The Most Important Thing About D&D

My RPG buddies and I were in Cayucos last weekend and we got into a discussion about the placement of Dungeons & Dragons in modern society. We talked a bit about how RPG players are considered nerds and such and we pondered if it would ever change. I started comparing D&D players to Scientists, in that Scientists used to be ridiculed and labeled heathens kind of how RPGers have in the past couple of decades, and all for exploring something that is considered different. Though Scientists were on to something a lot more practical for modern society than D&D players are, I sensed a similarity in the experience of being an outcast.

It should go without saying that Science and D&D are very different, but the line of thinking above lead me to conclude that RPG haters might be missing out on something important that could be coming out of the creation of D&D and other RPGs that followed.

My own conclusion was this: the most important thing about D&D is that it created a structured way of telling a story that was/is interactive, in a way that was not present before it came about.


People could start relating this type of interactivity to the internet I suppose. Table top gaming retains an analogue performance that I feel the internet lacks.

If anyone stumbling upon this blog is interested, feel free to leave comment! :)

(below is a picture from my friend's beach house we were at where we had this discussion)