Dungeons and Dragons - Retrospective, Nostalgia, or genuine desire.

I recently was a panelist at a convention on GMing and after the panel I had a conversation with Jeremy Petter of the now infamous Loading Ready Run internet comedy troupe and something he said has struck me since, "Dungeons and Dragons is the Gateway Drug of the roleplaying hobby." While some people might shake their heads at the statement I was struck by the profoundness of it. Dungeons and Dragons is historically where the Table Top roleplaying hobby began and as much as it may have problems there is no small amount of nostalgia attached to the system and setting in this current era's zeitgeist.

When asked "what was your first gaming system?" I answer honestly that the first one I got interested in was White Wolf's World of Darkness, it was dark, full of neat stuff to read, and made for excellent fodder for my imagination. But when I think about it the World of Darkness was always That Cute Red-Headed Girl to my Charlie Brown. I had to grow up a lot more to get to the point where I could find the people and the place to play it. By comparison Dungeons and Dragons was My First Girlfriend. The first group I could get togeather and play with was in university, they were people I knew, and yeah, on the quality scale they were inexperienced but enthusiastic. Then somehow, I found people who wanted to play my first love, World of Darkness, and it was good. But somehow at the lofty heights of low-mechanic storytelling role playing I found myself looking down from Olympus thinking to myself, "huh, that still looks like fun, " and "oh, look over there!" Other people were doing interesting things too!

It's odd to consider oneself a veteran hobbist at my youthful age of 26, but I could argue (successfully) that I have the experience to back it up. I have run games to successful completion, LARPed, I have run conventions, I have panneled, demo'ed, homebrewed, and argued the subject matter, but with my years in the hobby I'm back at square one of just wanting to play some Dungeons and Dragons. Strange, no? I am playing a game I enjoy, I am making plans to run one or two games, but when I was standing at my stove cooking up some pasta sauce I found myself wistfully sighing that I haven't been in a good D&D campaign for the longest time. It is the next chain of thoughts that I find more interesting, the urge to shut up about my desire to pull out the D20 and keep it quiet before my friends hear about it.

If there was a commonality between the numerous friends I have who tabletop roleplay is that most of them love storytelling systems but have developed an antipathy to Dungeons and Dragons. The reasons are various and more often than not justified: the rules are too complicated, the system is too combat based, it's a Skinnerian reward system for the ego, there isn't enough support to tell a good story, the sub-genre of fantasy that it's based upon is too juvenile/simple/silly/Tolkeinian, it doesn't tell the kind of story I want to tell. I say, "fair enough, but knowing these things why do I still want to play it?" What about this game still appeals to an experienced and somewhat jaded customer?

Nostalgia! That lying warm-in-your-belly feeling of comfort that reminds you of brighter, simpler, and happier times. Nostalgia is a powerful force, it takes you back to places, it can make you spend tons of money, it can help you ignore problems, nostialgia like puppy love can make you stupid. Seems like a harsh assessment no? I don't think so, I think it's the truth, nostalgia acts as a wonderful motivator for people to do things then later regret them. It takes memories cuts away the bits that might spoil the rest, and makes them as permanent as a fly stuck in amber. I remember my favorite characters, I remember the neat tricks I pulled off, heck, I even remember some of the dumber moments that have become funny stories around the gaming table. But I don't forget the dissapointments, the irritations, the poor players, and the things that just didn't work out. There's the associated memories of reading the fantasy genre when I was an adolescent, the escapist books that can help bolster a shy youth's courage enough to think "I can do this." I'm not willing to lie to myself and say that isn't a part of it, but the hobby is about escapist role-play, and it's about having fun doing so, so why this escape?

