September 17, 2024 • 39 mins
Dungeons & Dragons, the legendary tabletop role-playing game featuring elves, dwarves, wizards, fighters, and legions of nerds is currently observing… its 50th anniversary! Really, no Really!
Over the five decades, the game has had its fair share of infamy with stories of “Satanic panic” and more recently, a resurgence after being featured on Netflix’s “Stranger Things.” But what is this game really about? And how can it be more popular than ever after 5 decades?
Jason and Peter, after much needling from the self -identified nerds on their production staff (and Jason’s son who is a proud Dungeon Master) bravely walked into the never-known realms of D&D with one of the game’s quintessential experts... Jon Peterson, who studies the history of games, especially tabletop role-playing games and wargames. His first book has just been re-released as “Playing at the World, 2E, Volume 1: The Invention of Dungeons & Dragons” which has been called "the first serious history of the development of Dungeons & Dragons" by the Village Voice.
IN THIS EPISODE:
- A painless and fun history of Role-Playing Games.
- D&D is an improvisational-collaborative- storytelling experience.
- What’s a Dungeon Master and does it involve black latex, mouth gags and whips?
- What’s the point of a game with no “winning”?
- Breaking down D&D to understand its appeal.
- Wait… watching other people livestream D&D is a multimillion-dollar thing?
- Why D&D has become popular in prisons, on death row and in solitary confinement?
- Is D&D a game or a lifestyle choice?
- D&D’s ongoing controversies.
- How should a novice approach starting to play D&D?
- How A.I. and other technology will affect the future of D&D.
FOLLOW JON:
X: @docetist
Facebook: PlayingAtTheWorld
***
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Now really.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Really now, really well, and welcome to Really No Really,
with Jess Alexander and Peter Tilden, who invite you to
join the campaign, roll the D twenty, acquire experience points,
and please your dungeon master by subscribing to our show.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
And if that.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Introduction left you lost and confused, then you've probably never
experienced the joys of Dungeons and Dragons, the legendary tabletop
role playing game featuring elves, dwarves, wizards, fighters, and legions
of dedicated fans. This worldwide phenomenon is currently celebrating its
fiftieth anniversary Really No Really. Over its five decades, the
(00:43):
game has been both hailed and vilified. It has been
the source of claims about satanic panic, and it's also
been featured on Netflix's Stranger Things and a feature film
starring Chris Pine.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
But what is this game really about?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
And how can it be more popular than ever after
five decades? After much an from the self identified nerds
on our production staff, the guys bravely ventured into the
never explored realms of D and D with one of
the game's quintessential experts, John Peterson, who studies the history
of games especially tabletop role playing games. And so let's
(01:16):
Sally forth the Brave Adventurers.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Here's Jason and Peter.
Speaker 5 (01:21):
So this episode.
Speaker 6 (01:26):
Usually, in a really no really episode, one of us,
as we hear about something, we you know, encounter something
that makes us go huh, really no, really really and so,
but usually one of us will then do some research.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
Usually I'm going to give it up.
Speaker 6 (01:47):
You use research, so by the time we meet the guest,
you have at least a level of understanding, some knowledge
of the inner workings or the complexities of the thing
we're talking about. Way to start formulating questions to engage
and draw out the vital information.
Speaker 7 (02:08):
So is this really know really? The really no really
is Jason and I realized it's the fiftieth anniversary of
Dungeons and Drags, And.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
The really know really is that we don't know. We
don't know.
Speaker 7 (02:21):
About this and so and then I start researching and
I didn't realize. I guess the one of the companies
that owned this previously was called the Wizards of something where.
And I'm going, yeah, but you're just reading a line
because I'm trying to prep for both of us, And
I'm going, so the Wizards of SO and so release
the thing, and I'm going, who are the Wizards of So?
Speaker 5 (02:38):
I know nothing.
Speaker 6 (02:39):
I don't know who they are. I don't know what
the thing is. I don't know what they released. I
don't know how they found it to release it to
begin with. Now, my son Gabe, actually my son knowing too,
but Gabe, it really plays this and our own David
Guggenheim is very into this. I've watched a little bit
and it seems to me, and I don't want to
be Jordan anyway, it seems like a bunch of people
(03:05):
just jerking. You know, I'm an amp, I'm a wizard,
I'm a frog, I'm a okay, I'm gonna storm the castle,
roll the dice.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
You didn't make it, says who, says me.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
I so, so, here's how I started this.
Speaker 7 (03:17):
This was my introduction, says The first thing I asked
David Googenheim is how do you win?
Speaker 5 (03:21):
And he goes, oh, you don't win, right, I gotta go, Yeah,
I got I gotta go. You don't win.
Speaker 6 (03:25):
You're just it's not a game in the sense of
a game. It's not it's a lifestyle choice. It's a
I don't know what it is.
Speaker 7 (03:32):
It seems to be a game that you play for
all eternities, right, And I said to David, and.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Since prisoners on death row play it, you literally play
it to.
Speaker 7 (03:40):
Your dough by the way, yeah, David goes, you know,
prisoners on death row play it.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
I said, that's because there was a death right. They
got nothing else, thinking, how what are you doing in yourself?
Speaker 7 (03:48):
I'm whittling a dice a die a twenty sided for
twelve years, right, So of course they're playing it.
Speaker 6 (03:54):
They'll play with it, honestly, by the way, we're being funny.
But I don't Maybe I would, Maybe if I understood it,
I would enjoy it.
Speaker 7 (04:01):
Maybe our fantasy games. Let me just say I don't
get it. Let me just say what I see is
can you see the two of us sitting for four hours?
Speaker 4 (04:11):
I like improv. I do improv.
Speaker 6 (04:14):
I play characters for a living, and you take me
to the groundlings on the best night.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Thirty minutes in, I.
Speaker 6 (04:20):
Go, okay, got it, bode thout you for that's go home.
Speaker 7 (04:23):
It's the best improv I've ever seen.
Speaker 5 (04:26):
That sands and out.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Not on death row.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
That's wrong.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
I go, I'm dead and moving up.
Speaker 7 (04:33):
And by the way, if you're in what's like a
tough prison, right now, K, you're right?
Speaker 4 (04:37):
Sure?
Speaker 5 (04:38):
Rikers? Hey did you hear Johnson Els? I mean does
that get you?
Speaker 7 (04:41):
What does that get you? So let's say hi to
our guest. Let's welcome our guests, because.
Speaker 6 (04:45):
We were and I can't listen, we're making a lot
of fun.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
This guy is the real deal, and there's answers to this.
Speaker 7 (04:51):
We're making fun of us though, because obviously we're we're
fifty years later, apparently to the part you're celebrating f.
Speaker 6 (05:00):
Two years and we're going on, I'm still playing hearts
and the part cheesy, I.
Speaker 7 (05:04):
Didn't know broken the code on Monopola, right, So you
get who you're dealing with here. Yeah, okay, So we're
gonna meet John Peterson, who actually studies the history of
games in general, but especially tabletop role playing games and
war games, both of which is this.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
His first book has just been re released.
Speaker 6 (05:24):
It's called Playing at the World two E Volume one,
The Invention of Dungeons and Dragons. It's been called the
history the first serious history of.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
The development of of D and T.
Speaker 6 (05:36):
I'm going to use the lingo now D and D.
He co authored the Hugo Award finalist Dungeons and Dragons
Art and Arcana, and the New York Times best selling
official Dungeons and Dragons cookbook Heroes Feast.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
He's also worked on trivial pursuit Dungeons and Dragons Ultimate Edition.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
UH.
Speaker 6 (05:55):
He's contributed to numerous academic anthologies and pop culture websites,
alluding three things I've never heard of, Polygon fired, and
Boeing Boeing, I don't.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Live in.
Speaker 6 (06:07):
They talk about alternate universes. There's one coming on to
our screen right now. So let's John to John Peterson.
Speaker 7 (06:15):
Hello John, shoot together one two three, Hello John.
Speaker 8 (06:19):
Hello, Well, thanks for having me.
Speaker 6 (06:21):
We're so delighted now. Already already I'm learning things.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
You ready for?
Speaker 6 (06:25):
What my first observation that's going to be If you're
watching on YouTube and you can see the portal at
which we're looking at John, his home is nicer than mine.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
So already something is not right. Something's going wrong and
is not right.
Speaker 6 (06:38):
This guy is pretending he's a dwarf at the battlements.
I'm trying to work for a living, and look what
he's got versus what I'm here with you. What's wrong
with this picture.
Speaker 8 (06:48):
So let me be clear doing D and D history,
there is no money in it.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
I promise.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
Congratulations.
Speaker 7 (06:54):
Your parents must be thrilling exactly well. I must love
this on a level that's out of this world.
Speaker 8 (07:02):
I am a bit of a fan, and I guess
some one of those people who feels like D and
D was one of the signature cultural innovations of the
late twentieth century and that it has led to so
may it's been so profoundly influential, and you know, not
maybe not the level of like the Internet or something, okay,
but like in terms of its pervasive just depiction of
(07:23):
a new form of entertainment. Yes, D and D matters.
Speaker 5 (07:26):
So can you talk if you can encapsulate for people
like where it came from, how I know it are
going to be bored. So I don't want to go
too long.
