June 2026 TTRPG Crowdfunding Retrospective

It's still July, so this isn't yet completely 100% late. That's a win in my book, so check out the raw data and dive in.

June 2026 featured:

• 138 campaigns
• 43 Backerkit
• 4 Gamefound
• 91 Kickstarter
• $22,674,684.93 raised
• $2,795,372.59 on Backerkit
• $819,218.51 on Gamefound
• $19,060,093.83 on Kickstarter
• Types of campaigns
• 11 accessories
• 43 adventures
• 1 advice
• 1 audiobook
• 10 campaign settings
• 1 magazine
• 2 platforms
• 45 supplements
• 22 systems
• 2 VTT modules
• 56 distinct systems used (12 original)
• 47 campaigns (34.06%) used D&D 5E and raised $17,623,942.28 (77.73% of all money raised in June)
• 39 campaigns used AI in some form (24.23% of total) and raised $312,129.73 (1.38% of all money raised in June)
• 29 of these were D&D 5E campaigns, accounting for 61.70% of all 5E crowdfunding campaigns
• Campaigns were based in 16 different countries
• Top 3: 70 in USA, 21 in UK, 10 in Italy
• Singleton countries: Cyprus, Greece, New Zealand, Norway, Spain

Backerkit's June

The top 5 campaigns on Backerkit in June were:

1. Outgunned Adventure: Broken Compass Legacy by Two Little Mice ($477,159.25 from 2,939 backers)
2. Amsel Suite – Chapter II by Ollam Technologies ($460,996.74 from 3,652 backers)
3. Old-School Essentials Demonic Grimoire by Exalted Funeral ($445,565 from 5,430 backers)
4. Night Shift: Devil Division by Slightly Reckless Games ($361,793.83 from 2,229 backers)
5. Memory Core by Horrible Guild ($236,283.28 from 1,430 backers)

Gamefound's June

The 4 campaigns on Gamefound in June were:

1. Archvillain Encounters: Death & Beyond from Archvillain Games ($815,781.67 from 2,321 backers)
2. Pogromcy by Dungal Games ($2,131.79 from 35 backers)
3. Deep Sky Ballad - For a Fistful of Seeds by Winged Lion Games ($707.42 from 25 backers)
4. Nephilion: Der Diplomat (Missionsband) by Nephilion ($597.63 from 8 backers)

Kickstarter's June

The top 5 campaigns on Kickstarter in June were:

1. Neon Odyssey: Space Opera in D&D by Legends of Avantris by Legends of Avantris ($16,138,971 from 49,115 backers)
2. Tom Clancy's The Division, the official tabletop RPG by Arkhane Asylum Publishing ($705,191 from 2,787 backers)
3. Symbaroum RPG – Revised Core Books & Setting Expansion by Free League ($595,115.18 from 2,855 backers)
4. The Book of Unnumbered Worlds by Kevin Crawford ($208,660 from 3,444 backers)
5. City of Sirens: 5E+ Urban Adventures in the Eldritch Fallout by Quill's Tiny Quests ($201,406 from 1,647 backers)

June 2024 vs 2025 vs 2026

	2024	2025	2026
Campaign count
Backerkit	20	21	43
Kickstarter	139	131	91
Money pledged
Backerkit total	$1,411,365.07	$3,243,137.69	$2,795,372.59
Backerkit average	$70,568.25	$154,435.13	$65,008.66
Backerkit median	$20,097.50	$14,539.00	$8,294.00
Kickstarter total	$3,786,692.31	$4,533,617.87	$19,060,093.83
Kickstarter average	$27,242.39	$34,607.77	$209,451.58
Kickstarter median	$3,721.00	$2,931.00	$5,186.00
AI
Campaign count	34	41	38
Money pledged	$215,853.36	$544,766.14	$311,532.10
D&D 5E
Campaign count	69	65	47
Money pledged	$1,893,054.82	$2,717,489.68	$17,623,942.28

I don't have much to say about June's data due to a general listlessness caused by a variety of personal reasons (which is also why this is coming so late), but something that is interesting is a certain trend toward stabilization that I've been seeing the last few months. When I started comparing the last three years' data back in November, it really looked like there was an overall increase in crowdfunding across the board in terms of the number of successful campaigns and money pledged across both Backerkit and Kickstarter. Now, though, it's starting to level off. Backerkit projects are increasing in number while Kickstarters are decreasing, and the money is staying relatively stable (if on a slight increase likely due to inflation and increases in production costs, which are then reflected in pledge tier pricing). It's only when you have projects from creators like Legends of Avantris, who bring a potentially new audience into the space, that you see big spikes in money raised.

