Table-Top Role-Playing Games or TTRPGs as we know them have been around since the 70s. The first ever TTRPG, that is Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) was published in 1974, which basically inspired the Role-Playing Games genre that we see today in video games.
The emergence of DnD was the catalyst in the development of the TTRPG industry as there are countless such games available today. However, DnD still remains one of the most popular TTPRGs ever and has managed to stand the test of time through innovative campaigns and other elements. Its popularity is also one of the reasons that it is finally being turned into a movie starring Chris Pine.
However, India still remains an untapped market for TTRPGs considering a majority of the populace is still unaware of what exactly TTRPGs are, let alone knowing about Dungeons and Dragons. Pop culture might’ve played a role in popularising DnD in the country, but only to the extent of spreading awareness, not teaching how to play it.
Enter, Desis and Dragons. Started in the pandemic out the necessity to try something new, this Indian DnD community is slowly growing into one of the India’s most sought after groups to play DnD online. The community quickly grew in popularity where the likes of Rohan Joshi and Anjali Bhimani have also joined their sessions. Rohan Joshi also told us about that one ‘moment’ that made him go all-in for DnD and what about it piqued his interest.
We had the opportunity to sit down and talk to the founders of the group, Indrani (She/They), Shubham (He/Him), and Chirag (He/Him). While most of the conversation was to explore the journey of Desis and Dragons, they were kind enough to take us through the basics of TTRPGs and the concept of Dungeons and Dragons as well.
What is Dungeons and Dragons?
Dungeons & Dragons is one of the many tabletop role-playing games. Games like Skyrim take inspiration from this analog game that you play sitting around a table with a bunch of friends. DnD is one of them, and there are thousands of others, but DnD is one of the most popular ones. Pathfinder is another one.
Many video games are heavily inspired by DnD like the Neverwinter Nights, Baldur’s Gate, and KOTOR series, these are lifted from DnD. They have taken ideas from roleplaying games like Dungeons and Dragons. I think even the Star Wars RPG. RPGs in general – the whole video game genre – they’ve taken ideas from tabletop RPGs. If you’ve played an RPG before, then you’ve figured out about half of a DnD or roleplaying game. Which is kinda like the mechanics, you control the character, and you say how the character succeeds. The other half is a bit trickier. You’re basically playing pretend with a bunch of friends.
Difference between tabletop games and video games
The way to think of that is when you play video games, the computer does all the work – the maths for you. The world is given to you with computer-generated characters, right? They’re animated and voice-acted. Usually what happens in TTRPGs is that you take out the computer element which means you’re rolling the dice. You are reacting to the outcomes and figuring out what that means. You have usually a dungeon master or a game master, who is then, voicing and creating the world through storytelling. It’s like sitting around a fireplace and they tell you, ‘Okay so you meet this person,’ that’s how that happens.
The simplest way of putting it is that the dungeon or game master is the one who creates the world and brings it alive with characters. And you as a player, do what everyone who has ever played an RPG does, like picking a class, picking what they look like, etc. You as a player then interact with the world presented to you. But it’s all pretend, it’s all in your head. The RNG (Random Number Generators) is the dice.
Even if video games give you multiple choices, for example, Mass Effect gives you so many paths but it still doesn’t replicate the fact that in tabletop games, there is a person right in front of you who is reacting. It will always be a unique experience. There’s always going to be a chance when you play Mass Effect, you’re going to go down the same path in the game as someone else because there is a limited amount of options. But in tabletop games, as you’re making it all up on the spot, it can be improvised.
Video games don’t have improv but TTRPGs make use of it.
Different types of systems in tabletop games
There are also a lot of other systems like Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) and Old School Renaissance (OSR). OSR is like taking all the versions of TTRPGs and mixing them with modern mechanics. The reason why it’s important to mention this is because there are varying amounts of two attributes: narrative and simulation. Simulation is what video games do, they give you mechanics and set things you can do. The narrative is the freedom of storytelling. Each TTRPG has a varying amount of balance between these two. DnD is more simulation, less narrative. Something like PbtA, on the other hand, is very narrative-based and has little simulation.
