Part of my personal development at work has involved an audit of the core elements of wellbeing. The process has helped me to realise that (especially since 2020) my social life has fragmented. This was a large factor in my decline of mental health at the end of 2020 and remains the weakest element today.

Certainly, I have friends and I socialise… but I do so almost exclusively online. I know good people across the world and I am deeply grateful for all of them. But if I ever fell into a ditch the truth is that none of them would be able to help me (although I am sure some would try).

We live in a fragmented world where scattered communities exist online but I don’t know who lives four houses down the street. What’s missing is the camaraderie that arises from community that meets face-to-face. For 22 years, I had this with the Friday Night Roleplay group until that fateful day the government declared a national lockdown.

The barriers to face-to-face community are many. Firstly, I have developed social anxiety which predisposes me to avoid meeting new people; add to that the accelerating world in which our culture tells us to work harder and longer, and you end up finding yourself faced with the reality that people believe they are too busy.

If there’s one thing that Roleplay Rescue hasn’t solved – at least in my life – it’s the restoration of the face-to-face experience of friendship through gaming. As we approach 2024, the 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, it seems fitting to me that I face this dragon and bring back the treasure. It’s time to find my adventuring party.

And so I suppose this is the acknowledgement of the need. I believe there have to be some other people – if only three or four – out there in the Nottingham (UK) area who would want to gather and play an RPG. It has to be possible to locate and unite them, to play something we’d all enjoy, and form a new RPG group.

If only I knew how to begin, where to look, who to ask, and what the right questions are. But great quests exist so that we can take on the challenge, move beyond the edge of our current understanding, face the monsters on the periphery, and ultimately find the treasure that awaits. I wonder if there’s anyone out there to join me.

Game on!