So I had a pretty wild and magical thing happen tonight: a friend here in NY invited me to a random Zoom call. I didn’t know most of the people on the call. They were planning to play Cards Against Humanity, but then the site they were using went down... (Thread)

Everyone was stuck. Someone suggested Jack Box, but no one could agree on which mini game to play. After a bit of listening, I volunteered “I could run an RPG...?” At first everyone seemed confused. “Like Dungeons & Dragons? I’ve never done that. It sounds hard.” (Cont...)

I explained that yes, it’s like D&D, but there are simple games we could play. No one on this call had ever played a TTRPG before. So I offered up Mutants of Ixx, a quick OSR game by @skullfungus. Everyone agreed. Why not try it? It’s Friday night! (Cont...)

I did a super quick and loose character creation with everyone, and had them bring up virtual dice on Google. I then had everyone introduce their new character to the group. I was pleasantly surprised to see how many people enthusiastically got into character! (Cont...)

I ran a 2-hour session, completely improvised. No prep, just kept it fast and simple. The group leaned into the humor of it all (a common experience I see in new RPG players, and a good one!). I made a personal decision to ignore hit points and play generally death-free (Cont...)

Everyone quickly started coming out of their shell! There were more than a few natural role players at the table. It didn’t take much explaining on my part, just loose fictional context and the occasional dice check. The players really drove the story, & grasped it fast (Cont...)

We laughed, people started referring to each other by character name, and everyone got immersed in the adventure. After a few hours we had to wrap up. People had to sleep. We ended on a bit of a cliffhanger. (Cont...)

I logged off the call. Within minutes I was receiving DMs & texts from the group. Everyone wanted to thank me and wanted to know when we could play again! All I wanted to do was thank them for letting me try something new with them. (Cont...)

Long story short: everyone wants to play again soon. Not only did I make new friends during this time of extended isolation, I found a new group of players to tell stories with! This is the ultimate reminder of why I do what I do. #TTRPGs are magic, nothing else like it.