PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

With leaves crunching underfoot, a weary band of travelers meanders through a dark, enchanted forest. The journey is a perilous one, fraught with danger and sylvan dread. Trapped in the howling winds of an eternal autumn, the friends find strength in Oram’s Donuts and mocha lattes.

“Does anybody speak Giant?” asks Andy Hickly, who’s serving as tonight’s Dungeon Master.

Every other Thursday and on the last Saturday of the month, Game Masters in West View hosts Dungeons & Dragons Adventure League. Players, both seasoned and new, sit around long tables to create one-of-a-kind characters and fantastical tales that would make J.R.R. Tolkien proud.

PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

The evening sessions last 3½ hours, but campaigns can go on for weeks or even years (Canadian Robert Wardhaugh’s been continuously running the same D&D game since 1982.) The shop recently added Dragon’s Roast Cafe to keep folks fed and caffeinated during their role-playing tabletop quests.

Baristas use Commonplace Coffee to make everything from cold brew and espresso to specialty drinks such as the Fiery Red Dragon, a latte with a hint of hot honey. Patrons can also sip Abeille Voyante teas, cocoa and soft drinks and fill up on Enrico Biscotti and Betsy Ann Chocolates. On Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, Oram’s Donut Shop pastries are available. The Beaver Falls-made doughnuts topped our 2024 Best of the Burgh reader’s poll.

PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

“We want to make sure everybody is having a good time,” Hickly says, inviting me to the table where average joes become orks, wizards, elves and trolls. As Dungeon Master, he is the game’s lead storyteller and adjudicator of rules.

I’m seated across from a 748-year-old cleric sporting a jean jacket and braces, a leather-clad mercenary with a hellcat companion and a goblin who believes Oram’s orange creamsicle donuts have magical powers.

These are my kind of people.

PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

Store owner Phil Glotfelty snakes through a labyrinth of tables and chairs to the front of the room. He stands against the wall and smiles when he hears ripples of laughter in the crowd. Although blind, his vision made the business a reality nearly three decades ago.

The 56-year-old McCandless resident has a rare genetic disease called retinitis pigmentosa that began robbing him of his sight when he was 10.

“You don’t have to see to role play,” he says. “As my sight went, I learned all the cooperative games.”

Glotfelty went to college with aspirations to become a social studies teacher, but he soon realized his niche was in fiction rather than historical fact.

On April Fool’s Day 1996, he opened the original Game Masters on Babcock Boulevard in Ross, becoming the local source for immersive board games. When the Pokemon craze hit in the late-’90s, Glotfelty laughed all the way to the bank.

“Pikachu bought my house,” he says.

As interest in gaming grew, Glotfelty invited customers to play on-site throughout the week and participate in tournaments. What was once the domain of teenage males, has gone mainstream. Women make up 35% to 40% of Game Masters’ clientele.

Thanks to “Stranger Things” and “The Big Bang Theory” — popular shows that celebrate D&D culture — the word “nerd” is now a term of endearment. Hollywood heartthrob Joe Manganiello, a Mt. Lebanon native, doesn’t hide his obsessive love for D&D. After stocking up on supplies at Game Masters, he taught kids at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh how to play.

In 2022, Glotfelty moved to the current 5,000-square-foot space – the former Duncan Comics on Perry Highway — and doubled his inventory to more than 1,000 boardgames. For $5 per person, patrons can access the library or reserve a seat for role-playing adventures. There are activities for large group odessies or lone-wolf adventures. Try out a game on-site, or, for a small rental fee, give it a spin at home.

Events are held Monday through Saturday and include everything from Magic: The Gathering to Pokemon GO. Stop by and you’ll see couples and even entire families participating in good, old-fashioned social interaction. Game Masters has an ADA-compliant family bathroom with a changing table, a quiet, low-stimulation room filled with bean bag chairs and the friendliest staff this side of Mordor.

I grew up in the suburbs during the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, so I was simultaneously terrified and intrigued by D&D even though I had never rolled polyhedral dice. “Mazes and Monsters,” a 1982 made-for-TV movie starring Tom Hanks, scarred me for life with its insistence that fantasy role-playing games drive players to madness.

Glotfelty , whose 21-year-old daughter grew up at Game Masters, chuckles and says it’s a common misconception.

He recalls a day when a man walked into the shop and demanded to know what kind of cult Glotfelty was running. Always a gracious host, he offered the naysayer a cup of coffee and gave him a crash course in D&D.

“Oh, I thought it was something weird,” the man said, “but it’s like Monopoly with acting.”

Nate Nolan, who runs a The Gamers Lodge in the United Kingdom, visited Glotfelty’s shop while he was in town for a wedding. He scored some hard-to-find titles to bring back to his gaming cafe plus a limited edition set of Game Masters dice — a gift from his American counterpart.

A lifelong fan of gaming, he says the hobby allows him to create a safe space where his imagination was free to roam.

If medieval knights and wizards aren’t your thing, there are role-playing games to suit every personality. Engage in tactical combat, solve murder mysteries in Victorian England, leap small buildings in a single bound, fight zombies in an apocalyptic wasteland or engage in diplomacy on another planet.

The best way to learn is to jump into a game with someone who knows what they’re doing.

Just make sure a goblin doesn’t steal your donut.