If the word “D&D” conjures up images of bearded men arguing over who gets to hide a golden statue in their natural pocket, then you’ve already figured out what a typical Dungeons & Dragons session is all about. This tabletop roleplaying game has been experiencing a resurgence in the last ten years. Streaming and the use of the dice system in video games have become the norm, but there are also animations, books, and references in popular TV series.

In this article, we’ll discuss how Dungeons & Dragons came to be, gained popularity, and continues to attract dozens of players to the gaming table. I recommend making some tea, as this conversation is going to be lengthy.

How it all began

In 1971, Chainmail (or “Chainmail”) , a tabletop wargame set in a medieval setting, was released . It was created by Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren, who, in turn, were big fans of tabletop games. But what does Dungeons & Dragons have to do with it? It was originally intended as an expansion to Chainmail, meant to add fantasy elements to the setting: monsters, spells, and magical races.

Dungeons & Dragons didn’t appear as a standalone RPG until 1974, developed by the same two—Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Players control not parties, as in Chainmail, but their own characters. The Dungeon Master is the leader of the table ; they run the campaign, direct the heroes, and roleplay NPCs and monsters. It’s up to them to determine how fun the game will be, and whether the players will reach the final quest or become alcoholics along the way.

Game session

A D&D game is played according to a campaign pre-prepared by your DM. Before the campaign begins, each player creates their character, defining their race (species), class, background, stats, and a set of weapons and abilities. These stats determine how successful their characters will be.

For example, if you want to hit a goblin with a sword, you need to make a to-hit check with a modifier. Let’s say the difficulty is 13, but you’re playing a warrior and have a Strength of +2. In that case, you’d roll a D20 and add your proficiency bonus and your Strength modifier to the result. If the result is greater than 13, you’ve hit. If less, you’ve playfully smacked the goblin in the butt with the flat of your sword.

There are also critical rolls. If you roll a 1, it’s a critical failure, and instead of attacking the goblin, you’ll stab your sword in your own leg. If you roll a 20, it’s a critical success, and the goblin can dig his grave. Basically, the success of your campaign depends on your action choices, roleplaying, and dice rolls.

D&D now

In 2024, Dungeons & Dragons celebrated its 50th anniversary. But how is the tabletop game doing now? Very well.

Wizards of the Coast, which publishes books and materials for the game, estimates that more than 85 million people worldwide played D&D from 1974 to 2021. And since 2021, annual revenue from all products (books, merchandise, and so on) has reached $1 billion. Since 2016, there has been a significant increase in tabletop game revenue—320%. 56% of this growth comes from D&D.

The reason for this surge was the release of the fifth edition of the Dungeons & Dragons rules in July 2014. It significantly overhauled character creation and required players to provide detailed biographies and motivations for their characters, as well as specify their traits. Now, the fact that your bard was beaten by a rubber woman as a child can be decisive in certain situations.

I won’t list the full changes, of course. However, I will note that in 2024, a new ruleset was announced, dubbed “the 2024 version” or “Edition 5.5” by fans. It further changes the character creation process: races are now “species” and don’t provide stat modifiers. Players choose their hero’s class first, not their species.

Another reason for D&D’s popularity is the growing culture of online gaming. Many RPGs have successfully migrated online, and now you can play a game through Discord, gathering with friends from all over the country. Fortunately, a ton of websites have emerged to help. Recognition of interests, with being a “geek” and “anime fan” no longer considered a stigma, also played a role.

What about the media?

In 2023, Baldur’s Gate 3 , an RPG from Larian Studios based on D&D mechanics, was making waves . It’s set in the Forgotten Realms, the most popular tabletop gaming world.

Strictly speaking, all the Baldur’s Gate games take place in this setting, but the third installment became such a huge hit that even those who had never heard of Dungeons & Dragons began googling what this die is that determines the success of a theft or lockpicking, and how to play it in real life .

But D&D was popular even before BG3’s release. Below, we’ll explore how the board game has been promoted in streams, games, films, and TV series over the years.

Streams and podcasts

I mentioned streams at the very beginning, and for good reason. Twitch and YouTube regularly host live broadcasts of large campaigns and one-shots (single games lasting 3-5 hours). Episodes are also released on streaming services like Dropout. For example, the 5th Edition D&D show Dimension 20 is streamed.

