D&D&Law – 4 things D&D has taught me about Law (part 2)

2. Lawyers are amazing

D&D is fun, but some of its rules are explained with enormous difficulty. Sometimes it is just one sloppy mess that could have been done much better by, you guessed it, any lawyer. Seeing amateurs in rules (though experts in games) take on the huge undertaking of creating precise and concise rules, while remaining clear and unambiguous, shows you how difficult it really is and how amazingly well done the rules are that we usually work with. Making rules is something you should leave to lawyers, cause we are amazing.

3. Law is (not) a science

Imagine there was a study to learn every rule of D&D and how to use and apply them. Would you ever consider that, let’s call it D&Dology, a science? Would you consider someone who has a degree in D&D laws, let’s call him or her a D&Dologist, a scientist?

What I am getting at here is that we tend to think of underlying subject matter as extremely important. But this is a little unfair. The person who would have studied D&D laws would have gotten the same scientific lessons (different interpretational methods, problems like the causal link) as someone who has studied law… just using theoretical and imaginary rules instead of real ones.

This puts the whole study of law into perspective for me. It really helps to realize that though there are scientific components to studying law, they are different from the law itself. Unfortunately though, with the large focus on learning the laws and the lack of attention for the overarching science. Also, if you think that D&Dology would be completely ridiculous, try to remember that for atheists like me it already exists in the form of theology.

4. Some skills are transferable

In D&D there is a company, Wizards of the Coast, who makes the rules. In your group, the DM will interpret these rules to solve practical problems. To change the rules there is a democratic system in place to either appeal to your DM or the maker of the rules. Sound familiar?

In Law school, we learn a lot about how our society is build and how the rules function to let everything work. It is amazing to see that a lot of the problems you encounter and skills you utilize are the same no matter what body of rules you are studying (real or imaginary) and that most solutions are transferable. And it works the other way around too. Having to learn the rules from scratch in D&D has taught me valuable lessons on how to learn real laws. Maybe all students should be required to play D&D. On the one hand, I have absolutely no proof that it will improve student performance, but on the other it would be so incredibly awesome that who cares if it has no practical influence whatsoever.

Disclaimer: I might just be proposing this so that I can play D&D each week and, like with Ace Attorney, claim that I am doing homework.

D&D&Law – 4 things D&D has taught me about Law (part 1)

Intro

I love video games. When all the other kids were running around the playground, I was inside playing Tetris. While a usual student spends his Friday nights going out to bars to get hammered, my ideal Friday involves loading up on energy drinks and holding an old roleplaying games marathon with a television in the background playing an old cartoon like Dexter’s Laboratory.

It is only natural then that I would take an interest in Dungeons and Dragons, the tabletop roleplaying game that spawned most modern videogames of the genre. Basically, imagine monopoly with a lot more complicated rules. One person is designated the ‘dungeon master’(DM) and he is in charge of creating the narrative and controlling all outside factors. Now, you might be wondering why I am discussing this game on a blog dedicated to law. Well, there is a very good reason for that. Dungeons and Dragons has taught me a lot about studying law. This is partly because of how the game is set up and partly because of the nature of law. Here they are:

1. Knowing the law takes time

The first thing you receive when you want to play Dungeons and Dragons is the Player’s Handbook. It is a tome of 300 pages detailing the basic rules of the game. The DM gets to consult the Dungeon Master’s Guid, another 300 pages with more advanced rules. The Monsters that are fought are taken from the Monster Manual which is, you guessed it, over 300 pages long. Then there are 44 more books exactly like that. This multitude of rules can seem intimidating, but it is really not that bad once you start at the beginning and work your way through it. Almost all of the rules assume you already know all the other rules, so it is difficult to get started. All you can do is read everything and keep rereading until you got it…

… which is surprisingly a lot like how most laws work. There is a very large and complicated law, there are legal cases interpreting these laws and there is literature explaining them. The laws by themselves are usually confusing, but are essential to truly understanding the literature. And you need a decent grasp on both to really understand the legal cases. The important thing is to realize that knowing any set of rules takes time. Nobody is able to fully understand it because of the complicated nature of how rules fit together. You need to allow yourself the time to read and reread. Also, in both cases the process goes a whole lot quicker if you get someone who already knows it all to explain it to you.

                                                     

The next three will be posted Friday. I was hoping to at least fit two things in this post, but, as it turns out, you quickly run out of space if you like ranting as much as I do.