How D&D 5th Edition Rode a Perfect Storm to Success

[@SupergeekMike]

What got you into D&D? Thanks so much to WorldAnvil for sponsoring this video! Visit www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike and use the promo code SUPERGEEK to get 51% off any annual membership! www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike

[@radyoung779]

My friend brought a copy of the Monstrous Compendium to school in 1990. We both got our parents to get us the core books and spent the next several years buying campaign settings and supplements. That was 2e which is all I had played until recently.

[@tonysladky8925]

I had a college friend introduce me and some friends to 3.5E in Freshman year of college; we played all of one session before we all got too busy with college to actually play again. It wasn't until senior year, when a club I was in hosted a D&D night with a couple tables playing 4E. I think somewhere in between those two games, I caught a random Acquisitions Incorporated liveshow.

[@Ssarevok]

I got into D&D because the Baldur's Gate 1 cover at the library looked cool.

[@colemanriggins1511]

The original Dungeons and Dragons movie, the one with Jeremy Irons. I loved that and was given the 3.5 Monster Manual that christmas, still haven't had the opportunity to play more than a fee times since then, but been keeping up, i'm a mechanics player.

[@serrasedai]

I play weekly at a board game bar with a cluster of GMS and a pretty organized, active community. Most of them run games through D&D Beyond. They're already talking about the new rules and it's being discussed as almost a given that most people are going to play with them in upcoming campaigns. And it seems like the app is going to make it harder and harder for people to play by the 2014 rules, and it will become a thing where people can play a 2014 subclass, but most likely the spells and the gameplay are going to be done in the 2024 principles. because it's just going to be easier to comply with the app that everybody already uses to make that happen. Also, I think a lot of GMs I've listened to are pretty happy with improvements that they are seeing in the game. I think the question of whether or not it's going to be a financial success is going to be measured by metrics. most of us won't understand. But I don't think it's going to be an adoption failure. I think WOTC is already being pretty successful at their goal of just replacing 5e with this updated version in people's digital spaces and therefore in their games until it becomes the default. I think people are going to be playing 5e in 2 years and they'll be playing by the 2024 rules. Whether we call it 6e or 5.24 or 5e won't really matter. It may not end up being adopted in social media D&D influencer spaces, but I can already see it happening in real time in regular game spaces in social environments.

[@Skip6235]

I think one key thing you missed was COVID. Suddenly lots of people were stuck indoors, craving escapism and social interaction, and those VTTs allowed for people (such as myself) to use all that extra free time we suddenly had to play DnD while remaining socially distant.

[@risperdude]

Just have to say, I appreciate your seamless segues in and out of sponsorship messages. Also, I really appreciate this look at the rise of 5e, with all the factors involved. This is a far more nuanced approach than saying "Stranger things & Critical Role".

[@Sootielove]

This is really interesting! I'm relatively new to DnD circles so understanding that shift in culture makes so much more sense. I feel like I've really seen in my lifetime the "DnD" episode of TV turning into a new staple which is wild considering it used to only show up as "that weird nerd thing"

[@BigKlingy]

Even the My Little Pony cartoon, of all things, did a D&D episode.

[@hawkname1234]

Ha! It's like . Something that a certain kind of show always does.

[@rikkirattus]

Mike talking about a seed being planted which turns into a full desire to play is so accurate My seed came from a youtube series which described itself as DnD before 2015 but was, actually, a homebrewed mash of GURPs and DnD 3e lol but it branded itself as DnD so that was what I was looking for

[@ger_hynes]

Right up until I got into DnD in 2015-2016, I still somehow thought of it as "too nerdy" for me (and I did my PhD on J.R.R. Tolkien). Two things happened: My then girlfriend (now wife) and I discovered Acquisitions Incorporated because we were Patrick Rothfuss fans. And one of my friends picked up the Starter Set and asked said girlfriend to run a few sessions, since she had played 3.5 in undergrad. We played most weeks for nearly a year I think. There were several years in between but what then got me back into DnD was honestly the first trailer for Legend of Vox Machina in October 2021. My wife and I fell hard for Critical Role and about a year later a new group of friends asked us to join a Wild Beyond the Witchlight campaign they were starting.

[@joeysmovieblog]

I got into DND in the summer of 2018 because my brother wanted to play a one shot with my cousin and dad. I'm a huge fan of the character of Daredevil so I asked if I could be some sort of blind Martial artist. I played a blind Variant human monk with a high wisdom score and was able to feel and smell for things that my party didn't notice.

