Woods discovered the world of role-playing games, or RPGs, when he was about 10 years old, after finding a free Dungeons & Dragons demo game online. He cast himself as the DM, even though he wasn’t entirely sure what that entailed. He soon realized that the DM could function as a sort of semi-benevolent story-deity—the one who ignites the adventures, emcees the action, and ultimately oversees a fantasy world where new thrills or terrors can be unearthed with a roll of the die. After a few rounds, “I realized, ‘Oh, shit. You can do anything with this,’ ” Woods says.

He was hardly the first to have that realization. First introduced in 1974, Dungeons & Dragons soon become standard-issue equipment for geeks everywhere—not that they had a monopoly on the game. In its Reagan-era heyday, D&D was like convenience-store Schnapps or Jim Morrison lyrics: Everyone indulged at least once, usually late on a weekend night, and either become an instant devotee or spent the rest of their lives denying it ever happened.

There are seven different dice in Dungeons & Dragons. Chris Maggio for WIRED “I realized, ‘Oh, shit. You can do anything with this,’ ” Woods says. Chris Maggio for WIRED

Now, though, D&D is in the midst of a striking comeback. In 1999, Hasbro purchased Wizards of the Coast, which itself had acquired the rights to the game in 1997*, giving D&D's marketing and distribution a major proficiency bonus. Yet the game has also been around long enough to become a multi-generational pursuit. In recent years, older players have begun dusting off their Starter Sets, while curious younglings who’ve endured marathon binges of Stranger Things or Minecraft (or who caught 2011’s infamous D&D-centric episode of Community) were inspired to seek out the game that all but redefined how a collaborative, hands-on narrative could work. “People are either rediscovering or discovering for the first time how wonderful the experience is to create a story with people together at the table,” says Matthew Mercer, a voice actor and D&D whiz who serves as DM on Geek & Sundry’s Critical Role series on Twitch. “We’d kind of moved away from that, thanks to digital media and videogames. But now there’s a resurgence and appreciation for a more personal experience.”

Which is one of the reasons Woods is so busy these days. He’s currently overseeing nine games a week, all of them focusing on either Dungeons & Dragons, or the kid-friendlier, D&D-influenced game Dungeon World. His clientele is made up of an assortment of armchair-adventuring adults, students, and families (including one with a few Oscar wins, though he’d prefer to keep their identity a secret). He’s spent the past few years doing all of this while also working to earn an RPG-related doctorate (his dissertation title: “Anything Can Be Attempted: Table-Top Role Playing Games as Learning and Pedagogy”).

For the generation of kids who were raised on D&D in the ’70s and ’80s, finding a good DM often meant asking around the neighborhood cul-de-sac, hoping someone you knew had a wild imagination, an appreciation for swordplay, and a halfway-decent head for math. Decades later, the growth of RPG games, as well as the task-rabid demands of the online gig economy, make it much easier for players to bring in someone like Woods, who will show up at your place, notebook in hand, ready to start your campaign.

But while Woods is one of several DMs-for-hire out there, this isn’t his hobby or a side gig; it’s a living, and a pretty good one at that, with Woods charging anywhere from $250 to $350 for a one-off three-hour session (though he works on a sliding scale). For that price, Woods will not only research and plan out your game but also, if you become a regular, answer your occasional random text queries about wizard spells. “He’s worth the money,” says Kevin Papa, a New York City educator (and occasional DM) who’s been part of this Friday-night game for more than a year. “Being a DM requires a lot of brainshare. I don’t know how Timm absorbs it all.”