10 Business Lessons I Learned From Playing D&D

Esther Schindler writes "Those hours you spent rolling dice in your youth weren't wasted according to my 10 Business Lessons I Learned from Playing Dungeons & Dragons. Playing fantasy role playing games did more than teach the rules of combat or proper behavior in a dragon's lair. D&D can instruct you in several skills that can help your career. Such as: 'One spell, used well, can be more powerful than an entire book full of spells' and 'It's better to out-smart an orc than to fight one.'" What other wisdom have you gained from your time sequestered with various RPGs?

Comments

Real Life

[sopssa]

To be honest, this seems a lot like just made to work out from D&D. These are pretty much general principles in life that apply everywhere, and hence its not a surprise that they apply in *roleplaying* games aswell.

If you take it further, the same general principles that also works in business also works with women, or for that matter, any stuff. This can be something along the lines "dont be afraid to be yourself and be convinent when saying your say, because it works a lot better". It works the same way in RPG's, real life, women, business and for that matter in everything. Its just general human philosophy.

Like said, RPG games tend to reflect real life a lot. You just take different character. That's why the stuff is pretty much the same.

Re:Real Life

[Feyshtey]

Or maybe the author was just having a little light-hearted fun for fun's sake. Kinda like when you play an RPG.

Something I learned from D&D : Just because the NPC has 10 minutes of prepared dialogue doesn't mean that the NPC actually has anything of interest to say. Maybe he's just wasting your time. And maybe he's doing it on purpose...

Re:Real Life

[2names]

I learned that you NEVER, NEVER, NEVER try to put a Portable Hole into a Bag of Holding...

Re:Real Life

[prefec2]

I would say people act braver in RPG than in real life, because most of the stuff you can do in a game is beyond your normal capabilities. And even more important: If you die you can start all over. Beside a depression that your character died, nothing of consequence happens. IRL you have to face the real consequences. If you trick your chef or a customer, this will come back to you. And all behavior patterns (protocols in certain situations) can be learned IRL even better than in RPGs. This is because RPGs are only a model of a world, which is beside some fancy features as dull as the real one, but only a model. The real thing is much more complex, and challenging, and rewarding. Think of it: You collect 1000000 of currency X in game. However, IRL using the same time to collect 100000 $/EUR/Pound would be more rewarding. And think of real relationships vs. RPG-relationships.

What I learned

[nizo]

What other wisdom have you gained from your time sequestered with various RPGs?

D&D: the more you played the less likely you were to get laid.

(Queue up the, "but I only gamed with hot vixens back in high school!" responses)

Oh and I also learned that playing D&D makes you sarcastic and bitter.

Re:What I learned

[sbeckstead]

Not getting laid makes you sarcastic and bitter, playing D&D is just a bonus.

Re:What I learned

[OctaviusIII]

Can't say I ever played with vixens (at least, none that were single), but I can say that I was seduced by a D&D playing siren.

Actually, D&D taught me how to interact with my fellow males. I'd largely forgotten in high school, and my college years were significantly richer for the extremely intelligent, down-to-earth and wise people I had around the gaming table.

Re:What I learned

[hurting now]

I also learned that playing D&D makes you sarcastic and bitter.

Really? No shit.

Re:What I learned

[Evil Shabazz]

...which is actually precisely how capitalism, the US, etc, predominantly works. All of the rules apply, unless you have enough money that you can give to the guy who makes the rules - then the rules bend as much as the money allows.

Oblig. "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" quote

[elrous0]

Well, I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage.

Pick up groups suck

[rgviza]

Always try to work with people you already know.
Playing as a team works better than being out for yourself.

Smaller does not mean less dangerous

[Clueless Moron]

Stepping on a d4 hurts a hell of a lot more than stepping on a d20.

Re:Smaller does not mean less dangerous

[omris]

D4: the caltrop of the dice world.

Not always applicable!!

[rts008]

What other wisdom have you gained from your time sequestered with various RPGs?

Always loot the corpse!

I learned all about Tedium and Red Tape

[dmomo]

In a dungeon, I just wanna pull out my Dwarf's Double Blade Axe, lop the head off a goblin and escape with the gold. At work, I just wanna go into the php file, remove the fucking ampersand, roll it out and go home. Either one however, requires sign-off and verification from multiple parties.

They'll try telling you that you "can't do that without creating a subversion branch first". Or "You can't do that without a level 6 Ring of Hurt".

Either way, you're better off just going to Home Depot, buying a real axe and running down all the goblins that stand in your way.

Everything I really needed to know re: Real Life

[Geoffrey.landis]

These are pretty much general principles in life that apply everywhere....

Sure. Just like, "Everything I really needed to know about life I learned from playing Tetris"

Re:Wisdom?

[Feyshtey]

As are assumptions. For instance, assuming that D&D is a video game.

Re:Rolling the dice

[decipher_saint]

I knew a few players who were just in it for the game mechanics and they got bored with it too. If you're playing an RPG correctly that number crunching system is merely the "how" and not the "why".

