It was the 11th hour. They had played for more than 8 hours, starting at 2pm, and it was already 10pm. The end of the campaign was so close, but they were up against a Bone Devil - one of the most dangerous monsters in the game. And because they had beat a few encounters with persuasion instead of fighting, they were underleveled for the job.

Then the DM gave them an out. 

"If you can roll a really good persuasion roll, and if you can describe in your own words how you used that roll to beat the last boss, you can end the campaign."

So their ranger used their helm of telepathy to go into the final boss's mind. Bypassing the boss's own prime imperatives, she stood in front of a crowd of investors – yes, this final boss had stakeholders' expectations to meet too – and had to convince all of them to fire him for giving the park a bad name by turning into a demon and terrorizing the party. Yes, that is a real plot development in DND.

It was a stroke of genius, slash "let's roll with it", slash "we have no other idea how else to get past this final boss and end the campaign". 

She rolled the die, and against all the odds, it was a Nat 20. That's the highest possible roll in the game, and it means a complete success. The odds of that happening on the most decisive roll was, well, 20-to-1. 

The DM's eyes lit up. But the game wasn't over yet.

"Now, explain how you would persuade the crowd to fire him."

So standing up, Catherine came up with a story on the spot: "Do you really want someone like that to represent the face of your company?"

The DM said: "The crowd of investors murmured their agreement, and the final boss was fired."

This is just one example of how a Dungeons and Dragons session can run. When I was asked to join my first campaign, I was keen. At age 31, I felt I had been left behind by the Stranger Things craze, and DND just wasn't that popular.

DND has the reputation of being a nerd's game. I made the mistake of thinking that, with my extensive knowledge of Diablo, Skyrim, and many other RPG games, I would take to DND like a fish takes to water.

Little did I know that DND was a lot less "follow the quest marker, slash some enemies, save the princess from the castle" and a lot more "instead of fighting them, can we put the enemy to sleep and steal their gold?"

There were moments where I stood there, listening to the DM describe the landscape: "There's a lake, a mountain, some eagles in the nests, and a campfire in the distance. What do you do?"

 My mind goes blank as I struggle to think of what to do next. And then I realise  why I seem paralysed by indecision: I'm waiting for dialogue options to magically appear in front of me. Videogames have conditioned me to look for typical videogame markers for direction, a story with a clear goal and point markers along the way. 

But DND doesn't work that way. It's a collaborative fever dream, a kind of choose your own ending adventure, and your skill of improvisation really comes in handy.

For first timers, this can feel more like a game of charades, or that little make-believe game you played with your siblings when you're in a boring car ride to your relatives in a different town: 

"I'm a farmer growing vegetables in the Shire." "I'm a dragon and I burn your vegetables with my fire breath. "Well, I call the townsfolk to gather up arms and kill the dragon with crossbows." "Oh yeah? I get some knights and pillage the village, confiscating the crossbows." And so on, and so forth. The sky isn't the limit with DND, your imagination is.

DND really stretches your imagination, especially in the hands of an adaptable Dungeon Master. For those of us who left behind make believe for the trappings of adulthood, it can feel a little unfamiliar to recreate those childhood fantasies. Roleplaying as a kid can feel rusty for adults. And for some kids even, the idea of creating rich dreams through the power of just your imagination can seem foreign, what with the endless sources of meticulously designed, accessible, mass marketed entertainment in videogames and streaming sites.

In contrast to modern day polished forms of entertainment, DND is the kind of old school "get in the weeds" style of fun that really makes you work for your source of magic. There's a complex combat system involving 20 sided dice. There's a character selection stage where you can truly customise your character in mind boggling ways.

If you asked me whether it's easy to get into DND, I would be doing you a disservice by saying it's accessible to everyone. For example, my parents wouldn't be able to grasp the character selection system, and most people would just want to hack and slash their way through encounters. 

But for a certain type of person, the kind who spends a lot of time thinking about stories, characters, and how they all fit into a cohesive narrative, DND is like a playground that allows them to roleplay as a completely made-up character and embody them with their personal traits.

What's fascinating about D&D is how it has influence popular culture and RPGs (role-playing games) like Baldur's Gate and Diablo.