Perceptions of Dungeons & Dragons
DYLAN DOLSON GONZALEZ, HOST: Dungeons and Dragons. When I say those words what comes to mind? Do you think of the 1980s and its Satanic Panic? Do you think of kids in a basement defeating the Demagorgon? Do you think you may want to give it a try, but have been stuck on the fence?
As someone who’s played regularly the last two years, I’m here to tell you to take the plunge. I fundamentally believe this is a game for everyone, but don’t just take my word for it! In today’s episode, we’ll hear from inexperienced and experienced D&D players alike to discover common trends, perceptions, and ideas about the game that might be standing in your way for giving this game a try.
Let’s begin!
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GUEST #1: My name is Hayden Naffziger, pronouns are he/him.
GUEST #2: My name is John Fung, he/him.
GUEST #3: Hi I’m Gage, my pronouns are he/him.
GUEST #4: Hi my name is Izzy, I use she/her or he/him pronouns.
DYLAN: These are our inexperienced players. John’s the only one who has never played, while everyone else has at least participated in a session. I thought they could help us shape what I find to be the largest barrier of entry for the game: social stigma.
See, even though we live in a world where Tony Stark is a household name, many people I’ve tried to convince just find playing D&D one step too far into nerd territory. I’ve experienced the side eye and raised eyebrow when I mention I play regularly, and I can’t help but wonder if we’re still stuck in the 80s.
To see if my suspicion held true for a younger audience, I posed my guests with this question: “When you first think about the demographics and/or qualities of the people who play Dungeons & Dragons, what comes to mind?”
HAYDEN: (Laughter) You want me to list off stereotypes basically?
DYLAN: (Laughter) If you want to go full on stereotyping we can do that.
HAYDEN: I think what immediately comes to mind is definitely more akin to what you were saying of the 70s/80s vibe of older guys just fucking around in a basement with a board game…
GAGE: I think there is kind of that stigma around it like “Oh, it's for like people that are introverted, they're like anti social, and they just want to escape from reality, and so they make up these worlds,”
JOHN: I think it’s the same stereotypes you have for video games or you know other tabletop games […] they’re either very enthusiastic children […] kinda like between the ages of 9 and 14 […] maybe people with a little more time on their hands […] or like men in their thirties.
DYLAN: These negative connotations permeated my guests’ preconceptions, informed by a narrative that has dominated an outsiders’ perspective. However, they quickly expressed an awareness that these were ill informed, mainly through an exposure to people they’d met outside of these stereotypes.
IZZY: Most of the people who I know play D&D now are women, or are non binary, certainly a lot of queer people I think really enjoy D&D, and I think people who are more artistic minded in general just kind of gravitate towards it.
HAYDEN: seeing it now, it’s definitely more of a casual/social thing rather than like an enthusiast’s type of game […] It seems a lot more accessible now, and people are more willing to talk about it.
JOHN: And like these were people I wouldn’t even think would be interested in it, which would be 20 to 22 year olds who were drinking, very social, very involved with other things […] it was just young people who like to socialize, who like to drink, and who also have busy lives. It kinda made me realize there’s nothing inherently nerdy about it. I mean, I love sports, it doesn’t make that interest any less or more nerdy than Dungeons and Dragons, it just has these social connotations to it.
DYLAN: The stigma, although present, was not seen as the major hurdle. For John and Hayden, it was largely about how they could spend their time on other interests. When we care for things, we make time for them, and time is an incredible luxury in college.
So why do D&D players set aside such time to play, especially with regular 2-4 hour sessions? What did my guests think D&D players enjoyed most about the game?
HAYDEN: I’d say just personally the most appealing aspect of it is like being able to create and…not like live, but go through your own story. It just allows total creative freedom of like the DM and the people who are roleplaying, and I think that’s something that’s not necessarily found in a lot of board games or mediums because it’s just entirely like you and a playground that’s on the table. Like a mental one at least.
GAGE: I think it’s the social element […] and the collective creative process, where like it’s such a tight knit group and everyone can pitch in and kind of have their own hand in the story is really important. […] Personally for me, that’s what I like so much about roleplaying.
