In 1994, if you wanted to know who played Dungeons & Dragons at the local high school, you had to earn that information. The guys who met in Tim Fenstermacher’s basement every Saturday didn’t advertise. They didn’t wear band shirts for games the way metalheads wore Slayer or Megadeth. You found out the same way you found out who was gay or whose dad hit them—through slow trust-building and careful confession. Someone would mention they liked fantasy novels. You’d mention you’d seen the Monster Manual at the bookstore. They’d glance around the cafeteria. If nobody was listening, they might tell you about their half-elf ranger.
Nobody wanted to be the kid who played D&D. The social cost was too high, and in the mid-nineties, the stakes felt existential in a way that’s hard to explain to anyone who grew up watching Stranger Things. Those kids were worse than nerds. In the minds of concerned parents and local news anchors, they were potential cultists, possible Satanists, one bad gaming se…