How many people play D&D, and what percentage play various editions?

[Mercurius]

So as not to thread jack and because it is its own distinct subject, I thought I'd start a new thread. There isn't as much one question as there are a group of related questions:

• How many people play D&D world-wide?
• Is this number down from the hey-day of 3.x, and from the 1980s?
• What percentage of D&D players play the various editions of D&D?

And so forth.

Now I don't actually expect anyone to have much concrete information on this, and as far as I know no one has done real market research since Ryan Dancey in the late 90s. Barring actual data (which if it exists, please share!), I'm curious about perception and speculation. In other words, even if we cannot know the answers to these questions it is interesting enough to discuss what we think, and what sort of variation exists in that thinking.

I will include a poll because I'm interested in the variety of perspectives on this. The poll will outline a few options, with three general categories:

"Old School" - pre-3E versions of D&D, including OD&D, BX, BECMI (and Rules Cyclopedia), AD&D 1E and 2E, and retro-clones.
"3.x" - Including 3E, 3.5E, Pathfinder, and 3.x/d20 variants.
"4E" - 4E/Essentials.

The poll will outline a few possible percentage spreads; for example, "20/40/40" would mean 20% Old School, 40% 3.x, and 40% 4E. I will only offer a few general spreads - just pick the one that is closest to what you think. If you think they are all wildly wrong, please express why and/or what you think is more accurate.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

Hmm, wait a moment...

 

[Mercurius]

Funny.

I couldn't settle on good poll options and then I passed the 10 minute mark, so no poll. Still, people can post percentages. My guess would be:

5-20% - Old School
25-40% - 3.x
40-70% - 4E

Wide ranges, I know, but that's the thing - it is just such an unknown. But a couple things implicit in those numbers:

*I don't think there are more 3.x players than 4E players; at most, it is about even.
*At least 30% of D&D players don't play 4E, which is a sizeable number. It might be significantly more.

If I had to guess more exactly, I'd say 10%, 32%, 58%.

 

[cdrcjsn]

I asked this question from my readers recently. It turns out that almost everyone plays multiple game systems, so it's not accurate to think of gamers as distinctly 4e or 3e players or whatever.

Among my readers, more play 3.5 than 4e, and more play 4e than pathfinder. The 'other' category (non-d&d), actually is also pretty significant.

 

[Jacob Marley]

How about an anecdote instead?

As I recall, over the years (since the early 90s), I have played D&D with 34 individuals. As far as I know, this is the breakdown of what people are currently playing (or not):

9 (28.125%) are no longer playing.
3 (9.375%) are playing 3rd Edition.
7 (21.875%) are playing Pathfinder.
6 (18.75%) are playing 4th Edition.
9 (28.125%) are unknowns*.

* One of the unknowns, from what I gather, has written his own RPG. Though, I do not know if he is playing it.

If I were a betting man (And I am!), I would say that my 3.5/Pathfinder numbers are probably higher than the general gaming population and my 4th Edition numbers are probably lower than the general gaming population. By how much? I don't know.

 

[delericho]

How many people play D&D world-wide?

About a million active participants worldwide (including Pathfinder and the retro-clones as "D&D"). IIRC, that's the number WotC gave, and I see no reason to doubt it.

Is this number down from the hey-day of 3.x, and from the 1980s?

Down from the height of 3e, but not by much. Down from the 80s by a lot. (I expect that the majority of that "20 million lapsed players" are probably from the 'fad' days.

What percentage of D&D players play the various editions of D&D?

Retro-clone/Homebrew*: About 2%
3e/3.5e/Pathfinder: About 40%
4e/Essentials: About 65%

* Homebrew includes RCFG, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, a SWSE-like "D&D", hybrid editions, and anything else that isn't a recognised edition (while clearly being "of the same stable").

There's some overlap between the groups, which is why the percentages don't total 100%. (My guess is Pathfinder is about half as 'big' as 4e in terms of players, I suspect that Paizo have more people who buy everything, and I suspect that WotC makes more money from their 'average' customer by virtue of DDI subscriptions.)

Oh, I also suspect that about 80% of players are 'satisfied' or 'very satisfied' with their game of choice, and that some 95% consider their game of choice to be 'the best of the available options' - even if they're not particularly satisfied, their preferred option doesn't really exist.

 

[MortonStromgal]

I can't remember/find any real numbers but there have been a few studies over the years. I believe it is usually end up being under 2 million table top rpg players with more than half playing some edition of D&D. With exceptions of the D&D redbox and VtM years where we exceeded 3 million. And if the WOTC study is to be believed...

here you go
http://www.hackslash.net/?p=924

 

[Lanefan]

At the moment (these numbers change slightly all the time) our closed* crew has both 1e and 3e games on the go; 2 campaigns in each system. The player breakdown goes thusly:

1e only: 8
1e and 3e: 3
3e only: 6 or 7
not currently playing, for various reasons: about 5, split about evenly 1e-3e.

* - by "closed", I mean that as far as I know, none of our crew is playing in *any* other RPG besides our 1e and 3e D+D games.

None of us have switched to 4e.

Lanefan

 

[prosfilaes]

Proportion-wise, someone once pointed out http://www.obsidianportal.com to me. Major systems there (over 130 campaigns (i.e. D&D 1 and greater)):

AD&D (2.0) (257) 2%
D&D (1.0) (130) 1%
D&D (3.0) (199) 1%
D&D (3.5) (3765) 24%
D&D 4E (7805) 49%
d20 (231) 1%
d20 Modern (212) 1%
GURPS (278) 2%
Mutants and Masterminds (162) 1%
Pathfinder RPG (1294) 8%
Savage Worlds (311) 2%
Shadowrun (252) 2%
Star Wars Saga Edition (320) 2%
World of Darkness (377) 2%

It's not the end-all and be-all of sources, and many of them haven't been updated recently, but it's one sample.

 

[Mercurius]

prosfilaes, I'm confused - you say "over 130 campaigns" but then you have much larger numbers in parentheses, such as 7805 for 4E. If there are 130 campaigns at Obsidian Portal, what does the 7805 refer to?