Welcome back to America under the microscope, this is the advanced episode for Dungeons and Dragons.
Hi Brad, I can't wait to get more into this topic. Last time you were explaining all these basic rules, the basic game setup, I can't wait to play for real. So say I'm choosing my character now, choosing my race,but apart from the races, can I also choose to be good or bad, or do I have to be good and fight evil?
Basically, you choose your alignment and you choose something like lawful, neutral or chaotic. If you're lawful, that means you're following all the laws around the land. If you're neutral, you're kind of in the middle no matter what. You might do something lawful, but you might do something that's not so good;or if you're chaotic, you're always doing something that's against the law.
If you choose chaotic, does that mean you cannot follow any rules?
You don't have to, you can follow the rules that you choose. There's other parts to it, like being good or evil, you could be chaotic good. So primarily you do good things, but you don't really ever follow the law to …
Some like a good maverick, that sort of thing.
Exactly. They're different parts like you can be a true neutral. It's really hard to play at true neutral because …
It also sounds really boring.
It is in a sense because you always kind of have to be in the middle. If the good guys are winning, you kinda have to do something to help the bad guy. But if the bad guys are winning, you gotta do something to help the good guys. You gotta kinda like stay somewhere in the middle. But aside from just choosing an alignment, you have to also create your character's background, your history. You have to kind of have a reason as to why your character is who it is.
So this is completely open ended, it's completely free, isn't it? I mean, for example, if I want my character to have a limp, if I want my character to have, like three heads, I can.
The DM might not let you have three heads, but if you wanted to have a limp, that would be more than acceptable. So like basically you choose a character and you come up with the different quirks. For example, you have a limp or something like that. You can do that. And the DM just tries to work that into the game. Like your character might be a drunk. And so you're always trying to go to the bar to get drunk whenever you're in a city.
Or I can be like someone who goes crazy berserk whenever she gets drunk.
Yeah, there are character classes called berserkers.
Berserkers. Yeah I Actually know that, berserker is actually from history. So you said a lot of these are fantacy, but do they also have like historical characters?
Historical characters can be in there as long as the DM wants them to be in there. The DM might have like a story that's based on historical fact, but might involve magic and things like that as well.
So I mean, technically you can work any movies or story lines into it. For example, when you're playing, you can work, let's say Game of Thrones.
You could be in the Game of Thrones or you could be in the game Titanic. There really doesn't have to be a limit. That's whatever the DM chooses to be.
I think that's probably the whole charm, the whole appeal of D&D because you really have no limitations, or pretty much no limitations. OK. So let's talk about magic in this. You have magical weapons, right? Do you also have, like I grew up playing a lot of role play, like RPG games, so do you also have like potions that you can drink and take? And then you get stronger or you can cost like stronger attacks?
Yeah, they can make you stronger. They can make you faster, they can make you invisible, they can heal you. So you have lots of different items in the game, like belts that might make you stronger, or an item that make you more difficult to hit or make it so that only magical items themselves could hit you.
But how can you get these items? I mean it's not like a real RPG game in that way, you can’t just walk around and get stuff. So that is still ultimately decided by the dungeon master if he or she wants to give you.
So like, basically, you could say that when you create your character, you could say your character's goal in life is to find a ring of invisibility. So DM might choose to build that into the game or he might just choose to ignore it and you just never find one.
I do have one problem with the whole choosing good or evil. So I understand the whole target is for example, you're working with others or you're on a quest to kill some sort of demon, monster, dragons. But what if you are already evil? Then what is the point in this?
You might be overthrowing the king and trying to be king yourself.
So you can still kill the evil, the monsters because you are bigger and stronger monster.
Yeah. Like being evil doesn't mean you can't defeat another evil monster. You might wanting to get a really strong sword that a dragon is holding. And you might go in to fight the dragon, to get that weapon or something like that.
So that's about some of the details of the game. I imagine that this is a whole industry around it,assuming.I've done a little bit research. So they are like arcade games, there are movies, there are multiple books about it. So how big is this whole industry? How many like paraphernalias are there?
So if you were to look at like a library of books that they have, there's probably a few hundred books and those are just for game play, not like the stories. Like they have the basic three books, which are the dungeon master’s guide, the player’s handbook and the monster’s manual. But then on top of that, they'll have manuals for elves in general. And then they'll have manuals for each of the different types of elves, like the dark elves, the wood elves, the high elves.
Who writes these books? I'm assuming it's just fanatics of the game.
Mostly yes. There's the original guys who created the game. They came up with a lot of that, but then there's a lot of people who add on to it. There's the main company, TSR, that prints the D&D books. And then there's people on the side who make up their own things and try to put them out into publication.
Like fan fiction.
Essentially yes, fan fiction.
I do have a question though when it comes to this. So the game was created firstly in the seventies?
I think it was around the seventies.