Campaigns are also available as podcasts. For example, you can listen to The Adventure Zone on Spotify or Not Another D&D Podcast on Apple’s service.

Critical Role remains the most popular game in the Western market. Let’s take a closer look at why.

Critical Role

As Matthew Mercer put it, “Critical Role is a bunch of nerdy voice actors playing Dungeons & Dragons.” The first session took place in 2012, at Liam O’Brien’s instigation, in a home-based format. The group later switched to the Pathfinder system and spent a long time simply playing for fun, until one of the members, Ashley Johnson, told Felicia Day, founder and producer of the channel Geek & Sundry, about the campaign and their home-based games.

Ultimately, it was decided to create a streaming show with the same player base. Initially, the broadcasts were to be broadcast on YouTube, but the series was later moved to Twitch. The game switched from Pathfinder back to Dungeons & Dragons, with the 5th edition released by that time.

The first episode aired on March 12, 2015, attracting thousands of viewers. Matthew Mercer served as the gamemaster, and the team played out the story of a Vox Makina game they had started in the home campaign. The project’s popularity was so great that in July 2015, Critical Role hosted a panel at San Diego Comic-Con.

Since then, Critical Role has released three full-length campaigns:

69 one-shots and several side campaigns were also played, some of which are still unfinished (such as Candela Obscura and Re-Slayers). And in August 2025, Critical Role announced a fourth campaign, which does not yet have an official name, but will air every Friday starting October 2, 2025.

Critical Role’s main cast consists of 14 members, nine of whom are well-known for their voice acting roles in anime and video games:

Here are five of those about whom there is little information, but they are also part of the main team:

In addition to streams and podcasts, Critical Role also publishes books featuring the stories of the characters they create. They also develop their own roleplaying systems: Candela Obscura, Daggerheart, and Illuminated Worlds. Several guidebooks have also been published for the world of Exandria: Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting, Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount, Call of the Netherdeep, and others. This makes the world created by Critical Role one of the official settings for D&D.

A video game set in the Critical Role universe is also expected. There’s no exact release date, but AdHoc Studios, with whom some of the cast collaborated on previous projects and the acclaimed Dispatch , is reportedly developing a game set in the Exandria universe.

HarmonQuest

Yes, this isn’t a stream per se, but a finished show, but I’d put it in the same category. HarmonQuest is a partially animated adult web series based on the Pathfinder system. Three seasons of 10 episodes each have been released. The episodes include both player-driven moments and hand-drawn cutscenes from the adventure.

The series initially aired on Seeso streaming but later moved to VRV Select. The final season premiered in August 2019. HarmonQuest was part of the Harmontown podcast and featured Dungeons & Dragon. After signing a contract with Seeso, the campaign switched to Pathfinder. The show’s signature feature was games played in front of a live audience. Each session lasted about an hour, and then a portion of the adventure was animated, bringing the entire runtime down to 25 minutes.

The show regularly featured popular actors and comedians, but the core cast consisted of only four people:

Chicken Curry Dungeons

The creators of this show were inspired by the aforementioned HarmonQuest. Essentially, Chicken Curry Dungeons isn’t “pure” D&D; it’s more of an RPG inspired by it, using game mechanics. The show frequently references and elements to other fantasy universes and cultural references.

The show has its core cast: Big Russian Boss, Alexander Gudkov, and Nikita Kukushkin* (up to episode 22). Each episode also features one to three guests. At the time of writing, “Chicken Curry Dungeons” has aired 53 episodes, divided into storylines:

A unique feature of the show is its charity system. As players progress through the campaign, they earn gold coins, which they can use to re-roll unsuccessful rolls or save. After the campaign ends, the total earned is tallied, and one player rolls a D6 to add the number of coins to the total “bank.” This amount is donated to a charity fund. One coin is equal to 10,000 rubles.

*recognized as a foreign agent.

Ru-segment

I personally recommend the channel “Stories on the Edge,” which regularly features walkthroughs of full campaigns and one-shots. There are series on classic D&D, as well as spinoffs like Pathfinder and Call of Chtulhu, and games based on Warhammer 40,000, Cyberpunk, and Vampire: The Mascarade.

Sneaky Dice has compiled a large list of 150 D&D channels. You can find it below:

Games

Baldur’s Gate series

As I mentioned above, the entire series is based on the Forgotten Realms setting of D&D. The first game laid the foundation for future computer RPGs—isometric view, hand-drawn maps, 3D character figurines, and a sophisticated dialogue system that conveys the plot instead of long text screens. All of this became a kind of foundation.

