Coming Out of the Dungeon

Someone sent me a link to this video the other day, and I got to wondering: do people still feel this way about Dungeons & Dragons?

I realize there is still a stigma attached. It is still always portrayed in the media as the penchant of the pimply outcast. I feel that it has become more mainstream over the nearly 30 years that I have been playing. But has it really?

I’m pretty open about my love for the game, but my wife isn’t.

When I met my wife she had never played D&D before, and now she has two characters in two different games. I remember one night a while back when we were fixing dinner, and she was complaining about how wimpy her paladin was. That’s when I knew she had been truly geekified (love can do terrible things to people). But I’m pretty sure that nobody in her own family knows that she plays. And she certainly hasn’t told anyone at the K-8 school where she is the principal that she is an elven cleric of Tethryn Veralde. I can’t say that I blame her. Like it or not, many people still have a fairly negative opinion about the game, and I doubt many parents would want an elven cleric to be running their school. My step-daughter and her fiance also play D&D, but I have no idea if any of their friends or coworkers know that. I wonder how many other D&D players out there have yet to “come out of the dungeon,” so to speak.

I said I was open about my love for D&D, but to be honest, I am only open about it with friends and family, and fellow geeks. If I went to a party where I knew very few people, I know that I would be reluctant to discuss it with a stranger, unless he was wearing a Gandalf T-shirt or something. And why is that? It is just a game, after all. It’s no more diabolical than Monopoly or Chess, and it certainly requires more imagination. My wife and I play D&D with a group of friends every month or so. We sit around the table, share stories, eat food and drink beer, and play a game that we have played together for more than 10 years now. Our friends are all successful adults who lead fairly normal lives. Some have children, they all have jobs, and none of them live in their parents’ basement. If you met any of them on the street, it would not occur to you that they spend one evening every few weeks rolling dice and slaying dragons.

If you would like to join us, just be sure to bring a bottle of wine. And some dice.

Photo by Moroboshi

Tags: D&D, dragons, dungeons, Games, secrets, The Fools Manifesto