A Talk With TED


  I found a video through the DnD subreddit while I was looking at maps and character designs. More specifically it was a TED Talk. Ethan Gilsdorf talks about life skills that you can learn from Dungeons & Dragons. It wasn't quite about racism in D&D, though it did have a section entitled Empathy and Tolerance. "You can play someone who is like yourself or you can play someone who is not like yourself. And because of the immersive narrative of the game, you and your fellow players are constantly put into situations where you're interacting with other people, and other creatures [...] and you can imagine what their predicament is, what their situation is, what their point of view is. So this is why these fantasy role-playing games are the perfect empathy training machine for the real world" (Gilsdorf, 16:52-17:23).
There was a quote that really spoke to me in this video before the section I was talking about: "Character building builds character" (Gilsdorf, 13:15). Just to me this speaks to how no matter how you play, its going to affect how you live. That's a thought I can really get behind.

Source:
Gilsdorf, Ethan. “Why Dungeons & Dragons Is Good for You (In Real Life) | Ethan Gilsdorf | TEDxPiscataquaRiver.” TEDx Talks, YouTube, 21 May 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=26&v=6PaHJqpQnyw.

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