Are Game Lines Smaller Today?

Inspired by the threads What Does a "Successful" RPG Look Like and Jason Carl on White Wolf's Return, Mage: The Ascension Plans, @Ruin Explorer got me to thinking.

Ruin Explorer said:

The most interesting thing though in retrospect is how fast everything moved - in less than a decade we saw multiple editions of multiple RPGs, with dozens of splatbooks and rapidly changing ideas and perspectives on stuff. I can't think of any RPG that's moved anywhere near that fast post-2010 (3.XE kind of did though in 2000-2008)

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Just looking back and the sheer number of books published for various games in the 80s, 90s, and into the 2000s, my perception is that fewer books are published these days. My working theory has been many splatbooks published in the 1990s were designed more to be read as one might enjoy a novel rather than actually be used in a game. While I still think that's true to an extent, there were a lot of splatbooks for some game lines prior to the rise of the metaplot in the 1990s. It's also a bit surprising to look back and see how quickly a new edition of a game might come out. The 1st edition of Vampire was published in 1991, 2nd edition in 1992, and a revised edition in 1998. Legend of the Five Rings published its first edition in 1997 and it's second in 2000.

Is my perception off? Are fewer books being published for RPGs across the board? Fantasy Flight Games is no slouch, having published about 50 Star Wars books/adventures since 2016. That's the biggest number I can think of outside of D&D. I think D&D 5th edition only has like 48 books for it. If my perception is correct and there are overall fewer books published for any given game line, why?


How does one classify a book? I typically categorize game products into two areas.

Splatbooks: A supplement that expands the rules and/or setting of a game. For the purposes of simplicity, I include boxed sets as a type of splatbook.
Adventures: These are scenarios for the GM to run a group of player characters through.

I am not including accessories like dice, decks of cards, or exclusively PDF products to the number of items published for games.

For games published prior to 2010

Between 1991-2004, White Wolf published over 100 supplements/adventures for their Vampire game. That's just for Vampire and doesn't include Werewolf, Wraith, Changeling, Mage, or even spin off games like Vampire Dark Ages, Werewolf the Wild West, or Mages the Sorcerers Crusade. The number would be a lot higher if I'd bothered trying to count them.

From 1997-2005, Alderac Entertainment Group published about 42 books/supplements for Legend of the Five Rings.

From 1996-2005, Pinnacle published nearly 50 supplements and adventures for Deadlands.

From 1989-1997, TSR published what I can only estimate was about 300 books, boxed sets, adventures, and other miscellaneous products for AD&D 2nd edition.

Between 1988-2004, Steve Jackson Games published more than 200 books for GURPS third edition.

MGibster said:

For games published prior to 2010

Between 1991-2004, White Wolf published over 100 supplements/adventures for their Vampire game. That's just for Vampire and doesn't include Werewolf, Wraith, Changeling, Mage, or even spin off games like Vampire Dark Ages, Werewolf the Wild West, or Mages the Sorcerers Crusade. The number would be a lot higher if I'd bothered trying to count them.

From 1997-2005, Alderac Entertainment Group published about 42 books/supplements for Legend of the Five Rings.

From 1996-2005, Pinnacle published nearly 50 supplements and adventures for Deadlands.

From 1989-1997, TSR published what I can only estimate was about 300 books, boxed sets, adventures, and other miscellaneous products for AD&D 2nd edition.

Between 1988-2004, Steve Jackson Games published more than 200 books for GURPS third edition.

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For these numbers to be useful, we need to see the equivalent publications.

One thing that has changed for many games is that fans and 3rd parties can support games, officially and unofficially. There are a TON of "DMsGuild Like" programs out there that let people publish, for money, support for games and not just OGL style "compatible with." Actual tied-to-the-fiction supplements. And of course the publishers themselves are more likely to sell small, focused supplements via PDF that were essentially impossible to publish in the 90s.

The market looks very different, but I am not sure we can say it is smaller or less active than previously without really digging into the details.

I think now days I preffer one book of rules, and then a focus on really good adventures. I just hate having to reference a bunch a diffrent books and rember which spell is where.

Honestly I wish 5.5 would have just been compiling all of the 5 stuff into one book.

I loathe splatbooks; they are a burden that keeps D&D from becoming more than a bottomless pit of mediocracy.

I want the core rules, maybe one rule expansion, and adventures.

I think at least part of it is the dependence on Kickstarter (and other crowdfunders), which makes it relatively easy to find support for a set of cool-seeming core rules, but much harder to fund continuing support.

