If There's One Nerdy Interest of Mine You Should Actually Try, It's This

It's hard for me to recommend my hobbies to a lot of people. Most people don't get much dopamine out of managing an interstellar economy in Stellaris, and if you do that's probably an indicator of something. Most people don't get satisfaction out of a well-executed engine in Magic the Gathering, or the lofi-like calm I get shooting aliens in Halo.

Hell, even the F1 article I wrote probably converted a grand total of zero viewers, though I did get a few friends interested in watching the next race with me.

But if there is one thing I actually recommend you do with your friends, it's this: play a session of Dungeons and Dragons. Get some drinks. Get some snacks. Just do it once.

For those who don't know, D&D is basically playing make believe with your friends and a storyteller, with just enough rules that you can't just say you win automatically. One person runs the story (the Dungeon Master), everyone else plays a character, and you roll dice to see if the cool thing you're trying to do actually works. That's it. That's the game.

I'll get more into why it works so well in a second. But first, the story of how I found it.

The Night

Even as a pretty big nerd growing up, I never knew what D&D was. Honestly, all I knew was that characters on TV consistently called D&D nerdy, and being me, I didn't feel the need to give anyone any more ammunition. I literally used to read Wookieepedia, the Star Wars Wikipedia site, for fun as a kid.

But then one night in college changed that, and honestly, that night is the reason I wanted to write this article.

My freshman year of college I lived in a suite with three guys who were all pretty close friends from high school. At the time, if I had a top 10 list of friends, they would've all made it, with my actual roommate Dan probably being number one.

Freshman year was rough for the four of us. We all partied, met new people, had heartbreak, ridiculous activities. Typical freshman stuff. But I think we all got beaten down in different ways. Without wanting to go into the details for the other three too heavily, I felt the stress of academia coming at me full force. It was the start of a nearly four-year stretch where my only concern was my career, or my major in college. Very much not a healthy mindset.

This was pre-Covid, but I remember we all just happened to be awake at 3am. Genuinely, it was a room of two bedrooms shared by four guys, and none of us were really chatting, just couldn't sleep. I got up to the living room, saw another guy there and sat down on the couch. The room was so small that the other two heard us, realized someone else was awake, and suddenly the four of us were up, just finally letting each other know that we were going through it. A bottle was opened and passed along the four of us. No cups needed.

(Side note: all four of us are doing pretty well now. If you're in college and struggling, it works out man.)

Anyways, while we were going through it, we were also very solution-oriented people. The four of us basically ended up being either scientists or engineers. And we were like, hey, how do we spend a night and not feel like shit after?

The answer was D&D. Not that night, but soon after. We planned a session. We all made characters. One of the guys, Dino, decided to DM. We popped open a bottle of Bosnian plum brandy and a Jameson Black Barrel my dad had gotten me. And we just played.

Why It Worked

Here's the thing about D&D that I didn't expect. It doesn't feel like a structured board game. It feels like shooting the shit with your friends, except there's a loose story holding it all together and occasionally something hilarious happens that no one planned.

You inhabit a character in a fantasy setting and you roll dice for the cool things you want to try. Want to sneak past a guard? Roll for it. Want to seduce someone in a tavern? Roll for it. Want to do a backflip off a rooftop? Roll for it, and hope you don't roll a 1.

I played as a Dragonborn thief named Revan. The problem was that I constantly forgot my character was 400 pounds. So anytime I tried to do anything acrobatic, I would just end up sitting on people. And his personality reflected mine pretty accurately: constantly looking for a drink.

One of the other guys played a bard and got away with rolling a natural 20 on a seduction check. For non-D&D people, a nat 20 means you rolled the best possible result. So whatever ridiculous thing you just tried to do, it works spectacularly. The table lost it.

And that's kind of the whole pitch. You're not optimizing a strategy or memorizing a rulebook. You're just riffing with your friends, making dumb decisions with fictional characters, and laughing at the results. The storytelling gives it shape, but the fun comes from the people at the table.

It also works way better when you all have the same interests. Inside jokes land harder. References fly. Someone does something spontaneous and the whole table loses it because everyone's on the same wavelength. Honestly, D&D purists will hate me for saying this, but it's as much improv and stand-up comedy as it is a really hardcore nerdy RPG game. The rules are there to keep things moving, but the magic is just funny people bouncing off each other in a ridiculous situation.

Just Try It

Look. I'm not going to tell you D&D will change your life. I'm not going to tell you it's for everyone. But I am going to tell you it's way more accessible than you think, and it's one of the best possible ways to spend a night with friends.

Plan it. Pick a night. Have someone watch a 20-minute YouTube video on how to DM (it's genuinely not hard). Everyone else just needs to make a character, which takes maybe 15 minutes with a free online tool. Open a good bottle of wine. Set up some mood music. It's a board game night. That's all it is.

A lot happened in college. Covid, weird issues with professors, broken friendships, bad drunken nights, and occasionally good ones. But that D&D session, four guys who couldn't sleep a few nights earlier now laughing over Bosnian brandy and a 400-pound Dragonborn, was my favorite night in college.

We don't talk as often anymore. That's just how it goes. But I hope they remember that night as fondly as I do.

And if you've never played, seriously, just try it once. Worst case you have a weird night with your friends. Best case you find something that sticks.