art form.
The game itself is pretty brilliant. There is a complex set of rules, which are used to create a fairly realistic imaginary environment, which is flexible enough that others can easily participate in controlling the direction in which the story unfolds.
The problem is that it is inherently exclusionary. To participate, you must go through a relatively complex character creation process, with dozens of options available and a variety of numerical choices that may surprise anyone who wants to be just a casual player.
Even if the character is made for you (removing any choices you have in their outcome), you still have to play a game with rules that govern almost all actions. By looking at the stats written on a character sheet, you need to determine numerically if it’s a wise move to attempt to scale that wall. This is not Candy Land, this game is difficult.
This can sap the creativity and fun of the game for all but the most agile players.
In many ways it’s like playing poker, except you have to go through an elaborate application process to get into a game, and then when you’re there, everyone is using monopoly money.
Another major problem with the game is that it is difficult to attract the audience. People don’t want to stretch the effort to imagine that four dice-rolling guys are really brave adventurers marching through an ancient castle. It doesn’t translate well to an audience, so acquiring people to play is a process of convincing them to go through the elaborate setup process and then learn the rules.
LARP’ing is a kind of role-playing game, similar to D&D, except people dress up and go out into the real world as the game’s imaginary characters. Unfortunately, even this has failed to find a way to create work that can attract and interest an audience.
However, just because it’s a difficult and exclusionary waste of time doesn’t make D&D bad. All hobbies are like that, and spending time collecting stamps has no more social value than exploring a cave with your elf friends.
The problem with D&D is that it hides a much more powerful and powerful art form behind its complicated trappings. Interactive storytelling, live action gaming, real time, fictional creation, these are the cutting edge art forms now emerging from the dark age of dice.
In chat rooms, forums and social networks we are seeing real stories written by multiple authors, sometimes hundreds of people working to tell the best possible story. These stories are fused with photos and images that are created to help bring these interactive worlds to life.
As technology improves, we also see videos and animations being integrated. Slowly Hollywood is merging with the box on your desk. As the future draws closer, we will see films we create, populated by a cast of thousands, each behind a camera, a screen or a pen, adding their own personality to the living novels that are being born.
Unfortunately, D&D no longer helps with this process. It may have started as a way to get people to think about stories interactively, but it has since become a demeaning and debilitating word. The complacency inherent in this stems from the fact that it is a game. However, as people begin to open their eyes, they realize that the act of playing roles is more than a game, it is a form of expression, it is an emerging art.