[@Melina_Evarblume_Seelie]

I feel as though everyone has wanted to try that atleast once just because of how strong it is of a flavorful concept. The inspiration is either Daredevil or Toph.

[@amessinger]

How did I get into D&D? I was invited to join a game that a friend was running. Character creation with the 2014 PHB was such a chore that it almost lost me, but D&D Beyond made it easier and listening to an episode or two of Critical Role helped me understand the game in a more natural way. That was 2021 - now I'm running games and so far I find DMing even more fun than being a player. 🙂 As for Forgotten Realms, I use it as a setting because it takes a lot of the fundamentals of world building off my shoulders so I can focus on situations and story. I got introduced to Greyhawk by Ghosts of Saltmarsh, and may use that in the future if I can find good sources. And I was so impressed by Kobold Press's "Campaign Builder: Cities & Towns" and "Tome of Beasts 1" that I may look into their Midgard setting at some point. But ultimately the setting has to serve the end goal - creating fun stories with friends.

[@bencarter1646]

Regarding the Forgotten Realms as the 5e default setting. This actually was a selling point for me, not that I really needed one. I had *just enough* familiarity with Drizz't Do'Urden and certain bits of the Sword Coast to be thinking "Well this beats that random Greyhawk cobblers from last time around." I think R A Salvatore's books did a lot to establish this, although the video games like Eye of the Beholder, Menzoberranzan and Neverwinter Nights probably helped, too.

[@guilmon182]

I got into D&D (Pathfinder, initially) thanks to Spoony and his Counter Monkey series. Hearing all of the batshit stories about he and his friend's adventures in different ttrpgs really lit a fire under me and my husband. We bought the Pathfinder 1e Starter Box and Rise of the Runelords. We didn't play it for very long before 5e came out. Now we're starting a new Kingmaker campaign.

[@emmathomas2832]

I got into DnD via a youtube channel I already watched turning what was supposed to be a one off adventure into a six season long campaign and a separate youtube channel. Big up the Oxventurers

[@fakjbf3129]

I love Oxventures because it’s so different from shows like Critical Role, it’s just a bunch of friends goofing around and throwing things like game balance, internal consistency and game rules out the window to just have fun.

[@emmathomas2832]

@@fakjbf3129 it's the way they fully didn't use spell slots for the first portion of their dnd playing for me

[@hawkname1234]

@@fakjbf3129 If you liked that, you'll also like The Adventure Zone, which is similar.

[@tonysladky8925]

I do want to speak up in defense of Twitch for Actual Plays. Granted, not Twitch on its own because my gold standard for Actual Plays on Twitch shored itself up using KZbin VODs and podcasts and a structure of seasons to enable catching up, and because you probably *could* do this on other streaming platforms; I don't know. But regardless, if you play to Twitch's strengths, you can do something unique like Acquisitions Incorporated: The "C" Team did. It was such an experience to watch live because of its expertly crafted audience participation. Fans watching live on Twitch could vote in a poll for something cool to happen in the episode (or the next episode at the latest). You could contribute bits to the PCs getting special buffs and even their Ults. And, of course, you could post questions the players would potentially answer in the live aftershow that follwed every episode. (Oh, and owing, I assume, to AcqInc's legacy as a convention show, the stream was tightly scheduled. About 2.5 hours of D&D plus a half hour agter show, minus a couple intermissions. None of the sprawling 4+ hour rambles of Critical Role. You knew you were committed to exactly 3 hours of AcqInc, and it was just enough to leave you wanting more the following week). Twitch's problem for Actual Plays is that I don't know of anyone else really leaning into the format like the C Team did.

[@neenajaydon9641]

EffinFunny’s WikipeDND is guided by chat interaction and responds to chat comments live.

[@bsparky01]

I got I to D&D in the early 90s with 2nd Ed. Got back into it in the mid 2k's with 3.5 and then didn't touch it for like 15 years. Picked it back up after watching CR's first champagne. I liked that 5e was using Forgotten Realms, I was familiar enough to recognize a lot of the locations, but was lucky my players didn't know much at all. I use the bits of existing lore that suit me and then toss out the rest lol.

