# Fantasy Grounds Top RPGs (Last 12 Months)



## Nylanfs (Oct 6, 2019)

Yay, #graphporn


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## darjr (Oct 6, 2019)

Savage Worlds seems like such a sleeper hit nowadays.


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## dave2008 (Oct 6, 2019)

Hmmm.  I don't know what MoreCore is, but isn't it technically 6th place (17936) over PF2e (16,149)?  I say technically because it is only a month or so before that changes I'm sure.

PS. Thank you as always for sharing!


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## dave2008 (Oct 6, 2019)

Also, is there official support for PF2e for Fantasy Grounds yet or is this all used input at this point?


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## Morrus (Oct 6, 2019)

dave2008 said:


> Hmmm.  I don't know what MoreCore is



I tell you what it is in the post.


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## Dragonbait (Oct 6, 2019)

Interesting that Cypher system had some big numbers then dropped off significantly, if I'm reading this correctly


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## Morrus (Oct 6, 2019)

Dragonbait said:


> Interesting that Cypher system had some big numbers then dropped off significantly, if I'm reading this correctly



3287 last year, 3601. It’s increased, not dropped off.

Had an interesting spike last Christmas. A big release?


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## dave2008 (Oct 6, 2019)

Morrus said:


> I tell you what it is in the post.



Sorry - I missed that! And thank you for clarifying.  PF2e is 6th after all (and sure to move up)!


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## ENWorldUser (Oct 7, 2019)

Would like to see BECMI stats if FG supported that.


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## Reynard (Oct 7, 2019)

Morfiedev said:


> Would like to see BECMI stats if FG supported that.



It does sell "D&D classic" which seems to be AD&D 2E rulebooks with a mix of modules and supplements from different pre-3E versions of the game


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## Sunsword (Oct 7, 2019)

What is "SFRPG"? I simply can't place it.


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## Morrus (Oct 7, 2019)

Sunsword said:


> What is "SFRPG"? I simply can't place it.



Starfinder.


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## lowkey13 (Oct 7, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## Parmandur (Oct 7, 2019)

lowkey13 said:


> Charts like this really hammer home the dominance of D&D.
> 
> 5e, PF (a 3e clone/expansion), 3.5e, and SFRPG (PF ... IN SPACE!) dominate.
> 
> ...




Don't forget Call of Cthulhu! Thought your point stands.


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## lowkey13 (Oct 7, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## dragoner (Oct 7, 2019)

D&D is the big dog, however, it just means that D&D does a lot of things right, maybe not to my personal tastes (classes, leveling), except I understand why.


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## Voadam (Oct 7, 2019)

What is DSA at 1,708?

And the follow up DSA DZ at 1,364?


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## Parmandur (Oct 7, 2019)

Voadam said:


> What is DSA at 1,708?
> 
> And the follow up DSA DZ at 1,364?




The German RPG _Das Schwarze Auge_ I reckon.


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## Morrus (Oct 7, 2019)

Last four years of this chart (from 2016 onwards) has D&D going 58% -> 64% -> 65% -> 69% -> 70%.


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## Parmandur (Oct 7, 2019)

Morrus said:


> Last four years of this chart (from 2016 onwards) has D&D going 58% -> 64% -> 65% -> 69% -> 70%.




The impressive thing about that percentage is that everyone else is growing, too: a bigger slice of a bigger pie.

Chris Cock said in that one recent IGN article that D&D has grown something like 500% since the start of 5E.













						Dungeons & Dragons Creators and Celebrity Players Explain Its Recent Surge in Popularity - IGN
					

More people are playing D&D than ever before - here's what its most high profile celebrity players say about its surge in popularity.




					www.ign.com


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## RSIxidor (Oct 7, 2019)

I wish we could get another version of that line graph just showing everything that isn't D&D, just to get a clearer visual representation. Seeing the gap between 5E and everything is useful, but would still like to see the rest separately.


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## dave2008 (Oct 7, 2019)

Morrus said:


> Last four years of this chart (from 2016 onwards) has D&D going 58% -> 64% -> 65% -> 69% -> 70%.



 I got to think this is a high water mark for this edition.  It can't get higher than 70% can it?


