The classic tabletop fantasy role-playing game “Dungeons & Dragons” is growing in popularity on campus. Both new and experienced players gather together at the BYU-Hawaii Gamer’s Club and in their own homes to play the game.
In 2014, publisher Wizards of the Coast launched a brand new 5th edition of the classic role-playing game “Dungeons & Dragons.” With streamlined rules and a focus on character development, the 5th edition is becoming the most popular iteration of the game to date.
“I really like it,” said Justin Putnam, a sophomore studying marketing from Oregon. “It offers a lot more freedom. It’s easier to get into as a new player because it is a lot simpler.”
One player, known as the Dungeon Master (or DM), acts as a narrator for the events of the story. He or she establishes a fantasy setting and its major conflicts. The rest of the players create characters who act as the heroes and protagonists of the DM’s tale.
Players make decisions for their characters and roll a 20-sided die (known as a d20) to determine the outcome of their decisions, adding an element of chance and risk to the game. The silliest idea might prove to be extremely successful, or the most inspired plan might epically fail.
“I always want to play D&D. It’s amazingly fun,” said president of the Gamer’s Club, Ian Nakayama, a freshman from Kahuku studying psychology.
“We were trying to brainstorm ideas of what kind of games people were interested in. There are a lot of people who want to play D&D on campus. It has been received so well that we need more than one DM.”
To accommodate this, Nakayama said they split up into multiple groups. “You don’t want to turn people away,” he added.
Megan Church, a sophomore studying music from Ohio, first learned to play D&D with her family. “My dad played D&D his entire childhood. He wanted to teach my brother and me, so he would break out the D&D stuff and we would play.
"It was one of my dad’s favorite things and he started DMing regularly. Every other Friday night at my house was D&D night. I think it’s strengthened my relationship with them a lot.”
Players created characters armed with magic spells, mighty weapons, and the power to transform into animals. Nakayama likes the charismatic “smooth talker” characters, such as bards, who use music to weave magical spells. Church plays a wizard and describes her character as “basically an arsonist.” Putnam likes to play a rogue, “because I get to steal stuff.”
Putnam, known for his acting roles on the BYUH stage as Perchik in “Fiddler on the Roof” and William Shakespeare in “March Tale,” related D&D to acting. “When you are an actor, you are usually given a script, and you portray that character as true as you can, giving them depth and thinking of what that character would do. In D&D, it’s the exact same thing.
"You’re given a world and situation. Playing that character, you have to think of what that character would do and you do it. It’s fun because sometimes it’s not what you personally would do.”
Putnam related the game to his experiences performing improvisational comedy with the Seaside Jesters Comedy Club.
“It helps me think on my feet. In improv, it’s just like acting but without the script. You still have a character and you still have to be true to that character, but you don’t have anything planned in advance. You have to be in the moment. You have to commit to it,” he said.
Church said she loves the imagination involved in D&D. “I like doing things off the beaten path. D&D is not like Monopoly. You have a general outline, but everything happens because you made it happen. Sometimes things go places that you didn’t expect them to, because it’s based on how people react and how they play their characters. I enjoy that because you’ll never get the same game twice.”
Nakayama related an experience playing D&D at Kamehameha Schools: “I had a senior English class called Literary Fantasy, and our semester project was to play D&D. One of our final grades was whether or not we passed that adventure. If we died, then we kind of failed. It was a boss class. We made our own origin stories. That was part of the project.”
He recalled his favorite moment. “I was the warrior and we were going against a balrog,” (Think of the fire creature Gandalf fought in “The Fellowship of the Ring”) “but I was wearing cursed armor. The balrog burned it off of me and I was standing there in my loincloth with nothing but my sword.
"My entire class was standing there with low health and we were all going to die next turn. I rolled the d20 and got a natural 20. Critical hit! I conquered it! I shouted ‘I am Beowulf!’ It was very rewarding.”
Church shared her favorite memories as well: “We were on a ship and some pirates were trying to invade.” She said her friend got a bad roll, but “I got all these awesome rolls, 18, 19, and a natural 20. So I am crushing these pirates and my friends are stabbing themselves in the foot.
"One of my friends, she played a dwarf, had passed out, and we were trying to evacuate the ship, because I may have lit the ship on fire in the process of destroying the pirates, on accident. We’re bailing from the ship, but my one friend is still passed out. So another friend shoves her in a barrel, seals up the barrel and threw her off the boat.”
The D&D Starter Set, with everything you need to learn to play including characters, dice, and a DM adventure, is available on Amazon.com for under $15.