D&D 5E How Important is Stranger Things to the Success of 5e

[Ralif Redhammer]

Name recognition matters. Showing countless people (since Netflix is generally chary of giving viewership numbers) games of D&D on screen matters. In the words of Mr. Clarke, "Once you open up that curiosity door, anything is possible." If Stranger Things is not in your top 5, I'm curious what would be? I wouldn't list it as number 1 (for that I'd put the designers' work itself - Stranger Things' publicity wouldn't matter for much if the game itself wasn't good), but I certainly would put it in the top 5, personally.

I just don't buy it, because knowing those names has absolutely no bearing on wanting to be involved with a fairly wild hobby. The vast majority of D&D players have never played games directly involving Demogorgon or Vecna, I daresay. Perhaps not even indirectly. I know huge numbers of Strange Fans things in my friend group and through work, and let's be real, they don't even see those as D&D names for the most part. They see them as Stranger Things names, and they're kind of right to. Cuts the other way even - one of my friends who has played D&D for 30+ years didn't know Vecna was a D&D name until the most recent season of ST came out! We've never played Greyhawk or run any of the adventures where Vecna might turn up so...

I very much doubt it's top 10, let alone top 5.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Name recognition matters. Showing countless people (since Netflix is generally chary of giving viewership numbers) games of D&D on screen matters. In the words of Mr. Clarke, "Once you open up that curiosity door, anything is possible." If Stranger Things is not in your top 5, I'm curious what would be? I wouldn't list it as number 1 (for that I'd put the designers' work itself - Stranger Things' publicity wouldn't matter for much if the game itself wasn't good), but I certainly would put it in the top 5, personally.

Top 5 things responsible for the meteoric success of 5E?

1. Increasing normalization of games and gaming generally in Millennial culture, like person-to-person culture, word-of-mouth. We're famous for our obsession with boardgames, it's like, an identifying trait of Millennials (albeit many younger Gen-Xers are equally keen, and I know from boardgame cafes in London that Gen Z are following, and maybe even more into it). Obviously it goes without saying the Millennials play far more videogames than any previous generation (maybe more than Gen Z will, it kind of seems that way). Things like World of Warcraft were primarily Millennial cultural events (even if MMORPGs generally stretched into Gen X a bit). I'm old as hell for a WoW player, at 44 - even now the average age is a lot closer to 30. Millennials in general are just vastly less put off by things being seen as "nerdy" than Gen X were - I don't blame or denigrate Gen X for this, note, it's just how the culture was.

This is absolutely the dominant factor, for my money, and it sweeps everything else off the table in terms of preparing the way for D&D to be a huge success.

2. Decades of showing D&D in increasingly mainstream media, going back a long way, to things like the IT Crowd, via Community, Big Bang Theory (I loathe the show but it's a thing), and so on, which people grew up with.

3. Accessibility of the basic design of 5E. I don't buy the idea that a less-accessible version could have succeeded as well. Something like a reorganised and updated RC D&D? Sure. Both most other editions, including both AD&Ds and 3/4E? Nah.

Now you could definitely reorganise 1-3 based on what you thought was most important, but I can't see how it's not those three.

4. The rise of podcasts and streaming services in general, and Critical Role in particular. Absolutely could not have happened as fast as it did without them. Had streaming and podcasts been a big thing before 4E (rather than largely nascent - I mean podcasts were around a ton but they weren't nearly as normalized as now), I think it could have done a lot better (or maybe PF would have done even better! But it would have had an impact).

5. Celebrities, both minor and major, coming out as D&D/RPG players or just general nerds. Again, this has been happening since the very late '90s, I remember talking to friends about such-and-such minor celeb saying they played D&D, but it's been increasing at an almost exponential rate. You've got Henry Cavill, one of the most swooned-over male actors of the generation, getting on YouTube or the like and showing himself building his gaming PC, painting his Warhammer miniatures, discussing in interviews how much he loves World of Warcraft, for example.

I mean, literally the two hottest people on True Blood came out as being DMs for god's sake! That sort of thing is a massive perspective change for people who see D&D as "too nerdy". Much more massive than say, "some fictional nerdy kids in the '80s playing D&D, an '80s thing, largely as a metaphor".

So that's my top 5. It'd be asking a lot to make me do the whole top 10, frankly, but I'm guessing I'd put Stranger Things, specifically, at maybe 10 - however I would note the future impact may well be larger.

