RPG club celebrates a successful year

ENTERTAINMENT 11

RPG club runs a successful first year of activities

CAPRI BISOM NATHAN GARBER

Bethel’s RPG Club was started this year by Capri Bisom, junior from West Berlin N.J.

RPG stands for “role playing games.” Tabletop games, such as Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), are played with Jessie Thomas, junior from Sedgwick, as the DM, or dungeon master. Specialized events like board game nights or oneshot campaigns happen periodically throughout the year. There are plans to incorporate more games and theme nights next year.

“I was honored and excited to be asked to DM for the campus group. A D&D club had been my dream for a year before it finally came true! The first couple of sessions were rocky, because of my inexperience with paper D&D and with a group that massive, but I’ve grown and learned so much, and I think it’s become a really fun and creative space for the members of the club,” Thomas said.

If you do not know how to play D&D or other RPGs, do not worry! There are plenty of people who are a part of the club who would be happy to help you learn your way around your first character sheet.

“I’ve played D&D both with in person tabletop and online, and something I’ve helped with in the club is helping other players set up their character sheets, creating the being they’re playing and making sure they know what all the things on the character sheets are for. I think that’s one of my favorite things to do, is help someone create a character,” Charlie Gibson, a junior from Ashland, said.

The characters in the D&D campaign are really silly and lighthearted and are oftentimes accompanied with fun names. For example, Edel Miller, sophomore from Hillsboro, plays a goofy, nonbinary gnome bard named Dot who plays the tinwhisle to help taunt enemies in the D&D campaign.

RPG Club hosted the Magic: The Gathering Tournament on April 25, hopefully the first of many. The club has plans to hold one every semester, so if you missed out this year, don’t sweat it, there will be opportunities in the future.

Magic: The Gathering is a game for which participants collect specific cards that they create decks with. Participants then challenge other people to battles to see who will come out on top. There are a couple of different deck styles that people can create.

In standard or modern styles, players have to have a minimum of sixty cards. In commander style, however, players have to have a minimum of 100 cards.

There were nine participants in the tournament, which was a modern tournament, so everyone who participated had a deck of at least sixty cards. At the end of the night, Thomas Kucera, sophomore from Wichita, won the championship.

“Not being able to play a lot of paper magic during the pandemic has been one of the worst parts of COVID-19 for me and the tournament put on by the RPG Club really made the wait worth it. It was so much fun to play and just talk to fellow magic players. I was fortunate enough to have won the tournament having to play some really good players to get there. I am very, very grateful for even getting the opportunity to play in this tournament,” Kucera said.

While events for the RPG Club have mostly wrapped up for this year, there are already plans being made for next year. One hope for next year is that the club will be able to continue the D&D campaign that was started this year.

“I’d love to continue being Dungeon Master next year, and have all my players back to continue their story!” Thomas said.

Caleb Garber, a guest from Newton, and Thomas Kucera, sophomore from Wichita, face off in the final championship round. Kucera would go on to win this round and the first place prize. Photo by Capri Bisom

Thomas Kucera, sophomore from Wichita, and Noah Ballesteros, junior from San Diego, Calif., compete against each other in the first round of the Magic: The Gathering tournament. Photo by Capri Bisom

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MudSlam Tournament

A successful MudSlam was hosted this year by the Student Alumni Association. With water initially supplied by the fire department, the pits were extra soupy, leading to some messy rounds. Photos by Lindsey Pfannenstiel