Blog The Birth and Adventures of the D20 Club

Hey guys! As some of you may know, I’m the president of my high school's D&D club, and also its founder. I’d like to share the story of our club's creation and how the past few months have affected me with you all.

Last year towards the end of the first semester I joined what was then known as the “tabletop club”. It had only seven or eight other members, and I was the only member who wasn’t a senior. This club had obviously started out as an excuse for a group of friends to goof around and play D&D, but unfortunately it oftentimes left me out. I think they knew the club was failing because by the end only one or two people would show up to club meetings. The club had disintegrated by the end of the second semseter. By this time I had developed a plot of sorts to found my own club, one that wouldn’t fall into obscurity like the Tabletop Club. My group of friends seemed to agree with me that Dungeons and Dragons was heavily in demand; there was just no one to spread it around. I had been the one who introduced them to D&D and was chosen by the group to lead the club. With my club officers chosen and a club council set up, I applied alongside my friends to found the aptly named D20 Club. Along the way we recruited students interested in other tabletop games such as Warhammer and Pathfinder. The middle schoolers (my school has both middle and high school), while immature, were instrumental in securing us a teacher to be our club moderator.

Once we had everything planned out we had to meet with the Club Supervisor. He’s the man in charge of approving or denying the formation of clubs. By this point word of the D&D sessions my group (with me as DM) had participated in at my house had spread around the school and more and more students were coming up to me daily to personally tell me they were interested in Dungeons and Dragons after seeing it on a TV show or the like. The massive support behind our club assured us a place among the other clubs this year. We got it approved in May of last school year, which was just before Finals. While we wouldn’t be able to start until this school year, the stage had been set. By the end of Summer I had emailed the supervisor and received the green light. The D20 club was now a reality. We waited two weeks for school to be fully underway before officially announcing our presence at the club fair with a display of figurines and maps from D&D and Warhammer 40k. That day we received so many signatures we had to ask for more paper twice. The club had grown much larger than I had ever expected. Our first meeting was a headache. We had planned to meet in the school library but the idea was scrapped as soon as an enormous mass of students flooded it. We asked for permission to use the cafeteria and were granted it, so a huge crowd of nerds migrated from the library all the way to the cafeteria. The first meeting was a total success. People played Dungeons and Dragons for the first time and they were immediately hooked. They were so hooked they begged our moderator to break our scheduling and plan another one the following week. Our moderator obliged and we had two meetings in a row.

Our subsequent meetings have been progressively larger and more fun. While our club does have an entrance fee, it’s used to cover the costs of all the materials. Plus, we provide members with a three meeting grace period before they have to pay. Anyway, since the first meeting we’ve bought rulebooks and expansions for game systems we already owned as well as expanded into games such as risk, which brought in even more members. Right now we are one of the largest clubs at our school in terms of active members. It’s been a momentous journey, and I honestly can’t believe this all started with a refusal to give up on Dungeons and Dragons. As president of the club I’ve had my fair share of difficulties, especially with the sometimes out of control middle schoolers. Still, I feel that the club has cemented Dungeons and Dragons as one of my favorite activities and one of the activities I’m most passionate about. It’s been a great privilege to promote creativity and imagination in the minds of so many people, some of which are even interested in writing. I don’t feel as if my work is done, though. Now that we are one of the biggest clubs, I figured we should do something positive with it. We’ve had a huge charity event in the works, something that hasn’t been ironed out yet completely, but that’s something for another blog post. Anyway, it’s been a real blessing to get to work with my friends to make something so awesome, and I can’t wait for what’s in store. Sure, leading a club can sometimes be taxing especially because I have an enormous amount of schoolwork, but it’s a passion of mine and I wouldn’t change a thing. If I’ve learned one thing from this whole experience it’s that you should never give up on an idea you’re passionate about. As cliche as it might sound, you’ll never know until you try.