Hello! I am writing a research report for a class on dungeons and dragons, and figured D&DBeyond forums might be a good place to go for discussion and other peoples opinions, so here's my question.
What makes D&D great and what makes it better/different from other TTRPGs?
Edit: I know the question I have asked is subjective, but the true prompt I have to answer is "Why is D&D so popular" I just worded my question that way so I can get more of the positives, because I've already done research on the negatives
D&D has the longest history/pedigree of any tabletop RPG still in modern vogue. Much of the foundation of modern fantasy gaming is based on D&D, and D&D itself is based on the progenitor of the modern fantasy genre as we know it. This means the characters, ideas, tropes, and rules of D&D are readily recognizable to many players in a way more esoteric games trying to "break away from D&D's shadow" fail to manage. The game has the broadest market share by a grand ****billion, and furthermore it is a game. There are rules, there is obviously a character-building system in place, and there's the promise of sweet gameplay inamidst the storytelling.
This is also something many modern games forget/fail to live up to when trying to break away from D&D's mold - they see how combat in D&D slows the game down and hear the complaints of players who feel like D&D combat is this whole other separate game they don't like buried in their Rules Lite Narrative Experience, so they seek out a game with no combat rules. These games never really take off, go anywhere, or end up competing with D&D in a meaningful way because they don't do anything you can't do by just sitting around BSing with your friends without a hundred-dollar "rulebook." Games like Overlight, Genesys, Daggerheart, and the rest are so determined to "speed up fighting so you can get back to the real story!" that they throw out the baby with the bathwater and lose the engaging gameplay that makes learning a ruleset worth doing over just playing freeform.
D&D manages to sit in what is generally held to be a sweet spot between narrative storytelling richness and engaging mechanical crunch and gameplay that very few other games manage to sit in, and the fact that D&D's history and reach means it's synonymous with "Roleplaying" to most people means it's usually the first system a new tabletop group learns. It is also often the last, because switching systems sucks and most people hate it.
Hello! I am writing a research report for a class on dungeons and dragons, and figured D&DBeyond forums might be a good place to go for discussion and other peoples opinions, so here's my question.
What makes D&D great and what makes it better/different from other TTRPGs?
Most research reports do not begin with the researcher knowing the conclusion. You should watch the opening scene from Sorkin's The Newsroom for an analogy to your statement. It is all over YouTube. You want am opinion? It is probably contrary to what you are hoping for. D&D is no longer great. and it is not better than other TTRPG's. It sure used to be. But there has been a marked, dramatic decline in its quality for a long long time.
Modern D&D excels at nothing, but tries to be everything to everyone. That is a path to mediocrity.
In what ways would you want to know? A lot of TTRPGs, simply due to its age and influence, either take inspiration from it, or attempt to differ themselves from it. If you're familiar with the site TV Tropes it's arguable if it's the Ur Example of a TTRPG, but it's the Trope Maker of it for sure. You will get lots of differing opinions on if it's even great and if it is, what makes it so. Some people love how you can go straight combat with it, others love how you can RP hard without needing combat at all. Ultimately, the people who play and enjoy it are what makes it so great.
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// I am Arenlor Developers should read This Changelog Moderator for D&D Beyond's YouTube, Twitch, and Discord.
You are presuming a subjective opinion - that "D&D is great" - and looking for data to back up that opinion. That makes for bad research in two fundamental ways. First, it biases your opinion and makes it so you are less likely to consider other opinions, which taints your perspective on the research itself. Second, it causes you to frame questions in a way that elicit biased responses, as opposed to more honest answers. Neither of those form a solid foundation for a project.
You can slightly modify your question to be based in an objective fact and then build from there - "Why is D&D the largest TTRPG?" "How has D&D managed to remain popular after 50 years?" "What factors have led to the modern popularity of D&D?" Those lines of inquiry get to some of the fundamental questions you are asking in your opening post, but they do so in a way that introduces less bias through the framing and methodology.
Hello! I am writing a research report for a class on dungeons and dragons, and figured D&DBeyond forums might be a good place to go for discussion and other peoples opinions, so here's my question.
What makes D&D great and what makes it better/different from other TTRPGs?
