
Dungeons and Dragons somehow became more popular than ever - petethomas
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/how-dungeons-and-dragons-somehow-became-more-popular-than-ever/2019/04/18/fc226f56-5f8f-11e9-9412-daf3d2e67c6d_story.html
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s_m_t
I think the best explanation for the rise in popularity of dnd in the US are
videos of people actually playing the game online. Reading the rule books
doesn't really tell you how to actually play or what to expect when you play,
it mainly just sort of tells you how to make a character and calculate dice
rolls. I tried dnd in highschool with a starter set but none of us really knew
what we were doing so it just seemed like a board game with vague rules.

Japan has had a huge tabletop rpg (which they more suitable call table _talk_
rpgs) explosion due almost entirely to the development of "replays". Replays
are the transcriptions of actual game sessions into a book for people to read.
Multiple prominent japanese trpg designers were introduced to the scene by
randomly picking up one of these books. They sell for something like $4 new
and easily be bought for $1 used so it is something that is very easy to buy
on a whim. Video replays are also very popular, ironically enough, they are
usually made by putting the transcription of a session through a text to
speech generator...

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CM30
Wonder how much of this is down to simple awareness that the game exists, and
the role culture (and especially the internet) has had in promoting it?

Because in my childhood, I had no idea what Dungeons and Dragons was at all,
nor that it even really existed. Hell, the only things I knew about it came
from the odd TV show that featured the characters playing it in a random
episode (in this case, probably Dexter's Laboratory).

And I suspect a lot of people were in that situation. They just never came
across it in day to day life, perhaps because the company behind it didn't do
much in the way of mainstream advertising.

The internet fixed that. Now people can easily come across forum or social
media discussions about it, read up on sites and wikis about it and get a
general idea what it entails from fiction based around it. Which is pretty
common with webcomics now, since many use Dungeons and Dragons esque rulesets
for their worlds, or apply them to other media (see the Order for the Stick
for an example of the first, and DM of the Rings and Darths & Droids for
examples of the latter).

TV Tropes may have had an effect too. Loads of tropes there are based on
concepts from Dungeons and Dragons (like the alignment system), and works
based on it are extremely popular on the site.

Oh, and to a lesser degree, it got more respect due to 'geek culture' going
mainstream too. I suspect among those who had heard of it (especially in the
US) people either assumed it was something only geeks/nerds/whatever would
play or (if they were of the Jack Chick esque moral panic persuasion), the
work of the devil.

This has obviously turned around a bit, especially when actors and other
celebrities have mentioned playing the game (and other tabletop RPGs) online.

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toyg
This has a lot to do with the demographics of Hollywood. The generations that
grew up with D&D now are at the helms of the mainstream content factory, and
have turned it into a respectable activity. After all, pen&paper RPGs promote
storywriting, storytelling, general creativity, and acting — all valuable key
skills in Tinseltown.

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lostgame
Somehow? ‘Stranger Things’ had nothing to do with this?

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jvanderbot
I'd believe that Stranger Things was influenced by the second coming of D&D
rather than the opposite.

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jhbadger
Well, "Stranger Things" seems to be part of the current nostalgia wave for the
1980s, or rather nostalgia for 1980s pop culture, and the kids in E.T. (one of
Stranger Things' inspirations besides the works of Stephen King) played D&D
too.

