Peak of D&D: the 1980s?

A couple of things:

1) For those wanting to know how the new D&D Basic gateway drug thingy is working out, here's a link to at least one positive review of it over on rpg.net:

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10749.phtml

If you check out the comments below there are some testimonials of a few cruel parents who seem to have successfully inflicted it on their children :cool:

2) As for the peak, I tend to agree that there have probably been a few at different times.

The early '80's, sure. I picked up my Basic Red box at a local shopping mall bookstore, lots of my non-nerd friends played it occasionally, etc.

Other possible high water marks (based on pure conjecture hauled out of my arse):

*All of those Dragonlance and FR novels making it onto the NY Times bestseller list even in the early to mid '90's, not thought to have been an especially good time for D&D.

* Not on the table top, but the Baldur's Gate CRPG and sequel were pretty popular in their day, late '90s, pre-3E. Neverwinter had/has a decent following, too.

*3E/3.5E, again I can walk into major commercial bookshops and get D&D stuff, minis and dice to boot, still, even after d20's bubble was supposed to have burst and nobody cares about the LOTR movies anymore.
 

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Dark Jezter said:
I don't think that many people still view D&D players as being satanic, instead they view it as being a hobby for socially-inept losers. Nowadays when they think of gamers, they picture an overweight, 30-year-old virgin who works at a comic book store and still lives with his parents rather than a black-clad cultist.

Not that all people view gamers as being that way, but that certainly seems to be the image that a lot of non-gamers have of D&D players.

That is the impression one gets from watching the comic books guy on the Simpsons. However, I wonder what the true attitude is about gamers, now. I wonder if the proliferation of computer RPGs has reduced the stigma. What we really need is scientific research done - a general poll of the population to see what the true impression of gamers are outside of the gaming community. Any PhD candidates out there who are takers?
 

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