Kickstarter is a wildly popular crowdfunding site used by all kinds of startups, art projects, films, and games to raise money in exchange for later delivery of a finished product. It can be a good tool for small companies that otherwise wouldn't have the starting capital to get a project off the ground.
Several tabletop roleplaying game-related products have found enormous success on Kickstarter, from full games to D&D expansions to game accessories. Kickstarter has been the subject of controversy recently after an announcement that it would be incorporating blockchain technology into its business practice, but these ten projects flew past their competition to deliver their promised products and more besides.
10 The One Ring Is A New Take On Lord Of The Rings Roleplaying
The One Ring, Second Edition brought in just over $1.8 million. First released in 2011, this game seeks to be the definitive modern Lord of the Rings roleplaying game. The second edition features updated and streamlined rules according to player feedback from the previous edition. It drew some concern from the RPG community over whether Kickstarter was the appropriate venue to raise funds for such a high-profile property, but this did not hurt its final bottom line.
9 Heliana's Guide To Monster Hunting Lets Players Hunt Monsters And Put Their Parts To Use
This supplement for 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons brought in nearly $2 million during its 2021 Kickstarter campaign. It includes everything players need to perform Monster Hunter-style hunts and craft new items with the materials they harvest. It blasted past all its stretch goals, which included additional playable races and subclasses, a soundtrack, several familiars, digital tokens for online play, and a short adventure. The book, along with several bonus items, is expected to ship sometime in 2022.
8 Tanares RPG For 5e Brought In Some Of The Hobby's Heavy Hitters
Breaking the $2 million threshold, Tannares for 5e is a set of three main sourcebooks for use with 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. These include the Player's Guide to Tanares, the Tanares Campaign Sourcebook, and Adventure in the Realms of Madness.
It features contributions from Forgotten Realms creator Ed Greenwood, 5e writer Robert Schwalb, and Hugo Award-winning author Kij Johnson. The campaign met several of its stretch goals, including 28mm miniatures, a premium dice set, and an art book.
7 Strongholds & Followers Offered A Different Style Of D&D
D&D YouTube creator Matthew Colville brought this 5e supplement to Kickstarter in early 2018 and raised $2.1 million. The book includes rules for raising armies and managing keeps during high-level downtime play. Its stretch goals included new varieties of dragons, an adventure into an abandoned tower, and several new items both magical and mundane. Strongholds & Followers was one of the top 100 Kickstarter campaigns of all time, and Colville launched a campaign for a companion book, Kingdoms & Warfare, in 2019.
6 Dungeon Alchemist Is A New Way To Draw Maps
Raising nearly $3 million, Dungeon Alchemist is an AI-powered mapmaking tool for medieval fantasy RPGs. It allows players to draw rhapes on a grid and will automatically fill them with doors, walls, lighting, and objects.
Players can then tweak these assets to fit their game, and the files are printable and compatible with several virtual tabletop software. Dungeon Alchemist was slated for release in January 2022, but development delays have pushed it back to March 2022.
5 Hero Forge 2.0 Updated The Popular Tool
This highly successful campaign raised $3.1 million during its 2020 campaign. It marked an upgrade for the popular Hero Forge site, a fully customizable tool that allows users to design miniatures for any genre and order or 3D print them. The biggest draw of Hero Forge 2.0 was the addition of colors. It offers users the opportunity to have their miniatures printed in color or to design a color scheme to be recreated by professional artists.
4 Reaper Miniatures Bones Is Still Wildly Popular
This 2012 project by Reaper Miniatures introduced the now wildly popular Bones line and raised $3.4 million. It featured dozens of miniatures in the trademark Reaper style, largely consisting of classic fantasy monsters and heroes. Stretch goals included officially licensed Pathfinder miniatures, dungeon furnishings, giants, dragons, and a huge C'thulhu figure. Reaper Bones miniatures are still wildly popular and can be found in most hobby stores today.
3 Pixels Lets Players Roll In Style
This campaign sought to up the ante on flashy dice by adding Bluetooth-controlled lights and raised $3.5 million. Pixels are a set of polyhedral dice that can light up in various patterns, controlled via a smartphone app.
The campaign also promises they will be compatible with programs like Roll20, able to transmit a physical die roll to the virtual tabletop. Electronic component supply shortage and shipping delays have made this project more difficult to finish, but the developers continue to release regular updates.
2 Dwarven Forge Has Lots Of Successful Campaigns
Dwarven Forge has run several popular Kickstarter campaigns, but Wildlands was their most successful, bringing in just over $4 million. It was a set of modular terrain pieces for tabletop gaming, focussing on outdoor spaces and features. Over 150 trees, plants, rock formations, and water features were included in the campaign. Stretch goals included additional tiles, D&D and wargame scenarios for each biome, and D&D stats for the various creatures found within Wildlands.
1 Avatar Legends Is The Undisputed Top Dog
This official RPG adaptation of the beloved Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender blew past all competition during its August 2021 Kickstarter campaign, raising over $9 million. It is a Powered by the Apocalypse game with new game mechanics for bending and combat and promises to support play in all eras of the franchise. This highly anticipated project also drew some criticism from the RPG community. The Avatar IP is owned by an enormous media company in Viacom, which raises questions about the ethics around such a large company appropriating the crowd-funding model.