Speaker 7 (07:32):
But people who don't know it, I'd love to be
impressed with the stars.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
Starts came, it's got It must have a terrific origin.
Speaker 5 (07:39):
The argent story of the guys who started, et cetera.
Speaker 8 (07:40):
If you still it, yeah, I can.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
So.
Speaker 8 (07:43):
Back in nineteen seventy four, there are two guys who
are Midwesterners who are really into war games. So you
got to kind of understand what wargames are to get
where D and D started. So, wargames are these conflict
simulation games where usually what you're doing is you're replaying
like one of the Great Battles of Napoleon, right, and
you imagine you're the commander and you can move around
little chits on a board, and could you win Waterloo
(08:07):
in a way that Napoleon couldn't write?
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Sure?
Speaker 8 (08:09):
And like so these guys are really into games like that.
And you know, at around the same time, though, in
the nineteen sixties, Tolkien and sword and sorcery fiction in
particular started to become like profoundly popular, right, and there
was this like chocolate and peanut butter moment where people said, Okay,
can we take this conflict simulation stuff, which is all
(08:29):
based on like mathematical models and rolling dice and figuring
out things like how good this kind of unit is
against that kind of unit and apply that to things
like orcs and ballrogs and entts and wizards and all
the things that would be familiar from Tolkien. Yeah, so
really look at it like it kind of started from
that and this began for Gary Gygax, one of the
(08:52):
two co creators, in nineteen seventy one, with a little
pamphlet he published that was called Chainmail, And this was
kind of the first book you could buy that had
like systems for how to be Gandolf, Like what you
know if you want to put him in a conflict
simulation context, Like how many hits could Gandalf take in
a fight before he dies? When he casts a spell?
(09:15):
You know, how many works will be slain by it?
Things like that, And this then gave birth to a
whole bunch of fascinating activities that started to bring things
from the army level down to the individual level, where
instead of really thinking about I'm commanding an army where
I'll have wizards and I'll have a bunch of you know,
soldiers with swords and axes and bows and things like that,
(09:36):
down to Okay, each of the players is going to
have an individual character, and this individual character might be
a wizard, and they'll have a name, and they'll have
a set of spells they can cast. And the individual
players then take on the roles of these characters and
pursue a story in which they adventure in a world. Famously,
(09:59):
they go down into these dungeons that appear in the
name of the game, where they'll fight monsters and get
treasure and become more powerful as a result of it.
And this was the birth of what we came to
call a role playing game. And role playing games become
just so such a big business, not just on the
table top, but they quickly kind of jumped into computers.
(10:21):
At the time D and D came out in nineteen
seventy four, computer games are pretty rudimentary, right, but like
you know, by nineteen seventy five, there were already people
adapting D and D four computers and pretty much any
triple A game that you look at today. And these
are games that make you know, billions of dollars, right,
that has that DNA in it all. It owes back
(10:43):
to that nineteen seventy four original set of rules in
which you got to play a character, be a protagonist, adventure,
get more powerful, and have a netpic quest.
Speaker 7 (10:54):
When did when did it did it take off like
immediately or was it a couple of years down the world?
Because I saw one of the things that exploded it
was satanism, witchcraft. Did the controversy explode.
Speaker 8 (11:05):
It definitely it did, and I mean the controversy kind
of built gradually. But look at it like this, this
is a really small insular hobby. When it started, these
guys at this company called Tactical Studies Rules that published
D and D. Originally they originally printed like a thousand
copies of this and they weren't going to sure they
were going to sell those, right, And like it built
(11:26):
a little bit, like by nineteen seventy six seventy seven,
it penetrated into college campuses. It was becoming kind of
an underground thing. But then just one of these historical
accidents happened, which is in nineteen seventy nine, there was
a kid who was in East Lansing, Michigan. He was
a university student who disappeared. His name was James Dallas
Egbert the third, And when he disappeared from his college campus,
(11:51):
people deuilt this theory because they heard been playing this
bizarre game called Dungeons and Dragons that he had come
to believe the fantasy was real. That he had got
on down into the steam tunnels beneath the university and
was trying to like find orgs to killer something down there,
got lost, trapped, diluted, possibly died, and this led to
(12:11):
this huge mainstream press just sensationalless coverage that simultaneously demonized
the game and made it immensely popular the way that
like only a weird historical accident like that could.
Speaker 6 (12:25):
So, John, I just want to go back, because again,
please forgive me, I know so little about this if
I'm asking.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Just banal, rudimentary questions.
Speaker 6 (12:34):
But it sounds like somebody came up with, Okay, here's
how we're gonna here's rules one through one hundred of
how if you want to play this game that's played.
But it sounds like that those rules are very much
player generated in some ways as well, especially when I
watch people play it. And I'll give you the goofy example,
(12:56):
but it seems like I'm rubber, you're glue. Somebody goes,
I'm rubber, your glue. Everything you say bounces off me
and sticks to you, and the guy who it sticks
to goes, yeah, but I cast a spell on me
so things don't stick. They actually become animated and they
attack your eyes. Oh yeah, well my eyes are protected
by advisor that I won one. And you go, okay,
well this is just I'm just just trading a horse
(13:19):
bucky back and forth. I mean what a is the
game grown by the players who then generate variations on
how to do this, And if so, how does a
group of gamers or a dungeon master keep that sort
of playground version of conflict from happening.
Speaker 8 (13:40):
Well, so you said the two keywords, they're dungeon master.
So you need to think about a game of D
and D like there are two classes of participants. There's
a dungeon master and then there are players. And the
dungeon master doesn't have like a character. The dungeon master's
job is to play the world. And moreover, the dungeon
master's job is to be the author already on what
(14:01):
is true about the system and about what what you
can and can't do. So a player says, I'm rubbing
your glue, the dungeon master is the one who says, well, no,
this is the army you're wearing, this is the equipment
you have, and this orc stabs you and you are
now dead, right, and so you need in these games,
and in the computer version, of course, the computer plays
(14:23):
this role for you. Right, you don't really have a
dungeon master. The computer does the dungeon mastering, but like
the you know, the crux of the game is that
the players inhabit the characters, and the characters can attempt anything.
This is a really crucial thing about it. Like anything
you could describe as a possible action, you can propose
it as what your character does, and it's then up
(14:46):
to the dungeon master to tell you what the result
of doing that will be, whether it's it's what you intended,
whether it's something you didn't intent. You're like, Okay, I'm
going to cast a grease spell. And my hope in
casting this grease spell in this room is that every
orc is You're going to be on slippery ground and
they're all going to fall down, and like this is
going to work and it's going to be great. The
dungeon master says, fantastic. But you forgot that there are
(15:09):
these fires on the side of the room, and in fact,
you and the orcs and everybody you know is now
in this immense conflagation, right, so somebody keeps track of
the state of the world, and you know, the players
merely have the power to state their intentions. The dungeon
master has the power to say what happened?
Speaker 5 (15:27):
Whose world are they looking at as a guide?
Speaker 8 (15:31):
Well, so the dungeon master job is also to describe
the world. Think about this way, you know, they're kind
of sounding boards. The dungeon master and the player are
at the start of the game. The dungeon master says,
this is the situation. So, Jason Peter, You've entered the
tavern and the two of you see in front of
you a shadowy figure who is sitting at a table,
(15:53):
and the map is laid out before him. What do
you do? Jason Peter, You've entered the tavern and the
two of you see in front of you a shadowy
(16:15):
figure who is sitting at a table, and the map
is laid out before him. What do you do? This
is the classic, you know, way that a situation might start,
right and in response to what do you do? Then, Jason,
what do you do? You saw that figure? You don't
need to know anything more about this game than what
I've told you right now. You guys, walk into the tavern.
You see that shadowy figure at the map there, he's
(16:36):
got some gold coins on it.
Speaker 7 (16:37):
What do you do?
Speaker 6 (16:38):
And I would say, I go over and ask the
stranger what he's looking at, and may I look.
Speaker 8 (16:43):
As well precisely and we just continue from there. He
tells you this is a map, and you know. He
then says, if you're so interested, like I personally can't
go there because it's like super dangerous, but perhaps the
two of you would like to adventure there where. I
understand that there's a mountain of these coins available, and
there may be some sort of guardian or curse or
(17:03):
something like that. But I'm sure the two of you
can work that out once you look into it. Here's
where the places in the map.
Speaker 7 (17:08):
Go for it, John, But what okay? As soon as
you said that it's fascinating sitting there with the map
and some gold coins, what's my goal? What's my motivation?
You know? When I said to David Gringham, we're going
to bring him in a second, because he does play
this and he is somewhat expert at it. If I
don't know what my motivation is and there's no winning
and there's no I'm just getting points, why would I
engage If I don't know what direction where I want
(17:28):
to end up? How would I know where questions to
ask or where to go? You know, I may say back,
I want to watch other people interact with him first
and see if he's a threat. I don't know what
I'm doing because I don't know enough about what I'm
trying to accomplish.
Speaker 8 (17:41):
Well, I'd be very wise for actually to sit back
and watch and figure out what's up with this guy
before you go up and incredulously believe his story. But
you did mention, you know, yeah, your job in a
game like this, the obvious goal is just to gain
more power. The obvious goal is to gain more treasure,
gain more power, advance, And the way to advance is
(18:01):
to adventure, and through adventuring you gain what are called
experience points, and if you gain certain experience points thresholds
for your character, you advance in level. And this concept,
by the way, has become a kind of influential one,
like it's hard to play a computer game that does
not have some element of that in it, right where
through the more you apply kind of the better you prove.
