Top 5 Tabletop RPGs Spring 2021: Cyberpunk Gains!

ICv2 has released its periodic bestseller list of tabletop roleplaying games in the US and Canada for spring 2021. Dungeons & Dragons takes the top spot as it has done every quarter since Summer 2014, R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk displaces Pathfinder as it continues its climb to 2nd place since it first appeared in the chart a year ago, and for the second time ever '5E Compatible' has appeared on the chart, while Alien maintains its position.

Position​	Game (Publisher)​
1​	Dungeons & Dragons (WotC)
2​	Cyberpunk (R. Talsorian)
3​	Pathfinder (Paizo)
4​	Alien (Free League)
5​	5E Compatible (Various)

As always I keep a historical record of these charts here.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Pathfinder 5E Compatible, here we come?

 

[CleverNickName]

Pathfinder 5E Compatible, here we come?

I doubt it.

But I'd buy a copy.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I wouldn't be too surprised if Paizo published a 5E compatible edition of the Pathfinder classes (oracle, inquisitor, witch, alchemist, samurai, ninja, gunslinger, cavalier, shifter, medium, swashbuckler, spiritualist..), or PC races and monsters.

In my opinion Starfinder has got a bright potential future, with a potential market among the fandom who is unhappy with the way of the famous sci-fi franchises. Maybe Starfinder needs a right videogame adaptation like Cyberpunk 2077.

And I guess Shadowrun could become more popular than Cyberpunk, but it is a mixture of fantasy and sci-fi.

A D&D needs Pathfinder as a friendnemy/archrival.

 

[TrippyHippy]

I wouldn't be too surprised if Paizo published a 5E compatible edition of the Pathfinder classes (oracle, inquisitor, witch, alchemist, samurai, ninja, gunslinger, cavalier, shifter, medium, swashbuckler, spiritualist..), or PC races and monsters.

In my opinion Starfinder has got a bright potential future, with a potential market among the fandom who is unhappy with the way of the famous sci-fi franchises. Maybe Starfinder needs a right videogame adaptation like Cyberpunk 2077.

And I guess Shadowrun could become more popular than Cyberpunk, but it is a mixture of fantasy and sci-fi.

A D&D needs Pathfinder as a friendnemy/archrival.

If Starfinder was going to make any long term impact it would have done so by now. I wouldn’t be surprised if the sales figures above actually incorporates Starfinder into Pathfinder's overall numbers. Either way, Starfinder's sales numbers are effectively a subset of Pathfinder’s - of interest to Pathfinder fans, but not so much to anyone else.

Shadowrun has been a successful, established game for more than 30 years and has been a Top 5 seller before. However, it had a new edition release only a couple of years ago or so and it isn’t likely to spike in a major way soon, I’d imagine.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

But Shadowrun is a "veteran", with decades of experencie and Starfinder is a (relatively) beginner. Shadowrun has been adapted into videogame some times. Even some written novel was published decades ago. But how many languages has been translated the last edition?

Starfinder is perfect for the fandom who love to create a homebred smash-up version of their favorite franchises. I only miss rules for mind-uploading and digital inmortality after buying my Eclipse Phase RPG. As brand has got a lot of possibilities to be remembered in the future. We have to remember Spelljammer wasn't a true smahs-hit for its age. If WotC wants to publish a new edition of Star-Frontiers/Star*Drive they should be worried about Starfinder as potential rival.

 

[Jimmy Dick]

I would not be surprised at all if Starfinder made a significant edition change in three or four years to the 2e three action economy and math system for play while retaining all of the current lore. If there was a way to convert current SF characters to the new system, I think they would have done it already. On the other hand, waiting a few years to see what long term flaws exist in the 2e system and addressing them with a new edition of Starfinder would be a good idea too. Everything depends on sales of Starfinder over the next two years.

