Inspire an army with Shakespeare or smash walls: Playing Dungeons & Dragons on Cape Cod

HYANNIS ― How do you motivate untrained townspeople to help you fight off an army?

For Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) player Lyndsey Rotman, the trick was standing on a chair at Vanguard Tabletop Gaming in Hyannis and reciting the most famous speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V play.

“I read off the entirety of the soliloquy of the Saint Crispin’s Day speech,” said Rotman.

People even left the games they were playing in other rooms to come watch, she said.

This is just a glimpse into how you can let your creativity take the wheel and immerse yourself in the world of Dungeons & Dragons.

Dungeons & Dragons has been around since 1974 as the first role-playing game, and it has hung on for decades. With the new movie "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves" raking in $208.3 million this year, you can say the popularity is on the rise and the game's fifth edition is taking the cake.

Where can you play Dungeons and Dragons on Cape Cod?

The Times landed at the relatively new Vanguard Tabletop Gaming to watch, first-hand, the adult and kids' Dungeons & Dragons groups on their magical conquests.

With a variety of open-play games in action, it was a full house.

Other places on Cape that offer Dungeons & Dragons supplies and games include Darkwater Arts in Mashpee and Newbury Comics in Hyannis. There were games held, last May, at Bread and Roses in Hyannis.

What do I need to start playing Dungeons and Dragons?

To play, first and foremost, you need a dungeon master and players. If you’re in short supply, try calling your local gaming store or looking online. There is a Cape Cod Dungeons & Dragons Facebook group.

Once you find your group, you can commit to a campaign, which can last over a year with a weekly game, or you can do a mission where the game ends in that session.

It’s up to you. The whole game can be whatever you and your group want it to be.

Rotman, who is 23 and works in the hospitality business, explained that the game begins with a creative process where you first pick your own character, abilities and back story. In the game, Rothman’s character is a sorcerer, with a fiery persona who grew up on the streets with a pet rat.

“There's a bunch of different species and there's a bunch of different classes and whatever class you want to be (in) kind of depends on how you want to play your character so like if you want to do magic, you might want to create like a wizard or sorcerer but if you want to ... fight with weapons you might want to be a barbarian," she said.

The dungeon master for the kids' group, Tyler Souza, explains all campaigns are different. They have what they call session zero. Dungeon masters can either follow prewritten campaigns, or they can make their own, but either way this game is full of improv.

“(In session zero they) discuss what their characters are and ... how they want the story to play out, kind of like the expectations for what's going to happen for the most part and a lot of times the dungeon master will go out (and) look at the characters' back-stories and stuff and try to like weave their important details or things like that they'll respond to into the campaign,” said Souza.

The players set the tone for the game, Souza said. For the kids' groups, Souza tailors the game to what the players want to see, which he gets a feeling for during session zero.

"The dice are there to make it a story, to make it interesting," Souza said. "You want failure and you want successes."

Souza suggests watching people play to get a feeling for how it works. Adult group dungeon master, Stephen Allen, advises players to at least skim the Player's Handbook. The dungeon master should give the Dungeon Master's Guide a light read and the Monster Manual.

Dungeons & Dragons campaigns include an ultimate bad guy - but not always.

In a common campaign, the plot tends to settle around having an ultimate bad guy to fight, after completing several levels.

"They call it the big bad evil guy (BBEG)," Souza said.

Again, the players set the tone for the game. It can range from funny to very serious. Souza recalls a campaign he was playing where the ultimate goal was to march the townspeople out of the destroyed town to safety.

Souza explains this game can be as easy or complicated as you want it to be. During his first campaign in 2015, they didn't have much.

"Sheets of paper with pencils and one guy who vaguely knew the rules of an older D&D that he played like years ago and we had a blast, those are some of my favorite memories," he said, "My favorite campaigns don't have a lot of combat at all."

D&D, like chess, can be simple or complex.

As the visible gears of imagination were shifting, sparks lit the players' eyes in Hyannis. The connection of shared creativity and laughter filled the room. It felt therapeutic.

Allen, 32, who works as a librarian and holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology, held a few sessions of D&D at Family Continuity in Hyannis last year. A parent asked him if Dungeons & Dragons would be okay for their 12-year-old, who was going through a hard time.

“There are people who do sessions of this as therapy,” Allen said. “It's like control over your life, you get to be somebody entirely different, you get to do something entirely out of your realm, and you get to be exactly who you want to be. You don't have to worry about, you know, preconceived notions, you don't have to worry about how the rest of the world sees you."

Allen recalled a fond memory of just that.

“This little 4-foot-10, you know, teeny tiny blonde girl, she played a 6-foot-nine Conan the Barbarian kind of thing (that) was just kind of like, 'Oh shopkeeper, give me this thing or I smash you.' I remember this look of absolute glee .... as she's describing her barbarian just, like, busting through the wall like the Kool-Aid man," he said.

The adult group at Vanguard Tabletop Gaming recently finished its long campaign, and members plan on taking a break until the end of September.

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: How to play Dungeons and Dragons: Cape Cod dungeon masters explain