IZZY: I mean it’s just the same way as playing any game with your friends. Like I’ve said before with my sister I think it’s a very social enjoyment […] I think maybe you know people who are not in more conventional social situations — not as sure of themselves, are more shy — are really able to like, let loose and have fun in that sort of fantasy environment. So I think it’s like a friendship building and very social thing.
JOHN: It’s a social game, it’s a storytelling thing, and I think just like you would want to read a book or play a video game and at the same time socialize with a bunch of people, I don’t see that much of a difference between playing Dungeons & Dragons than like you playing a co-op game with six of your buddies […] but you also have the additional element of it being like a story thing and there’s that element of chance and you put your own creativity into it, you can change the story however you would like to do it, and you’re doing it with closer friends.
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DYLAN: It was clear to me that we’re not in the 80s to 2000s period where stigma was the largest barrier of entry. Amelia Diamond had a wonderful piece in the New York Times that really explores where D&D is positioned now, and I found her positive change in the game’s overall perception consistent with my guests.
In reality, my guests were aware of what pieces of the game people enjoyed most in sort of “This is interesting, it’s cool it’s your thing but unless there is personal motivation, I probably won’t pick it up anytime soon.”
What I’d like to do now is introduce our experienced players so we can get an inside perspective on the game. Hopefully, they can share with you on a personal level why this is a game they have devoted so much time to, and what it could offer for you.
GUEST #5: Hi my name is K, I go by they/them pronouns.
GUEST #6: Giovani “Gino” Dolson Gonzalez […] any pronouns are fine.
GUEST #7: My name is Aidan Childs, my pronouns are he/him.
GUEST #8: I’m Nate, my pronouns are also he/him.
DYLAN: What many outsiders of the game may not be aware is there is no one true way to play the game. The rules may remain consistent, but D&D is first and foremost a system in which players can play in. That mental playground Hayden referred to can be your friend’s version of The Lord of the Rings, but it’s malleable to the type of world you want to explore and game you want to play.
GINO: I mean this is more niche, but in the actual player base you see people doing Pokémon campaigns or Sci-Fi campaigns. So I think that with time D&D has become more associated with high fantasy and now we’re seeing a shift to seeing it more as an outlet for any form of tabletop game and using it as like…I don’t know what the term is, but it’s like how Roblox and Fortnite went from being like these specific games to being outlets for the production of different games.
DYLAN: Gino and I went on to speak a lot about the influence D&D has had, but the crux of our discussion was the game’s elasticity. A popular example of this is Dimension20, a playthrough series from Dropout. The campaigns explore a range of worlds; their flagship show Fantasy High takes place in a John Hughes inspired high school/suburbia, The Unsleeping City takes place in a reimagined New York City, and A Starstruck Odyssey explores space and emphasizes Sci-Fi.
But as others put it…
K: I think D&D media like Dimension20 […] often gives people unrealistic expectations for their games because these are either trained actors, trained voice actors, or professional comedians playing D&D. […] I don’t want people to hold themselves to an impossible standard when they’re starting out. And I love those series […] but at the same time it feels like — as I started to get older and create my own campaigns and play in other people’s campaigns, I think I’ve started to stray away from D&D shows […] because it feels like I’m watching a bunch of people have an inside joke, and at first it’s like “Oh haha that’s really cool,” but at the same time I’m like, I’m not a part of that joke. And the really important part of D&D is being in on that joke and actually engaging with your other players and having that sense of community.
AIDAN: We and a lot of other people who play D&D, when we talk about what’s going on in this world we’re playing in we talk about it like it’s real life. […] We talk about it like it’s something that’s actually happening like it’s not some story that’s being told to us that we’re interacting with.
DYLAN: K and Aidan put to words the social aspect many of my inexperienced guests were pointing out as a key draw, but as they emphasize this social aspect is really personalized to your play group. The inside stories and memories you get to share carry on outside of the game — it’s beyond what you imagine it to be, and becomes a way to grow closer to people.
For Gino, he describes himself as someone who’s typically more outgoing than what the average person would envision a D&D player as. He also expressed the ways people use the game differently than just a game.
