EVERYONE IS PLAYING DUNGEONS & DRAGONS

Any experienced player will tell you that a lot has changed since the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons came out 50 years ago. But few things demonstrate better the change in the perceptions of D&D and its players than the recent events at a local charter school.

BY CHRISTIE PORTER / PHOTOS BY ADAM FINKLE / ILLUSTRATIONS BY ARIANNA JIMENEZ

T A LAYTON JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL , on an average Friday afternoon, tables filled with students playing Dungeons & Dragons fill up two classrooms and spill out into the hallway and across a second-story landing. Students perch in their chairs, scour their lists of spells and items and call out in dismay or triumph, as the various Dungeon Masters do their best to react to the often maddening exploits of each respective adventuring party. It truly is a sight to behold. A beautiful, nerdy sight.

Last school year, teacher Cameron Pingree started a gaming club at North Davis Preparatory Academy (NDPA) in Layton, inviting students to come learn how to play Dungeons & Dragons. A handful of students signed up and played D&D almost every Friday for the whole year. This school year, Pingree and the club’s other teachers set about recruiting for the club, going class to class, handing out permission slips to interested students.

“We printed about 50 permission slips, thinking that would be more than enough,” says Pingree.

It wasn’t. By the third class, they were out of permission slips. In the end, 140 students handed in signed permission slips to join the gaming club. NDPA’s 6-9 grades combined have a few more than 350 students. More than one-third of the junior high is playing D&D almost every Friday after school…not many after-school clubs can boast that kind of attendance.

The tabletop roleplaying game first came into existence in the 1970s, before these students’ parents were born, and now, what is arguably the most famous tabletop roleplaying game is experiencing a renaissance. Wizards of the Coast, which owns D&D, says that in 2020, an estimated 50 million people were playing the game, making it more popular than ever. And, Utah is partially to thank for that. According to a 2023 search-data analysis, Utah plays more D&D than any other state in the nation. For decades, the perception was that Dungeons & Dragons is a niche pastime reserved for a socially awkward and sunlight-averse subset of humanity. It also took a turn as a tool for the devil to corrupt the souls of innocent youngsters during the Satanic Panic. So how did this game become the chief hobby of a diverse and discerning group of middle school kids? Maybe you have to play the game to understand, or see it through the eyes of the kids who love it.

Students from North Davis Prepatory Academy’s Gaming Club prepare for another gaming adventure (and talk to Salt Lake magazine about why they love playing Dungeons & Dragons.)