When I learned that Chris Pine, Regé-Jean Page, and Hugh Grant were starring in a movie together, I racked my brain for what possible overlap they could have. Pine is famous for his work in Star Trek and Wonder Woman. Page is of Bridgerton fame. Grant’s filmography is so extensive that he simply does not have a defining piece of work. A day later, the words “Dungeons and Dragons” flashed across my screen. The infamously awful (or campy, depending on who you ask) Dungeons and Dragons movie trilogy was getting a reboot. Honor Among Thieves comes to theater screens in March 2023 thanks to a resurgence in popularity of the game itself. 

Despite Dungeon and Dragons’ current mainstream appeal, this revival came after a dry spell of almost two decades of pop culture irrelevance. After its initial popularity in the 1970s and the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, DnD didn’t bring in as many new players as it once did. This gave a diverse set of other tabletop roleplaying games, or TTRPGS, the chance to grow and thrive in the 1990s, like Pathfinder, Vampire the Masquerade, the Blades in the Dark System, and Paranoia. They provided changes in genre, customization in play style, and most importantly, more options for the community. In the 2000s, Wizards of the Coast purchased and revived the DnD property. In 2014, they published the 5th edition of the game, its most popular version to date. 

The community surrounding TTRPGs has exponentially increased in the past decade, partially due to the plethora of options available and partially due to the media surrounding the hobby. TTRPG “actual play” Twitch streams, YouTube videos, and podcasts have made the activity accessible to a wider audience outside of the people actually playing the games. People who enjoy theatre, board games, or simply hanging out with their friends were introduced to TTRPGs as a way to do all those things simultaneously. And for people who already knew about tabletop games, actual play media incentivized and encouraged them to start playing themselves. 

My own personal interest in DnD, Vampire the Masquerade, Good Society, and the fantastic game Big Motherfucking Crab Truckers started with watching an actual play livestream, Critical Role. I’ve seen firsthand how it can build community, not only in fandom but within my own life. I play games of DnD with friends from high school, college, and a group of complete strangers on the internet who are now some of my closest friends. 

Over the course of the Tabletalk series, I’ll be able to bring my love of these amazing tools for connection and play to you. I’ll cover different tabletop games, actual play media, and hopefully, do an eventual review of Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (which will give me a great opportunity to talk about Chris Pine and Hugh Grant again).

I still have my reservations, as Hollywood adaptations of tabletop media don’t exactly have a stellar track record. However, at the end of the day, my hope is that Honor Among Thieves introduces more people to the magic and the community of tabletop. What more can a fan ask for?