Dungeons & Dragons & Coronavirus
D&D but it's about Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives so they call it D&D&D&D&D
Dungeons and Dragons has a spot in my top three favorite games of all time and I’ve only played it once. Well technically, I’ve done one quest, which took four five-to-six-hour sessions to complete. And we probably needed at least one more to really finish the damn thing. Dungeons and Dragons also happens to work as the perfect coronavirus quarantine game.
D&D, for those who didn’t live through the 70s or haven’t caught up on Stranger Things, falls into the “role-playing game” genre. The granddaddy of “RPGs” Dungeons & Dragons has been a stalwart in the gaming world since its publication in 1974. It has spawned countless iterations and numerous imitators, all of which try to match the original’s combination of luck, skill and imagination. While always a mainstay of “nerd culture,” it fell out of the mainstream for a while, but has recently been on the rise with millennials rediscovering and popularizing the game once again.
At its core D&D revolves around a group of people, say three or four, but up to like eight or more, trying to complete a quest set up for them by the DM (Dungeon Master). D&D quests typically take place in a fantasy environment, think Lord of the Rings, and usually revolve around exploring hidden caves, strange dungeons, and finally facing down against some sort of big bad. These quests can take a few hours to complete or can last several years, with some groups playing weekly or monthly for multiple decades.
Typically, D&D sessions take place in-person. Which, during regular life would certainly remain an issue. When I played, we had the hardest time getting all seven participants in the same place at the same time. Technology, along with life under quarantine changes the playing field. And, just so this remains clear, I do not recommend leaving quarantine to go to some-one’s place to play. I do not want Dr. Fauci to get mad at me. What I suggest, as befits my age, involves playing over Skype.
The beauty of D&D comes from the imagination part of the game. Normally playing a board game over Skype would result in a frustrating exercise of camera positioning and confusion. The nature of D&D however, means that not having a game board does not spell the end of the game. And certainly screen-sharing measures exist that would allow for the use of a shared game board, but unless someone wants to take lead on the tech angle, there is no need for all that.
Instead of using a board, D&D players along with a skilled DM can simply play with their minds. And before some D&D fanatic gets mad at me, yes certain combat elements require a board, or at least some graph paper, but those elements can be done away with and a pleasurable game of D&D will still exist. The heart of D&D is storytelling. While rolling dice and other elements add a touch of chance to the game, games of D&D succeed or fail on both the story-telling ability of its players, and their willingness to buy into the game.
The storytelling and communal aspect of the game make it the perfect coronavirus game. Staying cooped up all day remains a recipe for disaster for most people. But D&D, allows for somewhat normal human connections and kills time. As I mentioned previously, the one quest I played took about four sessions to finish. Our DM had originally assumed it would take one four-hour play session. Partly that’s the players’ fault, as not counting our DM none of us had played before. Part of it also came from the fact that I played with my old improv group Penny Red, and we wasted a lot of time trying to make each other laugh. But it also took so long because we all had such a blast making our characters do more and more ridiculous stuff. We lived in this world that our DM had created for us. And there’s nothing like being stuck in a boring apartment to make creating a shared fantasy world seem lively.
The intense, intricate and high fantasy world of D&D could certainly scare some people away. But the adaptability of D&D means that it’s only intense, intricate and high fantasy as the players want. If the group is not a fan of elves and dragons, because that’s nerd shit? You can easily make the game about being spies trying to steal government secrets. Don’t like all the dice-rolling or figuring out the rules for combat? Find ways to talk yourself out of having to fight. Don’t want to play a game about saving the world from its sure destruction? Make your quest about trying to find a really nice bottle of wine. D&D at its finest reflects the personalities and preferences of its players. Don’t get stuck in a mold if you don’t want to.
Social distancing does not have to mean social isolation. Through the wonders of the internet, many people can now do a Google Hangout with a bunch of their best friends from their own homes. No need to meet up in someone’s mom’s basement to play D&D. I still remember individual quotes about things that happened the time I played D&D and that happened a couple of years ago. You are going to have memories of the coronavirus, why not make them good ones? I have .pdfs of the player’s and Dungeon Master’s guides. Let me know if you want a copy.
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