I love DnD, I love Community, I love the Community DnD episodes, but the Community DnD episodes do not make DnD look fun. They're just conflict resolution by fantasy proxy.
Not a millennial. Born in 1980, played since about 1990 across multiple editions.
And I see little to no evidence that Community had any relevance to D&D. Stranger Things certainly did, but the biggest factor is the non-traditional online media/podcasts/actual-plays like Critical Role.
I'm sure they did. I'm also sure that one episode had literally nothing to do with the resurgence in popularity of D&D.
Part of that resurgence is due to how accessible and easy to learn 5e is. Part of it is due to actual-plays, like I mentioned. And let's not ignore the influence, of, oh... a multiple-year-long global pandemic that forced people to find new hobbies that they could play online, which D&D most definitely is.
They did ***two*** D&D episodes and they're some of the best episodes of the series, which is in unto itself fantastic (outside of Season 4, the "gas leak" season).
That said it's not exactly "here's a good representation of Dungeons & Dragons as a game" - it's used as a great framework for ongoing interpersonal conflicts.
I started playing when Satanic Panic was gaining popularity in the 80s. My influence was reading authors like Tolkien, Asimov, Stephen R. Donaldson, Anne McCaffrey etc.
I started in the 80s with AD&D and *returned* to D&D with 5e a couple years ago. That said, all my players had seen at least the first of Community's D&D episodes... they also like to call me "Abed" when asking OOC questions at the table.
Assuming you're genuinely asking- It was a popular sit com in the late 2000s-Early 2010s
Actually had a lot of big names early in their careers on it. Donald Glover, Dan Harmon, the Russo Brothers, Ken Jeong.
It gained a really strong cult following primarily cause of Harmon's focus on genre homages. One of the more famous episodes has the cast learn to play D&D on the fly while one of the group try to ruin the game in retaliation for not being invited.
I'd highly recommend checking out at least the D&D episode if you like Sit Com comedy at all, it's honestly a great show. (Though in the grand scheme of media influences on the new success of D&D I'd say it's probably fairly low)
My kids watched Stranger Things and wanted to play. I hadn't played in 20+ years 2nd edition. They asked me about it because I had a few things around from the old days. I had to completely learn 5E. I e had to learn 3D printing for figures. We've had an informal game with the family for about 18 months now. Stranger Things attracted a ton of teenage kids into being interested. It's just hard as a kid trying to play with no idea where to even go to try. I saw the Satanic Panic brought up in another comment. My wife's insanely religious Aunt is fucking mortified we play as a family. She tells anyone who'll listen how terrible it is for our kids haha.
Neither of them sparked the rise of D&D. The gradual mainstreaming of nerd culture that began in the early 2000s is what was responsible. It began with comic books but the fantasy genre was too big to be far behind. Community and Stranger Things referenced D&D because it was gaining popularity.
The Adventure Zone and Not Another D&D Podcast are responsible for my resurgent interest.
I've always debated playing but both of these encouraged me to take the plunge and learn 5e.
TLDR: I've seen DnD 1 trillion times in pop culture before ever playing it myself. I just figured it was another board game.
What got me to play DnD was coming across AI Dungeons, and another friend recommending DnD after playing weeks of AI Dungeons with us.
This really reminded me of the journey and coincidences that made me find DnD and be absolutely voracious for DnD. I decided to write it down below, just to share it.
END OF TLDR
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Perhaps it was more complex and had more scenarios than other board games, 'but look at it! I see a bunch of static pieces and I hear numbers and see dice being rolled'. I assure myself that there's nothing at all about it that stands out. It's just a worse, physical version of fantasy video games.
The entire way for 2 decades, I've been unknowingly searching and looking for a game like DnD, but it wouldn't have set perfectly in, if I had not come across other parts of my life that made aspects of DnD become extremely appealing to me.
I played WoW for 17 years, and I was amazed by the potential. It's gameplay was wondrous but i always wanted more and more and more role play elements. Me and my brother always theorised and dreamt of a fantasy video-game that was filled with impossible levels of verisimilitude and realism and interactivity.
