Tabletop Gaming in an Age of Plague

Hey, so, there's this virus going around.

I don't think I have anything particularly new to say here. I'm really just bummed that I'm missing out on my usual Wednesday table at my local game store to play Adventurer's League. We finished Descent into Avernus a couple weeks ago, so it's not as bad if I get bumped from the table next week because of store policies.

I'm missing the game because I have a cold. It really seems just to be a standard winter cold - bit of sore throat and congestion, but none of the fever or shortness of breath that seems to come with Covid-19. Still, to be better safe than sorry, I'm trying to avoid leaving the apartment as best as I can and washing my hands periodically and not just after using the bathroom or before eating.

It's funny, thinking about how WoW, an MMORPG, was probably the video game that drew me into the idea of playing tabletop RPGs. I still love WoW, but I've definitely been far more attracted to the way D&D works.

I'm a storyteller, or at least I like to think I am, and D&D is a great medium to tell a story, especially given that you are tested by having to deal with the decisions of your players. The game is so customizable because it leverages the most powerful rendering engine known to exist - the human mind. Yes, I'm aware how cheesy that statement is, but it's actually quite true.

I mean, if I wanted to play a steampunk robot who would spend their time between adventures building an airship, in WoW I'd have to pick a race - maybe Mechagnome - and simply imagine that as his backstory without really getting to engage with it in-game.

But in D&D, I can just talk with a DM and figure out how they want to handle that mechanically and then roll up my Warforged Artificer that I really, really, really want to play.

Of course, getting together with others to play is harder than logging into a game where there are thousands of people per server. There's also a fair number of things one can do as a solo player (I've been going whole hog on Horrific Visions, unlocking Faceless Masks and such.) Indeed, I think one of the big ideas behind computer/video game RPGs is that you essentially have a pre-programmed, computerized DM (or GM if we want to use the general term.)

It's a lot easier to hop in and play WoW for a couple hours if you want to. But I find D&D far more rewarding given the human element of it.

With the plague going around, we really don't know how serious it's going to get. People have died, and I don't want to minimize that. It's likely that a massive number of people will get sick with this, and while only a small minority are likely to die from it (biggest of knocks on wood) it will, at the very least, be a big disruption to social gatherings, not to mention businesses (I won't be super shocked if we have another market crash like in 2008,) and thus people will have less money, which is going to make it harder for them to make time for stuff like D&D.

My friends are very much in the gig economy churn, and with events getting cancelled, it's going to hit them pretty hard.

But on top of the economic hardships, there's also just the fact that we don't want to spread the sickness.

Again, I do not think I'm infected with Covid 19, but given how broadly it's spreading, it makes social gatherings like a D&D night feel potentially irresponsible. Sure, we might be a bunch of healthy folks in our 20s and 30s, but there's always a chance that someone might have a weak immune system or they might simply interact with older or infirm people who are more vulnerable.

Really, this is all just a rant about how I'm bummed that I don't get to go roll some dice and imagine I'm some badass fantasy hero. I'm hoping this crisis ends soon, primarily so that fewer people get sick, but I also think it'd be nice for people to just feel free to go out and socialize without fear or guilt.