Baldur’s Gate II emphasized character creation, continuing the campaign from its predecessor. Companions were fewer, but more fully fleshed out. Players could also obtain their own home, depending on their character class: a mansion, a tower, or even a ship. Everything depended on your char.

The third one blew the gaming industry away with such force that it ultimately broke the record for the most awards won in a single year. The wide variety of playthroughs, the well-developed storyline and companion stories, the detailed character editor, the music, the graphics—everything came together. Baldur’s Gate 3 still deservedly holds its place among the top games.

Neverwinter Nights

This game became popular not so much for its storyline as for the opportunity to feel like a master of the game. Players have ready-made tools for creating their own stories and mods, so both the first and second games have high replayability. Entire servers were created that mimicked MMORPGs, only with fewer players and more story. Such servers also existed in Russia, for example, Gem of the North or Nameless Lands, and old-timers were familiar with names like Ravenloft and Siala.

In Neverwinter Nights’ base campaign , you create a single character and gradually develop them. You can assign up to three classes to them, mixing and matching stats as you see fit. The game may not boast the most beautiful world or models, but the variety makes all the difference.

Planescape: Torment

This game was released five years after D&D, in 1999. It’s based on the Planescape setting developed by David Cook. According to his rules, different dimensions are called “planes” and together form a special cosmology—the Great Wheel. Planescape connects all the D&D worlds through a system of magical portals. Therefore, it can blend Victorian and pseudo-steampunk settings.

Torment was an experiment. It departs from the usual fantasy canons and emphasizes interactions with NPCs and key characters, as well as the overall storyline. The game’s script is about 800,000 words long, so you’ll be doing a lot of reading.

The story raises philosophical questions, issues of faith, and immortality. The protagonist is the Nameless One, an immortal being who is trying to understand why he cannot die. At the beginning of the game, you distribute attribute points and start as a warrior by default (later you can change your class to a thief or a mage). Then it’s classic: you gather companions and get to know the game world.

Solasta: Crown of the Magister

I’ll finish off this list of D&D-based games with a relatively recent project. Solasta: Crown of the Magister was released in 2021, and it’s a great place to start for those just getting to know the world and rules of tabletop gaming. If you’re not yet ready to assemble a party for a full-blown game and just want to get familiar with the conventions of D&D, you can start here.

The developers didn’t skimp on the tutorial: the game explains the system of attributes, penalties, and bonuses, demonstrates how rolls work, and provides insight into your actions. In this regard, Solasta is much more user-friendly than, say, Baldur’s Gate 3.

Genre-wise, it’s a tactical RPG with turn-based gameplay. A fantasy world has been virtually destroyed by an apocalypse that occurred a hundred years ago. You need to assemble a team of four adventurers and find elven ruins containing stones to create a powerful artifact. Trivial? Yes. But that’s what you need to get started.

The gameplay is primarily vertical, and height matters. You can even complete the game without completing the main quest. Will you save the valley or cause even more trouble? The choice is yours. On the downside, the budget for dialogue was limited.

Movies and TV series

There have been five official Dungeons & Dragons adaptations: four films and one animated series. But there are also other works that use the RPG worlds or its mechanics as a basis. Below, you can learn about the most notable projects. And, of course, we’re looking forward to a Netflix series someday.

Dungeons & Dragons series

The first film was directed by Courtney Solomon. According to the plot, in the Izmir Empire, all power is concentrated in the hands of mages, and the rest are simply losers without a shred of magic. Archmage Profion plans to dethrone the empress in order to seize the Golden Rod, which allows him to control golden dragons. But there is another, the Red Rod of Savriel, which can be used to control red dragons.

The second film was directed by Jerry Lively. The events of the film take place 100 years after the previous installment. The evil sorcerer Damodar has discovered the Black Sphere, a magical artifact containing the power of the dragon god Falazure. If the villain is not stopped, the entire world will end.

The third film was also directed by Jerry Lively. The powerful sorcerer Nagrul sold his soul to a demon 2,000 years ago. The pages of the Book of Spells were crafted from his skin and bones, and the sorcerer’s blood was used instead of ink. Anyone who read the contents of the grimoire would embark on a path of evil. The Order of the Knights of the New Sun was believed to have defeated the demon’s forces, but they were merely biding their time.

