If only we could play them all... gaming holds a real appeal, no matter the form it takes, but for my time and money D&D offers the best mix of social interaction, strategy, power-accumulation, and interactive storytelling that I would choose nine times out of ten over World of Warcraft, Everquest, and especially FFXI. It's just more fun for me to run a game where I can literally do anything, than a game where the world is more or less just a backdrop for me, the quest-giver, and the creature(s) I need to kill to complete that quest.

I should probably point out that I have been playing WoW for two years now, and other ERPGS since the days of Dragon Warrior on the NES. RPGs have always appealed to me, and always will. D&D just happens to be the best one I have every played.

The major disadvantage of playing D&D is that it's usually played in person, so you need to get 3-5 other people with jobs, families, and other hobbies all together for much of a day. It makes scheduling difficult, and explains why I get to play D&D one every two weeks if I'm lucky (my Shroud Isle campaign ran once a month at the best of times). It should speak to D&D's appeal and fun factor that despite this massive impediment people are still willing to get together to play in this age of ERPGs.

The advantages of playing D&D over an ERPGs are numerous. Let's start with the boring stuff.

D&D teaches you things. It teaches you new words, many of which are anachronisms, but which are useful nonetheless. D&D helps you read, and probably helps you write (although you could probably get by with minimal writing). You can't however, avoid doing basic math, and while adding single and double digits together isn't terribly hard, it helps keep you sharp--I find I'm often much faster at simple math than many of the people I know. If you run the game, D&D teaches you how to organize, how to step outside your comfort zone, and how to deal with conflicts. If you're into drama, D&D could give you a real outlet for simple, low-pressure, performance needs. D&D sometimes helps you meet new people, but more often it's a great way for friends to reconnect, even if only for a few hours.

You'll find that ERPGs offer few, if any, of those advantages, and even if you don't care about many of them, they're there nonetheless without being burdensome for players.

Now, the stuff most gamers care about.

D&D gives you complete control of certain elements of the game. As a player, it's your character you control. If you want to create a character that's 8-feet tall, loves turnips, hates griffins, is married, and plays a fiddle, do it. The rules support that with ease. There's never any worry that the other characters will be exactly like yours, because you have complete control. Similarly, the DM has near absolute control of everything else in the game world that isn't one of his player characters (PCs). If the DM wants the campaign to take place at the bottom of the ocean or on the Plane of Shadow, it can, and the players will learn how to survive and thrive there. If you're worried that all this control is just window-dressing, it really isn't, unless you want it to be. You want to play that fiddle to make some money on a crowded street? You can do it, and depending on how well you do you might be shoved to another part of the city or contacted by a passing noble to entertain at his upcoming party.

In combat you don't have to just swing your weapon or cast spells at the enemy. Why not prep the fight scene ahead of time with lamp oil and then light it up when the enemy arrives? Use your whip to disarm an enemy on one side of you and then turn and stab another with your sword. Commandeer the guard tower's ballista, reinforce the door, and make your last stand against the small army you noticed approaching in the darkness. Whatever you can think of, you can do in a D&D game, and a good DM will help you do it.

The point is you can make any type of game you want, which provides a fun factor that has not yet been matched by any ERPG (although they're getting there, but as tastes evolve I expect that we'll see more WoWs than Ultimas being released). In short, D&D is better because it lets you do all that awesome stuff like defeating enemies and earning experience points and levelling up and buying or earning awesome gear, but you do it however you want to do it, and the DM is there to help, hinder, and generally ensure that the world you're doing it all in breathes convincingly.

Last updated on June 16, 2008 by RPG Ike