For USPS employee Chase Hohnholt, the recent release of stamps celebrating the 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons means the fantasy role-playing game has finally arrived.
“It’s cool that Dungeons & Dragons is getting recognition … especially when the Postal Service notices it. That says a lot,” said Hohnholt, an electronic technician at the Greensboro, NC, Network Distribution Center (NDC) and a game enthusiast.
Fans of fantasies involving elves, wizards, quests and mystical creatures will feel at home playing Dungeons and Dragons, Hohnholt said.
Created by Ernest Gary Gygax and David Arneson, Dungeons & Dragons, or D&D, is published by Wizards of the Coast. Around 64 million people have played the game since it debuted in 1974.
Social media, books, movies, video games, podcasts, cartoon series, a popular online group and D&D-inspired plots on the hit TV series “Stranger Things” continue to introduce the game to new generations of players.
“Back in the day, you could only play in person. But now with the internet, Zoom and group chat apps, you can sit home alone on a computer and play with a number of people,” Hohnholt said.
Six months ago, Hohnholt was surprised to learn several of his co-workers also played D&D.
“We were talking about our nerdy hobbies. It came up that one of us played Dungeons & Dragons. Then before you knew it, there were six or seven of us who played. So we created a group and started playing together,” he said.
Their group meets twice a month.
A group or “adventure party” of up to seven players — or “player characters” — collaborate on an open-ended story or campaign guided by books, dice and a “dungeon master” who crafts the storyline.
Campaigns can last for months.
“It’s all based on your imagination. It’s not like a video game where you are only in a certain area that’s created with coding, and you are limited to interacting with things that the programmer allows you to interact with. Here, you can do just about anything,” Hohnholt said.
For other USPS employees, the release of the stamps represents a collision of worlds.
Xavier Davis — a Kansas City, MO, stamp fulfillment services clerk who has been playing D&D for three years — helped manage the Postal Service’s busy Dungeons & Dragons booth at the GenCon Convention in Indianapolis, where the stamps were dedicated on Aug. 1.
“I was really surprised and really excited to be involved,” he said.
Like Davis, Hohnholt hopes the Dungeons & Dragons stamps will spark more interest in the game.
“People are starting to hear about it, taking a look and maybe even try it out themselves. It’s like any fun game you’ve ever played on your phone or on a game system,” he said. “It’s just a little quirkier.”