Every WIN Wednesday, Park students from all grades come together to do one thing: play Dungeons and Dragons. Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) is a tabletop-based roleplay game that uses the roll of a die and the power of improv to determine characters’ fates. A group of players will form a party comprising different archetypes, each with varying skills, and create characters to progress through a story, also known as a campaign, run by the Dungeon Master (DM). The DnD club is open to all players, whether they’ve been playing for years or just got their set of dice yesterday.
Senior and dungeon master Ashton Molitor said the current campaign he’s running is the game’s players are stuck on an island full of different monsters that they’re trying to kill to escape.
“Our current campaign is, I put everybody on an island,” Molitor said. “I’m not going by a book. It’s more of an adventure that I made up, and what they’re doing right now is they’re trying to get off the island and fight the monsters on it.”
Senior Keaton Leonard, a player in one of the club’s campaigns, said he finds the game to be a source of fun with others and that it can be a time to relax.
“(Dungeons and Dragons is) a really good time to unwind, have fun with friends and have a really good laugh every once and a while,” Leonard said.
According to Club Advisor Kerstin Merril, she has several students who participate in DnD. She said she was able to understand the game and club more as time went on.
“I actually have many students that I work with during my social emotional learning classes, and many of them are involved in DnD, so I got to know more about the club and a little bit about the game,” Merril said.
According to Leonard, a campaign’s success can depend on whether everybody enjoys the game. He said if there’s even one person who doesn’t enjoy being a part of a party, then the game may not live to its full potential.
“(I want to) have people I just enjoy playing with because one of the main downsides (of the game) is that if one person within the party is not nice, (or) not being polite, it can take a lot away from the campaign,” Leonard said.
Molitor said both experienced players and members who have just started playing can find a place in the club. He said a campaign can be fitting for players of all levels, and that they would be playing the game in the same way.
“(The club is) good for both new and old players, because I’m starting at low levels and we’re just playing the game for fun,” Molitor said. “New players could easily learn how to do it, since (the campaign is) not a super high level, and players who have already played the game could play it too, because it’s not any different from any other campaign,” Molitor said.
Merril said she doesn’t do much to lead the club, as it’s mostly directed by the DM’s and other students who participate and go to the club’s meetings. She said her main role is making sure students aren’t excluding others or being unfair.
“The club is run by the participants and the student leaders who run the campaigns and are the DM’s,” Merril said. “It’s student-facilitated, and I’m just here to make sure that everybody is school-appropriate, being kind and everybody is being included and welcome.”
Leonard said when people buy into the game and cooperate, that is when DnD is the most entertaining.
“(The game is) more fun when the players are having the most fun because then they interact more, sometimes get more silly and sometimes more serious,” Leonard said.
According to Merril, she wants the club’s participants to have fun with each other. She said students could make a great campaign with other club members and learn even more.
“I hope to see kids having a good time together, sharing ideas, getting to know each other and learning more about the game and how to create a really awesome campaign together,” Merril said.
Molitor said during a campaign, players will take the story into their own hands, as is common in the game. He said DM’s have to help try and keep players on course to progress the story and get through the campaign as usual.
“A lot of the time, people tend to derail or do their own thing because that’s just how DnD goes,” Molitor said. “If you plan stuff out, as long as you try to keep the players on track, you could probably get through the campaign basically the same way.”
The next meeting is on Park’s next WIN Wednesday in room B222.
