I became aware of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) at the same instant that I was made to believe that D&D was maybe not for me. In 2003, I was working in a coffee shop in a small North Carolina town. (College and I hadn’t gotten along, and I didn’t have anything close to a five-year plan.) The boys that sat in the back of the shop ordered nothing but water for hours and stopped talking only when I delivered it to them, giving me the distinct impression that, whatever secret conversations they were having, I wasn’t welcome.