Audio EXP: #127 – The best selling RPG products of the year

This is Audio EXP for the 18th of December 2021, and the title of this episode is “The best selling RPG products of the year”

[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #127]

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Forgotten Adventures is in the spotlight this month, as voted for by Patreons.

Last week, though, I encouraged you to ready yourself for the possibility we wouldn’t hear from Forgotten Adventures due to the time year combined with, er, the chaos that life has become.

They’ve reviewed round one of the questions, and I’ve chased. My chase was four days ago, it feels too soon to chase again, but we’re also mid-way through the month.

The RPG Publisher Spotlight isn’t supposed to be this tense. It’s supposed to be a way to do creators a favour and, that’s right, spotlight them. Stick with us; I’ll write up Forgotten Adventures one way or another.

I’m just back from an outdoor market. The only done between then and now is to respond to an email complaining about privacy. I had planned to start this podcast with controversial comments to avoid the pandemic but, instead, let’s move that to second and talk about the privacy controversy.

The email complaint I received complains about including DriveThruRPG affiliate links in posts, saying that it’s not disclosed and affects the data transfer between them and DriveThruRPG.

Privacy is important to me. One of Geek Native’s loss-making ledger costs is the privacy manager. The floating box bugs you to acknowledge the warning that the site uses cookies and affiliate links. That’s also the first of up to four, never less than two, occasions in which every single post published on the blog tells you affiliate links are being used.

Why is the number of disclosures a “between” number? If you’re using an extension that interferes with the code of the site, such as an ad blocker, then not all the code will behave as intended. It’s being interfered with.

At the very least, unless the interference with the site is very bad, there should be a disclosure of ad links or affiliate links at the top and bottom of every post.

Importantly, affiliate links do not transfer data from Geek Native to DriveThruRPG. I do not use pixels or run JavaScript for DriveThru. If you click on a link and have configured your browser to allow cookies from their site to your cache, then I will never know, I will certainly not get any private data, and I’ve not given them any personal data.

I support the privacy camp and am frustrated that I have to spend money on a privacy manager, which may or may not work depending on how people have configured their browser. This is an issue because sometimes, people will not configure their browser with the privacy setup they want.

Phew. Now that’s off my chest, I can admit to being at fault elsewhere. It’s not even dinner, but I’ve had a full day’s worth of food by visiting not one but two markets. One was outdoors, and one was in a warehouse with four-metre social distancing, masks, track and trace and COVID-19 testing.

I’m at fault for eating my weight in baking goods and sampling every new beer the local micro-brewery has.

I want to support local, and I won’t want to keep the world stuck in pandemic central. Learning to live with the virus doesn’t mean pretending it’s not there; it means adapting to live with it.

When was the last time you were at a local gaming store? I’m absolutely torn whether I should visit another any time soon.

We’ve $3bn, bundles, and best sellers in the rest of this podcast.

Let’s start with Wizards of the Coast begging people, though. They use the word “urge”. WotC released an errata to D&D, which is not uncommon, but this one provoked a backlash.

Wizards response was to publish some context and urge people to read it.

The backlash was around alignments and WotC changing the past. Ironically, much of this backlash was from people who thought Forgotten Realms was original D&D. It isn’t, and while it’s not new, but it’s not the first.

Previously, D&D had used the word “mostly” to describe alignments in PC races. Given their growing focus on the multiverse, which is a change from leaning on the Forgotten Realms looks, they dropped the word “mostly”. There would be some realms in which most Halflings are evil blighters, although you can play an evil Halfling in the Forgotten Realms if you wanted to.

The word “Mostly” is unhelpful and redundant.

The other main bit in the errata which upset people was also around redundancy. If a mind flayer stalks around, kidnaps people and eats their brains, then they’re evil. That’s what mind flayers do. WotC figured that we could, therefore, workout that mind flayers are generally evil. They spent less paper discussing the alignment of mind flayers, and so some people suggested that WotC had retconned them, or the Drow, or beholders, or any other race you care to mention into being good.

This wasn’t the case.

That’s not to say Wizards of the Coast are always kind and patient. They’re taking the company calling itself TSR to court.

Last week we heard about the company calling itself TSR starting a legal case against WotCand a crowdfunder to pay for it. The last I looked, that crowdfunder was still running. TSR would still take your money but have launched no case against Wizards of the Coast. They cancelled the old one.

As I said last week, maybe they have other plans. TSR say they have other plans.

The Indiegogo is about attacking Wizards, and that’s what they should do with the money. As it transpires, though, they may need to defend against Wizards.

Wizards’ counterattack is articulate and highlights how the company calling itself TSR doesn’t actually own the proper permissions to make that claim. They only have what they have by misleading the trademark office with their intentions, suggests Wizards of the Coast. For example, by failing to disclose that they’d launch a set of RPGs and then say, “Hey, these are awfully similar to TSR RPGs, and we feel aggrieved at how the company that legally owns them is using them”.

I also mentioned $3bn. To be accurate, it’s €2,75bn, and that’s how much the Embracer Group will pay for Asmodee.

Asmodee publishes Catan, Ticket to Ride, X-Ring, Arkham Horror and Pandemic, and they own Fantasy Flight Games, Atomic Mass, Z-Man, Days of Wonder and Catan Studios.

