The Media that SAVED 2020

Let me first preface this post with two points:

1. The reason there was no post last week, aside from Christmas, was that I really didn’t like where the blog was going.  In the draft, I discussed how my wife and I would spend our first Christmas as a married couple without seeing any family in-person.  It didn’t really jive with what this blog is about, so I abandoned it.

2. While this particular post will be showcasing some of the best media content (for me) in 2020, I must emphasize that all of the things I am about to discuss pale in comparison to the best thing about 2020 for me: the fact that I got married.

With those points out of the way,  let’s get into the media I enjoyed this year and that even helped me stay positive.

The Only Thing They Fear Is You

At the start of the pandemic, I became a certified teacher in Ontario and received an Amazon card from my wife as a congratulatory gift.  It was my first day doing Work From Home when the item I purchased with the card arrived.  Though it is many wonderful things, DOOM: ETERNAL is first and foremost a power fantasy first-person-shooter.  Playing as the Doom Slayer (bear with me), your objective of killing demons from Hell is simple on the surface, but the frantic and adrenaline-inducing combat is anything but.

Playing DOOM felt like playing a metaphor for Covid-19.  You have to keep moving and do everything you can so that you not only stay alive, but also vanquish the nasty and varied demons.  My wife joked that the Cacodemon (a disembodied flying red head with one large green eye and a mouth about 50% of its body) looked like the Coronavirus.  Ever since then, there has been new meaning to taking care of those creatures.

DOOM: ETERNAL’s purpose is to make the player feel like an unrelenting badass and that was exactly what helped with the early parts of the March 2020 lockdown.

“Wanna Play Dungeons & Dragons?”

It was a simple question that I began asking in mid February.  As anyone who has ever played Dungeons & Dragons (or any Tapletop RPG) will tell you, the hardest thing about the game is getting a group of people to all be available at the same time.  Most sessions that I’ve been a part of in the past required a couple weeks of coordination before a time could be agreed on).  I gathered four friends at work who all had a lot in common and a friend from college who has a penchant for quality games.

We were initially going to start in-person on March 22nd this year.  I had been amassing a collection of accessories to make the game more inviting for new players for a while and was excited to use them.  Covid had a different plan.  We delayed the start of the campaign by one week and I did a hard pivot: no more session-curated playlists, no more heavy card or handout use and no pot-luck snacks.  I had managed to get the group their own dice (from my collection) and asked them to sign up to a free digital service to track their character progress in the cloud.  All in all, we began playing and is worked out well.

A couple weeks ago, we wrapped our 2020 Season with a Christmas-themed session.  That ended the year with a grand-total of 24 sessions (each roughly 2 hours long).  It was a good run and one I look forward to continuing into the new year!

What media helped you get through this fuster-cluck of a year?  Feel free to comment below!

As always, stay safe, stay healthy, and have a great week!

Cheers.

SF