One thing I think a lot of people forget is how small Netflix reach actually has been. In 2016, Netflix only had 79m subscribers, split across dozens of countries. It's now up to 220m, which is impressive as an increase, hugely so, but obviously is still an absolutely tiny number in a larger context, especially as a huge proportion of those gains were not in English-speaking countries.

Here's the 2021 Netflix-by-country sub breakdown if you're interested: Netflix Subscribers and Revenue by Country [2022 version]

For reference, Netflix in the UK has 12.72m subscribers, but that's far less than the 23m Sky TV has here for example. And we're third in the world. And Sky's reach is much smaller than the BBC or the like.

 

[Mannahnin]

Top 5 things responsible for the meteoric success of 5E?

I think your top 5 is solid, but I would account for Stranger Things as a substantial part of your 2, rather than dumping it down at 10 all by its lonesome. It's probably the single largest pop culture element in that category over the last six years.

I think you're also substantially underestimating the impact of Netflix by only conceptualizing its viewership in terms of subscriber numbers. While we don't have reliable numbers for shared accounts, we know that a very large number of subscribers do share accounts with family, partners, and occasionally friends.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I think that depends entirely on how you define "interest" and whether you think it matters if that interest translates to actually buying/playing D&D. I very much doubt there are more people playing D&D because of Stranger Things than Critical Role, especially given how fast 5E's audience grew.

You need, generally, to have interest first. So yes and the ST produce vastly more interest, but mostly likely a lower success rate of turning that into actual players. However, I think the numbers are probably so much larger for ST be CR that even with lower rate of return it ultimately produced more sales for D&D

 

[grimslade]

I voted (2) important role in the popularity of 5E. It is not the most important but it is a constant reminder of D&Ds existence and nearly 50 years of play. It is the best and biggest advertising WotC has received for the game and they get it for free. Critical Role and Dimension20 have helped show the actual game to the public, but you have to search them out first. The continued growth of the game so long after the edition launched, is a testament to the growing reach to wider pools of players. Stranger Things gets into the wider world even to people who don't watch the series, they have heard of it, D&D, Demogorgon, Mind Flayers, and, now, Vecna.

 

[Burnside]

I will say this: for those outside of gaming stranger things has been much more impact than critical role. I know no one who watches Critical Role, or anyone who knows anyone to watches it. But I know a lot of people who watch Stranger Things.

There's no doubt that Stranger Things has a MUCH bigger audience overall than Critical Role.

But Critical Role creates a lot more D&D players than Stranger Things does.

By which I mean the viewer-to-player conversion rate for CR is much higher than for Stranger Things, resulting in more people getting into actually playing or DMing the game "because of" Critical Role.

Stranger Things, Critical Role, The Adventure Zone, and to a lesser degree Community all have an important distinction from The Big Bang Theory in creating players: the latter group of shows portray playing D&D as a cool thing to do, and buck traditional stereotypes as to who is playing. Big Bang Theory largely just confirms/exploits the nerd stereotypes and does little or nothing to make the viewer feel that they themselves would actually enjoy playing.

 

[Reynard]

There's no doubt that Stranger Things has a MUCH bigger audience overall than Critical Role.

But Critical Role creates a lot more D&D players than Stranger Things does.

My guess is they work in concert. If ST gets people to start looking into to how this D&D thing works, CR will be one of the first things they find online that explains it.

 

[Burnside]

My guess is they work in concert. If ST gets people to start looking into to how this D&D thing works, CR will be one of the first things they find online that explains it.

Yes, absolutely, as do many other pop culture "hits" where D&D is referenced. The movie will be get another point of contact that will blend with these.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

For my part:

1. Quality of D&D 5e design and presentation. Without accessible rules, inspiring art, representation, involving adventures and lore, you wouldn't get far.

2. Critical Role. I go back and forth on whether it's big enough to break out of the rise of D&D-related streaming category or not. Considering you've even got an animated series and multiple official D&D books for it now, I lean towards keeping it separate.

3. Stranger Things. Like I said, not only does it provide name recognition, but it depicts D&D with genuine love.

4. D&D-related streaming (encompassing podcasts, YouTube, Twitch, the Tik-Tok (I am an old, therefore I must refer to it with a "the"), etc.).

