Fantasy Grounds Stats Show Massive Pandemic Bump

Fantasy Grounds has shared its usage stats going back over the last year. The recent pandemic has shown a massive boost of 150% in virtual tabletop game sessions!

Here's a look at the game system distribution. "MoreCore" and "CoreRPG" are generic ruleset modules which can be used for many games. D&D 5E leads the pack as usual, at a 63% share, followed by Pathfinder with a combined total of 13% divided between 1E and 2E.

Here are the stats for this time last year. It's actually a drop in share for D&D (from 69% to 63%), which was also borne out by Roll20's figures earlier this year, where D&D dropped from 52% to 48%. (That doesn't mean less people are playing D&D of course). Pathfinder is harder to compare -- 2E was released halfway through the period measured, so a large bulk of it is 1E. We'll have a clearer picture on that towards the end of the year, when 2E has been out for a year.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

Sure! You can chat in orc, goblin, elvish...all sorts of languages! (Unfortunately, I don't think they support any language other than english).

There actually are translations for many of the rulesets. It is fan driven, but Smiteworks trying to use string files that can be chances to a different language.

The DLC is all in English from what I know.

 

[jhilahd]

I went from having never used FG in Feb to running 3 games a week on it in March. It actually makes running dungeon crawl type stuff a lot easier than I expected. still would rather be in person. also, man is it hard to use, especially for people that are also new to dnd.

As an old fart preparing to make the jump into FG, what did you find hard?
What things would you flag as "need to know"for the first session?

 

[Mercador]

As an old fart preparing to make the jump into FG, what did you find hard?
What things would you flag as "need to know"for the first session?

Same question

 

[Reynard]

As an old fart preparing to make the jump into FG, what did you find hard?
What things would you flag as "need to know"for the first session?

I have introduced a bunch of people to FG recently and a couple things pop up consistently:

1) Whether to click on a thing or double click on a thing to make it do the thing seems to vary randomly from thing to thing.

2) so many windows!!!

3) it's got layers, like an onion. Sometimes you have to open a sub menu, sometimes you don't.

4) what's coded to be automated versus what's not seems arbitrary. Consider investing in extension or paid add ons with additional coding.

5) port forwarding

 

[(un)reason]

Crazy to see that PF2 shot up to 2nd place in Aug but was back below PF1 by Oct.

Same issue as 4e. Shows how many people tried it then decided, nah, we still prefer the D&D 3e ruleset in whatever form to the replacement they're trying to sell us.

Even more interesting is AD&D 2e having more than twice as many games as 4e, which is a big change from last year. We seem to be hitting the point where that's getting the nostalgia bump, aided by the fact that most of the books are finally available legally as .pdfs again. (and there's a LOT more 2e books than 4e ones)

 

[Mercador]

5) port forwarding

whatyearisit.jpg

 

[Myrdin Potter]

Same issue as 4e. Shows how many people tried it then decided, nah, we still prefer the D&D 3e ruleset in whatever form to the replacement they're trying to sell us.

Even more interesting is AD&D 2e having more than twice as many games as 4e, which is a big change from last year. We seem to be hitting the point where that's getting the nostalgia bump, aided by the fact that most of the books are finally available legally as .pdfs again. (and there's a LOT more 2e books than 4e ones)

There is a fully functioning 2e ruleset for sale and WoTC licensed AD&D materials to Smiteworks (Fantasy Grounds) so you can buy all the books in FG format. That is why it is doing well now compared to last year.

 

[Jester David]

Looking at the numbers above with what we saw last time: Fantasy Grounds Top RPGs (Last 12 Months)

The numbers look completely different. Did they change how they tracked games played?