Defeat Your Demons with Dungeons & Dragons | FANDOM UNCOVERED

[Music] all over the world people are leaving their daily lives behind to enter a realm of fantasy and one weekend in LA I found myself in an event that brings that fantasy into reality my name is clacks Arthur Lana I am Penelope half the omen drawn Aleister Goldfine I haven't no half elf Cavalier red Turk onyx sorcerer half or rogue assassin wings are a little hidden right now the longest campaign I've ever done was three years an eight-year campaign I have been playing the same cleric for about 30 years now level 15 I've had a weekly game for the last 20 years I run three games a week I am a dragon flared vine speaker the once and future rule of this town but whether they're elves wizards demons or paladins the one thing that sure them all here was their passion for a game my name is Luke Gygax and my father created Dungeons & Dragons he made games cuz he'd love to play them and all his friends were gamers and so primarily what they want to do is sit down and play games with each other and enjoy the social aspect of interacting with one another in the early 1970s Gygax worked with his creative partner Dave Arneson to create the first-ever version of Dungeons & Dragons when you were growing up were you almost kind of like without even knowing it beta testing games with your dad did he play that's absolutely what we did so I'd play tested new rules for the barbarian class you know test new magic items out people would come over and play and they were he designs and stuff we worked with my dad with a weird mix of neighborhood kids to Gygax to me when I was a kid was a mystical figure the idea that there was somebody out there who had the genius to put this game together it was a revolutionary game it was a new style of game you know it wasn't linear there was no set beginning an end point D&D was really the granddaddy of them all it was the very first role-playing game what is it about Dungeons & Dragons that makes it different than other games that's a few things it's it's a series of rules that create an engine that allows anybody to tell a story it's essentially just a giant long-form improv game the agency is completely your own and it was an outlet for all of that creative energy and when I got a chance like I can make a character I can told her story that was the hook I I can give this world life we're in this room right now an imagine you hear a loud crashing boom from right over there what would you like to do I want to go investigate you're in now we're playing there are rules to learn but it's very easy to learn as you go and that's the best way in order to learn those rules I rolled some dice with the cast of heroes of the Vale a group of D&D live streamers I have my character yes I got my dice I got my d20 we're gonna find out the rest of it along the way so friends and I got some friends I have some new friends here which I'm very excited about each player creates a character with special abilities I was a new home sorcerer who could cast spells I hide behind the tree and they ready a fireball and then I say am I breaking the rules no you're not breaking the rules if any rules get broken that's a baby then there's the Dungeon Master or DM the DM narrates the story describing the world and playing the people in it you are all outside of a a large stone tower when a player wants to do something they roll the dice everyone roll Wendy 20 and we will figure out who acts first and that determines whether they succeed or fail based on the rules of the D&D in books okay all right do some math doing this the DM and the players create a story together remember that in L lecture you have let us see this day I just quickly jump on the one that he gave mercy and stab him and I was learning firsthand why people love the experience of playing this game I honestly thought it would be inaccessible why he's the wrong dice well people who mean to me but it was just instantly fun and not unlike the games of imagination that I did play as a kid no one I knew growing up played Dungeons & Dragons so all I had to go on was the games dated reputation when you were a kid playing D&D it was it cool no oh god no it was definitely nerdy I finished playing when I was a kid like most people like you know teenage years I go out on beard so you stopped playing it was just a thing that we did and I didn't know it was weird it was all kind of enmeshed in the whole heap thing I give this video games it was comic books he was you know cartoon for most of my life like oh they're just you know niche nerds sitting in basements rolling dice geeks have always had sort of places that they could go to and do this stuff Jenner it was you know not always in the public eye I remember one time we were playing in my friends basement can we ordered a pizza when the pizza guy came we actually covered up our map because we didn't even want the pizza guy to know that we were playing do you know how was the son of the guy who made the game it was still something that was kind of closeted you know even the eighties you didn't really admit like oh yeah I played Dungeons & Dragons you know if you want to go out on date with a girl one of the promise and he probably didn't advertise you're playing Dungeons & Dragons nobody really made fun of me playing it without getting punched did you always feel welcome to play D&D as a kid oh absolutely not because I was going to help Dungeons & Dragons some claim it's a simple harmless game yet suicides murders and robberies have been linked to this game this very serious newsman is describing the satanic panic surrounding D&D it started in the 80s and you had several different groups that started emerging that we're very concerned about the content of the game there are those who are fearful that the game in the hands of vulnerable kids could do horror and there is evidence that seems to support that view people were seeing and this person committed suicide or this person killed someone so looking for the reasoning behind that looking for why those things would happen they turned to this pastime that these people shared it's the rock music comic books D&D the scapegoat at the time for whatever people wanted to have something to blame all of society's ills on well it was in news reports it was religious leaders yes the typical response was well hey it involves Devils it involves demons involves magic