You’re sitting around a campfire when one of your friends smacks into you. When you ask them what their problem is, they claim a nearby bush had pushed them. Usually, that sort of exchange would end with you checking them for a concussion, but in the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, it ends with a prolonged combat with said bush. For junior Nova Vescio, it was a winning one.
“I’ve always had a fascination towards fantasy elements. It’s essentially a choose-your-own adventure, and you get to plan stuff with your own friends. So [D&D] hooked me.” Vescio said.
Dungeons and Dragons consists of a group of players (the party) creating characters that fit within a fantasy setting and follow a story crafted by the Dungeon Master. Players make decisions for their character and help create the story.
“I like it because it’s interactive. It just feels different than video games because I feel like I’m doing something other than being on a screen,” senior Kayla Calvo said. “It makes me feel a little bit healthier in a way.”
Every choice is determined by a roll of a dice. If a character wishes to attack a guard, a die roll would determine their success. Players use dice to determine the outcome of everything that happens. If they are looking for treasure, a dice roll may determine how good they are at looking, or how much they find. If they are attacking an enemy, a higher dice roll would do more damage.
“The dice are all random, so [you need] flexibility as [a player], because you don’t know how it’s going to tend,” Vescio said. “You can try to make it go one way, but if it doesn’t, you gotta roll with it–literally.”
Each character also has a class, which provides them certain advantages. There are spell casters, such as wizards and druids, and there are martials, which specialize in combat, such as barbarians and fighters. Each class has a skill they excel at, such as barbarians being exceptionally strong, or druids being exceptionally intelligent.
Players also must pick the species for their character. Species can be humans, elves, halflings or dwarves, according to the player’s rules. However, there are other options, like gnomes and orcs in different books seen through the D&D Beyond website. Species serves a mostly narrative purpose, though they do offer different tactical advantages, such as halflings having better stealth.
Throughout the game, players work together to develop the sort of complex world often found in fantasy novels, with the general rules published by Wizards of the Coast. The rules mostly serve as guidelines for interacting with the environment of the game; players and dungeon masters handle all other creative and narrative aspects.
Being a Dungeon Master
While players have free reign to make decisions, the story is being told to them by the Dungeon Master, who creates the general world of the story and comes up with different missions and plots for the characters to explore.
“I’m more like a guide to their journey and I’m every character that they don’t play,” junior Dee Floyd said. “I guide their story—like an interactive storybook. Most players like to go off the guidelines, so I always have a backup option. It might be stressful, but it’s fun.”
Floyd has run nearly 28 campaigns and is currently DM-ing three campaigns, with one online, one in person and one hybrid. Online and hybrid games can be run using digital maps of the terrain, and players communicate through apps like Discord. The DM is in charge of managing the party, which can be challenging, especially during early sessions when the group is first figuring out how to work as a team.
“Sometimes people don’t click, and they [have] main character syndrome, where they want to be main characters, and D&D is not a main character game,” Floyd said. “It’s letting one person have their moment, then letting another person have their moment.”
It is also the job of the DM to approve of the type of character being created. If every character in a party has a high strength and low intelligence, problems will easily arise when playing. Groups often host a session zero, where everyone sits down and discusses their characters to ensure the game will go as smoothly as it can.
“You sit down, and tell everyone [what your] character is going to be,” Floyd said. “Communication is crucial for a campaign to go well. So, [players] can get clearance for some things. You have to be open to communicate with the DM.”
Most people who play prefer being a player, but some find the work it takes to lead a successful game or campaign to be more rewarding.
“I like it because of the creativity, and I like making people happy. That’s my main goal,” Floyd said.
Creating a Character
Creating a character is one of the most important parts of playing. Usually, each character has their own visual aesthetic, backstory and abilities. There are many different classes and races someone can be. Many players test out designs using character generators online to get a sense of what their character would look like.
“I [enjoy creating characters in the] warlock class, because you can get the powers from a higher being, and I think it’s just cool. I like designing the facial features and then the clothing part of it. Picking everything took a lot of time out of my week,” senior Amanda Lawerence said. “I’m always doing art, and it was my whole life. It’s fun to play [D&D]. But I’d [rather] design them than play.”
Creating a compelling character can be a challenge for new players, who are not used to the narrative aspects of the game.
“My first character was super basic because I didn’t really know what I was doing. She [was] just like a girl from any action movie, but an elf, because it’s D&D,” senior Jasmine Burton said. “My other characters were more in-depth because they spent more time on their backstory and race. Sometimes some of the races don’t get along; you can incorporate that into the backstory.”
Players can choose to make their character anything they can think of and give them certain abilities that go with their personality.
“I like goats a lot, so my character is a satyr, which is a half-goat person. I wanted her to have a lot of charisma, but with a sneaky side,” Calvo said. “She’s not evil, but is a little mischievous. She could manipulate people’s minds a little bit to help her. In the story, she was going on a train to get away from that town because she angered some people with how she manipulated them.”
Characters need to have an alignment, which is their moral outlook on the world. They range in categories of good, neutral and evil, and chaotic, lawful and neutral respectively. Many players prefer making characters with personalities that have an element of evil and/or chaos.
“I can get to do stuff that I wouldn’t normally do. I personally would never steal money, But the D&D world, it’s just a character,” Lawrence said. “ [My character doesn’t] help people in situations; [they] just run away.”
