The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Though we’ve been speculating about what the new setting recently pre-announced for D&D might or might not be (Icewind Dale being one suggestion), there's some doubt about whether it exists at all!
Though we’ve been speculating about what the new setting recently pre-announced for D&D might or might not be (Icewind Dale being one suggestion), there's some doubt about whether it exists at all!
All of their books. An article from 2004 says 22 million, so I'm guessing sales have slowed considerably since then but still continued, so 25 million seems reasonable. I don't know how many are Dragonlance, but I would guess well over half--maybe three-quarters or more.
I'd say more like 3/4 are Dragonlance. I had to edit as I overestimated how much DL they wrote but it's the best known followed by probably Deathgate and Sovereign Stone.
That one does not count any more than Tales from the Yawning Portal does. Neither one is a real adventure path. they are both just sets of old adventures put together into a book, not an original story written as a whole.
That one does not count any more than Tales from the Yawning Portal does. Neither one is a real adventure path. they are both just sets of old adventures put together into a book, not an original story written as a whole.
It's not that long, and can be placed into any setting fairly easily. It has guidelines on how to do so. It's not 100% greyhawk, and was just a small part to introduce aquatic rules.
It's not that long, and can be placed into any setting fairly easily. It has guidelines on how to do so. It's not 100% greyhawk, and was just a small part to introduce aquatic rules.
There are two sections, the regional Gazeeter at the beginning, and the naval campaign material at the end of the book. The regional material alone is big enough to have been a full book of it's own in the 1980's, and is very definitely Greyhawk (Greyhawk is extremely portable, to be fair).
Mearls and Crawford swore up and down for years that they were working on a plan to make Setting books in a new way that would work as widely sellable products, and we (the enfranchised forumites) were pretty dismissive of their talk. However, with the Ravnica book they seems to have cracked the nut of how to make a book that introduces a new Setting while being useful to just about anybody, or at least useful enough to be worth purchasing, hence solving the "splitting the fanbase" problem of decadent late TSR.
I think it is working well because they're not flooding the market with tons of supplements, which inevitably are subject to diminishing returns.
But let's look at some numbers. As of this moment, among Gaming books on Amazon, the D&D books rank as follows:
KEY core rulebook starter set splat setting book adventure path accessory
1. PHB
2. DMG
3. MM 5. Xanathar 6. Essentials Kit 7. Volo's 9. Starter Set 10. Gift set 11. Wildemount 12. Mordenkainen's 13. Eberron
16. Sword Coast
18. Theros 23. DM Screen 27. Saltmarsh 31. Spellbook Cards - Arcane 32. Dragon Heist 35. Ravnica 37. Curse of Strahd
42. Tomb of Annihilation
44. Descent in Avernus 45. Character Sheets
50. Magic Item Cards
51. Spellbook Cards - Cleric 53. Dungeon of the Mad Mage
54. Hoard of the Dragon Queen
61. Storm King's Thunder 65. Spellbook Cards - Xanathar
68. Tarokka Deck
69. Spellbook Cards - Paladin
70. Spellbook Cards - Druid
71. Creature & NPC Cards 72. Tales from the Yawning Portal
73. Rise of Tiamat
75. Out of the Abyss 76. Spellbook Cards - Ranger
77. Spellbook Cards - Bard
78. Laeral's Explorer's Kit
86. Monster Cards 0-5 92. Acquisitions Incorporated 97. Spellbook Cards - Martial & Races
Out of top 100: Princes of Apocalypse.
Now this doesn't mean everything, as it is unclear to what degree the sales rank is just today, or if it includes previous days, and to what degree. But I think it does give us some info on on sales relative to each other. Again, with the caveat of uncertainty of time-span.
But let's pretend that the sales rank means something beyond just today, or at least that it is representative of current sales. A few things that we can glean:
- The core three continue to sell very well. The PHB is currently #158 in all books, although I know it occasionally dips into the top 100--which is remarkable, considering it is six years old. The DMG is #279 and MM is #339 in books, so they also sell well. Compare that to the lowest ranking book, Princes of the Apocalypse, which is outside the top 100 in Gaming (my guess is in the 101-120) and #18,842 in all books.
- The starter sets sell really well. Not surprising, as they are essentially connected to the core books. The numbers are also probably higher as they sell a bunch in other stores.
- The splat books sell really well. Volo, Xanathar, and Mordenkainen have all been out for at least two years, and are still the 4th, 5th, and 7th best-selling hardcovers, respectively.
- Setting books seem to sell reasonably well, with Sword Coast maintaining a good ranking five years after being published. Hard to say with Wildemount and Eberron as they're pretty recent. Ravnica has fallen a bit, but seems to be hanging in with the more popular story arcs.
- Older story arcs don't sell all that well. It would seem that unlike splats and settings, after their publication and initial sales spike, they fall.
- Acquisitions Incorporated may be a bit of a dud. It came out less than a year ago and is the second lowest book.
So based on all that, I'd guess the tiers of sales are:
Tier One: Core rulebooks
Tier Two: Starter sets, splat books, new/popular setting books, new story arcs
Tier Three: Older/less popular setting books (?), recent story arcs
Tier Four: Un-popular books, older story arcs, accessories
Meaning, setting books seem to have a higher baseline for continual sales than most story arcs, although it is unclear if initial sales on story arcs is higher. Splat books sell really well at a continued rate, and Sword Coast has done (surprisingly?) well in a long-term sense. One would think that this would increase the impetus to publish a full FR campaign guide.