5. Open celebrity endorsement of gaming (if you had told me in the 90s that one day I'd watch The Big Show play D&D on a major streaming event, I would've laughed. After you explained to me what streaming was, that is).

Honorable mention would go to the number of pro-gaming articles that have come out on Forbes, Wired, and other high-profile sites and general television media presence. And I agree with you that seeing D&D on shows like Community, Freaks & Geeks, and others matters, not to mention decades of LOTR, MCU, and Star Wars movies moving geek culture into pop culture. But I still think that Stranger Things, like Critical Role, has had a big enough of an impact to warrant its inclusion separately.

Top 5 things responsible for the meteoric success of 5E?

1. Increasing normalization of games and gaming generally in Millennial culture, like person-to-person culture, word-of-mouth. We're famous for our obsession with boardgames, it's like, an identifying trait of Millennials (albeit many younger Gen-Xers are equally keen, and I know from boardgame cafes in London that Gen Z are following, and maybe even more into it). Obviously it goes without saying the Millennials play far more videogames than any previous generation (maybe more than Gen Z will, it kind of seems that way). Things like World of Warcraft were primarily Millennial cultural events (even if MMORPGs generally stretched into Gen X a bit). I'm old as hell for a WoW player, at 44 - even now the average age is a lot closer to 30. Millennials in general are just vastly less put off by things being seen as "nerdy" than Gen X were - I don't blame or denigrate Gen X for this, note, it's just how the culture was.

This is absolutely the dominant factor, for my money, and it sweeps everything else off the table in terms of preparing the way for D&D to be a huge success.

2. Decades of showing D&D in increasingly mainstream media, going back a long way, to things like the IT Crowd, via Community, Big Bang Theory (I loathe the show but it's a thing), and so on, which people grew up with.

3. Accessibility of the basic design of 5E. I don't buy the idea that a less-accessible version could have succeeded as well. Something like a reorganised and updated RC D&D? Sure. Both most other editions, including both AD&Ds and 3/4E? Nah.

Now you could definitely reorganise 1-3 based on what you thought was most important, but I can't see how it's not those three.

4. The rise of podcasts and streaming services in general, and Critical Role in particular. Absolutely could not have happened as fast as it did without them. Had streaming and podcasts been a big thing before 4E (rather than largely nascent - I mean podcasts were around a ton but they weren't nearly as normalized as now), I think it could have done a lot better (or maybe PF would have done even better! But it would have had an impact).

5. Celebrities, both minor and major, coming out as D&D/RPG players or just general nerds. Again, this has been happening since the very late '90s, I remember talking to friends about such-and-such minor celeb saying they played D&D, but it's been increasing at an almost exponential rate. You've got Henry Cavill, one of the most swooned-over male actors of the generation, getting on YouTube or the like and showing himself building his gaming PC, painting his Warhammer miniatures, discussing in interviews how much he loves World of Warcraft, for example.

I mean, literally the two hottest people on True Blood came out as being DMs for god's sake! That sort of thing is a massive perspective change for people who see D&D as "too nerdy". Much more massive than say, "some fictional nerdy kids in the '80s playing D&D, an '80s thing, largely as a metaphor".

So that's my top 5. It'd be asking a lot to make me do the whole top 10, frankly, but I'm guessing I'd put Stranger Things, specifically, at maybe 10 - however I would note the future impact may well be larger.

One thing I think a lot of people forget is how small Netflix reach actually has been. In 2016, Netflix only had 79m subscribers, split across dozens of countries. It's now up to 220m, which is impressive as an increase, hugely so, but obviously is still an absolutely tiny number in a larger context, especially as a huge proportion of those gains were not in English-speaking countries.

Here's the 2021 Netflix-by-country sub breakdown if you're interested: Netflix Subscribers and Revenue by Country [2022 version]

For reference, Netflix in the UK has 12.72m subscribers, but that's far less than the 23m Sky TV has here for example. And we're third in the world. And Sky's reach is much smaller than the BBC or the like.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

There's no doubt that Stranger Things has a MUCH bigger audience overall than Critical Role.

We know this to be true (or at least we assume we do).

But Critical Role creates a lot more D&D players than Stranger Things does.

We don't know this to be true. I know very few gamers you know of CR, not to mention you have even watched.

By which I mean the viewer-to-player conversion rate for CR is much higher than for Stranger Things, resulting in more people getting into actually playing or DMing the game "because of" Critical Role.

