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Quality products goes a long way. Yes, simplicity. As a DM, the simplicity of the OSR is a huge selling point.

GREAT video. I'm taking notes. Deathbringer RPG is coming.

Passion. The OSR creators have a passion for the game, and the community. They make products they want to play and not just sell.

Map Crow (Kyle Latino) also makes a great point that the OSR makes some of the most beautiful TTRPG books in recent memory. Chris McDowall touches on this with the artwork component, but ultimately I think the OSR embraces the weird, grotesque , and whimsical readily compared to the sanitized high fantasy of 5e. The reason why people find these works so alluring is because the authors and artists can make THEIR cohesive vision of a game, supplement, or adventure come to life without being fettered by the norm.

With wizards getting out of my country (Brazil), along with all the wrongs they have done for the community in the last years, I sincerely hope the people starts reaching out for the indie scene as a whole

I love the OSR, but playing devil's advocate here. The fact that 5E has continued to see growth (particularly in 2023) - after arguably the worst PR years in Hasbro history, and the knowledge of a new edition right around the corner - is quite remarkable and shows exactly how resilient that brand name is. D&D is basically the Kleenex of fantasy TTRPG's. It's synonymous with the hobby itself and isn't ever going away. That said, I don't think it needs to go away for the hobby to thrive, and I believe we are seeing trends in that direction based on this data. Thank you for sharing.

I think the biggest thing is that these games didn't just give alternative games to 5e, but they have tools that anyone can use for any system, I personally only run dcc, but I steal tools and tables from a bunch of different games

I think Kelsey said it best: having a built in audience to monetize really takes the lion’s share of the credit. Likewise, it’s all relative: doubling the profits or size of a small niche feels more impactful than D&D doing a small bump of like 5% growth, even if that 5% is more total people. The OSR can keep growing at a higher rate only because it is still a small number of people.

I only use OSR, AD&D (OSRIC) Basic and shadowdark as all of them are very easy to use in any of each others systems for the most part OSE also fits into this.

As one of the GMs who came into the OSR within the last year or so, I can say that at least in my case it was largely in reaction to WotC's and Hasbro's actions, including the OGL problems. I immediately found OSE and Mausritter and convinced my players to try those, and haven't looked back. We still have a couple 5e campaigns we're in the process of finishing up, but pretty much everything we've started in the last year has used OSE, Mausritter, Knave, Teenage Mutant Dirtbags, or some other OSR system.

There’s also people keeping their powder dry for 5.5/6/One dnd so this will be an interesting comparison next year once the main books are released with crowd funding OSR and 3rd DnD products.

I think a few things are at work, here, that explain the growth of OSR products. 1) people are getting tired of 5e because it seems like most 5e DMs just run published material instead of writing their own. So once they’ve burned through all the WOTC published material, they run out of gas. As a result, a lot of DMs are looking at the decades of published material for early editions of D&D and using that. 2) the production values of OSR materials has come a long way in the last 10 years, thanks, in large part, to OSE. 3) the OSR is more friendly to people who want to casually try out the hobby. 4) OSR materials are offered in more genres than typical fantasy, which is where 5e lives. 5) Stranger Things created an enormous amount of nostalgia for the early days of the hobby.

The OGL debacle didn't do it for me. It is mostly the slower awareness that OSR adventures have a lot more condensed information instead of the endless fluff that is very setting specific, so engraved in the 5e culture.

Shadowdark is successful because it is incredibly well written. The classes all fit on one page. It is very rules light while still having solid class fantasy. I love the system.

I saw and bought Skate Wizards, which led me to buy Maze Rats, because I really enjoyed some of the underlying concepts. Last night I bought the OSE rules box set... I think I'm hooked.

Old-school systems seem to be better for a lot of us don’t like deep immersion. Many are introverts or self conscious about acting out a character’s role and prefer to play characters as closer to "ourselves". We tend to use our intelligence and wisdom, rather than the character's. It’s meta, but it’s a fun way to play.

I agree that the OGL debacle had a lot to do with it. I won’t support WotC anymore

Loved the analysis and the guests. The point about owning your own fans was super interesting as well. There may be a saturation point for OSR eventually but it's encouraging to see that it's still growing and becoming more mainstream!

That newsletter stuff is key among keys. When i used to follow webcomic creation discourse they said the same thing. You own your newsletter and give direct info. Socials dont always show you what you want

Excellent deep dive! I've been playing for decades and have played them all. The appeal of the simplicity and straightforward actions vs consequences aspect of old school never loses its appeal.