[@Stephen-Fox]

The first time I played D&D was when someone in my online writing group which had some freeform roleplay happen in it from time to time offered to run D&D3.5e for us around 20 years ago. So - "Someone I knew offered to run a campaign" ...That's also the last time I played D&D come to think of it, I got back into TTRPGs a couple of years ago via someone I knew offering to run a Monster of the Week one shot, had a blast, and have been exploring the hobby from that direction since then.

[@MorningDusk7734]

I don’t remember when I first heard about D&D, I just knew I liked the concept around high school, tried a time or two to play with friends (that never went anywhere), and decided I would get “serious” about joining a game when I was in college. So I bought 5 sets of dice, bought and read the PHB cover to cover, and didn’t get into a game until sophomore year where I joined my college’s game club that also helped connect DM’s to players and I joined the only 5e group being run: a ravnica campaign.

[@dolphin64575]

I got into TTRPGs because a college friend was friends with a guy who had written and published his own Superpowered School game. We played that weekly for maybe a year. I haven't played official D&D very much, but I love it (and the ease of finding resources for it). 👀 "When it comes out tomorrow?" 👀

[@loftwingheropon2743]

i remember my first dnd experience well, it was 2020 and my friends over discord invited me to join their curse of strahd campaign, their really scuffed completely derailed strahd campaign where they killed strahd early by pissing him off. I was a lawful good paladin, in a group of murder hobos. It was great, i actually managed to find strahds body when we were exploring the castle and be the one to fully end him. By the way we didnt kill any of the generals so we spent an entire session planninh how we were going to not die to an army of strahds minions.

[@JoULove]

Before Critical Role I was actually into Oxventure, actual play with cast members from Outside Xbox/Outside Extra KZbin channels. It kind of devolved over time to being less about D&D and more about the characters in oneshots which is a shame (for what I enjoy watching). But I stumbled across Critical Role from there. I'm now on my third watch through of campaign 1

[@zippomage]

C1 is my favie, but the most recent stuff is wild.

[@seaborgium919]

I fell off hard with OxVentures, a lot of the Dob/Katie/Liliana and Egbert stuff felt too.... weird. And weird for the saturday morning breakfast cartoon dnd.

[@JoULove]

@@seaborgium919 fair enough, it's definitely weird bordering on absurd lol. But when they started out, it was a lot more grounded but it just got more gimmicky unfortunately

[@BigKlingy]

I'd always grown up with the notion that D&D was a game of labyrinthine rules for uber-nerds only. Then, in 2016, I'd just finished university and had a bunch of free time, so decided to check out that D&D show with those voice actors I liked. I was shocked to find their take on the game was more a collaborative improv storytelling experience, nothing like I pictured at all. And the rest is history.

[@zefiewings]

My mom was a D&D nerd in high school in the 80s, so we (my sibs and I) grew up hearing stories about it all the time and were enamoured. We played but it was sort of an unstructured version, where my mom would run very watered-down versions with very basic rules because we were very little. My mom went to postsecondary when I was in my early tweens for computer sciences, which was obviously just a bunch of nerds and made more nerd friends. One of them gifted me the new edition of D&D; 3.5, when I was 12 years old. we played but not as much as any of us would like. My sibs were a bit young to stay interested, my mom ran some games just for me but was also running a single-parent household with 3 kids so it wasn't that often. Still, I had my player's handbook and dice, and made so many characters just for fun, and read it so much. In high school I got to play more often, as things slowed down my mom would run some games for friends of mine. I was shy so I struggled with going to a gamestore (we have one now/by that point) to play with random groups but more and more I made friends that play. I started playing in groups that shifted to other systems, first to Pathfinder like many others but then to things like World of Darkness. I haven't played D&D brand TTRPG since just out of high school but I have been playing TTRPGS since as long as I can remember in one form or another, and properly since I was 12.

[@ryanschramm8147]

I LOVE existing lore. When I'm making a paladin or cleric or a warlock and I'm looking for a patron, people are like "well you can just make your own!" and I understand that, but I don't want to. I like finding a god/being that fits with my vision, it's like finding a missing puzzle piece. Similarly, I love and prefer the Forgotten Realms. I love the idea that a world already exists and my character can be a part of it, going to the same towns, cities, and terrifying settings that other players do, and share our experiences ("So then I told Xanathar to shove it, Zhentarim for life! .....he did not like that"). To me, having established lore, characters, and location is what makes it a setting. Tons of players don't like that, and prefer to have space for themselves to put whatever they want and I see the appeal of that too, but for me that's not a setting. I see that as a blank canvas as opposed to Forgotten Realms that's a completed painting. I feel like Forgotten Realms being the default was the right move, better to start by offering an established setting and allowing players to opt out rather than give them that blank canvas and paintbrushes out from the gate. I get the argument that if there's too much lore it might overwhelm the GM, but I've personally experienced the opposite. When I started, I greatly appreciated that there was so much information for me to use and then spring off of instead of putting it on me to make it all from the start

