This week in EDL 290T, our class started a three-part Dungeons & Dragons campaign. As discussed in my previous post, Dungeons & Dragons is a role-playing game that allows for players to create their own characters from a variety of classes, races, and backgrounds. A Dungeon Master, or DM, guides players through their journey as they work through the campaign with fighting, healing, and skill checks being parts of the gameplay. There’s room for improvisation, too, since players can talk among themselves and take a story totally off the rails if they want to.

This week in the campaign, our group made it to the goblin cave and snuck across the river path. We then came across the wolf pit, where I had to bribe the wolves with meat since I was the group member with highest bonus in animal handling skills. Once we made it into the cave with the main bridge, our group tried to negotiate with the guard goblin, which didn’t go as well as we’d hoped, which resulted in us running back to the wolf pen; most of the group made it, but one other member and I got swept away in a tidal wave. After regrouping and making it back to the bridge, we fought the guard and won. We made it to the next part of the cave and had to fight off yet another group of goblins to advance to find the goblin boss. After that, we found one of the explorers we were following and talked through as a group what our next moves should be.

Some of the highlights of this week’s play session included interacting with wolves, fighting off goblins multiple times, and learning that goblins apparently have a scurvy problem. This was fun because some of it was part of the campaign script, while other aspects were off-script. The work we did in the campaign ties into leadership because having good teamwork skills can make people better leaders. I think my friend Alex might enjoy D&D because of the improv element mixed with fantasy.