Social distancing has meant gamers of all stripes have had to resort to the internet to keep in touch and play games. I've played a couple of wargames games now with the Rejects using Zoom but my hobby activities have extended far beyond just wargaming. For the first time in a very long time, I'm roleplaying again. And not content with one game I'm taking part in two separate campaigns with two groups!
Last year my eldest daughter (the original Padawan) and her Partner invited my youngest daughter and me to play the Stranger Things themed D&D game. Perry had bought the special edition box set and over the course of three sessions, we played a very enjoyable mini-campaign. I loved it, I hadn't played D&D in years and it was good to get behind a character sheet again. The Young Padawan also really enjoyed it so Perry suggested we get together regularly for a 5th Edition D&D game in the Ravenloft campaign setting. We started using Discord to run the game but quickly switched to Roll20 and this has worked really well.
Meanwhile, my old school chum, Andrew suggested running a short game with our original D&D group, using Discord as our means of communicating and rolling dice. We are playing the Red Box D&D rules from the 1980's... in fact, I'm using the same books I used for our first ever game over 35 years ago!
Probably the main reason our roleplaying group disbanded was the difficulty in getting everyone together on a regular basis. Our jobs were pulling us all in different directions (literally into different parts of the UK and beyond) and work and family commitments made game nights problematic at best, particularly when you are playing a campaign that needs a certain level of commitment by all the players. The advent of internet tools like Discord and Roll20 has suddenly made some of the problems of geography less of a problem, although work commitments still play havoc with scheduling. I for one hope we can make a go of this new socially distanced campaign because it has been great to see and chat with the guys again after our prolonged break.
Back to wargaming, the Rejects have played a couple of Zoom enabled games recently and both I and Ray are working on some more so despite restrictions on gatherings still being in place, we have managed to see and chat with each other, and play games, almost as much as we did before. Its a Brave New World...and I think it's going to be around for a while.
That's a genius idea!
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