Time for another look at at ENWorld’s list of hot RPGs to round off the year. Usual reminder applies: RPGs are scored on the chart based on what’s being actively discussed on as wide a pool of internet fora and blogs as ENWorld can find RSS feeds for. It isn’t tracking sales, and it isn’t even tracking popularity (because conceivably a game could get onto the chart if there were a sufficiently virulent negative reaction to it). What I present here are the scores assigned to each game, not the percentages (which can tend to obscure whether there’s been a recent explosion of RPG discussion – for example, as associated with the D&D 5E release – or whether things are comparatively quiet on the RPG talkosphere).
First up, let’s get the rankings and absolute scores:
RANK GAME SCORE 1 D&D 5th Edition 1506 2 Pathfinder RPG 402 3 D&D 3rd Edition/3.5 290 4 Old School Revival (OSR) 205 5 D&D 4th Edition 137 6 World of Darkness 112 7 Savage Worlds 101 8 OD&D 85 9 Call of Cthulhu 84 10 AD&D 2nd Edition 77 11 What's OLD is NEW 76 12 Dungeon Crawl Classics 67 13 Shadowrun 65 14 Dread 63 15 Traveller 61 16 Exalted 58 17 RIFTS 54 18 Dungeon World 50 19 Mutants & Masterminds/DC Adventures 49 20 GURPS 45 21 ICONS 44 22 Gumshoe 36 23 Apocalypse World 32 24 Deadlands 31 25 Warhammer 40K 30 26 AD&D 1st Edition 25 27 Stars Without Number 20 28 Cypher System 19 28 Earthdawn 19 30 Castles & Crusades 18 31 The One Ring 16 32 Firefly 15 33 Dragon Age/Fantasy AGE/AGE 14 34 13th Age 12 35 Warhammer FRP 11 35 Iron Kingdoms 11 37 Doctor Who: Adventures in Time & Space 10 37 Mutant Chronicles 10 39 CORTEX System 8 40 BESM 7 40 d20 Modern 7 42 Marvel Heroic Roleplaying 6 42 HERO System / Champions 6 42 True20 6 42 Fading Suns 6 42 Eclipse Phase 6 47 A Song of Ice & Fire 5 48 Feng Shui 4 48 Alternity 4 48 d20 Future 4 48 Gamma World 4 52 Star Wars (FFG) 3 52 DC Heroes 3 52 Chainmail 3 55 Hackmaster 2 55 Other Superhero RPGs 2 55 Aberrant 2 58 Ars Magica 1 58 Ashen Stars 1 58 Star Trek 1 58 Colonial Gothic 1 58 Runequest 1 58 All Flesh Must Be Eaten 1 58 TMNT 1 58 Smallville 1 66 Star Wars (SAGA/d20) 0 66 Godlike / Wild Talents / NEMESIS 0 66 Silver Age Sentinels 0 66 Brave New World 0 66 Golden Heroes / Squadron UK 0 66 Star Wars (d6) 0 66 Villains & Vigilantes 0 66 FATE 0 66 Marvel Super Heroes 0 66 Marvel SAGA 0 66 Paranoia 0 66 Rotted Capes 0 66 Hobomancer 0 -- Stage DNC *DNC = Did Not Chart