I agree the rate of conversion for CR is probably higher than ST, but I think that larger audience of ST over compensates for that lower rate. Therefore creating more D&D players. Of course this is, like your opinion, just a guess based on almost no facts.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Big Bang Theory largely just confirms/exploits the nerd stereotypes and does little or nothing to make the viewer feel that they themselves would actually enjoy playing.

I kind of question whether, certainly prior to this season, Stranger Things did anything but confirm nerd stereotypes, re: the main player group for D&D. The main kids are super-nerdy. They're kids who would have made me at the same age, a nerd, look like a super-cool kid in shades and a letter jacket by comparison.

Now sure, there's a distinction in that BBT (which is horrible) is essentially "nerdsploitation", but the idea that Stranger Things (prior to this season, which I haven't seen all of yet so am avoiding commenting on) made D&D "look cool" seem to me to be pretty wild. Certainly S1-3 it did not do that. It absolutely normalized D&D a bit (much like articles in Forbes and so on, my dad has sent me dozens of articles from mainstream publications about how "D&D is cool now" - but those got back as far as 2010, note - well before this ST or CR became big), and said sane, good-hearted, good-spirited kids play D&D (which I'm sure helped with some families who thought it might be a "dark" thing or something). But cool kids? Nah. YMMV of course.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think your top 5 is solid, but I would account for Stranger Things as a substantial part of your 2, rather than dumping it down at 10 all by its lonesome. It's probably the single largest pop culture element in that category over the last six years.

Why are we only thinking six years, though?

These changes go back 20+ years, not 6 years. They've been gradually building up, and becoming more and more significant, particularly over the last 10. I'd definitely agree if we're solely looking at:

A) Pop culture - i.e. media and not larger cultural stuff, or more niche stuff, even if it has a vastly heavier impact.

and

B) Since 2016 (i.e. since ST has been on)

Then yeah, ST is the largest. No question! But it would have next-to-no impact without the other factors I've suggested. The biggest of which is the generalized normalization of games and nerdiness. As I noted in another post, I've been getting "D&D is cool now" or "D&D is important" articles for more like 12 years than 6, from my dad. Yes the cadence has been increasing a lot, but even that's more since 2014 than 2016. I've been getting new people into D&D a lot more often since about 2010 too, new people show interest. I think I got zero people into D&D 1996 to 2010 (my brother got 2). But it's more like 9-10 since 2010 (4 in 4E, interestingly). I also got other people back into to D&D - but 5E has been particularly great for that I admit. Obviously those numbers are anecdotal of course.

I do think ST is going to have a bigger impact "down the line" though, esp. based on what people here are re: kids talking about it.

 

[Mannahnin]

Why are we only thinking six years, though?

These changes go back 20+ years, not 6 years. They've been gradually building up, and becoming more and more significant, particularly over the last 10. I'd definitely agree if we're solely looking at:

Six years is just referring to the period Stranger Things has been around.

Overall I agree (and wrote) that it's one part of the larger pop cultural current in which D&D has been increasingly normalized for some time.

But being the most prominent such pop culture media for the last six years, when 5E came out eight years ago, certainly means that ST is a prominent factor in popularizing 5E, which was the original question.

 

[ad_hoc]

Stranger Things would still have a D&D bit if it was in the time of 4e and it wouldn't have made 4e popular.

If it has done anything, it has smoothed over conversations between players and non-players.

When asked what are you playing you can say D&D and the other person might know a bit more of what you're talking about. But they aren't going to play because of it.

 

[Minigiant]

In my circle, more people came into D&D from GOT than ST by a significant amount.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But being the most prominent such pop culture media for the last six years, when 5E came out eight years ago, certainly means that ST is a prominent factor in popularizing 5E, which was the original question.

I don't agree with that logic, at all. That's not actually rational. That's like building a house then acting like the foundations and structure didn't matter, only the wallpaper or something.

Another way to look at it is, what if we take ST out of the equation entirely? Then would 5E be meaningfully less successful than it is now? I don't believe it for a single second. All the cultural arrows were already facing in the right direction. All the foundations were laid. The direction of travel had been well-established for years and years. ST is a symptom not a cause.

