Online play was a godsend during lockdown, and introduced me to all sorts of digital tools our group still uses. If I ever meet that nice Mr. Strahd, I'll have to buy him a drink for that alone.

But damn, if we couldn't wait to go back to in-person play. For a bunch of 30-40 year old folks with jobs and kids and other assorted awkward bollocks, in-the-flesh DnD has been a magnificent way for us to enrich old friendships - and, even better for people our age, develop new ones.

And it does this without a requirement to get smashed at the pub, which is still very much the default socialising technique over here. Not that I mind getting fucked up, but I'm always on the lookout for ways to hang out with friends that doesn't revolve 100% around booze. Getting to share collaborative story-telling with my people around a table still feels every bit as special now as it did when we started 15 odd years ago.

It kind of barely touches on FoundryVTT which is pretty much the best of the bunch if you are ok with running your own server:

-you own it -you own the content -lots of modules and very active development and support. Both official and fan based -great to use for a number of systems from DND to Warhammer and too many to list on mobile -very slick to use and macros allow you to do many cool things easily

Nice to see some love for Owlbear Rodeo!

Online play let's me play in middle of the week. That's the only way my game could have happened

sorry, but I couldn't wait to get back to irl gaming

My groups have been online-only since 2020. Proud to say I'm in 2 games that have been running continuously since then.