UNR’s Guild of Dungeons and Dragons Players
Jacob Kostuchowski reports on the Dungeons & Dragons community on campus he is a part of and what the game means to those involved, as well as addressing issues within “nerd culture,” including gatekeeping and sexism.
UNR’s Dragon Club
The tabletop game Dungeons & Dragons is a comfort for many students on campus. Being able to transport yourself into another world is something special and UNR has a club that lets you do just that. It’s called the Dragon Club.
Connor Klempa, 23, is a graduate student at the University of Nevada, Reno studying biotechnology. Klempa has also been the Dragon Club’s president since the Fall 2021 semester. One of the main reasons he initially joined the club his freshman year was the social aspect of it.
“We found out about this club like hey, there’s this D&D Club, we could play together, they can reserve a room for us and stuff like that,” he said. “So I looked into the club, I looked into the open games and stuff like that, and I got in there and played their games. I made new friends and stuff, it was a nice experience.”
His push to be the president of the club came more out of necessity as the club was really struggling during the pandemic. Klempa says the previous board was really struggling. They thought his presidency could bring some stability.
“He’s [a friend and previous board member] like, ‘Yo, Connor, do you want to run for president? Like our current president is kind of overwhelmed and stuff, we need someone who can help take charge, you know, and help us navigate through all this craziness.’ And so, at the next election, I stepped up.”
Mason Dusthimer, 21, a third year business information systems major joined the club because he was mainly looking for a group of people to play with. He really appreciates the club’s flexibility with its membership.
“The meetings, you can, from what I understand, you can kind of go as you want, it’s more just so that you can get into a group and get people to play with,” he said.
Inclusivity Issues?
Within the realm of “nerd culture” there is always the concern of gatekeeping and not enough inclusivity. One of the bigger issues I have seen within “nerd culture” is sexism towards women in the groups. I have seen women treated differently, and thought to not understand the game simply because they are women.
Klempa wanted to address this issue, especially in terms of the Dragon Club.
“Like my sister’s actually in the D&D Club and the previous president of the D&D Club was a girl. So we’re pretty inclusive,” he said. “It doesn’t matter to us whatever race, gender, whatever you are. As long as you come in, you’re polite and you come here to enjoy yourself, then it’s totally fine.”
It was great to see that within UNR’s tabletop community diversity is encouraged. Klempa makes sure to follow ASUN’s guidelines. Within the Dragon Club’s constitution you can find their Title IX guidelines and within their Discord server they lay out what is and isn’t acceptable.
What about Gatekeeping?
For gatekeeping though there really are two arguments that can be made. One side of this is that it could really be a deterrent to new players. Klempa talked about how older players can be sticklers to old rules which can really turn new players away. Gatekeeping as defined in the dictionary is the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something.
“Say an experienced person or whatever experience group might not want to take in new people because you know, they could view it as like, this is their clique, so to speak,” he said.
Another argument is that sometimes gatekeeping is necessary to make sure that the rest of the players can have fun.
“That’s all it’s about,” Dusthimer said to me. “ And if somebody is trying to either kill a player, and the player doesn’t want to be killed, or is trying to kill an NPC [non-player character] that is important to the quest, or is trying to, or is going against the party for the sake of going against the party, or something like that, then I’d say that, that that’s kind of a problem. And that probably should be addressed.”
The Creative Side: Crafting Your Own Stories and Creating Miniatures
One of the most integral parts of D&D is the creative worlds that you will find yourself in. You create your own character in a fantasy world and the fun really starts from there. The creativity was one of the huge selling points that eventually got me to play the game. I found myself enthralled in the setting and the characters that you meet. I know that I am not alone in this feeling at all.
An aspect that Klempa enjoys is the possibility to “homebrew” your own campaign. For those unaware homebrewing is not using official campaigns and creating your own unique one.
“I made my own entire world, so to speak, like my own homebrew handcrafted world,” Klempa said. “It was a bit tricky, because I had to make up all the backstory and stuff like that for the world itself and all the characters, but it was still really engaging and fun for me.”
It allows you to even set your stories in other fictional settings such as Star Wars or Dark Souls. The possibilities are endless.
Another part of this community that really encourages creativity is the miniature figures you can use during game-play.
Whether it be buying and painting them or even creating your own 3D model and printing it, having a miniature figure can really take the game to new levels.
Dusthimer talked about how these miniature figures almost have a subculture of their own. For D&D though he thinks having these mini figures are quite important to the experience.
“As far as what they add to the game, D&D minis, in my opinion, are near essential , some DMs [dungeon master] don’t really care, they’re fine with using dice or coins or whatever kind of tokens to mark,” he said. “Having a map and having characters and having, you know, enemies provides like a tangibility to the game and kind of aids in that visualization process I explained earlier.”
Klempa falls on the other side of this argument though, in relation to not using miniature figures. “It’s a perfectly fine way of playing you just gotta get it in your head and like describe things for the players, so that everyone’s kind of on the same page,” he said.
I believe that people will discredit people who play D&D because it is viewed as a game only for nerds, but that is not the case. This game has aspects that anyone could enjoy.
“ I still think that everyone should at least try D&D,” Klempa said. “It lets you interact with people and make friends. And I encourage people that want that social aspect while still being super nerdy and stuff like that to give it a try.”