However, it can be challenging at first for some players to make decisions based on the personality and alignment of their character, rather than on how they personally would deal with a problem.
“I had someone play [a monk] and they’re nothing like a monk, but that also led them to [try] different decisions and strateg[ies],” Floyd said.
Choosing a backstory and personality is one of the most exciting parts of the game for many players. Many players even form emotional attachments with their character, which allows them to become even more engrossed in the story being crafted.
“In a way, it’s inspiring because I’m always thinking, ‘Oh, I could do this for a character,’” Calvo said. “It’s really, really fun, because you really use your imagination. Also, you could relate to a character if you want to. It kind of feels like you’re starring in a TV show yourself, and you’re one of the characters.”
Story telling
One of the main draws of the game is the collective effort to create a story. Often players bounce ideas off one another, and the world being created becomes richer and richer as it goes on. There are games that can last years, with complicated story lines and characters to match.
“We were given a basic story at first. But as our DM saw that we got more and more involved in the story, he started to add more lore, because we would constantly explore things, constantly try things to figure out what was going on. There were plot twists and [complicated] character bonding moments,” Vescio said.
Generally, there is some sort of mystery that needs to be solved, and players have to work together to figure out what is really going on, or to complete the mission. In one session, Burton entered a bar with her party, when her character noticed posters of missing people pasted everywhere. She couldn’t help but feel something was off.
“It was really interesting because I wasn’t able to find out much, but we did end up capturing someone to get answers from,” Burton said. “It’s kind of like being a little detective sometimes, because the DM puts a whole story together, and only the DM knows what’s wrong, and the characters have to figure it out.”
Constantly creating and adapting to stories in the game gives players practice in skills necessary for story writing outside the game.
“It helps you with personalities a lot. I’m writing a short story in class right now for an assignment, and it actually helps me out,” Floyd said. “I [also] had to write a script, and got inspiration from my two favorite characters [from a] campaign.”
It also simply gives players experience with handling certain twists in stories, such as when Vescio’s party befriended a blacksmith.
“He had full, black knight armor on and a heavy chest plate [that] covered his entire body. All you could see was one glowing red eye. [When] I looked at it, and I immediately went, ‘Oh that’s a vampire,’ [but I] didn’t say it out loud,” Vescio said. “Everyone in the party befriended him and I’m like, ‘You do that.’ Twenty sessions later, he betrayed us and we had to fight him, and I’m just like, ‘I told you guys.’ It was so funny. It taught me to notice details and make quick connections.”
The Community
Due to the nature of the game, players have to work together in order to make any progress. For the most part, each game is held in person, though there are some campaigns held virtually. Either way, every player needs to be present during a given session–or the group creates an in-universe excuse for them to be absent.
“It’s a way to be creative while hanging out with your friends. Because usually I’m just creative alone in my room,” Burton said. “It’s cool to bounce off other people. Because with drawing and painting, you’re usually not using other people’s thoughts or inspiration or ideas. In D&D, you can use their ideas to add to your story.”
Many players enjoy goofing off while playing too, forming inside jokes that only make sense within the context of the campaign.
“We were stuck in like this magical lake underground for a bit, and we had fought sharks. Our ranger kept trying to figure out if it was a lake or an ocean. Every time after that, whenever we see any thing of water [we point and say], ‘Hey, is that an ocean? Is that a lake?’ even if it was a puddle.”
In order for the party to succeed, every character needs to have different strengths. If one character is assertive, but overbearing, another might want to be more charming and sly. No one character will be good at everything, and there is no way to ensure success because of the randomness of the game, so it is essential for everyone in the party to work together to ensure the best possible outcome.
“It [develops] your cooperation with different people. You have to try to plan together to make sure the party wins,” Vescio said. “Before we would attack or do our actions, we would talk with each other. It’s a lot of team building [and] communication work.”
Working together to create an intricate world, solve a mystery or fight an enemy, often creates a sense of camaraderie among the players, many of whom become close friends, if they weren’t already.
“It’s very much a bonding experience for them, because they get more friends out of this,” Floyd said. “It’s pretty fun to see them get to know each other when they wouldn’t have the same interest, other than this one.”
An Outlet
Besides creative and social benefits, players use the opportunity to create characters to express themselves in a safe environment.
“My favorite part is play[ing] a character, and becoming another person that maybe you don’t have the confidence to in real life,” Burton said. “Or be[ing] something that you want to become, and [D&D is] a way to practice. It’s sort of like acting with low stakes. You’re just with your friends.”
“Sometimes I’ll add a life lesson to a character [and] twist it a little bit so it’s like an experience that I’ve had. If I’ve been betrayed by a person, I would have a person that the character would be attached to betray [them],” Calvo said. “It’s sort of like making up a mini version of yourself, and I become proud because even if I’m still healing. I’ll be giving [them] advice, [and realize] maybe I could use that advice for myself. So [it’s] kind of like therapy.”
Role-playing games can be a powerful tool for self expression, especially when dealing with complicated issues, specifically with mental health. It can be hard for people struggling to reach out, but through fantasy role-play, people can express their deeper struggles without overly having to open up when they are not ready.
“[Without D&D], I would be more depressed, because I was very quiet. After COVID, I was a very quiet person,” Floyd said. “And before COVID, I was very social, but I was kind of sad. I didn’t really have a bond with people or a purpose. [D&D} helped me grow into the person I am.”