What makes it different:
The main thing that makes D&D popular is that it's popular. Everyone has heard of D&D and so many people start with it. Some bleed off into different systems, some stay, some do both. Most new players start with it because it's the most well known. There are enough people who stick with it as well as people entering the hobby that it remains very popular.
It can handle most things ok. It's rarely the best at any given thing, but most engines that beat it in one aspect really struggle when you try to use them to do something else. TOR is far better at doing LotR. However, try playing a space based game with it and it will completely fall apart. You can get D&D5e to handle either and it will do ok.
It handles combat pretty well. It has its issues, but I've yet to play a game that handles the range of combat that D&D does. I'd go so far as to say that if you're playing D&D5e, really (deep down sometimes) it's for combat.
It has a large variety of prewritten adventures. It's the only game so far with even close to how many D&D5e has (not including fan-made conversions - which I think would only widen the gap). It's to the point that the other games I play don't count as even trying, to my mind.
It has a ton of levers to pull when it comes to homebrew. Like, it's pretty easy to find an existing statblock that's fairly close to whatever you can imagine for a monster, tweak it a little and then call it your monster. You don't have to build a statblock from the ground up pretty much ever.
There are a large number of highly distinguished character archetypes. Like, TOR probably has more (marginally), but they're don't have anywhere near the level of distinction that the 5e Classes do. STA has a few more, but they're barely distinguishable from each other at all. Vaesen has a couple less, but again, they don't remain distinct. All 13 Classes in 5e are very distinct (although certain Subclasses can blur the boundaries a bit), and that's before we get to the distinction provided by the many Subclasses.
There a metric ton of content in general.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Ooh! That's a great question. I'm gonna have to take some time to let this one marinate before I answer, because I have to go somewhere in an hour and I'm not sure I can do the question justice before then. I'll get back to you. I'm just typing this so I don't forget.
To contradict what a couple others have said: If the report is meant to be from a certain perspective and present that as the author's opinion (rather than being objectively factual) then your topic is just fine.
You've received a few good answers. While I don't have a ton of experience with older editions, I'd perhaps suggesting looking into a timetable of D&D's history (the various editions, a few major competitors, etc) and see what it's done over the years to build up to what we have today.
It's not better than other TTRPGs. It's just older, more well known and has the largest player base and is the entry point for most people wanting to play these TTRPGs.
It's full of problems, but because the user base is large, one can generally find help quite easily.
Serious players that learn D&D in depth, will discover the flaws and seek out other TTRPGs that handle their particular needs better.
Being a challenge to find players and DMs to run a D&D game, it's that much more difficult to find people to play less well known TTRPGs.
What makes D&D great is that you play it with your friends or with people who can grow into your friends through play. The same could be said of other TTRPGs but not of most games. Most games emphasize adversarial relationships that set up an impediment to forming social bonds. The class system helps to emphasize teamwork, so D&D is (arguably) better suited to this meta-goal than other TTRPGs.
Let me give you an example. A few years back, I started a game in a comic book store with complete strangers. Our characters did not gel immediately, and though in some sessions we were near conflict, a history developed of the kinds of disagreements our characters would have--on theism, on which goals were worthy, on which enemies were redeemable. By the end, our characters would have died for each other, and the players were inviting each other to weddings. That's what makes D&D great.
What makes D&D great is that you play it with your friends or with people who can grow into your friends through play. The same could be said of other TTRPGs but not of most games. Most games emphasize adversarial relationships that set up an impediment to forming social bonds. The class system helps to emphasize teamwork, so D&D is (arguably) better suited to this meta-goal than other TTRPGs.
Let me give you an example. A few years back, I started a game in a comic book store with complete strangers. Our characters did not gel immediately, and though in some sessions we were near conflict, a history developed of the kinds of disagreements our characters would have--on theism, on which goals were worthy, on which enemies were redeemable. By the end, our characters would have died for each other, and the players were inviting each other to weddings. That's what makes D&D great.
