In a Chaotic World, Dungeons & Dragons Is Resurgent

D&D has also entered the realm of church ministry. I and several other clergy and youth leaders have organized church adventure groups (some youth and some adult). Gathering for cooperative gaming that involves in person interaction is an antidote to the isolating trends in communities. The game's simplistic good vs evil morality also invites conversations over the more complex reality that we live in. All this while offering an outlet that inspires heroism, creativity, overcoming obstacles, and honoring the unique gifts each person (or character) provides.

As someone who played and loved a D&D -style game created by a college roommate of mine back in the early 1980's, I'd just like to point out that you don't need to buy anything to play such a game. A pad of hex or graph paper, a few tokens, and a 20-sided die or two and you can make up your own rules and have a fine time.

I begrudgingly played 1st Edition with my brother and his friends back in the day. All I remember is being bored and having to take long rests. My brother and his friends were the true fans of the game. Fast forward almost 40 years and a group of coworkers invited me to join their campaign. My character, Friedl the dwarf Paladin, represents what I like to think of as the worst of me. She's brash, coarse, impolite. All things society frowns upon (for some good reasons). She's also courageous and strong and curious. I love playing her. She also has a soft spot for dragons, but don't tell the death cleric in the group! She does want to stop the rise of Tiamat, to her credit. My brother is jealous. He stopped playing.

I organize a game for a group of 30- and 40-somethings once a month and we actually pay a DM to run the game for us, because we have neither the expertise to run a game nor the time to acquire it with our busy lives. His name is Timm Woods and GMing is his full-time job. We're utterly amazed that he's "living the dream", having created this career for himself out of pure passion and smart forecasting (He's got a PhD in Education as well, which makes him a prime after-school booking for his clients' kids.) It's amazing how this resurgence has actually created a niche market for game masters/dungeon masters. Most of our group never played as kids and our game is truly the highlight of our month--we play in an office conference room and bring booze and snacks to share, just like we would have as kids (sans the booze)!

Games bring people together.

Honestly, the reason D&D is making cultural invertors is because it's really fun to play. The rules are all basically suggestions; they give you a framework to tell a story that your fellow players can help write. The dice add an element of chance and the dungeon master, who is really just a story guide, has plenty of latitude to determine what happens to the characters. It's a novel, structured way to get creative in a social setting. What's not to like!

Whenever I am out and about I do my population "sample" observation. How many people in this particular area (drawn by my own imaginary boundary) are NOT looking at their phones while in waiting? The result is almost always 0/10 are looking up and being in the world. As a mother of a modern-day teen table-top gamer, I love to see the resurgence of people INTERACTING with people. My son and teen gamer friends ride their bikes 4-5 miles to meet up on Saturdays at a central cafe for an afternoon of D&D or Pathfinder session. They buy bubble tea and scones and dig inside their imaginations for elaborate stories. It's a small taste of freedom and no expectations.

My D&D game is a always a highlight of my week, but I wish the cost weren't a barrier to entry for some people, especially kids, who could really use the therapeutic effects the game can provide. At its beginning level you can download the company's free starter rules and just shell out about $8 for one set of dice, pencil and paper. But to get playing in any deep and meaningful way, you need, at minimum, 3 books that retail at $45 each, and multiple sets of dice to prevent parts of the game from being agonizingly slow (look at how many dice there are in the article photos!) I hope anyone who wants to play can find enough people to pool their resources so that it is affordable for everyone.

It's so nice not to have to hide my love of D&D any more. For many years, I would have gotten a more positive reaction from my peers if I had admitted to being a drug dealer than being a DM.

Supposedly Vin Diesel is an avid player and introduced Dame Judy Dench to D&D on the set of Chronicles of Riddick...

The simplicity and humanity of D&D is why it was so threatening to the moral panic folks of the 70s who thought the game was "Satanic" -- it's really just a group of people socializing peacefully (or arguing over game mechanics) and using their imaginations. Very scary stuff! And very fun! In this relentlessly digital age, the analog nature of classic D&D is soothing, where you really only need paper, pencils, and dice to be able to play.

As someone who has grown up playing video games over the past 20yrs, there’s something truly magical about sitting around with a group of friends and socializing. In essence that’s what D&D captures. It also helps to slow down the frenetic pace of our modern lives in a way that many video game producers have long forgotten in their design-by-committee design paradigms.

I was in High School in Baltimore, home of tabletop pioneer Avalon Hill and their game store- one of the first- and remember spending Saturdays with buddies with photocopied original edition rulebooks in 1975. Good fun ever since. Thanks TSR/ Gygax/ Wizards of the Coast.

I’m a library media specialist in a K-8 school. I have a group of middle schoolers that come in the morning to play. They display cooperation and camaraderie. They’re perfectly behaved which isn’t always the case with middle schoolers!

Whether one is playing D&D or some other game system, the fun is in the story telling. I hope more people are inspired to adventure with their friends.

