Hello again and welcome back to America under the Microscope. Today we have a different co-host. Instead of James, we are having Brad on the show. I'm sure some of you have listened to Brad's episode on IELTS before. So hello Brad.
Hello.
So today we're going to talk about a very very different topic. You have watched Stranger Things, right? Do you like it?
I love it.
It's one of those things that I really love it. I have to say I'm not a huge sci-fi fan, but I think the story has a lot of horror, has a lot of retro style as well. But what really attracts me is the fact that in the very beginning of the very first episode, these kids they were playing some sort of game with monsters, with you know, with knights and all that. And that looked very interesting. I've seen that game in Big-Bang Theory as well. It's called D and D?
Yeah, it's Dungeons and Dragons.
So that's what we're here to talk about because I've heard that you actually know this game very well.
I've been playing it for about thirty years.
Wow. So Dungeons and Dragons, is it just a board game?
Um, it doesn't necessarily need to have a board. You know, it depends on who you're playing with. Most of the game is done through your own imagination. You have a dungeon master and then he'll tell you the story and then you create your own story based on what you choose to do.
Sounds fantastic, but also quite complex. So first of all, let's set the background. It's a fantasy game.
Yeah, a fantasy game. There's a lot of different other versions, but primarily people focus on the fantasy genre.
And so you mentioned a dungeon master, is that like a player or that's like the organizer?
He's the person in charge of the game. He is the one who sets the story, who sets the tone of the game. Uh the players are really listening to what he describes and choosing what they do based on his story.
So he himself does not really participate, not in that way.
He doesn't participate so much as he tells the story. He might control some characters that the players can interact with, like townsfolk or like the enemy or something like that.
So he's kind of like a game developer in a sense.
Essentially yes.
Ah OK. So this is like the story teller, dungeon master. So are there any set characters, like for example, many of these board games to have like four or eight characters to choose from?
There's a lot of different variations, but you know every person chooses their own type of character and basically makes their own.
OK. And you said there doesn't have to be a board. So are there like dice?
Yes, there is … dice are really important in the game. Um dice basically is, choose you know like, your stats, ah whether or not you attack someone or different types, different aspects of the game to make it more interesting.
Is it just one dice? Like just like with six numbers.
No. It, there's four sided dice. They are more like a pyramid, a triangular pyramid, and then up to like a twenty sided dice.
Twenty sided dice? So from one to twenty.
Yes.
I've never seen that kind of dice before.
They even go up to a hundred sided dice.
How will you be able to see the numbers?
They're actually quite big.
OK. And what are the rules?
The rules are basically set by the dungeon master. There is a book and it's called the dungeon master's guide book. This kind of gives an overview of how the game should be played, but the dungeon master really decides what the rules are gonna be, what he will allow characters to do and things like that, because he's creating the story.
So the dungeon master sounds like, boss of the game.
Essentially yes.
So let's start with that. Dungeon master, as he said, makes up a story. What kind of story? Is it your typical fantasy story like there are, these warriors or knights and fighting evil, that sort of thing.
Usually the characters will be a good character, but they don't always have to be. Some of them might be more evil, but basically they just follow along with the story, so they might fight against like an evil overlord or a demon or a dragon.
Oh, it all sounds like it requires a lot of imagination and not everyone is so creative to create the entire story. Are there any story lines that they can actually follow? Like can they buy books?
Yeah. There are lots of books that will give people an overview of, you know, something they could choose to run as a campaign and or they can just you know choose a novel that they've read before and kind of use that as a basis for a story.
So any novels, like any fantasy novels.
Essentially they could take any novel and just base it of that. They could take Harry Potter for example.
I was gonna say.
More futuristic, if they didn't want to go so far as being more fantasy, they could go more like science fiction, like Star Wars.
Um so it sounds like an extremely flexible game, apart from the stories, if I remember correctly, in some of these TV shows I've watched, where people were playing Dungeon and Dragons, they had like maps and all these like little miniature monsters or knights. So are those things coming with the game when you buy it?
Everything kind of comes separately. You can buy the dungeon master's guide book, you can buy other books. Um. You can buy the dice, but then you can buy maps or you can make your maps. Some people make their own miniatures, uh especially with 3D printing these days. A lot of people are making their own. But in the past usually they would just have little pewter miniatures, little small metal miniatures and they would paint them their own self.
