The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
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As we do every year, I'm taking nominees for the big public poll. A game will only be in the big poll if it is nominated here. What's your most anticipated RPG of 2018? Rules - as always - it must be a standalone RPG. NOT a supplement, adventure, sourcebook, expansion, or accessory. It must be scheduled for release in 2018. If they were coming out in 2018, Dungeons & Dragons would count; Xanathar's Guide would not. Taking nominations for one week. Post your nomination as a reply below. Please don't nominate your own game or one you’re affiliated with.
ICv2 has released its latest survey of Top 5 hobby channel tabletop roleplaying games for the Spring 2017 period. The results are largely similar to previous periods, with D&D, Pathfinder, and Star Wars taking the top three spots as they have since 2014. Shadowrun has dropped from #4 to #5 due to the newly ranking Adventures in Middle Earth from Cubicle 7 (itself, of course, actually a setting book for D&D 5th Edition rather than a full game).
How big is the RPG market? Pretty damn tiny, is the answer. As of 2016/2017 it's about $35m in size, according to ICv2. That's of a Hobby Games market currently worth just over a billion dollars. The RPG segment is a mere 2.9% of the overall Hobby Games market, which includes boardgames, miniatures, hobby card games, and collectible games. Of course, the competition for RPGs isn't just boardgames or card games, it's entertainment; and on that scale, the RPG market is a tiny niche of the Hobby Games market, which is a tiny niche of the global entertainment market. Note that these figures are US and Canada only, and include Kickstarter sales.
Icv2's latest tabletop gaming survey (for Fall 2015) is in, and Dungeons & Dragons has maintained its top spot on the chart with Pathfinder and Star Wars following behind. Great news for Green Ronin Publishing is that two of their games, Dragon Age and Fantasy Age separately make up the 4th and 5th spots, spurred on by endorsements from Wil Wheaton and his Titansgrave web show for the game. The usual disclaimer applies (before the thread turns into a lengthy list of people saying it) - this is a survey based on interviews of retailers, distributors, and manufacturers, and isn't a report of actual sales figures.
Yesterday, WotC's Mike Mearls (Senior Manager, D&D R&D), Chris Lindsay (D&D Product Manager), and Trevor Kidd (WotC Community Manager) answered a whole pile of questions about the new Dungeon Master's Guild and D&D Adventurer's League (along with an assortment of other questions) in an AMA on Reddit. I have compiled their answers here, divided up into topic categories to make it easier to find the information you're interested in. I haven't necessarily included every single answer - only those which I thought added some interesting new information or important clarifications. I also haven't included personal questions, things like "What's your favourite class?" type stuff, or rules questions, though there wasn't much of that. It's a lot of information, so grab a coffee before you sit down to read it!
With all this information about OGLs and SRDs and other acronyms flying around, I thought I'd write a quick primer for those who aren't familiar with the concepts. This is not legal advice in any way, shape, or form - it's just a basic explanation of what these things are and what they mean. For the purposes of this article, I'm not including the Dungeon Master's Guild material, which is an entirely different structure and set of rules. Also, as it's not legal advice, I'm not going into detail on the nuances of the license - it's literally just a cursory overview of the concept, not a detailed analysis of the text. I hope it helps!
The day has finally come! WotC has just announced a Dungeon Master's Guild. "There’s a new way to buy and share D&D adventures. With the Dungeon Master’s Guild, you’ll be able to self-publish material set in the Forgotten Realms using monsters, spells, characters, and locations." You can self-publish D&D materials, and buy, sell, and share it. It's a partnership between WotC and OBS (the company which runs DTRPG and RPGNow) and they take 50% of the revenue. The guild is only accepting 5E material set in the Forgotten Realms. Not only that, but there's also a new SRD (System Reference Document) for use with the Open Gaming License (OGL)!
ICv2 has just released its hobby game rankings for Spring 2015, based as always on a survey of retailers, distributors, and manufacturers. The top three positions are exactly the same as the previous Fall/Holiday 2014 positions - D&D followed by Pathfinder, followed by FFG's Star Wars line of products. Following that, Numenera and Fate have been displaced by Shadowrun and Iron Kingdoms (the latter presumably based on Privateer Press' recent, highly promoted Iron Kingdoms Unleashed boxed set). As always, I've added this latest ranking to my compiled chart.
ICv2 has released its quarterly hobby game rankings. No surprises here - Dungeons & Dragons has taken the top spot back after several years at #2, as expected, though how long it can hold it without an aggressive release schedule remains to be seen. Pathfinder follows at #2, and Numenera, Fate, and Star Wars all make showings in the top 5. As always, the charts are based on interviews with retailers, distributors, and manufacturers. This is for Fall/Winter 2014.
I've made a couple of changes to my live Hot Roleplaying Games chart. The chart monitors over a quarter of a million forum members and approaching a thousand blogs on a selection of major independent RPG discussion forums to create an overall sample of what games are being discussed on the web.
After Vince Calouri was pushed out of Wizards of the Coast he was replaced by Chuck Heubner. Chuck basically had to manage Wizards on the downslope from the Pokemon salad days. Hasbro has been through many boom & bust cycles in the toy business and they have a standard response when it happens: cut headcount and reduce overhead. Since Wizards was de facto the only part of the business that had...
As many of you know, the Escapist has recently run a 3-part series on the past, current and future of Dungeons & Dragons. The ENWorld coverage begins here. I contributed some insights to that column and wanted to take this opportunity to expand and clarify some of my thoughts on this topic. Who Is This Guy Anyway? I [Ryan Dancey] have been involved on the business side of hobby game...
Who Is Sitting At Your Table? This might seem like a simple question to answer. Usually, you play with a group of friends whom you’ve come to know quite well. Even if you find yourself in a hastily assembled game at a convention or store, you usually have a lot in common with the other folks you play with. But if we consider all the people who may be playing a tabletop RPG at any given...
For its first book of D&D's 50th anniversary year, Wizards is going big with a multiverse-spanning, multiverse-threatening adventure where players will face off against one of the game’s most legendary villains.
For its first book of D&D's 50th anniversary year, Wizards is going big with a multiverse-spanning, multiverse-threatening adventure where players will face off against one of the game’s most legendary villains.