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OU DAILY Left: Tabletop Gaming Club members senior Tyren Lynch and freshman John Branon play Dungeons and Dragons. Top right: The Tabletop Gaming Club plays in Bizzell Memorial Library Sept. 8. The club gathers around campus every Saturday to play games together. Bottom right: Chemical engineering freshman Riley Miller plays Dungeons and Dragons as Dungeon Master with club members.
ZHENG QU/THE DAILY
GRAND ADVENTURES OU students find escape from reality in Tabletop Gaming Club’s weekly Dungeons and Dragons games
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parks whiz through the air as swords clash on a rope bridge suspended over a chasm. A man clad in long robes descends into the inky blackness of a dungeon below an ancient mountain. A group of adventurers ready themselves for combat as a red dragon descends from the sky, blanketing them in its fiery breath. This isn’t the plot of a fantasy novel or a boss fight in a video game. Instead, it’s just a few people sitting around a table in Headington College collectively imagining adventures for their characters in a weekly game of
HEATH KUYKENDALL • @HEATHKUYKENDAL1 Dungeons and Dragons. A group like this is just one of several that meet in Headington College Room 170 as part of the OU Tabletop Gaming Club’s game days. Running from 3– 8 p.m. every Saturday, game days see between 20 and 40 club members break up into tables of seven players and one dungeon master, who serves as the narrator of the adventure. For the next five hours — or more, depending on how long the adventure lasts — the people at the table almost fade away as they take on the roles of grand heroes out to save the world. Amanda Phillips, a biomedical
Dungeons and Dragons, commonly referred to as D&D, is a fantasy tabletop game that debuted in 1974. How to play: •The game requires three or more people, one of whom is the Dungeon Master. The Dungeon Master, or DM, is the narrator of the story or campaign the players are completing. •The DM describes the environment the players will be in and progresses the story. •Players then decide how they would like to proceed within the story. The DM may make simple things challenging and require a dice roll to determine whether or not the players are successful. •The DM and players will move through their adventure until the story comes to an end. According to the official D&D website, the story never really ends and can continue being played. What you need: •The game •An imagination and sense of adventure
engineering senior and the president of the club, said the group offers its members an escape from the stress of college as they take on larger-than-life personas. She also said it’s a wonderful way to make new friends. “It’s a social sport, you know?” Phillips said. “You have to work with other people. It’s a great way to make friends who you start to see in your classes and around campus. I especially think it’s valuable for the freshmen who join. A lot of times, they come into college and don’t know anyone, but they come to D&D club, and suddenly they have some familiar faces.” Much like how Dungeons and Dragons grew in popularity in the 1970s, the Tabletop Club has grown via small events. According to Andy Voigt, a architecture sophomore and the public relations manager for the club, the group generally gains new members through club veterans. “A lot of our new members hear about us through word of mouth,” Voigt said. “Just people telling their friends there’s a cool club, then they tell their friends, and so on. That’s the main way that we get bigger, as well as putting up tables at club events.” Conner Flansburg, a computer science senior and the club’s vice president, said he joined the group when it was first started in 2016 after being invited by other computer science majors. Flansburg said that coming from Tulsa, he knew absolutely no one on campus until he started
attending D&D sessions every Saturday. He quickly made several long-term friends there, eventually taking on a leadership position with the group. Flansburg also serves as the head of the club’s worldbuilding committee, a group of members who create a shared universe which all of the club’s kingdoms, characters and monsters inhabit. “The idea of the original founders was to create a world that changes because of the effects players have on it,” Flansburg said. “They can play (a character) in an adventure one week, then take them to a different adventure the next. It allows us to have these growing and evolving characters. It’s been one of the biggest parts of our club, and anyone can join and be a worldbuilder.” Flansburg and Phillips said playing within one shared universe has allowed players to build connections among their characters from game to game, forming friendships and rivalries as time goes on. The biggest event of the year for the Tabletop Club comes at the end of every semester. Dubbed a “world event,” this specific adventure sees all of the club’s players threatened by a single world-shaking catastrophe or battle. “All of the adventures for this final session will be about this one event,” Flansburg said. “One group will play the keystone event, and other tables play adventures focused on the fallout or ramifications of this keystone
event. This last semester we had a large-scale dragon attack. My game had the players fighting the dragons’ leader, while other games dealt with issues like refugee crises and forest fires caused by these dragons. It turns into one massive event.” Flansburg and Phillips said they are always looking for new creative individuals to work on building the world. Phillips said she believes some of their worldbuilders could be novelists due to their creativity alone. She and Flansburg hope to attract more members like these players who love the game and want to continually grow their shared world. “D&D really fills a need that humans have to tell a story,” Flansburg said. “I think that’s something we forget or neglect. D&D gives anyone the opportunity to share a story with other people and have them share stories back. That’s a very powerful thing. You’re sharing a part of yourself with people, and when you respond to that it makes for some really great storytelling — and it’s fun.” Saturday meetings take place from 3–8 p.m. in Headington College Room 170. The club also offers Friday night game nights from 4– 8 p.m. in Room 170 every week. Anyone interested in joining the Tabletop Club can contact them either through their OrgSync page or their Discord server. Heath Kuykendall
kuykendallheath@ou.edu
Kenneth Murray shatters OU tackle record Linebacker helps win war in trenches against Army on Saturday ABBY BITTERMAN @abby_bitterman
Trench warfare was made famous in World War I, and it made a return Saturday night in Norman. It was a physical game in a way the Sooners aren’t used to, with
Army’s offensive line diving at Oklahoma’s front seven to make room for its triple-option offense. “This was a physical war in the trenches,” sophomore linebacker Kenneth Murray said. “This was what we knew it was going to be — all week we knew it was going to be a war in the trenches. We knew that at the end of the day we were going to have to come out here and try to make plays ... I think we did a wonderful job of fighting tonight, and I’m glad we got the W.” The Black Knights (2-2) had
control of the ball for almost 45 minutes of the 60 minutes of game play, running 87 plays but making just nine pass attempts. It was an upfront battle that led to a record-breaking night in tackles and an overtime 28-21 win for the Sooners (4-0, 1-0 Big 12). With all the struggle the Oklahoma defense went through in the grueling game, there was one bright spot. It seems like Murray’s name was being called over the speaker every other play while the Sooners
were on defense. He had 28 total tackles in the game, shattering Oklahoma’s previous single-game tackle record. “I told probably 10 of my teammates that I was going to break it this week,” Murray said of the record he broke. Redshirt senior linebacker Curtis Bolton made 23 total tackles — which would have tied the previous Oklahoma record for most tackles in a game, set in 1981 — but was only second in that statistic to Murray.
Bolton wasn’t surprised by Murray’s performance after seeing the way he worked during the off-season, building on last season. “Me and K-9 talked about it all week,” Bolton said. “We knew it was going to be a slug fest. We knew it was going to be a boxing match. “I’m just glad that we’re off of this triple option, stack 10 people See KENNETH page 5