Roll20 Reports First Drop For D&D

Roll20's latest stats are in. In terms of games run, D&D has shown its first drop since I last reported on Roll20's stats, from 51.87% in Q2 2019 to 47.54% in Q4 (although it is slightly higher than the 45% of Q3, which I missed!) Call of Cthulhu rises from 14.3% in Q2 to 15.3%, while Pathfinder drops from 6.5% to about 5% (but recovers from a massive Q3 drop, expected in the run-up to a new edition). In terms of player numbers, D&D dropped by about 1%, while Pathfinder increased by about 2%. Call of Cthulhu had a massive 7% rise.

Pathfinder 2E is the strange number here. Just over 1% in Q4 2019 (which is apparently a rise of 82%). I wonder if some of the Pathfinder 1E stats are being conflated with Pathfinder 2E under the generic "Pathfinder" heading?

The Orr Group also shows an interesting new stat, with the biggest growths in Q4 2019.

Ironsworn RPG's big spike coincide with Roll20's own in-house stream, so it is to be expected on their own internal reports.

Here's the full list.

And here's the Q2 report.

 

[dave2008]

Interesting, so 5e was trending down in Q2 and Q3, but is moving back up in Q4. Isn't Q4 when Eberron came out?

 

[darjr]

Wait till CR drops. Madness!

 

[Superchunk77]

Maybe more people getting bored with 5e and exploring other game systems? Sounds ok to me.

 

[Bravesteel25]

I'm surprised Savage Worlds is so low. I thought it was one of the more popular games that wasn't D&D/Pathfinder.

 

[Superchunk77]

I'm surprised Savage Worlds is so low. I thought it was one of the more popular games that wasn't D&D/Pathfinder.

Savage Worlds get played in person, A LOT. It's one of those games that plays better in physical form that it does via VTT. I gleaned that from the Facebook posts I see showcasing miniatures and game table setups of "savages".

 

[EricVulgaris]

I wrote the report and I can help explain some of the discrepancies. The reasons for stuff like FATE ( Core, Accelerated, Dresden Files... ) // FATE or D&D 5e // Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition being separated is a bug with how systems got labeled and what bucket your game fell into. The total number of games being reported is right, just how they got bucketed was wrong. This does slightly change the %s of some systems, but not by much!

As pointed out in the new reporting revamp in 2019, we look at both how players label their game (you can do that via campaign settings and put a game system in playing)
as well as character sheet usage, with preference to labels.

What was going on is that if you self-labeled your game D&D 5e, that bucket never got added to the 5e character sheet bucket. Sadly it's no conspiracy. It's just a goof by me! No vast conspiracy. In fact I already am fixing it now so this never happens again!

 

[gss000]

I wrote the report and I can help explain some of the discrepancies.

Hello! Since you wrote the report, I have a question regarding all of the numbers. As these are percentages, could you say something about the total number of games on roll20? Is that number going up or down? I'm interested in knowing whether the player base is growing, declining, or staying the same. Thank you!

 

[Reynard]

Savage Worlds get played in person, A LOT. It's one of those games that plays better in physical form that it does via VTT. I gleaned that from the Facebook posts I see showcasing miniatures and game table setups of "savages".

Savage Worlds also ranks much higher in general on Fantasy grounds. it may simply be that the SW fan community embraced FG first, or perhaps FG is a better fit for some reason.

 

[Jimmy Dick]

I am not sure how they tabulate things to generate the report. I have four tables I use for Pathfinder 2 game play. I only use them for Pathfinder Society games. One of the tables has 11 PFS2 scenarios built on it and I've hosted about 20 game sessions on that one table alone. I have the PF2 sheet enabled on it. The other three tables have the PF2 sheet enabled but I've only ran a game or two on each one to this point.

I have about 20 other tables with multiple PF1 games on them. I use the Pathfinder Companion or community sheet for them, not the official Roll20 sheet. I've had about 150 or so sessions on them since 2016. I still have players that won't use a sheet and prefer to use self-built macros instead.

So, how does this report get compiled? That's the big question. If it goes by table alone, then it's not reflective of game play by a long margin. If it goes by sheets, that's another issue. Labeling seems to be important, but the lack of labeling by table creators is going to skew the report again. It's all about how the data is generated.

 

[Retreater]

I'm surprised Savage Worlds is so low. I thought it was one of the more popular games that wasn't D&D/Pathfinder.

My experience (and I'm a fan of the system) is that Savage Worlds is definitely niche. None of the local shops carry it. There's no organized play at game stores (or even demo games). It hasn't crossed into any other media [no video games, movies, board games, Munchkin card games, monopoly, etc.] and has no real media tie-ins l like Call of Cthulhu, Star Wars, Star Trek, Conan, etc. [unless you count stuff long out of the pop culture attention like Lankhmar or Flash Gordon].
Every time I've attempted to run it, it's considered a weird system. I might as well ask to run Forbidden Lands, Monster of the Week, or Dread. Book sales might not reflect that, but I think that in actual use it's probably a lot less popular than we'd expect.