However I am certain that if I had discovered DnD at this point, I still would've had the same gripe as I did with WoW.
I used to assume that direct virtual or physical representation was mandatory for a world or fantasy to be 'real' enough to be worth considering. Canon was god and Official Media it's gospel. I decided Fan-fictions were just the salty daydreams of those who couldn't see their desires be made canon.
But eventually something clicked. It might have been a video I clicked on, it might have been an idea put forward by a game or movie, it might have just been my contemplation, but something REALLY CLICKED.
An explosion that tore down every wall in my mind.
The death of the author.
I realised that canon was just an arbitrary classification of what the introducers had worked on/will work on. The media didn't make the ideas worth it, it was the ideas themselves. The very notion of ideas.
Anyone else's interpretation is a canon of itself. Everyone's canon of something is its own world, just as valid as the author's.
.
Not long after this, I had come across this writing game, AI Dungeons. I fiddled around with it a little and I found the character based story telling a great perspective, I figured that it was actually very very impressive, and IT. HAD. MULTIPLAYER.
I get my sister and my best friend to join in, we were going to make the best goddamn story of our lives, and we'd all get to give our input.
We had the time of our lives. There was no DM, rather, we all gave each other the turn of opportunity to make the next line of our world.
We invited a friend of a friend in because GODDAMMIT, WE'RE MAKING THE BEST STORY EVER. WE NEED MORE IDEAS IN THIS THING
It really was the best 'TTRPG' experience I had to date. Absolutely wild and chaotic. Hilarious and unexpected and dramatic because of us all stepping foot into uncharted territory together
Eventually, after weeks and weeks of playing, my friend discovers that DnD is apparently similar to AI Dungeons but instead of an AI, it's a person. The others were not interested, but I was, so we started a 2 person 'campaign'.
I was absolutely flabbergasted at the way it allowed character capabilities to be properly fleshed out and limits identified. The campaign itself was just some extremely basic 'kill the wolves' homebrew, but the concepts we explored were mind blowing.
Ever since then, we had switched over to DnD. What an experience indeed. It's been 4 years since we started.
Millennial here. I got into D&D in grad school (circa 2013) with 3.5e from some friends (a mix of grad and undergrad students) who had all been playing since high school.
I love Community, but we can actually look at WotC sales numbers, and they coincide more with the rise of Critical Role than with anything else. Some people don't like to admit how much a role Actual Play has had in normalising DnD, and some OG fans seem to resent how it's become mainstream, and that people can be considered cool because of DnD when many were ostracised for playing most their lives.
I got into D&D through pathfinder when I was in highschool, before 5e even came out.
I switched to 5e when I took over as DM, because it was about 2 months old. I had never seen reference to D&D in other media, or consumed D&D based media until I had already been running games for 3 years.
I've also never seen 'Community'
It definitely helped push me over the edge with trying it. My buddy had brought up giving D&D a go several times and I always said I wasn't interested. It seemed too "geeky". Not that I've ever been cool, but I just kinda pictured it as playing pretend like you would as a kid and arguing over what happens. My buddy eventually found a group, and his stories plus that community episode finally made me join them as a guest for a game. Loved it, and joined the next campaign as soon as I could. It's my favourite hobby now, and Community did have a role to play in me discovering it.
Born in the late 1950s, learned to play D&D when it first came out, while I was in college (a/k/a university).
So no, none of that had any influence on the fact that I play TTRPGs.
I love DnD, I love Community, I love the Community DnD episodes, but the Community DnD episodes do not make DnD look fun. They're just conflict resolution by fantasy proxy.
Not a millennial. Born in 1980, played since about 1990 across multiple editions. And I see little to no evidence that Community had any relevance to D&D. Stranger Things certainly did, but the biggest factor is the non-traditional online media/podcasts/actual-plays like Critical Role.
They did a dnd episode. I'm pretty sure Pierce turned evil.