Love Chris' point. The "rising tide lifts all boats" philosophy. Also, amazing video. Love the interview clips.

I’m an old gamer (started in 1979). After drifting away from gaming after college, 3rd Edition brought me back. I was very excited about the more deliberate design and explosion of character customization options. Over time, however, the rules bloat and unexpected synergies became impossible to ignore. 5E tried to mitigate some of it, but it’s hard to keep selling books without rules bloat. Now I’m finding a home in the indie scene (and my first two Kickstarts are Kelsey and Ben). My own design stuff is always an attempt to balance character customization with elegance and speed in the ruleset. I suspect that the popularity of rules-lite indie games may be a reaction to the big rulesets getting in their own way, at least for some of us.

The other important factors are that a lot of these very successful games have been very good -- quality products *and* excellent games -- and their producers treat the hobby and their customers with respect.

The data clearly shows that the growth of the OSR does not take away market shares from 5e, but instead from "everything else", which is kind of sad. There are so many interesting things out there that really need more attention.

Those creators that truly reward and cherish their audiences properly get rewarded a hundredfold and more - plain and simple. Plyers and GMs alike a hungering after fresh experiences - if not replacing their 5e gaming - definitely to supplement it. This is a great video and I've never been more than happy to support INDEPENDENT creators who value their audiences.

I started playing BECMI in 1987. I never needed anything else. I have been playing it ever since. Still running multiple campaigns over many years with over a dozen different players and we play weekly. Are you saying they are still cranking out versions of this game? Guess they gotta pay the bills somehow.

One thing I think that you have correct is the social media platforms being a bad way to grow your audience. As an example, the discord for Shadowdark has lost most of the material I (and many early adopters) provided for other members when the channels were merged or changed, and hundreds of pages of tested material just disappeared. I stopped interacting with the community at that point. I personally was not pre-existing audience for Kelsey, nor was I sucked in by ad campaigns. I simply got an email from word of mouth and looked into the system I ended up adopting. But I didn't hear about Shadowdark from social media. I did see your video and Professor DMs videos, but that was after I pledged. I've now been running my campaign for Shadowdark for over a year and a half using the quickstart and the PDF when it got released. My group hasn't even gotten to the Cursed Scroll content in my game and are just rocking along with a couple of warriors, a cleric and a mage and they are just having fun. I adopted Shadowdark (coming from OSE) as I wanted to simplify the crunch for my group and have a simple "these are the rules" reference for my game. OSE required nearly two pages of house ruling to get to where I wanted it, and despite Gavin's best efforts, it is still very clunky being that they are identical to BX (as they should be) with all the good and bad that entails especially with regards to resolution mechanics being percentile, in-6 and all over the place. House ruling can be fun and all, but it unbalances a game very quickly. I wanted to run a game with clean, clear rules that players could easily adopt and that I had very little "tinkering" to do in order to use. This also brings forth another problem: Many of the supplemental works (and indeed, many of the game systems themselves) from the community are.... lacking. They are not playtested. There's just an imaginarium of people saying "I'm making this thing I want to make" and almost no one PLAY TESTS their material with players before pushing it out. It's poorly designed because of that, and frankly garbage. Because if it doesn't hold up to a player playing it, then it's definitely not something you should be charging for. I also began at this time to feel "system fatigue", where many game systems being published were simply "BX with a few pages of custom mechanics" - most of which I felt should not be a separate product, but a blog post, and I didn't want to use those. They carry on the legacy and strengths of the older systems, but they also carry forward the flaws and weirdness we created during the 80s. I think this also goes for 5E. When I read the quickstart for Shadowdark, that pretty much sealed the deal. Concise, clear rules for both players and DMs with plenty of "rulings not rules" implemented. Perfect. But I think I may be the exception. I am not going to throw money at kickstarter after kickstarter. I have a system I enjoy, I have built a setting I want to run, and I have the adventures I want to run for my players. I may be convinced to buy another adventure or two if they are something stellar and well designed (i.e. also playtested) but I'm done throwing hundreds in on random kickstarters that should not be kickstarters.

Speaking as someone who got into the OSR and Kickstarter last year... it started with Knave, some Mork Borg stuff, Mythic Bastionland, and so on. Did I leave 5e at that time because of the OGL? Not so much; I was just fed up with the game itself. I got into the OSR by pursuing rules-light games on Reddit and here on KZfaq. Maybe I'll look into more newsletters (and Shadowdark too)!

