Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
The Mainstreaming of D&D
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Burnside" data-source="post: 8333292" data-attributes="member: 6910340"><p>Counterpoints:</p><p></p><p>- It's STILL nerdy</p><p></p><p>- The 1980s Saturday Morning Cartoon Dungeons & Dragons, when not viewed through the eyes of 80s kid nostalgia, is actually way, WAY more mainstream, watered down, child-proofed (obviously), sanitized, and lame than Critical Role (the most popular modern, mainstream D&D show).</p><p></p><p>- There will always be the edgy, weird, DIY, indie frontier to D&D, just like there is still that element of Star Wars, Marvel, and all the other nerd culture stuff that is now mainstream culture.</p><p></p><p>- In the end, Dungeon Master-ing is still a shockingly creative and rather labor-intensive thing to do. I am stunned at how many very good DMs I encounter, considering the talent and dedication it takes to do it well. But the fact that being a DM is so demanding, and the fact that Dungeons & Dragons is a very intimately-scaled game that requires a huge buy-in of time and effort, ultimately is going to hard cap how many people really stick with it.</p><p></p><p>What has really changed in the past 6 years is that watching other people play D&D is now a going concern. D&D was never previously a thing to be performed for an audience before. But people will watch high-end professionals play lots of games of every kind, so this development isn't really that surprising. So D&D now has a subset of "passive" fans that may not actually play the game themselves, but enjoy observing it - and may purchase merch or create fan art that appeals to their fandom in that way. Those fans may be enjoying D&D in a way that seems hard for hard-core players to understand.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Burnside, post: 8333292, member: 6910340"] Counterpoints: - It's STILL nerdy - The 1980s Saturday Morning Cartoon Dungeons & Dragons, when not viewed through the eyes of 80s kid nostalgia, is actually way, WAY more mainstream, watered down, child-proofed (obviously), sanitized, and lame than Critical Role (the most popular modern, mainstream D&D show). - There will always be the edgy, weird, DIY, indie frontier to D&D, just like there is still that element of Star Wars, Marvel, and all the other nerd culture stuff that is now mainstream culture. - In the end, Dungeon Master-ing is still a shockingly creative and rather labor-intensive thing to do. I am stunned at how many very good DMs I encounter, considering the talent and dedication it takes to do it well. But the fact that being a DM is so demanding, and the fact that Dungeons & Dragons is a very intimately-scaled game that requires a huge buy-in of time and effort, ultimately is going to hard cap how many people really stick with it. What has really changed in the past 6 years is that watching other people play D&D is now a going concern. D&D was never previously a thing to be performed for an audience before. But people will watch high-end professionals play lots of games of every kind, so this development isn't really that surprising. So D&D now has a subset of "passive" fans that may not actually play the game themselves, but enjoy observing it - and may purchase merch or create fan art that appeals to their fandom in that way. Those fans may be enjoying D&D in a way that seems hard for hard-core players to understand. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
The Mainstreaming of D&D
Top