No. What people THINK is nerd culture is mainstream culture.
Shows like 'the big bang theory' are mainstream and have such a 'hello fellow kids' vibe it makes my skin crawl.
The other day I saw a massive guy at my gym lifting weights in a D20 shirt and another guy with a 40K Chaos Star tattoo.
Nerd culture is mainstream culture.
Lol how is that proof of anything? 40K is still very obscure for most people. If they have heard of it at all chances are they will only know its 'that one grimdark setting'. Or heck it could be a player. 1 example doesent mean everyone knows about it. 40k as a whole is not widely known.
I will concede though that since critical role rose to popularity dnd has gotten alot more popular. But to play something you have to abide by the rules (either written or unwritten) tied to it. Groups can have house rules ofcourse. But each group that plays chess, will generally be playing chess. But nowadays hobby tourists (people who play something because its currently popular. Not really because they like it but for a fear of missing out) tend to want to play chess... but their way.
Same with dnd tbh. So many people saw critical role and suddenly wanted to play. But rather then play the actual game they think method acting is dnd. Uhm... no?
The cast of critical role are professional voice actors and like to rp their character alot. But they also tend to follow the rules. Thats also not the only 'correct' way.
Some people have little to no rp at all in their game and just want to kill monsters and take loot with their friends. Others have a mix. But a group that only RP's is generally very rare. Because you can do that without dnd. You dont need to play dnd to do that. But alot of people (mostly the ones who only saw critical role) will straight up tell you youre not playing dnd because you arent doing it like Mathew Mercer and co are doing it.
These people never picked up a rulebook or dmed anything want to tell me how dnd is played because they watched popular people play it. Gtfo with this nonesense.
Im looking forward to hearing how im playing dnd wrong because I dont do it like Larian.
