For the festive season, something lighter, at least superficially. Under many Christmas trees this year, as in other years, will be a game called Dungeons and Dragons. Once creating a moral panic over its inclusion of evil deities, D&D has become mainstream with celebrity involvement and being featured in dozens of books, films and even TV series like the Big Bang Theory and Stranger Things.

It is a game with hidden depths, and how I know this is that I have played the game for most of the half century of its existence, and through it made some good friends.

Developed from a combination of tabletop wargaming and the legacy of JRR Tolkien, it created and introduced a new genre of entertainment known as role-play games or RPGs, now played in person, online and the core of some very popular computer games.

While the game I started in Birmingham more than forty years ago continues remotely, the longest-running face-to-face group I curated in the Forest lasted fourteen years, though I am certainly open to joining or starting another.Far from sinister, its surface attraction is pure escapism, make believe for both teenagers and adults, yet there is much more to it than that.

At times, I have been asked to run the game as educational, encouraging literacy and numeracy, and for its social-therapeutic benefits. I could see the point in each case, but declined: I hope that someone does.While fifteen-year-olds play it as a hack-em-up, and the game’s current owner targets this lucrative market with simplified game mechanics (rules for dice rolling), it is different for adult players like myself, who know a little more about life and relish the role-play side.For the avoidance of doubt, this is not ‘adult role-play’.

Players make contact cerebrally rather than physically, so the worst/best that you get is a bit of harmless inuendo. There is also no dressing up, as the game is all in the mind. It is played by both – or should I say all – genders.Once you introduce rules that encourage role-play, then the game offers almost limitless opportunities to explore political intrigue, moral dilemmas and the notions of good and evil.

Can the righteous Paladin co-exist with the acquisitive Rogue? Of course, as no-one takes their character – their in-game alter ego – too seriously. A bit of verbal sparring, a hint of pomposity will suffice. You’re always playing, not just with dice and slowly revealed maps, but with your understanding of people and how we all work.It is not just Orcs versus Dwarves. Facing down pirates, one player’s character had a peg-leg and another was aquatic. Currently a group of Elves are exploring a legendary scenario from the early days of the game, and trying to avoid confrontation.

And you don’t need initially to know the rules, a good Game-runner or ‘Dungeon Master’ (DM) will help you through.While the whole is a (hopefully heroic) tale that is created co-operatively, that individual is not only the arbiter of rules and actions, but also the chief story-teller, so choose her or him well. Pretending to be heroes and heroines who don’t always get it right offers scope for much hilarity, but this depends on the DM who sets the tone. As does the availability of snacks.

There are almost limitless spin-offs. Would you like to play essentially the same game in the Wild West, the Napoleonic period, Victorian England or one of many real-life wars? As horror or comedy? With super-heroes? As a who-dun-it? There is a purely talk version where the dice or other objective form of conflict resolution is eschewed. Live-action role play (or LARP) involves dressing as your character, (almost) harmless weaponry, faked magic, and hopefully a disused castle – Peckforton, wasn’t it? – but a forest will do.So why is this a topic for this column?

Well because the preoccupation here is of the nature of individuals, and role-play encourages that exploration. It is even in the rules. Each player chooses moral characteristics for their in-game avatar. How individualistic will you play your character to be? And what is their attitude to Life, Truth and Beauty (designated as ‘Good’)? How stereotypically will you play your chosen gender?Like the main preoccupations of this column, role-play is not for everyone, but for some, it is a brief liberation from the troubles of the real world.