Mainstream

According to this news article, Role Playing Games have become socially acceptable behaviour, no longer the sole preserve (soul preservative?) of 'geeks' and other social misfits.  This is reflected in the growth, popularity and commercialisation of such practices as cosplay and comic art, recreationists, and its standard's use as a trope (?) in pop culture icons such as 'Stranger Things'.

Fair enough, just goes to show it means something to everyone.

Also mentioned is a Wizard of the Coast employee stating in 2016 that sales of the latest edition of the AD&D Players Handbook had tripled all previous iterations.  If it's profitable, it must be good.  Right?

Digital and communications technologies now provide enhancements of the experience and facilitate the spread of the game into the broader population.  In some ways this works contra to the Wizard of the Coast definition of 'good' (ie. removing the need to buy expensive books and have a maths degree to go dungeon crawling).  On both fronts, a good thing.

Finally, the article draws reference to the growth of grrrrl power and other demographic changes in the population of RPGers.  On reflection, all but one of my RPG groups over the decades had at least one regular female player (and in defence of my first group, at 13 years old we didn't know many girls except for my annoying 11 year old sister).  I'm pretty sure that in those days no one over twenty in Adelaide had even heard of the concept.  I have since played RPGs with younger generations, so that's changed, but I do wonder how many female DMs there are?

All in all, an interesting opportunity to reflect on what's changed and what's not.  I bet first time adventurers still get into a bar fight in their first town.