The “Dead Wars” took place at the Provo Mall on Saturday, April 22, which was an event that attempted to break the Guinness World Record for the largest Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) game ever played. It was hosted by We Geek Together, a D&D gaming shop at the Provo Mall.
They set out with a goal of having 1,000 players present. They reached that goal and exceeded it by 227. The previous world record was 500 players. So many people showed up that they had to begin turning them away because they did not have enough room.
The unparalleled gaming opportunity involved 200 dungeon masters spread out over 200 tables across the Provo Mall with around six players per table. One would think that it would be impossible to create a cohesive and immersive gaming experience with so many components, but it went off without a hitch.
Each of the tables had its own part to play in the overarching storyline, which created a feeling of camaraderie among the different groups as they worked together to stop a great evil. That great evil was none other than Vecna, one of the most widely recognized villains in D&D history.
The premise of this scenario was that Vecna was waging war on humanity, and in order to stop him and his legions of undead and cultist servants, humanity had come together to form a final bastion.
Players were given different tasks to perform in defense of the city where humanity had become sequestered. They were either cavalry, wall defenders, gatekeepers or city guard. Each party of players fulfilled one of these roles, and their success or failure had far-reaching consequences for the game.
For example, the gatekeepers were tasked with filtering through refugees fleeing from Vecna’s terrible hosts. They had to determine whether or not to give individuals admittance. If they let the wrong person in, it could prove disastrous for the rest of humanity. This led to some tough choices being made, and as a result, each decision felt impactful.
As the game progressed, players’ individual assignments were interrupted by the world events taking place as Vecna made moves to crush their hope and lives. These moments were broken up into four acts, and the players’ actions determined how they would play out.
Runners would go around before these drastic moments and collect information from the dungeon masters to determine what impact the players’ actions would have. Then everyone would turn their attention to the center stage as the head dungeon master would relate the results they had on the narrative.
There were high and low moments for each table. This was not a fight that left anyone unscathed, and many players’ characters perished in the conflict. Cheers could be heard during gameplay when someone rolled a high number at a crucial moment or groans when the opposite happened.
But in the end, humanity came together and fought back the darkness consuming the land. Vecna, at least for now, had been defeated.
Without a doubt, this was an extremely monumental moment not only for those involved but for D&D lovers everywhere. A world record was broken and a wonderful story was told.
We Geek Together plans on continuing to host big games like this in the future.