 

[GreyLord]

Not sure what the overall picture is with Pathfinder. In the FLGS's closest to me we were talking about sales in various conversations over the past few months. What is interesting is D&D is on top, but Pathfinder 2e is actually NOT the second best seller in any of them. One (which does not show up on the list here) was CoC, another was Cyberpunk.

I was surprised as well. Another interesting surprise was in one of them, the third best selling game was actually one of the Age products (Fantasy Age, Modern Age...etc), which surprised me to a degree as well.

This is entirely anecdotal though, as ALL the shops had Pathfinder on the shelves (and thus it was selling) while some had some products and not others (For example, the Age products were not in one of the stores I visited, COC was not in another).

PS: On the computer game front, Pathfinder DOES have a CRPG released (Pathfinder: Kingmaker) and another one is being made (I think) based on Wrath of the Righteous.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

But Pathfinder 2 can offer something, more classes, and their idea about PC races is totally right, allowing a better customitation of the PCs, avoiding some races to be typecasted into certatin class (fight, magic or stealth). In Pathfinder 2 a gnome with the right racial feats can be good in a not-rogue-neither-illusionist class. The occult classes were a fabulous idea. And the modules are being sold very well, aren't they?

Netflix wants to offer videogames. Can you imagine what if the streaming plataform start to offer virtual tabletops? Then the value of the franchises by the RPG publishers would sky rocket.

My opinion is we should await more years for Starfinder 2 because there are new classes to be developing.

 

[macd21]

Agreed. With all due respect Macd21, you don’t have an accurate understanding of what what on then.

My understanding is based on what a number of game developers said at the time. WotC pulling the plug on 3.5 left them in a terrible position. Everything they had been working on was now worthless. Distributors were had no interest in products that supported a game that was no longer in production, Paizo’s adventures included.

The OGL producers considered whether to switch to 4ed, but the GSL was so slow in coming out that even had they really wanted to, they couldn’t afford to risk investing in it (as the GSL might turn out to be too restrictive). So they were left in a bind. The OGL was at that point completely worthless. The GSL wasn’t out yet. It looked like they’d need to just give up and hope they could (maybe) rebuild when the GSL finally came out.

But then Paizo came up with an alternative. The Distributors would buy product for a dead game - so Paizo just created a new one. It was a massive risk, but obviously it paid off.

But one thing that Paizo learned from this was that they never wanted to be in a position where their product was tied to something another company could kill at short notice. I believe it was one of the stated reasons they didn’t make 4ed compatible material (despite high demand).

 

[billd91]

My understanding is based on what a number of game developers said at the time. WotC pulling the plug on 3.5 left them in a terrible position. Everything they had been working on was now worthless. Distributors were had no interest in products that supported a game that was no longer in production, Paizo’s adventures included.

The OGL producers considered whether to switch to 4ed, but the GSL was so slow in coming out that even had they really wanted to, they couldn’t afford to risk investing in it (as the GSL might turn out to be too restrictive). So they were left in a bind. The OGL was at that point completely worthless. The GSL wasn’t out yet. It looked like they’d need to just give up and hope they could (maybe) rebuild when the GSL finally came out.

But then Paizo came up with an alternative. The Distributors would buy product for a dead game - so Paizo just created a new one. It was a massive risk, but obviously it paid off.

But one thing that Paizo learned from this was that they never wanted to be in a position where their product was tied to something another company could kill at short notice. I believe it was one of the stated reasons they didn’t make 4ed compatible material (despite high demand).

Yes, pulling the plug on 3.5 did put Paizo (and others) in a terrible position. But as to your earlier post, it wasn't the OGL that burned them. The OGL did nothing, nor did relying on the OGL burn them. WotC may feel that the OGL burned them because it enabled their competitors, hence the more easily controlled GSL they tried to replace it with among the 3rd party producers.
The OGL was never worthless - not even with WotC veering away from it. Its value had just not been determined under those circumstances. I think WotC, as they were at the time, wanted to undermine its worth, but Paizo showed it was still worth quite a bit - which is what was intended in the first place.