2023 Should Have Been D&D’s Best Year, Until It Wasn’t
By James Whitbrook
Although it feels like it can be said every year recently, it’s hard to imagine a better year in terms of its influence than 2023 has been for Dungeons & Dragons. A movie, TV channels, a video game that has dominated the world, and of course a not-insignificant glimpse toward the game’s own future. But for all those highs, they are contrasted in lows that have nearly sundered all of that goodwill in the process.
Even since a combination of the rise of Actual Play and pandemic lockdowns bolstering a humongous surge in Dungeons & Dragons’ popularity, on the surface it’s hard to deny that 2023 has seen the TTRPG’s star ascend somehow even further. Still cresting the wave of Stranger Things’ fourth season making a nearly 50 year old lich one of the most infamous villains on TV (and Hellfire Club t-shirts a regular sight wherever you went), 2023 started strong with the release of Honor Among Thieves, the first big-budget D&D adaptation in 23 years. And while not barnstormer in terms of either critical or box office success, not only was it good enough—a remarkable success in and of itself, considering the cinematic legacy it was seeking to shake off—it’s seemingly only grown in cultural appraisal since its release. Jarnathan memes still go viral every other week, meaning, in spite of it all, somehow the Aarakocra have contemporary cultural cache.
