Finishing from the previous session, participants in the game of Dungeons and Dragons that I had been running at the local public library had their players make final attempts to extricate themselves from the dungeon into which they had paritally penetrated. Following the conclusion of play, participants were asked their opinions of the program and its contents, as well as for ideas for future such offerings, should any be made. Given the completion of another narrative arc, characters were permitted to advance to the next level of achievement, and participants were given their materials as something resembling a parting gift (they had previously been in my possession).

Having previously conferred with library administration, I can report that it is likely the program will be renewed in the fall term, with specific dates to be determined. It may be that some game other than Dungeons & Dragons will be on offer; it may also be that other groups will be branched out from that which played at my table these past several months. More details than just the dates are yet to be determined, although I am pleased that there is room for the program to continue and for me to remain engaged with it.

As has often been the case in the past when I have concluded a session with students–and the participants in the library’s game have been students, overt educational objectives having been addressed with them by request–I have some reflection to offer. One piece of it is that, should I do such a program again, I will approach it with a clearer and more focused educational agenda. It is easy for me to forget how to deal with participants at the ages with which I worked these past months; my teaching experience had been focused on older students almost exclusively, and it has been thirty years and more since I was the age those most recently at my table are. I do think the question about setting posed late in what might well be called a term–why the neo/medieval(ist) as a dominant setting for Dungeons & Dragons and for TTRPGs, more generally–is a good one; I also think the ponerological question from long before is a good one. (Indeed, play began to move back to consideration of the nature of evil as things went on; I could wish there had been more time to explore it.) There are others, to be certain, and I have time to consider one or more of them before any new program begins.

I think also that I need to go into things with a clearer sense of the narrative I want to address. If I am being honest, a lot of what I did with the kids was flying by the seat of my pants; I did not have as much planned as I probably ought to have had, and there were some times, as I believe I have noted, when I was flatly stalling for time with the participants. In the past, when I have run games, I have generally done so with firmer ideas of what was happening and what could happen; I have done a lot of planning for things, a lot of scripting, a lot of determining what would happen in the world absent the actions of my players’ characters. I did not do so this time, and it left me a bit out of my element. Again, though, I have time to prepare in advance of future programs, and there are definitely some ideas that came up in what I improvised for the participants these past several months that I would like to revisit and expand upon in some detail. What those are, of course, I cannot here say; it is possible that some or all of the recent participants will return for future games, and I do not want to spoil the surprise for them. Part of the value of the story is a sense of wonder, and surprise helps develop such a sense. It’s not the only thing that does, admittedly, but it is one thing that does.

(It might be worth noting here that I do not mean to adapt the Realm of the Elderlings for TTRPG purposes. It might well be thought that I would do so; I am more than passingly familiar with the corpus and its contents, after all, and there is no small worth in the old advice to “Write what you know.” So much said, however, I do find my gaming useful as a diversion from the other things that I do, even if it is often related to them, and it is good to get away from my everyday. Too, it would be obvious, and I do try not to be quite that obvious.)

There are things I think I did well with the participants and which I hope to do again. While it is the case that more than one of them was more concerned with the character looking cool than doing well, and more than one of them thought that a starting character would be able to perform legendary feats as easily as breathing, I did work to let characters attempt things that I knew had no actual chance of success, to not quash the ideas without taking the chance on them–and, when it was actually sufficiently well explained and justified, letting the dice let things happen. It resulted in some interesting happenings during the campaign, providing some entertainment that would not otherwise have occurred–and the game is, fundamentally, about entertainment, even as it does do a number of other things for those who participate in it. And I do think that I offered those players who wanted to avail themselves of it the chance to deepen and refine their characters beyond the surface-level concerns of stats and equipment; there was development on display, and I am glad to have facilitated it.

More importantly, I contributed to the delinquency of minors helped a new generation of gamers get started in a hobby that has been a source of joy and community for me for decades. I have helped them to take some of their early steps into a broader world, one that reaches back more than fifty years and has, in my experience and others’, fostered a worldwide community that comes together, yes, to roll dice and tell lies, but more to make stories together, refining and passing forward some of the most fundamentally human acts. And in doing that, I have made the world just a little bit better, for which I am glad.

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