On any given day, in one of the sound-retardant conference rooms in the Campus Center at UMB, a vicious argument about disingenuous spells and unbridled dice rolling unfolds. A group of Dungeons and Dragons devotees now have club status as UMB, and have finally found a way to coexist with the administrative offices on campus.
Acceptance is just the latest development for the alternative gaming community at UMB, according to a D&D aficionado nicknamed Jesus, as in the Lord and Savior, who is a student at UMB but preferred not to give his real name. This group of gamers has made mayhem, in their words, but more often excessive noise in the Campus Center since it was built.
“We found each other in the game room basically—the whole game room—we live year to year in there,” Jesus said during a recent D&D session, and his fellow gamers burst into laughter. “I am dead serious about that,” Jesus said.
There are more than 15 people who cycle through to play the daily D&D games, and generally there are 5 to 10 people playing at one time. But Shane Duphy, the second most outspoken person in the core group of gamers, said the group didn’t start out with D&D.
“Originally it was about video games,” said Duphy.
“Then we started playing Magic the Gathering and stuff like that. Then I was like, D and D. And Jeff was like, ‘Hey, I love D and D.’ And then there was D and D,” Jesus said.
The group formed to create a safe haven for alternative gaming at UMB, though they like D&D best. They meet for hours on end, every day.
“The longest we’ve gone was nine hours, when we went from 12 until 9 at night,” Jesus said.
But since last semester the game room staff has been cracking down on the gamers’ rambunctious ways. Charlotte Valentin, who’s in charge of the game room, said she was not trying to single out anyone specifically, but something had to change to keep other people in the Campus Center happy.
“We gave certain hours to be used for gaming, but we had to move things around because of admissions being right on the other side of the wall . . . the walls are very thin so we have to keep the noise down,” Valentin said.
More than noise, people were stealing things and breaking pool sticks. So Valentin implemented a whole new series of rules and a check-in station, where people now have to show their IDs to use any of the equipment.
The D&D group was never explicitly asked to leave, but game room employees kept encouraging them to tone down their boisterous shenanigans. The D&D group decided to look for a place where they could be as loud as they wanted to without bothering people.
“We wandered around throughout the day basically looking for conference rooms that were not occupied, and we used them until we got kicked out,” said Jesus.
Since they didn’t have an official club until the beginning of March, they couldn’t reserve rooms so whenever someone needed a room that they were using, they would have to leave. Shelby Harris, the Director of Student Activities, said that finding a happy medium, where everyone can use the Campus Center for whatever they want without bothering other people, has been a problem for years—both in and outside the gameroom.
“We have the same problem in other areas of the Campus Center as well,” Harris said.
The Campus Center was built for student activities, but a whole faction of administrative offices moved into the building when construction finished.
“Even though this is technically a student center, we need to remember that we’re all in this building together . . . There has to be a happy medium,” Harris said.
The Admissions Office is an airy sanctuary separated from the game room by a flimsy wall. Dr. Lisa Johnson, Associate Vice Chancellor, who is in charge of the office, said she’s sympathetic to students using the game room. She and her staff work for the students, but her staff needed to be able to concentrate on their work.
“It was the fact that music was being played in there at a high volume, and it would distract some people from their work . . . I understand it’s nice to have good music playing, but I was getting complaints about the volume,” said Johnson.
The largest problem was the television in one of the side rooms inside the game room.
“We originally used to play rock band down there, but they decided to put offices right behind a very flimsy wall where we used to play the video games. So we started playing other games, and those were too loud, and then we started watching movies and those were too loud,” Jesus said.
“And then there was me and Jack,” said Shane Duphy.
“One of our former cohorts . . . broke a wall, another guy ended up breaking a TV,” Jesus said.
“Cause he was drunk,” added Jackie, the only girl in the group, who didn’t give her last name.
“Destroyed a table, a sofa,” Jesus ticked-off.
“That sofa had it in,” Jackie said.
“But those guys are our acquaintances. They are not part of our core group, just to put that out there,” Shane Duphy said. “We’re not starting a group of drunkards.”
“We left them behind when we left the game room,” Jesus added.
However, the changes in the game room policies seem to have worked. So far, nothing has broken and noise levels are at record lows.
“I think it has to do with – it’s the happy medium,” said Johnson laughing. “It’s gotten much better . . . I haven’t had anyone comment recently.”
Moving out of the game room has been a relief to the D& D group as well.
“Since we’ve got our club going now we can start officially reserving rooms and kicking people out, who think they have the room,” Jesus said.
The Alternative Gaming group found that the glass conference rooms work best for Dungeons and Dragons, because the glass absorbs their noise.
“Because this is mostly a talking game, and arguments will occasionally break out, there will be noises . . . even when there aren’t arguments happening, we tend to be rambunctious to say the least. So these rooms are basically where we have to go if we don’t want to bother people,” Duphy said.
“Unless we make faces,” Jesus added. “Then someone might get offended.”