This pretty perfectly puts into words why I love TTRPGS (99% of the time I play D&D 5e but I think for me the "what makes it great" applies to the whole industry) As eapiv says it's a social activity in a world that increasingly favours isolation. I've also started playing with a group of randoms in a game store and yes, I'm also now invited to the wedding of two of them. But further to this point I also run a lot of games for teenagers, I've got a regular group of 12-16 year olds and a regular group of 15-19 year olds at the local library, and it gives them a incredible opportunity to learn about the world and themselves in a safe environment with an adult willing to support them. Over the last few years we've had discussions on politics, religion, and morality in ways that they'd not get in any other way. They get a chance to figure out who they are by trying different characters, different life experiences, or different genders, in safe environments and as a result also get to develop the empathy of having to think like other people and support their friends as they learn who they are. I've seen one player on the autism spectrum go from virtually non-verbal around strangers to delivering entire improv speeches in character, another overcome crippling anxiety to try their hand DMing and knock it out the park, and at all points they've learnt to make friends with people of different ages they'd probably never meet at any other time.
Hello! I am writing a research report for a class on dungeons and dragons, and figured D&DBeyond forums might be a good place to go for discussion and other peoples opinions, so here's my question.
What makes D&D great and what makes it better/different from other TTRPGs?
I would argue that Dungeons and Dragons is to Table Top Role-Playing games what McDonalds is to food.
It's the most widely known, it's familiar, lots of people go there and you can find it on every corner. When you enter the world of TTRPG's finding someone that plays D&D is easy, finding someone that plays, pretty much anything else, is always going to be a lot tougher.
That doesn't make it the best, doesn't even make it great, it just makes it the most common.
If you play TTRPG's outside of D&D the most blatent and most obvious thing that you discover is that pretty much every RPG out there is an objectively better game than D&D. Its not even really a contest. But playing D&D as a role-player and member of the TTRPG community is sort of like playing Monopoly when you first start playing board games. It doesn't actually make you a board gamer per say, it means you took the first step into a much wider world which once you explore, you will probobly never play Monopoly again .. except when you are dealing with other novices, than suddenly your moving a shoe around on a board again and collecting rent.
In the same token, its nostalgia. You come back to D&D because it was your first experience and there is a sort of attachment to that which never really lets go. No matter how long I have played D&D, I'm always conscious of the fact that there are so many, far better games out there.. but you still kind of come back to it anyway.
That .. in a nutshell, is D&D. Does that make it great?
You are presuming a subjective opinion - that "D&D is great" - and looking for data to back up that opinion. That makes for bad research in two fundamental ways. First, it biases your opinion and makes it so you are less likely to consider other opinions, which taints your perspective on the research itself. Second, it causes you to frame questions in a way that elicit biased responses, as opposed to more honest answers. Neither of those form a solid foundation for a project.
You can slightly modify your question to be based in an objective fact and then build from there - "Why is D&D the largest TTRPG?" "How has D&D managed to remain popular after 50 years?" "What factors have led to the modern popularity of D&D?" Those lines of inquiry get to some of the fundamental questions you are asking in your opening post, but they do so in a way that introduces less bias through the framing and methodology.
To be fair, we don't actually know anything about the nature of their "research" report. Perhaps they will post another thread later discussing "what makes D&D bad, not unique, etc". Perhaps their research is actually regarding "The effects of positive framing in web-based, game-specific online anonymous fan forums". They also never started with the premise that it is great, only asked what, in people's opinions, might make it great. To be fair the framing of the question instills a lot of bias to the responses, but I'm guessing this is more of a "research" paper in which they are focused on the topic of D&D and might be writing about the history of the game, the founder, potential controversies, D&D through the years, etc with references, and so they might have a section titled "Player perception on D&D." I think in general there's just too many things this "research" paper might be to automatically say they are doing it wrong.
Hello! I am writing a research report for a class on dungeons and dragons, and figured D&DBeyond forums might be a good place to go for discussion and other peoples opinions, so here's my question.
What makes D&D great and what makes it better/different from other TTRPGs?
I would argue that Dungeons and Dragons is to Table Top Role-Playing games what McDonalds is to food.
It's the most widely known, it's familiar, lots of people go there and you can find it on every corner. When you enter the world of TTRPG's finding someone that plays D&D is easy, finding someone that plays, pretty much anything else, is always going to be a lot tougher.
That doesn't make it the best, doesn't even make it great, it just makes it the most common.