How did you come up with Desis & Dragons?
Shubham: It started out – as often endeavours like these do – with ‘Hey, this sounds like something to do!’ The pandemic was going on and I went into writing adventures for DnD and I wanted to try doing something even bigger, like a campaign setting. It’s basically a book that dungeon masters can use to run a game. Anyway, it was a big undertaking to put a team together. I put out a call on WhatsApp groups for DnD asking who would be interested in this. I got a bunch of amazing responses, with one of them being from Chirag. We talked about how we would market this, and what needs to be done to bring the community’s attention to this. Because you can write a book but no one could end up buying it if nobody knows about it. So, you need to build awareness around it. Chirag already knew Indrani and she wanted to help out as well. We started this thing where we were like okay, it’d be cool to have a bunch of Indians playing DnD online on stream. Then other people can watch and get into it. We also had other ideas like talking to other creators, and introducing people to other games, so we started doing all that slowly as well. Along the way, we were like, here’s a Discord server! The server blew up and we have been steadily growing to now having more than 700 members on our server.
Our Discord server was made for people who like DnD to hang out together, find other games, and whatnot. There was a point in the Indian TTRPG space when everyone sort of knew one another, it was that niche. If you play DnD and if you’re in one of those WhatsApp groups, you likely know a majority of the players. And we thought our Discord server could be an alternative avenue because of the platform’s many features like voice channels where players can just hop in and play. Except, we fostered our community in such a way that new people can come in, learn about the hobby, and play it for the first time. What makes the community really special is that all of us made an active effort to it a space safe for marginalised people, queer people – people from all walks of life. That’s not something you often find in gaming spaces. Gamers’ spaces are notorious for being toxic. That culture is something that we actively wanted to avoid in TTRPGs. That is at the core of why our community is so great and successful – everybody feels welcome, and safe, and has the tools to explore a new hobby in an environment with like-minded people that will protect them.
What does a typical game/session of Dungeon and Dragons look like?
Dungeons & Dragons can have long campaigns consisting of multiple sessions or one shots, which only last one session. Campaigns are played when you want to play a game together for a longer period of time with the same characters. One shot is where you just come in together to a table, play once, you don’t care what happens with these characters, and then you go. It’s the equivalent of raiding in an MMO for a long period of time with your friends versus taking down a dungeon with random people that you just met.
Some people play for a session of two, four or even six hours – those usually happen when those players are in school and they play over a weekend.
There are basically two roles in a game: there are the players, who control the characters, which is their protagonist. They are the ones who are presented with a world or a problem and they actively make changes in the game. The dungeon master or game master is the other one – and this is usually only one person, who creates the setting and the problem, and controls all the non-playable characters like the background characters and antagonists.
A typical session will have the DM describe the scene, what it looks like, and what the problem is. The players will say how their characters react, and what actions they want to take. The DM will then present the result of that. Sometimes it can be straight like, ‘You walk into a bar, and this is what the bar looks like.’ Alternatively, they might say something like, ‘I want to throw a punch at somebody,’ or ‘I want to set something on fire.’ The DM does not know what could happen. They might land the punch or miss or they might want to leave it at chance, at which point they use a dice or some method of randomisation which will show if they succeed in doing that particular action or not. The story then changes based on that success or failure. We use nonagon dice; some use flip coins or cards to decide when we don’t know where the world would go.
A game can exist without a set path, but players and the DM come to an understanding of what they want to do together before they begin a game. This is called a session zero. Here, you talk about your limits and topics that you don’t want in the game. Or if you want a more narrative-driven game instead of a number-crunching combat session. The master then accommodates that. Even though there is this lack of a set path, there is this shared understanding, like a social contract.
