







You walk into a home. A woman is unconscious on the floor. A strong breeze chills your cheeks and you realize that, in addition to the sounds of the road behind you, you can hear children playing basketball in the back yard. Toxic fumes burn your nostrils and lungs. You hear a loud thump upstairs as a baby begins to scream. What do you do?





Did you think of an answer? If so, gotcha!!! You just played Dungeons and Dragons













I know, right? That isn’t what I thought the game was like either. I always had this image in my head that playing D & D was more like pretending you were following along as your math teacher used a convoluted Lord of the Rings analogy to explain derivation; all while a halitosis infested gamer-gater asks you if you have a date to the prom. But recently, I have started playing the game and I want to tell you what it is like. I also want to ask you, from the bottom of my heart, to do me a big favor . We will get to that later.













About a year ago I was assigned to a special project at work. One of the big boss guys that lead the project made a little joke about being a “ sexpert .” I know, maybe not the best call in mixed corporate company, but it was the exact best thing he could have said to make me want to be his friend. You see, if you didn’t know, that was a reference to the great Travis McElroy, the internet’s best friend. He is part of the trio of brothers on the podcast My Brother, My Brother, and Me. So, we started talking about the McElroys and he reminded me that they had a podcast called The Adventure Zone as well.













I had heard them talk about the fact that they did a Dungeons and Dragons podcast with their dad, Clint McElroy, but . . . gross. I just wanted them to cull nonsense from Yahoo Answers and joke about it. I wasn’t so much interested in listening to them do . . . I didn’t quite know what . . . be wizards and shit. But they have never let me down comedically, so I gave it a shot.













It was hilarious! I instantly fell in love with the dynamic of this family of comedic geniuses navigating their way, in character, around a fantasy universe. I binged episode after episode, laughing out loud at grocery stores and plasma donation centers (don’t judge me) as I listened. In episode24 , though, magic flowed from the interwebs into my headphones. There was a dramatic moment at the end of the episode, and it was accompanied by beautiful music. I was crying. I had to stop what I was doing, roll the episode back a few minutes, and sit there just moved to tears by a tender moment in the campaign.













The podcast elevated to the best storytelling I have experienced in my life. I wish there were words I could say to carry the gravity of that. I was there for the comedy, which they gave me in spades, but I also received life-changing levels of drama and humanity













After I finished listening to season 1 of The Adventure Zone, all I could think of was how much I wanted to play Dungeons and Dragons. I can’t explain why, but I decided to begin by reaching out to Bryce Blankenagel the world-famous, impossibly named, Mormon history badass . We joined a couple of campaigns together and I became a different, better, person.













Through Dungeons and Dragons, I have been able to wander a colonial North America as a sardonic bard charming persons and slaying cyclops from Roanoke to Virginia. I have also dealt with a traumatic past as I battle cruelty through a Blood Hunter named Nalsa. Every session of every game has been full of humor, imaginative improvisation, and tender moments of drama. Times have been tough lately for me and for so many of us, but this game has been an incredible source of joy and a way to make friends I would die for













So here is the favor. Bryce has launched a new project , connected to his Naked Mormonism Podcast. He is going to be a game master for a Mormon-history themed Dungeons and Dragons Podcast. Whatever your current position is, relative to Mormonism, or to this weird game your cousin used to play, there is a rich depth of story in our history that is best told through this game and through Bryce’s creative authorship. If you are skeptical, let me prove it to you. Let me show you how real people who love and hate and fight and feel the way that you do would react to the passionate, volatile, story of Mormon history. There is hilarity, drama, evil, and good here that has not been plumbed to any kind of appropriate depth.













In a sensible world, this would just happen. You wouldn’t have to help to make it happen. Bryce would be drowning in grants and publishing contracts that equal the effort and care that he puts into his research. He could just take the time to give us this campaign in addition to his incredible work for Naked Mormonism . But that is far from the world we live in. So he needs your help. Please go to his Patreon page, the link is right here , and donate. We need to help him hit his Patreon goal so that this can happen.













There is some good fucking content that will make you laugh and cry and experience incredible joy if you will just donate for the cause. It is time to reclaim the stories we were all told growing up. Please help.





https://www.patreon.com/nakedmormonism