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Author Topic: Shamdemic year 2 begins, you clowns still gaming from behind computer screens?  (Read 8900 times)

thedungeondelver

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I’ve never been down with masks and the people complying drops by the day here. Despite the signs, I can walk into just about any local restaurant maskless without comment from the staff.

While on the flip side we had a bunch of idiots demand to go to a restarunt with no masks and the ALL got it and died. One of our local gaming group got it and she was dead in 3 days. Family member of another is barely hanging onto life after getting this thing.

I hope everyone pretending this is a joke or sham, or are actively trying to spread it gets it and dies as horrifically as regular people do who never asked for this to be inflicted on them.

~Shhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit that didn't haaaaaaaaaaaaaaappen dot teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeext~
THE DELVERS DUNGEON


Mcbobbo sums it up nicely.

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Astrophysicists are reassessing Einsteinian relativity because the 28 billion l

Kyle Aaron

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It's an RPG forum, they could all have been 80 years old, overweight with diabetes.
They could have been! At least the last two :)

I think the pandemic is going to be like Vietnam: everyone was in the front line, and what was it like? "You don't know, man, you weren't there!"

As the years go on the stories will grow taller.

I try to keep my tall stories for the game table.
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Conflict, the adventure game of modern warfare
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thedungeondelver

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Although, y'know, if you wanted to run an Omega Man like RPG, this could be a great launching point for it.
THE DELVERS DUNGEON


Mcbobbo sums it up nicely.

Quote
Astrophysicists are reassessing Einsteinian relativity because the 28 billion l

Chris24601

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I hope everyone pretending this is a joke or sham, or are actively trying to spread it gets it and dies as horrifically as regular people do who never asked for this to be inflicted on them.
I’m sorry for your loss. I had COVID back in March of 2020. It felt like a bad flu that put me out of action for three days.

If it makes you feel better, I only shop, dine and game maskless with people who feel the way I do (i.e. 90+% of the general population in my area; general consensus is the toothless mask mandate will be rescinded by the Governor any day now) and, in the rare cases I’m asked to mask by a business (or have been asked to in the past), I do.

I’d say more, but that’s about as far as I can go without veering off-topic for this section of the forum.


Slipshot762

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No serious gaming but 3 of 5 met up for playtests of various sorts. Everybody on my ass about hammering out houserules and a setting and making miniature terrain but i'm taking my sweet time. Procrastination is my virtue.

All of us voluntarily limit contact with each other (its nice to have a reason to cite instead of just being rude and admitting that you do not feel like fooling with people today) and other people on the off chance that we might spread even a normal flu to the old folks, each of us have elders for whom we run errands to keep them out of grocery stores and walmarts and such.

Two of my players have now taken the johnson & johnson vaccine which is akin to the normal flu shot, just a dead strain thats supposed to build antibodies. Most of us are 35-50 in age. There has been no cops busting up gatherings in my area and people still gather, though usually outdoors in secluded rural areas.

Back at the beginning the sheriff did stop in and warn us at the shop about old folks and contact tracing; anytime you in there working old men love to stop in and sit there all day and watch you work, so for about a year we've kept it shut down, singular appointment only and the boys have been doing much of it at night with locked doors. Just drop your shit off and pick it up the next day. I admit i love telling people no, one at a time, i'll get to you when i can, hush, buy me liquor or touch my pecker and i'll bump you to the front.

None of us are afeared of the gay lil bat soup bug, but for the sake of the old farts, you don't wanna be the guy that accidentally infected them or to be perceived as such. Whether it is just a flu variant or an excuse to murder pensioners with ventilators to alleviate the states financial burden, it doesn't matter, better safe than sorry. Avoid contacts, avoid doctors, avoid people in general unless those people are bringing you money or sex.