There's a phenomenon of managers in the service industry randomly taking a menial job off a subordinate's hands such as washing dishes, sweeping up, or some other mindless task. The idea is that after dealing with such high-concentration jobs that there is much stress relief in performing a mindless task for a bit. I bring this up for two reasons: 1) Tabletop RPGs are supposed to be a fun escape, and 2) for many people having this kind of escape can be empowering enough to face real life again. Given current economic situations, having a bit of a power-fantasy can be a healthy response. I've seen this in Players in MMORPGs, they take great satisfaction in being one of the biggest baddest dudes around, it is the sense of acomplishing something that took many hours and feeling awesome because of it. Though I, rightfully or not, feel a smug sense of superiority over people who dedicate that much time to a MMORPG I know that playing make-believe with several friends isn't much more societally acceptable.

I suppose when I get down to it, what I crave as my friend Sam so astutely pointed out is the melodrama of the Fantasy Epic, "The hero always saves the world/ the villains get what they deserve/ the boy always gets the girl..." (Great Big Sea, When I am King) The melodrama of the fantasy narrative has a place in my world of stories that perhaps is currently experiencing a lack. Not to mention the simplicity of: the good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, and when the black and white of things is simple enough that the grey is obvious and fun. But melodrama is doable elsewhere, which brings me to the other element: the fantasy epic. When I think of the D&D story model I think of the "peasant to king" saga that is taking a character to new heights of power, authority, and greatness.

But then, without the other players there is no group experience. D&D is a strategic group effort, the point of the game is to cooperate with each other to succeed whatever scenarios the GM thinks up. Humans as a rule find the process of creating an emotionally charging group exercise pretty easy, it's not hard to do and it creates a connection between people who participate. I still think fondly of the D&D sessions that I have played through and both the characters and the players who I shared the experiences with. No melodrama or epic storyline would be complete without friends to explore them with.

One and The Other

Given humanity's preference for duality it's no wonder the list of dichotomies is as long as it is. I'd start listing them off but I'm sure you can figure out more than a few. Tonight in my inability to sleep the sleep of the just, (or the injust for that matter,) my mind draws to an old philosophical standby of mine, Love and Hate. I find it interesting that these two emotions are as defined by each other as they are, often in literary works they are juxtaposed to each other but I find it odd really that, to me at least, the most appropriate example of this dichotomous couple is found in Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. Why do I use this work of horror as an example,? Because of the unnamed monster of the work, this creature that has such complex emotions regarding its creator that in reading the work I could not decide if it was motivated wholly of Hate, or if it was driven also by a love that could never be expressed without hate. Because of how this tale marked me I'd like to demonstrate a pertinent point about these two passionate emotions, that in many ways they're indistinguishable. Now when I refer to the emotions of Love and Hatred I am not thinking of the banal emotions that are simply the difference between "like" or "dislike" or the more grounded natures of fondness and contempt. I am referring to those groups of irrational, powerful, and ofttimes inexplicable emotions that are the exclusive purview of Love and Hate. Indeed I have often noted that both of these emotions are attractors, they pull oneself towards the subject of emotion rather than drive one away. While the point can be made that there are aggregate parts to these emotions, I've noted that Love and Hate are not made of these emotions they do however create them. There is an intrinsic nature between Love and fondness just as there is between Hate and contempt, however Love and Hate are their own emotions and create their own complex emotions that are dragged into their wake. Irrational, attracting, and active emotions that have their own insanities and have their own patterns, but yet in the throes of either we can see behaviour seen in both, merely the difference between positive and negative theme. Why Love and Hate? To a degree it's meditation on my conditions, on my emotions, on my depression. So curious then that I passionately Love and Hate myself at the root of these things, so much to be proud of, so much to be disgusted by, so much to admire, yet with so much contempt. I doubt this is strange to many, but it feels odd to talk about it, to put this down as words. I Hate myself as much as I Love myself, sometimes one definitely takes precedent over the other, and yet here I am. I suppose in that respect my reasoning to compare to Frankenstein's monster isn't that unusual. Such conflicting feelings applied to self and environment with those twin emotions as figureheads, this I understand well, the isolation, the Love-Kill-Hate-Fuck directed at the world that brings so much joy and pain. For every desire for non-existence to be a euthanasia for the suffering of awareness there is a delightful curiosity to discover just what miracle of living is coming next.