Opinion These dungeons are home. These dragons forged friends.From puzzles and traps to friends and partners, readers celebrate Dungeons & Dragons, which turned 50. THE 50TH ANNIVERSARYhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/08/16/letters-dungeons-dragons-friendships/
Regarding the Aug. 4 commentary “For Dungeons & Dragons, the magic is in the memories”:
Dungeons & Dragons saved my sanity. I moved to the United States in 2016, and those first few years were hard. Even though I had it much better than most immigrants, I still struggled to cope with being an outsider. Everything reminded me that I wasn’t from here — including the well-intentioned but constant “Where are you from?” that inevitably followed after I opened my mouth.
That was until a few of my wife’s college friends said they’d try D&D. I quickly volunteered to be the dungeon master. I had played a little through the years, and I had always loved telling stories.
I spent days, weeks even, painstakingly writing out the world I wanted to create for everyone. I still remember that first game, gathered around a table in my small apartment in Queens during the dog days of summer, laughing and drinking and eating and rolling the dice. The sharp intakes of breath as the party narrowly avoided death. The pride as they figured out their first puzzles. The deep sighs of relief as they avoided their first traps. Their glee in outwitting the dungeon master.
For the first time, I wasn’t James, Veronica’s English husband. I was James, the dungeon master. Their dungeon master. Over countless hours of swords and sorcery, we became friends. I was one of them, and I belonged. Every time I open up my books, set out my dice and look around our table, I feel that way again.
Thanks, D&D, for giving an immigrant who felt lost in a peculiar place — rootless and alien — something we all want more than anything else: a home.
I started playing Dungeons & Dragons during the pandemic after meeting a group on TikTok. I had just started living alone, and my mental health was at an all-time low. I was isolated physically and emotionally from my friends and family, so I jumped at the chance to make new connections.
I started playing online weekly, and I immediately realized that D&D was exactly what I needed to get out of my own head and out of my depressive episodes.
Now, three years later, I regularly DM two groups, one of which is through Historically Black Dice, a Discord server with more than 1,400 Black gamers. D&D has become a home for me, healing my inner child and giving me a new perspective on the possibility of life.
Despite the appreciated inclusion of a masculine-presenting nonbinary player, I was disappointed that The Post’s piece about Dungeons & Dragons did little to push back against the perception that D&D is a game for White men and boys.
The D&D I know is played by women and people of color, by people with different social backgrounds and different countries of origin, by disabled people, all coming together in the same shared world. D&D draws all sorts, and, as the piece shows, it’s easy to see why. Players get to feel agency where they have otherwise felt powerless. They get to express different facets of their identity or go on a fantastical adventure in a world where they aren’t marginalized or stigmatized. D&D has a fraught history — that shouldn’t go unsaid — but it’s a game I still celebrate. It means something different for each person who plays it, but everyone has a place at the table.
I used to play Dungeons & Dragons with the kids I babysat for. We would play for hours. Now, as a public school teacher, I’m working to bring it to my middle school students.
Kids are wild, magical creatures. They are free, hilarious and absolutely unhinged. I was blown away by some of the choices and rolls they made. They set a character’s pants on fire, made up magic potato songs, and adopted every animal or creature they came across — even if it was trying to kill them.
D&D teaches them empathy, compassion, strategy and teamwork. If you ever have the chance to play D&D with kids, do it.
After I got out of an abusive relationship, an old friend invited me to play Dungeons & Dragons online. It helped me break out of my shell and process some of the trauma.
The game included people from all over the world. One was a quiet-spoken Irishman with a wicked sense of humor. My character began flirting with his in the game, and I flirted with him in real life, too. He has autism, however, so he didn’t recognize any of my moves. I finally got fed up and told him that I was interested in him.
Our characters got married in-game two months ago, and our real-life wedding is set for March. When we finally met in person, I gave him a mug that says, “You are the best thing I’ve ever found online.”
Starting in 1976, this game gave me the social outlet necessary for my mental health (and survival). Instead of eating lunch in high school by myself, I gathered a group of friends who shared an interest in exploring made-up fantasies rather than those we read about in books such as the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. The loneliness of high school turned into a healthy social network. The cool kids were going to parties while we were defeating world-destroying evil. I think we gained more.
My favorite memory of Dungeons & Dragons actually happens every year. I’m a counselor and dungeon master at Texas Christian University, and I get to help students dealing with loneliness and anxiety. The best part of every year is the banquet that we host each spring. Each graduating student is presented with a professionally illustrated portrait of their character that we add to our “wall of heroes” in the counseling center.
I know how much this game and this community mean to these students. When I was a young man, D&D was one of the only hobbies where I could take refuge from bullies and my own anxiety and depression. It has been a part of my life for more than 30 years.
My college friends and I started a campaign to stay close. It was our “third place” in a culture where those are hard to find.
The most memorable moment was a funeral. For a couple months, the party had been allied with a noble warrior clan against an invasion of giants. In one session, the chief of the clan died in combat. During the funeral speech, one of my players had tears in his eyes. He shared that his grandfather had passed away since the last time we had met. We took a break and just talked things out — a group of men talking about their real feelings because of a story of make-believe.
Our game sessions helped nurture our friendship through years of changes. Dungeons & Dragons has kept us together through eight years of family deaths, sickness, moves, marriages and kids — partially because it’s fun, but also because we all crave human connection. D&D is a way to make an excuse for it, one week at a time.
I’ve played off and on for 40-plus years, usually as the only woman in a group of guys. The game has grown to let women be more visible, which is great; no more “fighting man” as the only martial choice. I love playing as a female warrior, running down evil creatures when, in real life, that’s not something my arthritic knees would allow.
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