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After 40 Years 'Dungeons & Dragons' is Suddenly Popular (cnbc.com)
CNBC reports Dungeons and Dragons "has found something its early fans never expected: Popularity."
The days of hiding away in a basement rolling dice and playing "Dungeons and Dragons" in darkness is over. More than 40 years after the first edition of "Dungeons and Dragons" hit shelves, video platforms Twitch and YouTube are leading a renaissance of the fantasy roleplaying board game -- and business is booming. "DnD has been around for 45 years and it is more popular now than it has ever been," said Greg Tito, senior communications manager, at Wizards of the Coast. In each of the last five years, sales of "Dungeons and Dragons" merchandise has grown by double digits.
The company, owned by toymaker Hasbro, attributes this massive sales boom to the launch of the fifth edition of the game in 2014 and to "Critical Role," a weekly show on live streaming video platform Twitch that features voice actors from TV shows and video games playing "Dungeons and Dragons...." "When a new edition for a game like this releases, there is that flurry of activity, people get really excited about it and then, historically, that excitement has waned," he said. "The fifth edition has completely blown that model out of the water. With the release in 2014, it has grown and only continued to grow. Every kind of statistical model we've been able to to use from the history of 'Dungeons and Dragons' has been broken at this point. So, we are in uncharted territory...."
"Critical Role" has become so popular that when it launched a Kickstarter last week to create an animated special based on the characters from the first campaign, it was funded within one hour. The team behind the web series had wanted $750,000 to fund the endeavor. With 33 days remaining in the crowdfunding campaign, "Critical Role" has raised more than $7.3 million from 53,000 backers.
It is now the most-funded film/video project in Kickstarter history.
Over the years Dungeons & Dragons -- and the people who played it -- have usually been played for laughs in TV sitcoms like Freaks and Geeks, several episodes of Community, and an episode of Big Bang Theory with William Shatner, Joe Manganiello, Kevin Smith, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
The company, owned by toymaker Hasbro, attributes this massive sales boom to the launch of the fifth edition of the game in 2014 and to "Critical Role," a weekly show on live streaming video platform Twitch that features voice actors from TV shows and video games playing "Dungeons and Dragons...." "When a new edition for a game like this releases, there is that flurry of activity, people get really excited about it and then, historically, that excitement has waned," he said. "The fifth edition has completely blown that model out of the water. With the release in 2014, it has grown and only continued to grow. Every kind of statistical model we've been able to to use from the history of 'Dungeons and Dragons' has been broken at this point. So, we are in uncharted territory...."
"Critical Role" has become so popular that when it launched a Kickstarter last week to create an animated special based on the characters from the first campaign, it was funded within one hour. The team behind the web series had wanted $750,000 to fund the endeavor. With 33 days remaining in the crowdfunding campaign, "Critical Role" has raised more than $7.3 million from 53,000 backers.
It is now the most-funded film/video project in Kickstarter history.
Over the years Dungeons & Dragons -- and the people who played it -- have usually been played for laughs in TV sitcoms like Freaks and Geeks, several episodes of Community, and an episode of Big Bang Theory with William Shatner, Joe Manganiello, Kevin Smith, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Was nothing like previous iterations of the game. They already slash and burned or totally remade the former gameworlds popular enough to warrant republishing (Look at Dark Sun for instance.... Tieflings? Really? What is this, an SSI Dark Sun CRPG?)
Versions 4 and 5 remade D&D even further. The game that is popular today is nothing like the game that nerds played anywhere from 25 to 45 years ago. Same with most of the other RPGs that have seen a surge in popularity. It was the dumbing down of the games that made them popular. Pandering to the masses sells, but it also loses you the most devout followers, who will still buy from you 10-20 years on, when the rest have lost interest and moved on to the socially acceptable game of the year.
Personally after Battletech, Star Wars, Shadowrun, D&D, and a few others all broke my characters or equipment with their 'new editions', I finally threw up my hands, and with many thousands invested gave up on RPGs. The ones we played as a kid when we couldn't afford books were more fun, and if the rules don't matter anyway, there is no reason to play an RPG with rules, instead of just having an impartial GM/DM/ETCM decide if you succeed or fail and use sensible internally consistent dynamics to decide if your gambit succeeds or fails.
Sadly the markets, both nerd and plebs, find hard rules more reassuring and the opportunity to brag about their character compared to another's, even though it is based on a house of cards that changes every few years as the companies decide they aren't making enough money off new sourcebooks and need to rewrite the rulebooks YET AGAIN, leading to a new set of sourcebooks which may or may not cover all your favorite items, equipment, and game worlds, plus any expansion rulebooks that are no longer consistent thanks to their rule changes in the core books.
It's not altogether unlike C++98 vs C++11.
Yep what D&D deserately needs is to keep out anyone new who might be interested. Don't worry I won't be joining your game group.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
So many wonderful subcultures have been culturally appropriated and destroyed by mainstream invasion.
There are also subcultures that have died off because no one new came in.
Remember that white girl who wore the Chinese dress to prom?
First, no, I have no idea what you're talking about.
Second, what? Chinese culture isn't a subculture. There are more chinese people than westerners.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
About 10 years ago my nephew played in a group at the local library.
Now, my son in 9th grade, has been playing at his school for 2-3 years as part of a weekly activity block.
He also attended an event by the local college to get college students playing. They had > 100 players. The college was trying to jumpstart a student run D&D club.
You just need groups new people can join. That's why Magic:The Gathering got popular: the places that sold the cards would often organize playing events.
I wouldn't call that a strong GM/DM, I'd call that a shitty GM. A good GM rolls with the punches when players go off script.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Did games such as Final Fantasy, Diablo, World of Warcraft, Neverwinter Nights, etc have an influence on keeping the genre alive?
Yes, but in the worst possible way. They made games that use miniatures and battle maps popular, and modular dungeons and... well, basically RPGs that are complicated board games.
The real roleplaying happens outside of that. The appeal of pen&paper roleplaying is in the parts that you can't put into a computer game. There have been some computer RPGs that did more than move you from combat encounter to combat encounter with a storyline about as thick as that from Wolfenstein 3D or any other shooter, but sadly most of them turn into walls of texts because they went too far into the "visual novel" direction and they try to deliver a strong story but forget that player choice is more deep than picking options in a dialog tree.
Some of my most memorable gaming moments - as both player and GM - are when the player actions just completely broke the storyline, when players did entirely unexpected things, went sideways and drove a truck through the plot holes to exploit them to their advantage. Maybe 10% of those moments would've been possible in a computer game.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org