Experiment 9: Metal Badges

Sometimes, I wonder what the cool kids are playing. (Yes, alright, D&D 5E, but what else?)

It's never been easy to get hard numbers on that; in the past I have tried to approximate based on sales figures or seats in convention games, but for this experiment, let's take a look at DriveThruRPG's metal badges, awarded for high sales.

Caveats

First, just because you buy something doesn't mean you actually play it. Second, the site doesn't count free copies, or those not sold there; so things like Ironsworn (free) or Shadowdark (core rules not available on the site) can't get a badge, and in these cases I have assumed that a game has a badge as good as its best-selling accessory. Third, games that have been on the site longer have had more time to sell, so newer games are probably under-emphasised, and the rankings likely change over time. Fourth, I'm not sure what happens to badges when products are taken down then reinstated, as happened to D&D items, or when they are transferred to a new publisher, as happened with some Two Hour Wargames products.

Finally, there are well over 100,000 products on DriveThruRPG; about 80% of them don't have a metal badge, so having one at all marks you as standing out from the crowd; only a few dozen products have reached Adamantine, so in sales terms those are the creme de la creme, the top 0.1% or so.

That said, let's take a look at the items that pique my interest in one way or another. Alphabetical order within each category, as I can't see actual sales data.

Adamantine (minimum 5,000 copies sold)

Anything that gets this high up is worth thinking about, but for comparison, to get onto the New York Times Bestseller list, you have to sell this many copies in a single week, and the bestselling novels of all time are in the 100-200 million copies range. We're not ending world hunger with our elfgames, however important they are to us.

• Daggerheart (this is the only RPG except D&D 5E with sessions advertised in my home town)
• Dragonbane
• D&D (any edition from 1981 onwards, take your pick, I got bored of writing them all down)
• Ironsworn (estimated), Ironsworn: Starforged.
• Mongoose Traveller 2nd Edition
• Mythic GM Emulator, 1st Edition (my personal favourite) or 2nd Edition
• Savage Worlds Adventure Edition or Deluxe Edition (they both hit Adamantine)
• Scarlet Heroes
• Stars Without Number Revised Edition

Mithral (2,000 copies)

IIRC, back when I was writing RPG stuff for money the minimum viable print run for a game was somewhere between Mithral and Adamantine. In the 1980s, if a company didn't think they could sell this many copies - and they were guessing, because there was nothing like Kickstarter - it didn't get printed.

• Barebones Fantasy (surprised to find this one doing so well, although it's a cracking game)
• Classic Traveller (1981 facsimile edition; considering it's 45 years old, it's not doing badly)
• Mongoose Traveller 1st Edition
• Old School Essentials
• One-Page Mythic GM Emulator
• Original D&D (White Box facsimile, over 50 years old and still going strong)
• Savage Worlds Fantasy Companion (fantasy always outsells every other RPG genre)
• WFRP 1st Edition or 2nd Edition (my personal favourite). WFRP3 was taken down some years ago when the publisher lost the license.

Platinum (1,000 copies)

• Axebane's Deck of Many Dungeons
• Four Against Darkness
• Pathfinder for Savage Worlds Core Rules and Bestiary
• Ruins of the Undercity (another surprise)
• Savage Worlds SF, Super Powers, and Horror Companions
• Shadowdark (estimated)
• Solo 2nd Edition (Traveller solo play supplement)
• Spears of the Dawn
• Sundered Isles (Age of Sail pirate expansion for Ironsworn: Starforged)
• Swords & Wizardry Complete Revised
• Tales of Argosa (one to watch, it hasn't been out long)
• The Pirates of Drinax
• Traveller5 Core Rules

Gold (500 copies)

• 2300AD (the GDW version)
• MegaTraveller Player's and Referee's Manuals
• Nuts! (the highest-ranking Two Hour Wargames product I found)
• The Dracula Dossier
• T4: Marc Miller's Traveller
• Traveller: The New Era

Electrum (250 copies)

• 5150 New Beginnings 2023 Edition
• Classic Traveller (1983 Starter Edition)
• Gold & Glory: Seven Deadly Dungeons (Old School dungeon crawling for SWADE)
• Traveller: 2300 (1st Edition 2300AD)

Silver (100 copies)

• All Things Zombie: End of Days
• Interstellar Overthruster
• No GM's Sky.

Copper (50 copies)

• 5150 Fringe Space
• All Things Zombie: Evolution
• WFRP 4th Edition (surprised how low this was; and this is the VTT bundle, the PDF has no badge at all)

No Badge Awarded

• A Star for Queen Zoe (campaign seed for Interstellar Overthruster)
• Talomir Tales: Distant Shores.

Coda

Is any of this going to change what I play? Nah.

But am I curious? Yes, yes I am.