Dungeons and Dragons is Suddenly Popular?

Dungeons and Dragons used to be one of the least popular things a person could do in their spare time. I know this might be difficult for some of the younger audience to understand, but it’s true.

DnD or D&D, as it’s generally referred to, during the 1980s would have led to a physical beating by some older kids or to having your books snatched out of your hands and soon after seeing them tossed in the garbage. While the game was certainly popular to certain crowds, there were many others who were intolerant to everything the game was.

Some would blame this disgust for the game on the “satanic panic” of the 80's.

The truth is that the game was a nerdy hobby and that made it instantly “not cool”. Video games, board games, science, reading, comic books, computers, or basically anything attempting to better yourself could be considered a nerd hobby.

If you didn’t want to find yourself lumped in with the nerds it was important that you “chase girls”, play some form of sport, and generally act non-intelligent. Anything less would end up with the theft of your lunch money and likely being dumped in a trash can at some point during the afternoon. Thus was the life for many child nerds.

Being a nerd was not something desirable during that time period. There were multiple movies made in Hollywood that displayed the vulgar abuse that was wrought upon the less popular including Revenge of the Nerds and Weird Science. Although the nerds did win out in the end of the films it was rarely that way in reality.

The Reckoning As the 90’s rolled along the internet, which had previously been something used at university’s only, started to grow for public usage. With ease of access this allowed online communities to begin forming. No longer was it necessary to only associate with those who lived within an hours drive of home.

Fast forward a few years later. Steve Jobs and his company Apple create the first smart phone. Suddenly having access to all of the accumulated knowledge in the world at your literal fingertips becomes a popular thing. Video games no longer become a truly nerd only past time. With nerds now all grown up and actually taking control of the world the tables were turning.

In May 2008 Iron Man is released at the theaters and absolutely crushes the box office. This was the next giant step in bringing nerd culture out of the shadows and into the mainstream. Finally a comic book film was released and not only was it good, but it did spectacular numbers. Even all of the people who used to beat up on nerds went to see it.

In 2011 the online platform Twitch opened up for the world to access. Twitch is an online streaming platform that is primarily used for playing video games, but there are other things to watch. It allows people to talk with people while playing games and has become incredibly popular.

This was the death knell into the “nerd” vs “cool kid” war. The nerds had won.

The 5th Edition There were two main catalysts that helped the game turn the corner, besides Twitch. One was the DnD release of 5th edition in 2014. The other was the Twitch streaming show titled Critical Role.

Dungeons and Dragons had been around since the mid-70’s and has gone through a number of editions. Most were lauded by the fans with 4th edition being the exception. It was generally viewed with disinterest and the vast majority continued to play the previous editions of the game.

The 5th edition of the game turned out to be a massive success. According to Forbes the company that owns Dungeons and Dragons (Wizards of the Coast) managed to grow their DnD sales by more than 30% yearly by 2018. Those are numbers nearly any company would be happy with.

Critical Role Critical Role is a show that was started on Twitch in March of 2015. To quote Matt Mercer for an explanation of what Critical Role is, “a bunch of nerdy-ass voice actors playing Dungeons and Dragons”. Matt Mercer is the dungeon master for the group. Basically, he is responsible for telling the story and running the narrative for the game.

A group of voice actor friends living in California who played a regular game of DnD decided to stream it online for people to watch. While it might not have been the first it certainly is the most popular. Some of that can be attributed to them all being professional actors, but there is so much more to it’s rise than just that.

Sure, the ability to get into character helps make the show entertaining. The real draw is just seeing a slice of life. While none of the actors were massively famous before Critical Role they still did have a certain level of fame. Within the video game and animation industry most of them have been providing quality voice acting for many years.

People have always had a fascination with seeing people they idolize going about their daily lives. Watching them play Dungeons and Dragons is certainly on that spectrum.

Then there is the twitch phenomenon where people enjoy watching others perform the same things they do. It is much of the reason why Twitch is a massive hit in the first place. Since the Critical Role team is playing DnD many other people who play the game will watch them. The same goes for many video games on Twitch.

Once the show gained traction the Hollywood crowd had the ability to occasionally bring in guest stars onto the show or to work with them in some capacity, thus increasing the visibility of the show overall. A few names that have made appearances are Vin Diesel, Terry Crews, Felicia Day, author Patrick Rothfuss, Napoleon Dynamites Jon Heder, and Debra Ann Woll of the Netflix show Daredevil.

Other Mediums

The game of Dungeons and Dragons will always be a table top role-playing game at heart, but it naturally became much more than that over time. With the focus being on story-telling there has always been a strong market for novels which has endured for over 40 years at this point.

The game has expanded into other realms as well. A number of video games based in the settings of DnD have become rather popular and include the Baldur’s Gate series, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights. With a re-release coming soon of Baldur’s Gate you can expect to hear even more about DnD in the near future.

Podcasting is also a media realm that has been rather helpful to the popularity of the game. While Critical Role was first a Twitch stream it did finally convert into the podcasting realm. Other shows like Drunks and Dragons, Dragon Talk, and my own podcast Grumpy Dungeon Masters each have their own takes on the game and how to play it.

This level of popularity for Dungeons and Dragons is not something a child from the 80’s would have ever dreamed of becoming a reality. It is straight out of a sci-fi novel. Nobody can say where things go from here, but as a nerd from the 80’s I am stoked to see if the game can grow to become a world-wide hit.