[@lukerabon7925]

I've been playing D&D all my life because my dad started in the early days, but I barely talked about it outside my family until 5e came out. Then I suddenly had friends that all wanted to play

[@davedujour1]

That opening scene of the 4 boys playing D&D in the 80s was literally my life. It was both awesome and scary to see my childhood called out that accurately.

[@Marb315]

I wasn't brought into dnd because of nostalgia for the forgotten realms setting but the forgotten realms setting was a pretty easy thing for me to connect to as a new player because I played one of the pre-written campaigns, heard references to baldur's gate, and neverwinter and went "oh hey I know what those are I've played videogames set there", and it makes sense why they'd go for the more normal setting that people can connect to through video games over planescape which is absolutely wild

[@bittipasuta]

In the early 2010s I was a teen who was super into Adventure Time. In interviews, creators would make reference to being a little inspired by D&D. I figured *someone* had to have a playthrough on KZbin, and I found the Acquisitions Inc PAX live shows. I bought the 3.5 PHB and didn't find a group until I was in Uni.

[@nadirku]

My start with D&D was after school one Friday while I was in junior high school, I basically found myself locked in an unused room with some other boys my age, while we were all waiting to go home, and those boys helped my create my first ever D&D character, a 3E Halfling Rogue, before I really knew anything else about the game, as we waited for our respective parents to be ready to take us home. I stuck with those boys until the end of High School, and a bit into college, about the same year that 4E was starting to come out, but if I am being honest, we probably spent more time preparing new characters every session than actually playing the game, because at least one person did not bring their character sheet with them, or had lost the character sheet they had created in the last session, which seemed to result in us never getting much beyond levels 1, or 2... I should still have the character sheet for that first Halfling Rogue character tucked away in my 3.5 PHB, though I did copy the character onto a different character sheet at least once sometime before I graduated high school, since I stored the first character sheet by folding it up, which eventually rubbed parts of the ink off, as well as tore holes in the paper from folding, and unfolding the character sheet.

[@jaredwilliams6415]

Critical Role and the Starter Set are 98% of the reason I got into D&D. I am also really looking forward to switching to Daggerheart at the start of my next campaign.

[@ingridwolfe7016]

In reference to the Forgotten Realms questions, I never realized it was considered a default setting when I first started 5e. My group has always played in homebrew worlds, with each DM having their own world. So it wasn’t a selling point, but it was neat to see references to characters I’d read about in novels. I think our biggest selling point was it was a lot more streamlined than 3.5e for our more casual players who didn’t have time to deep dive into character creation.

[@oliverwisniewski]

I started playing dnd after I mentioned to a friend that I was interested in playing it and he invited me to a campain he had been planning. I was blown away by how fun it was and the game has become a fairly regular fixture in my life

[@gandolf7777]

I started getting into D&D because of Brennan Lee Mulligan. I loved him from College Humor and so I watched the Fantasy High season that was free on KZbin, but didn't want to pay for Dropout so I tried Critical Role, and got hooked on it. The fact that Brennan came to CR really later on was probably the best thing to happen to D&D for me.

[@mattball8622]

I think I got into D&D through the Icewind Dale game back in the early 2000s. I'd played a little bit of Star Wars d6 before, but that game was based on 3.5e and it really got me interested in building characters. There were a bunch of us who played it and we eventually decided to set up a session when my friend decided he wanted to be the GM. Might have been about 2003. Over twenty years later, and he's still my GM now!

[@katiehusband1505]

I think Felicia Day has a lot to do with this. Geek and Sundry were killing it at this time- around when the Guild came out. She was super popular, and her channel could do basically anything, and people would check it out. I know WoW isnt DnD but the audience has significant overlap. She was into it and she brought a lot of people with her.

[@OptimusOmega6]

I first became interested in D&D reading the Drizz't novels in high school and seeing one of my friends playing the original Baldur's Gate. However, it wouldn't be until much later when I played D&D for the first time, convincing another friend to run the original Temple of Elemental Evil for a group of us who worked together at the time. This was around 2012, two years ahead of 5e.

