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#1 zombiegleemax Nov 14, 2005 0:36:52

I just took a quick tally of the number of home games reported to RPGA since they began home game reports back in March and came up with some interesting results for Greyhawk. For those who don't know, it is now possible to report your home campaign to the RPGA and earn reward points for free minis, campaign cards, and the like (and yes, it's really free). There are four different categories to report your home game. Eberron, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, and Other. First the bad news. Greyhawk gamedays are the least popular, totalling about 18% of the total gamedays reported or planned in 2005. Forgotten Realms is next with about 20%. Eberron comes up at about 22%. Probably of no surprise is the fact that games in the Other category come up way ahead, totaling near 40%. Now the good news. Some of the games being reported for Other are apparently for systems that aren't even d20. I've spotted a few gameday names that definitely suggest White Wolf and even the occassional reference to Palladium games. Hence, I believe the Other category is over-reported as far as D&D games go. The other good news is that despite virtually no support from WotC for Greyhawk in 3rd edition, it is still apparently a strong competitor with Eberron and Forgotten Realms. Now this is not a complex or exhaustive statistical analysis so take it with a grain of salt, but if these results ARE indicative of the true ratios of D&D gameplay out there then that means that WotC may be ignoring a crucial demographic. It's hard, if not impossible, to say how Greyhawk would be faring had Forgotten Realms taken a back seat and Greyhawk got all the spiffy hard-back support over the years, but it stands to reason that if a setting that is created virtually overnight like Eberron can be doing so well in home games then with equal support Greyhawk would probably at LEAST be on top of the list of specific home game settings (though I doubt it would beat Other). And for that matter, Greyhawk would probably be ahead by a wider margin than 4% points. Like I said, this is no statistical analysis, but it does point out that there are a lot of hard-core hawkers out there. These home games likely ignore those who haven't bought a new book since AD&D, and who knows how many old edition players still play GH, FR, etc.? Nevertheless, I think we should be encouraged by the fact that Greyhawk still captures the thoughts and imaginations of gamers at numerous tables. Given the home game showing and the fact that Living Greyhawk is handily the most popular RPGA campaign, I'd say Greyhawk probably still holds the title for "Most Popular Campaign Setting."