“Dungeons and Dragons” is a game that many have heard of, yet many have not tried out. For the longest time I was one of those people, only listening to some of my friends recap their campaign to me and wondering if I would get the chance to play.
With a heavy majority of my friends and I being too busy for long outings that DnD would need, the entire idea felt like more of a pipe dream than something in reach.
Thankfully, my friends are much better at planning and time management than I am. Now, within the span of about three months, I’m in two different campaigns that are off on totally different stories.
To me, this game is an exercise in creativity on all parts. For the Dungeon Master (referred to as a DM for the rest of this), they’re in charge of keeping the story on the path they set along with creating their own enemies and sorting out their stats. Crafting a tale for multiple other people to follow along with is difficult on its own, but to do it verbally and only writing it down when there’s an opportunity? It’s tough, but the effort comes out in the end with a newly created world.
For the players, it’s up to them to come up with a character and join this universe. It could be a person crafted from all the basics put out by the handbook itself, but that player still has to play them out, give them a name and personalize them to an extent that makes them enjoyable to roleplay as for the experience.
Both of my campaigns are, to say the least, absolutely wild. One is held in person and another is held online with a separate group of friends and while we don’t get to play every week, I’m usually still buzzing with thoughts on the session for days afterward.
For example, the ending of the first chapter in my online campaign involved an enemy based on an old meme: remember Actual Cannibal Shia Lebeouf? If so, that’s what our first boss fight was essentially and it was downright hilarious when the threatening line was just ‘Shia Surprise.’
In fact, that battle had my best roll yet: a natural 20 that let me do double damage with my crossbow and I was so proud of myself for landing a clean hit on the guy. Past that, the fight went surprisingly well for the first big one that the session encountered.
For my other session, the squad is currently set up in a moonbase and have become members of an organization that hunts down powerful and ancient artifacts. This campaign is a lot more chaotic than my other one, especially since the other three people are chaotic neutrals while I’m the sole lawful good of the party and the only one not forcing a goblin to eat a pair of jeans.
In the end, “Dungeons and Dragons” is what you make it. There’s a story for everyone to tell and, sometimes, it’s one that can come out when playing with friends through some roleplaying and terrible dice rolls.
Erika Brandenburg
Arts and Entertainment Editor