ROY — Roll for initiative! The Weber County Library System’s Southwest Branch — located at 2039 W. 4000 South in Roy — is set to be invaded by mind flayers, nefarious liches and perhaps even a beholder or two with the official launch of an adult Dungeons & Dragons club later this month.

The first event will be held from 6-8 p.m. Monday, and the program will continue to run on the third Monday of every month thereafter. Players new and experienced, ages 18 and up, are invited to get involved.

Teens have been participating in the library’s youth Dungeons & Dragons club since 2018. At first, program organizer Dustin Holt was pressed into service as dungeon master, or DM — the person in charge of creating the world and running the game.

Now, the teens run their own games across multiple tables.

After continued requests from prospective players and staff alike, more seasoned adventurers will have their own opportunity to jump into the fray and level-up their characters as they interact with and explore a fantasy world.

“We’ve always had almost a lot more adults ask about the D&D than we have the teens,” Holt said.

Dungeons & Dragons campaigns feature narratives that can play out over a session or two, several months or even years. Due to time constraints, the library’s sessions are limited to one-shots that can be finished in a single session.

However, players’ characters and their various stats, traits and equipment, carry over from adventure to adventure. Holt told the Standard-Examiner that first-timers can select from a batch of pre-made characters in order to jump right into the action, but they can also create their own characters between sessions.

While D&D was literally pushed out into the world from creator Gary Gygax’s basement in the 1970s, the game has evolved into a massive multimedia franchise and a veritable pop culture juggernaut.

An infographic released by license-owner Wizards of the Coast in 2021 claimed that more than 50 million people had played Dungeons & Dragons. Meanwhile, the 2023 film “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” drew critical acclaim and Baldur’s Gate III — a D&D-inspired video game — was honored as the Game of the Year at The Game Awards in December.

As Holt and others see it, though, Dungeons & Dragons is more than just a game or a bit of entertainment.

“I think there are countless benefits to playing,” Holt said. “You can learn things like empathy and working together to resolve an issue. … Even basic mathematics, because you’re rattling off numbers constantly with the dice.”

The collaborative storytelling and world- and character-building that occurs also can foster the development of skills essential for people who are into drama, improv and other kinds of performance art.

Newsletter