William Rehm IV is a fiction writer and comic book collector in Beaverton, Oregon. In recent years, William Rehm IV has developed an interest in board game design. He is developing a tabletop role-playing fantasy game.
While many industries have been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the tabletop role-playing (TTRPG) industry is not one of them. Wizards of the Coast, a division of Hasbro responsible for the popular fantasy TTRPG Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), reported record-high sales in 2020. The strong showing was not an outlier, possibly spurred on by individuals being confined to their homes, but rather the continuation of an upward sales trend that began with the release of the game’s fifth edition in 2014.
The most recent sales mark set by D&D represented a 33 percent increase from sales in 2019. Wizards of the Coast revenue, including Magic: The Gathering, rose 24 percent year over year, exceeding $816 million.
The Fifth Edition’s attention on collaborative storytelling and the game’s move away from complex mechanical rules has fueled much of the growth in recent years, as has the rise in popularity of streaming shows and podcasts such as Critical Role and Relics and Rarities.