[@Cthulhuftagniaia]

I was introduced to DnD at age 6 by one of my friends, it was just based on his memories of the rules which meant it was more calvinball with dice than actual dnd. I GMed based on those impromptu rules until I got 3rd edition at age 12. I played 3e until I burned out on fantasy as a whole and swapped over to primarily scifi games until one of my friends invited me to play 5e after he got addicted to CR.

[@jocelynrisedorph8373]

I got into RPGs through a friend. We started out with the ElfQuest RPG from Chaosium, then when I moved to a new town, got into that friend's 3.5 campaign. Eventually that group fell apart, and I mostly didn't play until last year, when that same friend was in a new group playing 5e, about a year after she got me into Critical Role. I asked if I could join, and have been playing since.

[@josiahbingham241]

I heard about Critical role from the channel Skill tree, listened to all of campaigns 1&2, then began DMing a homebrew world this last spring. Your videos have been super helpful in separating the good and the bad sides of the “Mercer Effect”

[@poparena]

I don't think the impact of being introduced to D&D and similar games in popular TV shows can be understated, even before 5e. I got into D&D in the early days of 3e, and the thing that got me interested in the hobby was an episode of Dexter's Laboratory where they played a legally distinct fantasy game that had me going "wow, I want to do that!"

[@roywilliams1580]

I got into D&D in 1984, had heard it mentioned and asked for some books to play. Had never seen it played, but read it and started running games at 8 years old. 1st ed was rough to figure out, but we learned and got better. The Realms being the default setting was what got me to buy 5th, I run Realms games since 1st. Not really happy with 4th ed's treatment, but seemed to be a new direction. Have bought nearly all the 5th ed stuff, I still run 2nd for my home games, but I learned long ago to hack stuff over and I enjoy suporting folks making stuff I enjoy. Has been great seeing the hobby f8nd new feet and passionate players. Plus lots of folks enjoy trying out a bit harder system, so no end of new players to my 2nd games that want to try a bit more original iteration. I definitely agree 4th was a decent game, wrong market. Folks like what D&D is, not a new game. 5th delivered on that with fresh new ideas and avoided the complexity of earlier editions. It was the right thing, at exactly the right time. I agree lightning does not always strike twice and the market is far larger now. Wish them the best, I bought a copy.

[@14faraday]

I had a couple friends about a decade ago who played and convinced to do a one shot but scheduling was too hard at the time for me to commit to a campaign. Then the youtubers I watched for video game content (outside xbox and outside Xtra) started playing D&D. Checked out critical role after that and now I'm obsessed

[@louismuir9485]

I genuinely believe that Stranger Things having an "affect" on the popularity of D&D is a Mandela Effect. They "play" it for like 5 minuets in two separate episodes and that's it

[@zefiewings]

It wasn't really about them playing it it was about them referring to it as a point of comparison. It almost explicitly says "Hey man this is just like when we play D&D," which translated to 'hey if you like this story and adventure, you might like d&d'

[@Shane-hx4xp]

Each season’s antagonist is named after a D&D monster, they call their group a party. D&D is a pillar of the Stranger Things lore. They don’t have to play the game because they’re “living it”.

[@angelocano6041]

i was into dnd back inthe 90's with 1e and especially 2e.drifted away after a couple of years into warhammer fantasy roleplay and stormbringrt, both for a few years each. read 3e and did not care for it. then got out of the hobby for a number of years - mostly playing mordhien and warhammer fantasy battles. then i picked up BG3... and basically learned how to play 5e from that, and have been DM-ing 5e for over a year now, and loving it. not likely going to bother with the 2024, because a lot of the pieces i don't often use in my games, like feats, are now being pushed to the forefront. and also, from what i have seen, the heroes are getting even more magical and powerful, and i think they are strong enough already. great video btw - love your channel.

[@Xhilong]

My friend's dad had his buddy set up as game for us in like 1985, 86, been playing on and off again ever since.

[@wispyone3702]

I got into D&D through the youtuber Projared sharing his stories and that got me so hooked that I went to watch his Mines of Phandelver playthrough from when 5E first came out. I was disappointed by the quality of that, but it wasn't long till I found critical role through a random highlight video, and that was what anchored me in the hobby. Even without finding a consistent group to play a long session with, those avenues have always kept me engaged, and I wonder what it will be like when critical role may move on considering my so-so interest in the pure wizards products.

