JPL said:
Because you can't make it in Hollywood these days without reaching out to the RPG crowd?
It's a good way for him to present himself as complicated and multifaceted. You don't expect a guy like Vin to be a D&D player.
Conan O'Brien, yes. Wil Wheaton, hell yes. But not Vin.
Whether its $15 million or $15.5 million, getting an extra half a million in ticket sales on opening weekend is never bad, especially when all you have to say is "uh, yeah, I still play DnD." Probably the easiest crowd he has to play to. "I am one of you and I am produing a SF movie" SOLD!
Besides your thinking about only about the number of table top gamers, that's not what the entertainment industry thinks about when you say "DnD."
These days when the guys in the board room think DnD, they think Balders Gate, not dice. Just like Marvel comics is tax break for Marvel Entertainment, which pitches the I.P. to movies, WotC is merely a I.P. place holder for Hasbro's (really now Infrogames) video game I.P.s
Hell, the main reason WotC has a new setting coming out is because Hasbro owns the digital rights to Forgotten Realms, and WotC wants their big piece of that video game pie.
Don't forget that while you chuck dice at the table, there are people now calling themselves "roleplayers" Everquest that have never touched a die (I used to date such a girl and we had fun teasing each other on the real definition of being a gamer.)
And Hollywood sees big bucks in console/PC games. In fact, that they blame lower ticket sales on the video game market.
Better yet, anyone been to both E3 AND GenCon? Could someone tell us which is bigger?
Wake up call! we aren't the parent market, we are just a tax break and I.P protection for the real cash cow.