The Breakdown of Gen Con 2025 RPG events

[Elvish Lore]

Gen Con rpg list

It's fun to look at lists like this and draw conclusions. Thing is, I'm not sure what conclusions to draw.

Gives a list of most popular rpgs? A long list of games you thought were dead but still around? Indie darlings that we think are far more popular than they really are?

D&D has 1247 events. Not a shocker.

Pathfinder is very robust at 476.

Call of Cthulhu and Starfinder are neck in neck hovering under 200 events planned.

Blades in the Dark, the darling of online forums, has 10 events scheduled.

Cosmere, which isn't out but had a $15 million crowdfund has... 10.

Break! which had a lot of buzz last year has... 1.

Yea, there's tons of factors here that make reading the tea leaves difficult. Some games shine in one-shots, many don't and so don't get convention play. Many events are sponsored which inflate numbers. Some systems like Lancer almost require an online component.

So... I'm looking at the breakdown for fun rather than some serious attempt at data science.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think it's important to not equate Gen Con attendees with RPG players. I have been an RPG player since 1979 and have attended zero Gen Cons, so this list does not and cannot represent me in any way.

And I don't think Blades in the Dark has been the online darling for a number of years. In contrast, Shadowdark has 64 events scheduled. Mork Borg has 40. Other Borgs are also represented, including 18 for Cy_Borg and Pirate Borg with 94.

Mothership, which is definitely a darling of the moment, has a surprisingly low 14 games, presumably losing some of their oxygen to the new edition of Alien coming soon, which has 38 games scheduled.

A lot of this, I think, also reflects which companies are good at organizing their fan community and prioritizing having events at cons. Root the RPG, from Renegade (I think) has 113 events, which is a staggering number for an RPG about woodland animals based on a board game.

I do think it's noteworthy that most of the old TSR-era games seem to mostly be in the single digits. The Gen X and older folks at ENWorld who still love those and often think of those as the majority of non-D&D games are very much in the minority, at least among Gen Con event organizers.

 

[Reynard]

How many, if any, Daggerheart events?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

How many, if any, Daggerheart events?

74, I think.

 

[Morrus]

I think it's important to not equate Gen Con attendees with RPG players. I have been an RPG player since 1979 and have attended zero Gen Cons, so this list does not and cannot represent me in any way.

"I wasn't personally part of the statistics" is not how representative statistics work.

These may or may not be of little value for various reasons (and I agree there's lots of reasons to take them with a big old pinch of salt), but the fact that Whizband Dustyboots wasn't personally consulted isn't one of those reasons.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

"I wasn't personally part of the statistics" is not how representative statistics work.

These may or may not be of little value for various reasons (and I agree there's lots of reasons to take them with a big old pinch of salt), but the fact that Whizband Dustyboots wasn't personally consulted isn't one of those reasons.

It's not about me -- even I don't think I'm particularly interesting or important.

It's just that this sample is not truly representative of anyone other than the people who put on Gen Con events. We don't have a good way to evaluate to what degree this represents anything more about the larger gaming community.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

How many, if any, Daggerheart events?

According to that list, 74.

 

[Autumnal]

People have tried scrying with GenCon since there was a GenCon to scry with. Mostly it works if you’re designing a product to sell at GenCon.

 

[Reynard]

"I wasn't personally part of the statistics" is not how representative statistics work.

These may or may not be of little value for various reasons (and I agree there's lots of reasons to take them with a big old pinch of salt), but the fact that Whizband Dustyboots wasn't personally consulted isn't one of those reasons.

It's not about me -- even I don't think I'm particularly interesting or important.

It's just that this sample is not truly representative of anyone other than the people who put on Gen Con events. We don't have a good way to evaluate to what degree this represents anything more about the larger gaming community.

An intertesting thing to know, which I doubt we could, is what percentage of gen Con attendees play an RPG game at GenCon.

 

[Elvish Lore]

Like I said originally, it's not good data science here. I'll also say, I think a break down of games at Gen Con do tend to represent the general market, too.

And, yea,'tend' there is carrying a lot of weight.