Embracer already owns Gearbox, Koch and THQ Nordic, which means they publish computer games like Dead Island, Borderland and Darksiders.

Yeah, this means we should be thinking about the board game/computer game crossovers. They are.

A less high profile partnership, and certainly not M&A activity, is the deal between Free League Publishing and Demiplane. That’s right, the Free League Nexus is coming and for Year Zero games.

Great news for any Free League fan wanting such a solution. All my previous thoughts on the Nexus brand still apply, except any publisher talking to Demiplane from now on cannot claim they had no idea the Nexus brand was being re-used and scaled.

Another deal, with a different tone, is between the newly rebranded Lightspress Media and Highmoon.

Highmoon was due to close forever and destroy old games. That’s no longer happening, they’ll produce more for Lightspress and old Highmoon games are already back on sale under the Lightspress banner.

Lightspress is the new name for Dancing Lights.

Now, what are the best selling RPG products of the year?

Controversial! Always controversial. These are from DriveThruRPG and are so significant. They’re not as meaningful for some publishers who mainly use Kickstarter or those who exclusively sell via Itch or rival sites.

However, I hope knowing what’s popular at DriveThruRPG is of interest to all RPG fans.

In this case, “RPG” is a shorthand for “RPG product line”. If a supplement for RPG x is outselling core rules for RPG y then RPG x is still selling better and so gets listed, but it’s the supplement that’s shown.

Then there’s genre. DriveThruRPG lets publishers and creators declare their own genre. What else can you do? However, that means a compilation might be four-fifths sci-fi and one-fifth time-travelling and still pick up the historic tag. The system means an urban fantasy might still be fantasy and modern, or a b-movie horror game, both modern and horror.

There are more league tables to come in the next few days but let’s look at the top five of the ones published so far.

The top five best selling fantasy RPG product lines available for purchase or pre-order in 2021 on DriveThruRPG are;

1. Worlds Without Number by Sine Nomine Publishing.
2. Minsc and Boo’s Journal of Villainy (5e) by Wizards of the Coast.
3. WFRP: Altdorf Crown of the Empire by Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd.
4. Galder’s Gazetteer by Zipperon Games.
5. Whitehack Third Edition by WhitehackRPG.

With the same conditions, but tagged “family“;

1. Wanderhome by Possum Creek Games.
2. Amazing Heroes by Amazing Tales.
3. Magical Kitties Save the Day 2nd Edition by Atlas Games.
4. Space Aces: TNG (The New Guidebook) by T-Rex Games.
5. My Little Pony: Tails of Equestria – The Compendium of Equestria by River Horse Games.

And for “historical“;

1. BLASTER: Volume 3 by BLASTER.
2. Mythic Babylon by Design Mechanism.
3. The Between by The Gauntlet.
4. FLAMES OF FREEDOM Grim & Perilous RPG: Core Rulebook – Powered by Zweihander RPG by Andrews McMeel Publishing.
5. Through the Breach RPG – From Nightmares (Expansion Book) by Wyrd Miniatures.

For “horror“;

1. Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: the Masquerade 5th Edition) by Renegade Game Studios.
2. Delta Green: Impossible Landscapes by Arc Dream Publishing.
3. BLASTER: Volume 3 by BLASTER.
4. Deviant: The Renegades by Onyx Path Publishing.
5. Children of the Blood (Vampire: the Masquerade 5th Edition) by Renegade Game Studios.

And for “modern“;

1. Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: the Masquerade 5th Edition) by Renegade Game Studios.
2. Delta Green: Impossible Landscapes by Arc Dream Publishing.
3. Deviant: The Renegades by Onyx Path Publishing.
4. Sentinel Comics: The Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook by Greater Than Games, LLC.
5. Children of the Blood (Vampire: the Masquerade 5th Edition) by Renegade Game Studios.

A game that’s only just out and therefore not likely to make the tables is Magpie’s Root RPG.

It’s the most interesting Powered by the Apocalypse RPG I’ve ever played. It doesn’t solve how to present Moves cleanly in the game but does introduce a map economy and GM principles around the war in the Woodland that makes the otherwise narrative RPG feel highly tactical.

I recommend!

Let’s finish up with the regular look at bundles. For a start, you can get for less than $30 what usually costs $99 and from a Kickstarter that someone contributed $9,999 too.

That’s Monte Cook Games’ The Invisible Sun game of occult lore. That’s available from the Bundle of Holding.

At Humble, there’s a relaunch and enhanced collection of RTG’s Cyberpunk TTRPGs.

Fresh off the press, also at Humble, there’s a host of Star Trek Adventures tabletop rules.

Perhaps the best bundle of the week is from Fanatical, for audiobooks from GraphicAudio and it’s good because it is entirely free. That’s about $50 worth of ear goodies in exchange for no cash.

Wait a minute… I’ve just read my email explaining how the presence of affiliate links on Geek Native doesn’t trigger any data exchanges, and I see rather than write “pixels”, I wrote “pixies”. Oops! Well, that’s true as well, but perhaps I shouldn’t write emails after a trip to the local microbrewery.

On that note, let’s wrap there. Keep safe; use your browser’s cookie controls, and see you next time.