So, since I’m currently in the middle of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign — specifically this one, and specifically rolling a Human Fighter because, sometimes, the simplest solution (i.e. swords) is indeed the right one.
Anyway, I’ve had dungeons and/or dragons on my mind lately, so I figured it was a good time to dust off an old post I had on the subject.
Also, I haven’t had many good new ideas lately…
The short version is this, I’ve realised something about life in a Fantasy world, be it my world of Terrace (Terrace is the planet; Realmgard is the continent), or any of the various worlds the various Dungeons & Dragonses are set on — and there are a lot.
And that thing is as follows:
Uh, no. That is, um, that’s not it. Though I am indeed not wearing a tie as I write this…
Basically, I’ve come to the conclusion that even in the world(s; see above; there’s a multiverse that would put Marvel and DC to shame) of Dungeons & Dragons, they would still have a game like Dungeons & Dragons.
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Hear me out, here.
Just because the people living in a Dungeons & Dragons world live in a world where epic heroes fight epic battles doesn’t mean everyone in that world would be an epic hero fighting epic battles. There would still be boring people living boring lives.
Just like in real life.
And, of course, those people would want to break up the drudgery of their lives by living vicariously through facsimiles of exciting people.
Just like in real life.
Look at it this way. We might not live in a world with dungeons to explore or Dragons to slay, but we do live in a world of professional sports played by high-level athletes. But that doesn’t mean everyone gets to be a pro athlete.
Basically, in real life, only John Elway gets to be John Elway.
And in lieu of getting to actually be one of the greatest football guys of all time, we’ve created novel ways to live vicariously and pretend to be great football guys.
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And clearly, there’s an obvious appeal to doing so. According to Wikipedia, the Madden video games have sold 130 million copies (that’s slightly more than the entire population of Japan) and have made $4 billion.
So, when your world’s equivalent of the NFL is adventuring, why wouldn’t the people who don’t get to go on real adventures create a way to adventure vicariously?
Well, that, or they’d do the opposite of what happens in the real world. In our world, mid-level office works play games where they pretend to be Elves and Wizards.
So, I guess in a world of Elves and Wizards … they’d play a game about being mid-level office workers.?
And it might go a little something like this:
Or, I don’t know, maybe that’s me.
But anyway, if you’re interested in seeing more incisive Pop Culture critiques or Fantasy fiction from your very own Greatest Living Author, you can follow me on social media or via my email list:
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