The Secret(s) to D&D’s Popularity


People sometimes ask me how I feel about the fact that D&D has become a global phenomenon. The answer is, it’s weird. D&D used to be niche. Now it’s everywhere. Here’s why I think that is.

I don’t know exactly how many people are D&D fans, but it’s in the tens of millions. Now that includes a very broad spectrum of players: those who play D&D every week, those who want to play but never have, and those who will probably never play but who enjoy the D&D movie or playing Baldur’s Gate 3. D&D hasn’t always been this successful. In fact, when the 5th edition of the game came out in 2014, the audience was so small that the entire D&D team was only a handful of people. The first adventures for D&D were contracted out for other companies to create. There appeared to be more money in licensing D&D than in actually creating it. Quite frankly, no one was sure the game would even survive.

But it did, and it flourished. Why? In this time of incredible success for D&D, it might be appropriate to look back and remember why it’s so successful, so we can keep doing what works.

The incredible success of D&D is broadly due to four things: the game itself, roleplaying game reality shows, online support, and pop culture. 

First up is the game itself. The fifth edition of D&D is aimed at new players. It avoids complexity. There’s a famous story that when the people behind Critical Role decided to take their home game public, they switched systems. Critical Role was originally a Pathfinder campaign, which means it was based on D&D’s 3rd edition. But the people in that game knew that, if they wanted to be successful, they needed a game system that was lighter and easier for an audience to understand. Something with less granularity. They switched from Pathfinder to D&D 5th edition and—if you’re concerned about trying to be popular—that was the right call. 

In addition to being simpler, D&D 5th edition pays very close attention to what players want. The game has access to a wealth of data and satisfaction surveys. New game mechanics like spells, feats, and subclasses are given to the players to test out, and if a sizable majority of players don’t like a proposed new mechanic, the mechanic is rewritten to make it more popular. If it still can’t get a 70% approval rating, it’s thrown out. This combination of simplicity and audience awareness has brought in new players and kept them happy by giving them things they like and not giving them things they don’t like.

The second thing that’s made D&D so popular is the actual play phenomenon. I’ve already mentioned Critical Role, but now there are countless shows in this genre. Actual play shows allow people who have never played D&D—who wouldn’t even know where to start with the game—to see what D&D looks like. I never have to explain what D&D is any more; I can just give someone a link to an actual play episode and anyone who watches a show for five minutes understands what D&D is. 

Actual play has also created a new audience for D&D. Many of the people who watch these shows will never play a roleplaying game. Maybe they’re convinced they’d be no good at it, or maybe it’s just outside their comfort zone. But although they will never play D&D, they will happily watch beautiful and funny people—including celebrities they’ve seen on television or in movies—play D&D. A lot of people really love reality TV, and actual play shows are reality TV. (Reality TV about fantasy worlds, but reality TV nonetheless!)

The third thing that’s made D&D popular is the game’s appearance in pop culture. Stranger Things was a phenomenon, and the entire first season of that show is one long attempt to get everyone together for a D&D game, but Stranger Things is only the most obvious example. The language of D&D—leveling up, the alignment chart—has seeped into the vernacular. Not only do people see D&D on their screens, but the game becomes less strange and more a part of everyday life. 

And finally, credit has to be given to D&D Beyond. Wizards of the Coast had a pretty shaky track record when it came to online support for D&D. The company had made big promises for online support of both 3rd edition and 4th edition, but the results were disappointing. So online support for D&D was largely outsourced, licensed to another company who created D&D Beyond. But D&D Beyond was wildly successful, and soon became the go-to online resource  D&D players used to make characters, organize their games, and consult the rules. In fact, it got so popular that Wizards of the Coast bought it.

D&D hasn’t always been popular. In fact, the game has often struggled and there’s been more than one period where it looked like the game might cease publication. But the team behind the current version of D&D worked hard to make a game that was accessible to new players. They used data to find out what players wanted, and then gave it to them. Creators outside the official D&D team created a whole new audience for the game by bringing it to reality television, and created an online resource that made it possible for D&D players to leave their books behind. Over decades, D&D worked its way into popular culture and has become more recognizable and accepted than ever, so people quote D&D memes without ever realizing they’re D&D at all.

None of this was inevitable. Different decisions along the way could have easily led to a world in which, by 2016, D&D had stopped publication. Instead, the game is more popular than ever. It’s easy to say, “let’s keep doing what we’re doing,” but D&D’s success stems from the larger community, not just one company. Outside creators were vital to this success. Without them, I’m not sure the game would be a phenomenon. It’s really kind of a miracle.


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