Fantasy Ground puts Pathfinder top, eclipsed only by the D&D collective

At the start of the month Geek Native shared some stats from the virtual tabletop software Roll20. It showed that Dungeons & Dragons dominated the list of RPGs gamers wanted to play.

The catch? To give D&D the lead you had to add up the share of all the slices of D&D. You had to add D&D 3.5, with D&D 4e and even D&D 5e. If you didn’t then Pathfinder came out top as the single most popular edition.

Even then there’s debate. After all; are D&D 3.5e and Pathfinder more closely related in game styles than D&D 5e?

It’s also true to say that Roll20 is well suited to certain styles of RPG – ones that require a virtual tabletop when you can’t be a physical one. That too would influence the numbers.

Fantasy Grounds is a popular alternative to Roll20. Companies like Pinnacle Entertainment Group have been especially good at introducing their gamers to this particular solution.

So, do Fantasy Grounds have stats that might cast light on the debate? They do.

It’s important to understand how these stats are gathered. These are actual games played based on those games which used Fantasy Grounds’ own alias server. What the stats don’t show is how many players were in each game.

 
Is there a conclusion?

Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds largely agree. It’s certainly clear that together Pathfinder and Dungeons & Dragons dominate the sort of game that would use a virtual tabletop. They also show it is early days for D&D 5e.

What’s your takeaway?