This pattern has repeated itself across the time I've been tracking these data: Draw Steel (at the time MCDM RPG), the Cosmere RPG, the Discworld RPG, the Magnus Archives RPG, the new edition of the Alien RPG. (Avatar Legends TTRPG also applies here obviously but I wasn't yet tracking data.) Most really notable projects (in terms of money raised) are not just activating TTRPG fans already on crowdfunding platforms but notifying existing fans of how they can get more of what they already like. (One could argue that D&D itself operates much the same way despite crowdfunding campaigns not actually being run by WotC.) These properties/companies also have the resources to promise and deliver on whale tiers full of bells and whistles, buy Facebook ads to reach people who otherwise might not frequent crowdfunding websites, and pay for splashy art to adorn the crowdfunding page prior to actually collecting any funds for the project.

To be clear, none of this is exactly criticism of these practices or the people who do them. I'm by no means happy about a piece of art's success being dependent on marketing and existing capital, but that's hardly something unique to the TTRPG space. My larger point is rather that time and time again, I am reminded of the reality that >50% of crowdfunding projects raise at most ~$8000 (and more regularly ~$5000 at most), and that that number has stayed incredibly consistent over the last 3.5 years. It would be foolish of me to suggest that we're reaching a carrying capacity in TTRPG crowdfunding (as I am well aware that biologists are notoriously bad at predicting any ecosystem's carrying capacity), but I'm definitely seeing growth slowing down.

May 2026 TTRPG Crowdfunding Retrospective

 

I think we might have finally done it: we've reached the end of Backerkit's themed Months with the end of OSE Month. Or at least, we've reached the end of them for now. I'm not plugged in to the Mothership or Mausritter communities, but now would be the time for them to start planning for their respective Months in November/December if they're happening...

Anyways, here's May's raw data. Let's dive in!

• 194 campaigns
• 71 Backerkit
• 5 Gamefound
• 118 Kickstarter
• $21,498,324.43 raised
• $17,186,480.54 on Backerkit
• $235,153.86 on Gamefound
• $4,076,690.03 on Kickstarter
• Types of campaigns
• 17 accessories
• 1 Actual Play
• 64 adventures
• 10 campaign settings
• 1 fundraising
• 2 magazines
• 1 platform
• 1 reprint
• 49 supplements
• 47 systems
• 1 translation
• 75 distinct systems used (31 original)
• 81 campaigns (41.75%) used D&D 5E and raised $3,837,448.45 (17.85% of all money raised in May)
• 47 campaigns used AI in some form (24.23% of total) and raised $799,428.25 (3.72% of all money raised in May)
• 31 of these were D&D 5E campaigns, accounting for 38.27% of all 5E crowdfunding campaigns
• Campaigns were based in 17 different countries
• Top 3: 103 in USA, 23 in UK, 13 in Italy
• Singleton countries: Argentina, Ireland, Japan, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland

Backerkit's May

The top 5 campaigns on Backerkit in May were:

1. Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG + Unstoppable by Renegade Game Studios ($13,298,059 from 55,972 backers)
2. Traveller 5e by World's Largest RPGs ($841,443 from 2,374 backers)
3. Gary Gygax's Castle Dungeons! by Troll Lord Games ($582,174 from 2,682 backers)
4. Castle Whiterock by Goodman Games ($571,286 from 4,078 backers)
5. Jewel in the Sky: A Megadungeon with a Twist from Monte Cook by Monte Cook Games ($302,132 from 2,674 backers)

Although DCCarl was not actually part of Megadungeon Month, it is somewhat fitting that it coincided with it considering that it is, at least aesthetically, set inside a megadungeon. You could certainly quibble as to how closely it corresponds given that there is no revisiting of levels after clearing them, but I don't think anyone actually cares about that. I do only know this because I have now had the mild misfortune of reading the first two books in the series, and these are my main takeaways:

1. Dungeon Crawler Carl is a shockingly poorly written series of books, filled with only slightly less than egregious racial stereotypes. I find it compelling for the same reason police procedurals are compelling (I love a problem being solved in front of my eyes), despite having many of the same fundamental and aesthetic problems as said police procedurals.
2. It makes complete sense that the 'game' described in the books would make over $13M. In many ways, my many issues raised above may actually contribute to its success given that the same criticisms could be leveled at Dungeons & Dragons (& descendants).

Do I think that the game (which I did not back) will be able to live up to the promises made by the books? Eh, yes and know. The style of the books is an intoxicating mix of "RAWR XD so random" + World of Warcraft fantasy aesthetics + mid-2010s Reddit (including the most basic critique of corporate capitalism), and I don't know how easily people who are not Matt Dinniman will be able (or want) to replicate that particular sludge of inspirations. Ultimately, it's probably a more honest representation of how a lot of people already play D&D, even if they think they're playing Critical Role at home.

