When I was a kid, being into RPGs in Brazil was almost a lonely job. Nearly everything came in English, you hunted for material at newsstands and secondhand shops, and explaining to someone what it even was tied you in knots. My brother's gamebooks, in Portuguese, were my way in precisely because almost nothing else was in our language. Today I look around and barely recognize the landscape: RPGs became a craze, they're on streaming, in friend groups, in the shops. If you've felt that shift in the air, it's worth understanding what happened.
Why did RPGs explode in Brazil?
Because of a rare combination of four forces that hit almost at the same time: a giant Brazilian phenomenon, global pop culture, the pandemic, and rules that got easier to learn. The phenomenon was Ordem Paranormal, led by Cellbit, which brought crowds into the hobby. The pop culture came from Stranger Things, the show Critical Role, and the game Baldur's Gate 3, which made RPGs fashionable. The pandemic pushed a lot of people to look for ways to play at a distance. And the rules, once intimidating, became inviting. It's worth looking at them force by force.
The Brazilian phenomenon: Ordem Paranormal
There's no talking about RPGs in Brazil without talking about Ordem Paranormal. What started in 2020 as a horror story narrated by streamer Cellbit for a few friends, broadcast live, became one of the biggest tabletop RPG phenomena the country has ever seen. Campaigns like Ordem Paranormal itself and O Segredo na Floresta created a legion of new players, people who had never gone near a character sheet and were suddenly rolling dice. The universe grew so much that it got its own rules system, published by Jambô, along with comics, a game, and a soundtrack. It was the national push that had been missing.
The global wave broke here too
Meanwhile, abroad, RPGs were living their biggest moment in decades, and the wave reached Brazil. The series Stranger Things put an RPG table at the center of pop culture and introduced the hobby to millions. Shows of people playing live, like Critical Role, proved how thrilling it could be to watch. More recently, cinema brought D&D to the big screen with the 2023 film Honor Among Thieves, while Baldur's Gate 3 translated all of it into a video game to resounding success. Add the pandemic, which sent people looking for ways to play at a distance, many moving to virtual tabletops in the browser, and the result was a leap so big that 2020 became the best year in the history of Dungeons & Dragons, with sales rising about 33%.
An edition that opened the door
There was one more ingredient, quieter but decisive: the rules became welcoming. The 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons was designed to be simpler and more inviting than the ones before it, and the 2024 revision doubled down on that direction, lowering the barrier even further for newcomers. A hobby with a reputation for being complicated started saying "come on in, it's easier than you think." And people came in, in droves.
Why now is the best time to start
Here's the point that touches me most. It's never been as easy to start as it is now. There's material in Portuguese, there's more than enough community to answer your questions, there's content to watch and learn from, and the rules are friendlier than ever. That barrier that nearly kept me out when I was a boy, everything being in English with no one around to explain it, has all but collapsed. Anyone who's always been curious and never started is looking at the widest-open window there's ever been.
Where Mysteries & Perils comes in
And it's right in the middle of this wave that I wanted to place Mysteries & Perils, thinking of the person who feels the curiosity now and wants to take the first step without any hassle. It's an RPG gamebook in Portuguese, with the depth of the 2024 5th edition rules, that you play right in your browser, with no need to gather a group, set a time, or install anything. For anyone who watched everyone having fun with RPGs and thought "I'd love to try it, but I don't know where to start," it's a tailor-made way in that fits into any given night.
Brazil has finally embraced RPGs, and this is the most inviting moment of all to take the first step. If curiosity has struck, join the waitlist and come start with us.
By Mario, creator of Mysteries & Perils, a Baldur's Gate 1 fan raised on gamebooks.
Sources and further reading
- Ordem Paranormal, o RPG de mesa do Cellbit (Ordem Paranormal Wiki)
- "O Segredo na Floresta" e o surgimento de novos jogadores no Brasil (Utopista)
- Ordem Paranormal: o RPG brasileiro que uniu gerações (PUCRS / Lab de Jornalismo)
- 50 years on, Dungeons & Dragons is still a gaming staple: what's behind its success (The Conversation)
- D&D's popularity paves the path for entrepreneurs (The Hustle)