Kickstarters arent the ONLY OSR or 'other' RPGs out there guys. ICRPG is pretty awesome, I found it after rolling thru several OSR titles, and like it a lot.

I am still a very green DM, and I use that to try to bring green player into the community. So I don't have a ton of experience running games. But, from what I've experienced learning and teaching, OSR's streamlined approach works best to stop bogging down the game, and keeping the fun up. Every time I've adjudicated a situation with a quick ruling, it has worked out. I am less inclined to run a 5e campaign without at least some serious pruning.

I am excited to see more people find a breath of games. Thank you.

The thing to remember about any boom period for a hobby, is that most will simply move on to the next new thing, but some will remain in the hobby. This tends to give the hardcore niches of a given hobby longer growth, as people expand further away from the mainstream the longer they are in a hobby.

This is the single most relevant video about TTRPGs I've seen in months. Keep up the good work! Now I just need to pore over this info. I would add that there are quite a few people who are older, with a more stable income, who want to ensure a bright future for the next generation of TTRPGs and a creator driven atmosphere, especially after the OGL scandal. There are often multi-generational households who may not even play together but all want a verdant future for creators, artists and players alike.

I find the "everything else" numbers such a depressing situation. So many awesome systems and slowly D&D and it's progeny are suffocating the industry... no blame or shame to the OSR folks of any stripe, I think we will always be in agreement that WotC is the problem, but it's still sad.

I Love ALL Questing Beast videos!

I like running published content for the OSR or Basic/Advanced in 5e. The quality of the adventures is just better, and its trivial to convert if you're willing to break with modern "balance" expectations.

You read my mind, Ben. Yesterday I watched a very similar - yet underwhelming - video (data analysis on 5e vs previous editions popularity)and then thought to myself, "I'd love to watch a video on Ben's take on this." And you did exactly that (you did OSR, not previous D&D editions, but that's close enough ; I super enjoyed your video). Thank you very much, V

Speaking for myself who got more seriously into the ORS last year and backed Dolmenwood, I definitely agree that there is a compounding effect. You hear about people still playing older editions once and you barely think of it; hear it ten times in different places is a different story. I also think, oddly, Matt Colville's videos do a lot for OSR, even if he now promotes his own RPG. But especially when he was just doing his wildly popular DMing videos, I think he opened a lot of people's eyes to the idea that the way 5e does RPG isn't the only or even the best way, especially talking about older edition adventure modules, modular playstyle, awakening interest in actually dungeon crawling etc. And once I wanted to learn more about how to actually play or run a dungeon-centric games, I was basically in the OSR, because that is where the resources are. Otherwise, for me great flavor and a DM-centric approach really helps. I'm starting a Dolmenwood campaign right now and actually understanding how easy it is to be creative in a well-designed sandbox like that and how many cool modular adventures are out there that really don't force me into this really long adventure path I have to push people along on is super inspiring. So in that case, me backing Dolmenwood had nothing to do with it being OSR - I would have bought it (or something similar) for 5e just as easily... probably more easily. But I have seen incredible quality in OSR games and that is a major draw. But I also still play 5e and will continue to do so. Variety is the spice of life :)

Always happy to see a new vid QB!

It bears mentioning that Kickstarter crowd funding is not the same thing as sales. Crowd funding certainly measures the excitement around a coming product, but sales measure how well that product is ultimately received.

Great session, the interviews and the data, the qualitative and quantitative.

I converted quite a few people to old school systems, it's more of an issue with players since they like to have their own little paper doll to outfit with gear, weapons and videogame like powers, GMs on the other hand seem to love the inherent semplicity of OSR games, especially because 5e does a really crappy job in supporting them in their role.

The effect of the OGL debacle can certainly be over estimated, but it's almost certainly a factor. More important than the cause to me, is that the numbers generate that the market and hobby can support multiple games - even multiple versions of D&D. I'm certain there are still folks out there building their 3.0 and 3.5 collections with PoD and print on demand. I know I'll be prowling used bookstores looking for books across editions like monster collections just to keep as inspiration. What your guests' and your own success highlight is the importance of building an audience and building that mailing list. I would love a video like this focusing on social media navigation, does and don'ts. Great content!

This is the power of the community ;D

Very interesting material! Good to have these numbers.

