The only time RW has left me "dead in the water" is about a month ago. I started RW on game night, only to get an error saying that it wouldn't launch until it could contact the server. Sadly, the hosts don't have internet yet at their new house so I was up the proverbial creek. But I managed to wing it with the information I had available from other sources and a bit of improvisation. Wasn't my best gaming session by far, but I've also had worse.
My solution to this is to switch off wi-fi, then reboot the laptop. Then RW will start. (Switching off wi-fi and then starting RW without rebooting isn't enough, you have to reboot before starting RW.)