Lessons for life, leadership, and more from learning to play D&D with your coworkers.
Yancey Strickler, the CEO of Kickstarter, has apparently been not just enjoying, but learning from playing in office games of Dungeons & Dragons with his employees. Among the lessons: Know who you are and Know what you want. Both of those are really reasonable life choices, and a major component of any good roleplaying game – but they’re the kind of introspection that a good session inspires. The hysterical one is definitely “Parlay first, fight second.” Ah, yes, the legendary deadliness of low level D&D emerges. To be fair, I imagine the chances of succeeding with your startup are a lot like entering a dungeon as a first level Thief. Strickler says he wasn’t someone who had ever played D&D before, but as he played more and more he enjoyed what was happening, then, as he says “Over time the game has become much more.”
Strickler also dropped some details about their group’s choices and campaign, like the decision to become Chaotic and slay “the Master, the root of evil in our world.” In essence, some things never change: All first time D&D players become bad guys and usurp the throne of evil. The particular flavor of D&D being run looks like the 1981 Red Box printing of D&D, a decidedly old school choice, and was run by Kickstarter’s Games Specialist Luke Crane, the creator of the Burning Wheel and Mouse Guard roleplaying games.
I’m just glad he didn’t decide to tell us all about his character.
You can read the full article over at Yancey Strickler’s Medium