(18:22):
And this, you know, experience and power then makes you
ready for you know, even greater adventurers to tackle even
greater adversaries. So that's the ostensible goal.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
Of the game.
Speaker 7 (18:31):
I'm curious to not knowing details. But I want to
bring David in the second. All of a sudden, I
look at trigger warnings and stuff. This is a game
that was if you look at the culture fifty years
ago and think about what it was and how people spoke.
Has the game dramatically changed to take that into acknowledgement.
Speaker 8 (18:50):
Yes, So in those fifty years there have been five
major editions of the game, and in each one you
can see kind of a you know, more and more inclusivity,
more and more roles for women. The original game had
very little as roles for women. It assumed sword and
sorcery heroes of the stamp of Conan or the kind
of you know, heroes you see in Tolkien right where
(19:11):
you know, this is very much a male dominated, male
centric world, like that started to e road, but you
were mentioning the Satanic elements. That's another good example. Like
there was a whole backlash against the game for its
opposed satanic content, and so they took out for a
time the words demon and devil, other words that were
viewed as being offensive potentially to fundamentalist Christians. Those were
(19:32):
later restored when that particular cultural issue was no longer
the most important one on people's minds. But if you
look at the game today, yes, I mean Wizards of
the Coast, who is the current publisher of the game,
has made the game far more inclusive in terms of
what roles are available to people of different races, different ability,
different gender. And you know this, I think every generation
(19:56):
has really reinvented D and D for itself, Right.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
John, I guess I should be asking my own child.
Speaker 6 (20:04):
But my son, Gabe often serves as a dungeon master.
Should I therefore assume he has done a bunch of
the reading and understood what the current parameters and guidelines are,
or just would it not be unusual for five people
to sit down and somebody going I'll be the dungeon
(20:24):
master and not know what the hell he's talking about.
But he's a creative guy and he goes yes to this,
no to that.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
I mean, how does that happ So?
Speaker 8 (20:34):
Yeah? In short, probably, if he is successful, that is,
if people come back and play with him again, he
probably has some chops. He probably has at least enough
understanding of the system that people feel like they're playing
the game when they're playing with them. But it's also
important understand it is a game that takes place in
the dialogue, and like I said, really what the players
mostly experience is that tavern scene I was describing for you, right,
(20:56):
the dice come out when there's some kind of conflict
that you know, you then want to consult tables. Well,
what does it take to if I want to stab
that guy in the back and surprise him. That'll be
a diar roll, right, and then you need to go
consult the right tables for that to figure out what happens.
But you know, those are more exception cases, really, I think,
than that pure conversation where the players again just kind
(21:20):
of say what it is they want to try to do,
and you know, a lot of things players suggest the
system has no way to adjudicate. This has been true
from the very start. It's also true today playing as
you know, being a dungeon master, you need to be
able to improvise when people propose they want to do
something and the rules have no way of adjudicating it,
or you don't feel like going and looking it up,
you'll wing it and it works. I mean, it's one
(21:42):
of the miraculous weird things about I don't know why
it works. And I study this thing, right, But it
just as long as players have that feeling that the
dungeon master is making a considered decision about the world,
then it works. You almost don't even know what or
how that decision is.
Speaker 7 (22:01):
So you know what, John, let's say, let's welcome our
favorite everybody everybody's favorite dungeon master, David Guggenheim.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
Who plays this every is this every Friday? This is
way you go every Friday, right.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Every Friday, every Friday?
Speaker 4 (22:13):
And Dren, how long is an average session?
Speaker 3 (22:18):
I would say three to four hours?
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Huh?
Speaker 7 (22:20):
Okay, are you enjoying this, David? This is your episode,
my friend. You've got the guy on the expert. Anything
you want to ask him to make your game enhancesd.
Speaker 9 (22:27):
No, I want to be a prey instantly, because in
the twenty twenty four edition of five E, your grease
is no longer flammable.
Speaker 8 (22:35):
Man over again.
Speaker 6 (22:40):
Thanks for tuning in everybody night. You're just gonna want
the microphones run and we'll be back next week, just differently.
Speaker 8 (22:47):
My god, what the hell that book is even out yet?
That you have one?
Speaker 3 (22:52):
And the right right, I know, here's.
Speaker 5 (22:55):
A question I just must say. I'm looking at David
differently because if he knows them, yes, so for.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
Both of you, what what do you find?
Speaker 6 (23:07):
What makes how do I say this, what makes somebody
so attracted to this game and so good in it?
Speaker 5 (23:17):
Is?
Speaker 6 (23:18):
Is it only really work for people who can abandon
themselves to their imagination and get into this role of
playing stuff? What what kind of people does it appeal to?
And what kind of people does it not appeal to?
Speaker 9 (23:32):
David, I mean, well, yeah, no, I actually have an
answer to that, and and and John correct me if
you think I'm wrong.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
And that's I think links back to what you were saying. Peter.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Uh.
Speaker 9 (23:44):
You know, this was a game that was created in
seventy four and there's been a lot the changes now
and this is something that wasn't in the twenty fourteen
the current book until the new books come out very soon.
A session zero where everybody who is going to play
the game gets together and they're going to talk about
the things that are going to be part of the game.
(24:05):
That there will be like hey, there might be something
that might be triggering or upsetting, and players would be
able to say, you know what, I'd rather you not
do that because that would take me to an unpleasant place,
and the dungeon master would either say this is not
the game for you, or the dungeon master, and I
think this is probably more common, will alter the game
(24:26):
for the people who are in the room or find
a happy middle ground to make sure that it is fun,
it is inclusive, and everybody.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Feels like they're part of something together.
Speaker 8 (24:39):
Interesting telling you up leveling that a bit. I think
what makes this game still appeal to us so much
after so much so long has passed is that it
is artisanal and really every group that gets to sit
around the table gets to make their own story, right,
and it's a story only they have to like, like
it might not appeal to anybody else in the world.
(25:00):
You get a group to sit around the table, each
of them kind of has their creative input into it,
and they get to have this custom experience just for them,
and like that power, that creative power, and is something
I think people, especially in our very digital age, like
tap into and it's part of what's made the game
so vital in the last ten years especially, is.
Speaker 7 (25:22):
Part of John is part of this and I hate
to use this word, but I can't figure out the
synonym for it. That is as effective. Is part of
that that nerds really do rule the list one of years.
If you look in the entertainment business Marvel, Look how
big Marvel is, Look how big superhero movies are, Look
how big comic book movies are. So this kind of
makes sense that they would navigate this kind of thing
(25:42):
because they want to be challenged.
Speaker 8 (25:44):
They would. And you know the fact that now with
the Internet you can watch people play this game. You
can watch these ten pole shows like Critical Role, where
you know, very competent, funny, attractive people sit around and
play the game. This is thing that has certainly inspired
so many kids and the demographics of this. This is
(26:04):
not old fogies who are the super fans of this
at this point. This is a very young audience that
has become attached to D and D and a big
part of that, Yeah, they grew up with Game of Thrones,
they grew up with the Peter Jackson Lord of the
Rings adaptations. Fantasy is familiar to them in a way
that it has not been for previous generations, Right, and John.
Speaker 6 (26:23):
Is it based on what you're saying, I would imagine
unlike Clue where somebody goes no, Yeah, it comes sit down,
you're you're professor Plumb. I can't, like if I'm visiting
a friend in Ohio, I can't just sit in on
their D and D session and job in like it's
I come a part of the It sounds like the
groups become sort of singular and it would be tricky
(26:48):
to integrate a new player or a temporary player.
Speaker 8 (26:52):
Not not really, I mean it happens quite a bit.
I've jumped into countless ongoing campeens as they call them,
right where you know they'll just to sit in for
a session for two and you know it requires maybe
a little sleight of hand on the part of the
dungeon masters to explain who this new person is and
why you suddenly trust them. But it's definitely true that
the best and the most emotionally satisfying games are ones
(27:15):
where you do have, you know, a type group that
kind of takes it from beginning to end, and those
emotional journeys you experienced playing game like this, they stay
with you and they're.
Speaker 6 (27:25):
One of the things that intrigued me about this when
we were thinking about doing an episode was I had
read that there were prisoners not only on death row,
but prisoners that have been in solitary for extended periods
of time, and part of their sanity is they find
ways to play the game through.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
Messages that are passed back and forth.
Speaker 6 (27:50):
And I was reading this in the in the Sunday
New York Times magazine about them a year ago, these
very intricate games, and you know, you're talking about communities
of these games. I would imagine that that is incredibly therapeutic.
And well, I mean, in some ways, I'm wondering if
(28:12):
playing a game like this in that kind of environment
can actually evoke a change in the people that play
it for some sort of societal good or their own
personal growth.
Speaker 8 (28:24):
No, I mean, I think I remember the same article,
and I'm familiar with a few other similar cases that
people who really feel like D and D is what
gave them a connection to a community when they were incarcerated,
that they found their people and found some stability and
a world that made sense to them in this horrible environment. Right.
