I found something fun to do with my family and a few select friends during this pandemic.
Imagine my wife role-playing a foul mouthed gunslinger, my son as a card chucking magic-user, and my daughter a miracle creating show girl. Throw in a pacifist Native American Shaman, a one armed Martial Artist, and a gatling gun wielding Pinkerton Agent (played by a former fellow member of the Dungeons and Dragons club!), and you have a fun making posse.
The game had to be online because we live in different states and we didn't want to risk giving each other the virus.
There are a numerous Virtual Table Tops (VTT). I was introduced to Roll20 when the pandemic got started and the groups I was currently meeting with switched to an online format. It was a natural choice. It helped that my son and a couple of our friends were familiar with the interface.
I'm a big fan of a role playing game called Savage Worlds. It has its roots in wargaming, and has just enough tactical elements to engage my interest. A friend of mine had introduced me to the system. It's an easy to use generic system that serves as the engine to create a role playing environment of your choice, be it science fiction, superheroes, fantasy, or the Old American West. The good people who created the rule-set also created a number of ready to run campaigns.
Conveniently, my son and I had just backed the reboot of their flagship campaign "Deadlands" on Kickstarter. The campaign is based on an alternate history of the American West set in the late 1800s. It's a west where magic works and monsters are real. The players try to survive, tell and epic tale, and perhaps save a few imaginary folks.
Currently they are in the city of "Lost Angels." They are battling their way out of the city, while an epic battle rages around it.
Even with the previous experience, there has definitely been a learning curve in setting things up in the Roll20 environment. Fortunately YouTube has helped a lot with that.
We meet weekly for around 3 hours, and we can video chat as needed. Mostly we use voice chat.
It was a bit of a challenge working around everyone's diverse schedules.
I hope we can keep it going.
So many worlds to explore.
