Sometimes it’s nice to kick back in the house. Sometimes you’ve spent so much time in the house that the idea of dragons ain’t so bad.

We’ve been meeting a lot of players on Realms lately who have been cooped up at home, all of us doing our best to cope with … well … 2020. I swear if I see even 1 locust … I’m heading for the hills.

It has been a trying year for many, many people. Some of our players are feeling a financial crunch because they’ve been off work due to shutdowns. Some have had family members directly effected by the pandemic. Some are health care workers dealing with many patients and with the effects of the wildfires too. Some may have lost or been evacuated from homes and are playing from family’s homes or from hotels.

To everyone who is enduring everything that 2020 has lobbed at you, you’re doing a great job even if it doesn’t look feel like it right now. We’ll get through this together … at a distance 🙂

I was playing Realms in September 2001 when the towers were hit. It didn’t matter if you were Ringbearer or Guild of Druids or new or old. We knew, one way or another, that we were in it together. Then, as now, we have different ideas about what the best things to do are, or what the priorities should be. I have been glad to see that when the MOTD scrolls past so many have left their disagreements at the door, grabbed their text swords and tackled the problems that they could and left worry behind, if only for a while. I’m also glad when people have needed to talk about how rough their day was, or how shaken up their world is. I’m glad your virtual world is giving you something solid.

I hope we will all see each other in a reunion of one sort or another when this is all over, and we will toast having been through it. I think these challenging times bring out the best in many of us.

I’m glad you’re here. You are doing the best you can, and that is alright.

Hang in there, we’re in it together.