D&D event brings students into a ‘pseudo-fantasical medieval world’

Rob Le Cates

Students played characters with drug names like Advil and Amoxicillin in an honors college’s conference room Friday afternoon.

Isabella Nantes, Reporter
February 27, 2023

Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a role playing game that, according to Richard England, dean of the honors college, exists within a “pseudo-fantastical medieval world.”

D&D dates back to the early 1970’s in Minnesota and has now been enjoyed across generations. This particular event is the first of its kind at the Pine Honors College, gathering newcomers and experienced attendees alike for a one-shot campaign.

Dean of Pine Honors College Richard England plays Dungeons and Dragons with students in the honors college’s conference room Friday afternoon. England has played Dungeons and Dragons since he was 19. (Rob Le Cates)

This band of Dungeon players brought a certain air of joy and community into the room with them. Excitement grew as Dr. England, who in this campaign played the role of Dungeon Master (narrator of journey), handed out the respective level one roles for each participant.

The theme for the players’ names happened to be different kinds of medicines. The characters varied from Advil to Amoxicillin, each holding unique qualities and duties.

Some of the types of characters include clerics, rouges, barbarians and magicians. Clerics are healers and the religious figures of the game, rouges are tactful and crafty, barbarians are brute fighters, and magicians are masters of casting spells. Each attendee took on the personas of their designated characters with a theatric flair.

Harrison Walker, a graduate student studying computer and information technology major, writes down notes during the one-shot campaign. (Rob Le Cates)

Harrison Walker, a fifth year computer and information technology major, has roughly a year and a half of experience with Dungeons & Dragons.

Walker’s favorite aspect of D&D is “the creativity, acting part of it cause that’s just something I’ve had a passion for since I was a little kid, but I like it even more in that sense, because unlike with stage shows where like you get handed a script you know and it’s like okay here are your lines do this, act out the character,” he said. “Instead with this though there is a little bit of a plan that goes into it, the really cool part of D&D is that it can go anywhere, it’s a very free-form activity. So, you get to act your character and you get to pretend to be them you know, bring them to life, but you never know what’s going to happen. And I love that kind mysterious, unexpected nature of it.”

Walker really enjoyed the dynamic of this party and said it was one of the biggest ones he’s been a part of to date with 12 students in attendance (plus England as Dungeon Master).

 

Isabella Nantes can be reached at 581-2812 or at iwnantes@eiu.edu.