Jasmine Liang
Arts & Entertainment Editor
To some, the collaborative storytelling, tabletop role-playing game “Dungeons and Dragons” (D&D) might seem silly. The physical manifestation of my sessions often look like this: a large map spread across the table, iPads with character sheets, and dice scattered around in disarray. But to my D&D group and I, it’s anything — a rogue who steals ancient artifacts from ruins, a warlock whose secret patron compels him to kill, an ex-cult member running from his fear of death into the hands of (ironically) necromancy.
To Kyle Brusewitz, a first-year mechanical engineering student, D&D is “an amazing outlet for creativity and anything you can imagine.” In an interview with The Bottom Line (TBL), he explains his draw to D&D: “The way you can just reinvent what you’re doing each time as you grow with the game is really cool, and as a player, being able to interact with a world that other people made is a lot of fun.”
Brusewitz often encourages others to try D&D for themselves. “I remember a lot of times playing being good times and having a lot of fun with people I care about, and I think to be able to enjoy that as a DM [Dungeon Master] or players is a wonderful experience, and I tell other people to try it out and try and find that same connection.”
Across UC Santa Barbara (UCSB), D&D has certainly forged those connections. Charles Gong, a fourth-year sociology major, explained to TBL how D&D helped shape his experience at UCSB: “I had a hard time making friends in classes… especially when most of them were virtual in the beginning. So when I first moved into I.V. [Isla Vista], I joined a server, found a group, and that’s how I started making my first friends at school. I was, like this is awesome. It was so much fun.”
Taran Kalle, a fourth-year philosophy major, shares a similar story. “Before lockdown I was really socially anxious. D&D is one of the main reasons I was able to overcome that and recover. I think the experience of hanging out with friends consistently in a low-pressure environment really helped with that.”
Kalle is currently reviving the RPG (roleplaying game) Club at UCSB, which stagnated when the previous officers graduated. “Part of our goal is to revitalize the Discord and get a very active community… We want to make it a place you want to hang out.”
The Discord Kalle is talking about and the server Gong mentions are one and the same: the RPG Club Discord, which has facilitated many D&D groups across the years. It’s accessible through Discord’s Student Hub feature, which allows Discord servers to be available to other students from the same college. According to active UCSB D&D players, RPG Club is your best bet to find a group.
One such campaign that arose from the RPG Club Discord continues even past graduation. Kameron Salazar, a UCSB ’23 graduate, is part of a campaign with two other alumni. “The campaign has been going strong for about two years and counting. We still have a lot of adventuring to do, and I hope it continues on for as long as it can.” Salazar attests to the importance of having a D&D community on campus, saying, “There are so many students fresh out of high school who may have been bullied for liking D&D or other things in the fantasy genre. Having this space is important because it shows these students that they aren’t alone in their interests.”
Although D&D’s theater-of-the-mind playstyle may not appeal to everyone, there is a space on campus for anyone curious enough to learn more. As Salazar points out, “There are so many people willing to help you learn how to play the game. The most important thing is to just have fun.”
Kalle corroborates this. “You can’t really mess up in D&D. Sure, your character might die, but you can just develop a new one.”
The D&D pitch that once swayed Gong to try D&D was this: “Your character can be anything you want, and your choices aren’t locked by game content. You can explore whatever you want to. It’s open world — truly open world.”
And so, I echo his pitch now, to all fantasy lovers and board game enthusiasts and writers and scientists and artists and anyone looking for a community and everyone and more. Freedom finds its meaning in a game unhindered by technology and stress. To tell a great story, D&D proves that all you have to do is try.