Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is a wonderful social game simulating adventures in a fantasy world usually very similar to that of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings setting, Middle Earth. Players each control a character and role-play interactions with other players and the Game Master who runs the game.
Nowadays, this game is mostly known as a series of computer or video games and perhaps a movie. These games are only simplifications of the real thing; there's more to the game than just leveling up and killing stuff: take social interactions, trade, puzzles, and mysteries, for example. So you're stuck in a man-sized rat-maze. If there are trees and no top to the maze, what's to stop you from climbing a tree and simply walking to the end of the maze while viewing the whole thing? Usually, the problem is that the computer or console cannot facilitate that request; you can't tell it you want to do that (quick, press A+B+X+up!), and even if you could, the strategy would have to be evaluated and assessed; in a software environment (ie, computers and consoles), the developers have to anticipate each and every move.
Disastrous effects can result in not foreseeing something that the game physics allow; take a look at Quake done Quick, for example, in which a team of players rocket-jump over walls to beat levels in a fraction of the intended time and effort. With a person acting as Game Master, such things can be done, or plausible excuses can be derived (so rather than "the world doesn't exist above fifteen feet off the ground," we could get "the tree branches are very thin and bend too much to be useful in climbing to the top of the maze").
There are now two new types of Role Playing Game for computers and consoles, movie-like games (like the more recent Final Fantasy games) which blow players away with great graphics and story (albeit a very scripted one), and interactive online games (ie MMORPGs), which take a different tilt to the social aspect of gaming, sometimes to a complex enough degree to include politics, economics, and even mini-adventures with plot. These are different entities from the paper-and-dice games that inspired them, and deserve to be seen in their own light.
For more on what D&D is or how to play, please see the Official D&D Site. The D&D content provided here is supplemental in nature, as I am trying to put together enough content to put me on the map, whatever that might mean.
One of my gaming groups, Frigames, has a web site (which I administer) with a D&D section: D&D at Frigames.
Yes, you can send rulings questions to me, so long as they aren't "what is it" or "where can i download it" (find those answers at the official D&D home.) There was a time at which people actually asked me tough rulings questions and I gave useful (but unofficial) answers based on how I interpreted the rules and what I would do as the GM in that position. Send your questions to dnd-rulings@khopis.com with [dnd-rulings] in the subject line (you will otherwise likely get filtered as spam).
All content copyright © 2003-08 by Adam Katz unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Page last updated Mon Sep 08 19:49:13 2008.
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