10 Business Lessons I Learned From Playing D&D 257
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?
Re:Real Life (Score:4, Interesting)
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:I learned this one (Score:3, Interesting)
It was a hard lesson, but I realized, if I am focused on making money and running a business, I make more money that when I'm focused on killing orcs and playing games. Seriously.
But are you having more fun?
If so, then carry on.
If not, then why are you doing it? If making more money isn't making you happier, then you are wasting your time.
Re:Rolling the dice (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Law, Chaos, Good, Evil, and Neutrality (Score:4, Interesting)
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 [giantitp.com] on for the next 210 strips for a version with pictures).
Re:I learned this one (Score:2, Interesting)
How to Barter ! (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:What I learned (Score:5, Interesting)
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:let's see... (Score:3, Interesting)
The first two apply to XML:
"XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, use more."
CHA is the only stat that matters in real life.
Paranoia and CoC unfortunately... (Score:3, Interesting)
... were my group's main games - so we learnt all about being an expendable clone (gives you the right attitude when working in an consultancy firm), living (and dying) at the inexplicable whim of the Computer (got me used to designing and developing big-iron ERP software) or power crazed Ultra Violets (helped me understand the motives of consultancy managers - i.e. they don't have motives, they are actually mad with power and fresh coffee).
We also learnt a lot about unspeakable horror (which has helped me cope with the inevitable fallout when what a customer originally told you they want turns out to be something so wildly different and pointless that it makes grown men cry), inevitable loss of sanity (which usually happens when I find out what BAs and developers are actually doing), strange incantations that will raise you-know-who from his icy palace in the North Pole (I use a similar technique to get senior management to tell BAs and developers off for whatever they were doing) and all manner of spells and chants to excise minor minions of you-know-who in return for a minor loss of sanity (which I use to rid clients of big-5 leeches in return for never getting work from them again).
So yeah, I learnt a lot.
Also, I have nightmares (huge insect-like creatures with flashing beacons for heads, floating drums with tentacles, Thor, people dressed up in coloured overalls waving guns in my direction, a big eye in my PC monitor, and of course, a really weird dream where I take over a library by producing a small card voucher).