Summary
Any employed adult who has friends who are also gainfully employed knows how hard it is to get practically any plan out of the groupchat, especially if it requires any more preparation or thought than simply just showing up appropriately dressed. This increases with every additional friend tacked on to your plans. If I want to do something, say, throw a party, and have everybody actually show up, I have to set a date at least two months in advance and send constant reminders. Even then, there’s no guarantee that everybody will make it – somebody might have to work a shift at the last minute, or attend a wedding, or take care of a sick pet.
This is why my friends and I have started and dropped three separate tabletop RPG campaigns in the last two years. Two of them wereDungeons & Dragonscampaigns, and one wasCall of Cthulhu. In one case, one person had to stop coming because of health issues, and we immediately lost steam. In another, one of my friends moved out of the country entirely. Our latest campaign stopped short simply because people didn’t have time to keep showing up for sessions, and our DM’s preparation sadly went to waste.
Lots of people play TTRPGs remotely, especially since the pandemic. It’s certainly easier to open your laptop and hop on Discord than it is to take time out of your day to travel to someone’s house, after all. But while it’s something my group has tried, it’s never really worked for us – we once tried playing remotely with our friend who moved away, and it was impossible to keep everybody engaged for the length of a full session. It’s especially hard with D&D, because it’s a lot easier to play when you may actually see what’s happening on the board, and the tools thatWizards of the Coasthas for online play right now just aren’t all that fun to look at.
But Dungeons & Dragons will soon belaunching the free-to-play virtual tabletop app Project Sigilthat makes online play much more compelling. It’ll have miniatures, 3D maps, and visible spellcasting, at the very least. Interestingly, it’ll also includeBaldur’s Gate 3characters, and I think this might be the thing that finally lets my group move online and actually play the campaign we had planned.
For one, a lot of my friends have played Baldur’s Gate 3, so having the option to use them as minis is as good a reason as any to at least give the app a shot. But what little we’ve seen of Project Sigil looks pretty good and makes online sessions look almost like a cRPG in itself. It would be super cool to be able to play customised campaigns and see our actions playing out in 3D, and it’s definitely more likely to keep five people with ADD actually looking at what’s happening on the screen.
I’ve already sent this to my DM, but she hasn’t replied, because she’s at work. When she does eventually reply – I don’t know when, because being an adult sucks – I will begin the arduous journey of pitching the app to them, convincing them that we should definitely finish our Curse of Strahd campaign at some point, and insisting that this is the best way to get five busy people to actually play this game together. We might fall off again, but at least I know I’ll have tried my best.
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game that first took the world by storm in the 1970s, and continues to enchant millions of players today. With a seemingly endless number of modules and campaigns for you to play, as well as the possibility to do your own thing, you’ll never get bored of playing D&D.
