By ALEX DOEBLER

With everyone stuck at home and most events getting canceled, online Dungeons and Dragons has never been more appealing. 

D&D often takes several hours at a time to play, so it is perfect for all the people stuck at home who suddenly have hours of extra free time. Regardless of actual motivation though, it serves as one of the few social activities that can easily be done with friends without being together in person.

“Quarantine has given me a lot of time to play D&D, but it’s pretty bold of anyone to assume I’m going to be doing anything but procrastination for the foreseeable future,” freshman Emma Homan said.

There are a number of different ways that D&D can be played online. For maps, rolling, and resources, Roll20 is able to serve as a single app for all parts of D&D. It can be a little bit complicated for beginners though. D&D Beyond is another popular resource that makes it easy to manage character sheets, digital books, homebrew creations, and just about everything else needed for D&D (minus the maps). The lack of maps isn’t usually an issue though, as many groups choose to play without maps to give themselves more freedom as to where they want to go and what they want to do. There isn’t an issue not having a map for the tavern when someone starts a tavern brawl if maps are simply never used in the first place. D&D Beyond is also lacking in a way to directly communicate with other players, but there are so many other ways to make calls that this doesn’t turn into a major issue. Discord is one popular application used to plan and play Dungeons and Dragons.

With the simplicity of Dungeons and Dragons 5th editions ruleset, it is perfect for new players to learn. The basic rules are available on any of several websites for anyone to read, and for the people uninterested in reading, a number of video tutorials explain things. From the same people who made Critical Role, Handbooker Helper is one good tutorial series, but there are plenty of other options to learn from.