A Detailed Look at the RPG Podcast Industry

Tess Cocchio
Tabletop Micdrop
Published in
2 min readMar 1, 2020

With data across four years, this report dives into the demographics, categories, game systems, and accessibility of the tabletop roleplaying game (RPG) podcast genre.

a variety of dice spread out over a partially-covered character sheet

The full report outlines the findings of a review of self-reported data submitted by podcast creators and/or fans directly to RPG Casts. It is important to understand the data because it aids in identifying the factors that contribute to diversity and accessibility. This review is focused on data collected between January 2016 and December 2019 on 520 unique podcasts. Please also take note that this is only a representative sample of the RPG podcast industry.

This is an infographic of the RPG podcast industry. The same information can be found via the document linked in the article.

You can download the full (accessible) PDF report, or if you prefer you can go straight to the Google doc.

SPECIAL THANKS TO

EXTRA NOTES

This post published after its original publish date of December 9, 2019. After the original publish date, a lot of folks reached out to me about the grouping of women and nonbinary people. You can see my response and actions following via this twitter thread.

QUESTIONS

I pose to you as either creator or audience to think about a few things:

— What do you find most surprising about the report, and why?

— Where does your show (if you have one) fit into this?

— How does this data/info affect you?

— What actionable things can we do to fight the industry failures?

— Do you see yourself (close friends, partner(s), family, etc.) represented?

Have questions for me? Comment or email me directly at rpgcasts@gmail.com.

Tabletop Micdrop is a publication about tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs), storytelling, and the RPG podcast industry. We want to share our passion for the TTRPG audio medium, introduce folks to new shows, and explore the RPG podcast industry together.

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Tess Cocchio
Tabletop Micdrop

Tess (she/her) is the creator and co-editor of Tabletop Micdrop and creator of RPG Casts.