Retail store sales of Dungeons & Dragons were down an estimated ~30% in 2023. According to ICv2, the overall hobby game market was flat to slightly up (~1%), but the tabletop RPG segment saw a decline. The market held steady in 2024, but again, no meaningful growth aside from continued gains in the miniatures category both years. Fueled by pandemic habits, streaming media, pop culture, and a resurgence of interest in analog games, optimism around TTRPGs may be at its highest level since the early days of TSR. On the other hand, the bullish stance on sustained player growth may have been overly optimistic as growth has been unevenly distributed. It’s like squishing a water balloon: growth in one area seems to come with shrinking in another.
That said, the creative breadth happening within the tabletop community is truly exciting. We are seeing an explosion of variety in design and storytelling. Shadowdark RPG (2023) carved out major attention with its streamlined approach to Old School Renaissance meets D&D 5E vibe, earning it four Gold ENNIEs in 2024, including Best Game and Product of the Year. Fabula Ultima (2023) tapped into JRPG nostalgia with slick mechanics and world building, also winning ENNIEs: Gold for Best Game, and Silver Product of the Year.
On the indie side, Outgunned (2024) brought high-octane cinematic energy to the table and cleaned up with Silver ENNIEs for Best Game and Product of the Year. Meanwhile, Sam Leigh’s games like Death of the Author (2025 Crit Award Nominee) and The World We Left Behind are pushing solo and GMless formats into more emotionally intimate and experimental territory.
Then there’s Daggerheart: Critical Role’s flagship tabletop RPG which recently launched in 2025, which brings a dual-d12 Hope and Fear narrative forward system enabling exciting player vs. Game Master epic storytelling. It is considered a new heavyweight entry in the mainstream TTRPG space.
Built from the ground up for emotionally rich, identity driven stories, Thirsty Sword Lesbians (2021) is a trailblazer as a queer centered system. It won Gold ENNIEs for Best Game and Product of the Year, and became the first TTRPG to take home a Nebula Award. Its mechanics, tone, and inclusive design make it a template for what emotionally intelligent game systems can look like.
Looking ahead, Legend in the Mist (H2 2025) has become a highly anticipated game of 2025. It leans hard into a keyword-driven narrative system, designed to feel like both classic fantasy and modern myth. It considers itself a “rustic fantasy” TTRPG, and evokes epic emotional storytelling allowing players to weave their own emotional epics, along the likes of The Lord of the Rings, The Wheel of Time, and Princess Mononoke. Another to keep an eye out for is Confluence: The Living Archive (H2 2025), a genre blending TTRPG of fantasy, sci-fi, and horror, built to tell collaborative, place-driven stories across settings and worlds, across a 700,000 year spanning timeline. With its card based storytelling engine this TTRPG aims to rewire the way we think about the fantasy genre.
While the sales growth story over the past few years might not be as exciting as many were hoping for, it is exciting to see a scene rapidly expanding beyond D&D’s orbit. Will the expansion into new genres, mechanics, and systems being designed by and for a new age of player tastes and identities lead to a resurgence in sales growth? We can’t know for sure, but we can certainly hope for it.