It’s an odd hobby here in the US, but it’s gotten a bit of a popularity boost due to the *Stranger Things* Netflix show, also from Chris Pine.

28 comments

  1. Smaller table board games are way more popular (eg settlers of Catan)

    from campaign based games i feel WH40k is the most popular one in Poland. I have never heard of anyone playing dnd

  2. Yes I played it many times… But since all my friends moved to Germany I don’t have a party anymore. But I’m not an average citizen in that regard, I don’t think it’s very common.

  3. No, nobody. Most of the people I know who have heard about DnD know about it only because of Stranger Things.

    But TTRPGs are somewhat popular here. Many hobby shops hold game sessions, and almost any anti-café (at least in Moscow) gotta have at least one DnD set. It’s still quite niche, though, compared to board games.

  4. Of course I know him, it’s me. And the friends I play with. I’d say it’s a niche hobby here too, but I think it grew quite a bit in the last few years.

  5. I think answers will vary depending on the respondents’ personal hobbies and social circles. But from what I’ve gathered, the Nordic countries have relatively old and well established “nerd cultures” going back to role-playing and tabletop games int the 80s/90s. So people were definitely playing DnD back then.

    However, nerd culture was much more of a niche phenomenon back then. These things are certainly more popular and accepted nowadays. No doubt because of American media (stranger things, marvel etc).

  6. Yes, they’re my favourite hobby, which I play with a fixed group of friends. We don’t do D&D anymore because we fell out of love with the 5e system but we’ve been playing other TTRPGs like Cyberpunk RED, Vampire the Masquerade, Avatar Legends, and Pathfinder 2e.

  8. Yes there’s a pretty large group who plays in my city. There’s also hobby shops all over so people are into painting figurines and other tabletop/board games.

    Lots of bars even have board game nights every once in a while

  9. Yeah, its very popular here in Denmark in certain envoirments, its is seen a good way to meet new people who shares an interrest.

  10. I work in academia in Germany + Austria, so yes, it’s pretty popular among these circles.

    Personally I’ve never played it and don’t particularly have any interest in it.

  11. I play online because it’s not at all popular and is difficult to find a party to play with.

  12. Yes, several people, including my sister, my BF, my BF’s brother. But for some sessions they opt for Pathfinder

    I played only some through internet sessions about 15 years ago.

  13. My partner and his friends used to play DnD when they were in high school and uni. Now we play board games with the same friends, but I don’t think they have played DnD in years. Mostly because we have full time jobs now and board games don’t need as much preparation and it doesn’t matter if it varies a lot who has time to play.

    They are the only people I know though and they’re definitely the most traditionally nerdy people I know, so it’s not necessarily representative for all of Norway.

  14. Of course I know him, he’s me!

    I do play online with friends from abroad, but I know people running local games and I’ve previously played other pen and paper rpgs in person here.

  15. A LOT of people I know either currently play or have previously. It’s reasonably mainstream (particularly Warhammer etc. just walk into a Games Workshop and start playing)

  16. Yes, many, although that’s mostly because I play myself, so I tend to be in friend groups who do as well. Still, it’s not hard to randomly run into people who do, both in the UK where I am now and in the Netherlands where I’m from. There are active pathfinder societies, professional dungeon masters etc, and most universities I know have some kind of tabletop/boardgame society that also does DnD. I know players of every age group except for 65+ and 10-.

  17. I know plenty of tabletop RPG players, and most of them play D&D. I’ve played a few D&D3.5 campaigns myself, but I don’t like it much. I’m more into Shadowrun, I’ve been GMing it for nearly 30 years.

    For the general public, IME I’d say maybe 1/3 of guys under 45 have played at least 1 session, but active players are rare. Female players are incredibly rare, I’ve only ever met like 5 (and they all apparently only play in girls-only groups).
    TTRPGs became mainstream-ish a few years after our version of the “RPG murder” scare in the 90s (maybe it made people curious?), but for the last 10 years or so they’ve been losing a lot of ground to tabletop games.

  18. Sure, it’s getting more and more traction through multiple media, like Stranger Things. You also have streamers popularizing it and games likes BG3.

    In the 2000’s there were some niche but now cult web (audio) series about TTRPG.

  19. Yes, I know a couple of people who play Dungeons and Dragons and I know some people who play The Dark Eye (Das schwarze Auge), a German game.

    We Germans love board games and these kind of games are also quite popular.

  22. It has become more popular over here due to the rise of board games in general, but I wouldn’t say it’s as mainstream (if you can call it that) as it is in the Anglosphere. One of my friends is into it, but he tried getting us all together to play it one time and it failed spectacularly. To his credit, he has managed to get us to try out a lot of different board games, when at the start we’d tease him about that hobby of his (and we were stupid for having slept on those games).

  23. I know people who are passionate board gamers, I play them myself sometimes, but no one who plays table-top RPGs. I’m sure there are people who play them, but I don’t know any of them personally.

  27. Of course I know him, he’s me. Played for nearly 10 years now.

    Also, you can’t talk about the renaissance of DnD without talking about Critical Role, I would hazard they had a much bigger impact than Chris Pine (by virtue of pre-dating the recent movie, which sadly doesn’t look like it turned a profit, by eight years) in popularising and demystifying it. If I’m being honest, I feel like they had a bigger impact than Stranger Things, but I have no data for that

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like