Once everyone has taken their cuck vax we might go back to normal, but then again maybe not, because truth is we have enjoyed everything being shut down and contact being limited. The contacts you do have feel more productive, authentic, and less awkward than normal, much of the bullshit is cut out and people say what they mean and how they feel because there is no time to waffle and prevaricate and virtue signal and pretend to agree. Anyone not feeling well can skype the sessions, everyone else can show up and we'll play behind locked doors. By now everyone but me has had multiple negative tests for covid. My wife had the vax too, so far no sign of anything. Me, I still have not even been tested let alone vaxed, but I really only have contact with wife/kids, like 3 friends, and a handful of old folks who i run errands for so they don't risk standing in lines or crowds.

Its a welcome respite to not be rushed and crushed by everyone elses schedules but to instead work at your own pace and make them dance to your schedule instead, while potential income is greatly curtailed by this the state has been quite generous in helping to curtail the impact, the guard for example gave a bunch of MRE's to the food pantries and churches to hand out if anyone comes up short on grocery money. I ate a brick-burger that you boil and pork n beans in brick form. MRE's are like gourmet camping out.

I don't wear a mask unless the place i'm going wants you to wear one, and even then i do it to appease others, not because i want to or fear a virus. If it puts people at ease and saves me from being blamed for killing granny i'm good with it. I kinda like dressing like a ninja anyway.

rocksfalleverybodydies

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A sham would indicate that the issue does not exist.

Been in a discord game which has resulted in some of the best gaming I've had in a while.
Think I hit the roulette numbers on the DM and the players as everyone is engaged, shows up on time and we are all having a great time.  It's proving to be my highlight of the week.  During the pandemic, I prefer having the distance as I can have a beer and not worry about masks during the session.

Arguably, I feel having it online makes it easier for everyone to make the session and feel more at ease about the whole situation.  We had one of our players get hit with Covid but he seems to be doing ok.  If we were in an actual physical game group, we could not have continued.  Something to chew on.  As long as the enthusiasm of the group is there, as it is theatre of the mind, it really does not matter to me if the means are remote:  the game does not suffer.

Ratman_tf

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A sham would indicate that the issue does not exist.

There's been a lot of political and professional posturing around the Covid situation. We've had some people say the whole thing is a fake. I think that's moon landing hoax territory.
But the 15 day lockdowns extended to literally a year now, people adding multiple masks like they're magical talismans that stack their power over the bad magic.
Perhaps the most dissapointing thing is how this really should have brought us all together, but illustrated how we are all divided and a pandemic is just an excuse to grab power and cast shade at the other tribe.

If there's any lesson from Coronavirus, it's that we are on our own, and fuck the other guy before he fucks you.
The notion of an exclusionary and hostile RPG community is a fever dream of zealots who view all social dynamics through a narrow keyhole of structural oppression.
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Reckall

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I think the pandemic is going to be like Vietnam: everyone was in the front line, and what was it like? "You don't know, man, you weren't there!"

As the years go on the stories will grow taller.
I can assure you that when all of this is over the last thing I will want to do is to speak about it.
For every idiot who denounces Ayn Rand as "intellectualism" there is an excellent DM who creates a "Bioshock" adventure.

jeff37923

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Or have you graduated to double-masking at a table? Maybe your group is excitedly planning a campaign, but only after everyone gets the experimental vax and an anal swab.

Our group tried killing everybody we know with the CoronaChan, but after a year of gaming as usual, sadly I must report a total lack of fatalities. Alas, the best we could do was a couple people got the sniffles.  O Chinese bat soup, how thou hath failed us.

So, how many of you have returned to gaming with your friends in reach of the pizza?

Meh. I ditched my Star Wars RPG group because they had a case of the terminal stupids and I stopped having fun. Otherwise, I have been writing, working (a lot, 20% essential worker raise), and getting married to a wonderful gamer girl who is now moving in (she has a lot books, I have a lot of books, our house is one continuous library complete with cats).

Currently the gang and I are discussing a road trip to the USS Razorback for a sleepover with gaming involved. Gaming, on a submarine, in cramped quarters, with booze - what could be better?
"Meh."

