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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 8717056">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.</blockquote>