Dan Ayoub

Yeah, absolutely.

And you know, we just, in video games and things like that, you take things like that for granted, where I'm going to level up my character and there's that progression.

There's RPG elements in almost any game you play, right?

You level up your character, you increase your weapons, your weapon quality or your damage, your proficiencies, those conversation systems and things like that.

I say a lot, D&D is probably why I ended up making video games.

I mean, it really is kind of an American art form.

Like Chainmail, I guess you could really call the precursor.

Even that was influenced by other forms of wargaming and things like that coming down with, I think, somewhat European roots that very much influenced Gary Gygax.

And Chainmail was really that thing that led to first edition and all of those things.

And there are a surprising number of schools that are using it.

I did a brief stint in education before coming here, and I was really interested in how D&D can be used in education.

So when I came here, I was really excited to dig into the education programs.

what we're hearing those clubs quickly fill up because kids are super interested and it doesn't have the stigma that it did when we were growing up where you hit it they fill up they run out of space very very quickly and it's either just for an after-school program or i know my kids school they use it for french language instruction like okay we're gonna play d d but it's gonna be in french so uh

And like anything, when you're having fun, you don't realize you're learning.

But I think it just shows how much D&D and the perception of it has changed.

I'm going to have to blame Tom Hanks, man, for the D&D movie he did where he played... Do you guys remember that?

This was in the peak of the Satanic Panic.

What was it called?

It was corridors and mirrors or something.

Masons and monsters.