I played Dungeons and Dragons.

I played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons, and not at the age where I should have known better. I started playing D&D my sophomore year of high school, and stopped maybe a year or so after I graduated college. If it wasn’t impossible to get my 5 or 6 D&D friends in a room for 6+ hours every week or so, I would still play.

I played with a bunch of theater kids and outcast nerds, the nerds who liked sci fi and video games and staying indoors, but had a sense of humor about it. We were the nerds that could have probably gotten laid if we weren’t having more fun writing up back-stories for our paladins. Maybe some of those guys did get laid - I wouldn’t know.

We all went to different colleges, but we’d play over winter and summer break. When we got tired of one campaign, someone else would take the reigns and build their own world. Sometimes we’d use pre-written adventures we’d buy at Borders for five bucks, but mostly, we built our own worlds. That was more fun than actually playing - coming up with a universe, the history and conflict of the different races, the evil wizard seeking to bring back the dragons, the splinter group of holy crusaders who operated in secret, the impossible-to-penetrate castles, the elven mercenaries who owned the world’s only remaining airship.

I never played D&D without my group, because most people into D&D are horribly unfunny. They aren’t willing to eschew the rules to keep things going, to acquiesce to the fun, to just say yes to stuff. If it was cooler if the warforged fighter jumped on the roof of the moving lightening train, we’d let you roll the dice for it. If everyone liked the voice of the silly dwarf merchant, we’d bring him back again and again. When we wanted to become spies for the rebels, mine for ore, or get in a bar fight with some asshole half-orcs, we’d roll the dice and talk it out.

After the group disbanded (one moved away, one got too weird, one became punk, and the rest got into grad school) I joined a community that was, essentially, Dungeons and Dragons minus the fantasy. Long-form improv has all the fun, interaction, spontaneity, and escapism of D&D without any of the number crunching or social stigma. Plus, there are a hundred time more girls in improv, and they are all cute.

I would love to play D&D with a bunch of improvisers. I know nobody has any time, but I think even a quick one-off campaign would be really fun. I’d love to do something in Eberron - a really great pre-built world that has this pulp/noir Indiana Jones-meets-steampunk feel to it. But I can take solace in the fact that I’m basically doing real life Dungeons and Dragons every night of the week, except with cute girls.

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