What Dungeons and Dragons can teach writers about collaboration and crafting narrative, characters and worlds

Like an entire generation of nerdy 80s kids, American writer Alexander Chee spent whole weekends of his childhood playing Dungeons & Dragons.

“My friends would come over and we’d play late into the night, in the basement of my parents’ home,” Chee told Claire Nichols on The Book Show.

“This continued well into high school, it was pretty all-consuming … [and] I do think that it had a profound impact on me becoming a writer.”

Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel and The Queen of the Night, is far from the only writer who has been obsessed with, and shaped by, the fantasy role-playing tabletop game.

Bestselling Irish…