By Erin Li ’24 and Helen Ryan ’24
Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), a tabletop role-playing game, offers students a brief respite from Choate’s stressful workload and allows them to dive into the fantastical world of magic, mythical creatures, and epic quests. With multiple campaigns active at once, the Choate D&D community is extremely active, and some Choate students have decided to take this hobby even further. As a special project sponsored by the Arts Department, five students made D&D their afternoon activity with their campaign Black Arrow, creating a 13-episode mini-series documenting their progress.
Black Arrow unfolds as a science fiction saga set in Year 15 of the Galactic Era, featuring a diverse cast of characters portrayed by Connor Zeitlin ’25, Aidan Geaney ’24, Carter Foster ’24, Max Leventon ’25, and John Freeman ’24. Each character brings their own distinctive personality and backstory to the table, united to vanquish a mighty foe, learn of a mysterious magical force, or merely embark on a journey of self-discovery.
As the dungeon master, Zeitlin acts as a referee and storyteller, helping the players adhere to the rules while guiding them through the foreign and magical world. Black Arrow, according to Zeitlin, “is about protecting your home. The idea behind Black Arrow was that a group of people in a galaxy far too big for them would come together and fight against forces vaster and more powerful than you can really comprehend in order to protect their home.”
The beauty of the game lies in the art of storytelling, where the plot unfolds organically based on the actions of both players and dungeon masters. Unlike scripted forms of entertainment, D&D offers an authentic and dynamic experience filled with raw emotion and unexpected twists. “It’s not like a play or a TV show where everything is scripted. In D&D, you have actors playing the characters, but they’re experiencing the story as the characters are experiencing it. And so they feel the emotion just as the characters do,” Zeitlin said.
Many are drawn to D&D for its unparalleled storytelling potential, including Leventon, who said that he likes D&D “because, at its heart, it is an opportunity to create.” As both a passionate writer and reader, Leventon appreciates the opportunity to input his skills “not into a stagnant story, but rather something I can change in real time.”
Since D&D is an intensive and lengthy game, the players wanted the opportunity to fully immerse themselves. Their goal proved to be difficult given the busy nature of their schoolwork. “[D&D] demands a lot of time and a lot of effort even for casual fans. And so it’s been tough to play as much at Choate as I would have liked. And so I think that was part of what made Black Arrow so special. I wasn’t expecting to be able to put that much time into this thing that I really loved,” Geaney said.
The nature of the Black Arrow campaign provided players the chance to immerse themselves into their characters and stories. According to Zeitlin, “A good session is a session where everybody enters the session, for whatever reason, forgets who they are and what they’re doing outside of this session.” Players appreciated the opportunity to lose themselves in the game and create a whole new character and persona. “I like to separate the character from myself because it allows me to delve into a new world … It’s really the experience with a new character that I really appreciate,” Foster said.
Beyond the Black Arrow saga, there have also been new additions to D&D on campus, including an all-girls campaign with Ella Morris ’25, Nev Rathbun ’26, Eva Swanson ’25, and Isla Geaney ’26. As a member of this all-girls campaign, Morris said that she “went in not knowing much. The game is so complex, but my first time playing was fun. I definitely made mistakes, but I also learned a lot.”
Rathbun, who is also new to the D&D scene at Choate, joined Morris in this campaign. “I view [D&D] more as a chance to hang out with my friends, [and] have a little fun. … You get to learn more about the people you play with and build connections. I think D&D is just as fun as the people you play it with, so as long as you get a good crew together, you’ll have a great time,” Rathbun said.
For new players, whether one is hoping to engage in the complex world of D&D or simply connect with new people, there is no one way to play D&D. Zeitlin concluded, saying, “Whether you’re playing the game solely for the game or you’re playing the game to tell a story through the game, it is however you approach it, and there is no correct way to play D&D, and there’s no correct way to tell a story either.”