So there's academic research as well about this that you know,
(28:47):
need to get into here. But like, you know, whatever
it is about the game, you know, I'll say this,
a lot of people charge it with being escapist. That
you play this so you can kind of play a superhero, right,
I may not be very successful in real life, but
I'm going to go on and be this, you know,
Garth Act the Invincible. You know, I guess my perspective
(29:10):
on that is that there's no escape. Like all of
our we're all real, and our experiences are inescapably real,
and the experience of playing Garth Act the Invincible is
not the same experience as being Garth Act the Invincible,
and so it's a transformational experience. I mean, there was
an early reviewer in around nineteen seventy nine, one of
(29:30):
the first mainstream reviewers who looked at D and D
you remark that, you know it may turn out to
be one of the most exciting discoveries of your life
when you start playing it.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
To Mivigant, just want to just want to say, Peter's
out straggling for me.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
You know, the.
Speaker 8 (29:48):
Point of this is not to be the best. The
point of this is to have these experiences that you
would never have in real life, and to be able
to explore parts of yourself and parts of reality that
you wouldn't otherwise be able to experience.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
So John two things.
Speaker 6 (30:06):
If someone wanted to either get a better understanding of
the game or try to find a way to jump
into the experience of doing it.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
And you can touch your own book if you like.
Speaker 6 (30:16):
What's a good place to sort of get a better
understanding of it and or begin an involvement. And the
second part of that question is, since it's the fiftieth anniversary,
if you could snap your fingers and imagine fifty years
from now, how would you love to see the game evolve?
Speaker 8 (30:32):
So the second one's a tougher one. I'll go to
the first one first. So in many towns they have
what we call friendly local gaming stores, which are places
you can find actual human beings so you can play
with in person. A lot of them are looking for
additional players for their campaigns, be more than happy to
accommodate you and whatever your bizarre interests are that you
want to add to their ongoing efforts online as well.
(30:53):
I mean, if you just want to get started, of course,
going and buying some books about this, you know, the
core source books would be a good idea. As David mentioned,
there's a major revision of them underway, like right now,
and so there's going to be new editions of this
coming out between now and I think March of next year,
that they'd be a good place to start. But also
just going to YouTube, like I said, or going to
(31:14):
Twitch and finding an interesting group of people who are
playing the game, telling stories, watching it, watch a campaign
for at least a few episodes of it, get a
sense of what it is, and I think you'll you'll
figure out pretty quick whether it's for you or not.
Speaker 4 (31:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (31:27):
Cool, And the second part, Yeah, any fantasies about what
this could become or what you would enjoy seeing another
evolution go.
Speaker 8 (31:36):
I mean, I think it's inevitable at this point that
AI is going to play a huge part in how
this game is going to evolve for the next decade, right,
And you know, I think there are a lot of
ways that AI could help make the traditional experience a
richer one, just doing the math for you and keeping
track of how many goblins you killed, things like that.
These are kinds of things that AI can do without
(31:56):
taking over the game for you. But let's face it,
like there's going to be augmented reality versions of this
that are going to have AI elements to them that
are going to be like really bizarre, and I would
love to play in those experiences. We'll have those in
twenty years, in fifty years, we'll all be little brains
in jars right like the Singularity will have happened. They'll
(32:19):
be using us as batteries like in the Matrix, you know,
and so I you know, when we're all on the Matrix,
I'm sure we'll have some amazing.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
Amazing I'll see you then Matrix.
Speaker 7 (32:29):
Wait, I can't Jean, thank you so much for coming
on and putting up with our stuff.
Speaker 6 (32:33):
And John, honestly, you know, we came into this going
I don't know what this is. You've actually made it
sound like an, if nothing else, a ton of fun
and I can see why why people would get into this.
It sounds like a really fun way to do what
I get to do for a living sometimes, which is going,
oh yeah, well what if I was this or what
if these were my circumstances.
Speaker 7 (32:52):
So to create friendships with people in a way it's
not linear we're going drinking at a bar and just
hanging out. It's actually your participating in your improving and
it's communal, you know, and and people are back again.
It's a nice thing that people get out and play together,
So thank you.
Speaker 8 (33:07):
I mean a lot of people play with their kids.
You might want to try that.
Speaker 7 (33:09):
Not doing that, To do a six hundred page book
is a major accomplishment, especially in a world when I'm
sure when you're on these shows, everyone I've seen you
on knows all of the stuff, so they would call
you and things if you got it wrong. So congratulations
on not getting it's the wrong.
Speaker 8 (33:28):
I mean, apparently the grease spell thing is fun. Thanks
so much for having me pleasure.
Speaker 5 (33:37):
Thank you?
Speaker 7 (33:47):
So David, did that warm the cockles of your heart?
Was that like a major thing? Listen does make a gift?
This is a lout of a Christmas present, right it is?
Speaker 6 (33:56):
You know here there is another belt coming your way.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
I'd lack a dragon on it, maybe some flame. One
of the things that.
Speaker 9 (34:06):
You hear most often if you're into the game is
you run into people who don't understand the game, who
like there's no winning, there's role playing that's sort of weird.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
What's a dungeon master?
Speaker 9 (34:18):
That sounds somewhat sinister and sexual in some sort of way.
So I do like to evangelize to allow people to
know that there is this game that is really more
of a framework for people to come together, to have
fun and to interact in ways that you normally couldn't.
(34:40):
And I think while there isn't per se winning, there
is feelings of accomplishment when you've taken down a dragon.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
So wait a minute, you eat pizza. I know it's
Friday night.
Speaker 7 (34:49):
If you're driving home at eleven thirty, Yeah, you get
a couple miles worth of kind of killed the dragon.
Speaker 5 (34:54):
And it was a good night. It feels real, right.
Speaker 9 (34:58):
It does feel good because you have some really sort
of cool moments. And it's here's the thing, and Jason,
I this hearkens back to I think what you were
originally saying. And this is actually how I got into it.
My son would do some stretches late at night, and
while he's in his bed and I'm doing these stretches
on him, and his sister was across the way. They
(35:19):
would play this little game much like you were saying, yeah, right, oh,
I do cast ice on you, and I froze you,
and then I'm doing and my son basically always figured
out a way to win, and she would end up
crying and it made and I had never played D
and D.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
This is how I actually got got.
Speaker 9 (35:37):
Into it, and I'm like, oh, so D and D
is a way to introduce a rule set. My spell
can do this, there's turns while also maintaining the creativity.
You if you think of something more creative than the
other guy, you might not need a spell, or you
might not need a big sword or something like that.
So it's dealing with creativity and a rule set that
(36:00):
fairness and fun.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
So there you.
Speaker 7 (36:03):
Go, Producer Laurie, Now that you've seen this and you've
heard about it, Jason, what do you what do you
guess on a scale of one to ten, how apt
Producer Laurie is to now get involved in a Dungeons
and Dragons game?
Speaker 5 (36:14):
Zero to ten? What do you think?
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Are we are there negative numbers?
Speaker 7 (36:20):
I was just gonna say, I was going to check
you with a minus seven, Lauri? Are we correct on
a scale of minus five to ten? How after you now,
if you've heard of the origins, how wonderful it is
the group commitment, how you can grow, how you can
be an orc there thing? What is your sense of
the number in your head? As far as that you'll
(36:40):
ever play this invited tonight to an introductory game.
Speaker 9 (36:45):
I don't know what to say.
Speaker 8 (36:46):
I have to say it makes no difference in any
way whatever it is I'm against.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
I was going to say something really negative, but after
hearing David talk about his children, oh yes it was,
I have to say I will never play.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
She's still at a minus twenty, but.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
She has a positive to respect for it.
Speaker 5 (37:14):
They are just listening because I know Laurie. I love Laurie.
Speaker 7 (37:16):
But I'm thinking she's going this is fascinating. I would
never get near one of these games in my entire life.
I drive around the street and avoid the people playing it. Right,
I would put a spin on this game. And all
of a sudden, you have something for society.
Speaker 6 (37:28):
So instead of making a dungeons and dragon, you make
it bridges and machines. And instead of saying, okay, you've
entered a tavern, there's a mysterious stranger with a map
in gold coins, I go, okay, you come to a ravine.
On the other side of the ravine, there is a
glowing emerald city.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
There is no bridge.
Speaker 6 (37:48):
You are you are a mathematician, you are a craftsman,
you are a dreamer.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
What do you do?
Speaker 5 (37:55):
I just nodded off.
Speaker 7 (37:56):
I didn't hear it I didn't, he said, Well, you
know what, everybody who plays the game, please thank thank
you for putting up with us.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
Happy fifty of that of ours three obvious fifty.
Speaker 6 (38:04):
Dragons and dungeons and masters and players and dark giants
and dwarves and elves and battlements and God bless you go.
Speaker 4 (38:12):
Enjoy.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Now, as another episode of Really No Really comes to
a close, I know you're wondering, what is the biggest
single game of Dungeons and Dragons ever played? Well, I'll
embark on that campaign in a moment, but first let's
thank our.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Guest to John Peterson.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
You can follow John on x where he is at
doc etis that's d O C E T I S T,
and on Facebook where he is playing at the world.
Find all pertinent links in our show notes, our little
show hangs out on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and threads at
really No Really Podcast, And of course you can share
your thoughts and feedback with us online at reallynoreally dot com.
