Among PHS’s wide variety of clubs is the D&D Club, led by Khalil White. Dungeons & Dragons is a tabletop role-playing game with storytelling at its core. Differing from traditional strategy games, D&D calls for players to create their own characters that they can then lead on custom adventures in the game’s fantasy setting. For many players, particularly high school students, the game can be a unique creative outlet.
What do club meetings look like and how are they run? “Well, we [don’t usually] have full club meetings because in Dungeons & Dragons, you typically play in smaller campaigns, so we usually have our Dungeon Masters assigned near the beginning of the year and they hold meetings on their own time. We have full club meetings like maybe once a month.”
What do you think are some benefits of playing D&D, both socially and intellectually? “Well, I think [playing D&D] has a lot of social benefits, because you’re basically coming into a small group with like [1 to] 5 people, and you’re just kind of talking, [hanging out] having fun, making up random stuff. It’s kind of just random fun [with others]. But yeah, I think there’s also some intellectual benefits, like there’s a whole [part] of D&D that’s about organizing your stats and managing your equipment, although none of that is as [intimidating] as people make it out to be.”
What skills would you say students develop through playing these games? “There’s definitely a lot of social and creative skills, because if you’re the Dungeon Master, for example, [you’re] basically just telling a story and everyone else is ... a character in the story. So it’s just a lot of creativity stuff. There’s a bit of management stuff [playing as characters also], like making decisions because you have to think about what’s best for your character. But yeah, it’s a lot of social and creative stuff for the most part.”
In what ways would you say playing D&D together has built a community? “I have a pretty close bond with my players. I’m running a campaign this year and I have five players and [we] have grown pretty close this year. I know a good [amount] about each of them and yeah, we’re able to talk a lot. It’s very fun.”