Do you remember in elementary school, on the playground when you would play things like “House” or “School,” where each person would take on a role and act it out to tell the story? That’s what Learning Zone’s Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) club is like. In the words of Chevie McCleary, “It’s like math plus your imagination, and luck too!” Chevie is the Dungeon Master (DM) for this group. The DM’s job is to create the story that plays out and to make most of the rules for the players’ characters to follow throughout the campaign. A campaign is simply the storyline that your game follows, and it continues for a set length of time.
In the beginning of a campaign, all players must create their own characters—they can base these upon themselves or make their own complex backstory. Landyn Worley (9) described his character as “A dragon-born, which is basically a human with dragon features” and the “Group mom, also known as the responsible one that keeps everyone in check. Ben Royer (10) said that his character is “a rogue who only cares about money.” Sophomore Camron Tesreau mentioned that his character is an “elf sorcerer” who does plant magic.
In every scenario in D&D, the characters make decisions on what to do next. This is where the dice come in. Each player must roll the dice to see the chance of success that their action or decision will have. Ben Royer explained the dice like this: “If you roll the D-20 (twenty-sided die) and it lands on a one, you will automatically fail what you’re trying to do. If it lands on twenty, then you are fully successful in your effort. Your success in this action then determines what happens to you, which is the DM’s decision.” If, for example, your character is fighting a monster and you want to deal the final hit but you roll a three, the DM might say, “The monster eats you and now your team must save you.”
A D&D campaign can last anywhere from a week to multiple real-life years. This particular group told me that the current point in their story would be the “rising action” on a plot diagram, meaning that things are starting to get serious and some strange things are happening in their world. Camron stated that they are currently residing in an enormous church while trying to solve a murder mystery and protect the king of their region. In the time I spectated, the characters had a food fight and had to roll for their luck while cleaning up their mess.
At the end of the day, I learned that D&D is far more than a roll of the dice. It’s about friendship, teamwork, problem solving, and most of all: Fun! If you are reading this and you think D&D would be exciting or interesting to try out, talk to Mr. Daniels about his advisory group, or get into contact with Mr. Leo or Mrs. Comnick from Fredericktown Alternative Learning Campus.
Finally, as a DM may say to conclude a campaign,”Thank you for making this story memorable.”