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## Parmandur (Oct 7, 2019)

dave2008 said:


> I got to think this is a high water mark for this edition.  It can't get higher than 70% can it?




Why not? The game is continuing to grow by all accounts, and is growing the RPG hobby. There has to be some theoretical upper limit, but there's no reason to think it has gotten there yet. There is a movie slated for a couple years down the line, that could boost this much higher.


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## Tony Vargas (Oct 7, 2019)

lowkey13 said:


> Charts like this really hammer home the dominance of D&D.



They might make it logarithmic, so the also-rans can be teased out.



> Really, it's flavors of D&D with a special appearance by Savage Worlds.



 And CoC...and GURPS down at the bottom.  
That's persistence (sad seeing GURPS make a chart like that, with Hero nowhere in sight... I wonder what happened to it?  I lost interest in the run up to the 6th ed... ::google::google:::...)


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## dave2008 (Oct 7, 2019)

Parmandur said:


> Why not? The game is continuing to grow by all accounts, and is growing the RPG hobby. There has to be some theoretical upper limit, but there's no reason to think it has gotten there yet. There is a movie slated for a couple years down the line, that could boost this much higher.



It just seems like a huge market share already and the fact that the curve seems to be flattening out.


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## darjr (Oct 7, 2019)

The players handbook is 68 out of all books on Amazon right now. The GIFT set is 498.

a couple days ago it broke the 40s.

it is growing.


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## Parmandur (Oct 7, 2019)

dave2008 said:


> It just seems like a huge market share already and the fact that the curve seems to be flattening out.




Not the curve of players as reported by WotC (which I shared upthread). Their annual growth is growing, even.


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## lowkey13 (Oct 7, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## Parmandur (Oct 7, 2019)

Tony Vargas said:


> They might make it logarithmic, so the also-rans can be teased out.
> 
> And CoC...and GURPS down at the bottom.
> That's persistence (sad seeing GURPS make a chart like that, with Hero nowhere in sight... I wonder what happened to it?  I lost interest in the run up to the 6th ed... ::google::google:::...)




Well, this is the little slice of games played on Fantasy Grounds: Roll 20 has a different slice, and who knows what else is going on in the broader gaming community.


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## dragoner (Oct 7, 2019)

It doesn't hurt that there are a jillion twitterers, and youtubers chanting D&D D&D D&D!

I mean it gets annoying if one isn't a diehard D&D'er, but oh well.


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## Tony Vargas (Oct 7, 2019)

lowkey13 said:


> Not that it's a bad idea, but I've found that logarithmic charts to most audiences tend to confuse rather than clarify.
> I blame our educational system and/or society.



...for, oh, so many things...



> Don't know what happened to Hero, but ... I mean, it's kind of cool seeing GURPS still chugging along? I still remember when it came out, and they had the rather ... entertaining ... guides for the Autoduel/Car Wars version of it.



Yep, I even played some of it - because in my regular group of Champions! gamers, back then, there was one devoted GURPS enthusiast.  

Hero isn't gone, google could still find them, but they've apparently prettymuch left the physical publishing side, they just put out pdfs.  Seems pretty quiet over there.


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## Parmandur (Oct 7, 2019)

Tony Vargas said:


> ...for, oh, so many things...
> 
> Yep, I even played some of it - because in my regular group of Champions! gamers, back then, there was one devoted GURPS enthusiast.
> 
> Hero isn't gone, google could still find them, but they've apparently prettymuch left the physical publishing side, they just put out pdfs.  Seems pretty quiet over there.




Roll20 reports that 0.04% of campaigns on their platform use the HERO system, as opposed to 0.34% for GURPS.



			http://blog.roll20.net/posts/the-orr-group-industry-report-q2-2019-back-and/


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## der_kluge (Oct 7, 2019)

I think it's hilarious that 2nd edition has more players than 4th edition.


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## Voadam (Oct 7, 2019)

Parmandur said:


> The German RPG _Das Schwarze Auge_ I reckon.




The Dark Eye RPG in English?


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## Parmandur (Oct 7, 2019)

Voadam said:


> The Dark Eye RPG in English?




Yes, precisely. It's the biggest TTRPG in Germany, so it tends to show up in big tent marketplaces like Fantasy Grounds.


