I played D&D a couple of times, but I much preferred GURPS. I have many fond memories of running campaigns using that incredible system.
I might add that Mike is a fantastic DM/GM, based on what little we see of his methods.

I played while in Jr High (as it was called back in the late 70/early 80). Very similar to the 4 guys there as we had one Dungeon Master and 3 players. It was fun and we passed many hours playing it. Very good representation by the movie makers.

Oh yeah! I was hooked on the show from the introduction of those kids playing it lol.
I started playing in 1980 at 9yrs old up to 1984 when I guess got more into reading - especially the Dragonlance Series. Started out using the modules then later my friends & I would design our own maps & stuff. I named my very first character Avatar after the character in the Ralph Bashki movie Wizards!
I collected the lead figures too, (Ral Partha) and got into painting them/creating little dioramas but we didn't use them during play.
A few of us would draw up our characters and draw scenes from campaigns too and I still have those ol' spiral bound notebooks with my drawings.
Still have the AD&D books and crystal dice in the lil soft carry bag too.
Loved the cartoon as well, always wanted more Tiamat though!

I'm 41 now. Played from 1990 to about 1998. The game saved my life. Not going into the long story but this game should be taught in schools. It gives kids a safe place to fail and be happy and social with like minded people/friends. I can't give DnD enough props.
I once had a pastor from my "fathers church" who was a good guy himself but was just clueless about stuff like this. He tried to convince me that I was worshiping false idols in the game and that the baby Jesus should be my lord and savior. I realized that he couldn't put two and two together and realize anything past his viewpoint.
Growing up in the 80s, we were really really spoiled as kids. We had Spielberg, Lucas, Zemeckis, John Williams and the wonder and unreal movies made in that time. And that fact that we were KIDS in that time, our wonder with that quality of moviesvery awesome to grow up then. Plus the advent of the internet and PC gaming. I think a show like these touches on who we are/were growing up back then. Which was beep awesome for most of us.
I am glad they captured that sense of wonder and good storytelling. Kinda reminiscent of the Spielberg show Amazing Stories.

Yes. Moved to other games as well. Made my own game/system. Played till I lost touch with a group of friends in our 30s.
One thing I did not like was that their campaigns took 10 hours. Sessions take 8, or 10 or 16 hours. But campaigns take weeks or months. Didn't like the conclusion of the game in the last episode, either. Maybe that's why their campaigns are short: the DM monologues in some cut scenes instead of having the players do everything.
And they were /nerds/. No one I played with did figures. They should have had some painted to various degrees since we have different artistic skills. A super close up of the lost kid's figure, pretty well painted, would have been cool during the first describing of the upside down scene.

Played it once, didn't like it
The Players of The Game are the scum of the earth.

GUILTY AS CHARGED! I live in Kazakhstan now, but I used to game with a bunch of adults as well. The rules have changed so much over the years. I still prefer the old 2nd edition rules from when I was a kid.

In my circles, the correct question is, "is there anybody watching this show that does not STILL play D&D or some other RPG?"
The answer is that I know dozens and dozens of middle aged roleplayers (including myself), who played then and play now, and frankly, given how huge geek culture is right now, I'm shocked this is a topic.
I'm betting more than half the people here who are claiming they "played once as a kid but never again" are lying their asses off, and still get a game in whenever possible.

I don't know about "geeky" (I hate that word) but we did play it as kids back in the late 80's. Was actually a pretty diverse group of us that played. Of course we would take breaks and play baseball, watch Skinemax, or play Coleco and Nintendo.
I also remember very well the Satan hysteria from back then surrounding the game. Some occult expert even came to our school to warn everyone about Satan and D&D, but the adults there ended up laughing him off the stage. Most of our parents never bought into that BS.

• or so the Germans would have us believe

Not only did I also play D&D in that era, but I have to think that the producers, at least, also did. The whole show is an homage to the 80's. They nailed it better than many films made in the 80's (I know, I was there.) But more than that, the entire series is chock-full of both 80's references and self-refertial humor.
There is the shot in episode 1 to 3 (sorry don't remember) that focuses in on a TrapperKeeper between the characters. It is like product placement 30 years later. The producers/directors have to be children of the 80's. That is just one of dozens of shots per episode. There is too much that they got right not to be children of the 80's. I could barely follow the plot of the first couple of episodes because I was enchanted by the backgrounds. Those were the furnishings/carpets/decor/etc. of my childhood. In episode 2 or 3 a shot shows a character in bed and I am sure I had the same sheet pattern shown in the shot.
I loved the show, but am completely biased to do so, and was possibly the target audience. It was nostalgic, covered many of the movie tropes of the time, resonated with D&D gaming, and included self-referential humor (for which I have a weakness).

Well, it was popular. They even made a sat morn cartoon based on it FFS
I bet people who watch this show also rode bikes, went to the arcade and the mall, had Star Was toys, watched cartoons on Saturday morning, were aware of Stephen King ..etc
When they get around to shoehorning A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy into the show, rest assured there are those that watch that read that too.
I Excel and Prevail

I played D&D and AD&D a lot in middle school in the early 90s.

Yeah, I totally did this as a kid. I was born in 1971 and was playing at the exact same time and age as the characters in the show. I also played with three of my friends from school and we are still friends! I was always the DM. Totally got the feels from the very beginning.

