Dungeons And Dragons:The Latest Adventure

Students Engage In Popular Role Playing Game

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Megan Walsh

Dungeon Master Clayton Pollard roles a D20 as he plays Dungeons and Dragons.

Students are immersing themselves in a widely popular role playing game, Dungeons and Dragons. The game was originally introduced in 1974 and gained popularity throughout the 1970s and 80s. Ever since Dungeons and Dragons has found places everywhere from the internet to after school clubs.

“It’s really fun.” 8th grader Daniel Manrique says. “You meet a lot of people; you understand their characters and themselves. The stories and the adventure just make everything ten times more interesting”.

The game is run by directors, more commonly known as dungeon masters. Each dungeon master runs their own version of the game, also known as a campaign. The current dungeon masters are Ms. Aileend Tinjar, Mr. Robert Bences, and senior, Clayton Pollard.

The role of a dungeon master is to “Construct the setting, the minor and major characters, everything outside of the players control.”  Bences says.

The game revolves around imagination, specifically the players come together to create a storyline. Whether this be fighting deadly foes or scourging for treasure, the players have full control over where the game goes.

“People joke around and say D&D is a lot like the game Skyrim but with math, it actually is a lot of math, a lot of rolling and stuff with the dice.” Pollard says, “The imagination part is what really brings it to life and which gives it that character that everybody knows.”

The heroes of the game are characters that the players create themselves. Much like characters in media, they have their own personalities, strengths, and weaknesses. Due to this, creating a character can become complex.

“Chaotic is probably one word for it,”  Ms. Tinjar says, “we all have new characters, they all have to establish their personalities, what their goals are, and then they all have to meet and somehow become a sort of cohesive group.”

To play the game players use die, the most common being the D20, the number being the amount of sides that the dice has. Other die include the D10 and D12. Another key factor of playing is dexterity, which measures hand-eye coordination, agility, reflexes, and balance. This shows the skills the player has in the game.

“Like if I wanted to flip down stairs, I roll a dexterity, take my D20 and roll it and depending on what I got I would add my dexterity and then I could either pass and be able to do the action or I would fail and probably hurt myself.” Sophomore, Zoey Carlini says.

The game might not be for everybody due to it being time-consuming, however those who invested time into the game have found it to be worthwhile.

“I would recommend it to people who have the time, it’s very time consuming,” Pollard says. “I’ll let people find their own stories and enjoy it.”