It really sounds like a game that you pretty much build it yourself. There's so much effort putting into it. Is it kind of like if you like playing with models, like let's say if you like playing with Lego, you can buy all these sets and you can create your own world.
Some people actually use Lego sets to play D&D, especially like the more fantasy style ones where they have like the Vikings or the castles. Some people do use those as a standing for their figures. But yeah, people who do play those often will become people who play D and D later in life.

Ah. I see. Now let's get back to the characters. You said there, it's not set characters; there are categories as I have learned. So are you always human? I'm assuming you're not always human.
No it's kind of like if you're watching the movie the Hobbit, there's the elves, there's dwarfs, there's the hobbits. A lot of times they're called Halfling. So they, you know, don't get in trouble for using the word Hobbit. But um, like you know people can choose anyone of these, or they could choose like a centaur, half human half horse creature. People can choose a lot of different types of races as they call them in the game.
OK. It sounds a lot like a lot of online games that people are playing. It's the same; it's just that you don't use purely your imagination.
A lot of those games came from people who growing up playing Dungeon and Dragons.
And they become game developers, can you imagine?
Exactly.
Great! So the booming gaming industry is probably built on people who used to play or still playing D and D. So these different races, what are the differences? I'm assuming it's like 属性不同, like attributes, they have different strength and weakness. Is that what it is?
Yeah. So there are six basic like categories of your attributes. You have your strength, your dexterity.
Dexterity?
Dexterity is like how fast you can move or if like someone throw something at you, can you dodge it.
Okay.
Constitution is basically like you know how much can you take a hit? Can you get hit really hard and not get hurt?
And like your defense.
So like if, if you're an elf, you'll have a high dexterity. But if you're a dwarf, you're going to have a high constitution.
So choosing each race obviously comes with his own pros and cons.
But you can also, you can choose your own stats. So you have like a point limit. So every stat goes anywhere from one to eighteen, eighteen being the best. And so you can put your numbers into different stats. But then also your race gets you a little bit more of a bonus to particular ones.
Ah so everyone starts with the total, the same total points, and then you just assign these points to different attributes. For those of you who play games, this shouldn't be news to you. OK. And then you get obviously years like weapons and your defense system like armors, food items.
Yeah. So you know based on, you know, what type of, you know job you have like if you're a fighter, you'd want to make sure to have a lot of weapons that you would use. If you're a mage or a wizard, then you'd wanna have items that you need to cast your spells and then to kind of make the game more realistic. You have to carry all these things. And so if you don't have a high enough strength you can't carry all these things. But you also have to be able to, you know forage for food or carry enough food to take you through the like a dungeon or something like that.
Can you like realistically in the game, can you actually die of hunger?
Depending upon how the DM plays it, the dungeon master plays it. You could die of hunger.
And if you die, you'll be out. Can you resurrect?
There're clerics or priests. And these are people who can cure people. They have the ability to resurrect people at higher levels. So if you're just starting out, chances are if you die right away, there's no way for you to become resurrected. But for higher level characters, you know, you could get resurrected.
Okay, but we've talked about all these details. I still haven't figured out what is the aim of the story. Who wins D and D?
There's not necessarily a winner. Basically the DM sets up an enemy and you're supposed to go and fight that enemy.
And that enemy is like a monster?
Could be a monster like a dragon, or it could be like an evil king.
But this is not one of the players.
It could be one of the players if the DM talks to the player and decides that you're actually going to be the bad guy. Uh it depends on how deep the DM wants to weave the story.
So it's not necessarily a competitive game. You're not necessarily competing with other players, to try to race to the finish line. It's more like just purely interactive, quite randomly interactive game.
Part of the game is you know that it's not really competitive in that sense. There's other ways that players get competitive, like for example, who can deal the most damage or who can create the most mischief. You know sometimes like, if a player is a thief for example, um, they can never hit as hard as the fighter, you know, with the，with just direct hit. But they might cause other mischief by …
Stealing your …
Stealing the fighter's weapons or something while he sleeps, you know. The thief might send messages to the dungeon master saying he's doing things. So the other people in the group don't know. And so it's part of it is competing to see who can have the most fun.
Okay. It all sounds very complex but very intriguing. So I guess we'll wrap up here, we know the basic setup of the game now. Now in the advanced episode, I'm gonna invite Brad back. We're gonna talk about more details. Can you be good or evil in this game? OK. Thanks a lot for coming to the show Brad.
Thank you.
See you next time. Bye.

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