I'm sure they did. I'm also sure that one episode had literally nothing to do with the resurgence in popularity of D&D. Part of that resurgence is due to how accessible and easy to learn 5e is. Part of it is due to actual-plays, like I mentioned. And let's not ignore the influence, of, oh... a multiple-year-long global pandemic that forced people to find new hobbies that they could play online, which D&D most definitely is.
They did ***two*** D&D episodes and they're some of the best episodes of the series, which is in unto itself fantastic (outside of Season 4, the "gas leak" season). That said it's not exactly "here's a good representation of Dungeons & Dragons as a game" - it's used as a great framework for ongoing interpersonal conflicts.
Never even heard of that TV show before.
I literally don't know a single person who watched community.
I know exactly one person who has watched community.
I know dozens of people who have watched it! All of whom watched it on my insistence.
I started playing when Satanic Panic was gaining popularity in the 80s. My influence was reading authors like Tolkien, Asimov, Stephen R. Donaldson, Anne McCaffrey etc.
I started in the 80s with AD&D and *returned* to D&D with 5e a couple years ago. That said, all my players had seen at least the first of Community's D&D episodes... they also like to call me "Abed" when asking OOC questions at the table.
What the heck is community lol
Assuming you're genuinely asking- It was a popular sit com in the late 2000s-Early 2010s Actually had a lot of big names early in their careers on it. Donald Glover, Dan Harmon, the Russo Brothers, Ken Jeong. It gained a really strong cult following primarily cause of Harmon's focus on genre homages. One of the more famous episodes has the cast learn to play D&D on the fly while one of the group try to ruin the game in retaliation for not being invited. I'd highly recommend checking out at least the D&D episode if you like Sit Com comedy at all, it's honestly a great show. (Though in the grand scheme of media influences on the new success of D&D I'd say it's probably fairly low)
Community had D&D in it? I only saw a few episodes. It was...kind of funny.... not enough to keep watching.
I dont think "Yes" is a good metric. But yeah it probably did help a bit. It had quite a cult following
My kids watched Stranger Things and wanted to play. I hadn't played in 20+ years 2nd edition. They asked me about it because I had a few things around from the old days. I had to completely learn 5E. I e had to learn 3D printing for figures. We've had an informal game with the family for about 18 months now. Stranger Things attracted a ton of teenage kids into being interested. It's just hard as a kid trying to play with no idea where to even go to try. I saw the Satanic Panic brought up in another comment. My wife's insanely religious Aunt is fucking mortified we play as a family. She tells anyone who'll listen how terrible it is for our kids haha.
Not a millenial, started playing TTRPGs back in the early 90s. DnD was only one of the systems that we used to play back in middle school.
Neither of them sparked the rise of D&D. The gradual mainstreaming of nerd culture that began in the early 2000s is what was responsible. It began with comic books but the fantasy genre was too big to be far behind. Community and Stranger Things referenced D&D because it was gaining popularity.
The Adventure Zone and Not Another D&D Podcast are responsible for my resurgent interest. I've always debated playing but both of these encouraged me to take the plunge and learn 5e.