and so it's part of the occult I told my mom about this amazing game that I had played and I got in trouble you did huge trouble is she's a she said that I was engaging in Satanism I was going to a school for a religion degree and I started trying to buy this game we had to keep it a little secret because you know some of the conservative organized religion in the region had pretty major problems with playing the game at that point they've been talking about it in church and they took my books including my deities and demigods original edition and they burnt them they actually burnt that it burnt them that is stupid Church thing and I was like come on you guys seriously it's kind of ridiculous looking back on it but people really believed that oh yeah I'm gonna play this game and then I'm going to summon something the parents were actually saw their child summon Dungeons & Dragons demons into his room before he killed himself ultimately the defense was Gary Gygax is simply saying that people are pretending this is make-believe and nobody's murdered and there's no violence there there was a movie made mazes and monsters with Tom Hanks your fate is in my hands the sworn shall ye enter alright mazes and monsters was a TV movie starring Tom Hanks that was there to warn parents about the dangers of Dungeons and Dragons and how it was all gonna lead us into devil worship and suicide mazes and monsters is a far-out game swords poison spells battles maiming killing it's all imagination is it it showed somebody playing D&D and then he went kind of nuts and then he went down in the sewers and went bananas I have spells I'm going to fly you don't have enough points I am the maze controller and I have absolute authority in this game game game JJ what am I doing here okay I remember there was this almost like forbidden fruit feel that did allow for teenagers at the time to rebel just a little bit it did actually impact sales fairly positive but even a satanic rebellion fueled sales booths can't last forever and the game's popularity waned for a time as a game that meant so much to me growing up and washing it kind of died off through the 2000s game stores that I used to love and grew up around closing left and right and it was just kind of the sad realization that this I felt like it might have been a hobby that was dying off well it's certainly you know resurgence now it's in a moon right as you very well know I mean there are a lot of factors that brought it back to the forefront those factors include the game's more accessible fifth edition the rise of geek culture in general and livestreaming it's a while to see this resurgence see this happened because some of us were like I remember when this was the thing you just kind of did with your friends in the basement and now it's this which is insane the thing that the Internet is done is sort of broken down these stigmas and these Ivy know you've got these heroes like you know Joe you've got not Mercer and all the geek sheet that's come into play right now is just destroying these preconceived notions of what it is to be a soldier this idea that if you look a certain way well you can't possibly be in the Dungeons & Dragons put together a game last year for guys who could deadlift over 400 pounds the biggest fantasy nerds on the planet who for some reason people think that guy plays thunders and Dragons as well why not this version of dnews it's the easiest to learn you just grab a piece of paper and sit down with a couple of friends hopefully that already know how to play or you can just open up the book and figure it out yourself and play and now extremes and podcasts you can actually before you play see it there were so many people who were already live streaming video games it had become so popular and nor - I'm gonna watch someone play a game I watched rivals of Waterdeep tells them to miss the 20 games with a live streaming it's really important that people see that there's so many different kinds of play back in 2008-2009 we just recorded ourselves playing Dungeons & Dragons we put that podcast out back then we didn't really have a way of finding out like how many people were listening to it or the extent to which even people enjoy it and it wasn't until a few years later that we decided to try to play the game live all the seats were taken and there were just people standing at the back that was a lot to take because it meant that this community had sort of grown up and like built up like an out of Oh out of my awareness like it was really meaningful to them and I didn't even know at one point I went on stage to play D&D with a kink like I'm on stage and there's like 4,000 people here and they are loving this and I'm cool cheering for me rolling dice and then you have like critical role critical role where a bunch of us nerdy ass voice actors sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons critical role and their fans known as critters have become a massive voice in the games community when we first started the show we thought the concept of people watching other people sit around and play D&D for 4 plus hours at a time would never work we made an appearance at New York Comic Con about a year into the show so many people were crowded in trying to watch this panel and we ended up doing a signing off-site the line of people wrapped around the block and that was the moment that we were like wait how many people are watching this it seemed like a no-brainer to take what we did around the table and turned it into and to some sort of animated project but the Kickstarter was to raise money needed to get off the ground and so we sort of set our expectations at a modest level and a fully animated half-hour special starting the original characters from our first campaign and our budget seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars is way more than any media company wanted to take a chance on we definitely didn't appreciate how far it could go oh yes I supported their Kickstarter did you support the critical role Kickstarter yes I did the Kickstarter was really the thing that went like that first morning we clicked open the browser I think six minutes before the it was supposed to start and there were already like a few thousand dollars and the thing we're like oh it's broken the number just kind of kept climbing and we were just staring at it and I was like we have to leave we have to go to work and