An official Dungeons & Dragons club is in the works at OCU.
Dungeons & Dragons, commonly known as D&D, is a role-playing game where players create their own characters in a self-made fictional world. One person follows official guidelines set forth by the players who create the game and organizes a quest tailored to the other players. The game is played by millions of players all over the world, according to it’s website, dnd.wizards.com/dungeons-and-dragons/what-is-dd.
“This inspiration became the first fantasy role-playing game, in which players are characters in an ongoing fantasy story,” the website reads.
“This new kind of game has become immensely popular over the years, and D&D has grown to include many new ways to vividly experience worlds of heroic fantasy.”
Once the club becomes official, members will try to meet every other week, said Maxwell McIntire, acting sophomore and the club’s founder.
“I started playing D&D and getting really, really into it last year,” McIntire said. “But I was finding myself a little bit frustrated at how hard it was to actually get a group together and find people and spread the word.”
McIntire said he asked around to gauge interest on the creation of an official D&D club and received a sizeable amount of interest. There are about 10 people officially on the roster for the organization, but McIntire said he expects it to grow. Lance Marsh, professor of acting and head of performance, is slated as the faculty adviser.
Ben Roberts, English senior, was one of the first members on the roster. Roberts has experience as a “dungeon master,” also known as the “DM.”
“I know how to DM, which is something that takes a lot of work,” Roberts said. “Whenever you play Dungeons & Dragons, you usually have a group of people. And together you try to tell the story. The DM is the one who kind of has the narrative constraints of that. He’s going to tell you what monsters you fight, what kind of places you go, and also kind of serves as the rules arbitrator.”
Carlos Sanchez, English senior, said D&D is how he made the majority of his college friends. He also said he based much of his English senior capstone project off of the game.
“It’s also how I work when I’m not at work, because there’s game shops that are just like, ‘hey, be our DM and we’ll give you money,’” Sanchez said.
McIntire said he likes D&D because of the storytelling aspects and the lack of constraints placed on the player by the game itself.
“Being able to play and have this really open atmosphere with a bunch of other people is really fun,” McIntire said. “It’s an opportunity to craft your own character and play them as you see fit.”
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