Democratic socialists won a decisive victory in Hollywood recently, albeit on a political battlefield few politicians have tread.
Dressed in witch hats and long green robes, and bathed in spooky red light, six far-left candidates in the Los Angeles municipal elections June 2 played an election-themed Dungeons & Dragons game at the Fonda Theatre before 400 people.
The event, starring candidates endorsedby the L.A. chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, raised $30,000 in campaign contributions — small change compared to the millions of dollars hauled in at the star-studded fundraisers Los Angeles is famous for.
But this event was less about hauling in cash than about engaging D&D aficionados with the DSA’s progressive politics.
“It was exciting to introduce our slate of candidates to a wider audience,” said Leslie Chang, co-chair of the socialist group’s Los Angeles chapter.
Kamy Akhavan, managing director of the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future, said the unconventional nature of the event creates community between voters and their candidates, getting them invested in the race and making them more likely to donate, vote and get their friends and family involved.
“The people who participate in this experience are not just passively writing a check to a candidate. Those people have become activated to become more engaged in the campaign,” Akhavan said.
Dungeons & Dragons is a tabletop roleplaying game where players create fantasy characters and roll dice to determine whether their actions, like a sword attack or a persuasive argument, are successful against their foes.
It’s also tied in tightly with the leftist movement, attending DSA members said, fulfilling the ideological patterns of coming up with ways to save the world as a small group of individuals fighting powers bigger than themselves.
Some of the candidates’ fantasy characters were literal — City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez, a labor organizer running for reelection, was a barbarian named “Hugo the Organizer” using his “righteous indignation” to organize workers.
Estuardo Mazariegos, who is running to replace Curren Price in a South L.A. district, meowed throughout the game, as he was playing a purple-striped humanoid cat named “Nine Lives E.”
Marissa Roy, DSA’s pick for city attorney, played a gavel-carrying paladin looking to uphold the law. To her left, Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez played a druidic dragon that owned a cannabis dispensary and lit city lights with her lightning breath.
With two magical allies — Faizah Malik, who is challenging Councilmember Traci Park, and Board of Education member Rocio Rivas — they saved homes from being bulldozed by corporate villains. Using spells and legal reasoning, they rallied the community to defeat a greedy dragon and use its gold hoard to rebuild the city.
When players would roll poorly, audience members could donate $20 to allow them to reroll, or $50 to have them automatically succeed. As Roy turned her gavel into a warhammer to defeat the dragon, one supporter shouted out that he would pay $150 for her to automatically do maximum damage.
Eric Parsons, 41, of Westwood called D&D and socialism his two favorite things. The game is “inherently a communal experience where everyone is working together,” he said.
D&D players faced ridicule for being outside of the expected norm for years before it entered the public consciousness, much like DSA, he said.
The game is five decades old and has seen a resurgence of popularity in recent years, partially due to popular TV shows like “Stranger Things” and web series like “Dimension 20” and “Critical Role” where comedians such as Brennan Lee Mulligan have flourished and become celebrities in their own right.
Mulligan has been a member of DSA since 2013, he told The Times. He starred in a political ad for DSA highlighting the six candidates and has run other D&D games for political purposes, arguing that it is more important than ever to get the word out about the current slate of candidates.
“We are very lucky that we get to tell stories about heroes going and saving the world, and it makes it very special to be here with people that are saving this city,” he said.
The audience was filled with DSA and D&D fans alike. Leftist beliefs and the fantasy behind D&D are intrinsically intertwined, said Nicholas Byrnes, a 30-year-old DSA member from Orange County. It gives players a chance to imagine what’s possible and take down threats bigger than themselves — a goal echoed by DSA’s effort to push corporate interests away from politics.
“It’s about fighting the dragons,” Byrnes said.
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