That party, of course, being a group of dice-rolling, role-playing folks on a Dungeons & Dragons cruise, a sea in the Caribbean.
The story of the wretched lich was told by Dungeon Master Zach Webber, a local DM who was tapped for the third edition of the D20 Cruise. He’s also a Licensed Professional Counselor and a Certified Therapeutic Game Master at Dragon’s Den Counseling, his Kettering-based practice dedicated to helping neurodivergent individuals and families through creativity and gaming.
After admiring the cruise’s concept the first year and applying the second, Webber, along with a handful of others, made it through the interview process to officially become new GMs on the D20 Cruise, one of the “geek cruises” hosted by Event.Cruises.
In April, the company rented out the convention center of a Royal Caribbean cruise, on a ship called Voyager of the Seas. It is currently working toward acquiring a smaller, geek cruise-specific ship.
This year’s D20 Cruise hosted around five hundred D&D players as they quested different fantasy worlds and scenarios — while voyaging in real life, too.
During the three days worth of games, Webber ran scenarios for two different groups — three hours in the morning, three hours in the evening — with 12 total players.
Like a normal cruise of the Caribbean, excursions were built into the trip, too. Some players decided to stay on deck while others took breaks from roleplaying to explore ports, like in the Dominican Republic. Some DMs even decided to bring their dice, to continue their adventures on land.
In Ohio, Zach Webber is the only Dungeon Master he knows. But on the cruise, all of the DMs running games were at his level or higher.
“When you go to a convention, everyone’s there for one reason,” Webber said. “It was really nice to have peers, to be able to talk to people, to bounce ideas off of. It was really great to go there and have that big time immersive experience where everyone’s hanging out, everyone’s talking D&D.”
In his professional career, when Webber isn’t running tabletop games for fun, he’s running tabletop games in a therapeutic setting. Still, he implements therapeutic techniques in “normal” sessions, too, allowing players to further engage in empathy, spotlighting, relationship dynamics, and conflict resolution through interactive storytelling.
Building to his ever-expanding list of credentials, Webber’s involvement in the D20 Cruise officially earned him the title of International Professional Dungeon Master. He also recently auditioned to be a DM for D&D in a Castle, a 24-hour a day, four-day immersive retreat where adventurers play, yes, in a castle. His audition got him the job to run one-shots — all-encompassing adventures completed in one sitting — June and July at the Mohican Castle in Loudonville, Ohio.
“I feel very fortunate,” Webber said. “The counseling business got me enough credibility to do the cruise, the cruise got me enough credibility to do the castle, and then all that just helps reinforce the business. If I had a professional bucket list, it would have been to do the cruise and the castle, and I’ve somehow managed to do both in the same year.”
Any legendary hero interested in joining up to, once again, defeat the wretched lich on next year’s D20 Cruise, April 23-28, 2026, can sign up now with Event.Cruise. Five nights of dungeons, dragons, and epic quests — on the ocean — await.
Brandon Berry writes about the Dayton and Southwest Ohio music and art scene. Have a story idea for him? Email branberry100@gmail.com.
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