What is D&D? Demons and Deals? Debts and Deaths? Not quite. D&D, or Dungeons & Dragons is a tabletop roleplaying game. You roll some dice and pretend to be someone else. It’s great. Nowadays, if I load up my friends into my little red car to play D&D, no one would bat an eye, but has it always been that way?
Dungeons and Dragons was first released in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, and later by Wizards of the Coast (Hasbro) in 1997.
Dungeons and Dragons is a collaborative storytelling game. You create your own character, roll some dice, and do your best to work with the other players to get through situations your Dungeon Master (DM) sends you through. The Dungeon Master is one player who runs the setting and scenarios for their friends.
My mom grew up with friends who played D&D, so I texted her to ask.
Q: Did you or any of your friends play D&D?
A:Friends did//We called them the Dungeon crew. They were all high achievers in high school.//Mostly honor students and athletes// And I mean honor students who were also athletes.
Q: Do you still talk to any of them?
A: No. I don’t really know anyone from high school anymore. Anything you were wondering about specifically? I’ve heard things about them over the years. [Old Friend] graduated from RIT with a[n] engineering degree.
Q: I’m doing an article in journalism about D&D and how the views on it have shifted over time.
A: OK. They weren’t outcasts, but they weren’t popular kids and it was side-eyed a bit. But they were cute, funny, & smart, so it wasn’t a deal breaker. A less amiable (hot) and would but have fared poorly.
Q: What did ‘would but have fared poorly’ mean?
A:They would have been less popular and probably picked on. Since [her friends] were in popular groups, the negative association of D&D impacted them less.
Thanks Momma.
Is it the same now? According to the back corner of my fourth block, not at all!
“I think it’s cool that people know how [to play]” said Daniel Fracz, class of 2025. Sammi Briggs, 2025, biased she may be, added that “people used to think it was, like, demonic and nerdy, but now it’s just a game.” David Garbarini, 2025 agreed with her. Sammi is biased because she is one of my D&D players. David and Daniel are not my players and have never played.
We’ve heard from the outsiders, but what about those who play the game? Is there a goal? Why do they play?
Sammi, my party’s druid said “One of the fun things about D&D is that you get to roleplay. You can create your own story and through that story you can make all the decisions and it’s just a lot of fun to sit with your friends and just think of crazy things to do,” when I asked.
Another player of mine, Atlas Campbell, 2025, texted me that “[T]he goal is different for everyone, but everyone wants to have fun. Some people want to beat up monsters, some people want soft roleplay, some people want a long sprawling campaign, but also people sometimes want a short one, y’know?”
My Dungeon master (DM), a real adult at 40 told me that “A ‘goal’ in D&D/RPGs is a lot more abstract than typical games. There’s no timer or point threshold, no winners. Aside from pre-written stories.”
So back in the day, D&D players were doing the same thing today’s nerds were doing. Gathering around, rolling dice and sharing a story. Over time, the people around them stopped seeing D&D as lame, nerdy, or scary, and more like any other game anyone could enjoy.
