From Forgotten Realms to Red Steel: Here's That Full D&D Setting Sales Chart

Whether this will end a thousand internet arguments or fuel another thousand, Ben Riggs, author of Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons and Dragons, has finally published the combined chart of cumulative sales for every AD&D setting from 1979 to 1999.

Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Oriental Adventures, and Dragonlance lead the pack. The least selling setting was Red Steel in 1994. There was a clear decline in sales of all settings from 1989 onwards, so that's not necessary a comment on quality. Planescape, certainly a cult favourite, sold surprisingly few copies.

Slaying the Dragon - Macmillan

The secret and untold story of how TSR, the company that created Dungeons & Dragons, was driven into ruin by disastrous management decisions, then ...

read.macmillan.com

In order, the best-selling settings were:

1. Forgotten Realms
2. Greyhawk
3. Oriental Adventures
4. Dragonlance
5. Ravenloft
6. Dark Sun
7. Spelljammer
8. Lankhmar
9. Al-Qadim
10. Planescape
11. Birthright
12. Maztica
13. Karameikos
14. Red Steel

These stats were compiled as part of his research into his book, Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons and Dragons, which you should totally buy.

Slaying the Dragon - Macmillan

The secret and untold story of how TSR, the company that created Dungeons & Dragons, was driven into ruin by disastrous management decisions, then ...

read.macmillan.com

Let's dive into some individual sales charts! Note, these are for the primary setting product, not for additional adventures, supplements, etc.

 

[Reynard]

True but IIRC Dragonlance Advnentures was also a source book with a lot of new rules (I think I had that product). Personally, I attribute OA's popularity (I did NOT own OA) to the fact that it seemed like Kung Fu and Ninjas were very much a "thing" at that time.

I just bought both PDFs to look. OA has about 8 pages of Kara Tur setting information. Even if half of DL's page count is "rules" it is still far and away a much more traditional setting book than OA. OA is effectively an alternate PHB and both authors' forwards back that up.

 

[Jimmy Dick]

This supports what I surmised years ago, that TSR created too many campaign worlds which required more man-hours of development and had a shorter shelf life. Only two of those worlds broke 100k in sales. I think they just kept throwing products at the market hoping something would sell well until that strategy ultimately failed them. Basically, the game industry changed in directions the company didn't follow. That and the emergence of the cardboard crack games caused TSR's failure.

 

[Lord Rasputin]

The aggregate sales figures are all a little misleading as to a setting's scope. As in, notice how almost all of these have a drop-off for each successive edition. What's happening is that TSR was selling the revised editions to same crowd who already had bought the original version.

Also, note that hardbound books are more popular than boxed sets. Oriental Adventures and Dragonlance Adventures had massive sales of their initial hardbound books. The Forgotten Realms actually had a small uptick of sales when TSR issued a hardbound book. (Even so, the initial sales of any version of the Forgotten Realms are much less than the hardbound versions of Oriental Adventures and Dragonlance Adventures. Based on these charts, its dubious to say that how popular the Realms really ever were.) I suppose books are more likely to have player options (see Al-Qadim), but still, the format itself is notable. Greyhawk Adventures is an exception to this; the weird 1e/2e nature of the book might have hurt matters.

 

[Mannahnin]

This is why I keep thinking that even though the 50th anniversary is a good point for Wizards to do a Greyhawk thing, it's also impossible for me to think of a Greyhawk thing they could do that wouldn't make older fans angry while also bringing new people to the setting who have never cared about it and also being a meaningful anniversary celebration thing. Anything they do is likely going to either be like poking a bear or fall flat - it seems impossible that they'd be able to thread that needle.

The holy grail would be a fun, playable rendition of Castle Greyhawk.

Of course, to do it in a way which would please the grognards it might need to be in a format similar to Goodman's OAR series.

 

[Jer]

The holy grail would be a fun, playable rendition of Castle Greyhawk.

I don't think Wizards actually owns the original Castle Greyhawk materials though - didn't Gygax publish what he had under the name Castle Zagyg with Troll Lord? So if they did anything like that it would be basically a revamp of the Greyhawk Ruins module (which they already did once in 3.5e). I could be wrong, but I suspect that that isn't what people would actually want.

(I suppose they could license Castle Zagyg and rework it and release it as "Castle Greyhawk", but that sounds like something they wouldn't do. And something that would probably be more along the lines of what Goodman would want to do.)

 

[Mannahnin]

I don't think Wizards actually owns the original Castle Greyhawk materials though - didn't Gygax publish what he had under the name Castle Zagyg with Troll Lord? So if they did anything like that it would be basically a revamp of the Greyhawk Ruins module (which they already did once in 3.5e). I could be wrong, but I suspect that that isn't what people would actually want.