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## Xenonnonex (Oct 7, 2019)

der_kluge said:


> I think it's hilarious that 2nd edition has more players than 4th edition.



Why? 4E is a dead RPG. PF2 just came out. 
That so many are still playing a dead RPG compared to something that just came out speaks highly of the dead RPG.


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## Parmandur (Oct 7, 2019)

Xenonnonex said:


> Why? 4E is a dead RPG. PF2 just came out.
> That so many are still playing a dead RPG compared to something that just came out speaks highly of the dead RPG.




Nahan, he means 2E AD&D is more played.


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## Xenonnonex (Oct 7, 2019)

der_kluge said:


> I think it's hilarious that 2nd edition has more players than 4th edition.





Parmandur said:


> Nahan, he means 2E AD&D is more played.



That does speak highly of AD&D.


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## darjr (Oct 7, 2019)

But wait, that is 1e AD&D and 2e AD&D. Isn’t it?

I don’t really care about it being played more than 4e though.


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## Parmandur (Oct 7, 2019)

darjr said:


> But wait, that is 1e AD&D and 2e AD&D. Isn’t it?
> 
> I don’t really care about it being played more than 4e though.




IIRC, the "AD&D" product for Fantasy Grounds & Roll20 is using the 2E rules, but includes 1E modules, etc.


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## Reynard (Oct 8, 2019)

Do we know anything about FG vs Roll20 relating to player base, etc.. I'm just curious.  I am a FG GM but only because I have sunk A LOT of money into it over the years.


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## LordEntrails (Oct 8, 2019)

Morrus said:


> As always, "MoreCore" is FG's default generic module used when there isn't a specific game package available.



Sorry @Morrus, you are wrong on this one. "CoreRPG" is the generic ruleset available with FG. "MoreCore" is actually a community ruleset for generic play. But, the community has made all sorts of character sheets, themes, and such for MoreCore hence it's popularity.


dave2008 said:


> Also, is there official support for PF2e for Fantasy Grounds yet or is this all used input at this point?



Their is official support for PF2E. But the numbers of users are pretty tiny.


der_kluge said:


> I think it's hilarious that 2nd edition has more players than 4th edition.



Agreed. But to help clairy the other 2E comments/questions. The 2E ruleset also supports 1E AD&D play. And part of its popularity is that you can get the core books and adventures and more in FG so you can get all the automation etc. You can not get any 4E D&D 'books' in FG (though you might still be able to automatically parse D&D Insider if you have a subscription.)


Reynard said:


> Do we know anything about FG vs Roll20 relating to player base, etc.. I'm just curious.  I am a FG GM but only because I have sunk A LOT of money into it over the years.



No. Roll20 used to report on number of players, as counted by number of accounts, but since the NolanT scandal they no longer report number of players. Instead they report percentages so we don't know numbers. But, FG doesn't report numbers of players either. Instead they report number of online games that either use an Ultimate license or their "alias" feature (i.e. games that are hosted by standard licenses and do not use the alias feature, and/or local only/offline games do not show up).


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## Sunsword (Oct 9, 2019)

Morrus said:


> Starfinder.



Thank you, I should have seen that.


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## admaletz (Oct 9, 2019)

Curious that L5R and Genesys don't show up. I see Star Wars.


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## aramis erak (Oct 10, 2019)

dave2008 said:


> I got to think this is a high water mark for this edition.  It can't get higher than 70% can it?



At one point, AD&D1E was 90% of all RPG sales worldwide... it's unlikely to ever get that high again, due to Star Trek, Star Wars, Marvel, DCU, and other longstanding licensed settings that draw new players from outside the natural word of mouth.

I don't think it will ever exceed 75% again on sales. If it ever gets above 90% again, it's a really bad sign for the industry as a whole.





Xenonnonex said:


> Why? 4E is a dead RPG. PF2 just came out.
> That so many are still playing a dead RPG compared to something that just came out speaks highly of the dead RPG.



Roll20 and FG have different featuresets, and different usage profiles for various games and editions...

Roll20  shows more 4E players than AD&D 1&2 combined, while FG shows way more AD&D players than 4E players. Probably because Roll20 has better 4E oriented assets than FG. And neither matches the top 10 of current sales.


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## aramis erak (Oct 10, 2019)

duplicate deleted.


