What Does Each TTRPG Publisher Do Best?

EricMesa

- 4 minutes read - 700 words

I grew up in the days of Nintendo vs Sega. But that’s not the only rivalry I’ve been around. There was also Emacs vs Vi/Vim. And Windows vs Linux vs Mac. Basically, anywhere there’s a choice, a huge swath of humanity takes the stance that whatever they’ve chosen is the only good choice and every other choice is bad or dumb. But not everyone! Time and age have taught me that whenever there’s a bifurcated choice like that, it’s often because each is catering to a different need or way of thinking that appeals to enough people to sustain an alternative. With that in mind, as I’ve moved beyond my original TTRPG (D&D) and explored other options, I’ve seen that each publisher seems to have certain strengths. In the spirit of putting something positive out there in the world, here is what I think each publisher does best:

  • Wizards of the Coast (D&D) - Not just the originator of the modern form of the hobby, D&D is currently the standard by which everything else is measured against. Every other TTRPG is a “better D&D” or defines itself in what it does differently than D&D. Also, because it has the most mindshare at the moment, most of the Kickstarters and 3rd party books are for D&D or at least ALSO for D&D (in addition to another system). They are currently focusing on revitalizing their line and trying to make the hobby more accessible. In the videos I’ve seen, everyone has pretty universal praise for their new beginner’s box.

  • Paizo (Pathfinder/Starfinder) - Started off writing a D&D magazine and then created a fork off of D&D 3.5 to make Pathfinder. A few years later created science fantasy TTRPG Starfinder (and there isn’t really any other major publisher in this space right now). What I like best about Paizo is that they publish adventure paths. These used to be monthly, but have shifted to quarterly. When I started getting into D&D, I wanted something like this and the closest I found were DnD Adventure Club and Dungeon in a Box, but nothing directly from Wizards. By providing these adventure paths, they are giving players a constant stream of new content that expands on their world, Golarian. This also means there is a lot more pre-published high tier adventures - something often missing from other TTPGs. They also have Pathfinder/Starfinder Society Games - basically all over the globe “everyone” has the opportunity to play the same adventure. I like the idea a lot and it’s supposed to facilitate dropping in and out of groups rather than needing to have one group that always meets. Finally Paizo has lots of 1st party flip-mats (double-sided maps). There isn’t any other first-party publisher (that I know of) that creates as many maps for their games as Paizo does.

  • Kobold Press (3rd party 5e; Tales of the Valiant) - What I like most about Kobold Press is their creativity. Their many bestiaries for 5e and Tales of the Valiant are a mix of classic monsters and things you would have never expected, like dwarves making a barrel golem. Kobold Press also focuses on making each class’ lore match the mechanics. If you compare their bard to the D&D bard, the actions, feats, etc find really nice ways take the idea of a bard and make sure that it functions within battle and other encounters. This thoughtfulness also extends to many of their NPCs that tend to have well thought-out motivations.

  • Brotherwise (Cosmere) - So far I’ve only experienced their Cosmere TTRPG, a new game translating all of Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere into TTRPG mechanics. (Another company made a Mistborn-only TTRPG maybe a decade ago) However, Brotherwise has done an incredible job of designing a game that allows the players to live in the worlds created by Sanderson and has carefully balanced the game so that whether players choose to become the equivalent of magic users/super heroes or not, they can still feel relevant to the different battle and social encounters. They also had convergent evolution with Daggerheart’s hope/fear dice with Cosmere’s Opportunity/Complications dice.

This topic reminds me of this song by one of my favorite bands, The PDX Broadsides: