It is a fast-growing club at Riverton High School where students are using their imagination, relying on teamwork, and growing their storytelling skills in a unique way.

On this episode of the Supercast, we meet members of the Dungeons and Dragons Club at Riverton High. It’s a club where students are bonding over their love of exploring dungeons, defeating dragons, and finding treasure in a fantasy world where critical thinking and creative minds are key to success.

Anthony Godfrey:

What do you guys love about playing D&D?

Ethan Sabin:

I just love the versatility of it. It can help you have friends that can do these kinds of things with you...That can build friendships anyway.

Anthony Godfrey:

Kind of the opposite of being on your phone.

Shadow Tillman:

I mean, it's more stimulating to your brain. There's a lot of creativity and improv in it.

Anthony Godfrey:

Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. It is a fast-growing club at Riverton High School where students are using their imagination, relying on teamwork and increasing their storytelling skills in a unique way.

On this episode of the Supercast, we meet members of the Dungeons & Dragons Club at Riverton High. It's a club where students are bonding over their love of exploring fantasy worlds, defeating evil creatures and finding treasure in a game where critical thinking and creative minds are key to success.

We're here at Riverton High School, after school, talking with members of the Dungeons & Dragons Club here. Introduce yourselves and tell me a little bit about yourself.

Ethan Sabin:

So I'm Ethan Sabin. I'm the president of the D&D Club here at Riverton High School. I don't know. I've been playing D&D for about a decade.

Shadow Tillman:

I'm Shadow Tillman. I'm also a member of D&D Club. I haven't been playing as long as he has, but it's still quite a while.

Anthony Godfrey:

Tell me about the origins of the D&D Club. Has it been around for a while or when did it start?

Ethan Sabin:

So I'd say that the D&D Club, as far as I know, it's been going on for a little while. However, the previous teacher that was supporting the club recently left and moved to, I believe, a job in BYU-Idaho, and so we had to find a new advisor. And it's almost like it restarted the club, but it's been going for a little while.

Anthony Godfrey:

And for those who don't know about Dungeons & Dragons, explain what a role-playing game is and what Dungeons & Dragons involves specifically.

Ethan Sabin:

So D&D is a tabletop role-playing game where basically you create your own character and it's very customizable from several different specifications and stuff. You play your character running through a story, and you have a character or a person known as the Dungeon Master that writes the story and that controls fate, and runs you through the story using the character you've created.

Anthony Godfrey:

So they create the adventure and then they guide you through the adventure and one of the ways that fate or luck come into play is by using dice. So tell me the role that dice play, so to speak, in Dungeons & Dragons.

Ethan Sabin:

Dice, they're definitely a major role of D&D. You use them to create your abilities, scores, and the things that you use to determine how your character is what they are. And then you can also use them any time that you want to make an ability check. So for example, any time you're trying to track someone or scale a wall or shoot a bow, for example, you'd make an attack roll or a different roll with one of the dice and if you roll low, you usually fail. If you roll high, then you might succeed.

Anthony Godfrey:

And if you are a certain type of character, then you have certain abilities that make it more likely that you'll be successful trying something.

Ethan Sabin:

For example, a fighter would be better at using a bow or sword than, say, a wizard would. And so because they're proficient in these items, they gain pluses to their rolls. So for example, if they rolled a 17, then they might have a plus 3 and so it would be a 20 rather than just a 17.

Anthony Godfrey:

So the plus 3 means because you're who you are, whatever damage you do, we're going to add to it just on the basis of the fact that you're a fighter as opposed to a wizard.

Ethan Sabin:

Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:

Okay, what you just described... Oh, Shadow, go ahead.

Shadow Tillman:

Additionally, those modifiers are decided by the rolls that you get at the beginning when you first make your character. So you might be like a fighter who's skilled at fighting but about nothing else.

Anthony Godfrey:

And I think that's an important point, Shadow, is that you don't just get to decide at the beginning, "Well, I'm really good at this, and I'm really good at that, and I'm good at everything." You have to roll when you're creating the character to determine exactly what your strengths are. Is that still correct?

Shadow Tillman:

Yes.

Ethan Sabin:

I think that there are a little bit of things that you can choose. So for example, when you're creating a character, you can choose what class you want to be, which is like the specialization, and then you can also choose which skills you're proficient in. So there is some choice to it, but there are other things that you have to work for.

Anthony Godfrey:

Just give me a general description of the club. I know there are lots of clubs here at Riverton. How many people are there? What are the officers and how often do you meet?

Ethan Sabin:

So our club is one of the larger clubs at the school. We meet every single week on Mondays from 2.30 to 4. Our club has around 50 members. Not everyone comes every week and some of the players do it on different days, but we've got around 37 or so active members. And in terms of leadership roles, it's really just the president, and then we have the vice president this year. And it's an election basically at the beginning of the school year.

