As the resident “forever DM” of my social groups for the last 15 years, I’ve never had it so good.
Over the last couple of years, the world of tabletop gaming has seen an explosion of popularity. There are more options than ever before; everything from comic conventions to craft fairs sell dice and accessories; the United States Postal Service just dropped a collection of D&D-themed stamps; and streaming video services are full of people playing a massive variety of these games. At the core of this ever-expanding world of fun is Dungeons & Dragons, which is on its way to a dramatic and highly anticipated overhaul of its fifth-edition rulebook alongside its 50th anniversary. But the journey leading to that moment has been years in the making, and the game reaches 2024 in ways few could have predicted even five years ago.
It’s a full-time job, keeping up with all of the amazing things the tabletop roleplaying game community is up to on a daily basis. Amazon currently features the D&D Player’s Handbook in its Big Spring Sale. In the last week alone, I’ve been delighted by a stream showing a game where you complete a heist in the style of the popular TV series Leverage, and an escape room-style mystery in Arkham Asylum. Two dramatically different experiences using a massive set of real-world puzzles and augmented reality on your phone. At the core of these experiences are clear indications of a Dungeons & Dragons heritage. The game that spawned a nearly infinite universe of ideas still very much occupies center stage, and while the reasons for this vary depending on who you ask, all of the answers have a central theme.
The Legend of Vox Machina, an animated series on Amazon Prime Video, is a retelling of a deeply popular Critical Role campaign.
It’s impossible to talk about why D&D is so popular in this moment without mentioning the network of stories, podcasts and now Amazon Prime animated series from the folks at Critical Role. Show stars Marisha Ray and Sam Riegel recently shared with me that the team in the last eight years has grown from the opening mantra of every episode “a group of nerdy-ass voice actors sitting around playing Dungeons & Dragons” to a company that employs over 60 people. Critical Role books, miniatures, comics and a ton more have gone from a couple of cute things you can order from their online store to dominating entire walls of physical game stores in that time, with sold-out hours-long broadcast events at major theaters around the world. Seeing these incredibly talented people play through a unique story in a unique world has created a massive amount of opportunities for players of every skill level, but in many ways it goes deeper.
One of the most notable things to come from the cast of Critical Role being so popular is a notable increase in attention toward voice acting as a potential job. The Legend of Vox Machina, which is now a staggeringly popular Amazon Prime animated series that brings the adventures of a Critical Role season to the screen in a whole new way, was originally pitched on Kickstarter as a small animated special until the campaign ended with over $11 million. It’s now a multiseason project with Amazon, with more shows on the way in 2024.
Ray confirmed that one of the most common questions she gets from fans has rapidly become tips on how to get into voice acting. “As animation and RPGs and more cinematic games like The Last of Us have become more popular, I think all of these and our work have really helped change the perception of voiceover work, for lack of a better term, be more respected in the industry, and seen as a valued and valid career path that you can take,” Ray said. “But acting needs to be your passion first, and that’s what we tell everyone who asks.”
Chef Mike Haracz and Sujata Day on the Freevee series Heroes’ Feast, a cooking show themed to Dungeons & Dragons.
What has made Dungeons & Dragons so popular? If you ask Sujata Day and chef Mike Haracz of the new D&D-themed cooking series Heroes’ Feast, it all started with Stranger Things being so wildly popular that it helped boost all of these other things into popularity. And while it wasn’t the record-shattering blockbuster many thought it would be, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is deeply loved by those who watched it.
But when I asked lifelong D&D fan and hardcore nerd celebrity Matthew Lillard what he thought, it’s very clearly not one thing. “I think it’s been a very exciting year. You have to start with the launch of the movie and what D&D was able to accomplish worldwide. We saw with the launch of our company Beadle and Grimm’s five years ago, there’s a real appetite for people to gather around a table,” Lillard said. “At our core, people are inclined to gather and tell stories. That’s who we are as people, it’s as old as time itself. So when we decided to focus on adding value for every player at the table, it would enrich the overall experience. We’ve seen the overall popularity of tabletop gaming grow in that five years, but with the launch of the movie at Comic Con last year there was this coalescence, which has been really exciting.”
Ultimately, all of these things come together to answer the big question. People who have never played D&D before watch or listen to one of the many games out there today; apps and greatly improved storytelling from the D&D team make it easier than ever to play from anywhere if you can’t physically gather around a table; and showing off your love for the game in the real world lets others know they aren’t alone, on multiple levels. And the pace of these things aren’t slowing down. With Wizards of the Coast preparing to add even more to D&D this year with a big update to Fifth Edition, and the end to Stranger Things on the horizon, it’s clear the rise of tabletop gaming is far from its peak.