(38:52):
Check out our full episodes on YouTube, hit that subscribe
button and take that bell so you're updated when we
release new videos and episodes.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
Which we do each Tuesday.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
So listen and follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And Now, what
was the single biggest game of D and D ever played?
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Well?
Speaker 2 (39:11):
It took place in April of twenty twenty three at
the Provo Town Center in Provo, Utah. In all, a
total of one thousand, two hundred and twenty seven players
simultaneously played a single game well seated at two hundred
individual gaming tables. Each were playing one unified game which
required dozens of dungeon masters, generals, runners.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
And of course a prints.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
It took four hours to complete the game, which is
actually pretty short by D and D standards.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Now Ray
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Really, No Really is the production of iHeartRadio and Blase
Entertainment
Now really.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Really now, really well, and welcome to Really No Really,
with Jess Alexander and Peter Tilden, who invite you to
join the campaign, roll the D twenty, acquire experience points,
and please your dungeon master by subscribing to our show.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
And if that.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Introduction left you lost and confused, then you've probably never
experienced the joys of Dungeons and Dragons, the legendary tabletop
role playing game featuring elves, dwarves, wizards, fighters, and legions
of dedicated fans. This worldwide phenomenon is currently celebrating its
fiftieth anniversary Really No Really. Over its five decades, the
(00:43):
game has been both hailed and vilified. It has been
the source of claims about satanic panic, and it's also
been featured on Netflix's Stranger Things and a feature film
starring Chris Pine.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
But what is this game really about?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
And how can it be more popular than ever after
five decades? After much an from the self identified nerds
on our production staff, the guys bravely ventured into the
never explored realms of D and D with one of
the game's quintessential experts, John Peterson, who studies the history
of games especially tabletop role playing games. And so let's
(01:16):
Sally forth the Brave Adventurers.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Here's Jason and Peter.
Speaker 5 (01:21):
So this episode.
Speaker 6 (01:26):
Usually, in a really no really episode, one of us,
as we hear about something, we you know, encounter something
that makes us go huh, really no, really really and so,
but usually one of us will then do some research.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
Usually I'm going to give it up.
Speaker 6 (01:47):
You use research, so by the time we meet the guest,
you have at least a level of understanding, some knowledge
of the inner workings or the complexities of the thing
we're talking about. Way to start formulating questions to engage
and draw out the vital information.
Speaker 7 (02:08):
So is this really know really? The really no really
is Jason and I realized it's the fiftieth anniversary of
Dungeons and Drags, And.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
The really know really is that we don't know. We
don't know.
Speaker 7 (02:21):
About this and so and then I start researching and
I didn't realize. I guess the one of the companies
that owned this previously was called the Wizards of something where.
And I'm going, yeah, but you're just reading a line
because I'm trying to prep for both of us, And
I'm going, so the Wizards of SO and so release
the thing, and I'm going, who are the Wizards of So?
Speaker 5 (02:38):
I know nothing.
Speaker 6 (02:39):
I don't know who they are. I don't know what
the thing is. I don't know what they released. I
don't know how they found it to release it to
begin with. Now, my son Gabe, actually my son knowing too,
but Gabe, it really plays this and our own David
Guggenheim is very into this. I've watched a little bit
and it seems to me, and I don't want to
be Jordan anyway, it seems like a bunch of people
(03:05):
just jerking. You know, I'm an amp, I'm a wizard,
I'm a frog, I'm a okay, I'm gonna storm the castle,
roll the dice.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
You didn't make it, says who, says me.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
I so, so, here's how I started this.
Speaker 7 (03:17):
This was my introduction, says The first thing I asked
David Googenheim is how do you win?
Speaker 5 (03:21):
And he goes, oh, you don't win, right, I gotta go, Yeah,
I got I gotta go. You don't win.
Speaker 6 (03:25):
You're just it's not a game in the sense of
a game. It's not it's a lifestyle choice. It's a
I don't know what it is.
Speaker 7 (03:32):
It seems to be a game that you play for
all eternities, right, And I said to David, and.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Since prisoners on death row play it, you literally play
it to.
Speaker 7 (03:40):
Your dough by the way, yeah, David goes, you know,
prisoners on death row play it.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
I said, that's because there was a death right. They
got nothing else, thinking, how what are you doing in yourself?
Speaker 7 (03:48):
I'm whittling a dice a die a twenty sided for
twelve years, right, So of course they're playing it.
Speaker 6 (03:54):
They'll play with it, honestly, by the way, we're being funny.
But I don't Maybe I would, Maybe if I understood it,
I would enjoy it.
Speaker 7 (04:01):
Maybe our fantasy games. Let me just say I don't
get it. Let me just say what I see is
can you see the two of us sitting for four hours?
Speaker 4 (04:11):
I like improv. I do improv.
Speaker 6 (04:14):
I play characters for a living, and you take me
to the groundlings on the best night.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Thirty minutes in, I.
Speaker 6 (04:20):
Go, okay, got it, bode thout you for that's go home.
Speaker 7 (04:23):
It's the best improv I've ever seen.
Speaker 5 (04:26):
That sands and out.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Not on death row.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
That's wrong.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
I go, I'm dead and moving up.
Speaker 7 (04:33):
And by the way, if you're in what's like a
tough prison, right now, K, you're right?
Speaker 4 (04:37):
Sure?
Speaker 5 (04:38):
Rikers? Hey did you hear Johnson Els? I mean does
that get you?
Speaker 7 (04:41):
What does that get you? So let's say hi to
our guest. Let's welcome our guests, because.
Speaker 6 (04:45):
We were and I can't listen, we're making a lot
of fun.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
This guy is the real deal, and there's answers to this.
Speaker 7 (04:51):
We're making fun of us though, because obviously we're we're
fifty years later, apparently to the part you're celebrating f.
Speaker 6 (05:00):
Two years and we're going on, I'm still playing hearts
and the part cheesy, I.
Speaker 7 (05:04):
Didn't know broken the code on Monopola, right, So you
get who you're dealing with here. Yeah, okay, So we're
gonna meet John Peterson, who actually studies the history of
games in general, but especially tabletop role playing games and
war games, both of which is this.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
His first book has just been re released.
Speaker 6 (05:24):
It's called Playing at the World two E Volume one,
The Invention of Dungeons and Dragons. It's been called the
history the first serious history of.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
The development of of D and T.
Speaker 6 (05:36):
I'm going to use the lingo now D and D.
He co authored the Hugo Award finalist Dungeons and Dragons
Art and Arcana, and the New York Times best selling
official Dungeons and Dragons cookbook Heroes Feast.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
He's also worked on trivial pursuit Dungeons and Dragons Ultimate Edition.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
UH.
Speaker 6 (05:55):
He's contributed to numerous academic anthologies and pop culture websites,
alluding three things I've never heard of, Polygon fired, and
Boeing Boeing, I don't.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Live in.
Speaker 6 (06:07):
They talk about alternate universes. There's one coming on to
our screen right now. So let's John to John Peterson.
Speaker 7 (06:15):
Hello John, shoot together one two three, Hello John.
Speaker 8 (06:19):
Hello, Well, thanks for having me.
Speaker 6 (06:21):
We're so delighted now. Already already I'm learning things.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
You ready for?
Speaker 6 (06:25):
What my first observation that's going to be If you're
watching on YouTube and you can see the portal at
which we're looking at John, his home is nicer than mine.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
So already something is not right. Something's going wrong and
is not right.
Speaker 6 (06:38):
This guy is pretending he's a dwarf at the battlements.
I'm trying to work for a living, and look what
he's got versus what I'm here with you. What's wrong
with this picture.
Speaker 8 (06:48):
So let me be clear doing D and D history,
there is no money in it.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
I promise.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
Congratulations.
Speaker 7 (06:54):
Your parents must be thrilling exactly well. I must love
this on a level that's out of this world.
Speaker 8 (07:02):
I am a bit of a fan, and I guess
some one of those people who feels like D and
D was one of the signature cultural innovations of the
late twentieth century and that it has led to so
may it's been so profoundly influential, and you know, not
maybe not the level of like the Internet or something, okay,
but like in terms of its pervasive just depiction of
(07:23):
a new form of entertainment. Yes, D and D matters.
Speaker 5 (07:26):
So can you talk if you can encapsulate for people
like where it came from, how I know it are
going to be bored. So I don't want to go
too long.
Speaker 7 (07:32):
But people who don't know it, I'd love to be
impressed with the stars.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
Starts came, it's got It must have a terrific origin.
Speaker 5 (07:39):
The argent story of the guys who started, et cetera.
Speaker 8 (07:40):
If you still it, yeah, I can.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
So.
Speaker 8 (07:43):
Back in nineteen seventy four, there are two guys who
are Midwesterners who are really into war games. So you
got to kind of understand what wargames are to get
where D and D started. So, wargames are these conflict
simulation games where usually what you're doing is you're replaying
like one of the Great Battles of Napoleon, right, and
you imagine you're the commander and you can move around
little chits on a board, and could you win Waterloo
(08:07):
in a way that Napoleon couldn't write?
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Sure?
Speaker 8 (08:09):
And like so these guys are really into games like that.
