My character sits in a limo across from a giant praying mantis.
Many of the “plibbles” covering my character’s body from head to toe—little purple tubes with suction on the ends—hold tasty chocolate treats, which the praying mantis eyes, hungrily.
I point accusingly at a small, quivering yellow mass on the limo seat next to us and say, “I don’t think Freddie is here for the right reasons.”
…I am playing “Space Bachelorette” with my friends, and my character just pulled a dirty trick.
____
Only six months prior, I, and four of my friends, first started exploring the collaborative storytelling world of Dungeons and Dragons together, and we were already in love.
What began as a way to socialize during the pandemic quickly became a large part of our lives, and we were astounded by not just the joy and creative fulfillment that playing it brought us, but also by the skills that we cultivated and strengthened, both within the game and outside of it: critical thinking, teamwork and leadership, adaptability, and decision-making in high-stress environments.
For a game firmly rooted in fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons has a remarkable ability to prepare you for the real world.
Whether you’re a writer, operations manager, marketing executive, podcast host, television producer, kindergarten teacher, or CEO of a Fortune 500 company, playing Dungeons and Dragons will help you build the skills you need to succeed in your career.
Several celebrities and industry leaders have publicly praised Dungeons and Dragons’ influence in their lives, including D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, the showrunners of Game of Thrones, describe their backgrounds playing Dungeons and Dragons as the perfect introductions to their future careers.
According to D.B. Weiss, Dungeons and Dragons “was my first experience with world-building… You’d see hundreds of ‘what if’ scenarios play out in real time as players attempted to achieve their various goals.”
For David Benioff, playing Dungeons and Dragons as a teenager taught him about pacing and keeping audiences engaged: ““I had a regular game with the Feinberg brothers… The whole campaign must have lasted four years… If the scenarios didn’t work and the Feinbergs got bored, I’d need to recalibrate.”
So, What Is Dungeons and Dragons?
Dungeons and Dragons is a collaborative storytelling game that combines roleplaying, luck, skill, and creative problem-solving.
Each player creates or chooses a character with varying strengths, weaknesses, and abilities, and fully embodies this character as they are led through an imaginative world, filled with enemies, quests, and obstacles.
A dice-based system of chance determines how successful each characters’ actions, decisions, and combat moves are.
What happens in this world--the characters you meet, the enemies you face, and the lands you travel--are up to the discretion of the Game Master (or Dungeon Master) who narrates what the players see, hear, and experience, determines what happens as a result of the characters’ actions and decisions, and plays every Non-Player Character (NPC) that the party comes across.
Together, you get to create and live a unique story—all while cultivating important life skills that will help you in your future (or current) career.
Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving
Dungeons and Dragons is a never-ending stream of overcoming obstacles.
Whether you’re fighting a skeleton horde, deceiving a dragon queen into believing that you and your companions would make a horrible meal, building a trap out of orc hair, twigs, and that weird gooey stuff you found in a glowing cave, convincing a town mayor to let you out of jail, or just flirting your way out of a bar tab, DnD requires you to assess and adapt to a variety of situations, and creatively problem-solve.
In her 2019 article, titled “How Dungeons and Dragons made me a better critical thinker, problem solver, and leader,” Stylist UK’s digital editor-at-large, Kayleigh Dray, describes the fast-paced, critical-thinking environment of Dungeons and Dragons: “In D&D, you become both the chess player and the chess piece as you’re faced with problem after problem, all just barely solvable. Which means that, as each event of your game unfolds, you will be forced to think on your feet and come up with the answers you need… fast.”
Teamwork and Leadership
Playing Dungeons and Dragons is an accelerated exercise in teamwork and leadership.
As a party member, the decisions you make as an individual affect your party as a whole, and influence the story you are all telling together. You will spend a lot of time listening to and incorporating others’ ideas, stepping back to let others have their time in the spotlight, and compromising for the good of everyone involved.
As a game master, you are in charge of helping everyone navigate through the world you have created, adapting to the players’ ideas, suggestions, and decisions, making large choices that impact players’ experiences and characters’ futures, and seamlessly guiding party members towards desired outcomes.
Contrary to its traditional reputation of attracting ‘loners with few social skills,’ Dungeons and Dragons helps you play well with others.
Glenn Kelman, the CEO of Redfin, credits his experience playing Dungeons and Dragons as “the first lesson in leadership I ever got,” and—even as a successful CEO—is proud enough of his in-game accomplishments to joke: “I thought about editing my LinkedIn in profile to say CEO of Redfin, dungeon master, queen of the Demonweb Pits.”