If you play TTRPG's outside of D&D the most blatent and most obvious thing that you discover is that pretty much every RPG out there is an objectively better game than D&D. Its not even really a contest. But playing D&D as a role-player and member of the TTRPG community is sort of like playing Monopoly when you first start playing board games. It doesn't actually make you a board gamer per say, it means you took the first step into a much wider world which once you explore, you will probobly never play Monopoly again .. except when you are dealing with other novices, than suddenly your moving a shoe around on a board again and collecting rent.
In the same token, its nostalgia. You come back to D&D because it was your first experience and there is a sort of attachment to that which never really lets go. No matter how long I have played D&D, I'm always conscious of the fact that there are so many, far better games out there.. but you still kind of come back to it anyway.
That .. in a nutshell, is D&D. Does that make it great?
At the gaming cafe I frequent, the pattern is very well-established.
Players new to the TTRPG scene, who only have heard of the McDonalds of TTRPG's, want to play it. Typically, if they stick with the hobby, within a year, they have moved on to another TTRPG system. I personally run a 5e game for new players at the gaming cafe, but I also run a Shadowdark game, and play in a Pathfinder 2e game there. 5e and 6e are most definitely less than half of all the tables that run there on a regular basis, and that number shrinks more every month. And that is a good thing.
You have a ton of very good, analytical answers already, so I think you are good to go. I just have to object to the "D&D is McDonalds" metaphor. A diet consisting of pure McDonalds will literally kill you. In D&D terms it would mean you would be almost certainly forced to stop playing because eventually it just gets too bad. Which literally doesn't happen, or at least it happens very rarely. Sure, some drift to other systems, but some also return after drifting. To add some of MY anecdotal "evidence", we are a group of almost grognards (between one and two decades of gaming) and we tried PF2e. It just didn't click. It does a lot of stuff better than 5e, but some of the stuff it does worse, some much worse. So here we are, back on 5e. To get back to my point, D&D is quality fast food. Is it the best food you have ever eaten? No. But it won't kill you, and most of the time it won't leave you unsatisfied either. Add history, nostalgia and brand recognition and everything becomes clear.
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DM for life by choice, biggest fan of D&D specifically.
There's such a thing as taking an analogy too far.
The comparison is that it's popular because it's ubiquitous. Like McDonalds, it's good enough. In an objective ranking, it's probably high on the list. It's just not as good as its popularity would suggest - it's mostly number one because it's been the face of TTRPGs for decades, rather than being the best. It's bland enough to appeal to most people without being boring. You know there's probably a better restaurant around here somewhere...but you know that McDonalds won't give you the runs afterwards. That Chinese down the road may well be better tasting and cheaper...but at least one person is likely to dislike Chinese, but everyone can eat MaccieDs. You can always find the golden arches, you may never find a Chinese, Indian or a chippie.
There are a lot of parallels between D&D and McDonalds. I think that it's a little unfair in some ways. As I mentioned in my response to the OP, D&D does complex combat very well. It does distinction between character archetypes very well. That's not a McDonalds kind of thing, to have specific qualities that they do well. However, for broad brush strokes? Yes, there are certainly parallels to be made.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
D&D is/was an outgrowth of the war gaming community back in the 70’s that community was (and is) a fairly small community. By opening it up to both fantasy characters and role play it created a new audience. Those early games weren’t perfect but what they were was “ good enough” - they were fun to play, easy enough to learn and open to a lot of different types in game experiences. This brought in a much larger crowd of players ( me included). That gave it a name known by everyone not just the players. That early “demon and devil worshipping “ publicity was actually a big part of that. So for all its nonsense it was actually good for the game in the long run. Many of those early, quirky, rules have dropped or modified for various reasons but the basic “ good enough” to be fun and easy stayed. It became the gateway to a wider world of game play. Because it’s “good enough for just about any fantasy it has stayed as the gateway. No it’s not perfect but it is “good enough” to be fun and that means that for experts and casual players alike it remains a part of their gaming life so the game as a whole keeps growing. Are other games “better”? Maybe, in their own areas yes but as an overall general purpose game no. Over my 40+ years of gaming I’ve played a lot of different games and enjoyed most of them but none have replaced it as the core of my gaming life.
Now, for all those trying to tell him how to do his research, please go back and reread that original post. He heard your comments and edited the post - you might want to read that edit.