In case a game is treading into a topic that is uncomfortable for you, you can use an X card, which is a safety tool. The DM could then change the scene or retcon it. These are the ways of streamlining the process.
The reason that safety tools are so important in TTRPGs is that these are very social games. There’s a part of you that is reflected very actively on the table. That is why it is important to set boundaries as it could quickly turn unintentionally messy or unhealthy if you haven’t had that conversation.
Shubham, you mentioned you have been writing a campaign for Dungeons & Dragons. Have you created something that is very ‘Indian’ in a way?
I have written two adventures which are very Indian. One I wrote by myself and the other is a co-creation with Rajib Kalita, who’s also a TTRPG writer, and Alika Gupta, who is the artist behind the book. Because adventures are published in booklets, it’s nice to have really good art.
I wrote The Bride’s Choice, which is a spin on Draupadi’s Swayamvar. In my version, I was like, what if Draupadi didn’t want to get taken by whoever won the competition? What if she hires a bunch of adventurers to win on her behalf who help her run away? You play as the adventuring heroes who help the king’s daughter in escaping.
The second one is a much longer adventure, called A Sticky Situation. It is about the last bit of ‘Amrut’ – the nectar of gods that gives you immortality – left in the human plane of existence. Because people are worried that someone would try to steal it, they do a ritual to have the gods take it away. You are hired by two different people to go steal it for them. You can choose who you want to work for in this grand heist of Amrut.
I am also going to start work on Emerald Templars, which is a new TTRPG system. We got a whole cast of people of colour writing all the lore and world-building for it. In this world, there are these people known as the Emerald Templars. Think of them as a fantasy United Nations, if you will, where their job is to protect and keep peace across nations. You as the player would play one of these Templars. It would also contain a fictional nation inspired by India.
In terms of starting Desis & Dragons and having a community of around 700 members now, how has the response been from members of the community who are new to the game?
Indrani: I think it’s been great. The community itself has become self-sustaining in the way that the people who are part of it are invested enough that they help guide new members. Often within the first few weeks of being in the server, the new member finds a game and plays it. Obviously, that experience isn’t universal. There are times when someone will come in and play a game that they don’t end up enjoying, or the group dynamic doesn’t work for them. Often, they reach out and we help them find people or groups that will mesh with them within the server. The response from the community is helping each other find spaces, people, and game types like different TTRPGs that best suit their tastes. So, because of this, the response from newcomers has been good.
What are some other TTRPGs you would recommend apart from Dungeons & Dragons?
Chirag: I am going to say Fiasco, which can be a comedy game like a Coen brothers movie. There isn’t a DM, but you have these worlds where you try to succeed in Act One. In Act Two, the twist happens where you have to scramble and everything goes horribly wrong. It’s like playing characters in a movie with multiple genres. It’s designed to be played in one session and it’s relaxing if you want to just try the roleplaying part in TTRPGs.
Indrani: If you are into horror, there’s a game I would recommend Bluebeard’s Bride. It is a very intense game, however, and I don’t recommend it to a newcomer. It explores femininity and what it is to be a woman. It’s a very fascinating game for experienced players. But for people getting into TTRPGs, I would recommend Masks: A New Generation. It’s a teenage superhero game where you get to play as a literal superhero.
Shubham: I would recommend ARC, which is a game by Bianca Canoza, a Filipina game designer, illustrator, and writer. They made the whole game by themselves, it’s amazing. ARC is interesting because it uses a real-time clock which counts down to an apocalypse. In the game, you know when the time runs out, the apocalypse will take place, unless the player succeeds in stopping it. The way it’s designed, you can have any setting like cyberpunk or fantasy.
I also want to give a shout-out to Wanderhome because it has very few hard mechanics, and no DMs or dices. It’s all about building the story as you go. If you’re a storyteller or a world-builder, I highly recommend Wanderhome.
You can join the Desis and Dragons Discord server and the community will be more than happy to take you through your first campaign and you get to be a part of something amazing!