But you could see it in a lot of these TVs or movies when they reference D&D. When you see guys playing D&D, you always have that stereotype of them being nerds like they're socially awkward,they don't really have friends. They just have like a couple of small group. Is there like a social stigma like people are hearing you play D&D, so you must be one of those that just only into games, not having a real life.

In the eighties and nineties, the social stigma against dungeons and dragons was quite high, like if someone saw you carrying Dungeons and Dragons book, they might yell at you or something like that.
Why?
Because it's more of a religious issue like people who are …
Because there are demons in it.
You're fighting, even though you're fighting with demons, you're, they still see it as demon worship because you're, the whole point of the game is to like see all these magical creatures and use magic and using magic as bad in the eyes of the religious folk. But like since the year 2000, it's become more mainstream and a lot of the cool jocks might even play it a little bit even Vin Diesel, if you've watched any of the Fast and the Furious movies, he is someone who's come out as being a D&D player.
And I imagine a lot of people in IT in-tech, they probably are really fanatic D&D or maybe I'm just stereotyping.
That is quite a bit stereotype, but I would assume that most of them probably are.
I mean, you usually into tech and all that. In American English, you have the word nerds and you have to work like geek. So the difference is just tech, isn't it?
Essentially when people hear those words, a lot of people will attach a similar type of vocabulary to both of them. But when you get down to the technicalities of it, there are quite a bit different. Like a nerd is more tacky, whereas like a geek is more fanatical about things.
But that's the whole thing. I mean nowadays I think how to use these two words have changed a bit. For example, I often tell people that in some aspects I'm a bit of a nerd. That's not really to say that I am always socially awkward. It just means perhaps I have specific interests. So would you say that those words are more acceptable now? They're not like huge insults.
They're definitely more acceptable except for in certain circumstances, like if working in a company or something like that and your boss is really a big jock kind of guy, then you wouldn't want them throwing that word around towards you. But like amongst your friends and things like that, people use those words to the about themselves all the time.
When you're saying jock, that's the other stereotype, that's basically like guys who are like manly men.
Like sports stars. So if you look at like sales, in general, it is very stereotypical. But when you look at sales, those types of people are more like the jocks, they're the goal- getters, they go out and do things whereas the IT people are working behind the scenes and they're more like they're in their fantasy world, kind of thing. That's kind of what you see in the world. But if you're working with people who are jocks, you definitely wouldn't want them to be using that word towards you because that, kind of, is a way of them showing that you're not part of the group.
But if among people who are sort of like in the geek crowds, that's kind of OK.
It's a badge of honor, in that case.
I see, now you geek culture, it's quite popular. We are gonna finish off with a little more discussion of the game. D&D obviously is a big game like a central more than a game, almost like an idea, concept and ocean. It provides endless possibilities. And it inspired a lot of games, a lot of movies, a lot of things in this genre. But are there any similar games?
There are several different games. One of the biggest ones is Cyber Punk recently.
Isn't that a style choice, a cyber punk?
Yes. It can be a style choice. And it's also a video game that's coming out recently. They've had several games throughout the years, but …
So it's a whole sub cultural …
But like cyber punk, this is more about like the future and making technology. But also it's part of like making technology part of you and becoming part of robot or cyborg. But then there's also other games like Gurps and Rifts. And Gurps is kind of like an in between. It's not all about tech or not all about magic. It's you're kind of in …
Mishmash, monsters and cyborg.
It's more of a very generic type game. It's one of the ones that was cheaper. So if you got into it, you didn't have to buy so many books. The books were a little bit more accessible. Whereas with D&D, every single book you had to buy, if you wanted to do something. You had to buy it. Otherwise the dungeon master will be like, you can't do that.
So basically, it’s like, let's say the cheaper version, like more the starter kit for D&D.
That’s it. The last one would be Rifts. And this one is, it has a lot more structure. And it's not quite as large as D&D as far as books go, but it has a lot more game play than Gurps does. It's got a lot more intrigue and a little bit more interest as far as like types of different characters you can make.
And are there any similar games that are more based on the specific movie? Because as far as I can see, dungeon dragons, they're not based on one particular book. They're based on all sorts of fantasy books in that genre. But are there any specific things about Star Wars? Or like Harry Potter?
They definitely, they have games that are based on Star Wars. They hit like the whole star wars myths and put it into a game format where you can be a Jedi or you could be a Rogue like Han Solo or something like that. And they also have games that make things more like Harry Potter where it's more a modern day fantasy representation of dungeon and dragons.
Fantastic. OK. So I think that what we have time for today. If you are a fellow D&D player, if you have ever played those kind of games at online, on your computer or in real life, like offline, share with us your comments in the comment section and I can't wait to play D&D for the first time. So let's schedule a date.
Alright.
Alright. Thank you Brad for coming to the show. We'll see you next time.
See you.
Bye.

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