Up until 4e, DnD (and TTRPGs in general) were pretty much only spread through the game itself. You either knew someone who played, or maybe you heard about it on the internet and you were interested so you sought out a local game shop, something like that. Regardless, your first experiences with what DnD was like (ignoring fear-mongering movies and other negative media) was likely to be from playing it.

That seems to have changed with 5e. DnD media is bigger than it’s ever been. Actual play podcasts and shows are everywhere. Speaking personally, though I had been in lots of LGS from playing a ton of MtG growing up, my first direct exposure to DnD was finding The Adventure Zone (way back when it first started as a “one-off” side thing from MBMBAM). From there, I learned about Critical Role, and it only took a few watches of that before I resolved to actually find a group to play with.

How about everyone else? Did you get into the game because a friend invited you to play, or did you get hooked on some DnD show and decide “I want to do that, too!”

  • Strangian@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I had always sort of known about since I was a big fantasy fan, but I didn’t know too much. Then about 6 years ago while looking for good podcasts, I also stumbled upon The Adventure Zone. Instantly I was hooked and went down the rabbit hole of CR Campaign 1 and soon knew I had to play for myself. I had an in person game first with a couple friends but that quickly fell apart because no one could meet regularly. But I knew that there had to be some way to do it online so I just googled “play dnd online”. First I got the MMO but Roll20 was pretty high in the results. It was exactly what I was looking for and have since joined multiple campaigns that have lasted years!