Lamentations of the flame princess is 10 out of 10 the modules are amazing

Thank you for sharing the insights AND the data!!!! I'm gonna study them carefully and maybe learn a few things 🙂

Fastest growing doesn't necessarily mean a ton when it's got tons of space to grow into and the 5e market is pretty saturated. I do think that the OSR, or at least OSR adjacent "scene" products is a growing and exciting space in the market, but its easy to look at that statistic out of context and believe that more is happening than there is. The OSR is a pretty healthy, growing segment, but I don't know that "mainstream" is really the label to toss around to describe it yet. Or ever, even.

There's just so much creativity in the OSR space right now. I mean, have you guys SEEN Gods of the Forbidden North? What a cool campaign that is. And so ambitious. Nothing like it in in the big box games. And that's just one example.

Would be very interesting how the huge block of "other games" is structured. I am especially interested in how is the development of storytelling games opposed to rules heavy games.

11:20 Man, the Avatar Legends portion of that chart is still crazy!

Got K1E when you first released it, now I can’t wait for K2E!

Fantastic video. Thank you Ben.

Very cool video! I had no idea about all of this growth but it's incredibly exciting to see! I got my Dolmenwood tier backed and am looking forward to what comes next!

This was astonishingly insightful! Thank you Ben for sharing these peeks behind the curtain. I think you’ve mentioned before you were/are / work/ed as teacher and I think that’s s why I identify so strongly with your videos. I really appreciate your content.

This is awesome; it's great to have a breakdown Thanks for all you do Ben

Thank you for sharing data on this. The point about the newsletter and art seem key to success. The Peter Mullen artwork in Knave is a great and you have the Glatisant. Each time a Kickstarter like it succeeds, smaller ones gain a larger audience. I would be curious to see how this information breaks out between larger and smaller creators on kickstarter in the OSR. I know I have enjoyed both of them, and get the sense that smaller creators in the OSR are also gaining ground on the platform.

The fact that creators are able to do this and earn some serious money with the help of their community is simply heart-warming. Well earned and thank you, I dare say :)

I think alot of 40+ year olds are playing again since lockdown aswell.

Great video Ben. Questing Beast consistently delivers fantastic insights!

The spike in profits for 5e in 2021 explains some of the short-sighted decision making of WOTC/Hasbro in the years after. They fell into the trap of expecting continuous exponential growth, that didn't happen, then they panicked and made a series of really big greed-driven mistakes.

It was weird to see Chris' room with natural light. I think another reason for these projects being a big success is that they were designed to be read. Good layout, accessible, and enjoyable. I bet a lot of backers have never actually run a game yet, but had a great time reading the book cover to cover.

Fascinating thanks for compiling the information & presenting the analysis

With so many new D&D players since 5e, it's only a matter of time until the ones still playing start asking questions like "where did all this come from?" It's how I discovered OSR, at least.

Excellent Video; thank you for making this

Stellar reporting and analysis, thank you.

Great video! Are there fuller interviews of these people somewhere?

Thanks Ben!

Learning about OSR and it sounds like my idea of hell for a TTRPG. I am glad there is still some games which are more rules heavy around. I honestly thought that 5e is very rules light already and it is very straight forward for levelling.

Excellent presentation.

great video Questing Beast.

Great info!

Great analysis, insightful as always.

This is wonderful to see. The indie space is always where I wind up. As always, I appreciate the great work you do. I've learnt a ton and have played sessions with the games you guys made, which is seriously cool. Roll a 20, hit hard. Cheers.

We learned what makes huge kickstarter money, more than me and my mates could imagine. Avatar.

Ben, you personally are responsible for my awareness of the OSR and all of its wonderful facets. I will be sending you a bill for all of my subsequent related expenses. I learn about a large percentage of the Kickstarters I back through Facebook ads. They're actually quite well targeted to my niche interests - better targeting sometimes than even Kickstarters own recommendation engine. I agree that mailing lists are more durable and more certain, but I find I can have mailing list fatigue. Although I try to faithfully read your newsletter and Todd Leback's (Third Kingdom Games), I don't have the energy to actually read all of the other lists I'm on. Facebook ads are short, snappy, and have cool drawings of ligers and ninjas!

Looking forward to the Broken Empires Kickstarter. Same circumstances, YT channel with years of loyal audience in the >10k range, a Newsletter prepared a while back, big new seasons airing right now. It's likely less attractive to the average joe but I hope it gets financed and then some, Trevor deserves it.

