Football players, band kids, student video producers, and fantasy lovers form a line every Friday to enter the IC Cafe after school and stick around for about two hours for one thing: Creek’s Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) club. 

D&D club aims to unite a diverse array of students over a common passion and establish friendships.

While D&D club provides a place for members to play D&D together, it also provides members with an escape.

“You’re always kind of able to look in on different worlds, you’re able to be a different person, [and] you get to be something that you aren’t,” junior Eric Earnest said. “I’m able to kind of just feel better about myself when I’m playing.” 

Members also enjoy that the club is open to all students. 

“The club is a very welcoming place to hang out after school at the end of the week,” junior James Gallo said. 

While the club may be perceived as ‘nerdy,’ many members are proud of that, but it can sometimes turn potential members away. “People see [the club] a lot as ‘Oh, it’s this nerdy thing that people get together to do,’” junior and D&D club president Nick Geiger said.  

Once people try D&D, however, Geiger believes that they might find that they actually enjoy the game.

Although D&D was first published in 1974, the most recent season of Netflix’s Stranger Things and the show’s Hellfire Club “brought D&D into the limelight,” as Geiger put it. 

Hellfire Club caused some students to join, yet most members are there because they enjoy playing D&D. 

“I’ve seen a few [people that joined because of Stranger Things], but a lot more people are just really nerdy like me, and they just play it because they like fantasy,” Earnest said. “The Stranger Things people kind of fade in and out. They kind of are like, ‘Oh, this seems like something quirky that I can do, but then they kind of either get really into it or they quit.”

As one of the largest clubs at Creek, D&D club is structured to ensure that new members are welcomed and taught how to play D&D. It is divided into different groups that are each run by a Dungeon Master (DM). 

“Generally, we have some more experienced DM’s who then will take on a group of more new players and teach them the ropes,” Earnest said. “We have some more intermediate groups, and then we have the random groups that just want to have fun.”

Despite the fact that the D&D club separates into these different groups, the club as a whole always looks to welcome new members. 

“Our group would love to expand and get more people involved, and it’s a great way to meet people and just have fun doing something,” Earnest said.