I mean, is there more D&D being played now in 2018 than there was in 1982?

It's hard to judge that for sure. My guess is no, but that there's probably more since any time after 1989 or so.

From the huge jump in conventional social media talk on D&D in the past year, it's clear that a massive number of people have either started playing now, or started being so into it they want to talk about it on social media now.

In 1980 over 2,200,000 wargames were sold and it quickly collapsed after that. D&D had a sizable portion of that.

The Acaeum has perhaps the best estimates of sales figures
https://www.acaeum.com/library/printrun.html



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I would not be surprised that RPG gaming (in total) has equal numbers of players now compared to 1982.

The world population is much larger. The US has 100M more now than then. There has been increased numbers of middle class people worldwide, as you have seen in South America since many nations have become more capitalist.

Video games which took many players away are actually a great gateway for RPGs today. Anyone who has played WoW, Elder Scrolls, whatever already knows the basics of RPGing so converting them over isn't an issue.

Yes - and ts Very 'Mainstream' - not at all the Nerd Niche the writers of "Big Bang Theory" portray it to be. This is sort of like in 1992 when some people were slightly shocked that over 60% of America said they like or watched some form of "Star Trek" regularly - they were no longer a  minority - which didn't fit the standard assumptions of the Press (media).

Dungeons & Dragons and role playing in general is like that right now.  There are More people who have tried  or are willing to try a game session or two than those who haven't played.
Heck, just based on this past Christmas & Holiday season a HUGE amount f people are trying it for the first time, or are experienced gamers convincing their friends to give it a try. At the store we had housewives with kids talking their fellow soccer moms to give D&D a try.  At least 4 to 5 customers were buying the current edition of D&D to run 'family reunion D&D sessions' during the Holiday break.

- Ed C.

When we see kids playing D&D in the #1 movie of all time again, then we can say "yes".

My anecdotal experiences are such that I have no idea about the numbers, but there is a definite skew away from "mildly interested, might try it" to either "not interested" or "willing to jump in with both feet."  That is, people seem to have a better idea of whether or not it is something they want to experience, rather than the thing that is happening that they'll try if they have nothing better to do on Saturday night.  Still get some of the "mild interest" types, but they are a small minority of the possible players now, compared to the 80's when I'd start with a vast pool of those (75%+ of the players) and see who was left after playing a few sessions.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1037114When we see kids playing D&D in the #1 movie of all time again, then we can say "yes".

Well there were a bunch of references in Ready Player One which came out a few weeks back.

I'd say it's more recognizable and accepted by the general public. That said, I'm not so sure more people are actually playing it.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1037114When we see kids playing D&D in the #1 movie of all time again, then we can say "yes".

D&D showing up in multiple popular TV shows is probably more indicative of popularity than a movie appearance.

My own guesstimate would be that it has a lower percentage of the 'geek hobbies' pie than it did, but the pie is much larger.

It's really quite hard to tell. My best estimate for the number of Player's Handbooks for 5e that have been sold so far is roughly almost 1 Million (I can provide how I calculated that for anyone who is interested). How many players are playing without having bought a PHB? No idea.

The game or references to it has shown up in tons of TV shows and movies lately.

Quote from: Mistwell;1037178It's really quite hard to tell. My best estimate for the number of Player's Handbooks for 5e that have been sold so far is roughly almost 1 Million (I can provide how I calculated that for anyone who is interested). How many players are playing without having bought a PHB? No idea.

I'd love to know the percentage of active players that have a PHB, and the percentage of PHB owners that actually play, compared to the same numbers for the early 80's.  Talk about something difficult to measure, though.

Well, just this week WoTC came out with the claim that this was by a huge margin the best year for D&D in their history, that more people are playing D&D now than ever before, and (curiously) the claim that 40% of people playing are women (which seems to contradict the argument they've been pushing all this time that somehow this hobby is run by 'white males' and will be unappealing for women unless it radically changes).

Quote from: RPGPundit;1037839Well, just this week WoTC came out with the claim that this was by a huge margin the best year for D&D in their history, that more people are playing D&D now than ever before, and (curiously) the claim that 40% of people playing are women (which seems to contradict the argument they've been pushing all this time that somehow this hobby is run by 'white males' and will be unappealing for women unless it radically changes).

Can you give a link to that? I'd like to take a look.