You walk into room 201. The lights are switched off, blinds are shut, and there is a strong smell of lunch food. Ominous music plays as Daniel Galili tells the story of the land of Barovia cursed by the vampire Strahd.
This year, the Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) club has continued despite the dungeons master and club adviser Tali Rothstein—who was a Judaic studies teacher at NYHS—moving to Israel. It continues on with a new story and six members.
In D&D, players visualize a story in their minds and use their characters’ abilities to overcome obstacles such as owlbears in a dungeon.
Last year, the adventure was called Escape from Cordoba. It was written by Rothstein and was about the Spanish Inquisition, but with magic. The players were tasked with delivering a Torah scroll from Cordoba, Spain to Fez, Morocco. Without Rothstein, this year Galili portrays a new story.
“She was really good at…telling the stories [in] my freshman and sophomore years,” said Galili.
With Galili in charge, the club has continued roleplaying and story telling. However before they were able to start the story, everyone had to choose a character. Each character has their own class such as Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, etc. Each of the members picked out what classes they were as well as species, their abilities, spells and stats. Once they decide on a character, Galili the dungeon master creates worlds around them to interact with.
“It’s mostly imagination but with some rules,” Galili said. “The dice are part of the rules, they add an element of randomness to the setting and this makes you unsure if you’re going to succeed.”
After they pick a character, there is a Dungeons Master who controls the gameplay and the story. The theme this year is a vampire story which is about a land that has been cut off from this dimension. The land of Barovia is ruled by a vampire who made a deal with the nebulous “dark powers” which are not explained in detail. The goal of the story is to defeat the vampire.
“D&D is basically like playing pretend,” said Galili.
They are playing through a module, or pre-written story, made by the Wizard of the Coast. In that module, they go through the story and see the land of Barovia, which has been cursed by a vampire named Strahd von Zarovich.
One of the members of this club, Adam Hickox, discovered D&D in the sixth grade back in Montana.
“I saw it online and I thought it was cool,” he said. “I found a small group of people that know how to play. We didn’t get very far but it’s better than nothing.”
His character is a ranger elf who has bows, wisdom and can do magic. Some other characters he played were warlocks with swords and a Cleric (a magic healer).
“[The Cleric] didn’t go well in the part that I would be able to figure out what the puzzles were, but the character was too stupid to be able to figure it out,” said Hickox.
The club had to keep rescheduling because of the college visits. So far they have had around four meetings. There is a concept in D&D called the BBEG which stands for the Big Bad Evil Guy, which is the general name for the main villain of each setting.
“Everyone says the true Big Bad Evil Guy of D&D is scheduling, because it’s just really hard to get everyone together to play pretend for a few hours,” said Galili.
D&D has several aspects like combat, role-playing, and puzzle-solving. With role-playing there is a lot of freedom and you can even make up voices for each of the characters.
“Even the rules aren’t the limit and if everyone is willing to collaborate there’s so many creative things you can do,” said Galili. “Personally, I love the role playing [aspect], I love how you can get the characters to interact.”
Another member of the club, Elizabeth Gabbay, joined for the first time this year. She plays Joe Biden the Barbarian as her character, who is a combat person. She has not played a lot of different styles yet but she was in a couple of campaigns.
“It’s almost like a movie, except you can’t see it on a screen, it’s like you’re in the moment,” said Gabbay.
