Dungeons and Dragons is an abomination. Both in terms and in action, it has stifled the birth of emerging art forms, making it almost impossible for interactive storytelling to pass from its infancy into the realm of being a mature and accepted art form.
The game itself is pretty brilliant. There is a complex set of rules, used to create a fairly realistic imaginary setting, which is flexible enough that others can easily participate in controlling the direction in which the story unfolds.
The problem is that it is inherently exclusive. To participate, you have to go through a relatively complex character creation process, with dozens of options available and a variety of number choices that may surprise anyone who wants to be just a casual player.
Even if the character is made for you (removing any choice you have in its outcome), you still have to play a game with rules governing almost every action. Looking at the stats written on a character sheet, you need to determine numerically if it’s a smart move to try and climb that wall. This is not Candy Land, this game is hard.
This can undermine the creativity and fun of the game for all but the most agile participants.
In many ways it’s like playing poker, except you have to go through an elaborate application process to get into a game, and then when you’re there, everyone is using monopoly money.
Another major problem of the game is that it is difficult to attract the audience. People don’t want to expand the effort to imagine that four dice-rolling guys are really brave adventurers marching through an ancient castle. It doesn’t translate well to an audience, so acquiring people to play is a process of convincing them to go through the elaborate setup process and then learn the rules.
LARP’ing is a kind of role-playing game, similar to D&D, except that people dress up and go out into the real world as the game’s imaginary characters. Unfortunately, even this has failed to find a way to create work that can attract and interest an audience.
However, just because it’s a difficult and exclusionary waste of time doesn’t make D&D bad. All hobbies are like that, and spending time collecting stamps has no more social value than exploring a cavern with your elf friends.
The problem with D&D is that it hides a much more potent and powerful art form behind its complicated trappings. Interactive storytelling, live action gaming, real time, fictional creation, these are the cutting edge art forms now emerging from the dark age of dice.
In chat rooms, forums and social networks we are seeing real stories written by multiple authors, sometimes hundreds of people working to tell the best possible story. These stories are fused with photos and images that are created to help bring these interactive worlds to life.
As technology improves, we are also seeing videos and animations being integrated. Slowly Hollywood is merging with the box on your desk. As the future approaches, we will see films we create, populated by a cast of thousands, each behind a camera, a screen, or a pen, adding their own personality to the living novels that are being born.
Unfortunately, D&D no longer helps in this process. It may have started as a way to get people to think about stories interactively, but it has since become a demeaning and debilitating word. The self-indulgence inherent in this stems from the fact that it’s a game. However, as people begin to open their eyes, they realize that the act of role-playing is more than a game, it is a form of expression, it is an emerging art.