She Kills Monsters

Dungeons and Dragons is a tabletop role-playing game (RPG) created in 1974 by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. With an emphasis on story-telling and fantasy, players devise detailed and customizable characters and complete quests that another player narrates and directs in the role of Dungeon Master. Adventures can be self-written or derived from published adventures, and the roll of different dice determines some of the action. A typical session can last a few hours, and ongoing stories that constitute a “campaign” can last months and even years. According to its rulebook, the game is “infinitely flexible” (D&D Basic Rules, 2018, Page 3) and relies on improvisation, imagination, and open-endedness.

Dungeons and Dragons has developed from its table-top origins to expand into a multimedia phenomenon that includes virtual games, film, television and streaming programs, pop cultural references, and merchandise. Once regarded as an activity reserved for  “nerdy” social outcasts, its resurgence in popularity has been attributed to changing cultural attitudes about “nerd culture” since the late 1990s. Some contributing influences include the successes of Bill Gates (named the richest man in the world in 1995), the growth of computer and video gaming industries, and the mainstreaming of comic book culture (Marvel and DC Comics films) and high fantasy (Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy). Additionally, the 5th edition revision of Dungeons and Dragons in 2014 made the game more accessible for a diversity of players, and the COVID-19 stay-at-home measures of 2020 resulted in a sudden surge of online players of the game.

The nostalgic celebration of nerd culture in She Kills Monsters reflects Qui Nguyen’s affection for the adults and youths who were teased as “geeks,” “nerds,” and outcasts for their non-mainstream interests. Nguyen sets the play in 1995 and includes multiple pop culture references that resonate with the time when Dungeons and Dragons was not “cool.” Stereotypes of the nerd, typically a male, included social ineptness, pedantry, physical weakness, and unattractiveness, characteristics that were targets for ridicule and bullying; Nguyen uses the character of Chuck to personify these awkward attributes in the play. The play is designed to celebrate how these D&D enthusiasts carve out their own unique hobbies and passions through interest in obscure media and texts, and from their marginalized spaces, create devoted communities of fans and artists. A notable tribute to nerd culture in the play is the inclusion of stage combat scenes in which Nguyen’s characters assume the roles of their adventurer-personas. The technique alludes to cosplay (short for “costume” and “play”), a practice which developed from science fiction conventions where fans dress up as their favorite characters.

Nguyen’s nostalgia for nerd culture is also not without a critical lens. Critics and players have argued that D&D forums can also be spaces where sexism, racism, and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments remain unchallenged or function in the logic of the fantasy world. In this sense, Nguyen uses the play as a vehicle to redefine the imaginative spaces of D&D and to challenge the game’s lack of diversity by highlighting an LGBTQ+ main character and supporting a predominantly female cast and non-traditional casting.