Co-founder of the Tabletop Role Playing Group shares their stories in nerd culture
BY: BRENDAN SMITH
Staff Writer
While simultaneously cooking and talking on a call, Izzy Leyba recounts their experiences in the world of Tabletop Role Playing games (TTRPG), including their part in the creation of the Tabletop Roleplaying Group, often shortened to the TTRPG Club, on campus.
“During my first year at Meramec, I had gone to the campus expo and asked who I now know is Kathy, but at the time I didn’t know them, if there was a Dungeons and Dragons club, and she turned to me and said that there wasn’t one, but that I would be able to start one,” Leyba said, while their voice was still warm and bubbly, they started staring blankly into the air, remembering the events. “After I asked her how, she told me that there was another student going through a similar process and to ask them. After talking to that other student and finding out that we were trying to start the same thing.”
Leyba has been into “nerd culture” for most of their life, so Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) was not an interest that started in college. Leyba started playing with friends in high school with their stepdad as a Dungeon Master (DM), to assist them in getting into the game. An interest that quickly expanded.
“I have been very nerdy for most of my life, I was and am very into cosplay and anime, and during my sophomore year of high school, I got really into a D&D podcast and found out that my stepdad was already a player,” Leyba said. “So I got my friends together and asked my dad to DM for a session, and I loved it.”
After the first session, Leyba got very interested in D&D, diving into many campaigns, which are the storylines in which D&D is played, even DM-ing for a few of them.
“At one point, around the middle of my second year at Meramec, I was involved in about 10 campaigns and was the DM for about three of them. They weren’t very long campaigns, but it definitely ate away at my free time,” Leyba said.
Dungeons and Dragons isn’t the only game the club plays though. Since the name of the club is the Tabletop Role Playing Group, they partake in any game that has that role playing aspect.
“While we didn’t do many games outside of D&D while I was there, I know Puffy [the third and current president] has done Bubble Gumshoe a few times, and some other stuff, I knew we didn’t want to limit the club to just the one game,” Leyba said.
While Leyba had fun running the club during their time at Meramec, it wasn’t entirely without issues. Between the stress of timing, and little help from the co-founder, tension ran high.
“With a TTRPG club, things are very different from other clubs. While other clubs meet to discuss projects and topics, they don’t really rely on the members to be there every single meeting to help with a currently running plot that has other club members involved. And on top of that, the other student I founded the club with was not very good at timing things out,” Leyba said, adding the last part a little quieter.
All that being said, Leyba said they still continue with their passion for TTRPGs, now finding themselves playing with friends instead.
“I have been doing a few campaigns now outside of Meramec, a lot of the time it just depends on other life stuff, but I still try to have fun with it,” Leyba said.