Another important thing to consider... the OneD&D playtest started in 2023 and continued until recently. So, many 5e players were aware that a new version of D&D arrives later this year. Historically, new D&D editions reduce sales the year prior to their release. Im sure this contributed to the recent decrease in 5e related sales.

Is it wrong of me to be glad that 5e is starting to decline, Not because I plan on stopping playing it as my primary system anytime soon, but because that means I won't have to deal with constant whiplash of official system changes as much? Less power creep, less new insane okayer options for me to deal with.

I wonder what effect the release of DnD 5.5 Will have on those numbers...

I only play non-D&D games, always have (started exclusively in Palladium Books games, but now I like lots of stuff, mostly rules light). My brother and his player group in his city play Basic Fantasy, and like it a LOT. Other games I like are Pocket Fantasy, Mini-Six Bare Bones, Chanbara, Basic Fantasy, Dungeons and Delvers Dice Pool edition, Kogarashi, and ShadowDark (though I won't use the real time torch timer, as that is silly to me).

I can't speak for others, but I know for me that what drew me more to OSR is just how easy it is to run. Plus the rules they have to kind of steam line thing. I had a lot of fun with D&D5e, both as a player and as a DM, but after a while I started seeing the cracks more. Such as how combat while cool can be a huge slog unless everyone is ready with what they want to do, but I think they get choice paralysis when they got like 10 things they could do, and all those 10 things have rules on when you can use them. As well as monster mostly being damage sponge to have a sense of epicness.

I wonder how many people, like me, play 5e but buy a lot, I mean a lot, of OSR stuff and convert it to 5e. Just finished a 2.5 year Barrowmaze campaign and just started a likely even longer Arden Vul campaign. More than half of the stuff on my shelves is OSR (Knock, all the Necrotic Gnome books, Castle Xyntillan, hexagnome, populated hexes monthly, all the lazy lich stuff, and even Willowby Hall).

I know for me the WotC/Hasbro bundle is what made me lose my FOMO and go into the OSR

Something that I think would be interesting to see would be how the totally-not-new edition of D&D will change this I imagine it might have a positive influence on the success of D&D crowd funding campaigns, but not as significant increase to total number of campaigns being made My admittedly very layman's reasoning is that it *is* making changes, but the changes I've heard of don't seem big enough to me to get a lot of creators who may have fallen off to come back Of course I could be completely wrong, either way I'm eager to see the changes to the hobby it will bring - personally I hope that it doesn't shake things up too much because I would love to see other games get more attention and seeing growth in the OSR feels good to me

I thought it was the simplicity of OSR that drew people in.

We needed something else after Hasbro and wotc forgot who buys their stuff and went after the primary reason why we stayed until then. Still reading through Shadowdark, but paying more attention to products released in earlier editions!

Hey, question. I hope you see this. I'm slightly interested in these games you're describing. However, I spent a long time learning the rules for 5e and I positively refuse to spend nearly the same amount of time learning about other systems. I do remember being able to pick up a game of Call of Cthulhu in 15 minutes and have a really good time. If these games don't have a similar learning curve, I don't think I'm willing to get into them. What's the case with these new OSR games regarding this?

I have a mechanical question about Knave! Say, you have 2 INT. Do I add 2 spell books to my character or I wait until I added the standard gear? (so probably I don't have slots left)

If I ask my wallet, he knows he contributed to that growth! All my money in the last 3-4y went to OSR books. Thanks for service like lulu and especialy drivethrurpg.

Love the shirt!

@QuestingBeast Very interesting. I am a data guy. May I have access to the dataset and/or understand how was the method you used to collect it? Could you change (or give me access) to change the stacked column chart to a clustered bar chart for a better comparison? Sorry to bother!

growth by itself is not a useful statistical measure of comparison at that difference of size, you do have to slow and then stop growing eventually (despite what some finance professionals might think)

Our entire hobby is still mostly niche publishing compared to cookbooks, true crime books and Paw Patrol booklets. My friends believe a setting sells, not the most clever game system. Especially when we are so interchangable. After the art, people look for playable material like dungeons and regional crawls.

Kickstarter pledges are impressive but they’re not the same as sales. Is there any information on actual sales?

Interesting stuff

Obligatory comment: more Beast! Yes!

As much as old-timers like to hate on it, it really cannot be overstated just how much more popular 5e has make the ENTIRE ttrpg hobby. It's so cool seeing how much the OSR and indie scenes have also been able to grow since it came out.

7 years ago Alexandria RPG started hitting events, sharing the history of RPGs and pointing people to non 5e games.