I am now in my senior year at Iona. As I reflect back on the college experience, quite a few things surprise me. I didn’t go to parties as often as Pitch Perfect told me I would. I didn’t go to as many basketball games or go to the city often enough. However, something that definitely would surprise high school me was the prevalence and dare I say necessity that Table-Top Roleplaying games, like Dungeons and Dragons, had on my Iona experience.

For those who are completely lost at what dungeons or dragons have to do with my college experience, tabletop roleplaying games, or TTRPGs, are collaborative storytelling games where you and your friends get together and tell a story together, using dice to determine chance. Each person plays one of the main characters of the story, and the person sitting at the head of the table is the DUNGEON MASTER, or DM. Unlike the rest of the players, the DM plays the environment, allies, and villains. Together, we tell stories of laughter, adventure, and the occasional giant garbage monster and evil cyborg cowboy sheriff.

While my D&D career began in high school, my true love for this game sprouted during my sophomore year at Iona. The idea first got brought up during an event at the counseling center. A few people I was talking to said they were interested in Dungeons and Dragons, and the rest was history. I grabbed three of my close friends, and we played our first story together, Wrath of The Beastmaster. This was a campaign I wrote about the struggle of racial intolerance in a fantasy world, while also grappling with the morality of violent revolutions. They LOVED IT!

Since then, we have played a few other campaigns together that I’ve written: like Bulletproof, Power Trip at High Noon and The War on Infinite Fronts. Not only have our stories grown but so have our players! Our current group contains my very good friends Tristen, Logan, Donnovan, Jonathan, and Matthew. Whenever we play together, a bunch of our friends come out to watch us and follow along with the story.

It’s such a supportive community as we’ve built and is truly one of the most impactful creative and social outlets that I have ever had. Currently, Tristen has elected to take a stab at DMing our group, and I am now a player in his campaign, Godsfall. I’m lucky enough to now also be DMing the campaigns for Killian’s Klubhouse, and I’m having such an amazing time being part of both groups.

If you’re ever invited by a friend, classmate, or really nerdy cousin to join their game of Dungeons and Dragons, I highly, HIGHLY encourage you to take that leap and roll initiative alongside them. You never know just how much it might mean to you one day.