You ever just realize everything about something you love changed when you weren’t paying attention? It’s happened to me twice when it comes to tabletop Roleplaying Games.
In 2014 Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition released to the public and took the ttrpg space by storm. It was a throwback, self-referential, nostalgic game that built on every edition that came before it, but what made it stick was the gameplay was really good. Simple enough, easy to understand, enough complexity to keep that crowd interested, but with a flexible core set of mechanics that let the people playing the game really play.
People loved that game, and all the stuff around it (Stranger Things, Critical Role). But it wasn’t until 2016 when I was sitting in a theater watching Acquisitions Incorporated via Fathom events, and that theater had a lot of people in it, that I realized things had changed. A lot of people were into D&D, and it only grew from there.
Now let’s fast forward to 2025.
D&D has had some rough years under WotC. OGL stuff, AI controversy, quality of products released, a movie that was really good but didn’t make enough money at the box office, some cancelled video games, TV shows that never got out of preproduction, and a failed 3D virtual Tabletop.
In that time we’ve had a number of companies developing games that are now releasing. The three most impactful ones, in my opinion, are Draw Steel, The Cosmere RPG, and Daggerheart. They’re all fantasy-based RPGs similar in some ways to D&D but differing in mechanics and playstyle – but more importantly, they all have fairly prominent media personas associated with them.
Matt Colville is synonymous with learning how to GM from his running the game videos on YouTube. Brandon Sanderson is one of the most famous fantasy authors…yeah, just one of the most famous fantasy authors. And then there’s the Critical Role crew and their presence covering comic books, novels, board games, roleplaying games, story games, video games, animated shows where they’re voice actors and writers, actors in film in TV, the most popular actual play around, and three seasons of a highly regarded animated TV show where they portray the characters from their actual play. I’m sure I’m forgetting some things.
Now I’m a Sanderson fan and $12 million on Kickstarter is pretty intense. I also enjoy me some Colville, plus Draw Steel and what James Introcaso and that team put together is a lot of fun. I also quite enjoyed Age of Umbra, it was a dark good old time. Plus, Darrington Press can’t seem to keep Daggerheart on the shelves. All that is impressive and interesting and a push towards changing the landscape of the TTRPG space, but it was GenCon 2025 that made me realize that things had changed again in the form of The Daggerheart Showcase and Critical Role Direct.
I’m a nerd. I love watching the panels and presentations from San Diego ComiCon. They have an energy about them, a presence that gets you excited. Something that just gives you that spark of excitement for what’s coming out next from Marvel, DC, or a project you weren’t even expecting. It fires the imagination and creates anticipation.
The Critical Role crew brought that feeling to GenCon.
Entertaining, funny, informative, spectacle, excitement, anticipation – those are the words I would use to describe it, and it’s the closest I’ve come to the feeling I had when watching Acquisitions Incorporated in 2016. But the difference is, it had nothing to do with D&D.
So yeah, I think we’re living in the midst of the RPG Revolution as a couple of guys who Master some Dungeons said. And no, I don’t think D&D is going away. I just think that over the next four or five years Critical Role and Darrington Press will be sharing the throne with D&D and WotC when it comes to TTRPGs and TTRPG-related media and games. I guess that’s a hot take. Take it for what you will. Or ignore it. I’ll figure out if I was right in a few years. Either way I’ll have a bunch of fun games to play in the meantime. Speaking of fun games, where’s Arkham Herald…
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