Welcome back to the Orr Group Industry Report!
2021 is wrapping up already–can you believe it? It’s somehow November, and it’s been a big, busy year for the tabletop industry and hobby.
Quarter 3 saw the release of several new titles on the Roll20 Marketplace and beyond, including hotly anticipated D&D books, new sourcebooks and adventures for Pathfinder and Starfinder, and the Malleus Monstrorum for Call of Cthulhu.
But the big story for this particular Orr Report lies in some of the titles beyond the big three. As you can see from our Systems On the Rise, Q3 was a very fruitful quarter for TTRPG games just outside of the upper echelon, including one title that was able to successfully burst through the door and make its way into the top ten.
Indeed, while many of the top slots stayed relatively (or in fact, totally) in the same spot, a pretty big shuffle took place in the margins just below.
Let’s jump in!
Dungeons & Dragons: 5th Edition held fast in the top slot, maintaining just over half of the total percentage of campaigns on the site. In Q3, we saw Wild Beyond the Witchlight hit digital shelves just at the end of September, and with Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons’s release last month, Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos is the last remaining major WOTC D&D release on the horizon.
Uncategorized games, too, maintained their slice, at just under 20% of the total games played on the site. Keep in mind that we track systems by character sheets, so “Uncategorized” merely refers to games without an active sheet.
Moving down the line, we see our first major change. Call of Cthulhu dipped almost 5%, from 16.3% to 11.9%. Time will tell if it picks back up by the end of the year, though it would stand to reason that the cosmic horror title would see some sort of increase in October.
Both Pathfinder and Pathfinder Second Edition saw a bit of a dip as well, from 3.4% to 3.2% and 1.8% to 1.4%, respectively. Similarly, Warhammer, World of Darkness, and D&D 3.5 shaved .3% from their portions of the pie, too.
And Star Wars, which has been stalwart in that last slot–so stalwart, in fact, that we talked about it at great length last quarter–has finally fallen off the edge. In its place stands Tormenta, the popular Brazilian fantasy TTRPG, which enjoyed fairly explosive growth this quarter after a steady but modest incline for a considerable amount of time.
That leaves 11.5% for everything else, meaning any and all other games that used a character sheet. Inside that 11.5%, however, there were big movers and shakers, just like any quarter. Let’s take a look at some of those big winners now.
SYSTEMS ON THE RISE
Tormenta
Brazil’s beloved fantasy RPG Tormenta grew 45% to find itself within the top ten systems this quarter, speaking to the popularity of both the game itself and the TTRPG hobby as a whole in Brazil. Tormenta has been running since 2005 from publisher Jambô, and its world has expanded into comics, novels, and a video game. Its popularity on Roll20 puts it in league with titles like D&D 5E, Pathfinder, and the other most popular games and systems on the site.
Tormenta has an official sheet supported by its publisher on the site. Keep an eye out for future announcements regarding its support on Roll20, too.
Vampire: The Masquerade
With a whopping growth of 500%, Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition from publisher Renegade Game Studios was certainly one of the big winners in Q3. Renegade has revitalized the gothic horror RPG for a new generation with its 5th Edition, and with a steady stream of new sourcebooks and materials on the way, we expect its popularity to increase steadily over the coming months.
Powered By the Apocalypse
Though Powered By the Apocalypse titles still sit just outside of the top ten, they did see quite a surge in Q3, up by 130%. The flexible rules framework has been a mainstay of the Orr Report since its inception, and the large list of titles that take advantage of its D6-powered engine is ever-growing.
World of Darkness
World of Darkness refers to the shared setting of Vampire: The Masquerade, Mage: The Ascension, Wraith: The Oblivion, and Changeling: The Dreaming. Though we’ve split Vampire: The Masquerade into its own category for the 5th Edition release, the World of Darkness games separately saw their own surge in popularity, rising about 550%. A rise in ancillary media, including video games, card games, and more, is no doubt the cause for this increased interest in the classic horror setting.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4E
Warhammer Fantasy 4E from Cubicle 7 rose about 50% in popularity this month, despite Warhammer overall taking a dip, as you can see above. 4E’s Starter Set remains a popular option on the Roll20 Marketplace, and Rough Days & Hard Nights provides players with a healthy bounty of adventures to keep the games going well after that first session.
Pokémon Tabletop United
This fan-created system has bounced around the Orr Report for some time now, always with a steady foundation of devoted fans. While the game is optimized for players looking to take on the role of young Trainers battling their own Pokémon, the rules promise a more setting-agnostic system that can easily take the action to imaginative eras and locales.
2D20
Modiphius Entertainment’s in-house system, 2D20, provides the foundation for titles like Star Trek Adventures, Fallout, and Dune: Adventures in the Imperium. The surge in interest in Dune no doubt helped to contribute to the system’s 160% growth here in Q3, and with even more new titles on the horizon, we wouldn’t be surprised to see 2D20 crack the top 10 at some point.
Check out the full Orr Report below.