Dungeons and Dragons and other roleplaying games are often seen in our culture as a nerdy hobby that either is gatekept by the people who play it or is seen as valueless practically and nothing more than a form of entertainment. This mindset can be extremely negative as it pushes people away from a great outlet, experience and way to meet new people that shouldn’t be seen as taboo or weird to enjoy.
Firstly, roleplaying games serve as a great creative outlet. Many think roleplaying games are only about roleplay, which while it is in the game it’s not all that is important. Theatre, writing, drawing, music and graphic design can all be important and added to the game. You can draw your character or even pictures of the places; you can write songs or play music at the table to add a new element of immersion to the game; even as a referee you can make in-universe documents using things like Photoshop or Canva. Really any kind of person can contribute something to a roleplaying game and that’s by design of this format of game.
Secondly, roleplaying games are designed to be truly free, whereas board games all have rules and video games can only code in a certain amount of options to pick from. While roleplaying games do have some of these limits, they are much less so. As the referee of the game is a human rather than an AI or a Rulebook, roleplaying games are inherently much more free. For example, what if during a monopoly game you wanted to build a new district or merge two of your tiles, well you can’t because the game wasn’t designed for that. In Minecraft if you wanted to train your villagers to defend themselves, well you can’t because that option was not coded into the game. However in roleplaying games if you wanted to recruit a local village to help you fight a dragon or invest in buildings in a major city, instead of being told ‘no’, you would be told ‘roll’. This is how roleplaying games have become so popular in the first place. The math isn’t always correct, the games sometimes take longer, and sometimes there is no easy choice, but it’s the freedom of being able to do almost anything and see the effects of your choice.
Finally, what makes this freedom even better is that you can bond further with the people you do it with. Roleplaying games are inherently social, usually played in groups of 4-6, which allows you to bond with people you may have otherwise never met as other than roleplaying games you don’t share any interests. It’s also a great way to get out of your comfort zone as there’s many opportunities to talk and be social that you otherwise wouldn’t usually get in real life nearly as commonly. Both of these factors are important not only for your enjoyment of the game but also your growth as a person.
Overall, roleplaying games are a great hobby not just because they are fun but also because they offer the chances for you to be artistic, creative and social.