Again, in the longer term, that might change, because a lot of people here are reporting ST was particularly big in normalizing D&D with kids/teens (slightly surprised kids are being allowed to watch it but w/e, I would have been allowed so I can't judge!), and if (and this is a big if) those kids keep playing D&D as adults (and a lot of the '80s "D&D kids" did not, note), then that'll be significant longer-term. I suspect for a lot of them it will be a fun thing they did as a kid but not a hobby they keep up as an adult, especially if they just play it rather than DMing it.

 

[Scott Christian]

I based my answer off the high school students I am around. I cannot think of one student that plays that does not watch Stranger Things. It would be like asking us as kids how important the Lord of the Rings books were to our interest in D&D. Or, at the least, the Conan movie. In the end, it is not the most important thing, but it is pretty darn important to the younger generation of players.

On a personal note, despite literally everyone telling me to binge, I have not found the time yet to watch the show.

 

[Bedrockgames]

My view is D&D has had a number of booms over the years. This one seems particularly large, and I am sure there were a lot of reasons, but Stranger Things likely had a pretty big impact on it because it was a highly popular show where the characters weekly D&D game was part of the core premise. Credit where it is due: Stranger Things definitely seemed important for bringing awareness and interest to D&D. But there were a lot of other things going on in the culture that made that possible and things that were already contributing to interest in it. We are also still living in the moment. I always find that a little cloudy and harder to assess than decades down the road when I have more hindsight and less emotional connection to whatever we are examining.

In terms of its longevity in the mainstream, who knows. Just from personal experience, I would say 'enjoy it but don't get too comfortable'. It has had peaks before. It was very much in the culture when I was a kid in the early 80s (probably not to the degree it is now but still very much in the culture), but by the time I started playing in 86 or so, it was becoming a game played almost exclusively by kids considered 'nerds', 'geeks' or 'dorks' at the time. Sometimes something having huge mainstream popularity leads to it having a bit of a bust down the road.

 

[Mannahnin]

I don't agree with that logic, at all. That's not actually rational. That's like building a house then acting like the foundations and structure didn't matter, only the wallpaper or something.

Another way to look at it is, what if we take ST out of the equation entirely? Then would 5E be meaningfully less successful than it is now? I don't believe it for a single second. All the cultural arrows were already facing in the right direction. All the foundations were laid. The direction of travel had been well-established for years and years. ST is a symptom not a cause.

Again, in the longer term, that might change, because a lot of people here are reporting ST was particularly big in normalizing D&D with kids/teens (slightly surprised kids are being allowed to watch it but w/e, I would have been allowed so I can't judge!), and if (and this is a big if) those kids keep playing D&D as adults (and a lot of the '80s "D&D kids" did not, note), then that'll be significant longer-term. I suspect for a lot of them it will be a fun thing they did as a kid but not a hobby they keep up as an adult, especially if they just play it rather than DMing it.

To be clear, I voted "minor but positive effect" for much the reasons you've laid out.

What's irrational about concluding that the most major single media property talking about D&D, in a positive light, in the last six years (75% of 5E's product lifespan) is a significant factor in promoting the current edition of D&D? Stranger Things is the second-most watched show in Netflix history, after Squid Game. And it's not just one big movie dropping in a single year, it's an ongoing show keeping D&D and terms from it in the popular consciousness on a regular basis over that six year period. It's prominent enough that WotC did the ST themed starter set.

IMO, and from the reports of the gaming store owner in the thread and the folks who've piped up as knowing younger gamers, ST is bigger than you've noticed. Though we don't have hard data directly bearing on the question, so our impressions are going to be fundamentally subjective.

 

[MGibster]

Increasing normalization of games and gaming generally in Millennial culture, like person-to-person culture, word-of-mouth. We're famous for our obsession with boardgames, it's like, an identifying trait of Millennials (albeit many younger Gen-Xers are equally keen, and I know from boardgame cafes in London that Gen Z are following, and maybe even more into it). Obviously it goes without saying the Millennials play far more videogames than any previous generation (maybe more than Gen Z will, it kind of seems that way).

Holy cow, I don't know why I never thought of this before. These days you can find games like Settlers of Catan or Cards Against Humanity in Walmart of all places. Back when I was growing up, it was unthinkable to find such games anywhere by a specialty boutique. Approximately 100,000,000 Americans walk into a Walmart each week. Each. Week. It doesn't get more mainstream than Walmart. And even with Walmart to think about, gaming stores have a lot more boardgames these days than they did in the 90s and early 2000s (at least it looks like that to me). Good observation.