What is reward, really?
Is it gold? XP? Magic items? The thrill of leveling up and unlocking that next power, that new spell, that coveted domain?
Sure. It can be all of that.
But if you’ve been playing for a while, really playing, you know the real rewards aren't measured in coin or mechanics.
The real reward is the story you still remember fifteen years later.
It’s the time your witch stood alone in the haunted chapel, torch flickering, casting Augury with a deck of real tarot cards, trying to divine whether the village elder was possessed, or worse.
It’s the argument your players had, in character, about whether or not to open the sarcophagus sealed with silver nails, or follow that perfectly innocent-looking elf into the dark alley.
It was a battle so tense that you all jumped to your feet when the last die finally landed.
My oldest’s Sunday D&D sessions will often get quite loud. I’ll turn to my wife and say “oh I wonder what happened this time!” Especially with his recent “It’s Always Sunny in Waterdeep” campaign. I know it will be something crazy.
You don’t tell stories about how many XP you got. You tell stories about the time the halfling bard tricked the lich into believing he was its long-lost apprentice, and somehow, it worked.
You tell stories about that game, the one that went off the rails in the best possible way. The one that ended at 2 a.m. with laughter and a hastily scribbled map and a blood pact to absolutely pick this up again next weekend.
The reward is connection. It’s the friendships forged in dungeons and dark forests. It’s the notes passed between players when they think the DM isn’t watching. It’s the memes, the inside jokes, the long-running gags about cursed dice or that one player who always rolls a natural 1 during stealth checks.
And yeah, sometimes it’s the bragging rights. The tale you tell at the next Gary Con or your local game store. The story you pull out at dinner when someone says, “Wait, you play D&D?”
The reward is knowing you built something together, something weird and magical and fleeting. A tale that never existed before you sat down to roll the dice.
And maybe, if you’re like me, the reward is watching your players squirm when the signs and portents line up just right, and they realize they’ve been dancing on the edge of something much older and darker than they imagined.
Or when they finally connect all the dots and realize that they, and they alone, are the ones to save the whole freaking world. When Willow & Tara held hands and jumped into the maw of Leviathan. When my son’s paladin used the Sun Sword from Ravenloft to split the Chaos Stone Lolth was using to cover the world in Darkness. And so many more that have meaning to me and my players.
So yes. Reward is treasure, sometimes.
But more often?
It’s the echoes of shared imagination, still lingering long after the dice are packed away.
It’s the memory of that witch, that warlock, that paladin who fell but didn’t break.
It’s the experience of creating together.
And that?
That’s priceless.
Questions
What. Nostalgic. Character. What Character am I nostalgic for? I have to admit I LOVED playing Johan, my AD&D 1st Paladin. I have played a version of him in every edition of D&D and many other fantasy games. I have even tried a couple of versions of him in Baldur's Gate 3 and other video games. But nothing really compares to that goldenrod sheet and those old sky-blue dice from my Expert set.
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And that’s a wrap on another #RPGaDAY! Huge thanks to David F. Chapman (Autocratik) and Casting Shadows Blog for keeping this tradition going year after year. It’s been a great excuse to reflect, reconnect, and rediscover why I love this hobby so much. Whether you joined in with every prompt or just caught a few along the way, I hope you found something that inspired you.
See you next year!