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## GrahamWills (Oct 10, 2019)

dave2008 said:


> I got to think this is a high water mark for this edition.  It can't get higher than 70% can it?




Sure. It could be 100% in a single day all that fantasy grounds needs do is stop supporting other systems -- remember this is not a graph of "how many people play system X"; this is a chart of "how many people play system X using a single online method".

There is almost certainly a high correlation between the two questions, but it's not 100%. D&D is particularly good for online play; as a data point, from an online point of view, 100% of my play is D&D. However, it's actually about 10% of my total gaming.

Systems that are better F2F, like Fate for example, will be represented poorly.

T


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## LordEntrails (Oct 10, 2019)

admaletz said:


> Curious that L5R and Genesys don't show up. I see Star Wars.



They do not have dedicated rulesets. Therefore people playing them on FG will either be using CoreRPG or MoreCore.


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## Hussar (Oct 11, 2019)

darjr said:


> The players handbook is 68 out of all books on Amazon right now. The GIFT set is 498.
> 
> a couple days ago it broke the 40s.
> 
> it is growing.




That is freaking INSANE.  A five year old book, never minding RPG book, that has sat in the top 100 for five straight years?  Incredible.  

There's one thing about it, there will not be even a whisper of 6e until we see the PHB drop out of the top 1000.



aramis erak said:


> /snip
> 
> Roll20  shows more 4E players than AD&D 1&2 combined, while FG shows way more AD&D players than 4E players. Probably because Roll20 has better 4E oriented assets than FG. And neither matches the top 10 of current sales.




Age of the platform might matter as well.  Fantasy Grounds has been around a lot longer than Roll20.  Lots of users got into it in the 3e days, and you'd have a fair chunk of AD&D users at that time as well.  Roll20 didn't really come out until well into 4e time, so, it's likely going to reflect the player base at that time.


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## aramis erak (Oct 11, 2019)

dave2008 said:


> I got to think this is a high water mark for this edition.  It can't get higher than 70% can it?



At one point, AD&D1E was 90% of all RPG sales worldwide... it's unlikely to ever get that high again, due to Star Trek, Star Wars, Marvel, DCU, and other longstanding licensed settings that draw new players from outside the natural word of mouth.

I don't think it will ever exceed 75% again on sales. If it eve

Noting that D&D 5E is poorly represented outside the english-speaking world (it took several years for translations to be authorized



Xenonnonex said:


> Why? 4E is a dead RPG. PF2 just came out.
> That so many are still playing a dead RPG compared to something that just came out speaks highly of the dead RPG.



Roll20 and FG have different featuresets, and different usage profiles for various games and editions...

Roll20  shows more 4E players than AD&D 1&2 combined, while FG shows way more AD&D players than 4E players. Probably because Roll20 has better 4E oriented assets than FG.



admaletz said:


> Curious that L5R and Genesys don't show up. I see Star Wars.



Not really. Genesys and star wars are close enough that the star wars featureset is likely being employed by Genesys players.

L5R 5e has little online play presence... I like it, it's a good engine... but it's a case of a fanbase divided sharply by the new mechanics.


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## aramis erak (Oct 12, 2019)

LordEntrails said:


> They do not have dedicated rulesets. Therefore people playing them on FG will either be using CoreRPG or MoreCore.



Or the FFG Star Wars one, if it allows custom skills added. Stats are the same. Skill list is very similar. Dice are different symbols, but the same meanings and distributions.


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## ad_hoc (Oct 12, 2019)

GrahamWills said:


> Sure. It could be 100% in a single day all that fantasy grounds needs do is stop supporting other systems -- remember this is not a graph of "how many people play system X"; this is a chart of "how many people play system X using a single online method".
> 
> There is almost certainly a high correlation between the two questions, but it's not 100%. D&D is particularly good for online play; as a data point, from an online point of view, 100% of my play is D&D. However, it's actually about 10% of my total gaming.
> 
> ...




I think the opposite is true.

I think the percentage of people playing 5e on actual tables is much higher than it shows online.

Online is probably more populated with hobby gamers looking for others that play their favourite games.

5e is largely comprised of previously non-hobby gamers. I think a big boost of its popularity is the attraction of being away from a screen.

It occupies the same space as boardgames, only with more talking.


