Throughout my life I was told that I couldn't communicate well. A teacher of mine once made me rewrite an assignment over five times because it never met their standards of academic writing. As a child, this was painful, to be told repeatedly that I had no skill at communication, but the worst thing was I received no help from these instructors in gaining the skills to become a better communicator. This set the story: I was a child who would grow into an adult that could not communicate well with others. Or at least, this was the narrative that was set in front of me.
I began to see this story as a challenge. I wouldn't be the helpless child who couldn't write. I would be the person who grew and tried to conquer their weakness. Even now I don't have confidence in my communication skills, specifically in my writing, but I have decided to try and get better at it through asking for help.
This story is not quite finished, but the reasons I bring up my past is to explain why I like stories so much. The plot and ideas that come from a story are amazing. I love hearing the tales and adventures that people can tell. Stories come from so many places, you can find them in books or in movies. There are video games and art that all tell different tales. I love finding new and old stories and listening to them, finding out why someone does what they do.
One of the most amazing places to find stories is in Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). D&D is a game played by a small set of players who create a narrative within a world. It's group story telling. This is an amazing and interesting way to tell a story because it involves so many moving pieces. The story is monitored by the Game Master otherwise known as the DM/GM. They give ideas or lead the party (the players and their characters) through the world letting them create a fun narrative to role-play. But where the story is going inside one person's head is not the same place the story is going inside another’s, and therefore you must communicate well in order to come to a pleasing and satisfactory narrative for all players involved.
In my own story, I was told I was not a good communicator. But I took that as a challenge (and I was a bit of a nerd). So, when I found out a friend of mine who was deep in the D&D world was starting a new game, I leaped at the chance to join.
I thought that playing was going to be easy, I assumed that I could handle it and it would be easy. After all, it's just a game. I quickly found, however, that D&D is not easy. It takes a lot of effort and work to create a character that wants to stay in party and play with others, or to make decisions in the game as your character that you as a person might not be comfortable with. D&D also takes a lot of energy out of you. My friend and I often discuss what happened with just the other players during the game, such as how they are feeling and what could be going on in their life in order to make them act the way they did. This is as their characters and as players. This form of nonverbal communication is something that we are both learning and trying to become more competent. So much communication goes into the game, that it's not just a game, but a way of life and thinking of life to some people.
My interest in stories and how they are told has blossomed into a love for this game. D&D is a new way for me to connect to other people and a difficult but rewarding way to practice my communication skills. I have grown as a person to respect this game and many other games because they can teach us new skills and develop relationships in ways that just talking cannot.
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