Anthony Godfrey:

What do you guys love about playing D&D?

Ethan Sabin:

I just love the versatility of it. Obviously, it's fun to play, but then it can also help you have friends that can do these kinds of things with you, or that can build friendships anyway. And then you can also create stories. You can go through those stories with your friends. You can create your own character and stuff from scratch.

Anthony Godfrey:

How about you Shadow?

Shadow Tillman:

I would say that there's a lot of creativity and improv in it. So that there's never a time where you're feeling bored or left out. Everyone's involved, or at least everyone's supposed to be.

Anthony Godfrey:

There are lots of worries these days about people not, and youth in particular, not interacting with each other, being on their phones, being on screens. This seems like a really good antidote to that. It's in person, there's a great connection with each other, high creativity, and like you said, Shadow, everyone's involved, everyone has a chance to interact. Would you agree that this is kind of the opposite of being on your phone?

Ethan Sabin:

For sure. It's more stimulating to your brain. You actually have to do some sort of problem-solving stuff. You have to be creative on some of the things that you have to do.

Shadow Tillman:

There's a lot of problems that will come up, and your goal is to solve those problems. So there's a lot of puzzle-solving and things that will actually get you to think.

Anthony Godfrey:

Tell me about the club. Does it make it easier to find people to play Dungeons and Dragons with, and do you have closer friendships as a result?

Ethan Sabin:

I think that in some ways it's easier to do it in a club, because when you're in a club, you basically make time to do it at a certain time every single week, and so it's more in a set time, and it makes it happen. Whereas if you sometimes just do it at your home with your friends just whenever you can, it generally gets put on the back burner and isn't really something that happens all that much.

Shadow Tillman:

Also, the club makes it a lot easier to find a group, at least the way Ethan did it the first day, made it easier.

Anthony Godfrey:

What you just described is exactly what everyone is supposed to do, and that set aside scheduled time to really do things that connect you with other people and really give you joy in your week. So I love that you've got this club going and that you found another advisor.

Student:

Good, that's 20.

Student:

10. You get a 10.

Anthony Godfrey:

So we're talking now with Mac, who is the advisor for Dungeons and Dragons. Tell me, how did they drag you into doing this?

Mac Hansen:

I don't know. Before this, I didn't really play Dungeons and Dragons. I listened to a lot of podcasts and stuff about it, mostly for the comedy of it all, and they somehow sensed that I'm a super nerd, and so they said, "Hey, we think you would have fun doing this." I was like, "Insulting, but yes, I would. Let's do it."

Anthony Godfrey:

Nerd-recognized nerd, you know?

Mac Hansen:

That's exactly what happened. Well, it's funny because I had three different groups, separate from each other, without knowing that each other were coming to talk to me, come to ask if I would do it.

Anthony Godfrey:

So you give off nerd energy in ways you didn't even realize.

Mac Hansen:

Apparently yeah. I don't even try.

Anthony Godfrey:

Well, I love that you're helping support them. What have you noticed in the interactions? What did they seem to be getting out of being part of the D&D club?

Mac Hansen:

A chance to be more social with people within similar interests. It's the same as what some kids get for football or basketball. They're playing a game together with people who have the same interests, and so they come and they get in their separate groups and they play their campaign for an hour and a half, and they're just having a good time.

Anthony Godfrey:

I think it's fantastic, and I love the level of creativity, the personal interaction, and really the engagement that pulls away from a lot of other things that try to get our attention these days.

Mac Hansen:

I play too. When I'm here, I'm not just sitting on the side. I'm in Ethan's campaign. I told him, "If I'm going to be there, I'm going to play."

Anthony Godfrey:

I love that.

Mac Hansen:

We're all just interacting and the phones are away, which is awesome, the computers are away, and we just have dice and a book.

Anthony Godfrey:

Thank you for providing this for students. I think it's really fantastic.

Mac Hansen:

It's provided entertainment for me as well. Stay with us. When we come back more with the Riverton High School Dungeons & Dragons Club.

Never miss an episode of The Supercast by liking and subscribing on your favorite podcasting platform. Find transcripts for this episode and others at supercast.jordandistrict.org.

Break:

In Jordan School District, we like to support students in and outside the classroom along with their families. That's where the Jordan Family Education Center comes in, offering support services and a wide variety of classes for students and their families, free of charge. You can take a class called Blues Busters for children feeling sad or worried. Just Breathe is a class that helps students reduce stress. Or how about a class that supports parents in helping their children make and keep good friends. There are also support groups and free counseling, all provided by Jordan School District school psychologists, counselors, and school psychology interns. To find out how you can benefit from free family support services offered by the Jordan Family Education Center, call 801-565-7442 or visit guidance.jordandistrict.org.