And you know, at around the same time, though, in
the nineteen sixties, Tolkien and sword and sorcery fiction in
particular started to become like profoundly popular, right, and there
was this like chocolate and peanut butter moment where people said, Okay,
can we take this conflict simulation stuff, which is all
(08:29):
based on like mathematical models and rolling dice and figuring
out things like how good this kind of unit is
against that kind of unit and apply that to things
like orcs and ballrogs and entts and wizards and all
the things that would be familiar from Tolkien. Yeah, so
really look at it like it kind of started from
that and this began for Gary Gygax, one of the
(08:52):
two co creators, in nineteen seventy one, with a little
pamphlet he published that was called Chainmail, And this was
kind of the first book you could buy that had
like systems for how to be Gandolf, Like what you
know if you want to put him in a conflict
simulation context, Like how many hits could Gandalf take in
a fight before he dies? When he casts a spell?
(09:15):
You know, how many works will be slain by it?
Things like that, And this then gave birth to a
whole bunch of fascinating activities that started to bring things
from the army level down to the individual level, where
instead of really thinking about I'm commanding an army where
I'll have wizards and I'll have a bunch of you know,
soldiers with swords and axes and bows and things like that,
(09:36):
down to Okay, each of the players is going to
have an individual character, and this individual character might be
a wizard, and they'll have a name, and they'll have
a set of spells they can cast. And the individual
players then take on the roles of these characters and
pursue a story in which they adventure in a world. Famously,
(09:59):
they go down into these dungeons that appear in the
name of the game, where they'll fight monsters and get
treasure and become more powerful as a result of it.
And this was the birth of what we came to
call a role playing game. And role playing games become
just so such a big business, not just on the
table top, but they quickly kind of jumped into computers.
(10:21):
At the time D and D came out in nineteen
seventy four, computer games are pretty rudimentary, right, but like
you know, by nineteen seventy five, there were already people
adapting D and D four computers and pretty much any
triple A game that you look at today. And these
are games that make you know, billions of dollars, right,
that has that DNA in it all. It owes back
(10:43):
to that nineteen seventy four original set of rules in
which you got to play a character, be a protagonist, adventure,
get more powerful, and have a netpic quest.
Speaker 7 (10:54):
When did when did it did it take off like
immediately or was it a couple of years down the world?
Because I saw one of the things that exploded it
was satanism, witchcraft. Did the controversy explode.
Speaker 8 (11:05):
It definitely it did, and I mean the controversy kind
of built gradually. But look at it like this, this
is a really small insular hobby. When it started, these
guys at this company called Tactical Studies Rules that published
D and D. Originally they originally printed like a thousand
copies of this and they weren't going to sure they
were going to sell those, right, And like it built
(11:26):
a little bit, like by nineteen seventy six seventy seven,
it penetrated into college campuses. It was becoming kind of
an underground thing. But then just one of these historical
accidents happened, which is in nineteen seventy nine, there was
a kid who was in East Lansing, Michigan. He was
a university student who disappeared. His name was James Dallas
Egbert the third, And when he disappeared from his college campus,
(11:51):
people deuilt this theory because they heard been playing this
bizarre game called Dungeons and Dragons that he had come
to believe the fantasy was real. That he had got
on down into the steam tunnels beneath the university and
was trying to like find orgs to killer something down there,
got lost, trapped, diluted, possibly died, and this led to
(12:11):
this huge mainstream press just sensationalless coverage that simultaneously demonized
the game and made it immensely popular the way that
like only a weird historical accident like that could.
Speaker 6 (12:25):
So, John, I just want to go back, because again,
please forgive me, I know so little about this if
I'm asking.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Just banal, rudimentary questions.
Speaker 6 (12:34):
But it sounds like somebody came up with, Okay, here's
how we're gonna here's rules one through one hundred of
how if you want to play this game that's played.
But it sounds like that those rules are very much
player generated in some ways as well, especially when I
watch people play it. And I'll give you the goofy example,
(12:56):
but it seems like I'm rubber, you're glue. Somebody goes,
I'm rubber, your glue. Everything you say bounces off me
and sticks to you, and the guy who it sticks
to goes, yeah, but I cast a spell on me
so things don't stick. They actually become animated and they
attack your eyes. Oh yeah, well my eyes are protected
by advisor that I won one. And you go, okay,
well this is just I'm just just trading a horse
(13:19):
bucky back and forth. I mean what a is the
game grown by the players who then generate variations on
how to do this, And if so, how does a
group of gamers or a dungeon master keep that sort
of playground version of conflict from happening.
Speaker 8 (13:40):
Well, so you said the two keywords, they're dungeon master.
So you need to think about a game of D
and D like there are two classes of participants. There's
a dungeon master and then there are players. And the
dungeon master doesn't have like a character. The dungeon master's
job is to play the world. And moreover, the dungeon
master's job is to be the author already on what
(14:01):
is true about the system and about what what you
can and can't do. So a player says, I'm rubbing
your glue, the dungeon master is the one who says, well, no,
this is the army you're wearing, this is the equipment
you have, and this orc stabs you and you are
now dead, right, and so you need in these games,
and in the computer version, of course, the computer plays
(14:23):
this role for you. Right, you don't really have a
dungeon master. The computer does the dungeon mastering, but like
the you know, the crux of the game is that
the players inhabit the characters, and the characters can attempt anything.
This is a really crucial thing about it. Like anything
you could describe as a possible action, you can propose
it as what your character does, and it's then up
(14:46):
to the dungeon master to tell you what the result
of doing that will be, whether it's it's what you intended,
whether it's something you didn't intent. You're like, Okay, I'm
going to cast a grease spell. And my hope in
casting this grease spell in this room is that every
orc is You're going to be on slippery ground and
they're all going to fall down, and like this is
going to work and it's going to be great. The
dungeon master says, fantastic. But you forgot that there are
(15:09):
these fires on the side of the room, and in fact,
you and the orcs and everybody you know is now
in this immense conflagation, right, so somebody keeps track of
the state of the world, and you know, the players
merely have the power to state their intentions. The dungeon
master has the power to say what happened?
Speaker 5 (15:27):
Whose world are they looking at as a guide?
Speaker 8 (15:31):
Well, so the dungeon master job is also to describe
the world. Think about this way, you know, they're kind
of sounding boards. The dungeon master and the player are
at the start of the game. The dungeon master says,
this is the situation. So, Jason Peter, You've entered the
tavern and the two of you see in front of
you a shadowy figure who is sitting at a table,
(15:53):
and the map is laid out before him. What do
you do? Jason Peter, You've entered the tavern and the
two of you see in front of you a shadowy
(16:15):
figure who is sitting at a table, and the map
is laid out before him. What do you do? This
is the classic, you know, way that a situation might start,
right and in response to what do you do? Then, Jason,
what do you do? You saw that figure? You don't
need to know anything more about this game than what
I've told you right now. You guys, walk into the tavern.
You see that shadowy figure at the map there, he's
(16:36):
got some gold coins on it.
Speaker 7 (16:37):
What do you do?
Speaker 6 (16:38):
And I would say, I go over and ask the
stranger what he's looking at, and may I look.
Speaker 8 (16:43):
As well precisely and we just continue from there. He
tells you this is a map, and you know. He
then says, if you're so interested, like I personally can't
go there because it's like super dangerous, but perhaps the
two of you would like to adventure there where. I
understand that there's a mountain of these coins available, and
there may be some sort of guardian or curse or
(17:03):
something like that. But I'm sure the two of you
can work that out once you look into it. Here's
where the places in the map.
Speaker 7 (17:08):
Go for it, John, But what okay? As soon as
you said that it's fascinating sitting there with the map
and some gold coins, what's my goal? What's my motivation?
You know? When I said to David Gringham, we're going
to bring him in a second, because he does play
this and he is somewhat expert at it. If I
don't know what my motivation is and there's no winning
and there's no I'm just getting points, why would I
engage If I don't know what direction where I want
(17:28):
to end up? How would I know where questions to
ask or where to go? You know, I may say back,
I want to watch other people interact with him first
and see if he's a threat. I don't know what
I'm doing because I don't know enough about what I'm
trying to accomplish.
Speaker 8 (17:41):
Well, I'd be very wise for actually to sit back
and watch and figure out what's up with this guy
before you go up and incredulously believe his story. But
you did mention, you know, yeah, your job in a
game like this, the obvious goal is just to gain
more power. The obvious goal is to gain more treasure,
gain more power, advance, And the way to advance is
(18:01):
to adventure, and through adventuring you gain what are called
experience points, and if you gain certain experience points thresholds
for your character, you advance in level. And this concept,
by the way, has become a kind of influential one,
like it's hard to play a computer game that does
not have some element of that in it, right where
through the more you apply kind of the better you prove.
(18:22):
And this, you know, experience and power then makes you
ready for you know, even greater adventurers to tackle even
greater adversaries. So that's the ostensible goal.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
Of the game.
Speaker 7 (18:31):
I'm curious to not knowing details. But I want to
bring David in the second. All of a sudden, I
look at trigger warnings and stuff. This is a game
that was if you look at the culture fifty years
ago and think about what it was and how people spoke.
Has the game dramatically changed to take that into acknowledgement.
