Fans rejoiced when Free League announced the The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game. Given Free League’s track record of making high-quality products with gorgeous original art, it was no surprise that it turned out to be an instant classic. The game also includes excellent rules for solo-play, allowing even the most isolated survivor to enjoy the game and tell tense, interesting stories.
However, the best part of the game is seeing survivors interact, grow alliances, and even betray each other in moments of weakness. While solo play is a great development for the hobby, nothing beats the experience of finding a great group to make collaborative stories with.
The good news for you is that unlike Rick Grimes, finding a group of trustworthy survivors to build a new haven is easier than ever thanks to the explosion of online play over the past five years. Still, to ensure that you don’t wander alone into Atlanta, here is the current ranking of best places to find (temporary) safety from the hordes of walkers out there when finding your ideal Walking Dead group.
5. Reddit
Reddit can be a great place for finding like-minded folks who have a shared interest, and that includes tabletop roleplaying games. If you’re looking for a game of The Walking Dead, though, it’ll take a bit of digging. The main Walking Dead subreddit has a whopping 2.6 million redditors subscribed to it, but most of the posts are memes about the TV show. The LFG (looking for group) subreddit is a place specifically to find roleplaying groups, so posting there is always worth a shot, though the experience level of your group may vary wildly. The LFG Premium subreddit, on the other hand, is for people looking to pay for a roleplaying game. There are pros and cons to both subreddits: in LFG it’s very easy for your post to get drowned out in a flood of other folks looking for similar games, while in LFG Premium you should expect your inbox to get a lot of pings to the point where it can be as overwhelming as a dating app. Still, if you have the free time and patience to stick with it and sort through the replies, luck may eventually be on your side.
4. RPGMatch
Speaking of things that feel like a dating service, RPGMatch is basically this, but for roleplaying games. Signing up just takes submitting your email and the games you’re interested in. Filling out the complete profile takes about 15 minutes. The appeal of the site, compared to other ways of finding groups online, is that you get to painlessly exchange a lot of information about playstyle, interests, and availability, which can cut out some of the emotional rollercoaster that comes from exchanging information with strangers on the internet. Having surveys that help to map out your interests and preferences compared to the other players can go a long way toward finding the Glenn for your Maggie. The biggest downside is familiar to anyone who has ever done online dating - finding the right match can take a long time, and while finding anyone willing to play anything might be easy, finding the right group for your Walking Dead game can be a matter of persistence mixed with a good amount of luck.
3. Roll20
Roll20 is still the largest and most popular virtual tabletop (VTT) by user volume, which makes it a great spot to look for like-minded survivors of the zombie apocalypse. Roll20 also has direct integration with official products like The Walking Dead Roleplaying Game Starter Set, making it easy to set up a game online. While there is a robust search function to look for upcoming games, the Roll20 forums is probably your best bet for finding a specific game to meet your needs. The forums are there to support looking for both free-to-play and paid games. The only limitation to the forum advertisements is that all games must be run on the Roll20 VTT, but this also creates an easy one-stop-shop for getting seamlessly into a game. It’s worth noting that like other generic tabletop roleplaying spaces, the forums are dominated by listings for Dungeons & Dragons, so finding a new haven for your Walking Dead character will either require you to comb through a lot of listings or be brave enough to post your own.
2. Discord
There are few better places to geek out over a shared interest than a well-run Discord server, and that definitely applies to your fellow Walking Dead enthusiasts. Even better, the voice chat and ease of organizing things into relevant channels makes Discord a natural tool for playing a game online. Luckily for Walking Dead fans, the Free League Discord server is an exceptional place for fans to congregate and chat about the roleplaying game, with active moderation to ensure it remains a good space for gamers of all backgrounds. The server has separate channels for aspiring GMs and players, places to look for a group, and even fan-made resources for various VTTs. Even if you’re only using Discord to chill with the rest of the community, it is a great augmentation to your game search as you can leverage the enthusiasm and interest of other users to chase down leads or find that key person you need to give your group of survivors a fighting chance.
1. StartPlaying
So, you've exhausted all your resources navigating the picked-over wasteland of the internet. Surely there's a haven out there somewhere. Or at least an abandoned prison.
Fear not! There's StartPlaying!
If you absolutely, positively, need a group to survive the perils that a zombie-filled world can throw at you, there is no better place to find a group for the Walking Dead RPG than StartPlaying. There are games ready if you’re looking to struggle against the forces of undead, cannibals, and would-be tyrants that plague the Walking Dead Universe. There is also a host of professional game masters able to run a game that you can contact at any time. If you’re ready to stop searching and start playing, there’s literally no better place to look than StartPlaying.
Nate is a writer and game designer living in the D.C. area.
