The Dungeons and Dragons club is one of the many clubs at Bowie. The club is hosted by Charles Stampley and has many participants.

“We have over 40 kids [who play],” Stampley said. “We assign a dungeon master to each kid and so you play in groups of five to six and everything is student run.”

Stampley explains how the D&D club runs.

“We meet every Monday and we usually play from right after school to around 7:00 or 6:30,” Stampley said.

In the D&D club, students get closer to each other and make friends.

“I don’t hang with them outside of school but I’ve heard that several of the groups know each other, some of them have known each other from middle school,” Stampley said. “New people are always welcome too.”

Students in the D&D club are forced to step out of their comfort zone and talk to many other students.  

“Watching people make new friends and watching people who may not interact with a lot of other students interact with people for the first time [is interesting to see],” Stampley said. “D&D forces you to talk and work as a group so it’s nice to see students do that.”

Alisa Hanson had played D&D before she joined the club.

“I had a lot of friends that I played D&D with, and eventually our little home group got too big so I found the club at school, and it seemed like a lot of people wanted to play. So I thought it’d be helpful,” Hanson said.

The club has many more upsides than downsides. Hanson enjoys being a part of the club and likes to hang out with the people she knows and is getting to know in the club.

“It could be nice if we could organize the groups better I guess. Usually, it’s ok but sometimes it gets a little weird,” Hanson said.

Hanson thinks that there’s not much to fix about the club. Being with the friends she played with before and even new friends are fun for her.

“I guess spending time with a lot of friends, making new friends,” Hanson said. “The game’s really fun but you also get to meet a lot of new people.”