STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Did you know this? Dungeons and Dragons is 50. The first edition came out in 1974. When I was growing up, I knew kids who played, and decades later, one of my kids started playing and explained to me it's a kind of role-playing game. Most of the action takes place in your head as players roll dice to determine the next moment in a story that may involve mythical creatures or daring rescues.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
And, you know, maybe this won't be surprising to you if you play, but it was surprising to me because when we asked NPR listeners about their passion for the game, I have to tell you, a lot of the responses were remarkably poignant. Michael McKenna says D&D quests helped his transgender son Julius.
MICHAEL MCKENNA: Being a kid dealing with being bullied and having somewhere safe to go from that, which is what D&D provided. But the best part of it is that they've actually taken it, the ideal way that we use fantasy and fiction and we translate that into a way to make ourselves different or better in the real world, and they've done that.
INSKEEP: D&D is a kind of industry, and has a place in pop culture, like in the Netflix series "Stranger Things." It's also global. Khaver Siddiqi played it growing up in Pakistan, and it made him think.
KHAVER SIDDIQI: Other cultures have this fascinating history and mythology. Does my culture have that, too? And the answer was, yes. So I got into my own culture and history, and it kind of gave me like a sense of purpose. It was like my anchor to be like, OK, this is my identity.
MARTIN: D&D has faced its skeptics, like those who have sometimes linked D&D's fantasy elements to demon worship.
INSKEEP: But the game and its fans have persisted, and they say it makes life better for them. Stacia Seaman's partner Reese plays D&D to aid in her recovery from a traumatic brain injury.
STACIA SEAMAN: It helps with her fine motor control because she's rolling dice. It's bringing back so many memories for her. She's just a happier person. Again, she'll never be who she was, but she's a lot more herself.
MARTIN: James Rubis' daughter Gwen died in 2021. She was memorialized in an adventure from a D&D subscription service that they had played together. He says he'll never forget his first look at the booklet.
JAMES RUBIS: I lost it. I just started crying because everything they put in there was her story and how she acted. She would have loved it.
INSKEEP: Abby Morrione Matz discovered more about her identity as a transgender woman through creating and playing as her D&D character named Ara.
ABBY MORRIONE MATZ: It was beyond just picking Princess Peach in Mario Kart. You know, it was - she was me. She was an extension of me, and it was really, really special.
MARTIN: This month, the Dungeons and Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast releases its 2024 players' handbook. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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