D&D’s digital future seems increasingly likely.

I thought those panicking about an all-digital future for D&D were alarmist. After all, I said to me, WotC makes a lot of money selling books. Why would they stop? Or even de-emphasize them? The events of the last seven weeks have proven me terribly wrong.

Consider:

Sources tell me that in the December firings at Wizards of the Coast, every person familiar with the business of selling and distributing physical books was laid off/retired.

The Golden Age of TTRPGs is Dead

We are watching a bright and special time in the TTRPG industry pass away before our eyes.

Around the start of the 2010s, we saw the dawn of a new golden age of tabletop roleplaying games. Since then, huge numbers of new players have found the hobby thanks to Stranger Things and actual plays like Critical Role. These new fans discovered a vibrant and thrumming TTRPG industry.

Welcome to the most speculative and controversial post in my series thus far!

I hypothesize that as of 1998, 4,007,685 people played AD&D.

Here’s how I interpreted sales data to reach that figure. I would posit it was impossible to run AD&D without the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Sales of the DMG can show us the maximum number of POTENTIAL DUNGEON MASTERS.

The chart below shows us how many DMGs were sold for the three different versions of AD&D released between 1979 and 1998

How do sales of AD&D Player’s Handbooks (PHBs) and Dungeon Master’s Guides (DMGs) translate to monster products?

Seems like that answer could help current RPG companies plan product launches.

What does AD&D data from the 80s and 90s say? For 13 of the 20 charted years, PHBs outsold DMGs which outsold monster products. That pattern suggests to me the following: the vast majority of DMs bought all three releases. However, if we assume four to six players per DM, that means MOST AD&D PLAYERS DID NOT BUY THE PHB.

Behold! A mega chart of AD&D 1st and 2nd ed monster products sales!

Products listed in the chart are on the right.

The fact I think most interesting about the chart concerns the 2nd edition Monster Manual, which I have helpfully labeled in hot pink on the chart. In 2nd edition, TSR replaced hardcover books of monsters with loose leaf papers and three ring binders and called it the Monstrous Compendium. The idea was that players could add to the binder as new monsters came out, but the design of the sheets never made this convenient.

More actual D&D sales numbers!

Below you will find the sales numbers of Basic D&D, and then two charts comparing those to the sales of AD&D 1st edition. For those who don’t know, early in its life, the tree of D&D was split in half. On the one side there was D&D, an RPG designed to bring beginners into the game. It was simpler, and didn’t try to have rules for everything.

Behold! Some actual #DnD sales numbers!

While working on my book #SlayingtheDragon I got a ton of primary source documents containing sales data for D&D. With the book coming out, I've been looking for a way to get that data out into the wide world. I'm going to start making charts, and simply posting them. If people want the raw data, I can post that too, but obviously, charts are prettier. I'm starting with AD&D 1st ed Players Handbook and Dungeon Masters Guide.

Hi all! I’m a D&D historian, and I have a book about the sale of TSR to WoTC coming out in July, and I thought now might be a good time to talk a bit about TSR’s copyrights and trademarks. 1/? First, you have to know that in 1996, TSR was dying. The company’s gross sales fell 15% to $32.6 million. At the same time, the company owed millions of dollars to freelancers, vendors, its printer, and Random House. 2/?