Dungeons and Dragons

Ok so I'm a geek, I know this, I embrace this, I wouldn't want to be anything else.
But people who play D&D were looked down on even by me. However in the traditions of "Try everything once except incest and Morris dancing", when my flatmate invited me to join in one of his campaigns I decided to give it a try so that I could at least scorn it with justice.

I was quite surprised how much I enjoyed it.
I'd best describe it as a mix of boardgames, story telling, and that most important piece - roleplaying. I think it's this last characteristic that attracts the scorn because the other elements seem to be things that most people will gladly admit to enjoying; after all, lots of people enjoy a good game of Monopoly, many people enjoy reading a good book, and people who attempt to write fiction are often admired even if they aren't successful or good at it.

But let's not worry why it has such a poor image let's get onto the game itself:
The DM had a basic story that he had in mind that extracted from the game environment itself was the sort of thing you might have found as the opening to any cheesy fantasy novel. Villagers in danger, goblin raiding parties, heroes have to go and save the day, heroes go off and after a number of confrontations and puzzles return to the town and find that a greater force has come and destroyed the town while they were away.
Not the finest or most thrilling piece of fiction ever, but as a framework it served the purpose of getting people into the swing of things.
Then you had the battles: Your character was created with a number of weapons/spells you could choose from and during battle you could use these at various times to win the day. The success of any attack chosen by rolling dice. This part in itself was quite tactical and fun and if it was a board game that wasn't fantasy based (with the stigma that has attached) I think many people would enjoy it.
Then there was the role playing - well many actors do this as part of their training. I found this getting into character to be a very useful exercise and quite an interesting experience and certainly helped me in my other fiction writing efforts. So again this was all useful
Overall a great experience, so when that campaign ended and our DM wanted a break he asked if I wanted to take over; in the interests of trying it out I went ahead and did.

Being a DM I would say was a very different experience. I went and read up online as much as I could and all the advice I could find emphasised preparation and a willingness to be flexible with your players. So I did. I had multiple plot lines ready to explore, side quests ready if needed. Lists of spare character names, spare battles ready to throw at them, puzzles if needed, the whole shebang.
Good job too because the players never did anything I expected them too. It was enough to drive me insane - but it was great fun too to try and second guess them, even moreso when you were trying to think how to motivate them into shooting themselves in the foot and they did. I found myself enjoying pulling their strings a little too much as for example you had one of the character's playing a religious zelot who you could get to do some things the player himself wasn't keen on, but his character would do this thing, so he had to do it.

With the previous plot having been a bit of a cliche, I tried to make mine a bit more intricate; choosing to have my players in a conflict between chaotic good and lawful good (an elven Lord who wanted to protect the forest against a human Lord who wanted to advance civilisation) . The point was at any point the players were having to work out which side their heroes would support, occasionally coming into conflict with each other.

So all in all, lots of fun, but a huge consumer of time. I would like to do it again, but not sure how I will get the chance - there are other things that are more important. I can certainly see how it gets the bad image it has but I also believe that the image is pretty much the bad thing about it. Well it also encourages you to sit indoors, eat snacks and drink beer as opposed to getting out into the world. However it also encourages you to socialise with your friends and gives you a reason to meet up and explore parts of your character you might not otherwise do.
As with all things, just don't let it get an obsession/your life and it has a lot of potential; give it a go and you might enjoy it, what is there to lose?