Recovering Childhood Imagination with DnD
When I was a kid, I used to imagine a superhuman running on the side of the road, jumping over obstacles. Sometimes it would be spider man, he would run around throwing webs on electricity poles and buildings.
Harry Potter was newly famous back then. We'd pick up a stick and wave it like a wand. We'd say the spells we heard in the movie. Sometimes we'd even play with each other with a toy sparkler explosive we bought at the grocery store. Even though it was dangerous.
After I was old enough to watch the Lord of the Rings movie, we would go into battles with action figures. My family did not have too much money and we were able to buy the more affordable action man toy. I didn't have a Lord of the Rings figure toy, but the best sword was the best stick I could find.
I was able to dream with the things I had, and you used to be able to do that too. So... let me tell you how I felt when I discovered that there was still a way to do it.
It's 2019, the coronavirus era. A time when we were locked at home. And online, I came across a series called Critical Role. The YouTube algorithm gods must have understood what I was interested in.
And then I met Dungeons and Dragons
This was a great turning point for me. In this tabletop role-playing game, I could imagine anything I wanted within certain rules, and these rules supported me. Some of the magic rules even allowed me to stretch my imagination. It helped me a lot, not only in combat but also in social encounters.
Let me further explain...
In real life, we don't often have the opportunity to forgive someone who regrets what they have done. But when I played Dungeons and Dragons, I had the opportunity to play a hero. Forgiving the bad guys was an option that was put in front of me for the first time. Imagine, Aragorn goes and forgives Sauron.
Of course this is an extreme example. But we know that Gandalf forgave Saruman and wanted him to live. Because he knew that Saruman was badly influenced by Sauron.
The more I played the game, the more I realized that people who are good for society can actually be manipulated in a bad way, and that's how I started to develop a mechanism of forgiveness and the ability to sympathize with people.
I used to get angry a lot. Now I don't get angry that easy. There were days when I used to fight if a man was in a hurry and bumped into me walking down the road. But now I have gained the ability to think, "Who knows how tired he is and obviously he has somewhere to be."
Maybe he missed his family.
Maybe he is uncomfortable in public.
Maybe he is so tired he want to go home asap.
Maybe some medical issue.
I can not know. I dont need to know. I just let go...
Empathy.
Dungeons and Dragons not only brought back my imagination. It made me want to appreciate good people more and spend more time with them and cause even more good to come out of them. When we go camping, instead of consoling myself that the garbage around doesn't belong to me, I put on rubber gloves from the coronavirus era and pick up garbage. Maybe it's a very simple thing. It may sound funny to you, but what I want to say is that doing a small act of kindness gives you psychological refreshment. It is absolutely important for me to help other people now. Starting from my family.
It gave me the mindset to question and investigate why "bad" people do these bad things. To understand instead of directly judging. I even pay more attention to this when I see how many innocent people are wrongly punished by wrong judgment. Yes i know that some people are mentally sick and incapable of living in peace, they can not be recovered to the society. That is not what im talking about. You know what I mean...
Dungeons and Dragons is not a game of gathering with friends at the table and playing hit, break, cut and smash. It's a game of togetherness, a game of learning to build bonds of trust. It's a game of trusting other people's abilities, both in combat and in social interactions. It's also a game of helping friends who haven't had much of the spotlight and helping them gain self-confidence.
I wanted my helloooo post in this community to be about dnd. After this, I think I will share more different things like the movies that impacted me the most and why...
I hope that one day you will enjoy this kind of board-tabletop rpg games and the pleasure of gathering with friends, chatting and going on imaginary adventures. Defeating evil (both real and mental) and saving the day.
Thank you very much to everyone who reads, stay happy. Stay healthy 🙏
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All the pictures are taken with our phones samsung a10s and Iphone Xs, on our dnd desk which you can find one of the blogs here about how we made it;
@arduilcelebren/foams-redesigned-as-hive-for