Played from about 88 to 92 - 2nd edition, though. Me and my 2 friends used to marathon friday night to sunday morning with about 2 cases of mountain dew and zero sleep. Good times, loved all the dorky stranger things inserts.
"I do not like mixing up moralities and mathematics."
Churchill

Age isn't an issue with D&D. I knew someone in his mid teens played with his friends until his mid 20s and eventually even his parent joined in. They'd quote movies lines, level up, fight huge monsters, play through neat stories, he'd have them doing all sorts of stuff and ended up being some of his best and memorable moments with his dad before his dad passed away. My friend was the DM.

A few friends and I started playing it last winter, as a sort of weekly get-together that didn't have to involve going outside and freezing. Our problem is that no one apart from the GM (or DM, whichever acronym you prefer) takes it even remotely seriously. But most of us are in our early 20s, so it could be that we waited too long to get into it.
Stranger Things has made me wish dearly that I'd discovered it sooner. As a Tolkien-obsessed kid, I'd have been incredibly into it. (And that might have translated to adulthood.) Plus, there's always something romantic about the old school system of any game that undergoes significant changes. And Stranger Things seems to have tapped into that aspect well - not that I have any frame of reference.

Totally gave me the feels. I played tons of D&D in the 80's. So very many wonderful memories.
I remember watching an episode of The Shmoo and his human friends were "playing" some "Dungeons and Dragons" even though it was just some sorta monster chess game. The idea and name intrigued me (or whatever the word is for intrigue times 100. Enchanted?) so a friend and I hopped on our beach cruisers and pedaled to the mall. Grabbed the D&D box off the shelf of a Waldens bookstore. Tore it open at home and we were like "huh?" We were mystified by the concept. Had no idea how to play at all.
One year later and we own all the books and are completely immersed into it. Other role playing games enter the cycle like Gamma World and Villains & Vigilantes but D&D ruled my 80's and even to a lesser extent the 90's.
I feel like most of the portrayals of D&D (including this show) are a little goofy and stupid. We were much more organized and serious. Little accountants.

Yeah. D&D was probably the biggest part of my life in my teenaged years.

Oh gosh so THAT'S where that crazy idea came from! I sort of heard about that, and the movie (somewhat) but I never understood the whole 'fear' behind D&D back then I really didn't hear much about D&D until around '84 or '85 maybe '86 I was either a teen or pre-teen, can't quite remember. But I had ONE friend who claimed he had a group of friends he played/hosted D&D with in his room and sometimes attic. In his attic was a real painted satanic circle thingy (forgot what it's called at the moment), but he CLAIMED it was already in the house attic's floor BEFORE his mom bought the house. Plus a different friend of mine, we played around on a Ouija board. We were stuck with this stupid thing called CZ who wouldn't leave the board (supposedly) and it loved my cat it claimed to have been living/from 345 and that where it was, was cold. I never played D&D and really didn't know what it was talking about, but a week later went and asked my D&D friend what it meant, and he opened his manual and explain there are (supposedly) so many levels of the demon world. He looked up level 345 and supposed it was a frozen plane. But all the D&D stuff is made up, and he wasn't even WITH me when my other friend and I were playing the Ouija thing. It didn't make much sense, but was eerily creepy all the same. I believe in ghosts and paranormal, but things from a Ouija board I just was very skeptical with until that time. Plus the blasted planchet thing was going SO fast, we couldn't keep up with it and would literally fly off the board sometimes
3rd generation American from a long line of Gottscheers it was Drandul, dude!

i played it a lot as a spud but moved on to other gaming stuff fairly early.
imo

Yep.
I definitely remember watching Mazes and Monsters too. Sad that someone's parents were so misinformed the forbid the game based on that.
I also recall some fundy Christian outcry against the game in the late 70s or early 80s because it had Satanist undertones. Of course, it also was an awesome aid against STDs and pregnancy, so there is an upside.
The reason my best friend's parents were cool about it was it forced you to do arithmetic, in your head or on paper. He was having trouble in math so they thought it might help him academically. Gygax should have used that as a marketing tool!
If you search the web, it's not too hard to find pdfs of the old manuals and many of the old modules it's fun reading through the stuff 30+ years later.
The Anne Sellors fan club: http://www.imdb.com/board/21856457/board/threads/

I knew some older kids who played it around in 1983 high school kids, when I was in middle school but my parents never let me play, due to the influence of a tv movie called "Mazes and Monsters"
http://www.imdb.com/board/10084314/?ref_=nv_sr_1
Tom Hanks stars as a kid who plays a fictional version of D&D, and he becomes schizophrenic his hallucinations lead him to believe the events of the game are real. He lives in tunnels under the city, believing they are a dungeon, and eventually tries to leap off the top of a building in an attempt to fly.
It was VERY loosely based on a real event of a depressed, drug addicted teenager who, offhandedly, played D&D who went into Michigan State's utility tunnels in order to try to commit suicide, and then went into hiding for several weeks; mainly over stress due to his drug-addition and schoolwork. He eventually turned himself in to a police detective. To conceal the kid's suicide attempt, the detective suggested that maybe the boy had simply gone into the tunnels to play a live-action version of D&D.
The claim sparked a ridiculous media frenzy over how role-playing games could supposedly cause dangerous psychological effects.
Naturally, my parents heard "based on a true story" and assumed the whole movie was true, and that D&D would drive me insane so, they banned me from playing the game. I did play it a lot in college, but that wasn't until after 1988 or '89. Far as I know, it didn't make me go insane.
Sometimes fires don't go out when you're done playin' with them.

The only person I knew that did was a cousin of mine who lived in a large city - I lived in a small town. I did play it with him at his cottage and had a lot of fun doing so. I heard of friends of friends in my town did play, though. I was more into movies, swimming, video games, arcades, toys, playing outside, fishing, building fortes, and shooting my bb gun.