Every Monday and Wednesday in the study hall pod, Matthew Gray can be seen leading a campaign of Dungeons and Dragons, a tabletop role-play game, with his party. Telling the story as it unfolds, Gray uses detailed descriptions and the roll of dice to help the players. Using his previous experiences of running the game, he leads the players on an adventure.

“Dungeons and Dragons is something that I’ve become passionate about over the years of playing it,” Gray said. “I dove deep into lore and even started a club about it at school.”

Before Gray was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons, he spent his free time playing video games and being bored. Most of the time, Gray stays in his room playing video games and surfing the web.

“Rather than being bored and really doing nothing,” Gray said, “I’ve started taking time to build certain worlds and build campaigns that I can bring to my friends and have them enjoy what I made. I get to create plot lines and other things to get those campaigns ready.”

Gray has been playing Dungeons and Dragons for three years now. Gray has been playing for so long that he has played with many different groups and people. When Gray plays with the group, they help him if he makes a mistake.

“The first party I ever ran was scary for me because I didn’t know if it was going to run well or not. We were running The Yawning Portal campaign and the party ended up going really well. My party members were really helpful. They could tell I wasn’t experienced, so they made sure to help me as much as they could,” Gray said. “The community has absolutely been extraordinarily helpful and extraordinarily supportive.”

Gray enjoys the game because of that social aspect. Over the years many friends had distanced themselves. Gray used Dungeons and Dragons as a way to get them back and make new ones.

“I originally started the game because I wanted to reconnect with friends I had lost and to make friends through the game. It became a nice social event to keep the friend group together.