Top 5 Ways to Weather the Global Pandemic

I’m sure we’ve all seen the meme by now, the mock headline that says something along the lines of “Nerds Everywhere Awaken to a World where Sports Are Cancelled and Everyone Stays Inside Playing Games” or something to that effect. Har-de-har-har, Alice.

As a guy who owns and operates one of the very places the media is begging you not to visit, I’m of two minds, here. On one hand, stay at home, yes, do that. On the other hand, um…me and the missus and our dog need to eat, okay?

Suffice to say, I need a few distractions, and I suspect you do, as well. For example, I’m working on my Kickstarter campaign project, Monty Haul, and it’s going as well as can be expected. I’m also playing my first D&D game on Roll20 with Shane Ivey, Chris Spivey, and Megan and Aser Tolentino. If you’re interested in hearing it play out, you can check out Session Zero on the ArcDream website here. We’re playing through one of Shane’s Sword and Sorceries adventures, and so far, it’s very cool.

But what if you don’t have a lot of irons in the fire? It’s easy; just build a fire, and stick some irons in. I’m only sort of kidding. Even if you just do some spring cleaning, like culling old games and sorting dice and organizing shelves, you’ll feel better, more productive, and less inclined to climb the walls, wall crawler. Idle hands, and all that jazz.

Here are my top five suggestions for Getting Your Game On and staying safe. I’m not going to mention Roll20 or playing online; you already know that. Rather, this is about refilling your braincase with stuff to use when all of this Fauxpocalypse stuff blows over and we can all greet the daylight again like squinting morlocks.

5. Session Prep!

I know this seems obvious, but if you’re like me, you never seem to have enough time to dot those T’s and cross those I’s. Well, there’s no time like the present. Recharge your lists of random events, make a new table of NPC names, print out the good maps, etc. One of the things I love is random tables; however, I'm not a big fan of rolling stuff on the fly. So I use my random tables during session prep to create interesting encounters and pre-designed treasure. One of the best places to find a LOT of free tables to drive your creativity is the Reddit channel BehindtheTables. Their wiki is worth a visit, even if you're not a Redditer (?)  and the volume of tables they have created is impressive. 

4. World Building!

This is one of those things that flummoxes everyone: how to build a world. How much do you create, and what do you absolutely need to make it stand up? There are a lot of great resources to get you into drawing up new campaign plans (seriously: google “world building resources” and get a large cup of coffee and spend an hour just browsing). But with extra time on your hands, you can include details and extra bells and whistles that often get skipped when working on the fly. If you're interested in trying your hand at a map or two, you have GOT to check out Inkarnate. It's the easiest mapmaking tool I've come across, and it's pretty robust and getting more Reubanesque every week. Here's one of the maps I made using their software.

3. Try a New (or Old) Game!

The volume of gameable material in the world is incalculable. We’ll never play them all, and we probably shouldn’t try. But what about that OTHER game…you know, the one you keep seeing mentioned on YouTube? Or the one your friends keep asking about? What about your own “What if” questions, or “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” queries? There’s a ton of great resources out there to acquire vintage games on the cheap, cleaned up and erratta’ed, in many cases. DriveThruRPG.com is awesome for this, and so is my pal Allen Varney’s page, Bundle of Holding, which puts together new and old game systems in affordable clumps. Here's one from the 1980s that I never heard of! But I'm checking it out. Know why? 'Cause I can. Think about that for a minute. Just because I can. 

2. Appendix N!

Read a damn book.

No, really, read.

Videos are cool, and movies are great, and TV shows are, well, most of them suck, but some are okay. But the original source, the Ground-Zero inspiration for the birth of role-playing games, is books. The AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide included a list of inspirational reading, the now-legendary Appendix N. D&D Fifth edition has published their version, Appendix E, which is all of the stuff included in Appendix N plus some new additions from the intervening years.

Few things will help your DM skills better than a good book. It will stimulate your language centers and make narration and dialogue easier, you’ll get so many great ideas for bits, and set pieces, and plots, and characters that you’ll cramp your hand, writing them all down. And best of all,  you’ll get to see how the sausage was made, especially if you cleave closely to the stuff on Gygax’s original list.  

1. Get Your Craft On!

DIY, anyone? Who didn’t love rainy day craft blitzes? Making weird shit out of paper plates and Popsicle sticks and melted crayons? You have a golden opportunity here to put that pent-up energy to work, making props for your game, cool terrain for your tabletop battles, DIY counters, dice boxes, custom DM screens, or whatever you might need that’s a little off the beaten path. YouTube is your friend for this. Check out Black Magic Craft and also DM Scotty’s channel for great places to start.

This whole Covid-19 thing just sucks, and it’s going to be a pain in the ass for everyone. BUT…that doesn’t mean we can’t use this time to our collective advantage. Take comfort in knowing that the April game sessions are going to be next level awesome, y’all.

Stay safe out there.