The Rise of the Professional Dungeon Master

On a recent Friday evening, Devon Chulick stood in the kitchen of his San Francisco apartment brewing potions. A dry-erase game board with a grid of black squares to assist in drawing maps was laid neatly across the coffee table in the living room, along with a dozen or so miniature elves, wizards, and drow rogues, which had been released from their Tupperware prisons.

In an hour, a trio of twenty- and thirtysomething Google employees were scheduled to arrive for an entry-level Dungeons & Dragons game. “They’ll love this,” Chulick said, sloshing the brew, a combination of water, vanilla, and cherry bitters; while not exactly essential to the quest, the concoction “adds to the experience.” Tall, bearded, dressed in black up to his glasses, Chulick looked the part of a Silicon Valley product manager—which he is, at bro-tastic swimwear company Chubbies. But in his free time, he said, “everything is fantasy.”