As a self-proclaimed geek, I have always felt shame for never playing in a game of old school Dungeons and Dragons. But in the past month, I finally had the opportunity to participate in a campaign of Dungeons and Dragons and it was so much more than I expected. Playing Dungeons and Dragons is more than just playing one time in one night because in reality a campaign is something that can last months depending on how often your team meets. I have barely participated in two sessions of playing Dungeons and Dragons and I am already hooked.

Dungeons and Dragons, DnD, is the role playing game that is responsible for every modern role playing game today, including video games. All roleplaying video games are based on the same system that DnD runs on, except it is played with a variety of dice. I grew up playing the same roleplaying games that Dungeons and Dragons has inspired so I felt that it was necessary for me to play the game that started it all.

The magic about Dungeons and Dragons is that it is entirely based on your imagination. There are no set graphics for you when you start on an adventure and it is entirely based on how you view the world or story. This might sound boring but when you are able to envision the world how you see it the investment in the game only increases. For someone like me, who has a strong imagination this is my favorite aspect.

In the campaign that I am a part of, the world has fantastical creatures as well as humans, but of course everyone in my group doesn’t play a human. My created character is a half dragon that is based in strength and has an affinity for electricity. I never expected that creating a character would be an experience that I would almost become obsessed over and I even created an entire backstory to my character.

But I’ve taken my indulgence in my character even further because while playing I’ve even started to adopt the personality and feelings of my half dragon character. I never thought that I would adopt a character in this way but becoming a half dragon has been an easy transition. Everyone in my group has made a similar assimilation into their characters so acting out the character is even more infectious.

But nothing is as addicting as the battles in Dungeons and Dragons. I’ve only participated in one battle so far but it has been one of my favorite aspects. The battle mechanics of DnD are complicated but that makes success even more satisfying. I loved experiencing how powerful my character was but realized that trying to be the hero only gets your character killed, because teamwork is the most important aspect of this game.

The difficulty of Dungeons and Dragons comes partly from the teamwork required between players. I’m relatively new to the people I’ve started playing with so our teamwork wasn’t the best. But by the end of the battle we were able to come together and win in our first battle that we were expected to lose, although we did have some good luck as our enemy received a number of bad dice rolls.

I had some idea that I would like Dungeons and Dragons but I never expected that I would love it so much that it would become my new obsession. Now I look forward to becoming half dragon every week and continuing my campaign of Dungeons and Dragons.