One of my favorite X-Files episodes had a character named Blaine who said, "Well, hey, I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage."
So what are the lessons, skills, knowledge, or anything at all that you've learned from playing RPGs?
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That it's a fun game I play with my friends. Honestly, if I start learning life lessons from a game, that's when I'm taking it too seriously.
A lot about how to tell a story.
As an aspiring author that's kind of helpful.
I learned that the players do not play characters, they just play themselves...
The individual lessons I've learned are too numerous to list here, but at the very least, math. Can't play RPGs without addition and subtraction.
And, don't judge the people next you at the table by their character's actions, they're probably roleplaying.
On the subject of school subjects, I think RPGs can be a great teaching aid. In seventh grade my teacher assigned Johnny Tremain, just to give us a historical perspective for Boston during the revolution (The Simpsons was right, they really should have called that book "Johnny Deformed").
But think how The American Revolution: the RPG would grab the students attention!
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Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I learned a valuable lesson about friendship. I learned that it's easy to take games a lot more seriously than the games themselves warrant. But sometimes problems in the games can reveal problems in the friendships, so it's important to pay close attention.
I also learned that it's possible to enjoy two very different games. I spent a while preferring one particular type of tabletop over a different one. It took a sparse convention for me to realize that either game can be good or bad, depending on the Game Master!
Finally, I learned that the point of a game is to have fun. If you aren't having fun, you're doing something wrong.
Your faithful student,
Kobold Cleaver
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For the most part RPG’s have exposed me to certain aspects of human
existence I probably otherwise would not have concentrated on:
o Reading comprehension
o Mythology, History, Martial Arts
o Basic probability calculations and decision making (tactics)
o Dramatic structure (e.g. three Act play)
o Being a good host (i.e. if I’m the GM)
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Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I learned a valuable lesson about friendship. I learned that it's easy to take games a lot more seriously than the games themselves warrant. But sometimes problems in the games can reveal problems in the friendships, so it's important to pay close attention.
I also learned that it's possible to enjoy two very different games. I spent a while preferring one particular type of tabletop over a different one. It took a sparse convention for me to realize that either game can be good or bad, depending on the Game Master!
Finally, I learned that the point of a game is to have fun. If you aren't having fun, you're doing something wrong.
Your faithful student,
Kobold Cleaver
So much victory in one post.
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I actually use role-playing in more than just one different aspect. I take this game...and I do have a basic game I GM....and I also use it for home schooling my kids, at seminars where I teach a variety of different things etc. Here is what I teach in those different settings.
Home-schooling
-character development...and I don't mean making a character.
-problem solving skills
-ethics
-social and cultural concerns
-math skills
-literature, reading and fiction
-history and politics
-statistics and probability
-being a good sport and keeping a game a game
Seminars
-conflict resolution
-cooperative play
-teamwork
-leadership/following/service
-economics
-spiritual issues
-community development
This is a just some of them. I have actually spent years advocating gamer role-playing (not just role-playing RL situations) in the educational, counseling, and spiritual fields.
Having fought high level demons, I've learned that pencil-pushing middle managers threatening my job are, at worst, a minor irritant.
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What have I learned? Well, that gets as deep as it is shallow.
First off, not to take games too seriously, but as a person of faith or at least one that believes in intelligent design gaming has led me to ponder existence itself. What if we are players on a grand stage (or board if you prefer) and their is a reason and rhyme to all of this? What are we to learn? Lets say "God" is the gm, what is the purpose of the AP that is our lives?
There are many aspects of gaming that parallel the real world.
Probably the most vital thing I have gleaned from gaming is that I have learned alot about myself and who I am. By playing different characters throughout various campaigns, I have been able to tap 'aspects" of myself. It is sort of like a controlled schizophrenia (or more accurately, multiple personality disorder) in a safe, secure environment. I can do things in a game I would never do in RL, and then ponder the weight of said actions if they were done in the real world.
And then theres just having fun and being silly. Theres just all the fond memories of staying up way too late, drinking way too much soda, resounding goans at all the terrible (and I mean TERRIBLE) puns
and just looking around the game table at 1 or 2 am and being thankful you have people in your life who understand you. (at least a little bit)
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I learned what a dais is. Oh, and a gazebo.
Ahahaha, gazebo! I love that story.
Similarly, a ziggurat.
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Lol! Yes, gaming and comics definitely added to my vocabulary. Nothing like beating the pants off your parents at Scrabble when your are only 8 or 9 years old!
Yes, the D&D Basic rulebook taught me a lot of words as a child, including dexterity, charisma, melee, morale, and scenario.
I must confess that even as an adult, I learned a few words from 3E, such as prestidigitation (although I later realized that I had heard the word before) and demesne.
A few more words I learned from the old D&D Basic Set come to mind: requisite and initiative.
And more recently, when I taught my son, who was 5 years old at the time, to play Basic D&D, he also learned a lot of words, some of which (such as dexterity and initiative) he incorporated into his conversations on other subjects.
I also think that Mayfair's DC Heroes RPG may have helped me to understand something of the nature of exponential functions.
Lots of things: basic math skills, spelling and vocabulary, a bit of copyright law, and of course how to lose my mind or make others lose theirs over something as trivial as a D20. But most of all...social confidence.
I know that sounds wierd when you think the stereotype of our people is being awkward teens in a basement, but recently I was handed a last minute assignment by my boss: train a bunch of sales reps on our contract processes - you have one day to prepare, and it has to grab their attention.
I thought if I can get a bunch of random strangers at a games store not only buy that I'm a thirteen year old girl and that they need me to go rescue my dad without feeling a bit of stagefright then there's no need to get bent out of shape over a bunch of folks I'll never see again.
FYI; the meeting went VERY well and there were no TPK's.
Regarding the vocabulary posts, I didn't learn a great deal from the 1e text written by Gygax, but I loved how he worded EVERYthing in those books. From 2e onward they began to sound more and more like tech manuals.
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That it's a fun game I play with my friends. Honestly, if I start learning life lessons from a game, that's when I'm taking it too seriously.
See, that's the thing about life lessons.
You learn them from living.
Don't begrudge a lesson just because it comes from a game. Games are important teaching tools.
...the meeting went VERY well and there were no TPK's.:) Only individual deaths, huh?
Quote related, in a way -
I learned not to take life too seriously, you really can be both a responsible and reliable adult and never stop being a kid.
Here's another related quote, taken from my favorite TV show: There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes.
(I vaguely recall a story - I think in a letter to "Dungeon" magazine - in which someone set D&D aside when he felt that he had outgrown it. He picked the game up again when he outgrew the need to feel that he had outgrown things.)
-Honestly I learned that just because a person throws dice at a table, he can still be as shallow, spiteful, petty, and evil as a man on a motorcycle with gang tattoos. He just shows it in different ways. Before gaming with real people I though 'gamers' were all a discriminated against minority, an oppressed group. Now I know better.
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By playing different characters throughout various campaigns, I have been able to tap 'aspects" of myself. It is sort of like a controlled schizophrenia (or more accurately, multiple personality disorder) in a safe, secure environment.
OMG, yes.
Definitely.I'm learning patience and wisdom from a fighter I'm playing on Fridays, courage beyond sanity (because of love) from a rogue I used to play on Fridays, and I'm learning how messed up people can be by running Saturday game... :D