Dungeons and Dragons and Empathy

One of my favorite past times in my adult life has been playing Dungeons and Dragons. As someone who was long into nerdy hobbies, I was excited to find friends in college who wanted to play. The many years of playing has provided me years of entertainment, improved my writing, and most importantly made me a more empathetic person.

Time with Friends

My first experience with DnD started in college. I don’t remember how it came up, but knowing those times it was probably while out on a run with the team. A group of three of us all decided we were going to start playing and it began. My friend Drew started as dungeon master making this interesting story that pulled in elements of our characters and I was hooked.

As time went on, we added new players, but soon began a cycle that plagued our college experience. New semesters led to different schedules shaking up the group regularly. Too long of a gap between play sessions would often led to starting from scratch, or a busy schedule led to players and DMs having to drop entirely.

With college coming to its eventual end, we were able to continue over the years, often online with rare exceptions for games in person. Whether it was a brief campaign run or just a one-shot, a full experience to be started and finished in one session, we were able to play from time to time.

Writing and World Building

Throughout the years, I’ve held both roles as player and dungeon master, the latter which the most frequent role. I enjoy both, but there’s something I love about creating the world and scenarios the players will face.

As a DM, I love the initial stages of world building. I get to define the rules of a made up world. What are the geography, history, and politics of the area? How do those interact with magic and fantasy? What roles do regular people play in this world?

I remember when I was starting, I tried to figure out how to make a good region or world map, and I found a tutorial that started with the tectonic plates of the planet below to form the land. From there you could figure out where mountains, rivers, and lakes would form. Then, what kind of terrain would develop in those areas. Each point built on the last until you could make decisions on what areas would cities develop, resources that would be fought over, and so much more. It’s absolutely one of my favorite parts of starting a new game.

Making a world is definitely part of the process, but there needs to be interesting people inhabiting it for a good game. Coming up with a player character is a great experience. It allows you to live out an imaginary set of goals, dreams, and flaws. A unique spin on this as a DM is to create countless non-player characters (NPCs) who are the people the players will interact with in the world. This process is what I think role playing games can really help make people better by playing them.

Developing Empathy

We’re often told to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes when dealing with decisions or opinions we disagree with, but I don’t think many people can really do this. A lack of empathy, even for those who may be seen as the villains of our world, is an assured way to live in a worse one.

Though DnD I’d like to believe I’ve developed a much greater abililty to empathize with others. I may still disagree with someone due to differences of experience, beliefs, or philosophical frameworks, but with empathy I can understand what those differences are.

Whether they are a sleazy merchant, a stoic guard, or an evil villain, I have to think about the decisions that these ranging people would make.

This doesn’t just go for making decisions as NPCs. Reacting to decisions my players make that seem out of left field are often cleared up in seconds when I think through why the players may decide on one thing or another. It can be frustrating to perpare certain ideas or stories to have them ignored or flipped upside down. In the case of the former, it just means that the idea wasn’t appealing enough to the characters to take risks. In the case of the latter, it’s often caused by a lack of perspective from the players and their characters.

In a recent session, I was looking forward to a trial after they’d been framed. I don’t recall the exact inspiration, but I thought it would be fun for them to have to search for clues about what really happened and present a case at court. After a lot of prep, once confronted by a guard, they fled the town! I was a bit frustrated that all my prep was out the window, but immediately had to laugh that I had so much pinned on them following the law, something none of the characters cared about in the first place.

DnD has provided me with years of entertainment, amazing moments with my friends, and a free education in empathy. I am so happy that this game, that was once a label of vicious mockery, has found itself in what I suppose is mainstream acceptance. As I hear more friends and family are interested in playing, I have hopes for a world of more interesting and empathetic people.