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## GrahamWills (Oct 24, 2019)

ad_hoc said:


> I think the percentage of people playing 5e on actual tables is much higher than it shows online.




Well, we can all conjecture without evidence, but if you look at the proportion of people playing 5E at conventions, it is much lower than the numbers for online. If you look at the proportion of money spent on 5e compared to the overall industry, it is much lower than online.

Obviously we can't be sure, but what info is available suggests that online play over-empahsizes 5E. Anyone who has contrary information, I'd sincerely like to hear it


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## Parmandur (Oct 24, 2019)

GrahamWills said:


> Well, we can all conjecture without evidence, but if you look at the proportion of people playing 5E at conventions, it is much lower than the numbers for online. If you look at the proportion of money spent on 5e compared to the overall industry, it is much lower than online.
> 
> Obviously we can't be sure, but what info is available suggests that online play over-empahsizes 5E. Anyone who has contrary information, I'd sincerely like to hear it




What are you talking about in terms of sales? Every indication I've seen locally and in general indicates a ratio of sales compared to the industry comparable if not higher than the virtual tabletop numbers.


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## darjr (Oct 24, 2019)

Convention play isn’t down as far as I can tell. A well run local convention had to recruit more DMs then they planned to fill the need. They started with 9 tables.

Gameholecon is scheduled 100 tables for their AL epic. That’s just the epic. I think there are many tables at the same time not in the epic. And if things go like they have in the past they’ll have quite a few last minute tables to fill.


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## Morrus (Oct 24, 2019)

GrahamWills said:


> If you look at the proportion of money spent on 5e compared to the overall industry, it is much lower than online.




What does that mean?


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## GrahamWills (Oct 24, 2019)

Morrus said:


> > If you look at the proportion of money spent on 5e compared to the overall industry, it is much lower than online.
> 
> 
> 
> What does that mean?




Wizards of the Coast sold over $31 million in print units across the 18-month period between May 2017 and October 2018, according to Bookstat. So that would give annual sales of about $22 million. Digital adds only $1m, so $23 total. Total RPG sales (ICV2 data) is $65 million.

So, the raw numbers show that D&D has 33% of sales, a vastly lower proportion than the portion of online games being played on roll20 -- hence my statement that the proportion of money spent on 5e compared to the overall industry is much lower than the proportion of online games that are 5e.

Now these are pretty vague numbers -- Bookstat might be reporting sales outside the US/Canada whereas the ICV2 data is US/Canada only, so 33% may be too high (I have to depend on Forbes' reporting of Bookstat info as I am not a member). On the other hand the total ICV2 data likely includes a ton of stuff which is system agnostic (miniatures, maps, dice bags, etc.). Heck Dwarven forge is probably a noticeable part of that

But even if you assume that a third of all gamer sales is system agnostic (which seems high to me) we're still only seeing D&D at about the 50% mark --much lower than online proportions.


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## Sacrosanct (Oct 24, 2019)

I'm surprised AD&D was more than 4e.  4e isn't my jam, but I understand how a lot of people prefer it, and I'd think more would than AD&D.  I mean, a virtual tabletop for the version of D&D that is all about the tabletop seems like a match.

I guess as implied above, FG just isn't the best platform for 4e players to use

Regarding virtual vs in person, this is totally anecdotal, but my virtual groups long died away and my in person gaming groups picked up.  FWIW.  IME, virtual groups had a lot more cancellations and whatnot.


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## Parmandur (Oct 24, 2019)

GrahamWills said:


> Wizards of the Coast sold over $31 million in print units across the 18-month period between May 2017 and October 2018, according to Bookstat. So that would give annual sales of about $22 million. Digital adds only $1m, so $23 total. Total RPG sales (ICV2 data) is $65 million.
> 
> So, the raw numbers show that D&D has 33% of sales, a vastly lower proportion than the portion of online games being played on roll20 -- hence my statement that the proportion of money spent on 5e compared to the overall industry is much lower than the proportion of online games that are 5e.
> 
> ...




Bookstat tracks online bookstore orders, which is a different dataset from ICV2: doesn't include FLGS sales, among other things.