(I suppose they could license Castle Zagyg and rework it and release it as "Castle Greyhawk", but that sounds like something they wouldn't do. And something that would probably be more along the lines of what Goodman would want to do.)

They don't own Gary's CG maps & notes. They'd have to get the license from Gail, but it seems obvious to me that's she's been angling for that over the last 14 years. Now, it may be that they aren't willing to pay what she thinks it's worth, but if they were ever going to do it, the 50th anniversary seems like a logical time.

Castle Zagyg was basically a complete re-do for the Troll Lords co-written with Jeff Talanian. They never completed it before Gary passed, unfortunately. They did a big five book set on just the upper works and first couple of levels. Apparently Gary and Jeff had a general plan for the rest, which Jeff theoretically could have finished, but Gail shut that down.

I'm not saying the chances are good. I'm just suggesting it as the one product I can think of that could potentially meet the criteria you laid out.

 

[Reynard]

They don't own Gary's CG maps & notes. They'd have to get the license from Gail, but it seems obvious to me that's she's been angling for that over the last 14 years. Now, it may be that they aren't willing to pay what she thinks it's worth, but if they were ever going to do it, the 50th anniversary seems like a logical time.

Castle Zagyg was basically a complete re-do for the Troll Lords co-written with Jeff Talanian. They never completed it before Gary passed, unfortunately. They did a big five book set on just the upper works and first couple of levels. Apparently Gary and Jeff had a general plan for the rest, which Jeff theoretically could have finished, but Gail shut that down.

I'm not saying the chances are good. I'm just suggesting it as the one product I can think of that could potentially meet the criteria you laid out.

The other question is whether there is a market for a 5E megadungeon of that scope, beyond being a historical curiosity. 5E isn't really designed for that kind of play.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

They don't own Gary's CG maps & notes. They'd have to get the license from Gail, but it seems obvious to me that's she's been angling for that over the last 14 years. Now, it may be that they aren't willing to pay what she thinks it's worth, but if they were ever going to do it, the 50th anniversary seems like a logical time.

Castle Zagyg was basically a complete re-do for the Troll Lords co-written with Jeff Talanian. They never completed it before Gary passed, unfortunately. They did a big five book set on just the upper works and first couple of levels. Apparently Gary and Jeff had a general plan for the rest, which Jeff theoretically could have finished, but Gail shut that down.

I'm not saying the chances are good. I'm just suggesting it as the one product I can think of that could potentially meet the criteria you laid out.

I think I need to wade in to this, given that I've written on this before.

1. Greyhawk on or just before the 50th Anniversary is, IMO, a no-brainer. That's when you release it, that's when you celebrate it.

2. Some grognards are going to complain no matter what you do. You can't cater to them. Instead, release a good product. If there's a little "fan service" in there, it will make the grognards happy, but the main thing is that it has to be good. That's it. A good product will, in the end, always triumph over nostalgia.

3. The market isn't grognards. It's new players.

 

[CleverNickName]

I'd love to see the numbers for Mystara, but it would be nearly impossible to do. Especially in a way that might be comparable to the other campaign settings.

There was never anything like a "Mystara Boxed Set" or a "Mystara Campaign Guide." The Mystara setting was written, mapped, and defined gradually over all four boxed sets and dozens of adventure modules (starting with single-paragraph descriptions and a centerfold map in X1 The Isle of Dread, and then expanded as new adventure modules were released: X4, X5, X10, X13, CM1... Eventually it got so big that TSR released a detailed, formal write-up of the setting in a 15-book series that focused on each of the individual nations.

So first you would have to decide if the "Mystara Campaign" is just the BECMI boxed sets, the adventure modules, the Gazetteers, or some combination of those three. And regardless of how you define it, there's no fair way to compare it to the other Campaign Settings that might only have 1d3 books.

But I'm not interested in such comparisons; I'm just curious how well it sold overall. I'm a fan; I don't really care how well it compares to the other campaign settings.

 

[Reynard]

I think I need to wade in to this, given that I've written on this before.

1. Greyhawk on or just before the 50th Anniversary is, IMO, a no-brainer. That's when you release it, that's when you celebrate it.

2. Some grognards are going to complain no matter what you do. You can't cater to them. Instead, release a good product. If there's a little "fan service" in there, it will make the grognards happy, but the main thing is that it has to be good. That's it. A good product will, in the end, always triumph over nostalgia.

3. The market isn't grognards. It's new players.

Emphasis mine.

That's the part that makes me wonder whether Greyhawk is a good choice.