Dungeons and Dragons (DnD), a tabletop role-playing game, has been appearing more and more in mainstream media in recent years. This came to the attention of Dr. Matt Reynolds, an assistant professor of Deaf Education, and he took up the opportunity to start the Dungeons and Dragons Independent Study back in the summer of 2020.

The experience is focused around teaching the basics of how to play DnD, from exploring the role-playing aspect to learning the rules and mechanics. The students were first split into two groups, specifically tailored based on a questionnaire given at the beginning of the trimester, with each playing twice a week.

After each class, they were asked to write a roughly 250-word journal entry, answering a few optional questions to encourage the students to look inside themselves and really immerse themselves into the experience.

“I’ve had some students come in who are very quiet, and they end up coming out of their shell and having a great time, and that’s something I feel everyone should be able to experience,” Dr. Reynolds said.

Dr. Reynolds has specifically modified a campaign called Mines of Phandelver to fit into the short five-week timespan of the class. While he did his best to allow for full creativity, the time constraints and the want to teach the official rules did cause some conflicting feelings.

“Role-play can be a lot of fun, but it can suck up a lot of time. I really have got to push them to get to where we need to go compared to just letting them explore the world on their own like you may in a different campaign,” Dr. Reynolds said.

However, by properly teaching the students the rules, Dr. Reynolds is facilitating them to start their own groups in the future.

Sparrow Marturano, sophomore Biology pre-med major, was one of the students in this independent study, and they took many positive things away from the experience.

“I know I definitely feel a lot better about public speaking, oddly enough. When you want to do something in game you have to speak up about how and where you want to do it,” Marturano said.

Marturano played as an artificer, a class in the game that they had never played as before, and appreciated the guidance Dr. Reynolds was able to offer.

“You can definitely tell he had played a lot and he was very passionate about it. Very accommodating and a good listener as well,” Marturano said.

Marturano said they hope to start their own campaign in the future, using some of the information taught to them by Dr. Reynolds in the independent study.

Unfortunately, the independent study will not be continuing under Dr. Reynolds next trimester, as the summer of 2023 is his last trimester with USAO. However, he continues to hold out hope that someone else will continue it on in the coming years.

Bea Bourland is a second-year Biology and Environmental Science major at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma.