Roleplaying Games In the Mainstream

pic by Dave Ward

It seems like RPGs are surfacing in mainstream pop culture more occasionally. Mostly the hobby appears in a negative way either mocking the people who participate or casting them as evil and devil worshipers, probably based on the negative stigma D&D had in the '80s. Lately there seems to be a turn in the way it's portrayed. Its a new age where the nerd or geek are the cool ones. Sci-fi and fantasy reign in the Box Office and partly because it they were made by us geeks. So finally it's making its way into television in tiny ways.

I've listed a few examples here.

The most surprising one that inspired this posting was from the 2/16/11 airing of The Price is Right. The Showcase Showdown offered a trip to Indianapolis for this year's GenCon, hotel and everything. Scroll 31 minutes into the show to the Showcase Showdown. You will see the feature...
The Price is Right (sorry, you'll have to sit through an ad or two).

The Community's Dungeon & Dragons episode. More about that here...


There was an episode of The IT Crowd in which the characters play D&D. From the brief clip here, it appears they treat it like you'd expect. Not in a way that I think is great.


One of my all time favorites of these is the last episode of Freaks and Geeks. Here is a clip collecting the scenes where the boys play D&D...


Other game appearances are maybe not so obvious. A year ago the guys who create Robot Chicken produced several YouTube videos of themselves playing D&D 4e. Here are several of those clips...

It's fun. I hope this trend continues. The gaming industry needs all the exposure it can get these days.