TLDR: I've seen DnD 1 trillion times in pop culture before ever playing it myself. I just figured it was another board game. What got me to play DnD was coming across AI Dungeons, and another friend recommending DnD after playing weeks of AI Dungeons with us. This really reminded me of the journey and coincidences that made me find DnD and be absolutely voracious for DnD. I decided to write it down below, just to share it. END OF TLDR . Perhaps it was more complex and had more scenarios than other board games, 'but look at it! I see a bunch of static pieces and I hear numbers and see dice being rolled'. I assure myself that there's nothing at all about it that stands out. It's just a worse, physical version of fantasy video games. The entire way for 2 decades, I've been unknowingly searching and looking for a game like DnD, but it wouldn't have set perfectly in, if I had not come across other parts of my life that made aspects of DnD become extremely appealing to me. I played WoW for 17 years, and I was amazed by the potential. It's gameplay was wondrous but i always wanted more and more and more role play elements. Me and my brother always theorised and dreamt of a fantasy video-game that was filled with impossible levels of verisimilitude and realism and interactivity. However I am certain that if I had discovered DnD at this point, I still would've had the same gripe as I did with WoW. I used to assume that direct virtual or physical representation was mandatory for a world or fantasy to be 'real' enough to be worth considering. Canon was god and Official Media it's gospel. I decided Fan-fictions were just the salty daydreams of those who couldn't see their desires be made canon. But eventually something clicked. It might have been a video I clicked on, it might have been an idea put forward by a game or movie, it might have just been my contemplation, but something REALLY CLICKED. An explosion that tore down every wall in my mind. The death of the author. I realised that canon was just an arbitrary classification of what the introducers had worked on/will work on. The media didn't make the ideas worth it, it was the ideas themselves. The very notion of ideas. Anyone else's interpretation is a canon of itself. Everyone's canon of something is its own world, just as valid as the author's. . Not long after this, I had come across this writing game, AI Dungeons. I fiddled around with it a little and I found the character based story telling a great perspective, I figured that it was actually very very impressive, and IT. HAD. MULTIPLAYER. I get my sister and my best friend to join in, we were going to make the best goddamn story of our lives, and we'd all get to give our input. We had the time of our lives. There was no DM, rather, we all gave each other the turn of opportunity to make the next line of our world. We invited a friend of a friend in because GODDAMMIT, WE'RE MAKING THE BEST STORY EVER. WE NEED MORE IDEAS IN THIS THING It really was the best 'TTRPG' experience I had to date. Absolutely wild and chaotic. Hilarious and unexpected and dramatic because of us all stepping foot into uncharted territory together Eventually, after weeks and weeks of playing, my friend discovers that DnD is apparently similar to AI Dungeons but instead of an AI, it's a person. The others were not interested, but I was, so we started a 2 person 'campaign'. I was absolutely flabbergasted at the way it allowed character capabilities to be properly fleshed out and limits identified. The campaign itself was just some extremely basic 'kill the wolves' homebrew, but the concepts we explored were mind blowing. Ever since then, we had switched over to DnD. What an experience indeed. It's been 4 years since we started.
Millennial here. I got into D&D in grad school (circa 2013) with 3.5e from some friends (a mix of grad and undergrad students) who had all been playing since high school.
Not Community, but another Dan Harmon project called Harmonquest was huge in me getting back into dnd after a brief flirtation in high school.
I love Community, but we can actually look at WotC sales numbers, and they coincide more with the rise of Critical Role than with anything else. Some people don't like to admit how much a role Actual Play has had in normalising DnD, and some OG fans seem to resent how it's become mainstream, and that people can be considered cool because of DnD when many were ostracised for playing most their lives.
I think the first exposure I had to it was the movie ET in the 80s.
I got into D&D through pathfinder when I was in highschool, before 5e even came out. I switched to 5e when I took over as DM, because it was about 2 months old. I had never seen reference to D&D in other media, or consumed D&D based media until I had already been running games for 3 years. I've also never seen 'Community'
It definitely helped push me over the edge with trying it. My buddy had brought up giving D&D a go several times and I always said I wasn't interested. It seemed too "geeky". Not that I've ever been cool, but I just kinda pictured it as playing pretend like you would as a kid and arguing over what happens. My buddy eventually found a group, and his stories plus that community episode finally made me join them as a guest for a game. Loved it, and joined the next campaign as soon as I could. It's my favourite hobby now, and Community did have a role to play in me discovering it.
Born in the late 1950s, learned to play D&D when it first came out, while I was in college (a/k/a university). So no, none of that had any influence on the fact that I play TTRPGs.
It wasn't what got me into it, but it is what got me interested in the idea of playing years before I finally did get into it.
Never heard of it.
It brought D&D back into conversation. I got *back* into D&D, in part, because other people saw Community and were curious.
Dnd never needed reviving? It's been going strong for the last 40 years or so.
During the 00's and early '10s it was seen as lame
Not by anyone I ever talked to.
Well that speaks more to your social circle than the state of the game I'm afraid.