[@happychap8457]

i started playing in 2016 because the meet up website had a group devoted to setting up D&D groups. I has tried getting friends to play during 4e but no one was interested beyond a one shot. Everyone i met at he meet up groups watched critical roll which is how i ended up watching the first campaign. some of the meet up groups i played in fell off, but one is still going almost 10 years later. i also now run for the friends who were not interested in 4e. we played weekly during lockdown, and now sporadically (jobs and small children dont help scheduling).

[@hexdteafling]

i started playing dnd in 2015 when i got to college, our first game was actually lost mine of phandelver! i would play dnd a bit inconsistently from there until i met my boyfriend who really got me into it again and introduced me to critical role. i dont think i would be as interested in dnd as a storytelling/roleplay medium if it werent for critical role introducing that level of character involvement. i run a homebrewed dnd setting now and we play consistently once a month! got a lot to thank my bf and critrole for helping me find my niche 💕

[@Malkuth-Gaming]

I found out about D&D from a little game back in 1998 called Baldurs Gate. But because D&D wasnt the popular game here in sweden back then, it got shadowed by another game that the english audience now know as Dragonbane (Drakar och Demoner). So despite being intressted in D&D it would take until 2014, when a youtuber and twitch streamer streamed Lost Mines of Phandelver. Started asking around if anyone was intressted to play but it would take until 2019 before I found myself a group to play with...

[@fakjbf3129]

I got into DnD because I like watching the KZbinr/Twitch gamer Quill18, and he and his friends play DnD. So they decided to start playing the game online and posting the videos to his channel, and it looked like a ton of fun. Sadly they only played a handful of episodes before stopping, but they had a lot of great moments like one character getting a nat 20 death save and killing the boss or feeding a love potion to an ettin so only one head was in love with the player and I wanted to see more. So then I binged the entirety of Critical Roll’s first campaign in sixth months and then got caught up on their second campaign and have been watching almost every week since.

[@yannlimarodrigues]

I think there is one more ingredient to the perfect storm. COVID-19 pandemic. Suddenly everyone had to stay home and connecting to friends and family required zooming and other painful ways to spend time together. All the activities that people had in the physical world just vanished. But board games and tabletop games were a nice way to spend time with people we love and missed without having to risk ourselves that much. It also helped shows and channels like Critical Role which in turn helped D&D. Not everyone that got into D&D and the hobby during this time continued after the pandemic slowly receded, but a lot of people stayed. Edit: to make it clear, the pandemic was a horrible period for us, I don't want to make it look like it was good. But it can have varied impacts in different aspects of life.

[@mikeybe206]

I was always interested in finding out more, but I grew up during the satanic panic and when it wasn’t ok to be a nerd. So I kept pushing it off, until I heard there was going to be a D&D show on Geek and Sundry, which I had been watching for other shows (mainly Tabletop with Wil Wheaton). I missed the first episode of Critical Role, but became hooked ever since watching the second episode of the first campaign live. I joined any online games I could find, had some bad experiences with players using the “it’s what my character would do” crap. Then I found an in-person group and I played with them for years almost every week. Now I run games for my nieces and nephews!

[@ghqebvful]

I got into D&D around 2016 without knowing anything about Critical Role or Stranger Things. I can't say what really sparked my interest, but I wanted a new game to play with my friends.

[@Drudenfusz]

I started late in the 90s, and my first game was not D&D, but the D6 Star Wars game. The most that I played D&D was with 4th edition. 5E disappointed me rather fast. And well, these days I work on my own system, one that delves deeper into character arcs and thematic framed narrative play than even FATE or Fiasco do.

[@cmssaysftw]

My interest in D&D started with Harmonquest, but I only watched a couple of episodes until it became too much of a hassle to find. I didn't think about the have at all until I watched a KZbin video by Nerdsync in 2020, it was about him running a D&D game for the first time. In it he showed clips of Dimension 20 as an example of a show that was fun and was a good entry into learning how to play. I decided to watch the show, got Episode 2'd, and now I have a life long hobby.

[@SupergeekMike]

Love a fellow Nerdsync enjoyer! It’s not remotely an exaggeration to call Scott one of the big influences on my channel and my video style ☺️

[@mariecosmos4383]

I was just watching another video of yours when this came out! I guess I had to pause my mike vid to watch a mike vid!

[@sarahlanger2605]

I found Critical Role after a friend tricked me into a DnD campaign (Humblewood Setting from Hit Point Press, not sponsored, just a fan). But I fell HARD for Critical Role, so in turn, I started two other campaigns...

