Kipp Cozad has been slaying monsters for decades, at least on paper.

He started playing Dungeons & Dragons as a 14-year-old in 1978, when a friend who worked at Spencer’s Gifts introduced him to the role-playing game.

Cozad continued playing in high school and college, gave it up to raise a family, and got back into the game when he introduced it to his daughter and nephews years later. After restrictions eased in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, he introduced the game to a whole new set of players: students and staff at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, where he works as coordinator of tutoring and literacy.

As college life resumed post-pandemic, “there were very few outlets for students to engage themselves on campus,” he said. “Our first sessions, we were masked, which was kind of wild. But there was that interest. We had a full game from the first time we sat down, and it kind of grew from that.”

Interest has grown since. About 25 to 30 students meet in small groups for two hours to play each week in the student union, and a staff game of six people meets one evening a week, always in person. “This last semester was the first time we had so many games going,” he said.

Cozad called parties of five players “the sweet spot. You can play manageably up to eight, but it starts to get a little unwieldy at that point. I would feel comfortable getting one more person for the staff group.”

At first, Cozad was dungeon master for all the groups, but that became too time-consuming. “We now have five games going on campus throughout the week, which is crazy. …. I would say it’s probably one of the bigger clubs on campus.”

Students can play the game until they graduate or leave Moraine, although players are encouraged to start games at their homes. “One thing I emphasize is to make friends through this,” Cozad said.

His favorite aspect of Dungeons & Dragons is problem solving. “The other part is the escapism and the creativity, although I find the creativity more in running the games than playing,” he said. “It’s also the camaraderie of the people you play with. Obviously it’s a very social game.”

It’s also a game of chance. Participants play a character that has set abilities, but outcomes often are determined using multi-sided dice.

“At one point it will be very social, and other times it will be intense with combat,” Cozad said. “It’s set up that way.”

There are a few ways to play the game, sometimes using visual elements. “You can play it in the theater of the mind where everything is spoken and through creative license and the description of where everybody is,” he explained. “But we tend to play with a mat on the table that we draw on to give a spatial aspect to the game with miniatures.”

He attributed the game’s resurging popularity to live role-playing games featured on YouTube, such as Critical Role, “where they have voice actors who run a game.” He added that the game “kind of exploded with that combined with ‘Stranger Things’ that depicted the game. I thought that did a good job of depicting the game and people who played it in the ‘80s.”

Though it was initially introduced in a different era, the game can play an unexpected role for modern students Cozad said.

“I think there have been quite a bit of studies showing that playing Dungeons & Dragons with a group of people helps with social anxiety because you can kind of broadcast yourself as a character in ways that you may not feel comfortable as yourself, and those with social anxiety can find a comfortable home at a D&D table,” he said. “There’s an aspect that allows them to express themselves, and hopefully by doing that they can become more comfortable in their own skin.”

Moraine Valley student Joshua Borak, of Orland Park, has been in the club since spring semester of 2022. He enjoys playing a character “looking for a fight, like a half-orc mercenary fighter that deep into the campaign practically gains the strength of He-Man.”

Borak’s favorite aspect of Dungeons & Dragons is “the collective storytelling. Everyone in the game can add their own twist and details to whatever campaign the dungeon master is laying out for the players. Over the course of each session, it can turn into our personal ‘Lord of the Rings’ journey with our little fellowship, or completely derail into a retelling of ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail.’ Personally, most of the games I’ve been in fall somewhere in the middle of these two extremes.”

He urged anyone with an interest in writing or storytelling, who has an active imagination and needs a creative outlet, to check out the club. “We’re always looking for new people to join in on the fun,” Borak said.

Student Elliot Chafee, of Hickory Hills, who just joined this semester, likes to be dungeon master most often but also enjoys playing as a cleric/healer. “I’ve pretty much always played support -– even in video games and stuff – since I was little,” they said.

“It’s so much fun to be able to put together a whole world, to analyze backgrounds and figure out how a character might act,” Chafee said. “As a DM, I really like seeing my friends having fun.”

“The stories and characters we meet” is what Katis Varela, of Flossmoor, enjoys most. “I love playing more chaotic characters,” she said. “They have some aspects of my personality but they’re always different from each other.”

Gerardo Jones of Chicago, a player since the second semester, likes “to portray characters that make things funny and whose flaws outweigh their strengths. I like the ability to let the players decide what to do with what they’re presented with.”

Jones, who often serves as dungeon master, did have a warning: “Be respectful of games. DM’s have the right to remove obnoxious players.”

Children and teenagers who would like to learn more about the game can take a four-week noncredit class this spring for $85 through Moraine Valley Explorers. Dungeons and Dragons for youths 11 to 14 meets from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursdays, April 4 to May 2, and youths 14 to 17 meet from 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesdays, April 2 to April 30. Find more information in the college’s spring mailer or via its website.

Cozad, who leads the older students when the class is offered, said one session included a teenager who was blind. “She was amazing. She had come with a board that had felt on it that she could track all the components of her game tactically,” he said.

“The people who were playing with her loved her. I think they ended up having a couple of parties at their house and playing D&D. It sounded like they were going to get together and play after that. We created this ecosystem within this game that continued after the sessions ended. It was a really, really good experience.”

Melinda Moore is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.