The Orr Groups Latest Stats: D&D Up 2%; Pathfinder Holds Steady; Apocalypse World & Star Wars Gain G

It's that time again - the latest game system usage stats from The Orr Group, who produce the popular Roll20 virtual tabletop software. This set of figures is for Quarter 4, 2016, and shows no real surprises - D&D 5th Edition remains in the lead by a strong margin, and some trends have coincided with big movies or video games, such as Rogue One and a Pokemon thing. D&D 5E has increased by over 2% again this quarter, with Pathfinder maintaining its position. Apocalypse World has increased again, as have some foreign language games.

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As always, data is pulled from Roll20 profiles, specifically the "Enjoys Playing" and "Seeks Group For" fields (for players) and My Campaigns (for game numbers); because players can list multiple games, figures can exceed 100%. They explain how it works here. As always, here's the data - make of it as little or as much as you wish!

See the previous quarter's statistics here. Quarter 1 2016 here.

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[Mistwell]

Sure, but no guarantee that even a DM will fill his info...?

No guarantee but a lot more likely as it's one of the fields you fill out when starting a game. You would have to actively decide to skip it (in fact I am not even certain you CAN skip it as a DM - there are really only two fields to fill out when starting a game and it's one of the two. I suspect to give your players access to the 5e character sheet you have to select 5e). The players however don't have to do anything. They never even have to go to the page where they indicate their preference for game type, after creating their account.

 

[Parmandur]

No guarantee but a lot more likely as it's one of the fields you fill out when starting a game. You would have to actively decide to skip it (in fact I am not even certain you CAN skip it as a DM - there are really only two fields to fill out when starting a game and it's one of the two). The players however don't have to do anything. They never even have to go to the page where they indicate their preference for game type, after creating their account.

Sure; but without more data, which probably isn't being collected, can't say what the extent is, in fact.

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[Mistwell]

Sure; but without more data, which probably isn't being collected, can't say what the extent is, in fact.

Sent from my BLU LIFE XL using EN World mobile app

Per my edit, I don't even think you can use the built-in character sheets without selecting the game type. So again, I think it's near 100% for DMs to fill in game type...and it's nothing close to that for players who never need to even go to that page after making their account. I think this denial that we have usable data for DMs is not helpful...we obviously have usable data for DMs.

In addition, on looking at existing games on there, I could not find a single one that didn't list game type by the DM.

 

[Parmandur]

Per my edit, I don't even think you can use the built-in 5e character sheet without selecting 5e. So again, I think it's near 100% for DMs to fill in game type...and it's nothing close to that for players who never need to even go to that page after making their account. I think this denial that we have usable data for DMs is not helpful...we obviously have usable data for DMs.

Usable to the extent of saying "more people are playing 5E than anything else," but that's "no, duh" territory.

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[Mistwell]

Usable to the extent of saying "more people are playing 5E than anything else," but that's "no, duh" territory.

Sent from my BLU LIFE XL using EN World mobile app

Usable in the sense that we know how many games of each type are being DM'ed on that system, with very little room for error in that number until you get down into the "other" category. I'd say that's useful data.

On the player side, we don't really know as it seems a lot of players might never fill that out if they're only on there to play in their friends game anyway.