How Social Distancing has Affected Tabletop Gaming
As we know, social distancing has put a strain on tabletop gaming. It’s hard to play games when there has to be 6 feet between you and another person. To see how social distancing has affected our community, we asked a few of our customers what they have been doing to continue playing without being with other people.
Friday Night Magic at Home
Wizards of the Coast recently launched FNM at Home via MTG Arena. This has been a great way for our Magic: the Gathering players to continue to play Magic. Last Friday (March 27th) we launched our first FNM at Home and it went very well. Arena is a great way to take Magic into the virtual world.
Dungeons & Dragons
Doug and Zoe Field have been coming to Meeples Games since we opened and participate in a group that meets weekly. They have taken their games online via a combination of Roll20 and Discord. When asked about their adjustment to online play they said there’s a learning curve but they are still having fun.
Similarly, Steve Tanzy, one of our weekly Warhammer players has also taken his D&D games online. Steve had the following to say “The game group I’m currently running for is adventuring through a 5th Edition conversion of the original ‘supermodule’, The Temple of Elemental Evil, and when social distancing became a real necessity, we quickly moved to an online format using Roll20. Over the course of one session, everyone was pretty much getting it, and now I’m learning some of the more advanced parts of DMing through the application. Once we got the ball rolling for that first session, it was nearly as good as playing in-person, and they made significant progress through the dungeon level they’re currently exploring”. As a pretty social person, Steve says he’s still having fun and in fact his group has gone from bi-weekly to weekly.
Other Tabletop Games
Many other people are taking to Tabletop Simulator (available via Steam) to play more casual games. Steve even said that if he were to take any of his miniature games online it would be through Tabletop Simulator (though there is a slight cost). Sarah Auerbach has also been playing an online version of Agricola with friends and has been thinking of taking other games virtual.
It’s great to see our community is still finding ways to connect when we can’t be together. Thank you to Tammy, Doug and Zoe Field, Steve Tanzy and Sarah Auerbach for answering our questions!
Stay safe and keep gaming! And, of course, be kind to each other during this stressful time.