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## ad_hoc (Oct 24, 2019)

GrahamWills said:


> Well, we can all conjecture without evidence, but if you look at the proportion of people playing 5E at conventions, it is much lower than the numbers for online. If you look at the proportion of money spent on 5e compared to the overall industry, it is much lower than online.
> 
> Obviously we can't be sure, but what info is available suggests that online play over-empahsizes 5E. Anyone who has contrary information, I'd sincerely like to hear it




Convention attendance is too small and too selected to be worth considering. In other words, few people go to conventions and those who do tend to be really into RPGs and so would likely be interested in other RPGs.

As people have already replied to your numbers, I will just add that I also don't think they're accurate.

In 2013 with D&D in 2nd place to PF annual RPG sales were estimated by ICv2 (using what they track) to be $15 million. 2018 was $65 million. The rate of sales of D&D continues to climb.

18 months ago there was an estimated 12-15 million D&D players in NA alone. A few months ago a figure was given stating that 45 million people have ever played D&D.

I think a good current estimate would be around 20 million or more 5e players worldwide.

How many people total are playing other RPGs? How many people are playing online?

I think the vast majority of 5e players play over the table and I believe that the % of 5e play vs other RPGs is more pronounced offline than online. People going online are going to be more likely to be long time hobby gamers and exposed to more games. They also may be going online in order to find people to play their favourite games because it may be hard to find enough interested people in person.

D&D and RPGs are a word of mouth thing. I think people are far more likely to get into them through friends inviting them to groups. They then form their own group and so on which is why I think 5e has momentum. It's easy to pick up and intuitive to play so non-hobby gamers are playing it. I don't think non-RPG players are as likely to go online to try out D&D for the first time.


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## darjr (Oct 24, 2019)

Convention play numbers is small. But declining it ain’t.


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## GrahamWills (Oct 24, 2019)

ad_hoc said:


> I will just add that I also don't think  ...
> I think the vast majority of 5e players play over the table...
> I believe that the % of 5e play vs other RPGs is more pronounced offline than online ...
> I think people are far more likely to get into them through friends ...
> I don't think non-RPG players are as likely to go online to try out D&D for the first time.




Although it may sound a bit harsh, your beliefs are pretty much of no interest to me when responding to a post about numeric facts. Feel free to point out issues with the numbers (as another post pointed out -- Bookstat is only for online books, which I hadn't noted!) but until your beliefs are backed up by facts, they're of no interest.


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## ad_hoc (Oct 24, 2019)

GrahamWills said:


> Although it may sound a bit harsh, your beliefs are pretty much of no interest to me when responding to a post about numeric facts. Feel free to point out issues with the numbers (as another post pointed out -- Bookstat is only for online books, which I hadn't noted!) but until your beliefs are backed up by facts, they're of no interest.




You first.


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## GrahamWills (Oct 24, 2019)

Parmandur said:


> Bookstat tracks online bookstore orders, which is a different dataset from ICV2: doesn't include FLGS sales, among other things.




Thanks for point that out; I had missed that fact. I don't have great numbers for the percentage of print books sold online vs. through an FLGS. For regular books it's about 50-60% or so I believe (better numbers welcome) but a lot of that is paperback / mass-market bestsellers. For specialist books like 5E it would seem likely to have a much higher online percentage. Without better numbers, let's say 66%, although likely to be much more.

So adjusting numbers per your information: 

5e online sales: $22m
→ all sales: $33m out of total market of $65m

---------------------------------
I don't have an axe to grind here, I just like to crunch numbers, so any further info is welcome.


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## ad_hoc (Oct 24, 2019)

GrahamWills said:


> Thanks for point that out; I had missed that fact. I don't have great numbers for the percentage of print books sold online vs. through an FLGS. For regular books it's about 50-60% or so I believe (better numbers welcome) but a lot of that is paperback / mass-market bestsellers. For specialist books like 5E it would seem likely to have a much higher online percentage. Without better numbers, let's say 66%, although likely to be much more.
> 
> So adjusting numbers per your information:
> 
> ...




You're just making things up. Having numbers isn't actual data if you just pick them out of the air.


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## ad_hoc (Oct 24, 2019)

Here's some more stuff - 

D&D 5e player numbers have been growing by 3% each quarter on Roll20 (stated in Q1 of 2018)



			http://blog.roll20.net/posts/the-orr-group-industry-report-q1-2018/
		


D&D 5e total sales went up 41% from 2016 to 2017. From 2017 to 2018 sales were up 52%.









