He picks up a twenty-sided die and rolls it across his desk. The die flips and rotates until it lands on a number. One number that determines the fate of four characters. “Nat 20.” Everyone cringes, realizing their characters are now dead. The taverns they traveled to, and mysteries they solved, now meant nothing. Time to start over.  

Nate Slupek is a senior with an aptitude for the popular roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons, better known as D&D. Using dice and imagination, Slupek takes his fellow players through adventures and other worlds. 

“I started playing pretty early on during eighth grade because my sister introduced it to me,” Slupek said. 

“D&D is just a whole mess of people just coming together and trying to create a story. Wholly improvisational. There’s one person who creates the story, and then the group of people who the DM interacts with the story in a way they feel,” Slupek said. 

As a Dungeon Master (DM), he orchestrates the entire story. From random tavern owners the characters interact with, to the main villain, Slupek does it all. During a Halloween campaign, he led four players through a journey in a castle basement. The players met Cyrus, the castle cook. Slupek vicariously lived through Cyrus, leading them through rooms filled with zombies to defeat using spells and weapons. 

Since the Kings High School D&D Club has over twenty players, which is five times the normal amount to play, Nate decided to split the group into two smaller groups to make the campaign more interesting. Slupek and his Co-DM Jonathan VonAllmen lead these two groups on different adventures towards the same goal; defeating Strahd Von Zarovich.  

“I had always wanted to run Castle Ravenloft as a Halloween one-shot but realized that the whole experience wasn’t really conducive to the time limit we have as a school club. He had a bunch of great ideas about how to run the game and things to add-in. Eventually, we came up with the idea of both of us DM-ing different groups and I think that ended up working really well, and really got the whole group involved in one game,” VonAllmen said. 

Always being a DM and creating new missions can get old sometimes. To compensate, Slupek is a player in group two within the D&D club during that three-hour period.

He becomes C3-80, a Warforge which is “basically a robot.” Slupek, along with three other characters, play in a world VonAllmen designed. Each character has a different set of ideals and morals making them as customizable and unique as a human being. 

Takodah Alexander is one of the players in Slupek’s own D&D Campaign. Their adventure is contained in a world divided by classes. According to Alexander, Slupek goes “above expected with many small details.”

“Honestly I thought [Slupek] would do horrible. Surprisingly, he is great at playing different characters and creating crazy stories,” Alexander said. 

In years past the D&D club was held in-person in an empty classroom after school. Everyone that participated would split up into different campaigns once a week. After COVID-19, Slupek made the decision to switch the club onto the app Discord. 

“This year was the first fully online year because of the COVID restrictions. It was also easier on everyone’s schedule so they can pick the best time they can meet. One group meets on Mondays and another meets on Fridays,” Slupek said. 

Towards the end of the school year, Slupek hopes to have an in-person meeting to celebrate the seniors graduating. This will be the first opportunity for many of the players to meet in person instead of over a voice chat. 

“Including myself and other seniors, we haven’t had many in-person events besides school, especially D&D. A lot of people joined this year and I wanted a chance for everyone to meet after school and have fun face to face,” Slupek said.