How to organize a game of D&D while you wait in the queue for WoW Classic

World of Warcraft, the black tar heroin of video games, has decided that the only way to continue to top itself is by playing an encore of its greatest hit: original World of Warcraft.

Laurel Stoutheart is a weird name for a dwarf.

Enter World of Warcraft: Classic, the 2004 smash hit video game, now with a fresh coat of polish and ported to the modern engine.

Featuring all the original mechanics gamers fell in love with, WoW Classic is sure to draw in adventurers from across the globe.

Queue Queue more, noob

Unfortunately, the extreme demand for this game has left frustrated gamers sitting in queues for sometimes 10+ hours.

But where some people see crisis, I see opportunity.

You see, when WoW Classic was announced, it threatened to destroy Dungeons and Dragons nights across the globe. Let's face it, the demographic overlap of WoW players to D&D players is extreme, and WoW is the Great Devourer of Time. D&D nights, which are notoriously hard to organize already, didn't stand a chance.

Now, all that can change.

When a queue becomes an opportunity for an adventure

You get home from work around 6:30 and hop on your computer. You fire up World of Warcraft and you're hit with this nightmare:

Realm is Full

Position in queue: 12605

Estimated time: 423 min

All your guildmates are in the same boat, so you're sitting in Discord talking and hoping for a mass disconnect that will move you up a few thousand places in line.

A bunch of RPG nerds sitting around with 5 hours to kill? This sounds like a perfect opportunity for a D&D night.

And we're going to teach you how to pull it off.

This is a Venn Diagram.

Turn the Department of Motor Vehicles experience into the Six Flags experience

The online D&D industry has exploded in recent years with a wide variety of products and services people can use to run their games online. This list is by no means comprehensive but it should help you get up to speed quickly with some of the most popular options.

Virtual Tabletop Solutions

• Roll20.net - Feature-rich and web-browser enabled. The basic version is also free. Consider upgrading to Pro for additional features or to support the developers.
• Fantasy Grounds - This is a full piece of software that you can purchase on Steam. It's not free, but it's active and popular, with great design. Everyone playing will need a subscription but it's not expensive.
• Theater of the mind - Not a virtual tabletop at all. In fact, the opposite! This is a hugely popular way to play D&D and it works just fine online. There are many dice roller bots you can install on Discord so you don't have to take Steve's word for it that he "totally rolled another nat 20."

Find more players for your group

• reddit.com/r/lfg 
• Dungeons and Dragons Facebook groups

Need the rules?

• Wizards of the Coast provides the basic rules absolutely free on their website.
• If you play often, you should definitely pick up your own copy of the Player's Handbook (currently 44% off on Amazon).

Using some of these options will let you quickly spin up and load in to a game. They don't require everyone to be in the same place at once and they're uniquely well-tailored to people sitting around their computer, talking on Discord.

What about the too-cool-for-school crowd?

Even in a nerd group, there will be people who don't want to try Dungeons and Dragons.

For some reason, even in the D&D renaissance that we are experiencing today, some people believe that completing quests as a paladin in a video game is cool, but doing it with pen and paper is "too nerdy." I know, I don't get it either.

This is where boredom is your friend. If everyone is sitting in Discord for hours, just straight up killing time, and a few people are laughing and RPing and adventuring, it's going to make the people not playing feel left out.

They'll be able to see that everyone else is having a great time and nobody is embarrassed, and they'll want to join in. Invite them, let them feel welcome, but don't pressure them. Let them know you'll show them the ropes, but don't make them feel like they are getting tricked into anything.

They'll come around.

Gaming While-U-Wait

Waiting sucks. No way around it. But the fun of playing these games is more about hanging out with your friends, and this way you can kill time in a way you won't regret.

If you're waiting in a queue night after night, well, hey, that's just a few more nights of D&D with your buddies.

If you have any other ideas on how to spin up some extra D&D sessions or otherwise kill time while waiting to enter Azeroth, let me know in the comments section below. (Seriously, I have like five more hours to kill in this queue, I need all the advice I can get)

Happy adventuring!