It only took four months for senior Jonas Petrusevicius to become captivated by Dungeons and Dragons, leading him to create stories for players of his own.
”I first heard of D&D from a friend named Logan in health class during freshman year,” Petrusevicius said, “his exuberance and excitement that he shared when sharing the role-playing game really got me invested.”
Finding the interest in a niche hobby comes easy but finding the people who share that interest is harder. Luckily, Petrusevicius found an opening fast.
“I didn’t quite know where to begin with it, but luckily a good friend of mine, Gabriel Wallace, invited me to one of his D&D games that he was hosting later on in freshman year,” Petrusevicius said.
After four months, Petrusevicius was quick to take the game by the horns. He started to host campaigns with a few friends of his own.
“It came quite naturally to me … I felt experienced enough personally to handle multiple people’s stories and input at once in my first story, even though I was playing with a steady five players,” Petrusevicius said.
Bringing skills, he developed from his daily life helped him narrate his stories. His knack for preparation and detail shone through behind the scenes.
“My guides for story planning typically look like countless lists of notes. Before a session, I usually make sure to plan out everything that will happen a couple of days in advance in the story,” Petrusevicius said.
Although he often planned the broad possibilities of the future, he saw dedicating time to illustrating atmospheres and plotting hypotheticals as equally important.
“Each day in game has its own notes about assigned weather patterns, character activity, and other miscellaneous events that may or may not pose significance to my players. Other than that, I just go with the flow,” Petrusevicius said.
Even with his own written guidelines, following a script note-by-note wasn’t in his play style.
“To me, if one’s campaign has anything less than constant improvisation, then it makes it makes exponentially more difficult to make one’s game unique narratively,” Petrusevicius said.
As he mixed his love for detail with affordability, he sought ways to work around the costliness of D&D as a Dungeon Master on a budget.
“. . .my playstyle certainly required heavy visual components. . . so I had to get really crafty to make affordable visuals at the beginning of my DMing career,” Petrusevicius said.
“I make a lot of hand-made and hand-drawn game pieces and miniatures. I relied heavily on papercraft to make my games affordable in the visual aspect of things,” Petrusevicius said.
Once he gains the technology and materials, Petrusevicius planned to advance the visual aspect of his campaigns.
“I might do costumes in the future,” Petrusevicius said, “I’m thinking of maybe carving some wooden masks or 3D printing them and having different masks based for certain NPCs.”
His hand-made props decorated the table, but the true spirit of each session radiated from his party members’ immersion.
“. . .every scene and player action in my game by my players makes DMing a magical experience for me,” Petrusevicius said, “I have been very lucky to have the opportunity to play with all my fantastic players. Without them, the journey and story would have been impossible to craft and experience.”