[@damiens4601]

I remember watching Spoony's review when it came out, he was so pissed like it was the end of "real dnd" , how things have changed^^

[@witchboy44]

My d&d gateway was the series Rollplay that went on forever, started with 2e and branched out majorly, the whole project didn’t end so well though

[@hawkname1234]

I know it not acceptable to say good things about WotC in the TTRPG community, but I would argue that the VERY GOOD (not perfect, just VERY GOOD) design of 5e was the primary reason why it sold incredibly well from the start and kept growing. I promise you, if the system were bad, people would not play it. And also the decisions to use high quality IPs like the old adventures and the Realms, the decision to include more representative characters in the art - these are all reasons why Evil WotC was primarily responsible for designing and releasing a good game, following it up with good supplements, AND supporting a creative community around it (regardless of what lying KZbinrs have told you). The simplest explanation is often the most accurate-it's a GOOD game.

[@Brenilla]

So me and my cuzins got in first year of 5e (i didnt realise it at the time), none of us watched stranger things or critical role. my eldest we played with and i eventually did but it wasnt till way later. it was all just cultural ozmosis about the dnd game and it looked like fun. We played pretend anytime we saw each other so it was a good way to go forward. (helped that aformentioned cuzin hit his "i need to act like an "'adult"' teen phase" a wile earlier so we missed playing with him).( Honestly he mightve been watching an actual play but that could have been after we showed intrest in it)

[@Philographicks]

Actchually, The Basic D&D line is still the longest running publishing run for any edition of the game.

[@Philographicks]

1981-1995 roughly.

[@bristowski]

This is a good channel. I like Mike.

[@alalessia]

What an interesting deep dive! I only got into DnD a couple years ago and haven't tried any other games, but I'm starting to get really curious - and for now I can't be bothered with the 2024 rules because our 5e campaign isn't even remotely done

[@kyleward3914]

I tried to watch Critical Role to get a sense of how 5e worked when I thinking of switching from 3.5. It was entertaining, but it didn't do much to help me learn how the rules were different.

[@AdThe1st]

For me I can see parallels to the Elder Scrolls series, particularly the previous 3 games. Skyrim is 5e, it hooked a lot more people because it's more streamlined, Oblivion is 4e, an attempt at something new that was a little off but had it's perks and 3.5e is Morrowind, sure it's daunting to understand or get into and it seems a little clunky but you can see the vision and almost wish they tried to build on this style and clean it up instead of pivoting to something new

[@pippastrelle]

me, two years ago: wow, legend of vox machina was heartfelt and interesting, and not like most adult animation. I'll check out their origins. Can't see myself getting into *DnD* though. me, now:

[@Rinz-Aide]

Running lost mines tonight with the 2024 character options and rules to see how well itll hold up with the new stuff, wece only heen playing for 5ish years and have always run in our own campaign settings to its many of their first times in the sword coast

[@3portiparty]

Great recap of how we got here!

[@bjam89]

i got into dnd via the oxventure and viva la dirt league, i was around for early critical role but since it started in media res i didnt really gt into it since it felt like i was missing too much of the story

[@TamTroll]

Did Stranger Things even HAVE a lot of D&D content in it? i always remember it as a background thing. like yeah the kids play it, and they name the monster of the season something from the game, but... that's about it. They really only play it once or twice in the first episode, and then it's El and the Upsidedown shenanigans for the rest of the season. Not sure how that would make Stranger Things something to boost D&D's success.

[@Cassapphic]

I agree with the overall sentiment of this video completely, dnd 5e was such a series of perfectly overlapping factors that gave it such booming succes. And while I do think that long term 2024 will still do very well due to wider cultural brand knowledge, if someone gets a vague interest in ttrpgs for their friend group dnd is probably always going to be the easiest sell, plus the market is just generally bigger. But I do think we're going to be in a similar situation to square enix saying every big budget game they release "underperformed" because they expected the final fantasy game on exclusively the ps5 that few people own because sqex is the only publisher making games for it didn't sell 20 million copies in 3 days or whatever nonsense the suits want. (Or alternatively complain that the game they gave very little marketing to sold poorly, thanks neo twewy :[, not as relavent wotc have done a good chunk of marketing, but there is also a lot of misinformation about what th e 2024 rules are and I think a lot of people are spurning them due to that misinformation)

