A glance at the history hall may reveal dozens of students removing furniture from a few classrooms, unpacking 20-sided dice and unfolding hand-made maps. The D&D club is meeting. 

Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is a game that focuses on role play, according to its official website. Players create a character to embody as they and their fellow group members journey through a fantastic world full of magic and mythical creatures. According to dungeon master (DM) sophomore Jack Evans, the position of DM is an involved one as they serve as storyteller, actor and administrator, creating materials, theorizing storylines and acting as multiple characters. 

“As the dungeon master, I’m basically the gap between the players and the rest of the world,” Evans said. “My job is to be like the NPCs [non-player characters] and the monsters and the puzzles. So when they talk to a character, they’re talking to me. When they want to do something, they tell me what they want to do and I describe what happens.”

When he returned from winter break, Evans launched a new campaign. It included six players, two of whom are freshmen Natalie Selchert and Jaden Cole. 

“They are on this continent called Vanol, and the land has been cursed with a plague from the goddess Tolana who is the goddess of disease,” Evans said. “So their whole mission is they’ve been sent by the queen of the main city, Lady Valinth, to find a cure for the plague.”

First, the party stole a man’s boat in order to sail to Laketown. While there, they discovered the Plane of Water where Selchert located a portal, and later, a kraken. This led to conflict amongst the group when one player opted to befriend the creature, prompting Selchert to shoot him in the foot. After the players retrieved The Book of Planes (the first and only resource the group has secured), they proceeded through a forest on their way to a town called Matlock, but their travels were interrupted when they stumbled upon a deceased woman in what is—according to Evans—the saddest random encounter he’s written. 

“She was infected by the plague, so she went out and she stabbed herself,” Selchert said. “We picked her up and went back towards Matlock. There was another family that had been shot somewhere, like from all directions they were ambushed. I remember vividly going ‘Jack, did they look like the woman?’ And he just nods.”

The party buried the family and continued on. They entered a magical pine forest where a plague doctor performed surgery on a player before the group recognized his true nature. 

“The doctor’s a cannibal and attempting to murder the town, so I shot the doctor dead after several mis-shots,” Cole said. 

The only way to perform an action in D&D is to roll a die and act according to your result. If a player rolls a 20, for example, this corresponds to a perfect performance. Conversely, rolling a one results in a failure and the player possibly hurting themselves in the process.

“They had the worst fight in D&D history because they kept rolling ones,” Evans said. “So Jaden would shoot off to the side and then the plague doctor would run off into nowhere. It was a really good fight.”

A stolen watch, an almost-robbery and two near death experiences later, the travelers found themselves in the Plane of Fire. This is where we leave our gallant warriors.

All three players feel that even if the game may look complex to the inexperienced, it isn’t so. Those interested in joining the club may attend meetings after school on Fridays in the history hall.

“You just need a very baseline of understanding and your DM will be there to help you through it,” Evans said. “The beginner-friendliness is solely dependent on your dungeon master. If you have a DM who’s not good at what they’re doing and isn’t good at helping newer players, it’s not going to be fun and you’re not going to know what’s happening but if you have a good DM, you can just start playing.”