she's like I can't leave we quickly realized that we had grossly underestimated the excitement and the passion of the critters no matter what you donated or what level you got you felt like you needed to be a part of something that special I don't think in their wildest dreams they thought that would raise eleven million dollars there isn't a step of my life but one of the major facets of all decision-making is thinking of all the people that have that have gotten us here and have come with us in this journey and making sure that we do everything to honor you know that goodwill and that's that community that built this critical role might be on the front lines but D&D diehards have been influencing Hollywood for years you'd be surprised by how many of the people who make the things that you love were shaped by dandy my whole generation was influenced by this game and I think a lot of people out there finally starting to realize that those weirdo kids that they looked at funny in high school like world we're all working in entertainment there are so many writers and directors and actors and producers working today who credit you know playing this game and in the 80s and the 90s for like teaching them the ins and outs of storytelling dan white´s who co-created Game of Thrones he was in my home game now Brad Payton who directed rampage the big show from WWE wrestling Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine James Gunn he created the guardians franchise they're all coming over to play at my house guardians of the galaxy is a D&D party there are different classes of different people thrown together in a situation and they bumble through it I'm like that is a DND party you want a fun thing the creation of the iconic adventuring party the four member of adventuring party based on the Golden Girls it's my favorite thing they're dirty perfect are in the classes one fighter wizard cleric thief that's the Golden Girls five years from now I want a Golden Girls animated if we can get the rights we can we talk about the Travis I've been done as DD of balls and gross and like course it's in this crazy booth right now how have you seen the community react are they being more welcoming are there any gatekeeper yes oh there will always be a keepers people who are trying to control the purity of the game or whatever there definitely was a culture of this was my safe space when I was trying to get away from those people and now those people are in my safe space whenever I would mention I played people would say well you don't look like some place TNT I had to lead with I've been playing for this many years I've been DMing for this many years I started a second edition I had to prove my credibility before people take me seriously and you shouldn't have to have that when I started the job it was a very public situation I saw plenty of comments about I was hired because I was a woman and they're trying to do this whole diversity thing and you know and that makes you feel like crap obviously like oh well I guess they hired me because I'm a girl oh but it's it's honestly I've gotten none of that since I since I started cranking out products and since I started becoming like I'm actually working I'm doing these things and the things that I'm making are good like though I have here I've heard nothing I'll keep all these women came to me and said thank you for running this because I was really shy I wanted to play my whole life either my brother played or my boyfriend played and they'll either let me play or and then killed my character or they just straight-up wouldn't let me play there's a lot of assumptions that know if you're a woman for some color queer for some reason they think you haven't been around and that oh this resurgence this Renaissance is what brought you so you're not really a fan of it you're not really a player or said you know what we've always been here we're not gonna leave you be mad about it but there's room at the table for literally everyone growing up with DMD and as a gay person like those two spheres have always kind of been separate but this resurgence there's this whole community of queer people who have like are the the stalwart guardians of DMV now and they're they're checking gatekeepers and they're saying don't tell a person that they can't play we want to include everybody do you think about that as you're designing that this opening up the worlds of how it can be more inclusive how it could be used in these ways we are constantly mindful of are we showing a broad enough spectrum of humanity sometimes we discover from our players oh we could do a bit better I mean even a couple years ago there was a supplement that came out that had some fairly tone-deaf representation I mean it wasn't offensive it was just a very colonial perspective and they were very responsive they're very responsive to the community our fans tell us when they love it they we could improve and then because it's an evolving gaming you have chances to just make the game better and better it was all about being included in being liked and being you know finding finding people who like the same thing as you so why would you not accept somebody who likes the same thing as you just cuz they're different since I'm newer to the game as well I thought for sure oh well if I haven't already been playing for 30 years I'm not allowed to play and then I'm through Nathan and Joe and some people that I knew the grinnin they kind of coaxed me in slowly and I realized that I was completely wrong and my preconceived notion about that and maybe I would have been 10 years ago but for right now it has been nothing but welcoming it's not surprising that people are drawn to this game what may be surprising is that for many it's become a therapeutic tool teaching social skills to children helping people in prisons and even serving as an escape for people in the military I do like us auteur so I travel all over the world same thing and adventure and I've been multiple deployments for like because people now know I'm part of the community come up to me like to go running this campaign in the middle of a war zone or you're protecting our country ting like there are days that you're it's down you don't go to a movie you're forward-deployed so it's awesome I'm sure you're playing a character but when people discuss their characters around the table they don't say do you remember one our group of