Welcome back! It’s been a while since we last saw each other.
We’re a bit later than we’d like on this edition of the Orr Report, but hopefully you’ll see the value in its new form: We’ve built the whole report into its own standalone, downloadable PDF. Hopefully this new form allows for greater functionality across the board, and more developers, publishers, and players can find more value in the Orr Report as a whole.
We’ve also included, for the first time, a few quick-hit stats on the virtual tabletop. In the vertical graphic below, you’ll see stats for some rolls, whispers, and a couple of other neat quick-hits.
To make room for this data, we cut the “account percentage” stat, which was a measurement of how many accounts played a system, in favor of focusing on “campaign percentage,” which is a measurement of how many campaigns exist for a certain system on Roll20. While there are sometimes meaningful distinctions between the two, they usually just ran parallel.
That’s all the housekeeping taken care of. Let’s talk about what got played.
The Orr Report Q2 2021 At-A-Glance
Q2 2021 saw some significant change for a few titles, while others held steady or moved only slightly.
D&D 5E, for example, remains on top, accounting for over half of the campaigns on Roll20. It’s up to 53.7% over Q1’s 52.94%, a very slight increase overall, but an increase nonetheless.
The next biggest system? No system at all–or at least, none on record. “Uncategorized” refers to campaigns that opted not to use an accompanying character sheet with their games.
This doesn’t necessarily indicate that no system was played, of course—some players prefer physical character sheets, for example–but either way, it saw significant growth. It’s up from 14.96% to 19.8%, accounting for nearly 20% of the campaigns on the site
Call of Cthulhu, maintained its third-place slot from Q1 2021, but saw an increase overall from 10.95% to 16.3%. That’s a significant jump, and the system’s ever-increasing global popularity no doubt has a big hand in making it happen.
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Call of Cthulhu, maintained its third-place slot from Q1 2021, but saw an increase overall from 10.95% to 16.3%.
Next up are the Pathfinder editions, holding strong at 4 & 5 respectively. Pathfinder First Edition overtook Second Edition in late 2020 and never looked back–this quarter, that remains the case, though First Edition held steady (3.49% to 3.4%).
Pathfinder Second Edition, meanwhile, grew from 1.51% to 1.8%. With all the recent releases from Paizo for Second Edition, including the hotly anticipated “Secrets of Magic” and the well-received “Strength of Thousands Adventure Path,” it’ll be interesting to see if Second Edition continues to climb through the rest of 2021.
Warhammer and World of Darkness are tied up for the next slot, with 1.2% each. Warhammer was at 1.24% last quarter, so it saw just a slight dip during these months. World of Darkness, meanwhile, grew from 1.12%, and with growing support and popularity for the line on the horizon, it seems likely to eclipse Warhammer in the coming months.
D&D 3.5 held steady in the next slot, growing from 0.98% to 1.1%. The community-build 3.5 character sheet saw some really cool improvements at the end of July; if you’re a 3.5 fan and you haven’t checked it out in a while, we recommend giving it a look.
Rounding out the list, we have Starfinder at 0.7% and Star Wars at 0.6%. Starfinder didn’t chart last quarter, and, like Pathfinder, the system has enjoyed a healthy number of well-received new additions in the recent months, including its first standalone adventure. Starfinder’s certainly one to watch in the coming quarters.
Star Wars, meanwhile, has gone without releases for quite some time. Despite that, it’s remained in relatively the same spot, dropping just from 0.69% to 0.6%. Its consistent popularity (as well as the diversity of Star Wars titles out there) has helped it hang tight to that number 10 slot.
Powered By the Apocalypse games fell out of the top 10 this quarter, just below Tormenta and inSANe on the overall list at 0.41%. Note, however, that last edition we grouped PBTA with Dungeon World; this time, we’ve split them up. If you combine the two (Dungeon World is at 0.33%), you’ll hit 0.74%, which would bring it just above Starfinder–still a dip from its 0.83% last quarter, but not by as much.
Games to Watch
Beyond the top-played systems on the site, there are a few up-and-comers worth watching, moving forward.
Blades in the Dark
Blades’ share on Roll20 has held steadily around 0.4% since the release of its officially supported modules on the site from publisher Evil Hat. With the recent greenlighting of an HBO show set in the shadowy world of Doskvol, we expect to see growth for the game well into 2021 and the next year.
inSANe
The difficult-to-Google inSANe is a multi-setting horror RPG popular especially in Japan. It saw a growth from 0.41% to 0.54%, rising a bit more than the other titles in its class. As a result, it has climbed its way to the 11th slot, above the other games that generally float within that 0.4% to 0.6% range.
Mutants and Masterminds
Mutants and Masterminds is a superhero RPG from publisher Green Ronin, and though it hasn’t seen explosive growth, it has steadily gained popularity on the site–in Q4 of 2020, it sat at about 0.22%, followed by 0.24% in Q1 of 2021. Now, it’s at 0.26%–that’s a small but steady growth, and could point towards a rising popularity throughout the rest of the year. Publisher Green Ronin just released the 3rd Edition character sheet on the site and it’s a beauty.
Ironsworn
Ironsworn rounds out our list of games to watch this time around. The Kickstarter-funded TTRPG grew from 0.11% to 0.15% across this quarter. What’s particularly interesting about Ironsword, beyond its focus on perilous dungeon diving, is that it contains rules for solo play and cooperative, GM-less play. We’re particularly interested to see if players start using Roll20 to keep track of their bookkeeping while solo gaming, so Ironsworn will be one to watch.
Click the link below to see the full Orr Report.