The Guardian, The New York Times, VentureBeat, and Polygon all highlighted that Rivals of Waterdeep is part of the trend of actual play shows re-popularizing Dungeons & Dragons and that the show is notable for a cast "made up predominantly of women and people of color". G.L. van Os, in an essay in the book Watch Us Roll (2021), wrote that "voices from minorities will have to be sought out and lifted up, in order to create a more diverse playing field within actual play. Fortunately, there are several diverse actual play shows out there already, such as Rivals of Waterdeep and Dames and Dragons, they just have not received as much attention as Critical Role and The Adventure Zone yet". Amanda Farough, for VentureBeat, also highlighted that "Wizards of the Coast has been able to put a finer point on the impact of actual play shows on its brand awareness and sales. While the company wasn't willing to share its impression numbers, in 2019, live show viewership increased 49%. Of its total views, 15% are during live broadcasts (mostly represented by Twitch), with the remainder coming from video on demand on YouTube".
