A game of Dungeons and Dragons in support of charity will wrap up Sunday evening — 25 hours after it first began.
Chadd Henderson and Scott Thompson started playing the fantasy role playing tabletop game at 6 p.m. Saturday, and gained an extra hour overnight because of daylight time before the scheduled end time of 6 p.m. Sunday.
Henderson, Thompson and their fellow adventurers set out to raise $3,000 for the Children’s Hospital Foundation of Manitoba, and they surpassed that goal during the streamed marathon.
“All you need is an imagination, and one of the core beliefs of Dungeons in Dragon is break the rules if it means having fun,” said Henderson in an interview with CBC Up To Speed Guest Host Marjorie Dowhos Friday.
Thompson said he’s been part of similar fundraising marathons like this one in the past, some of them with Dungeons and Dragons, others in improv. The latest marathon took place at Kilter Brewing Company in Winnipeg.
He said this is the first time Kilter Brewing Company has participated in Extra Life, a fundraising program that partners with the Children’s Miracle Network — an international organization that gamers of all different backgrounds can use to raise funds for the children’s hospital in their area.
Every year in the first week of November, there’s a big marathon fundraiser called Extra Life Day, Thompson said.
Up To Speed7:3425 hour game of Dungeons and Dragons for charity
Featured VideoChadd Henderson and Scott Thompson talk to guest host, Marjorie Dowhos about why they’re playing Dn’D for 25 hours and how they plan to stay awake for it all. The funds raised will go to the Children’s Hospital of Manitoba.
“I wanted to, having done this with friends in the past over Zoom, wanted to bring this here and thought it would be possible when one of the owners … mentioned that he was getting involved with the Suspended Superheroes, which is also a fundraiser for the Children’s Hospital Foundation of Manitoba,” said Thompson.
“And given the timing, I thought that doing two weeks back-to-back of fundraising would’ve been a good opportunity to do some good work.”
Thompson also said Dungeons and Dragons is a “really great and fun way to tell stories together.”
“Largely you’re just playing make believe, it’s fun to play silly characters, serious characters and just make choices — some that are a bit more sillier than others,” he said.
And if there were any doubts if the pair would do it again, Henderson was quick to silence them.
“I would 100 per cent do it again, I love playing Dungeons and Dragons,” he said. “To do something that you love and you’re passionate about it and to be able to put it to a good cause, I just think that’s a really great marriage of things to do.”