I've spent a lot of my adult time playing role-playing games (RPGs). It's one of my favorite past-times, and though I've had to play much less because of the Steam Crow business, it's yet something that I'm interested in.
Ten things I learned from Dungeons and Dragons, and other more obscure roleplaying games (RPG):
- Co-operative play. You play with others in RPGs, and it pays to play nice most of the time.
- Math. I am bad at math, but crunching numbers is another core attribute of gaming.
- History. D&D made me interested in history, and I checked out loads of books from the library about the medieval era.
- Vocabulary. Sure, it's not all that useful, but I know what malevolent, benign, porticulis, clairvoyant, encumbrance, glyph, liege, offal and quaff mean because of gaming.
- Imagination. Okay, so I had some imagination before I gamed, RPGs fueled it in a way that nothing else did. I got to participate in group imagination... a powerful and cool thing.
- Confidence. Gaming, sometimes in public, can be a painful thing. Sure, I was a nird, but after a while I figured out that there were worse things in life than being made fun of by jocks.
- Storytelling. Being a GM (Game Master) means that you need to come up with stories that interest your friends on a regular basis. Do this enough, and you begin to learn some of the elements of good stories.
- World building. I embraced the idea of making up new, strange places for my players to explore. After a while, I began to document all of these places, so I could benefit from reusing some of that work. My fantasy setting Agyris was born.
- Writing. I've probably done more writing for RPGs than anything else, post college. I'm not saying I'm a great writer, but it did help me organize my ideas and craft them better than before.
- Mythology. Gaming gave me an appreciation for the ancient tales and myths that continue to survive centuries beyond the people who wrote them. Why mythology isn't always fun to read, some myths are so crazy it makes you realize that fantasy can do anything.
- Lady killer. Playing lots and lots of Dungeons and Dragons made me able to be a giant slayer, and a lady slayer. FIREball!*
- Daniel
*Okay, so #11 is a lie.