The films themselves are extremely average. If you’re just looking for a quick look, the first part will be more than enough.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

This film takes place in the Forgotten Realms. The bard Erewhon Darvis escapes from prison with the warrior Holga to see his daughter. But it turns out that her guardian, Forge, has turned the girl against her father and allied himself with the sorceress Sophina. So, Erewhon and Holga join forces with the mage Simon, the druid Doric, and the paladin Zenk to find the lost relic and confront the villains.

It’s a decent action comedy that adapts D&D mechanics for a wider audience. It features situations players might theoretically encounter during standard games, as well as a spirit of fun adventure. A spin-off series was also planned, but due to the film’s poor box office performance, it’s unlikely to be released.

The Gamers

When talking about projects with D&D references, it’s impossible not to mention the 2002 fan fantasy film “Gamblers.” Unlike the previous film mentioned, it’s strictly for fans, as it doesn’t waste time explaining terms or adapting anything for inexperienced viewers.

Four socially disconnected gamers play a game, immersing themselves in their fantasies. As their characters travel through ancient kingdoms and abandoned ruins, they try to figure out how to save the Princess and what that shadowy figure is flickering around. Time is limited, because at any moment the neighbors could call the police (or the loony bin).

The animated series “Dungeons & Dragons”

Three seasons. Three studios. Marvel Productions, TSR, and Toei Animation collaborated on the animated series. Incidentally, in Russia, it was available on ORT and STS under the title “Dungeon Dragons.”

Each episode of the animated series is a standalone quest, unconnected to other adventures. A total of 27 episodes were released (13 in the first season, 8 in the second, and 6 in the third), but the final 28th episode was canceled, along with the planned fourth season.

The story follows six children who go to an amusement park and decide to ride a Dungeons & Dragons attraction, eventually finding themselves in a fantasy world. There, they meet the Dungeon Master, who explains that they must defeat the sorcerer Venger to return home.

The show’s cancellation was largely due to its silliness. It was adapted for children, removing gore and violence. The Satanic Panic of the 1980s in the United States also played a role. Patricia Pulling blamed Dungeons & Dragons for her son’s suicide and sued TSR. She lost the case, but continued to harass the creators of the game and the animated series with her letters.

The Legend of Vox Machina

Remember how I mentioned Critical Role in the streams and podcasts section? Well, it was their campaign that led to the release of the animated series The Legend of Vox Machina in 2022. It was originally planned to be a 22-minute special that would briefly introduce the Vox Machina group, the heroes of the first campaign. The projected goal was $750,000, but they raised $1 million in the first hour, and by the time the campaign closed, the total had reached $11,385,449.

Four seasons have been released so far, but a fifth has also been announced, which will bring the characters’ adventures to a close. “The Legend of Vox Makina” is streaming on Amazon Prime Video, with 12 episodes per season. Critical Role cast members voiced their characters and some supporting roles. For example, Matthew Mercer voiced the vampire Silas, the demon Ortax, and the dragon Umbrasil, whom he played, along with other supporting characters, in the original campaign. Characters based on him also appear in almost every episode as Easter eggs.

Looking at the plot and the situations the characters find themselves in, you can accurately track when dice were rolled and how well they were rolled. One moment, Percy’s gun misfires, the next, he’s firing his multi-barreled shotgun without reloading. Or Wax breaks all his lockpicks on that unfortunate wooden door after hacking open the palace with a toothpick a few episodes ago. It’s fun to watch, to say the least. But keep in mind that this is an adaptation, and many moments had to be omitted for the sake of length (after all, the original has 115 streams, each 3-5 hours long…).

Also on Amazon Prime Video, an animated series based on the second Critical Role campaign, The Mighty Nein, was released on November 19, 2025. However, please note that both projects are rated 18+ due to strong language, nudity, and graphic violence.

References

I’ll finish this long overview of the D&D landscape with the most enjoyable part: the references. They’re so common that I won’t cover every episode, but I’ll just give a short list of films, TV series, and cartoons where the board game has either been mentioned or played:

As you can see, D&D isn’t slowing down, attracting more and more players. The rules are still being updated, making changes and improving the system, and with a good DM, the entry barrier is so low that literally anyone can try their hand. Let’s wish the greatest board game continued success, and I’ll probably rewatch all the seasons of The Legend of Vox Machina and check out the fourth campaign.