I’ve already covered how I was able to join my regular Friday night D&D game whilst on the west coast. I didn’t mention that I also scheduled a session of Eglath’s Angels during our Portland trip.
I DM Eglath’s Angels and we record it for a podcast (listen to it here, if you like!) so it required a bit more equipment and setup because the viewers/listening deserve the best!
DMing is no fun
Playing while traveling is much more straightforward, just like playing D&D is easier than DMing. The Dungeon Master has to keep track of lots of things, try and make sure everyone is having fun, and attempt to build a story with a group of people who may or may not want to build the same story. It isn’t easy, though it can be a lot of fun.
It does require more stuff to do on the road. First up, my father-in-law allowed me use of his office, which was very nice indeed. Plus, he’s a musician so he just happened to have a mic stand that I could press into service so I didn’t have to use my crappy stand.
I also had:
- My Sony ZV-1 for some sweet video
- A mini-HDMI to HDMI cable to connect said camera to…
- My El Gato Cam Link 4K which I plugged into my…
- Anker USB-C Hub which goes into my…
- MacBook Pro
- A tripod for my camera
- My microphone
- El Gato Key Light Mini
- Some random headphones I found in my father-in-law’s desk
- Plus Zoom, Roll20, and several DndBeyond tabs open on a laptop screen
I didn’t end up using the Key Light Mini because there was a lamp I could point at myself on the desk I was using, which worked pretty well.
I also set up my iPad thinking having more screen real estate would be a good thing, but I didn’t actually end up using it. It just complicated things as I was trying to run the game.
My at-home setup works much better, mostly because I can have two full-size browser windows and my Zoom window next to each other, but this worked far better than I expected!