These aren’t traditional stories where one of us speaks and the others listen. No, these are interactive, collaborative stories. Together, we build the narrative, roll some dice, and see where our imaginations take us for hours on end.

With the majority of people now working from home for the foreseeable future, there is suddenly so much more free time. We aren’t spending the majority of our day commuting to and from an office.  Not being around our friends can feel isolating, lonely, potentially even creatively stifling. We humans are natural storytellers, working together to paint grand adventures with our words. That’s what we are constantly striving to accomplish. Whether it’s written or spoken, we string together words, phrases, sentences, details, applying our verbal brush to the awaiting blank canvas of our imaginations.

In the past decade, such storytelling has experienced an unprecedented boom in popularity. Roleplaying games exist in the hundreds, ranging from mainstream games like Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder to indie games like Monster of the Week and Monsterhearts, each bringing unique twists to fantasy, science fiction, horror, and more. And while Dungeons and Dragons maybe be one of the most well-known systems, having been around since Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson sat down and devised what would become the 1^st Edition in 1974, it isn’t the only choice. Say you want to tell a story that isn’t centered around high fantasy adventures of magic, wizards, elves, and gods – you want something more flexible, more modern. The Powered By The Apocalypse system, designed by Meguey and Vincent Baker, has welcomed dozens of unique settings while still using the same rules system. While the “Dungeon World” setting is still based in fantasy, “Monster of the Week” takes a more Scooby-Doo twist to investigating modern monsters and mysteries. Then, of course, there’s more cosmic horror adventures like Call of Cthulhu and The Dresden files, where players can experience the incomprehensible terror of H.P. Lovecraft and Jim Butcher. Whatever mood you want to set, whatever tale you want to tell, there are dozens upon dozens of options to help you and your friends create an immersive experience.

The best part of trying out a roleplaying game comes from gathering the resources to play. You don’t need to invest in pricey rulebooks or accumulate a hoard of dice – although that’s arguably the best part of getting hooked. Many systems offer free, downloadable PDFs and basic rules available on their websites. There are online resources like Roll20 that function as online databases of ready-to-play games complete with customizable systems and settings, including assets to build visuals and background music to accentuate your tales. And when it comes to actually coming together, nothing is more important than being able to see and hear your fellow storytellers. Google Hangouts, Discord, Skype, and Zoom are just a few programs that can allow you to be with your friends almost as if you were there in person.

I like to think that everyone has a story to tell, whether they know it or not. As is the nature of roleplaying games, the person in charge of running the game doesn’t have to know the whole story from the beginning. If anything, all they need is a good idea and a basic outline – and the players take it from there. Everyone involved helps to craft the story, learning how to cooperate, troubleshoot, and improvise in real-time situations to determine what happens next. And most importantly, the stories you and your friends tell are entirely unique. Even if you follow a published module or stick to pre-written story beats, there’s always bound to be an errant dice roll or sudden character choice that throws the whole plot out the window in the best, and most chaotic, way possible.

It is, in my opinion, one of the best ways to bring together a group of friends who want to have some fun and be together as much as they can in the face of isolation and social distancing. Together, we can burn off some of that pent-up energy from not being able to leave the house. We can laugh, cry, fail, and succeed together, forging and strengthening our bonds before, during, and after our games. As distant and digital as it may be, when we’re in the moment we forget that we’re not actually sitting around a table side-by-side. Distance doesn’t have to be a factor in when and how you see your friends and spend some time together. So, go ahead and tell that story you’ve always wanted to. And get your friends in on it too, while you’re at it.

Aysel Atamdede is a MA/MFA student at Chapman University and Assistant Editor at Anastamos. She graduated from Santa Clara University with a BA in English and minored in Studio Art, specializing in fiction and animation.

You can follow her on Twitter @AyzPlz

There’s nothing like that feeling of dread as you hope against hope your car isn’t totaled, when you pull over and get out to take a look and see the flat tire and the cracked light and the warped trunk, when you look up to see who hit you and it’s your best friend’s car sitting on the shoulder with its side mirror missing and the driver’s door so dented it can’t even open.

There’s nothing like realizing you have to call your parents to tell them what happened, the insurance company to send someone to change your tire, and the police to report there’s been an accident. There’s nothing like standing on the side of that two-lane highway with the sun going down, the closest city still an hour away, and the temperature keeps dropping by the minute and you’ve barely got a quarter tank of gas left so you can’t sit in the car with the heater running for too long and you finally get off the phone with insurance to see your phone has nine percent battery left.

There’s nothing like sitting on the side of the road for two hours, waiting and hoping the tow truck and the police can find you when the only directions you can give are based off of a random traffic sign in the distance, while your friend sits in their car and does exactly the same thing. There’s nothing like standing there talking to the police after waiting for so long and it’s pitch black except for the headlights of passing cars and it’s so cold you can see your breath as you talk to the cop and hearing the screech of tires as two cars nearly collide not five feet from you, almost recreating your exact situation.

There’s nothing like finally getting your tire changed and the police report filed and your friend’s car door fixed and getting back in the car to head into the city to fill up on gas and calling your parents again to let them know you can still drive alright. There’s nothing like looking at the GPS and seeing you’ll arrive at your destination three hours later than you were supposed to and you’re physically and mentally and emotionally exhausted from the six – now nine – hour drive and you still have to unpack once you get there, constantly checking your rearview mirror to make sure your friend’s car is still following you but this time at a safer distance.

There’s nothing like finally arriving and getting all your things out of the car and into your room and standing there, staring at your friend, and it finally hits you that had you not swerved when you slammed on the brakes, had you taken even a split second longer to realize the car in front of you was getting too big too fast, it could have ended so much worse. There’s nothing like standing there and realizing you’re still alive, you’re okay. There’s nothing quite like finally feeling your heart slow down, for hours after the accident the feeling of relief that the only thing that was broken was your car, and realizing that while cars can be fixed easily, people can’t.

Aysel Atamdede holds a BA in English and a minor in Studio Art from Santa Clara University, and is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at Chapman. As an undergrad at SCU, she established the Imaginarium VR lab, teaching students to design, build, and publish 3d animations and video games. She is a writer and voice director for The Sketch Fellows, a podcast produced by her and her friends in their spare time, and is currently the Podcast Editor at Anastamos.

Featured Image: “2009 02 07 – 1387 – Sandy Hook – US340” by thisisbossi is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

The artwork is entitled “Jacsimile” as a play-on-words: a facsimile is an exact copy of something. As the painting is a portrait of the artist’s longtime friend Jack (and the core of the artist’s sense of humor is bad puns), it was dubbed as a Jack-simile, or simply Jacksimile.

Aysel Atamdede holds a BA in English and a minor in Studio Art from Santa Clara University, and is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at Chapman. As an undergrad at SCU, she established the Imaginarium VR lab, teaching students to design, build, and publish 3d animations and video games. She is a writer and voice director for The Sketch Fellows, a podcast produced by her and her friends in their spare time.