Anthony Godfrey:

You have a character sheet here. Oh, okay. Just as you take this out and unfold it, this honestly reminds me of the old character sheets. It really does. This is not far off. Okay, let's take a look. Let's take a look. So, talk me through this character. Whose character is this? What's the name?

Ethan Sabin:

So, one of my characters is running an artificer, a fairy, artificer for one of my campaigns that I'm running on Thursday. So, not for the club, but for something else.

Anthony Godfrey:

So, fairy is the race?

Ethan Sabin:

Fairy is the race–

Anthony Godfrey:

Artificer is?

Ethan Sabin:

Artificer is the class.

Anthony Godfrey:

Okay, and what does that mean if they're an artificer?

Ethan Sabin:

So, an artificer is basically someone who imbues item with magic to just create magical items, and so they have a lot of versatility because of the different abilities that they can give to these items. And they're also spellcasters, so they can cast a lot of spells along with the magic that they're also using.

Anthony Godfrey:

Now, explain to me, Shadow, how alignment works. Tell me about alignment. It's interesting because lawful good, that combination, it's the same combination that was used back in the 1900s when I was playing D&D. And actually, back in the past, we used to think, "Oh, you know what? That person's kind of chaotic neutral." Anyway, in real life, sometimes you would assign alignment to people. Tell me about alignment. Describe how that works.

Shadow Tillman:

So, alignment is basically the way your character reacts to things. There's two parts of alignment. There's good and evil. So, good and evil is pretty self-explanatory. And then, between all of those, there's neutral, where it doesn't really affect things all that much. Basically, you follow what you believe in for most neutral things, or if you're lawful neutral, you're going to follow the law, but not really lean towards good or evil.

Anthony Godfrey:

So, it's a combination of either lawful or chaotic and good or evil, right?

Ethan Sabin:

Yeah, so there's lawful neutral.

Anthony Godfrey:

And then, neutral is thrown in there as well, just in case.

Ethan Sabin:

Yeah, so there's lawful neutral, chaotic, then good neutral, evil. And so, you can have combinations such as chaotic good, which might mean you do whatever it takes for the good. Whereas, you might have one like a chaotic evil, which is—or sorry— chaotic evil, where it's just you want to cause chaos and destruction. You might have something like lawful evil, which is kind of like politicians, really, where they're like saying within the laws for the most part, but not for good reasons.

Anthony Godfrey:

I'm going to leave that as your quote. But there is a tendency when you learn about these alignments to think about people in real life and think, "Are you chaotic neutral or chaotic good?" So, yeah, that's very interesting that it has stayed the same all these years.

Pulling dice out of the case that is carefully organized with four-sided, eight-sided, six-sided—no, let's see.

Ethan Sabin:

Yeah, that's correct.

Anthony Godfrey:

Yeah, right, six-sided, and then is that 12-sided?

Ethan Sabin:

So, there's two 10-sided dice, and they're— So, one of them is just the 10-sided dice, which has one through 10. And then there's another one that has 10 through 100 in sets of 10s, so like 10, 20, 30.

Anthony Godfrey:

So, if you're doing a percentage.

Ethan Sabin:

So, percentage, yeah.

Ethan Sabin:

So, when you roll it that way, you could get—if you roll both of them together, you might get like 83 or 27 or numbers like that.

Anthony Godfrey:

So, one is the 10s and one is the one's column?

Ethan Sabin:

Exactly, yeah.

Shadow Tillman:

It's a way to roll anything from one to 100 without having a dice that has 100 sides.

Ethan Sabin:

Exactly, yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:

And these are the 20-sided dice, my favorite.

Ethan Sabin:

Yeah, the most commonly used ones.

Anthony Godfrey:

Yeah, the 20-sided is really something. And when you get a 20, it's weird. Holding the—I haven't rolled a 20-sided dice for a long time.

Ethan Sabin:

Pretty short time, so probably around three hours or three and a half hours.

Anthony Godfrey:

Okay, great. So, if somebody wants to play Dungeons and Dragons, where do they start?

Ethan Sabin:

Our Riverton Library has a copy of the Player's Handbook and a bunch of the different books. I would just recommend reading through the Player's Handbook to kind of get a bit of a grasp on the different rules and the different kinds of characters that you can create. And then, after that, maybe go to your local game store. Like, we've got one pretty close that does D&D. And you can find a group with maybe just your friends or some people that are already part of those, like, clubs and stuff.

Anthony Godfrey:

Yeah. Ethan, Shadow, thank you very much for talking with me. And if you ever need someone else on the campaign, let me know. I'll stop by. And, you know, I'm lawful good in alignment, so I'll be a real addition to the team.

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you'll do today. We'll see you out there.

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