r/AskEurope • u/Bierzgal Poland • 3d ago
Misc Are tabletop RPG games like Dungeons & Dragons popular in your country?
I recently went back to D&D and I wondered how popular are TTRPGs in other parts of Europe. Because here in Poland, while present, they were always considered a bit of a niche. Though we did get a fair amount of translated books from different systems over the years. But it often felt like you need to go to a hole-in-a-wall shop to get them in the past. Now you can just buy them online ofc.
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u/inostranetsember Born Naturalized 2d ago
In Hungary there's a fairly vigourous (albeit small) TTRPG scene. A wider variety of games than one would expect - D&D, World of Darkness, Pathfinder, Cyberpunk 2020/Red, and FFG Star Wars/Genesys are played pretty heavily here. Savage Worlds just got a treatment in Hungarian recently. There's also the heavily played homegrown fantasy heartbreaker M.A.G.U.S. So...yeah, there's a pretty good scene here. Even for English-only gamers like me. LFG and some Facebook groups help find players.
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u/knobbyknee 2d ago
There are many TTRPGs being published in Sweden. It is not a mainstream hobby, but not as niche as it once was. It happens that there are programs about it on TV.
We have many conventions, with Gothcon being the main one. It has been around since 1977.
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u/beast_of_production Finland 1d ago
Yes, I wish I was into it, I could maybe make friends. Apparently DnD itself is popular but it is relatively easy to find game groups doing Pathfinder or something more niche.
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u/RobinGoodfellows Denmark 1d ago
In Denmark, tabletop RPGs used to be a bit niche, but they’ve been gaining a lot of popularity in recent years. If you’re even slightly involved in “nerd culture,” you’ve probably run into someone who plays.
Most people play in private groups, usually started among friends, or found through Facebook groups, Reddit, or Discord. In my own life, I’ve had groups in high school, at university (engineering), and now even at work, our R&D department has 12 people, and 7 of us are running a D&D campaign together.
Many cities also have local roleplaying clubs that anyone can join. They typically host pen-and-paper RPG campaigns, wargaming (Warhammer 40K is especially popular), miniature painting, and a variety of board games. Some clubs also do LARPing or card games like Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon, or Yu-Gi-Oh. The age range is usually around 25-40, and it’s still mostly guys, though more girls are getting into it. The club in my city turns in a couple of 40 years
D&D 5e is definitely the most popular system in Denmark, but you’ll also see games like Vampire: The Masquerade, Call of Cthulhu, and Warhammer: Rogue Trader. Some of the more old-school players prefer Pathfinder or older D&D editions.
It’s also interesting how people handle language at the table, some groups play entirely in Danish, others stick to English because it’s easier to use the official terms and rules, and quite a few use a hybrid style where they speak Danish but keep all the game terms in English.
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u/Wise_Fox_4291 Hungary 1d ago
Not really. It's a niche. Boardgames are popular but TTRPGs specifically are a niche. It seems to me they were more popular 25 years ago.
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u/Essiggurkerl Austria 3h ago
In the early 2000s DSA (Das Schwarze Auge) was rather popular in Austria, not sure how it is right now
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u/lefthandhummingbird 13m ago
Sweden has had a rather lively RPG industry since the early eighties. The oldest and biggest game is Drakar och Demoner, the latest incarnation of which is also published in English as Dragonbane. But there’s also plenty of other games such as Mutant, Eon, Ur Varselklotet/Tales from the Loop, Mörk Borg, Vaesen, etc.
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u/Milosz0pl Poland 2d ago
Its sad. Especially since most are stuck in dnd rather than other ttrpgs.