Sephie Gilliam

For months, I knew I wanted my fifteenth birthday to involve a dungeons and dragons one shot in a little coffee shop. Travis brought this idea to fruition. My parents and I weren’t sure how to set up this event; this was a different situation than the year-long campaign of which we are a part. We needed an adventure, roughly 90 minutes, accessible for teens who both had and hadn’t played before. Luckily, Travis had done a similar event for his son. Though this was a different age group, he was up for the task. Throughout the weeks preceding the party, he solidified plans based on my vision. The day of, he arrived around a half-hour before the party was scheduled to start to set up. He had created maybe ten characters from scratch for the five of us to pick from. Each character sheet included a name, pronouns, suggested backstory, actions, saving throws, inventory, etc. These predetermined characters, which he introduced to us individually, were great for helping my friends, most of whom had never played before, really get into character. Using Travis’ map and minifigures, we began the adventure. (He even had a system with which he played sound effects relevant to the storyline—door slams, bells, etc.) He encouraged and reassured creative solutions, such as throwing frying pans at goblins. Throughout the evening, he maintained the intrigue and creativity, vividly describing our surroundings to fully immerse us in the D&D universe— a fantastic demonstration of crucial skills that I believe are necessary for a quality dungeon master. He always made sure to help when someone needed it, jumping up to answer questions about the duration of an action or the proper use of a specific weapon or spell. He quickly adapted if something didn’t go the way he was expecting, I assume, because the transitions were impressively smooth and very effectively covered up any mistakes. On the ride home, I realized that this was quite possibly the best party I’d ever had. Other DMs may lose sight of the roleplaying aspect of this game and aren’t able to improvise. Perhaps creativity eludes them, which is unfortunate, because although stabbing and enchanting and killing and cursing are great fun, character formation is just as important. I truly don’t believe Travis will ever let you miss out on a great adventure.