GINO: Oh well, obviously an introverted group is going to want to play a game where they can be anybody but themselves […] but I also think it’s a means of not necessarily being somebody else, but portraying the parts of you that you don’t feel confident portraying in public, especially my introverted friends. Like…they get to be confident. I wouldn’t say they are never confident, but they aren’t comfortable being confident in real life, so they get to explore that in a way they can feel comfortable and feel safe doing because in their head, “Oh, this person’s egotistical,” or “this person is rude” when their character is being confident or assertive. […] For a lot of other people, it’s actually not a means of escaping but release, to be able to explore a part of them they’d like to portray more but they just don’t.
DYLAN: And to speak to this specific idea, Nate said…
NATE: I think definitely a big part of the social aspect for me is kind of being able to overcome a bit of social anxiety, right? Like, maybe I'm not super secure with who I am, but I built this really cool character, and I gave them these super, cool qualities that I super enjoy, and it kind of like starts to bring out my confidence in myself as I'm playing this character that I've been invested in for the last, I don't know, like year and a half or 2 years, or however long we've been playing. I've noticed that my confidence in speaking for the character’s going up, but also, like my comfortability in speaking up just kind of in general has started to go up playing.
DYLAN: While there is so much more to explore and discuss, I think the critical takeaway is D&D is a one size fits all. It’s about being ridiculous with your friends and enjoying the aspects of play that we don’t always get in our lives. It’s so much more than what any form of media might try to convince you it is, because ultimately it is what you want it to be.
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Post Show Thoughts
My goal with the podcast transcript was meant to reflect an authentic, personable approach to reach an audience I felt would have hesitation towards the game of Dungeons and Dragons around my age. I think this genre is usually used for a more casual consumption of content tailored to specific interests; think True Crime podcasts or NPR. They might hold more popularity among the millennial audience than Gen Z, but I still think it’s a medium that is catered towards the curious. Podcasts offer bitesize pieces of information on niche topics that people may not have ever considered before, and so I thought it was a strong approach towards my goal.
I thought the best way to reach someone who was hesitant to try something would be to give them a lens into which they could explore those feelings. Part of my hope was to really compare and contrast the different viewpoints of people my age who have not played D&D and those that have to get a true sense of what that experience into starting the game and becoming a fan was like. I don’t believe I was able to achieve this as best as I could, namely because I broadened my scope well beyond the limits of a 1250 - 2000 word piece. I ended up feeling like I owed it to each of my guests to give them an equal amount of time and depth to say, which I think created a lot of gaps that I was not able to fill properly. It was also largely impossible considering the hours of content that I had gone through with them; of course it wasn’t all going to fit into such a short time frame.But I will say I was earnestly trying.
Part of that attempt was the importance of editing and cutting fat out of content. I think for podcasts in particular, there’s an importance of flow that works towards an overall desired image that the host wants to leave with the audience. I tried to make my image this dialogue between people that weren’t necessarily in the same room, and part of that was cutting down on a lot of really interesting ideas that were thrown around. This editorial slashing was something I was not really expecting when I began, but I think is a critical component of the genre. Not everything can or should be included.
Additionally, I felt like I was able to give off a casual air that is important for my audience. Not all persuasive podcasts are casual, but they are in essence trying to retain attention long enough for people to not listen to something else. I think was able to rely on part of the flow of this type of podcast, where you introduce a topic listeners may be unfamiliar with and ease your way into the deeper conversations regarding the subject. This flow could have been improved, but ultimately I believe served its purpose.
What I could have relied on instead was the research I had already established, but part of what makes a strong podcast is the way it doesn’t feel like the host is just speaking into a vacuum but is genuinely trying to form a connection with their guests and listeners. The large convention with this technique is directed language towards a listener/viewer, referring to the piece as what it is and encouraging active engagement. Editing is a large factor in keeping things fresh, which is what I tried to emulate in my process as well.
I think if I were to go through this process again, I would do more preparation in advance and really think about the effort that was going into this project. There’s still so much I feel my guests left unsaid, and I think most podcasts want it to feel like everything has been laid out in the open for the listeners to pick apart and mull over. I don’t think I was able to serve that in the best way I could have; I don’t think I interjected enough in the piece to make it evident I had a stake in the conversation as well. Part of that was my intent, since I hoped for the guests to have a stronger reach than myself, but I definitely felt like it drifted me away from some of the core elements in this course where we are furthering intentional writing from ourselves.