Zalman

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Our group tried killing everybody we know with the CoronaChan, but after a year of gaming as usual, sadly I must report a total lack of fatalities. Alas, the best we could do was a couple people got the sniffles.  O Chinese bat soup, how thou hath failed us.

Completely failed our gaming group as well. And my family. And friends. And apparently it skipped over the total death statistics as well, despite apparently causing the death of 25% of all gamers!

Also, great thread for really getting to know the other gamers on this site, well done.
« Last Edit: March 13, 2021, 10:33:45 AM by Zalman »
Old School? Back in my day we just called it "School."

deathknight4044

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We've been gaming weekly and in person throughout the pandemic. The DMs wife is a nurse and got covid a few months ago, but was asymptomatic and we just skipped that week. Funnily enough he was around her and even slept in the same bed after the test came back positive and he never got it. Or if he did catch it he was asymptomatic as wel and didn't know.

dkabq

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I knew from the start the masks were useless as there are so many vectors of infection that the masks don't address (in addition to not being fine enough to stop a virus anyhow) and I've seen people freak out due to fear and utter ignorance while having a t shirt over their noses. And don't get me started on the face shields... So many, many, sheep we live among... I got infected right around the time I had eye surgery so it was most likely at a hospital with everyone wearing masks anyhow.

On Facemasks during gaming:
Facemasks reduce the radius you spread the virus around yourself, because it's not a single particle which infects you but an issue of quantity. The higher quantity of virus you spread through your saliva, the higher the chance someone else gets it from you. The more of an object is in front of your nose and mouth able to absorb liquid coming from you, the lower the quantity of virus you spread to those around you. It was never meant to be a shield which blocks all vectors of infection to you. It's meant to be a reduction in you spreading it, with some more minor benefits to reducing the amount you can breath in as well.

Which means if you wear a facemask at your game table, you will reduce the likelihood you will infect your other gamers with the virus if you happen to have the virus and not know it. Similarly, if your fellow gamers have the virus and don't know it, them wearing a facemask will reduce the chance you will get it from them.

Plus, there are some RPG related facemasks. If you want me to make YOU one, I'd be happy to do so. In fact, I'd be happy to make a TheRPGSite facemask with a logo, if people were interested in that.

I could do something like this? Or better probably, since the mask itself in this picture is pretty meh:



Our design is more similar to this (which I find to be a lot more comfortable, better fitting, and with adjustments on the nose and ears), so imagine this with a D20 or an TheRPGSite logo on it :)



Only if you are wearing a properly fitted and properly worn mask. Otherwise bypass of the filter material occurs, as the flow will preferentially go thought the bypass area instead of the filter material. And it doesn't take a lot of bypass area for most of the flow to divert.

As an example, my wife (works in a rehab hospital) would come home with bruises on her cheekbones from her N-95 mask, as that is how tight the "mask fitters" deemed it needed to be to provide the 95% efficiency. Ironically, she caught COVID anyway. And when wearing the surgical masks provided by my employer, in the cold, my glasses fog up; unless I sneeze or cough, the mask is effectively worthless.

Moreover, the effectiveness of the filter material matters. And while there are any number of studies out there on material filter effectiveness, the results are all over the place. Moreover, few, if any, perform multiple trials, consider the effects of cleaning the material, etc. that would need to be done to properly characterize filter effectiveness.

An example of this is that using radiation to "clean" N-95 masks reduces their effectiveness after about 5 cleanings (the radiation damages the material such that it becomes less electrostatic, which the primary aerosol deposition mechanism).

All that said, a mask will keep in most of the large particles from a cough or a sneeze, but leaves you with a mask full of snot and/or saliva. Considering that large aerosols gravitationally settle relatively quickly (on the order of minutes), its value is mainly limited to poorly-ventilated/close-packed quarters.

What is effective is distance and ventilation.

