{"id":26274,"date":"2025-01-06T09:00:09","date_gmt":"2025-01-06T17:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/?p=26274"},"modified":"2024-12-16T14:19:54","modified_gmt":"2024-12-16T22:19:54","slug":"camosun-dd-club-offers-fantastical-way-to-blow-off-steam-make-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2025\/01\/06\/camosun-dd-club-offers-fantastical-way-to-blow-off-steam-make-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun D&D<\/em> club offers fantastical way to blow off steam, make friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m sure we\u2019ve all had a moment during a gruelling midterm where we\u2019ve felt like chucking our 50-pound textbooks out of a third-storey window and slaying a dragon for its gleaming horde of treasure. Fortunately, the Camosun Dungeons & Dragons<\/i> Club is here to help.<\/p>\n

Founded by Camosun student and Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) clubs and events assistant Amy Lee-Radigan before the pandemic, the club was intended to create a place for students to blow off steam and make friends. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like a lot of people want to play D&D<\/i>, and the hardest part is finding enough people to play with, and then finding a place and a time,\u201d says Lee-Radigan. \u201cMy entire goal with this was to remove as many of the barriers as possible to new students picking up the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Camosun students gathering at a Dungeons & Dragons<\/em> club meeting (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the beginning, they facilitated this by simply immersing students in a familiar setting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did a zombie takeover of Camosun College at Lansdowne,\u201d they say. \u201cWe had them running around Fisher and trying to find what they could use for makeshift zombie weapons, and I think somebody said, \u2018Can I dismantle some of the racks in the bookstore and turn them into armour?\u2019 It was very cool, they were getting very inventive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Experience is no barrier, because newbies play alongside seasoned professionals in the club. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of a lot of players that are quite new to the game, and because we have people coming from all different all different levels of ability in D&D<\/i>, we can create groups that are of a good mix,\u201d says Lee-Radigan. \u201cIf anyone is a DM [dungeon master] and really enjoys that, they should definitely sign up, because the biggest barrier is finding enough dungeon masters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Occasionally there are other ways to be involved with the group, such as paint-ins, where students can intricately decorate mini-figurines of any fantastical creature imaginable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve done a couple days where everyone hangs out and paints minis together, so if you want to be around other cool nerds but don\u2019t have the capacity in your schedule for weekly games, then there are still opportunities to hang out with the club,\u201d says Lee-Radigan.<\/p>\n

Third-year Arts and Science student Kit Scholz has been playing for eight years, DMing for seven, and has been with the club almost since its inception.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really like the community aspect of it.\u00a0 <\/span>When I joined I didn\u2019t really have many friends, as I was very new to college,\u201d says Scholz. \u201cI actually met my current partner in the group, and I met a lot of my close friends through the group as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

D&D<\/i> is a great way to get to know other students beyond strict classroom parameters, says Scholz.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really fun getting to know aspects of people that you wouldn\u2019t know otherwise,\u201d says Scholz. \u201cLike you wouldn\u2019t really know that \u2018Steve,\u2019 the guy who\u2019s doing chemistry, also likes to play druids and turn into tigers. Some people can have a funny or devious streak about them that that you wouldn\u2019t get from collaborating on a research assignment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee-Radigan believes that tabletop games have more benefits than just stress relief, according to studies they have read.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so much research starting to be done on the positive benefits of Dungeons and Dragons<\/i> and tabletop role-playing games,\u201d they say. \u201cIn terms of acquiring leadership skills and conflict resolution, beyond just how much fun they are, it also gives you some really good life skills, and even just socialization in general.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dungeons & Dragons<\/i> brings together people who share the same interests, and you can come together to defeat a common enemy, like a horde of drooling orcs lurking in a dank subterranean cave (email camosundnd@gmail.com<\/a> to sign up).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a fantastic way to unwind from the stress of school,\u201d says Lee-Radigan, \u201cso having that weekly game where you can go and hang out with a bunch of friends and fight monsters together is great.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m sure we\u2019ve all had a moment during a gruelling midterm where we\u2019ve felt like chucking our 50-pound textbooks out of a third-storey window and slaying a dragon for its gleaming horde of treasure. Fortunately, the Camosun Dungeons & Dragons Club is here to help. Founded by Camosun student and Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26275,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,324],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus","category-january-6-2024"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26274"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26276,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26274\/revisions\/26276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}