It is a system that with the right knowledge can be hacked into being able to tell almost any story. The setting even when presented as medieval fantasy, is a kitchen sink setting with sci-fi elements appearing rather early and cropping up every so often. There was a certain religiously motivated moral panic that thrust it into public conscious and the infamy it gained turned to fame when people figured out what the game really was, cementing it in the public eye as THE tabletop role playing game, even when there were others. The fanbase is creative, diverse, and adds so much flair and flavor that it draws in new people. For a long time it was one of the few refuges and outlets for those that were normally shunned, and through some INTENSE internal struggles that has expanded to be true for almost every shunned or marginalized group.
there are many many factors to it being the juggernaut it has become, and just saying it is one thing isn't in my opinion fully accurate.
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He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player. The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call To rise up in triumph should we all unite The spark for change is yours to ignite." Kalandra - The State of the World
It took me really thinking about it to realize that I have tried quite a few different RPG systems over the years (I added about 4 to the list below after writing said list the first time...); the vast majority of the non-DnD ones quite early on, too.
In fact, my first RPG was MERP. The crunchiness actually appealed to my young mind (I spent way too long looking at those crit tables). After that it was Start Frontiers. Only after those two was I introduced to DnD (ADnD 2e). Around that time we also played Palladium (and Rifts), Feng Shui, Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Dark Ages, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and several zero rules stories made entirely by my friend. A little more recently, we dabbled in Reign, Dark Heresy, Riddle of Steel, The One Ring, Shadowrun, Tales of Xadia (for my daughter), and Legend of the Five Rings while playing several games in 3.5e and 4e. I'm currently in a 5e campaign and would love to run one sometime.
What keeps me coming back to DnD is kind of hard to put into words, or perhaps it's just a lot of small things: - It seems more setting agnostic than many other systems. - It's popularity means that you can find a nearly infinite number of accessories, homebrews, and commentary on it (this is the "it's popular because it's popular" line). - I like it's take on dragons and the "standard" cosmology allowing you to go in so many different directions, as your campaign requires. - The rules seem simultaneously tight and malleable. - It's responsive to changing mode-of-play (some consider this a negative, for sure).
On that last point... I enjoyed 2e and 3.5e for the same crunchiness that MERP had, but as I've gotten older, I've grown to appreciate a lighter system that still has the capacity to house more crunchiness within its walls with homebrew fairly seamlessly. I did not actually enjoy 4e very much, but that was more due to it feeling like an MMORPG in how they designed the classes and abilities. I think 5e has hit a sweet spot, at least for now.
Hello! I am writing a research report for a class on dungeons and dragons, and figured D&DBeyond forums might be a good place to go for discussion and other peoples opinions, so here's my question.
What makes D&D great and what makes it better/different from other TTRPGs?
Edit: I know the question I have asked is subjective, but the true prompt I have to answer is "Why is D&D so popular" I just worded my question that way so I can get more of the positives, because I've already done research on the negatives
Reach, history, and gameplay.
D&D has the longest history/pedigree of any tabletop RPG still in modern vogue. Much of the foundation of modern fantasy gaming is based on D&D, and D&D itself is based on the progenitor of the modern fantasy genre as we know it. This means the characters, ideas, tropes, and rules of D&D are readily recognizable to many players in a way more esoteric games trying to "break away from D&D's shadow" fail to manage. The game has the broadest market share by a grand ****billion, and furthermore it is a game. There are rules, there is obviously a character-building system in place, and there's the promise of sweet gameplay inamidst the storytelling.
This is also something many modern games forget/fail to live up to when trying to break away from D&D's mold - they see how combat in D&D slows the game down and hear the complaints of players who feel like D&D combat is this whole other separate game they don't like buried in their Rules Lite Narrative Experience, so they seek out a game with no combat rules. These games never really take off, go anywhere, or end up competing with D&D in a meaningful way because they don't do anything you can't do by just sitting around BSing with your friends without a hundred-dollar "rulebook." Games like Overlight, Genesys, Daggerheart, and the rest are so determined to "speed up fighting so you can get back to the real story!" that they throw out the baby with the bathwater and lose the engaging gameplay that makes learning a ruleset worth doing over just playing freeform.
D&D manages to sit in what is generally held to be a sweet spot between narrative storytelling richness and engaging mechanical crunch and gameplay that very few other games manage to sit in, and the fact that D&D's history and reach means it's synonymous with "Roleplaying" to most people means it's usually the first system a new tabletop group learns. It is also often the last, because switching systems sucks and most people hate it.