[@frozenfeonix1328]

once I tried to get into DnD i was told oh 3rd editions old you wanna play the newer edition meaning 4th but all my googling led me to believe for years that pathfinder was 4E they just skipped the number on it and just used a sub title like the fast and furious movies

[@donaldhanning1359]

For the longest time I genuinely thought Pathfinder WAS 4th Edition

[@julzbehr6696]

This is a good channel

[@Wipomatic]

Very much fuck Lineham, thank you for always being supportive of queer people, Mike! ❤❤

[@JnEricsonx]

Critical Role made me care about D&D for real, I grew up liking the novels and the like, yeah. But watching LOVM made me wanna watch CR, and yeah..... Also, out of the 5 odd people at my first table, 3 were women.

[@DavidCookeZ80]

I got into D&D with B/X then 1e. We were in .uk so just saw 2e as a sanitising of the game to appease the US god-botherers i.e. a *downgrade* and never bought it. Then 3e just looked *pug-ugly*. Stopped playing. I was aware of CR, but didn't bother with it (too little time). Stranger Things carried no nostalgia for me as that wasn't my 80's at all - my D&D nostalgia is for metal, SKA, punk and early electronica. What got me into playing 5e, running 5e, and CR was Covid! I'm immunosuppresed and online D&D was a way of having fun with other people.

[@RonPower]

Yeah, hard disagree on your Forgotten Realms takes, as usual. I see what you are trying to say, but I don't know what you think would possibly be a viable alternative. Lets assume they went back to Greyhawk, or Dragonlance, or Exandria, or heaven forbid Planescape or Spelljammer as the default instead. Every single one of those campaign settings is just as dense and full of content as Forgotten Realms. The only campaign setting I could honestly see that is not "comprehensive" like those settings are is Ravenloft, but of course Ravenloft is a very specific style/genre in and of itself, and I don't think you want to make a gothic horror setting your default for D&D. Forgotten Realms is dense, but that's why they actually did newbies a favor by releasing the Sword Coast's Adventurer's Guide first which of course only focused on the Sword Coast, a more digestible section of the larger Realms. When the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting came out for D&D 3.0, we got a huge book that was an atlas and explainer for the ENTIRE continent of Faerun. But you know what? Despite not having a lot of background knowledge of the Realms, I threw myself in headfirst, and I LOVED it. The expansive lore was not a barrier or impediment to me, it was an invitation to learn as much as possible. I started reading the novels, I bought the video games, and I, of course, set all the games I was running as a DM in the Realms. Am I really that big of an outlier? I don't think I am, I see fans of the Realms everywhere, online, in game stores, at cons. The movie and BG3 certainly did not suffer from having the Realms as their setting. Exandria would be the only other setting I could see that has as anywhere close to as much of a built in fan base. It's probably a younger fan base, but the problem with Exandria of course is Hasbro doesn't own it. They are never going to make a 3rd party system their default, and I highly doubt they could come up with a figure high enough to buy the property outright from Matt and the gang. Anyway, I'm probably one of your older fans (just turned 50 this year, the same age as D&D itself!) and I got into the hobby from a very early age, first playing with my parents, then later with my friends in junior high. This would have been 1st edition AD&D at the time. So to me the Forgotten Realms feels like an old home. It's not too expansive it's immersive. It's not overburdened with lore, it feels lived in. I was a fresh faced newcomer to Realms once too though. It's not like we don't live in a world that has the internet, and wikis, and KZbin lore videos, and information right at your fingertips, that if you want to learn about any D&D setting, you can.

[@dawaterrat4460]

I actually walked away from D&D at 3rd ed, because in addition to getting tired of Level based advancement, I was getting tired of Medieval Stasis Eurofantasy, and with the switch to 3rd ed, all the cool non-standard settings were abandoned (Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Ravenloft, and despite it's problems Al Qadim). (also the original OGL was intended to push everyone to abandon all other systems for D&D, and D&D is not a good universal system.) I was slowly being enticed back (though the lack of PDFs outside of a VTT platform was a deterant) especially when Spelljammer finally returned. Then the OGL 2.0 scandal hit and I was like Nope. We're done.

[@dziooooo]

That's 100% me - the idea to try and find people to play with came from Stranger Things, and then I found Matt Mercer when I was looking for advice on how to actually play this thing. And since this DM Advice guy sounded interesting, I looked him up and found the first campaign of Criticla Role. We've been playing since 2017.