I found D&D to be really popular in the Canadian North lately, like people you'd never expect to be into it who aren't really a huge part of wider culture around fantasy games and stuff like that until around when Game of Thrones came out, super into the game because it's pretty much a great thing to do when you're stuck inside for most of the year.
It's fun. I play maybe like once a year though I look forward to that all the time.
The latest 5th edition deserves a lot of credit for this. They did a fantastic job. It’s easy to learn, easy to run and you can do a lot with it. I’ve been a tabletop RPG player since the early 80s and never really got on with D&D, but 5th edition is a lot of fun. It not my favourite game by far, but it deserves its success.
Stranger Things and Critical Role also played a part in growing the player base, I think. At least in my current group Stranger Things helped motivate people to start playing.
I was taking to a friend about this, Stranger Things and Critical Role, bought a lot of new players to D&D, meanwhile WoTC isn't doing half as much, they could be doing an animated series, to explore the settings.
They are making a live-action movie, it isn't the first, but this one has a bigger budget.
I really think an animated series with some of their more popular novelized campaigns and characters is the way to go to seek out mass appeal. I'd love if they followed Critical Role's lead and signed with a streaming service for an easy-to-pitch series like Drizzt's life or (my preference) the Companions of the Hall.
Live action can be great, but often times fantasy settings can completely fail in how they're translated to the big screen (See: the WarCraft movie).
CRPG video games are also having a bit of a renaissance right now.
Between Obsidian (Pillars of Eternity), Larian (Divinity Original Sin, Baldurs Gate 3), and Owlcat (Pathfinder WOTR) it's a good time to be a CRPG fan and the genre seems quite popular.
It's fun. I play maybe like once a year though I look forward to that all the time.