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Most research reports do not begin with the researcher knowing the conclusion. You should watch the opening scene from Sorkin's The Newsroom for an analogy to your statement. It is all over YouTube. You want am opinion? It is probably contrary to what you are hoping for. D&D is no longer great. and it is not better than other TTRPG's. It sure used to be. But there has been a marked, dramatic decline in its quality for a long long time.
Modern D&D excels at nothing, but tries to be everything to everyone. That is a path to mediocrity.
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ModeratorIn what ways would you want to know? A lot of TTRPGs, simply due to its age and influence, either take inspiration from it, or attempt to differ themselves from it. If you're familiar with the site TV Tropes it's arguable if it's the Ur Example of a TTRPG, but it's the Trope Maker of it for sure. You will get lots of differing opinions on if it's even great and if it is, what makes it so. Some people love how you can go straight combat with it, others love how you can RP hard without needing combat at all. Ultimately, the people who play and enjoy it are what makes it so great.
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You are presuming a subjective opinion - that "D&D is great" - and looking for data to back up that opinion. That makes for bad research in two fundamental ways. First, it biases your opinion and makes it so you are less likely to consider other opinions, which taints your perspective on the research itself. Second, it causes you to frame questions in a way that elicit biased responses, as opposed to more honest answers. Neither of those form a solid foundation for a project.
You can slightly modify your question to be based in an objective fact and then build from there - "Why is D&D the largest TTRPG?" "How has D&D managed to remain popular after 50 years?" "What factors have led to the modern popularity of D&D?" Those lines of inquiry get to some of the fundamental questions you are asking in your opening post, but they do so in a way that introduces less bias through the framing and methodology.
What makes it different:
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Ooh! That's a great question. I'm gonna have to take some time to let this one marinate before I answer, because I have to go somewhere in an hour and I'm not sure I can do the question justice before then. I'll get back to you. I'm just typing this so I don't forget.
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
To contradict what a couple others have said: If the report is meant to be from a certain perspective and present that as the author's opinion (rather than being objectively factual) then your topic is just fine.
You've received a few good answers. While I don't have a ton of experience with older editions, I'd perhaps suggesting looking into a timetable of D&D's history (the various editions, a few major competitors, etc) and see what it's done over the years to build up to what we have today.
It's not better than other TTRPGs. It's just older, more well known and has the largest player base and is the entry point for most people wanting to play these TTRPGs.
It's full of problems, but because the user base is large, one can generally find help quite easily.
Serious players that learn D&D in depth, will discover the flaws and seek out other TTRPGs that handle their particular needs better.
Being a challenge to find players and DMs to run a D&D game, it's that much more difficult to find people to play less well known TTRPGs.
What makes D&D great is that you play it with your friends or with people who can grow into your friends through play. The same could be said of other TTRPGs but not of most games. Most games emphasize adversarial relationships that set up an impediment to forming social bonds. The class system helps to emphasize teamwork, so D&D is (arguably) better suited to this meta-goal than other TTRPGs.
Let me give you an example. A few years back, I started a game in a comic book store with complete strangers. Our characters did not gel immediately, and though in some sessions we were near conflict, a history developed of the kinds of disagreements our characters would have--on theism, on which goals were worthy, on which enemies were redeemable. By the end, our characters would have died for each other, and the players were inviting each other to weddings. That's what makes D&D great.
This pretty perfectly puts into words why I love TTRPGS (99% of the time I play D&D 5e but I think for me the "what makes it great" applies to the whole industry) As eapiv says it's a social activity in a world that increasingly favours isolation. I've also started playing with a group of randoms in a game store and yes, I'm also now invited to the wedding of two of them. But further to this point I also run a lot of games for teenagers, I've got a regular group of 12-16 year olds and a regular group of 15-19 year olds at the local library, and it gives them a incredible opportunity to learn about the world and themselves in a safe environment with an adult willing to support them. Over the last few years we've had discussions on politics, religion, and morality in ways that they'd not get in any other way. They get a chance to figure out who they are by trying different characters, different life experiences, or different genders, in safe environments and as a result also get to develop the empathy of having to think like other people and support their friends as they learn who they are. I've seen one player on the autism spectrum go from virtually non-verbal around strangers to delivering entire improv speeches in character, another overcome crippling anxiety to try their hand DMing and knock it out the park, and at all points they've learnt to make friends with people of different ages they'd probably never meet at any other time.
