On a Tuesday evening in late March, the Reid-Thompson Public Library in Humboldt, Saskatchewan, hosted its first-ever Dungeons & Dragons event. The free introductory session drew a large crowd, filling the library with the clatter of dice and the buzz of excited conversation. Library program coordinator Isaac Leicht, who helped lead the effort, recalls the night as a resounding success.
That first session, held March 31, was the brainchild of local resident Chris Gaja, who approached the library with an idea: host an introductory night where newcomers could learn the basics and, ideally, find a group to play with. Head librarian Emma Lewis was immediately on board, and Leicht, a staff member with a passion for the game, volunteered to help lead the effort.
"There's a lot of information about D&D, but a lot of the time people don't really know where to start," Lewis said at the time. "So for anyone that's interested but not really sure where to begin, this is for you."
The response was overwhelming. The library saw a steady stream of attendees throughout the evening, from new campaigners to seasoned dungeon masters. The success of that first night led to a series of follow-up introductory sessions, covering character creation and campaign structure. The library soon launched a full weekly D&D night, held every Tuesday from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m. The program quickly became a fixture, with new faces appearing nearly every week.
Leicht, who now coordinates the events, describes the game in simple, inviting terms: "It's kind of like if a board game and a storybook were combined and then the writer was right in front of you the whole time and kind of writing it however suits you."
Part of the appeal, he says, is how little you need to start playing. "Just imagination really. Like you don't technically even need a dice, but a 20-sided dice. And even just yourself if you're really imaginative, but another person, and you can start anytime. It's not a super rigid thing."
That low barrier to entry has helped the program attract a diverse crowd. Some sessions are themed around specific aspects of the game, from character creation to miniatures. Leicht explains the latter: "Part of that, of D&D, is that you can create a lot of physical resources for that, like little houses and minifigures of people, and then use them for reference, for visual reference for the world that you're kind of narrating." Participants use everything from LEGO and cardboard to clay and epoxy to build dioramas and set pieces, turning the library into a workshop of imagination.
For Leicht, the game's true magic lies in its collaborative storytelling. "There are some pretty lengthy guides to how to play it completely to like all the standards so you know exactly what's happening," he said. "But my friends that I play with still say that the best game we've played or story we did was the first one where we knew nothing about it. We had no math and it was just letting a dice kind of decide where we screwed up."
The program took a brief hiatus in July and August, but organizers were eager to bring it back in the fall. "Once fall starts, they're hoping to do it every Tuesday again," the library announced in June. The weekly sessions were expected to resume in the fall, continuing the tradition of Tuesday-night adventures at 5:30 p.m.
The library's embrace of D&D is part of a broader trend. The game has seen a resurgence in recent years, fueled in part by pop culture phenomena like Stranger Things, and libraries across North America have become unlikely hubs for tabletop gaming. For Humboldt, the program has proven that a small prairie city can be just as imaginative as any metropolis.
Leicht, for his part, is philosophical about the game's appeal. When people worry that D&D might be dark or intimidating, he offers a simple reassurance: "It's just as safe or fun or has as much potential as anything else really. Like I could take out a Monopoly board game and then stylize it to look like, I don't know, anything I want – to make it look bad and play it with my friends. And all of a sudden, Monopoly is evil. But it's not. It's the way you play it."
At the Reid-Thompson Public Library, the way they play it is welcoming, creative, and deeply communal. Every Tuesday night, the library transforms into a realm of dragons, dungeons, and dice—a place where anyone, regardless of age or experience, can roll the dice and see where the story takes them.