Home> Storytelling Festival 2006 > Dungeons & Dragons

Wasting Days Has Never Been So Fun!

By Paul Swansson 

Wouldn’t you love to escape this unimaginative pit that we call reality? Wouldn’t you love to pretend you were someone else in a world where danger, intrigue and excitement lurk around each and every corner? Wouldn’t you love to tell a story that not only you create, but you are a part of? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then Dungeons and Dragons is the perfect game for you. 

The wide world of Dungeons and Dragons has existed since the 1970s, and has been expanding in leaps and bounds ever since. Millions of people have succumbed to the imaginative world that they themselves shape, and millions more will follow. 

Dungeons and Dragons is a pen-and-paper game where the rules are quite simple – if you can say it, you can do it! Each player determines what they want to do, and then they roll a 20-sided dice – commonly called a D20 – to determine the outcome, often with cool, surprising or hilarious results. All players work together to defeat monsters with incredible power, solve puzzles to acquire rare scrolls or treasures, and escape intricate, but deadly, traps.

Players can take on many classes that grant incredible skills. Players can choose Paladin to uphold all that is good and mighty. Fighters can cut through massive amounts of goblins. Thieves are capable of breaking locks, opening chests and disarming traps. Monks can use superior martial arts skills to perform amazing feats and destroy skeletons with their bare hands. Then there is the favoured character, the Mage, capable of causing impressive devastation with powerful magic spells. These are just a few of the more intricate and impressive characters at a player’s disposal. 

To repeat a previous point made, if you can say it, you can do it! This is 100% true in any and all cases. If you want to do a backflip in the middle of a dungeon for no reason, just roll your D20 to see if you pull it off. If you want to slap your team- mate in the head because he did something stupid, roll to see if you hit them or not (the game character, not your friend). If you want to rip a pole out of the ground, attach a sword to it and use it as a spear, you can. Just roll a D20 to determine if you succeeded or not. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination. 

The game of Dungeons and Dragons can do everything a book can do without the actual effort of reading a book. This game can take you away from reality and throw you into an imaginative world where swords, magic and dragons rule. Who knows, you might just encounter one yourself.