I would argue that Dungeons and Dragons is to Table Top Role-Playing games what McDonalds is to food.
It's the most widely known, it's familiar, lots of people go there and you can find it on every corner. When you enter the world of TTRPG's finding someone that plays D&D is easy, finding someone that plays, pretty much anything else, is always going to be a lot tougher.
That doesn't make it the best, doesn't even make it great, it just makes it the most common.
If you play TTRPG's outside of D&D the most blatent and most obvious thing that you discover is that pretty much every RPG out there is an objectively better game than D&D. Its not even really a contest. But playing D&D as a role-player and member of the TTRPG community is sort of like playing Monopoly when you first start playing board games. It doesn't actually make you a board gamer per say, it means you took the first step into a much wider world which once you explore, you will probobly never play Monopoly again .. except when you are dealing with other novices, than suddenly your moving a shoe around on a board again and collecting rent.
In the same token, its nostalgia. You come back to D&D because it was your first experience and there is a sort of attachment to that which never really lets go. No matter how long I have played D&D, I'm always conscious of the fact that there are so many, far better games out there.. but you still kind of come back to it anyway.
That .. in a nutshell, is D&D. Does that make it great?
To be fair, we don't actually know anything about the nature of their "research" report. Perhaps they will post another thread later discussing "what makes D&D bad, not unique, etc". Perhaps their research is actually regarding "The effects of positive framing in web-based, game-specific online anonymous fan forums". They also never started with the premise that it is great, only asked what, in people's opinions, might make it great. To be fair the framing of the question instills a lot of bias to the responses, but I'm guessing this is more of a "research" paper in which they are focused on the topic of D&D and might be writing about the history of the game, the founder, potential controversies, D&D through the years, etc with references, and so they might have a section titled "Player perception on D&D." I think in general there's just too many things this "research" paper might be to automatically say they are doing it wrong.
At the gaming cafe I frequent, the pattern is very well-established.
Players new to the TTRPG scene, who only have heard of the McDonalds of TTRPG's, want to play it. Typically, if they stick with the hobby, within a year, they have moved on to another TTRPG system. I personally run a 5e game for new players at the gaming cafe, but I also run a Shadowdark game, and play in a Pathfinder 2e game there. 5e and 6e are most definitely less than half of all the tables that run there on a regular basis, and that number shrinks more every month. And that is a good thing.
This thread isn't about Other Stuff Exists.
This thread is about positives.
For the matter of evidence...Anecdotal evidence isn't empirical. So discard it during a research paper.
Remember to put aside biases, too. A lot of people here are biased in a way that is no help for a research paper, & it's obvious who is.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
You have a ton of very good, analytical answers already, so I think you are good to go. I just have to object to the "D&D is McDonalds" metaphor. A diet consisting of pure McDonalds will literally kill you. In D&D terms it would mean you would be almost certainly forced to stop playing because eventually it just gets too bad. Which literally doesn't happen, or at least it happens very rarely. Sure, some drift to other systems, but some also return after drifting. To add some of MY anecdotal "evidence", we are a group of almost grognards (between one and two decades of gaming) and we tried PF2e. It just didn't click. It does a lot of stuff better than 5e, but some of the stuff it does worse, some much worse. So here we are, back on 5e. To get back to my point, D&D is quality fast food. Is it the best food you have ever eaten? No. But it won't kill you, and most of the time it won't leave you unsatisfied either. Add history, nostalgia and brand recognition and everything becomes clear.
DM for life by choice, biggest fan of D&D specifically.
There's such a thing as taking an analogy too far.
The comparison is that it's popular because it's ubiquitous. Like McDonalds, it's good enough. In an objective ranking, it's probably high on the list. It's just not as good as its popularity would suggest - it's mostly number one because it's been the face of TTRPGs for decades, rather than being the best. It's bland enough to appeal to most people without being boring. You know there's probably a better restaurant around here somewhere...but you know that McDonalds won't give you the runs afterwards. That Chinese down the road may well be better tasting and cheaper...but at least one person is likely to dislike Chinese, but everyone can eat MaccieDs. You can always find the golden arches, you may never find a Chinese, Indian or a chippie.