Gamefound's May

The top (and only) 5 campaigns on Gamefound in May were:

1. Last Arc: Tactics Analogue by Succubus Publishing ($200,109.70 from 1,503 backers)
2. Pathfinder 2 - Rache der Runenherrscher by Ulisses Spiele ($34,455.35 from 258 backers)
3. Shadows of the 1930s: 450+ RPG Battle Maps by Agnesagraphic ($375.53 from 14 backers)
4. BITTER HARVEST: 80 Cursed Elixirs: A 5e Dark Mediterranean Compendium of Potions, Penance, and Power by Oranges and Olives ($160.54 from 15 backers)
5. 1200+ POST-APOCALYPTIC BATTLE MAPS - INVASION FROM HELL by Agnesagraphic ($52.74 from 1 backer)

Gamefound continues to baffle me with its feast and famine patterns of funding. Either you have fairly successful (often $100K+) projects that don't seem to have a presence anywhere else that I'm online, or you have less than a handful of mildly funded projects that may or may not double dip with a Kickstarter. The things that tend to do the best are the most board game-shaped objects (like Last Arc: Tactics Analogue, which has a fair number of physical components to add on, though surprisingly no minis), which tracks for the overall focus of Gamefound as a platform. I'll be watching their next RPG Party closely to see how sustainable it all is and how much attention/creators it can attract from its competitor platforms.

Kickstarter's May

The top 5 campaigns on Kickstarter in May were:

1. The PackMule Ultimate 5E Inventory System by Eternal_GM ($616,278 from 2,031 backers)
2. Historia Arcanum: The Coven of Salem by Metis Creative ($550,252 from 3,164 backers)
3. Realis by Tyler Crumrine ($354,529 from 7,359 backers)
4. Zoologist's Primer: Birds by Hunters Books ($344,454 from 3,710 backers)
5. Tabletop Table: The Portable, Modular Gaming Table is Back by Tabletop Table ($227,563 from 368 backers)

It's finally happened: the most successful Kickstarter campaign in a month used AI. Specifically, AI was used for "early concept exploration for simpler item-image ideas and for some internal drafting/template assistance related to flavor-text workflow," whatever that means. Now keep in mind that this product, the PackMule Ultimate 5E Inventory System, is literally just making physical cards for every item in the D&D 5E SRD. And therein lies the problem, I think. They obviously cannot use the art that exists for many of these magic items, as that art is owned by Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro, but they need 1600 unique pieces of art (or what's the point of buying them). They then also need flavor text for those magic items that don't take up the full text box, which seems to matter most for the crafting materials cards given that they are presumably always going to have less text in them. But don't worry! They also have randomized booster packs of 15 cards of their own custom items! And you only need to buy ~50 of them to achieve 95% completion. There's also a custom card creator that works...somehow. Details are very unclear, especially on the level of how you could possibly create unique artwork for those cards and how you could print those individual cards at any reasonable cost given that they would be singletons by definition.

I started writing this section genuinely trying to give them some tiny amount of credit: it's a niche of 5E that WotC isn't currently filling, they're just using some tools I personally think are heinous to do that. But the milk of human kindness quickly curdled in my mouth when it became obvious that they're just rent-seekers of the worst variety: shamelessly profiting off of others' labor (because regardless of how you feel about D&D, the SRD is the product of actual people) while gatekeeping anything original behind a randomized lootbox, and you don't even know what those original items are like so you can't know if they're worth getting. At the end of all of this, I don't even think I believe them when they say that all final artwork will be human made because truly every single promotional image on the campaign page (including the physical products shown off in some of the promotional videos) appears to be the product of generative AI. This is just what happens when you allow this kind of slop on your platform; unless you have some intensive verification process to actually require people to prove their claims about AI usage, you'll get slop merchants essentially conning $600K+ out of the easiest marks on the planet (D&D 5E fans).

May 2024 vs 2025 vs 2026

	2024	2025	2026
Campaign count
Backerkit	18	23	71
Kickstarter	133	140	118
Money Pledged
Backerkit total	$735,159.58	$727,356.92	$17,186,480.54
Backerkit average	$40,842.20	$31,624.21	$242,063.11
Backerkit median	$8,810.00	$15,432.00	$8,237.43
Kickstarter total	$7,238,839.84	$6,500,570.98	$4,076,690.03
Kickstarter average	$54,427.37	$46,432.65	$34,548.22
Kickstarter median	$6,766.72	$4,430.84	$4,544.00
AI
Campaign count	34	44	47
Money pledged	$251,400.35	$441,459.48	$799,428.25
D&D 5E
Campaign count	59	79	81
Money pledged	$4,936,605.69	$3,093,350.95	$3,837,448.45

As much as I'm tired of them, I have to say that Backerkit's Months seem to be working. May's 71 campaigns represents the high water mark for number of projects in a month on the platform, tied with February 2026 (when Zinetopia was happening). Median money pledged to campaigns has stayed relatively consistent, which means that the money isn't necessarily only flowing to the most successful campaigns too. Even with the DCCarl game raising $13M+, that's $3,888,421.54 pledged to the other 70 projects (which by itself would be the most money pledged in a month on Backerkit in 2026).

