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Tales from the SAS Dungeons and Dragons group

Dungeon Master, Graeme Chapman, leads the group on weekly adventure through the imaginary province of Windale.

After I volunteered to write a piece about the SAS D&D group, I started to wonder if I could come up with some sort of profound metaphor, connecting playing Dungeons and Dragons with being a disabled student. I came up with something surprisingly fast. Trying to explain Dungeons and Dragons to someone who has never played or seen it played before is an almost impossible task. It sounds too complicated, they can’t understand the rules, for some reason everyone thinks you must dress up to play, and they just end up wondering how this could possibly be any fun. To put it simply, its impossible to make somebody understand D&D just by explaining it. And yet, you just know that if they tried it out, if they just played one game, they would get it, and they’d probably have a lot of fun. I can’t speak to every type of  accessibility need, but I feel like its pretty similar when you try to explain having a disability to people. This is especially true if it’s an invisible disability where you look, for lack of a better term ‘normal’, and people often dismiss your struggles or just don’t get it when you try to explain your condition to them.

I love being a part of this D&D group because it lets me step outside of the real world and go be Rory for a few hours. But even more so, I love that this group lets me be Hannah.

I’ve spent a truly ridiculous amount of time trying to explain the effects of a brain injury to people. Its difficult, firstly because even my doctors still aren’t entirely sure what the damage is, but also because its not the kind of thing, I can easily put into words. Its not an easy thing to make people understand and sometimes I think they don’t even want to. And yet, if I cut out a piece of someone’s head, then hit the hole with 20-30 rounds of radiation and made them go and live their life, they’d understand after about three hours.

Meet Rory, Hannah’s D&D character.

Its really the same thing with Dungeons and Dragons, if you try to get someone interested in D&D by explaining it to them, then you usually end up sounding insane. But if you actually get them to play it, or even just make them watch an episode of Dimension 20 or Critical Role, then they’re hooked after three hours. At least that’s what happened to me. Though, in my defence, the person who first explained D&D to me was my little brother and he inaccurately told me that all the girls had to be either pixies or sexy barmaids, so you can’t really blame me for not immediately getting hooked.

Some of the people in our SAS group had never played D&D before joining and watching them almost immediately get hooked has been one of the most joyous parts of being a part of this group. There are also people, like myself, who had a little D&D experience before. I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, this group has truly been something special. Due to difficulty finding people to play with, I’ve only played online with people in other cities, or countries in some cases. While I love my online group, its so much better to be playing in person and actually be able to bounce off of everyone else, not to mention the unparalleled excitement of having actual minis. It’s been so amazing that regardless of what is happening in my life, for 2-3 hours a week I can forget about what is happening in my life and play around in a fantasy world for a little while.

Astro watches over the D&D group, hoping one of the players will sneak him a small snack.

I’ll admit that I don’t really have a lot of friends, particularly not in Brandon, so the social element of this group has been really valuable to me. I feel that a lot of people, including myself, underestimate how valuable it is to have people that you spend time with voluntarily. Most of the time that a lot of people (myself included) spend outside of our homes is done out of obligation, and I think that sometimes we underestimate the importance of having people that you spend time with because you truly want to. This group has given me that, in fact, some weeks, it’s literally been the one thing that I look forward to and I know that there are other players who feel the same way.

Yes, this is just a group of students gathering together to play a silly game of magic spells and monsters, but its an outlet that I think many of us really needed, I certainly did, and I can’t wait for the rest of this adventure.

In addition to having a ridiculous amount of fun pretend fighting imaginary monsters, being a part of this group is also the first time I’ve been able to spend a significant amount of time with other students with disabilities. I tend to avoid talking about my disability if I don’t have to. I’m open about the fact that I identify as disabled, and I’ll tell people that I have a brain injury, but I tend to try not to go into details, not because I’m ashamed or worried about being judged, but mostly because that conversation inevitably leads to more questions. When you tell people you had cancer, 95% of people make a face that I really hate seeing. I appreciate being able to spend time around other people who had interesting medical histories of their own and hearing their stories made me feel better about talking about my own journey. Even though my fellow players did make that face that I hate when I told them, I did feel as though they could at least partially understand. It’s a community that I didn’t really know that I needed and I’m so glad that I have it now.

The group meets weekly in the Elephant Room located in the Knowles-Douglas building.

I love being a part of this D&D group because it lets me step outside of the real world and go be Rory for a few hours. But even more so, I love that this group lets me be Hannah. I can be open about both my disability and my nerdiness and embrace the parts of me that I usually keep hidden. Its amazing to be around people who appreciate my random facts and twisted jokes and who have plenty of their own to share as well. Yes, this is just a group of students gathering together to play a silly game of magic spells and monsters, but its an outlet that I think many of us really needed, I certainly did, and I can’t wait for the rest of this adventure.