I mean, the last group of players I was playing with weren't optimizing statisticians, they were people who wanted to contribute to a great story and have some fun in the process. We had more than one session where dice weren't rolled at all, or if they were it was out of combat.

That's role playing.

Nothing new

[OrangeMonkey11]

These are all things that can be trace back to books written hundreds of years before our time. for example The Book of Five Rings and The Art of War, these two books have pretty much the blue print on problem solving. You can pretty much apply them to business, school, games, women, etc..

Re:Nothing new

[Ironica]

These are all things that can be trace back to books written hundreds of years before our time. for example The Book of Five Rings and The Art of War, these two books have pretty much the blue print on problem solving. You can pretty much apply them to business, school, games, women, etc..

So what *you* learned from D&D is, pay attention to the lore... the answer is already there.

Re:Rolling the dice

[SloppySevenths]

Much like WOW and Everquest are inefficient database clients.

Re:This list is horrible

[PotatoFarmer]

You expect us to react in a light-hearted way to a List made up by someone named Schindler? What kind of monster are you?

Real lessons from gaming.

[Animats]

1. The little people are expendable. If you have to kill or lose a few thousand orcs or zombies, no prob. It's the major characters that matter.
2. When in doubt, kill it. There are no noncombatants.
3. The purpose of life is to acquire power. Self-explanatory.
4. Having a thief around to steal from the little people is a useful asset. Grinding is for losers.
5. The most aggressive player runs things. Just like high school.

This is a losing strategy in real life, or even real war. (Roman saying: "The legion is not composed of heroes. Heroes are what the legion kills.")

Law, Chaos, Good, Evil, and Neutrality

[Krishnoid]

Alignment has worked as a good first pass on identifying the behavior of myself and coworkers. It helped me separate the axes of

• good vs. evil
• law -- e.g., bureaucrat/corporate citizen vs. disorder -- bending or violating the rules
• neutrality -- just don't make waves, I don't care, or it's not important

and gave me a starting point on 'measuring' motivations and tendencies. This in turn helped me predict behavior for various people in the workplace. If nothing else, it makes it obvious that people have motivations and tendencies along more than one axis; I then added on a 'radius' from true neutral and a 'strength/weakness' axis and it still serves me (albeit simplistically) in learning how to work with other people to get results.

If absolutely nothing else, it gives me a common language and a starting point for identifying good and evil behavior that I can use in discussions with D&D-familiar wage slaves -- otherwise it sounds weird to use the word 'evil' to describe behavior in a world of moral relativism. Being able to back it up with a clear description helps. (Read from here on for the next 210 strips for a version with pictures).

How to Barter !

[cbelt3]

Seriously. Growing up in the US suburbs, the concept of 'bartering' is foreign, and considered impolite at best, and offensive at worst, to the point where you will be banned from a shop for it. Fast forward a decade after my D&D experience and I found myself alone for half a year in a middle eastern country. And shopping in the bazaar for supplies. Almost immediately the bartering skillset I had learned playing D&D for the better part of five years raced to the forefront. While spells and armor were not available (but automatic weapons were) , I still made out just fine, and never had to roll the D20 I kept in my pocket. Yes, I still have that talisman some 30 years later, it's a useful decision making tool.

Landscape construction, of course...

[(H)elix1]

*I* know what a gazebo is.

Re:One thing I learned that is not helpful

[ais523]

You've obviously never heard of SCO.

Re:Rolling the dice

[Ironica]

Maybe Tetris was just an early attempt at cloud computing to solve the backpack problem?

Re:Rolling the dice

[Chabo]

I forget where I heard it, but someone recently said something to the effect of "Many math nerds have lost plenty of money because they saw the stock market as a simple system of cause and effect."

Re:Rolling the dice

[fishbowl]

"Other than the content background which I can get from reading novels, playing RPG's is about as exciting as moving numbers around a spreadsheet."

Because you said "reading novels" and not "writing novels", it's pretty clear why you don't get it.

However, Real Life as Real Consequence

[Anonymous Coward]

So isn't it good to ***play*** and work out what Real Life holds for you ***in the future*** rather than wait until you get there and work out the rules?

What is play for but to try out the rules of Real Life?

And as for nizo's comment later, I gained a hot (if slightly older) girlfriend at D&D. Didn't stay, but that wasn't D&D's fault.

Re:Rolling the dice

[Jesus_666]

The numbers don't simulate, they arbitrate. Essentially everyone does just sit around and tell a story; the numbers only come in once you need to know whether someone is really strong/smart/adept at pottery enough to do the task they intend to. You can, of course, decide to use every rule in the book at every opportunity... but if you don't your game is going to run much smoother.

Besides, you don't even need dice. Some systems (like World of Darkness) avoid random elements wherever possible; there a skill check just means comparing your skill value to the target number.

Or you go with completely freeform gaming... Forum RPGs tend to do this. Unfortunately they also tend to show why most gamers prefer having rules and stats around - they keep people from declaring every ridiculous action their character takes to be successful (and all attacks on them to be ineffective).