Staffan said:

I think at least part of it is the dependence on Kickstarter (and other crowdfunders), which makes it relatively easy to find support for a set of cool-seeming core rules, but much harder to fund continuing support.

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Yeah, the long product lines of yesteryear, especially with TSR and White Wolf, relied on returnable books being sold to book chains. Without that model, which TSR abused by cranking out books that at least some staff members knew weren't actually selling to consumers, I don't think we would have seen those deep catalogs of supplements and adventures in the 1990s.

And, honestly, I feel like it's a lot healthier to have essential books crowdfunded by an audience that explicitly wants them and, if there's a demand for follow-ups, they'll fund those as well.

So many games, even great games, don't really need the kind of support that Vampire or 2E AD&D received. A great corebook and maybe a handful of great supplements and you're good to go.

And the world of open licenses means that, for instance, the Arcane Library doesn't need to crank out dozens of adventures and supplements -- as much as many Shadowdark fans might like them -- because everyone can sell their own compatible stuff by taking some minimal steps to do so.

And that's even more true in the wider OSR space, where things are widely compatible and GMs are fine with converting say, Into the Wyrd & Wild to Shadowdark, Old School Essentials, 2E AD&D, or whatever. Once consumers make that step, they're suddenly faced with more available material for OSR games especially than TSR ever imagined.

Every year, more 1E/OSRIC material is released to the public than TSR ever produced for the line. And when you look at B/X material, a huge mountain of material -- some of it the best roleplaying gaming material produced today -- is released annually.

Jd Smith1 said:

I loathe splatbooks; they are a burden that keeps D&D from becoming more than a bottomless pit of mediocracy.

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In what way are they a burden?

MGibster said:

Just looking back and the sheer number of books published for various games in the 80s, 90s, and into the 2000s, my perception is that fewer books are published these days.

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The trend you are noticing is real, and is not specific to gaming. Kids books, for example, also saw a huge shift from pulp printing of multiple lines to a few major lines. Specifically: multiple high-book-count series like Goosebumps, Baby Sitters Club, Animorphs, etc, all went down, and the industry circled the wagons around huge brands like Harry Potter. It's a shift across lots of genres.

Broadly, it's a shift across multiple mediums as well. You can read about the same trend in movies; there are less "mid budget" movies now, with studios putting out either high budget blockbusters or indie and/or Oscar stuff on the lower budget side. The video game market also has less stratification; you have really big AAA games and lots and lots of small indie publishers, with less in between.

You can find research into this independently for each of the mediums I mentioned above. At a broad level, I blame technology and the internet. Generally speaking, a lower barrier to entry in these markets leads to centralization of product lines. The large industry leaders maximize profit on high quantity products by both dominating distribution and optimizing economy of scale. Meanwhile, a low cost of entry and high number of "hobbyists" lead to a larger number of independents left to scrape up what's left of the market. The end result is what you describe.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

And the world of open licenses means that, for instance, the Arcane Library doesn't need to crank out dozens of adventures and supplements -- as much as many Shadowdark fans might like them -- because everyone can sell their own compatible stuff by taking some minimal steps to do so.

And that's even more true in the wider OSR space, where things are widely compatible and GMs are fine with converting say, Into the Wyrd & Wild to Shadowdark, Old School Essentials, 2E AD&D, or whatever. Once consumers make that step, they're suddenly faced with more available material for OSR games especially than TSR ever imagined.

Every year, more 1E/OSRIC material is released to the public than TSR ever produced for the line. And when you look at B/X material, a huge mountain of material -- some of it the best roleplaying gaming material produced today -- is released annually.

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Yeah even one 3PP who has a pipeline is able to provide a ton on their own now. If you are in a system that is adaptable and hackable?

More content than anyone could possibly consume.

MGibster said:

Is my perception off? Are fewer books being published for RPGs across the board? Fantasy Flight Games is no slouch, having published about 50 Star Wars books/adventures since 2016. That's the biggest number I can think of outside of D&D. I think D&D 5th edition only has like 48 books for it. If my perception is correct and there are overall fewer books published for any given game line, why?

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Your perception [edit: that game lines are smaller not that there are fewer games as well] is absolutely right IMO - but on the flip side I can count many more indies with solid reps than I could in the 90s or the 00s. And games have got a whole lot better at focusing on a theme than they were before 2010.

Also 5e is as big as any previous D&D but has far fewer expansions than anything since 1e.