Speaker 8 (18:50):
Yes, So in those fifty years there have been five
major editions of the game, and in each one you
can see kind of a you know, more and more inclusivity,
more and more roles for women. The original game had
very little as roles for women. It assumed sword and
sorcery heroes of the stamp of Conan or the kind
of you know, heroes you see in Tolkien right where
(19:11):
you know, this is very much a male dominated, male
centric world, like that started to e road, but you
were mentioning the Satanic elements. That's another good example. Like
there was a whole backlash against the game for its
opposed satanic content, and so they took out for a
time the words demon and devil, other words that were
viewed as being offensive potentially to fundamentalist Christians. Those were
(19:32):
later restored when that particular cultural issue was no longer
the most important one on people's minds. But if you
look at the game today, yes, I mean Wizards of
the Coast, who is the current publisher of the game,
has made the game far more inclusive in terms of
what roles are available to people of different races, different ability,
different gender. And you know this, I think every generation
(19:56):
has really reinvented D and D for itself, Right.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
John, I guess I should be asking my own child.
Speaker 6 (20:04):
But my son, Gabe often serves as a dungeon master.
Should I therefore assume he has done a bunch of
the reading and understood what the current parameters and guidelines are,
or just would it not be unusual for five people
to sit down and somebody going I'll be the dungeon
(20:24):
master and not know what the hell he's talking about.
But he's a creative guy and he goes yes to this,
no to that.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
I mean, how does that happ So?
Speaker 8 (20:34):
Yeah? In short, probably, if he is successful, that is,
if people come back and play with him again, he
probably has some chops. He probably has at least enough
understanding of the system that people feel like they're playing
the game when they're playing with them. But it's also
important understand it is a game that takes place in
the dialogue, and like I said, really what the players
mostly experience is that tavern scene I was describing for you, right,
(20:56):
the dice come out when there's some kind of conflict
that you know, you then want to consult tables. Well,
what does it take to if I want to stab
that guy in the back and surprise him. That'll be
a diar roll, right, and then you need to go
consult the right tables for that to figure out what happens.
But you know, those are more exception cases, really, I think,
than that pure conversation where the players again just kind
(21:20):
of say what it is they want to try to do,
and you know, a lot of things players suggest the
system has no way to adjudicate. This has been true
from the very start. It's also true today playing as
you know, being a dungeon master, you need to be
able to improvise when people propose they want to do
something and the rules have no way of adjudicating it,
or you don't feel like going and looking it up,
you'll wing it and it works. I mean, it's one
(21:42):
of the miraculous weird things about I don't know why
it works. And I study this thing, right, But it
just as long as players have that feeling that the
dungeon master is making a considered decision about the world,
then it works. You almost don't even know what or
how that decision is.
Speaker 7 (22:01):
So you know what, John, let's say, let's welcome our
favorite everybody everybody's favorite dungeon master, David Guggenheim.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
Who plays this every is this every Friday? This is
way you go every Friday, right.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Every Friday, every Friday?
Speaker 4 (22:13):
And Dren, how long is an average session?
Speaker 3 (22:18):
I would say three to four hours?
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Huh?
Speaker 7 (22:20):
Okay, are you enjoying this, David? This is your episode,
my friend. You've got the guy on the expert. Anything
you want to ask him to make your game enhancesd.
Speaker 9 (22:27):
No, I want to be a prey instantly, because in
the twenty twenty four edition of five E, your grease
is no longer flammable.
Speaker 8 (22:35):
Man over again.
Speaker 6 (22:40):
Thanks for tuning in everybody night. You're just gonna want
the microphones run and we'll be back next week, just differently.
Speaker 8 (22:47):
My god, what the hell that book is even out yet?
That you have one?
Speaker 3 (22:52):
And the right right, I know, here's.
Speaker 5 (22:55):
A question I just must say. I'm looking at David
differently because if he knows them, yes, so for.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
Both of you, what what do you find?
Speaker 6 (23:07):
What makes how do I say this, what makes somebody
so attracted to this game and so good in it?
Speaker 5 (23:17):
Is?
Speaker 6 (23:18):
Is it only really work for people who can abandon
themselves to their imagination and get into this role of
playing stuff? What what kind of people does it appeal to?
And what kind of people does it not appeal to?
Speaker 9 (23:32):
David, I mean, well, yeah, no, I actually have an
answer to that, and and and John correct me if
you think I'm wrong.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
And that's I think links back to what you were saying. Peter.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Uh.
Speaker 9 (23:44):
You know, this was a game that was created in
seventy four and there's been a lot the changes now
and this is something that wasn't in the twenty fourteen
the current book until the new books come out very soon.
A session zero where everybody who is going to play
the game gets together and they're going to talk about
the things that are going to be part of the game.
(24:05):
That there will be like hey, there might be something
that might be triggering or upsetting, and players would be
able to say, you know what, I'd rather you not
do that because that would take me to an unpleasant place,
and the dungeon master would either say this is not
the game for you, or the dungeon master, and I
think this is probably more common, will alter the game
(24:26):
for the people who are in the room or find
a happy middle ground to make sure that it is fun,
it is inclusive, and everybody.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Feels like they're part of something together.
Speaker 8 (24:39):
Interesting telling you up leveling that a bit. I think
what makes this game still appeal to us so much
after so much so long has passed is that it
is artisanal and really every group that gets to sit
around the table gets to make their own story, right,
and it's a story only they have to like, like
it might not appeal to anybody else in the world.
(25:00):
You get a group to sit around the table, each
of them kind of has their creative input into it,
and they get to have this custom experience just for them,
and like that power, that creative power, and is something
I think people, especially in our very digital age, like
tap into and it's part of what's made the game
so vital in the last ten years especially, is.
Speaker 7 (25:22):
Part of John is part of this and I hate
to use this word, but I can't figure out the
synonym for it. That is as effective. Is part of
that that nerds really do rule the list one of years.
If you look in the entertainment business Marvel, Look how
big Marvel is, Look how big superhero movies are, Look
how big comic book movies are. So this kind of
makes sense that they would navigate this kind of thing
(25:42):
because they want to be challenged.
Speaker 8 (25:44):
They would. And you know the fact that now with
the Internet you can watch people play this game. You
can watch these ten pole shows like Critical Role, where
you know, very competent, funny, attractive people sit around and
play the game. This is thing that has certainly inspired
so many kids and the demographics of this. This is
(26:04):
not old fogies who are the super fans of this
at this point. This is a very young audience that
has become attached to D and D and a big
part of that, Yeah, they grew up with Game of Thrones,
they grew up with the Peter Jackson Lord of the
Rings adaptations. Fantasy is familiar to them in a way
that it has not been for previous generations, Right, and John.
Speaker 6 (26:23):
Is it based on what you're saying, I would imagine
unlike Clue where somebody goes no, Yeah, it comes sit down,
you're you're professor Plumb. I can't, like if I'm visiting
a friend in Ohio, I can't just sit in on
their D and D session and job in like it's
I come a part of the It sounds like the
groups become sort of singular and it would be tricky
(26:48):
to integrate a new player or a temporary player.
Speaker 8 (26:52):
Not not really, I mean it happens quite a bit.
I've jumped into countless ongoing campeens as they call them,
right where you know they'll just to sit in for
a session for two and you know it requires maybe
a little sleight of hand on the part of the
dungeon masters to explain who this new person is and
why you suddenly trust them. But it's definitely true that
the best and the most emotionally satisfying games are ones
(27:15):
where you do have, you know, a type group that
kind of takes it from beginning to end, and those
emotional journeys you experienced playing game like this, they stay
with you and they're.
Speaker 6 (27:25):
One of the things that intrigued me about this when
we were thinking about doing an episode was I had
read that there were prisoners not only on death row,
but prisoners that have been in solitary for extended periods
of time, and part of their sanity is they find
ways to play the game through.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
Messages that are passed back and forth.
Speaker 6 (27:50):
And I was reading this in the in the Sunday
New York Times magazine about them a year ago, these
very intricate games, and you know, you're talking about communities
of these games. I would imagine that that is incredibly therapeutic.
And well, I mean, in some ways, I'm wondering if
(28:12):
playing a game like this in that kind of environment
can actually evoke a change in the people that play
it for some sort of societal good or their own
personal growth.
Speaker 8 (28:24):
No, I mean, I think I remember the same article,
and I'm familiar with a few other similar cases that
people who really feel like D and D is what
gave them a connection to a community when they were incarcerated,
that they found their people and found some stability and
a world that made sense to them in this horrible environment. Right.
So there's academic research as well about this that you know,
(28:47):
need to get into here. But like, you know, whatever
it is about the game, you know, I'll say this,
a lot of people charge it with being escapist. That
you play this so you can kind of play a superhero, right,
I may not be very successful in real life, but
I'm going to go on and be this, you know,
Garth Act the Invincible. You know, I guess my perspective
(29:10):
on that is that there's no escape. Like all of
our we're all real, and our experiences are inescapably real,
and the experience of playing Garth Act the Invincible is
not the same experience as being Garth Act the Invincible,
and so it's a transformational experience. I mean, there was
an early reviewer in around nineteen seventy nine, one of
(29:30):
the first mainstream reviewers who looked at D and D
you remark that, you know it may turn out to
be one of the most exciting discoveries of your life
when you start playing it.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
To Mivigant, just want to just want to say, Peter's
out straggling for me.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
You know, the.
