Dungeon Master, Brewmaster
Dungeons & Dragons brings community and purpose to taprooms
by Tobias Cichon
The following article by Tobias Cichon of Rabid Brewing was originally published in October 2023 in Issue 02 of Final Gravity, our print beer zine telling personal, human-centered stories about beer. You can order the print issue here, or subscribe here.
Two large, wooden doors that have been made into tables—heavy bolts protruding from the surface—get pushed together with a thunk, signaling the beginning of the evening’s gathering. Heavy metal pirate shanties flowfrom the speakers, accented by the clacking of half-drunk glasses of ale and general taproom chatter. In walks the Dungeon Master, Henry Weeks, who is greeted with shouts from all corners of the room. Players begin to congregate at the conjoined tables, readying themselves to venture into magical battle against vile creatures. Before the epic heroism has a chance to begin, a problem has already presented itself: popularity.
Dungeons & Dragons has been steadily gaining popularity for years, bolstered by the release of the Netflix series Stranger Things in the summer of 2016. By 2018, we were holding weekly D&D nights here at Rabid Brewing in Homewood, Illinois, and the following had grown so consistent that when social gatherings became unviable in 2020, the sessions were moved online. After returning to the taproom, interest in in-person play was even greater than before the pandemic, an effect mirrored at breweries nationwide.
“We were blown away by the response we received when we could open the doors again,” says Reece Carlson of Natural 20 Brewing in Spokane, Washington. “The rise in popularity that came from D&D during COVID created a need for community that we were able to provide.”
Reece’s brewery opened in 2019 and built their entire business on the idea of D&D in the taproom—their name is a reference to the best die roll one can make in the game.
Photo by Amanda Baker-Hughes.
An ideal D&D party size tends to be four to seven players; any fewer and the Dungeon Master (DM) needs to account for the lack of skills diversity among the players’ characters, and any more and there’s a risk that people start walking out for smoke breaks after they roll. The weekly sessions in Rabid’s taproom can get so big that they break up into multiple games. Tonight’s game has eight players, but Henry is seasoned enough to keep such a big party glued to the game. I’ve readied my Half-Elf Hexblade Warlock for a climactic battle most of us have known was on the horizon. I can tell some new faces don’t know what to expect.
“It’s a little bit hard to chime in during a game when you don’t have a good grasp of the rules, so I try to tell new players about some good options that might be available to them in a scenario, and just guide them through rules as they encounter them,” says Henry. “Once a player is pretty familiar with the general rules and their character sheet they don’t have to think about them as much, and then they can focus more on the scenario and they usually open up more and have more fun.”
D&D nights are ticketed events in some taprooms, which certainly helps with the chaos of player management, but also limits frequency to monthly or quarterly events. At Rabid, we’ve chosen to keep attendance requirements to a minimum, adjusting each session like a Shape Water spell to match whoever shows up to play, be it veteran or newbie.
Tonight, I’m sitting next to a newbie, Marissa, who already has a gleam in her eye like she’s found her people. She’s never been to Rabid’s taproom, hasn’t played before, and she’s unsure of the rules, something she’s quickly learned is of little concern; our underlying goal is for everyone to have fun.
“We work really hard to make the game as accessible as possible, even having ‘newcomer’ games where the DM manages all the rules and just asks the players, ‘What do you want to do in this situation?’” says Reece, who frequently serves as DM.
A welcoming environment may be the ideal start, but misconceptions about the game—from the decades old Satanic Panic accusations to ideas that everyone playing has their nerd-culture dial cranked to eleven—still make some would-be players shy away from the table.
“A more significant misunderstanding may be one that both players and non-players sometimes share: that the game does or should require serious roleplaying,” says occasional taproom DM Alex Lindstrom. “Ideally, it does—complete with voice acting and for some, even costumes—but more often, it does not. In fact, most often, D&D sessions are one big joke, with moments of tension and earnestness peppered throughout if the DM tries to foster them.”
Toki Nelson, currently playing a shapeshifting druid, has been with the group for a year now and has been absent few enough sessions to be counted on an ogre’s hand. Her love and dedication for it is no secret.
“I work a lot and I'm raising a preschooler, so this is one of the few times in a month that I am able to spend on myself and actually decompress,” she says. “I love the camaraderie, the beer, and even the distracting movies on the projector. Nothing pretentious. It just feels like hanging out with your friends and family. Everyone really makes you feel like you belong. It's the one day a week that I am always looking forward to.”
A taproom is already a neighborhood mental disentanglement chamber, an ideal venue for fomenting cultures of shared interests. More than just building community however, these events can help some folks come out of their shells or find comfort during difficult times.
“What people can get out of D&D varies from player to player,” explains Alex, a twenty-year D&D veteran. “I’ve had friends express that this game was their major social outlet. I’ve seen players go from not having the confidence to speak to people above a whisper to feeling confident enough to speak to a room of 500 people, something they attribute to their years of experience around the table. There was even a time a player expressed to me that our weekly game pulled them from a spiraling depression and without it they wouldn’t be here today. For a lot of people, this game is a lot more than just rolling dice.”
Photos above by Tobias Cichon.
At Rabid, we never set out to make D&D an event we would monetize—there are no dues or entry fees—we just knew the D&D universe and its fans matched Rabid like a warlock and an eldritch blast. As Henry pointed out to me recently, all good campaigns start in taverns anyway.
Our decision to host D&D nights at Rabid came from a desire to inspire creativity, to make a new or long-lost experience accessible, and, of course, to just plain bring the fun. Part of tonight’s fun is battling a Revenant, a fearsome regenerating undead creature seemingly impossible to kill.
“Too much of America's bar culture is centered around sports viewing and betting,” says Alex. “Too much is also centered around an implied celebration of alcohol abuse. It is too rarely the case that a bar's culture means to emphasize the cultivation of a particular community, one wherein common weirdos can be revelrous or at least mutually supportive. That Rabid has done so has allowed for a clientele that has reliably supported weekly D&D games for years.”
Tonight’s game ends with three characters making death-save rolls to stay alive, my Hexblade Warlock down to half-health, and the Revenant dead. The looks on everyone’s faces would tell a tale not so dire, one of contentment and camaraderie worth so much more than the adventure’s loot.
Tobias S. K. Cichon is the co-founder, brewmaster, and Warlock of Bad Behaviors of Rabid Brewing in Homewood, Illinois. Creative writer, casual mythologist, and occasional editorialist, Tobias also operates as a Brand Czar and pursues fiction novel writing. You can learn more at rabidbrewing.com or @rabidbrewing on social media.