There is really something to be said for fantasy. Most kids go through a phase of wanting to sail the high seas, lord over their own castles and kingdoms, use magic, or any of the hundreds of other unreachable but still fun dreams that many of us take to as children. Yet it is when we reach school age that somehow this becomes weird, somehow these innocent dreams become childish and a waste of our time. They become laughable, the source of teasing and hate from others.
I, like so many others, went through the various phases, one of the most popular of which was being a knight. I dreamed of carrying my own sword, dealing justice as I saw fit through my blade, doing all the things a knight usually does. And then, as children do, I grew up and thought that dream sadly lost.
In high school, I played D&D, a tabletop game in which I played an elf. And it was while playing this role-playing game that I learned of the true value of an imagination, the true power of fantasy, and the undeniable art of friendship and comradery. It is with a set of dice that I created a character and lived in a world where spells were real, swords sharp, consequences undeniable, and decisions final. A world where the fantastic and the weird lurked around every corner, and where laughter plagued the party just as often as hostile enemies. And through it all, I learned something. I learned that no matter what people say, I am a nerd, someone who loves to leave this world for a new one, and someone who doesn't take shame in that as society seems to think I should.
This game taught me about so many things, the first of which was to be wise in your character creation. Set up who you want to be, and stick to it. For me, I was an elf, proficient in talking to other characters and using magic, not so good at hand to hand combat, but able to talk the party out of all manner of dangerous situations. For me in real life, it's a journalist, able to put ideas to words and relate to the world around me. In Dungeons and Dragons, the world revolves around numbers, dice rolls determine your stats, such as strength, charisma, intelligence, dexterity, and others. In life, you shape your stats according to what you feel you need and you grow those stats with time. Leveling up means you've had enough experience to move up in the world, something that happens in our world as it does in that of fantasy.
I then learned about the true value and meaning of trust, the fact that you need to be able to rely without a doubt on the rest of your party to do their parts, doing what it is they can do to fill a certain role in your world and that you need to do yours as well. Every person has high stats, and every person has low ones, we need to complement each other, work together, solve problems, and it is only then that we can truly succeed.
A final lesson I took from my time at the table was that of not letting imagination leave as your childhood does. No matter who you are, worlds are just beyond your real existence, worlds that may seem so far from our own, but are really just out of reach. Reaching those worlds is not the point, living them is. By suspending reality for a few hours, a week, I was able to vent frustrations, make friends, work with my party to get through some tough times, and it was all non-visual. No screens took us to shining oceans and great forests. No controllers guided our swords and feet as we fought those against us. No social media bragged of our victories or cried for our defeats. We did this all from an iPad of text and our own heads, and that is really what matters. That feeling of wishing to be a knight, that dream, was able to live on in a meaningful way, and that is the power that fantasy grants us, the power to create, live, and thrive in worlds well past the one we rely inhabit.
Taking all of these lessons, I roll dice no more, but carry them still as a reminder of the times I spent over pizza with close friend, slaying dragons and wandering endless caverns, talking our way out of capture and fighting for our lives, all while sitting in a flat backed chair on a lounge floor of a dormitory, never once seeing this world with our own eyes, but rather looking upon it with our imaginations.