						40 Million People Have Played D&D According To WotC
					

Forty million of you are out there, making saving throws, saving kingdoms, and generally having a good time, according to a recent article in Bloomberg.




					www.belloflostsouls.net
				




So online sales were increasing 10-15% each year while total sales were increasing 40-50%.

Since these are % increases the numbers are compounding.

People play tabletop games in person. This shouldn't be a controversial statement.


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## Parmandur (Oct 24, 2019)

GrahamWills said:


> Thanks for point that out; I had missed that fact. I don't have great numbers for the percentage of print books sold online vs. through an FLGS. For regular books it's about 50-60% or so I believe (better numbers welcome) but a lot of that is paperback / mass-market bestsellers. For specialist books like 5E it would seem likely to have a much higher online percentage. Without better numbers, let's say 66%, although likely to be much more.
> 
> So adjusting numbers per your information:
> 
> ...




There is no correlation between the $22 million in online retailers (which includes old novels still in print, and Magic books) and the hobby channel: the former is not a subset of the latter. A hobby product like D&D probably sells more in hobby channels, and there is a strange coincidence of the hobby channel for RPGs quadrupling after 5E was released.


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## LordEntrails (Oct 25, 2019)

All of this mixing and matches of number from various sources is interesting. But it is really a stretch to try and draw any conclusions from other than "we don't have solid data."

One number quoted without a source is very interesting, where did this come from?


GrahamWills said:


> Digital adds only $1m,


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## GrahamWills (Nov 1, 2019)

And the just-released Orr report on Roll20 indicates that 5E is about 50% of the play, consistent with both the amount of money spent on it as a proportion of the overall industry, and also consistent with convention play.

it appears FG is the outlier, with higher than normal rates of 5E play. Every other source is pretty pretty consistent at about 50%.


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## Parmandur (Nov 1, 2019)

GrahamWills said:


> And the just-released Orr report on Roll20 indicates that 5E is about 50% of the play, consistent with both the amount of money spent on it as a proportion of the overall industry, and also consistent with convention play.
> 
> it appears FG is the outlier, with higher than normal rates of 5E play. Every other source is pretty pretty consistent at about 50%.




No connection about the amount of money spent in the industry was made, as the book numbers quoted do not correlate to the hobby channel numbers.

In addition, 5E is underreported on Roll20 to some degree because of the homebrew sheet catch-all. 

The only safe statement is that 5E is the majority of play and sales in RPGs. Anything more is speculation.


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## Hussar (Nov 2, 2019)

GrahamWills said:


> And the just-released Orr report on Roll20 indicates that 5E is about 50% of the play, consistent with both the amount of money spent on it as a proportion of the overall industry, and also consistent with convention play.
> 
> it appears FG is the outlier, with higher than normal rates of 5E play. Every other source is pretty pretty consistent at about 50%.




I would imagine that's because FG had the license for the WotC modules first.  Which meant that for quite a while (not sure how long, a year, two?) Fantasy Grounds had a HUGE advantage over any other VTT if you wanted to play 5e - you could simply buy the module from Smiteworks and everything was 99% prepped for you.  That's a possible reason why FG seems to trend a bit higher for 5e than other VTT's.  

I mean, if you've plopped down the couple of hundred bucks on an Ultimate license, core rule books and a module or two, you're not likely going to change to another VTT easily.


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## GrahamWills (Nov 2, 2019)

Parmandur said:


> The only safe statement is that 5E is the majority of play and sales in RPGs. Anything more is speculation.




Roll20 says it is not the majority; sales figures give vague indication it might not be (certainly no evidence it actually is) and conference play says it’s not the majority. FG is the only source that says it’s a majority and you yourself  just liked a post that gives a good reason it’s way higher than other sources. 

Your definition of “safe” seems a little riskier than mine. “About 50%” seems much more likely given the scanty evidence. But no worries; neither of our beliefs are going to harm anyone, and only wotc  execs know the true answer.


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## darjr (Nov 2, 2019)

Convention play absolutely says it’s the majority. Gameholecon has 100 tables of AL alone! There are 5 e tables everywhere.


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