In the distance, I hear a loud roar and then a winged figure flies overhead, it’s a dragon heading towards our party. I glance over at the rest of my party; their expressions make it clear that they also understand the severity of our situation.
We could dash away, but a dragon is much faster than us, so our only chance of survival is to fight. I conjure a giant scythe from thin air and prepare a frost spell, but before I get a chance to attack, my stress is broken by the laughter in the dungeons master's voice as he gleefully narrates the dragon elsewhere.
It’s a typical Monday night and I’m playing Dungeon and Dragons (D&D) at Netherworld Games by State Street.
Every week I escape the monotonous life of a student and explore the magical fantasy land known as the Golden Everglades.
Unlike a traditional role-playing game where characters go through a predesigned story and play on a console, what happens in D&D is entirely up to the imagination of the player.
A session always starts in the city of Niska and our party gathers in the Doug In Tavern. The dungeon master serves as the innkeeper and usually tells us an adventure to go on and we can get exploring.
Moving a token around on a large hexagonal map and rolling dice for the success of our travel, allows us to keep track of where in the Everglades we are. Besides that, everything else is played out verbally.
In a normal day, we usually move three hexes, encounter a horde monsters trying to kill us and maybe prank each other. If we are lucky, we’ll stumble onto a hex containing a bandit camp full of treasure waiting to be plundered.
On our last adventure, we wound up in a hex shrouded in mist and found a multi-tentacled frog monster. It took one of our party members being swallowed and spit-up twice, but we eventually slew the behemoth.
Another time, we almost lost our mage to a firestorm, after he stole gold from lava elementals.
An easier way to understand how the game is played is to think of it as a story. The players are the authors and the dungeon master is the editor. Players propose things they want to do and if the dungeon master approves, he’ll narrate the adventure and use dice to determine outcomes, while also adding his own personal flair.
Our dungeon master loves to mess with the players and designed a monster that could kill a player from 300 feet away with its tongue. When we adventure, we pay close attention to our surroundings, because nobody wants to lose their character.
On Saturday nights, I now wait in anticipation for Monday evenings where I can roll dice with friends and talk to mystical creatures. Any college students looking for a free way to forget about school and enjoy a few hours creating their own fantasy adventure should consider playing D&D.