Rand Fishkin, co-founder of the software companies Moz and SparkToro, draws a direct connection between the teamwork and leadership aspects of playing Dungeons and Dragons, and the process of building a company, saying:
“D&D absolutely helps to benefit my career and work life. There are loads of folks who talk about how the game benefits one’s ability to interact positively, constructively, and creatively with others.
“I have played the role of the dungeon master, but it’s difficult. You have to prepare a lot for the games, and then be extremely good at modifying stories and dealing with the creative ideas players come up with on the fly (without making it seem like you’re ever flustered). That is probably some of the best experience I gain that actually applies to the world of company building – creating a world and dealing with the actions of players isn’t dissimilar from creating a company and dealing with the actions of customers, employees, press, etc. as they interact and change your ideas (hopefully for the better).”
Adaptability
Dungeons and Dragons is an unpredictable game, by design; it is rare for events to play out the way you expected them to.
A bad dice roll means that you accidentally destroy the only bridge into town? Time to deal with the consequences. The Goblin King notices you secretly winking at his son? Say goodbye to your peace agreement.
That side-character that you as the Game Master panic-named “Bloog” and was only supposed to exist for the duration of a single conversation? He got ‘adopted’ by your players, has now been with the party for two months, and is currently teaching your rogue how to crochet.
Remember Freddie, the quivering yellow mass mentioned in my intro? He didn’t exist when we first started our campaign. Originally intended as a funny one-liner, he quickly grew into a fully-fledged character, played by whomever wanted to embody or interact with him in the moment—like a hot potato of creation.
By the time my character was sitting across from him in a limo, he had become the most eligible love interest in “Space Bachelorette,” and my character’s main competition.
Improvisation is an essential part of gameplay, and the adaptability it inspires is an important professional skill.
For Pendleton Ward, creator of the television show Adventure Time, the adaptability of playing Dungeons and Dragons is both mirrored and directly pulled from, in his creative process:
"When I'm writing an episode it feels like I'm playing D&D with the characters...our stories primarily come from either a funny story someone tells in the writers room—or from Pat McHale (writer and former director of creativity) and me wanting to play Dungeons & Dragons, but we can't because we're at work so we end up writing a story that feels like we're playing D&D… Stories that I create for playing D&D usually enter their way into the show. One episode where Jake gets a magical woman's breastplate is based on a game of D&D we played where Pat McHale scored some Valkyrie armor that granted him flight ability.”
Decision-Making in High-Stress Environments
Things happen quickly in Dungeons and Dragons: split-second decisions can have devastating consequences, entire avenues of gameplay can be closed off in an instant, and characters can have their eyes closed forever as a result of poor luck or a bad decision.
Whether you’re in combat, parleying, or just trying to flirt your way out of a bar tab, there is an overhanging sense of impending disaster and possible doom that you have to operate through, despite the knowledge that if you say or do the wrong thing, you may change the landscape of the game forever.
Mike Drucker, a comedy writer for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, asserts that this high-stakes environment is the reason why Dungeons and Dragons tends to be a magnet for comics “because you have to think on your feet and commit.”
Stylist UK’s digital editor-at-large, Kayleigh Dray, describes this process as “D&D [offering] you a safe space in which to examine the way you respond to stressful situations – and that’s putting it lightly.”
Playing Dungeons and Dragons gives you lots of experience in making decisions while under pressure and duress; eventually, you become more comfortable doing so—both in and out of the game.
So, Why is Playing Dungeons and Dragons So Good for Your Career?
Dungeons and Dragons provides a safe and consequence-free way to practice and build important professional skills within a high-stakes environment, all while being fun.
I personally have experienced an increased ease accessing creativity and inspiration in my storytelling ever since playing Dungeons and Dragons. Exercising the instant-creation part of my brain, collaborating with a team on a story we are all excited about bringing into the world, and needing to make quick decisions that have potentially-permanent effects on your teammates and the world your characters inhabit, are all skills that have all bled over into my professional life. Things just feel easier. More…natural.
As MookyChick founder Magda Knight says: “There’s something about D&D that makes everyone shine.”
Dungeons and Dragons allows you to build legends, inspire future generations, and permanently change the landscape that you have invented…all while positively impacting your real life.
In the wise words of Dan Harmon, creator of the television shows Community and Rick and Morty:
“The most valuable thing about [Dungeons and Dragons] is its incentivization of collaborative, spontaneous storytelling. It really blurs the lines between reality and fantasy in your mind… if we can’t make our own happiness, where’s it going to come from? I just like the invitation to create your own world.”