There was the grand swan song of Diablo edition, but then Shrooms edition, “Maybe Hurr But Also Durr” edition, then the great “One Duh&Duh, One World, One People, One Government, One Wikipedia” nothingburger… and then “dndgate” (successfully spammed over).

The silly thing by now is pretty much dead, and its corpse in excessive make-up is dragged along by…

comedians, actors and podcasters playing the game for other people to watch…

…YoTubby “celebrities” and other desperate shills.

Fans of D&D started recording their games in the early 2000s, but actual play didn’t pick up as a genre until around a decade later.

In other words: as a natural phenomenon it proved almost non-existent, even despite being a decent-looking outlet for the usual blagger/vtuber narcissism.

But then it managed to take off as an astroturf performance brought to you by Hasbro, once the market droids found out a decade too late that “them kids are into some thing, we must have this thing too”.