 Some people tackle adversity with their wits, others charm and some even rely on sheer brute force. But personally, I've always found the best tool in a jam that won't land you in prison is a 20-sided polyhedron. Which is why no one is happier than I about the fact that rolling for initiative and trading sheep for ore are becoming increasingly mainstream activities in what some would describe as a recent tabletop gaming renaissance. But even the most die-hard fans of board games and RPGs face some fairly common problems. Not the least of which is finding enough people to play with. And while technology like online message boards and Facebook groups can facilitate finding other local nerds, sometimes there just aren't enough people nearby who have the sheer tenacity and fortitude to sit in a chair indoors for extended periods of time. But how else has technology improved tabletop gaming? Let's explore. Ten years ago, you either hung out in the lobby of your local gaming shop until you found someone with acceptable body odor stats, or you didn't really play. But since then, programs like Roll20, Octagon, and Tabletop Simulator have emerged to help people with a challenging schedule or without any local group at all, feed their addiction. Whatever your poison of choice, there's a slick, well-designed application to cater to your needs. We've come a long way since the multi-user dungeons of the 80s and 90s in terms of both usability and aesthetics. With the marked exception of Magic Online, that is still absolutely terrible. But while these services will never replace gaming in person, at least not for me, they do a lot more to enhance modern gaming than something like Kali.net. Built-in campaign and map tools can benefit anyone's game, and by hooking up a short throw projector to your laptop, you can even create dynamic, detailed battle maps for your players. There's also a whole host of things that you can do with the power of a computer behind your setup, like use a dynamic lighting feature to induce a fog-of-war effect automatically without physically covering the map with various household objects. And there's more! While you can play Tyler's favorite role-playing game with a single book and an unnatural interest in the medieval mouse societies, I've always been a D&D kinda guy. And to the obviously dozens of you who are wondering about my personal favorite edition, that's 3.… whatever. These are some of the 3.5 books Tyler and I had kicking around, and these are the books we had for Pathfinder. Neither of these stacks is even a full collection. Looking up rules in the middle of the game can be an arduous and disruptive task when considering the sheer girth of the library that we have here. Which is why replacing these stacks of tomes with something as simple as a searchable PDF is an absolute godsend, and helps take some of the headache away from managing the fact that one of your barbarian players just entered a romantic relationship with a 55-foot-long town-burning dragon, and you need to brush up on your large-scale grappling rules. Card players are also getting a lot of help from this newfangled technology. I mean, given the ease and speed of using online deckbuilders, I can understand why some people may not want to go back to binders on binders of cards, especially if you're a fan of games that are out of print or for some other reason no longer commercially available. Because this way you can still assemble an electronic collection and find other die-hard fans online to match against. There's also an increased prevalence of phone apps. While there are outliers like the XCOM board games that even require a mobile app in order to play, most of these apps are on more of a supplementary roll. And while I'm not personally a huge fan of having phones at the table, these apps can eliminate some of the tedium of score and bookkeeping with automated character sheets or even drafting your team in the case of the Blood Bull app. And tech is driving game production as well. Just take a look at these Kickstarter numbers. One of the reasons we're spoiled for choice in tabletop gaming right now is because the barrier to production is so low, and the ability to connect prospective game makers with funding is better than ever. We aren't normally huge fans of crowdfunding here, but the success rates of board game campaigns compared to video games or technology is much higher. And let's not discount what increased exposure has done to bring tabletop into the mainstream. Do you want to watch a video of Vin Diesel playing D&D? You can do that. That's a thing. You can even watch D&D on Twitch right now, although I would request that you finish this video first. Increased exposure plus a decrease in barrier to entry is helping make the current edition of D&D the most accessible yet. Though their business model may have changed slightly since the early 2000s, which is probably good news for the N's. So with these current levels of growth, what's on the horizon? Well, the rapidly growing availability of consumer 3D printing hardware means someday even dungeon masters of limited financial means will be making monsters and ornate dungeon furniture in their own homes for the cost of filament. And then there's electronic playing surfaces. Footage of people playing board games on the Microsoft Pixel Sense blew the community away a few years back until they saw the $8000 price tag. But the dream isn't dead. Companies like Epon are looking at ways to make modular and lower cost surfaces that could be used to create sprawling battle maps in your living room table. So with all this in mind, maybe the next time you check out your backlog of 500 unplayed early access games in Steam, maybe you'll consider trying something more refined. Try it. Check out a tabletop simulator game. Get a group of friends together for some good old wholesome D&D. And hey, if you have more enemies than friends, that's fine too. Here's a list of games that are perfect for making sure that they never talk to you again in a socially acceptable manner. Squarespace, my friends. You want to build a great looking website that's functional and easy to use? Check out Squarespace. We've got a link in the video description. Basically, you choose one of their gorgeous templates, you pick out whatever photos and text you want, and you slap it in there using their simple web interface. If you have any trouble, they've got 24-7 tech support via live chat and email, which is flippin' sick, and they're always adding all kinds of great new features to make the whole experience more seamless. So check them out at the link in the video description and use our offer code also down there to save 10% off your first purchase. Alright guys, I know this was different. If you liked this video, like it. If you disliked it, dislike it. Get subscribed to see all the rest of our videos. Check out the link below on Amazon where you can see to buy a bunch of this stuff, including this bag of a hundred... not this bag specifically, but a hundred and twenty pieces of dice. I was given this in a Secret Santa thing from a friend of mine. That's a huge amount of dice. I DM'd him, that's very helpful. Also, you can see where to buy some of our shirts or you can see other various sponsor links and whatnot. If you want to jump over to the forum, you can discuss anything tabletop in the subject of this video. And check out this video, which is coverage of Mock's Boarding House down in the States.