I'm not surprised by the endurance and increasing popularity of Dungeons & Dragons. Role-playing games are a wonderful way to spend time with friends. I have many fond (and not-so fond) memories of what my various characters experienced over the years: heroic victories, to be sure, but also PTSD, hopeless romance, acts of bravado and cowardice, loss, and thanks to many a critical failure, epic (often hilarious) moments of ineptitude and misfortune. And running a role-playing game? That's an amazing opportunity to hone story telling skills while torturing, I mean, entertaining, your friends!

Ethan Gilsdorf, as a matter of tone simply interjecting "who is gay" about Jeremy Crawford, seems like tokenism, whereas the phrase "an openly gay man" feels more in line with the guidelines about identifying minorities in a journalistic manner.

Enjoyed playing in college 43 years ago. Ran out of time when graduated.

Tanya De Pass asks "Where's black women?" Apparently she's not aware that Pathfinder, the spiritual successor to D&D 3.5 not only has been featuring them for a decade but the iconic Paladin is a woman of color.

No matter how badly some of my coworkers annoy me during the work week, I still know that every Sunday, I can count on us to come together as a team to explore an ancient temple and beat up wyverns. It feels good to have unity in the divided times we're living in.

Love this write-up! My friend recommended we play D&D because she had heard a few highly entertaining podcasts after the 5th edition came out. Now we play it every other Sunday. I'm even working on publishing a small level 1-5 adventure module with a friend. I'd say that anyone who struggles with creative projects, especially fiction writing, should jump into a campaign or start DMing their own. It's an incredible way to have your creative work bear fruit before your eyes, with instant feedback from your fellow players. It also shows you how personalities are the most interesting part of any story, giving you the freedom to let characters dictate the plot and not the other way around.

D&D's decline also owed a lot to a rise in competition, some terrible business practices, and the notorious 4th edition. While I appreciate the warm and fuzzy coverage, an article about a resurgence probably ought to have a better grounding in what the game is recovering *from*. That said, if you'd like to get started on RPGs, try your local gaming store, Meetup group, or Roll20.net to find a group. Happy gaming!

As a 50+ year old who plays D&D weekly, I am a much happier person with adventuring in my life...and looking around the game stores and conventions I attend, I am not the only greybeard who feels this way. Furthermore, I appreciate your coverage of the inclusiveness that the current game encourages; through playing at public events I have learned the importance of preferred pronouns. (I'm he/him.) For those out there with a hankering to go on a dungeon delve, I encourage you to visit your local game store, ask about organized play (particularly Adventurers League), and buy a Players Handbook--not from Amazon for goodness sake! If you do, I look forward to seeing you at the table and May Tymora (Goddess of Luck) Smile on Your Dice.

My son and several of his friends began playing D&D early in high school, and he is continuing to find new friends in college that have done the same. I really think it's been beneficial for him and his friends - they are all noticeably more social and outgoing than those who remain locked to their screens in solitude, and are all willing to try out new non-gaming adventures as well - ranging from rock climbing to backpacking to pickleball to water polo, most of which were new to all but a few of the group. I really see a lot of the teenage "Generation Z" stepping away from their devices and making an effort to make friends and enjoy activities "in real life," which gives me hope for the future! Of course, the fact that over a dozen of his friends from high school keep in touch through a group text chat once a week or so is an unexpected social media bonus, so they're finding a good balance.

We need heroic acts, teamwork and supportive allies, so there's no better way than practicing them in a non-virtual reality with newly forged friends. For me, D&D is the anti-football. We root for each other, we build empathy, and we kick demons back into the abyss to save the world. Here's to the next 40+ years!

As a college freshman in 1979, I was starting to date a fellow college student I had recently met. When I mentioned how much I had enjoyed the "Star Wars" movie (there was only one back then), she looked at me incredulously and asked whether I also enjoyed a TV show called "Star Trek." When I confessed that I did, she then asked, "Wait, when you were high school, did you play this game called "Dungeons and Dragons""? Feeling about two inches tall, I sheepishly confessed that I had. Somehow, she overlooked my terminal nerdiness, and here we are, almost 40 years later, still married (with a daughter who insisted on having a "Harry Potter" theme for her wedding). And yes, if given a chance, I would still play "D&D"!

There is a lot more to RPG’s (Role Playing Games) than Dungeon’s and Dragons. Paizo, with its Adventure Paths, and Pinnacle, with the Savage Worlds system, are just two of the options that are superior to WOTC & 5e. In My Not Humble Opinion ;) WOTC has deep pockets, and excellent marketing, but I find that it is the Kickstarter funded projects from people like Frog God Games, Gun Metal Games, Modiphious, Chaosium and many others that are higher in quality and creativity. (Looking into how Kickstarted has rejuvenated the industry could be an interesting article.)

So nice to see such an enthusiastic and inclusive resurgence in D&D. Role playing games have been incredibly helpful for my 10 year old son, who has struggled with social and behavioral development. It unlocks imagination and creativity. Empathy, cooperation and collaboration are hardwired into the game. Find a game!