All this is why pre-COVID the CDC, WHO, etc. said that mask-wearing by the general public is not effective in controlling the spread of airborne viruses.

Another point of information. Pre-COVID, my wife had a choice to either get a flu shot or wear a mask during flu season. Interesting that now it is get the shot *and* wear a mask.



« Last Edit: March 13, 2021, 12:36:21 PM by dkabq »

dkabq

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My group stopped FtF gaming in March 2020. Since then I have been running my game using FGU, with Google Meeting for audio. One player has a 91 year-old father-in-law and one (and his wife) just had a kid. So going virtual initially was prudent. However, as time has gone on, the one with the old father-in-law regularly came to my house for DoorDash lunches when they closed the restaurants. So I believe that now that what is keeping our game virtual is that the guys with kids can stay home, and it saves them the 20-40 minute travel time.

I like miniatures and terrain, so I do miss that. And I find it easier to do encounters on the fly FtF. But as it makes it easier for some of my players to play, and my brother (who lives across the country) is now playing in my game, we will likely stay virtual for the near-future.

Reckall

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Our group tried killing everybody we know with the CoronaChan, but after a year of gaming as usual, sadly I must report a total lack of fatalities. Alas, the best we could do was a couple people got the sniffles.  O Chinese bat soup, how thou hath failed us.
I guess that the virus was smarter than trying to kill one of his best allies  :D
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Completely failed our gaming group as well. And my family. And friends. And apparently it skipped over the total death statistics as well, despite apparently causing the death of 25% of all gamers!
That's because 25% is a statistical percentage. What really mattered are the clusters. If you were caught in one it was like being in the middle of a storm. If you weren't, the percentage became much, much lower.

In my gaming group I was the only one to be ravaged. I lost my father to COVID. I almost lost my mother (one of them gave it to the other, evidently). I was tested but I was clean. My girlfriend hadn't COVID but her problem was misdiagnosed three times before I decided to call an ambulance seeing how sick she was, after a wasted week (she started to feel unwell two days after I lost my father BTW). To put things in context, as late as May going to the hospital was still the highway to get COVID. This put me in the position of having both my mother and my girlfriend hospitalised (and with my GF undergoing emergency surgery) after just losing my father, and having nothing to do except to wait for a phone call.

I guess you had to live in Lombardy during those terrible days to understand how bad and scary and bleak the situation was. Places like Bergamo were tomb cities. There is one thing that, I guess, will remain with me forever: every time I think back to those days I see them in darkness, like if everything was always happening during the night.

Anyway, my group was obviously sympathetic, but no one of them was hit by the pandemic (even if everyone knew someone who was). So, statistically one of us lost his father, one almost lost her mother and one had a very sick girlfriend. Factually, I guess I was the one who drew the unlucky straw.

I also came to the conclusion that there is no cure for cretins like the OP. A distant cousin of mine is a bigwig in Weston Hospital, Florida. She is a Gynaecologist but she was part of the "All hands on deck!" emergency when Florida was hit. She told me that what stunned her the most were these people, dying from COVID, with their bodies full of the virus, who pleaded "Please, look for another cause! COVID doesn't exists!"

And yet, somehow, I still find the ability inside me to be sad for them...
« Last Edit: March 13, 2021, 01:42:20 PM by Reckall »
For every idiot who denounces Ayn Rand as "intellectualism" there is an excellent DM who creates a "Bioshock" adventure.

Eirikrautha

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While on the flip side we had a bunch of idiots demand to go to a restarunt with no masks and the ALL got it and died. One of our local gaming group got it and she was dead in 3 days. Family member of another is barely hanging onto life after getting this thing.

I hope everyone pretending this is a joke or sham, or are actively trying to spread it gets it and dies as horrifically as regular people do who never asked for this to be inflicted on them.

Given the statistical improbability the above being accurate with this things mortality rate...Bullshit.
And the waiter at the restaurant was... Albert Einstein!