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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8715333" data-attributes="member: 18">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: <a href="https://www.comparitech.com/tv-streaming/netflix-subscribers/" target="_blank">Netflix Subscribers and Revenue by Country [2022 version]</a>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.</blockquote>

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