Chris Pine in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Chris Pine, star of the new—and surprisingly great!—film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves only started playing the actual pen-and-paper game recently, but he says “it’s about the coolest thing” he’s done in a long time.
Pine, who plays the bard Edgin Darvis in the new movie, played the game with some family members recently and went from novice to D&D evangelist in no time. In an interview with SlashFilm, the actor says his nephew introduced him to the game and he played with his dad (82) and mom (76) and sister, none of whom have any experience with the game, but “Within 15 minutes, we were having the time of our lives and we didn't have to know anything.”
The “Gospel of Dungeons & Dragons” he says, the thing that matters is:
I think is so important to know, why I think it should be played in schools is that it immediately teaches cooperation. It exercises the imagination. It’s joyous, it’s improvisational. And within a matter of minutes, everybody’s on the same page. You’re not arguing about whether or not you’re cool or not. You’re arguing about whether or not you should have gone over the boulder to kill the dragon. I think it’s about the coolest thing I’ve encountered in a long time.
I agree! Playing D&D in school would be a great way to get kids tapping into (and exercising) their imagination, working together and just having fun. But I’ve always been a huge proponent of more gaming in schools in general. This is why, despite not being a jock, I think sports are an important part of education. Not necessarily competitive, high-stakes sports (though those are fine) but just sports for everyone. Dodgeball and the like. Sports also have the advantage of getting the blood flowing and we all know at this point how crucial exercise is to our brains and mental wellbeing. That applies just as much to kids.
But games in general, even of the sit-down variety, are also crucial for our mental health and wellbeing!
I think you could make a pretty fun educational series out of building forts and having kids learn how to defend or assault them (safely, of course) maybe using Nerf guns or something along those lines. Teach some physics by building a catapult. Teach some home economics (aka sewing) by making cosplay for a grand LARPing adventure series.
Learning should be at least somewhat fun some of the time, though if I were in charge of the education in this country I’d try to make it mostly fun most of the time. Kids aren’t designed to sit in desks for long, so have them sit at tables or couches and throw some dice and create some characters and act it all out, improv, laugh and problem-solve together. Fire up those imaginations. Thumb through beautifully illustrated pages of Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder books. Make up some games! Talk about math and probabilities. Get them drawing, making maps, coming up with stories and character motivations. Let them be funny and irreverant.
I’m not a big fan of “gamification” where you use artificial rewards to encourage investment in a curriculum (like “leveling up” by turning in homework assignments) but I am a big fan of teaching by way of games themselves.
Alas, I do not envision a day when D&D becomes standard fare in our schools. But Chris Pine is certainly right. Roleplaying games exercise the imagination, and if there’s anything we can do for our kids beyond cultivating empathy, it’s lighting that fire in their minds. Through books, through games, through adventure. Whatever it takes.
Apathy is the real enemy when it comes to our youth, and it’s fed daily by mindless screentime and existential despair. Apathy, like some terrible slumbering dragon, coiled up in the depths of young hearts. No easy monster to slay.
Read my review of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves right here, and why you should go see it in theaters even if you’re not a D&D player.
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