One thing that I have missed a lot in this year long pandemic is gaming with my friends. Particularly I have missed our D&D sessions. I can’t wait to get back to our campaign.

“But wait Darren, you can play D&D (or any other RPG) online using various online tools like roll20, discord, zoom etc.” I hear you all shout at the screen and me.

And you are totally one hundred percent correct. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of RPG games of one type or the other being played online. Let alone all those that also stream their games live on the internet.

However playing an RPG online doesn’t appeal to me. There is something about it that just doesn’t grab me with enthusiasm. I know my home setup isn’t geared to running the likes of roll20. Using owlbear.rodeo and discord (although I can’t drag and drop images into discord on iOS) is an option. But still I’m not inspired. RPGs are something a group of friends gather round a table for. I know I’m having a hard time articulating my objections to playing an RPG online.

Then the unexpected happens. I get tempted to run an RPG online! What changed?

I think it was Wednesday when I saw a tweet about someone playing a RPG online where no one is allowed to talk, they have to communicate via text messaging or a group chat of some kind. The person tweeting really enjoyed their experience. That RPG was called Alice is Missing.

So I googled the game. Saw that it was around £15 to buy online. Which takes it into worth taking a punt and trying it territory. Sadly it was out of stock everywhere. So I made a post on BGT&C.co.uk on Facebook asking if anyone had a copy they no longer wanted. One of the early replies pointed out I could get a digital copy of DriveThruRPG for £11. Result.

Basically you are buying a print and play version of the game. That is if you want to play it gathered in the same room. However the thing about this that attracted me to it is this is should be very suitable for playing remotely.

“What did we just hear you right there? You are thinking of playing a RPG online?”

Yes you heard correctly.

Alice is Missing has me planning to run a RPG online.

Luckily in the rules there are some tips/pointers to doing this. Plus on the website there are links to roll20 and to a discord template for setting up a discord server to play the game. Plus the publisher provides some resources to download to use to play the game online but not everything that is needed. And that is the annoying part. It’s like the publisher has done half a job. Why they couldn’t have put everything you need to run the game online into the DriveThruRPG files I don’t know. It would have made sense, plus they would have got money for them as well. Heck I wouldn’t have minded if they even added on a couple more pounds to do this.

So now before I even think of sounding out potential players from our gaming group (which will include giving a content warning as it can potentially include some subject matters that some may find upsetting) I need to extract digital copies of the files/cards that are not included in that handy download the publisher provided from the print and play side of the package bought from DriveThruRPG.

Now apparently I saw mention online that there is an official discord server for discussing the game, and they have bots to aid playing the game plus the “missing” files you can download. However when I press the link on the official publisher site for the game it just takes me to the discord server I setup using their template! I reached out to the publisher through twitter but have had no response to date.

So I am in a little holding pattern while I get over these little humps before I hopefully get to play this RPG online.