How to enjoy Dungeons & Dragons

Seen on Twitter (paraphrasing):

I cringe when someone says "I play Dungeons & Dragons" and some yahoo says "Oh yeah?  What level is your character?"

I cringe at seeing someone being judgmental, automatically assuming the worst of intentions.  To illustrate, I'll assume the best of intentions.  The person talking to you is expressing an interest in talking about your hobby.  Is they way they phrased that the best?  Not at all.  But consider the person may have only oblique exposure to role-playing games through things like MMORPGs, where that is a better question.  Perhaps they played a long time ago, and the fact that characters have levels is one of the few details they remember.  Or maybe the way they currently play the game is to focus on one character.  Maybe they'd be interested in trying a different scheme, where one plays multiple characters in related campaigns with rotating DMs?

All I can say is if you react hostilely, you won't get a positive reaction.

There are multiple things a person could enjoy about a game like Dungeons & Dragons.  I'll give examples from Lord of the Rings.  One person may favor creating a character and his back story, and watching the character and his relationships develop during the game, as Frodo and Samwise do when they leave the Shire and go on their adventure.  Some people may favor the story, the epic adventure to destroy the One Ring and stop Dark Lord Sarumon's evil plot.  And others may favor the crunchy numerical combat aspect, like Legolas and Gimli competing over who could fell the greatest number of foes.  There are many ways to enjoy the game.

The original poster called the "What level is your character?" question gatekeeping.  Gatekeeping is when someone tries to enforce how people can enjoy a hobby and who can enjoy it.  This person is saying the person who favors combat and building a character's statistics is enjoying the game wrong.  In other words, she's the only one gatekeeping here.