Dungeons and Dragons: The Fun of Defining Your Own Adventure

This past Friday, playing through the Silver Linings quest for Dungeons and Dragons really illustrated why I'm coming to love tabletop gaming, and why in many ways it still surpasses many computer games for me. In Dungeons and Dragons, the choices you make with your friends have consequences that can change the entire game.

During this quest, you're clearing out a Goblin town/cave/thing of Orcs. Now, many groups, when they finally reach the rampaging and murderous Orcs who are mining out the Goblin caves for relics for an unseen master would instantly attack.

Not us. We happened to have a guy (our Fighter, so he's pretty intimidating in the first place) who could speak Orcish. Add in two wizards (myself and another) who used our Prestidigitation to give him things like demon wings, glowing fiery armor, and thunderbolts arcing across said armor, we managed to convince the Orcs to parley with us.

Not only did we successfully bargain with them (turning what should have been a 3-fight quest into a 1-fight quest) but, we managed to save 2 slaves who weren't supposed to be saveable (more just there as window dressing).

We may not have gotten all the rewards, but we managed to solve the quest in a way that was truly unique. To find another group who both reacted as we did, and had the proper make up to be able to accomplish what we managed to accomplish, would be nearly impossible.

When one is used to computer games (consoles are considered computers for this), you're usually given scripted encounters. Even in a game like Dragon Age: Origins, where you can make choices that drastically affect the story of the game, you are still limited by the programming of the game as to what kind of choices you can make.

But in a tabletop game, if you can imagine it (and hit the proper dice rolls for it) you can make it happen. You can discover things that, possibly, no one else who's ever done that particular encounter ever thought of. It makes it far more immersive, and far easier to fall into a roleplaying groove.

I think this is what keeps tabletop gaming so alive, even in this digital age.