Dungeons & Dragons in popular culture


Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game first published in 1974. As the popularity of the game grew throughout the late-1970s and 1980s, it became referenced in popular culture more frequently. The complement of games, films and cultural references based on Dungeons & Dragons or similar fantasies, characters, and adventures became ubiquitous after the end of the 1970s.
Dungeons & Dragons, and tabletop role-playing games in general, have exerted a deep and persistent impact on the development of all types of video games, from "first-person shooters to real-time strategy games and massively multiplayer online games", which in turn play a significant and ongoing role in modern popular culture.
In online culture, the term dungeon has since come to mean a virtual location where people can meet and collaborate. Hence, multi-user dungeons emerged throughout the 1970s and 1980s as a form of social networks or a social virtual reality. By creating a means for players to assemble and explore an imaginary world, the Dungeons & Dragons rules provided a transition from fantasy literary settings, such as those of author J. R. R. Tolkien, to fully virtual worlds.
Public figures who play or have played Dungeons & Dragons include comedians Stephen Colbert and Chris Hardwick, musician Moby, and actors Vin Diesel, Matthew Lillard, Joe Manganiello, Mike Myers, Patton Oswalt, Wil Wheaton, and Robin Williams.

Literature

Books

Independent fiction derived from the Dungeons & Dragons game appeared with the Endless Quest series of books, published by TSR, Inc between 1982 and 1987. The Endless Quest books provided a form of interactive fiction in the style of the Choose Your Own Adventure series. The continuing success of Dungeons & Dragons then sparked an even more extensive series of novels, also published by TSR, Inc. The first of these were based upon the Dragonlance campaign setting, and were released in 1984. There proved to be a lucrative market for these works, and by the 2000s a significant portion of all fantasy paperbacks were being published by Wizards of the Coast, the American game company that acquired TSR, Inc in 1997.
The impact of Dungeons & Dragons on players and culture has inspired reflective non-fiction works:
Several characters created for playing Dungeons & Dragons, or games derived from Dungeons & Dragons, have later spawned popular fantasy series. Other novels make off-hand references to the game:

Comics

Begun in 1986, the comic books The Adventurers and Redfox were inspired by Dungeons & Dragons. Several commercial comic strips are based entirely upon the game or make reference to the game in specific panels.

Film

Several films include instances of characters playing the game of Dungeons & Dragons. There have also been three feature films released that were based upon the game: Dungeons & Dragons, ', and '. As of 2019, Paramount Pictures, RatPac-Dune Entertainment, Sweetpea Entertainment, Vertigo Entertainment, Hasbro Studios and Allspark Pictures are currently developing a new Dungeons & Dragons film scheduled for release on July 23, 2021. The film was reportedly star Ansel Elgort and be directed by Rob Letterman. Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley are in talks to direct the film after Chris McKay was going to direct the film.
The CBS network ran a Saturday morning cartoon series called Dungeons & Dragons, in which a group of teenagers visiting a Dungeons and Dragons-themed theme park dark ride are magically transported into the fantasy world of Dungeons and Dragons. The show included the voice talents of Willie Aames of Eight is Enough, and ran from 1983 to 1985.
Dungeons & Dragons is also referenced in a variety of television programs:

Music

Dungeons & Dragons is referenced in popular music:

Video games

Dungeons & Dragons is referenced in popular video games:
Borderlands 2 downloadable content Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep involves Tiny Tina serving as a game master of Bunkers and Badasses, the "Borderlands version of Dungeons & Dragons".
Canadian video game designer and developer Merritt k created the 2015 Twine game Vin Diesel DMing a Game of D&D Just For You based on American actor Vin Diesel's D&D fandom.
In , there is a part where the player can choose the option for Chloe to join in on a D&D campaign.

Players

developed an intense interest in the game during his youth, which he later credited for his talent at character creation. Ethan Gilsdorf credited the game for bestowing upon him "gifts of creativity and self-actualization". Actor Vin Diesel, in his introduction to the book Thirty Years of Adventure, wrote that he was "attracted to the artistic outlet the game provided" and that the game was "a training ground for our imagination and an opportunity to explore our own identities". Vin Diesel, Mike Myers, and Robin Williams also participated in the 2006 Worldwide Dungeons & Dragons Game Day, demonstrating that the game was then still a lively and active hobby.
Director Chris Weitz pointed out that there "are a lot of people who played and are horribly embarrassed about it and won't admit it, because it's part of their lives they put behind". He developed a fervent interest in the game, even greater than in making movies, and said the experience "had such an influence on his life". Director Jon Favreau was drawn into the game by the fantasy elements and the sense of story, saying "it gave me a really strong background in imagination, storytelling, understanding how to create tone and a sense of balance".
Political reporter John J. Miller said that Dungeons & Dragons was a big part of his life during his school years, and argued that, "there's a lot to admire about D&D and what it can do for kids by encouraging them to read, do math, and think creatively". Fantasy author China Miéville said that playing Dungeons & Dragons as a youth was one of the most enduring influences on his writing. The two things that particularly influenced him were "the mania for cataloging the fantastic" and "the weird fetish for systematization", in that everything is reduced to "game stats". In contrast, author Mark Barrowcliffe considers his years playing Dungeons & Dragons to be a wasted youth and all of the players to be nerds. He has tried to put the experience behind him.

List of notable D&D players

The following public figures have stated that they play, or have played, Dungeons & Dragons, indicating the game's broad appeal to a diverse range of talented individuals.