4 Reasons To Get Your Kids to Play Dungeons and Dragons
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Remember when people said Dungeons & Dragons were a gateway drug into satanism and juvenile delinquency?
Well, they were half-right; D&D is a gateway drug. Only, it’s a gateway drug into things all parents should wish for their kids.
I present; four things Dungeons and Dragons can give a child.
And then there are all the books that take place within the D&D setting itself, of which my personal favorite are the first three books in the Drizzt Do’Urden series.
From there, anything that even remotely touches on fantasy. A love of books, for life, comes with the first night of playing D&D. It’s a package deal.
Picture the first scene from Netflix’s recent hit show Stranger Things, where the friends are playing D&D. That is actually pretty close to what it’s like playing.
You meet new people and make friends, who share an interest in a thing you don’t generally talk about in polite society. But you know.
You are part of a club.
There is no board game that comes close to the fun you can have playing Dungeons and Dragons.
So a night of playing involves quite a bit of quick arithmetic and statistics, as part of playing a fun game with friends.
And you get good at it pretty fast.
1. A life-long love of books
Oh yes. The game itself is massively fun, and when you can’t play you turn to the next-best thing; books that take place in the same world. For starters, there is no playing D&D if you haven’t read The Lord of the Rings. And then you have a choice of hundreds of epic fantasies; The Wheel of Time series, The Game of Thrones books, The Shannara Chronicles, The Earthsea books.
And then there are all the books that take place within the D&D setting itself, of which my personal favorite are the first three books in the Drizzt Do’Urden series.
From there, anything that even remotely touches on fantasy. A love of books, for life, comes with the first night of playing D&D. It’s a package deal.
2. Friends for life
Picture the first scene from Netflix’s recent hit show Stranger Things, where the friends are playing D&D. That is actually pretty close to what it’s like playing.
You meet new people and make friends, who share an interest in a thing you don’t generally talk about in polite society. But you know.
You are part of a club.
There is no board game that comes close to the fun you can have playing Dungeons and Dragons.
3. A reason to learn math
Playing Dungeons and Dragons (or any other role-playing game) involves creating and playing characters who have certain abilities. These abilities are reflected in scores running from 0 to 20. Then you may need to calculate a bonus from your ability score when added to the result of a eight-sided dice thrown and the probability that you will achieve what you are trying to do weighed against taking another approach.
So a night of playing involves quite a bit of quick arithmetic and statistics, as part of playing a fun game with friends.
And you get good at it pretty fast.
