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.