- You run your own home game.
And you obviously run
D&D on a regular basis.
How has that changed for
you during the pandemic?
How has this altered how you run D&D
and how you play?
- So, during the quarantine,
we have been playing D&D online.
First I was DMing and then most recently,
my husband took over DMing,
finally giving me a chance to play,
which is almost unheard of.
I almost never get to play!
Which I'm not complaining,
because I love DMing, but
it is a treat occasionally
to get to just show up
with my character and play.
- I've felt that deeply.
Every time I'm organizing a game to play,
you're like, you always raise your hand
and like, I would like to just play.
(both laughing)
I would like a chance to play.
I mean, I'll DM if I have to, but,
I would like to play.
So how's that been?
- It has been a ton of fun.
The transition from playing
around our dining room table
to playing online hasn't
been too difficult
because for a number of years,
we've largely done theater
of the mind style play.
If we had been making
heavy use of miniatures,
I think the transition would
be much more difficult.
That said, I miss seeing
people around the table.
There is something magical
about being there in person,
being able to see
everybody's body language.
Not having to worry about,
can we hear each other
talking all at the same time?
There is a dynamism to being in person
that is impossible online.
But, we're still having
a great time online.
We just adjusted, you know.
And, we talk differently
to make sure everyone has,
quiet, so that we can all hear
what this particular player is saying.
And we've been using
different dice rollers
and trying out different
tools for enhancing the play.
One of the things I also miss, by the way,
in addition to just being
there in person with people,
and being able to share a meal
with each other while we play,
is I miss having ambient music.
Some of the online tools allow
you to have music playing,
but it's not quite the same
as having music playing in
the background in a space.
And in my home game, I make
heavy use of mood music.
Almost always in my campaigns,
I have music selections
keyed to different groups,
different places, different events.
And that's a bit more challenging to do
online, partly because it
becomes much more prominent.
When you're playing in a physical space,
the mood music can truly
just be mood music in the background.
If you play it on one of
the online tools available,
sure you get the music, but
suddenly it's like, music!
You know, it's impossible to
ignore that music is playing
and so rather than it
being a background element
it suddenly becomes a foreground element.
So, that is all a long way of saying,
I look forward to going back
to playing around a table
when the quarantine has passed
and we all feel safe to
gather together again.
Particularly because my plan has been
for my next D&D campaign to
make heavy use of miniatures.
Every time I start a new D&D campaign,
I have some DMing thing
that I give myself to do
that's different from all
my previous campaigns.
And,
sometimes that's a shift in genre,
sometimes it's a shift
in gameplay, or both.
So my next campaign is going
to be pulp adventure in theme
and it's going to
feature way more dungeons
than I normally use, and
I wanna use miniatures
because it's now been years
since I've made heavy use
of miniatures in a campaign.
Needless to say, I picked the wrong year
to plan on a miniatures
based campaign. (he laughs)
- Yeah, you may wanna put
a pin in that 'til 2021.
(he laughs) Yes.
I recently have gone back
into miniatures as well.
WizKids sent me some of their
little spell effect templates
to let you know how big Fireball is,
and I find it weirdly fascinating
to know exactly, to
get it right, you know?
Makes me very excited.
So yeah, I'm getting back into that,
but like you said, not
the best year for it
but very fun, my wife was
playing a Wildfire Druid.
And boy, those are blasters,
and you really gotta know
where those fire spells are
and what they do!
It's a lotta fun.
