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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mearls" data-source="post: 9731904" data-attributes="member: 697">Regarding the general health of TTRPGs, some rough numbers. I don't have the exact numbers on this PC, so take this as directional.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Gen Con is super interesting! Total attendance isn't up a ton, mainly because Gen Con has hit its limit on how many gamers can cram in Indy's convention center. However, we do see steady and sometimes dramatic increases in attendance at Gary Con, Gamehole Con, and UK Games Expo. Origins doesn't have quite the same consistent growth, but I think that's more due to GAMA focusing on the GAMA Trade Show the past few years. FWIW, that show has grown a lot.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">If we compare Gen Con events pre-pandemic (2019) to this year (2025), a few things pop out. Note that for my numbers, I counted how many seats were available to players in TTRPG events. I did not count events. So, let's say you ran 5 events with 6 players each. That counts as 30 seats.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Total seats from 2019 to 2025 were up something like 30%, as was number of people filling those seats.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">D&D makes up about 20% of total seats.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">About 40% of D&D 5e games used the new rules as opposed to 2014. That share dips a lot when your remove WotC-sponsored organized play and demos.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The next highest games - Pathfinder and Starfinder - made up about 5% total. There are LOTS of games played at Gen Con. It's a very diverse hobby these days.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Interesting, the big organized play programs from 2019 - D&D, Pathfinder, Starfinder - were down significantly from six years ago. However, the growth in new games stepping in with robust offerings (Daggerheart, Pirate Borg, Shadowdark, Magpie Games, etc.) more than offset those declines.</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">While we all tell ourselves that online communities don't reflect the broader TTRPG hobby, they do reflect Gen Con. We see D&D as the most popular game. It dwarfs the #2 game, but if you add up all the non-D&D stuff it's D&D that looks tiny. We also can see that the D&D community has been really slow to adopt the new rules. Yet at the same time, lots and lots of people are playing D&D. They've just drifted away from "official" D&D (whatever "official" might actually mean).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Talking to folks selling games, reports ranged from good to great sales. Last year was a record breaker for most people. Not as many folks set new standards, but business was healthy. There is a sense that gamers were looking for deals or more cost conscious than years past.</li> </ul>I don't see anything that sways my opinion that as TTRPGs grow, they'll continue to look more and more like board games. The styles and approaches in games will grow more diverse, bringing in more gamers, which grows the market, which leads to more diversity, which leads to more growth.Big picture, it feels like board games circa 2000. We had a surge of interest, and we're starting to see that reflected in the games coming out.</blockquote>

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