Speaker 8 (29:48):
Point of this is not to be the best. The
point of this is to have these experiences that you
would never have in real life, and to be able
to explore parts of yourself and parts of reality that
you wouldn't otherwise be able to experience.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
So John two things.
Speaker 6 (30:06):
If someone wanted to either get a better understanding of
the game or try to find a way to jump
into the experience of doing it.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
And you can touch your own book if you like.
Speaker 6 (30:16):
What's a good place to sort of get a better
understanding of it and or begin an involvement. And the
second part of that question is, since it's the fiftieth anniversary,
if you could snap your fingers and imagine fifty years
from now, how would you love to see the game evolve?
Speaker 8 (30:32):
So the second one's a tougher one. I'll go to
the first one first. So in many towns they have
what we call friendly local gaming stores, which are places
you can find actual human beings so you can play
with in person. A lot of them are looking for
additional players for their campaigns, be more than happy to
accommodate you and whatever your bizarre interests are that you
want to add to their ongoing efforts online as well.
(30:53):
I mean, if you just want to get started, of course,
going and buying some books about this, you know, the
core source books would be a good idea. As David mentioned,
there's a major revision of them underway, like right now,
and so there's going to be new editions of this
coming out between now and I think March of next year,
that they'd be a good place to start. But also
just going to YouTube, like I said, or going to
(31:14):
Twitch and finding an interesting group of people who are
playing the game, telling stories, watching it, watch a campaign
for at least a few episodes of it, get a
sense of what it is, and I think you'll you'll
figure out pretty quick whether it's for you or not.
Speaker 4 (31:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (31:27):
Cool, And the second part, Yeah, any fantasies about what
this could become or what you would enjoy seeing another
evolution go.
Speaker 8 (31:36):
I mean, I think it's inevitable at this point that
AI is going to play a huge part in how
this game is going to evolve for the next decade, right,
And you know, I think there are a lot of
ways that AI could help make the traditional experience a
richer one, just doing the math for you and keeping
track of how many goblins you killed, things like that.
These are kinds of things that AI can do without
(31:56):
taking over the game for you. But let's face it,
like there's going to be augmented reality versions of this
that are going to have AI elements to them that
are going to be like really bizarre, and I would
love to play in those experiences. We'll have those in
twenty years, in fifty years, we'll all be little brains
in jars right like the Singularity will have happened. They'll
(32:19):
be using us as batteries like in the Matrix, you know,
and so I you know, when we're all on the Matrix,
I'm sure we'll have some amazing.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
Amazing I'll see you then Matrix.
Speaker 7 (32:29):
Wait, I can't Jean, thank you so much for coming
on and putting up with our stuff.
Speaker 6 (32:33):
And John, honestly, you know, we came into this going
I don't know what this is. You've actually made it
sound like an, if nothing else, a ton of fun
and I can see why why people would get into this.
It sounds like a really fun way to do what
I get to do for a living sometimes, which is going,
oh yeah, well what if I was this or what
if these were my circumstances.
Speaker 7 (32:52):
So to create friendships with people in a way it's
not linear we're going drinking at a bar and just
hanging out. It's actually your participating in your improving and
it's communal, you know, and and people are back again.
It's a nice thing that people get out and play together,
So thank you.
Speaker 8 (33:07):
I mean a lot of people play with their kids.
You might want to try that.
Speaker 7 (33:09):
Not doing that, To do a six hundred page book
is a major accomplishment, especially in a world when I'm
sure when you're on these shows, everyone I've seen you
on knows all of the stuff, so they would call
you and things if you got it wrong. So congratulations
on not getting it's the wrong.
Speaker 8 (33:28):
I mean, apparently the grease spell thing is fun. Thanks
so much for having me pleasure.
Speaker 5 (33:37):
Thank you?
Speaker 7 (33:47):
So David, did that warm the cockles of your heart?
Was that like a major thing? Listen does make a gift?
This is a lout of a Christmas present, right it is?
Speaker 6 (33:56):
You know here there is another belt coming your way.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
I'd lack a dragon on it, maybe some flame. One
of the things that.
Speaker 9 (34:06):
You hear most often if you're into the game is
you run into people who don't understand the game, who
like there's no winning, there's role playing that's sort of weird.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
What's a dungeon master?
Speaker 9 (34:18):
That sounds somewhat sinister and sexual in some sort of way.
So I do like to evangelize to allow people to
know that there is this game that is really more
of a framework for people to come together, to have
fun and to interact in ways that you normally couldn't.
(34:40):
And I think while there isn't per se winning, there
is feelings of accomplishment when you've taken down a dragon.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
So wait a minute, you eat pizza. I know it's
Friday night.
Speaker 7 (34:49):
If you're driving home at eleven thirty, Yeah, you get
a couple miles worth of kind of killed the dragon.
Speaker 5 (34:54):
And it was a good night. It feels real, right.
Speaker 9 (34:58):
It does feel good because you have some really sort
of cool moments. And it's here's the thing, and Jason,
I this hearkens back to I think what you were
originally saying. And this is actually how I got into it.
My son would do some stretches late at night, and
while he's in his bed and I'm doing these stretches
on him, and his sister was across the way. They
(35:19):
would play this little game much like you were saying, yeah, right, oh,
I do cast ice on you, and I froze you,
and then I'm doing and my son basically always figured
out a way to win, and she would end up
crying and it made and I had never played D
and D.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
This is how I actually got got.
Speaker 9 (35:37):
Into it, and I'm like, oh, so D and D
is a way to introduce a rule set. My spell
can do this, there's turns while also maintaining the creativity.
You if you think of something more creative than the
other guy, you might not need a spell, or you
might not need a big sword or something like that.
So it's dealing with creativity and a rule set that
(36:00):
fairness and fun.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
So there you.
Speaker 7 (36:03):
Go, Producer Laurie, Now that you've seen this and you've
heard about it, Jason, what do you what do you
guess on a scale of one to ten, how apt
Producer Laurie is to now get involved in a Dungeons
and Dragons game?
Speaker 5 (36:14):
Zero to ten? What do you think?
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Are we are there negative numbers?
Speaker 7 (36:20):
I was just gonna say, I was going to check
you with a minus seven, Lauri? Are we correct on
a scale of minus five to ten? How after you now,
if you've heard of the origins, how wonderful it is
the group commitment, how you can grow, how you can
be an orc there thing? What is your sense of
the number in your head? As far as that you'll
(36:40):
ever play this invited tonight to an introductory game.
Speaker 9 (36:45):
I don't know what to say.
Speaker 8 (36:46):
I have to say it makes no difference in any
way whatever it is I'm against.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
I was going to say something really negative, but after
hearing David talk about his children, oh yes it was,
I have to say I will never play.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
She's still at a minus twenty, but.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
She has a positive to respect for it.
Speaker 5 (37:14):
They are just listening because I know Laurie. I love Laurie.
Speaker 7 (37:16):
But I'm thinking she's going this is fascinating. I would
never get near one of these games in my entire life.
I drive around the street and avoid the people playing it. Right,
I would put a spin on this game. And all
of a sudden, you have something for society.
Speaker 6 (37:28):
So instead of making a dungeons and dragon, you make
it bridges and machines. And instead of saying, okay, you've
entered a tavern, there's a mysterious stranger with a map
in gold coins, I go, okay, you come to a ravine.
On the other side of the ravine, there is a
glowing emerald city.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
There is no bridge.
Speaker 6 (37:48):
You are you are a mathematician, you are a craftsman,
you are a dreamer.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
What do you do?
Speaker 5 (37:55):
I just nodded off.
Speaker 7 (37:56):
I didn't hear it I didn't, he said, Well, you
know what, everybody who plays the game, please thank thank
you for putting up with us.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
Happy fifty of that of ours three obvious fifty.
Speaker 6 (38:04):
Dragons and dungeons and masters and players and dark giants
and dwarves and elves and battlements and God bless you go.
Speaker 4 (38:12):
Enjoy.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Now, as another episode of Really No Really comes to
a close, I know you're wondering, what is the biggest
single game of Dungeons and Dragons ever played? Well, I'll
embark on that campaign in a moment, but first let's
thank our.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Guest to John Peterson.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
You can follow John on x where he is at
doc etis that's d O C E T I S T,
and on Facebook where he is playing at the world.
Find all pertinent links in our show notes, our little
show hangs out on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and threads at
really No Really Podcast, And of course you can share
your thoughts and feedback with us online at reallynoreally dot com.
(38:52):
Check out our full episodes on YouTube, hit that subscribe
button and take that bell so you're updated when we
release new videos and episodes.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
Which we do each Tuesday.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
So listen and follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And Now, what
was the single biggest game of D and D ever played?
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Well?
Speaker 2 (39:11):
It took place in April of twenty twenty three at
the Provo Town Center in Provo, Utah. In all, a
total of one thousand, two hundred and twenty seven players
simultaneously played a single game well seated at two hundred
individual gaming tables. Each were playing one unified game which
required dozens of dungeon masters, generals, runners.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
And of course a prints.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
It took four hours to complete the game, which is
actually pretty short by D and D standards.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Now Ray
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Really, No Really is the production of iHeartRadio and Blase
Entertainment
Hosts And Creators
Peter Tilden
Jason Alexander
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