Six psychologists have stayed friends for 40 years, and one yearly ritual is what held them together

September 6, 2026 - 05:00

What started as a casual game night in a dormitory has become a decades-long anchor of friendship for six men who met as psychology students in the early 1980s. Rick Kamins first introduced Dungeons & Dragons to his classmates at the University of Alabama, and by 1985, the group had turned the game into a yearly reunion. Now, four decades later, they have managed to gather 38 out of 41 possible years, missing only a handful of sessions due to unavoidable life events.

The ritual is simple. Once a year, the six friends, now spread across different states and careers, carve out a long weekend to sit around a table, roll dice, and slip back into the fantasy characters they created as young adults. The game itself is almost secondary to the real purpose: uninterrupted time together. Over the years, they have weathered marriages, divorces, career changes, health scares, and the loss of parents. The game gives them a fixed point on the calendar, a reason to reconnect that does not depend on a wedding or a funeral.

Psychologists by training, they understand the value of structured social bonding. But they say the magic is not in the rules or the campaign storylines. It is in the shared history and the willingness to show up. The yearly commitment forces them to prioritize each other in a way that casual phone calls or group texts never could. They have already booked next year's date, and the only rule is that the dice keep rolling.