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For a few years now I have been gamemastering a tabletop role playing campaign of Space Opera, a game form the 80s with the most complex and poorly edited rule set I have ever seen but is loads of fun.

A year ago, several of the player moved north by a couple of states and out in-person games became virtual games hosted over Zoom. (Being that Space Opera has been out of print since the 80s there was no suitable on-line gaming app that really fit my needs, hence just a simple Zoom.)

The game has continued and it’s very nice every two weeks of so that we get to hang out, see each other, even if it on computer monitors, and game.

This past Saturday was the scheduled game night and all through the day I had been emotionally out of sorts. Not really depressed, just unmotivated and listless. Holiday plans meant that the session would be abbreviated but we needed to run it because I had left the players in a tight spot. (One of their crew had been kidnapped and the baddies were using threats to attempt to force the heroes into assassinating someone.)

I ran the game and my mood flew high. We laughed, we had fun, the dark turn of events for the characters provided strong motivation. By the end of the shortened session all of my listlessness had evaporated. It was not because of the game play it was because good friends are a major component of a happy life. Sometimes when we are crabby and out of sorts isolating ourselves is exactly the wrong prescription.