There are a lot of parallels between D&D and McDonalds. I think that it's a little unfair in some ways. As I mentioned in my response to the OP, D&D does complex combat very well. It does distinction between character archetypes very well. That's not a McDonalds kind of thing, to have specific qualities that they do well. However, for broad brush strokes? Yes, there are certainly parallels to be made.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
D&D is/was an outgrowth of the war gaming community back in the 70’s that community was (and is) a fairly small community. By opening it up to both fantasy characters and role play it created a new audience. Those early games weren’t perfect but what they were was “ good enough” - they were fun to play, easy enough to learn and open to a lot of different types in game experiences. This brought in a much larger crowd of players ( me included). That gave it a name known by everyone not just the players. That early “demon and devil worshipping “ publicity was actually a big part of that. So for all its nonsense it was actually good for the game in the long run. Many of those early, quirky, rules have dropped or modified for various reasons but the basic “ good enough” to be fun and easy stayed. It became the gateway to a wider world of game play. Because it’s “good enough for just about any fantasy it has stayed as the gateway. No it’s not perfect but it is “good enough” to be fun and that means that for experts and casual players alike it remains a part of their gaming life so the game as a whole keeps growing. Are other games “better”? Maybe, in their own areas yes but as an overall general purpose game no. Over my 40+ years of gaming I’ve played a lot of different games and enjoyed most of them but none have replaced it as the core of my gaming life.
Now, for all those trying to tell him how to do his research, please go back and reread that original post. He heard your comments and edited the post - you might want to read that edit.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
It is a system that with the right knowledge can be hacked into being able to tell almost any story.
The setting even when presented as medieval fantasy, is a kitchen sink setting with sci-fi elements appearing rather early and cropping up every so often.
There was a certain religiously motivated moral panic that thrust it into public conscious and the infamy it gained turned to fame when people figured out what the game really was, cementing it in the public eye as THE tabletop role playing game, even when there were others.
The fanbase is creative, diverse, and adds so much flair and flavor that it draws in new people.
For a long time it was one of the few refuges and outlets for those that were normally shunned, and through some INTENSE internal struggles that has expanded to be true for almost every shunned or marginalized group.
there are many many factors to it being the juggernaut it has become, and just saying it is one thing isn't in my opinion fully accurate.
He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player.
The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call
To rise up in triumph should we all unite
The spark for change is yours to ignite."
Kalandra - The State of the World
It took me really thinking about it to realize that I have tried quite a few different RPG systems over the years (I added about 4 to the list below after writing said list the first time...); the vast majority of the non-DnD ones quite early on, too.
In fact, my first RPG was MERP. The crunchiness actually appealed to my young mind (I spent way too long looking at those crit tables). After that it was Start Frontiers. Only after those two was I introduced to DnD (ADnD 2e). Around that time we also played Palladium (and Rifts), Feng Shui, Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Dark Ages, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and several zero rules stories made entirely by my friend. A little more recently, we dabbled in Reign, Dark Heresy, Riddle of Steel, The One Ring, Shadowrun, Tales of Xadia (for my daughter), and Legend of the Five Rings while playing several games in 3.5e and 4e. I'm currently in a 5e campaign and would love to run one sometime.
What keeps me coming back to DnD is kind of hard to put into words, or perhaps it's just a lot of small things:
- It seems more setting agnostic than many other systems.
- It's popularity means that you can find a nearly infinite number of accessories, homebrews, and commentary on it (this is the "it's popular because it's popular" line).
- I like it's take on dragons and the "standard" cosmology allowing you to go in so many different directions, as your campaign requires.
- The rules seem simultaneously tight and malleable.
- It's responsive to changing mode-of-play (some consider this a negative, for sure).
On that last point... I enjoyed 2e and 3.5e for the same crunchiness that MERP had, but as I've gotten older, I've grown to appreciate a lighter system that still has the capacity to house more crunchiness within its walls with homebrew fairly seamlessly. I did not actually enjoy 4e very much, but that was more due to it feeling like an MMORPG in how they designed the classes and abilities. I think 5e has hit a sweet spot, at least for now.