Over Half Of New D&D Players Got Into Game From Watching Online Play

I know this is really a small issue if any at all, but yet I find it mildly disturbing that so many people watch others play D&D instead of playing it themselves... it's kind of similar to the rise of "eSports" and their possible inclusion even in the olympics. And also my kids are starting to watch people play Minecraft on youtube instead of playing it themselves! It's ok to watch occasionally to get some inspiration, but if it's more often than the real thing then it raises some questions...

 

[CapnZapp]

I know this is really a small issue if any at all, but yet I find it mildly disturbing that so many people watch others play D&D instead of playing it themselves... it's kind of similar to the rise of "eSports" and their possible inclusion even in the olympics. And also my kids are starting to watch people play Minecraft on youtube instead of playing it themselves! It's ok to watch occasionally to get some inspiration, but if it's more often than the real thing then it raises some questions...

Time to either adapt... or embrace the grumpy old man within!

 

[Waller]

Over half of players? The article makes it sound almost like D&D is pretty much dependent on Geek & Sundry for its life blood. What happens if Geek & Sundry moves on? It would be interesting to see some more statistics on exactly what shows that 50%+ of new players credit. Is it mainly Critical Role and Penny Arcade? There are hundreds of much smaller streams out there. I wonder how much impact they have? I hope it's spread about a bit, just to be sure the trend is robust enough.

 

[Tev]

I wonder how many of those players would have started playing without ever having watched online streams/videos. I've tried getting into some DnD streams but I just can't keep up with them. Most of them seem to have episodes of at least an hour and a half in length and I have trouble finding the time to commit to watching. I can definitely see why they're so popular though, D&D is an excellent medium to tell a story and the element of player choice makes for compelling viewing.

What are the other ways people find out about D&D? I ended up getting into out of pure curiosity mostly. I'd seen references to it in pop-culture and was randomly thinking about it one day and started wondering about how it works, how can you play an RPG where you can make decisions that effect the world just using some books? I did some research online and found out about DMs, rules and everything that is used to run a DnD session. I messaged some friends about it and we all wanted to give it a try so I bought the 5e starter edition that had just been released and from that we ended up playing regular sessions once a week.

I imagine word of mouth is the other big pull of players into the game.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

I was expecting a comment on sports, but the difference is that most people cannot play sports* because they don't have the fitness to last longer than a few minutes.

Then play for a few minutes. Do that regularly and it won't take long for your stamina to improve so you can play for much longer. Or you can simply decide that watching is more fun and stick to that. My point stands.

 

[Oofta]

Wait a minute. This can’t be true. I was told 5e was failing and would die on the vine. I heard it in many threads by the same 2 people right here on these very boards!!


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Lies! Lies I tell you! D&D is completely broken because there are 2 feats I don't like and an utter failure because they don't release a book a month! Don't even get me started on the challenge guidelines that don't work for my particular group!

It is interesting how the hobby is spreading because of online broadcasts. I do watch them now and then myself, not only to get hints on how to run the game better but also because it's entertainment I can sort-of watch while I'm doing other things.

It will be interesting to see if it starts spreading to other games, it seems like other RPGs could also benefit.

 

[schnee]

I know this is really a small issue if any at all, but yet I find it mildly disturbing that so many people watch others play D&D instead of playing it themselves... it's kind of similar to the rise of "eSports" and their possible inclusion even in the olympics. And also my kids are starting to watch people play Minecraft on youtube instead of playing it themselves! It's ok to watch occasionally to get some inspiration, but if it's more often than the real thing then it raises some questions...

Be disturbed, so what.

Critical Role is eight people who are professional actors, to-the-core nerds, and great friends that have a hell of a good time and bust out some amazing improv comedy.

I've gotten a lot of inspiration that I've brought back to my games, and my players are all the better for it.

It's also given me a lot of opportunities to witness the flaws of the game (i.e. they do full rests too often so the casters are outshining the martials somewhat, and Mercer asks for way too many skill checks at too high of DCs to do mundane things that only prevent martial players from participating). So, I've brought in house rules that have made my game much better, without having to suffer through extensive play testing as a group to figure them out ourselves.

It's about as dumb as binge-watching a bunch of TV shows, IMO - and since I've been watching movies my whole life, it's hard to find something that can actually surprise me any more. This crew takes their games in directions I never anticipate, so as far as entertaining goes, it's pretty fresh.

 

[Caliban]

And most people who watch sports never play themselves. This is hardly a new phenomenon, humans have always enjoyed watching experts perform activities with a high level of skill.

I love watching Critical Role, but I'm not sure I'd describe it as "watching experts perform activities with a high level of skill."

 

[schnee]

I love watching Critical Role, but I'm not sure I'd describe it as "watching experts perform activities with a high level of skill."

I dunno man, Grog's improv with the sentient sword, and learning to read with Ashley are top-notch. And have you ever seen anything like Matt's powder merchant on any other stream? He kills it!

There's a reason they literally make a living doing this stuff. They're damn entertaining.

Edit: How can I forget Vex coming out of the tub? That killed me!

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Not my bag but whatever brings in more players is a good thing.

 

[Li Shenron]

Time to either adapt... or embrace the grumpy old man within!

No need. It's enough to just play and ignore the shows.