Dungeons & Dragons In Popular Culture
Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a fantasy role-playing game that was first published in 1974. As the popularity of the game grew throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, it became more frequently referenced in popular culture. The complement of games, films and cultural references based on D&D or D&D-like fantasies, characters, and adventures has been ubiquitous since the end of the 1970s.
D&D, and tabletop role-playing games in general, have exerted a deep and persistent impact on the development of all types of video games, from "first-person shooters to real-time strategy games and massively multiplayer online games", which in turn play a significant and ongoing role in modern popular culture. In high-tech culture, the term "dungeon" has since come to mean a virtual location where people could meet and collaborate. Hence, multi-user dungeons emerged as a social virtual reality. By creating a means for players to assemble and explore an imagined world, the D&D rules provided a transition from fantasy literary settings, such as those of author J. R. R. Tolkien, to fully virtual worlds.
Among the public figures who have played D&D are comedian Stephen Colbert, musician Moby, and actors Vin Diesel, Matthew Lillard, Mike Myers, Patton Oswalt, Wil Wheaton, and Robin Williams.
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Hermann and Humbert are alike only in the sense that two dragons painted by the same artist at different periods of his life resemble each other. Both are neurotic scoundrels, yet there is a green lane in Paradise where Humbert is permitted to wander at dusk once a year; but Hell shall never parole Hermann.”
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—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“The genius of American culture and its integrity comes from fidelity to the light. Plain as day, we say. Happy as the day is long. Early to bed, early to rise. American virtues are daylight virtues: honesty, integrity, plain speech. We say yes when we mean yes and no when we mean no, and all else comes from the evil one. America presumes innocence and even the right to happiness.”
—Richard Rodriguez (b. 1944)