characters wouldn't did this they'd say hey do you member when we did this D&D and other role-playing games allow people to create characters that are more like who they want to be and as such kind of learn what steps they can take to go that direction create someone entirely different from who they are and learn empathy and connection there's that old idiom that you can't understand somebody until you walk a mile in their shoes putting yourself in a different mindset other than your own it can really open up empathy and understanding I actually run a game at home for my son and a bunch of his friends and my son is on the spectrum and it became pretty clear to me after a few games he was very very engaged with it it definitely seemed to have something like a therapeutic payload and so then when some friends Amar's the atoms from came to grow their therapists they put together a Kickstarter critical core is specifically a version of a role-playing game designed for children with autism it's a whole curriculum as part of an adventuring storyline and the expandable aspects of it it's really really cool to do with it is there anything you think about the mechanics of the game itself I think that it's that getting into the practice of sharing this space it's sort of like passing the microphone back and forth and making sure that like the spotlight is on one person at a time it's actually very very good training for conversation in one of my homebrew groups we have a teenager who's on the autistic spectrum he gets told no so much in his life that he's doing things wrong or that he needs to settle down or be lasting we all get told some of that to some extent but I think it's all he here to see him get so excited when he would have these wild ideas but then get told yes it really was eye-opening to see that there are kids that are stuck in the hospital for months at a time and so I went and I ran an adventure for Pittsburgh Children's Hospital it's amazing watching the kids jump out of themselves and into another character they got to leave their own troubles and bodies behind I think it's like an incredible tool in that way I've seen that help friends by name of PTSD I've had it help me I had a very bad experience I was in a couple I was in a shootout and it was a fatal shooting and it was in a very public place and I couldn't really get out of that situation and to come home and play D&D with my friends like me and normal when you have something really traumatic happen to you and you can just not be you for two to four hours that's like hitting a reset button because Dini had nothing to do with this horrible thing that but that I had no control over by of control over this game and playing with my friends I do feel like Dean D can give so much to so many people and I think it's a very healthy thing because it's a very safe place I feel so passionately about Dungeons and Dragons because it filled me I went through some really intense childhood trauma I'll be very specific so my father molested me from 8:00 until 17 and so I was making a character who was strong and confident and I would defeat the monsters and really I was trying to keep him I couldn't get out of it but it gave me the willpower to like you know try to protect my brother and sister and to protect my friends and gave me that like hero complex on the inside and that little seed grew and made me become the woman I am today it's about creating new memories and doing it so often that it overtakes all the bad memories so it's literally creating good memories will heal you from all the bad memories the D&D the happiness the camaraderie the cooperation is more powerful than a fear the response was overwhelming and a lot of people that we talked to seeing them through some very dark times there is one in particular I'd like to show you if you're open to it man yeah he had a message for you oh yeah before I got back into the Andy I had a double pastime like everybody kept downgrading me kept climbing I was worthless useless I didn't know where to go with my life and I thought to myself I was just gonna have to end it all but my best friend and good bro of mine he recommended that I go see crystal ball and see what they do it started making sense and made me happy and started making me think about what I can do instead of saying I can't it says how can I changed my life and because of that I am here today I'm enjoying what we prepare myself and cosplaying is fun so if you could say something directly what would you say thank you Matt for helping me out through the thick and thin may your blade be strong and may your d20 s be powerful as ever I'm sure you I don't know oh sorry no yeah I just I can't imagine you know what that would feel like it's so hot um I never expected any of this none of us did this game has been a very important part of my getting through my difficult periods as well and so the the idea that other people have found that same connection and it it's helped them as well it's been really special I'm just humbled I think it's a it's a testament to the power of storytelling and I think it's also a testament to creating spaces without judgement and understanding that everybody is hurting everybody wants to be happy everybody's looking for somewhere to belong and looking for other people to tell them that they're loved what makes this game so special is that you have a hundred percent of the agency and none of the real-world consequences you can make yourself a hero of villain you can work through your trauma kill the monster befriend it or make it your pet or hey set off a fireball - or leave your work stress you can live a million lives and yes it's imagination but our minds don't always distinguish between what we imagine and what we live which may be why this game has actually healed so many [Music]

Channel: Fandom Entertainment

Views: 1,401,439

Keywords: screen junkies news, screenjunkies, screenjunkies news, screen junkies, dungeons and dragons, dnd, d&d beyond, dungeons and dragons documentary, history of dungeons and dragons, critical role, critical role documentary, honest trailers, honest trailer documentary, screenjunkies documentary, fandom uncovered, fandom uncovered d&d, fandom uncovered dungeons and dragons, d&d documentary, dnd stories, joe manganiello dnd, joe manganiello

Id: 9gUcx45ryT0

Length: 27min 31sec (1651 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 06 2019