Kickstarter is having a slightly rougher time of it (but since this is coming out so far into June I can say that trend is already turning around), and has the dubious honor of hosting a $600K AI campaign. What I will say on the AI front, though, is that all ther other AI campaigns have never made so little money collectively (as when you take out that outlier you have $183,150.25 across 46 projects).

Anyways that's all. New retrospective to come in hopefully less than a month's time since this one really got away from me.

April 2026 TTRPG Crowdfunding Retrospective

April sees essentially the same amount of money raised as March but with 100+ fewer successful campaigns. To find out why, take a gander at the raw data and let's dive in:

• 152 campaigns
• 21 Backerkit
• 4 Gamefound
• 127 Kickstarter
• $10,391,851.51 raised
• $900,727.16 on Backerkit
• $270,258.78 on Gamefound
• $9,220,865.57 on Kickstarter
• Types of campaigns
• 16 accessories
• 2 Actual Plays
• 36 adventures
• 1 advice
• 13 campaign settings
• 1 fundraising
• 1 platform
• 1 podcast
• 42 supplements
• 35 systems
• 2 translations
• 2 zines
• 56 distinct systems used (16 original)
• 60 campaigns (39.47%) used D&D 5E and raised $5,878,186.03 (56.57% of all money raised in April)
• 41 campaigns used AI in some form (26.98% of total) and raised $196,777.28 (1.89% of all money raised in April)
• 30 of these were D&D 5E campaigns, accounting for 50% of all 5E crowdfunding campaigns
• Campaigns were based in 20 different countries
• Top 3: 67 in USA, 26 in UK, 12 in Italy
• Singleton countries: Japan, Latvia, Spain, Turkey

Backerkit's April

The top 5 campaigns on Backerkit in April were:

1. Druskara: A Brutal Fantasy World Setting for Shadowdark RPG by Dungeon Damsel Publishing ($281,337.00 from 1,291 backers)
2. ION Heart Multiplayer - A Lo-Fi Mech TTRPG by Parable Games ($175,289.77 from 1,049 backers)
3. VHS: Very Horror Stories - Rule of Three by Aces Games ($107,867.08 from 476 backers)
4. Imaria: Beyond the Veil by Lynnvander Studios ($66,678.00 from 444 backers)
5. Inkvein - A MÖRK BORG Megadungeon by Space Penguin Ink LLC ($48,306.00 from 838 backers)

Backerkit might seem a bit light on the ground this month, but that's due to Megadungeon Month (which was scheduled from April 7-May 1), which would have technically 'made' most of its money in April but is going to be recorded in May's roundup. May is going to be a doozy for Backerkit, because Pocketopia and Old-School Essentials Month are running concurrently, though the latter will end in June.

Something interesting that I'm noticing is the geographic breakdown of these themed Months. 

Month	% US creators
Zinetopia 2026	58.33%
Orbital Blues Month	83.33%
Megadungeon Month	88.46%
Old-School Essentials Month	88.24%
Pocketopia 2026	42.11%
Overall Backerkit (2026)	66.23%

Months themed around a particular game system heavily feature US-based creators, while those focused around getting a type of game (zines, pocket-sized games) created are more geographically diverse than the general Backerkit population. There's clearly some kind of bias entering the picture here, but whether that's a factor of where specific games tend to be popular or on Backerkit's part in selecting who gets to participate in the first place is unclear.

Gamefound's April

There were 4 campaigns on Gamefound in April:

1. Mythic Battles: The Roleplaying Games by Monolith Board Games ($134,040.38 from 697 backers)
2. Archmage's Gate: A Solo RPG Adventure Gamebook by Archmage Arispen ($92,967.60 from 848 backers)
3. Fabula Ultima - Bestiarium & Deluxe-Edition by Ulisses Spiele ($42,836.81 from 217 backers)
4. Epic Fantasy Battle Maps: 1400 Rpg Maps + 3200 Portraits by Agnesagraphic ($413.99 from 14 backers)

Gamefound is a really strange place for TTRPG projects. The most consistent projects I've seen there over the past 6 months or so are German translations of popular games and AI-driven projects (either map packs or solo games usually). Last year's RPG Party was a very mixed success, with 16 of 22 projects successfully funding. Rascal News talked to Cam Bradley. Gamefound's business manager, about what this year's RPG Party will look like, and it seems that the company is focused on two main things: projects with a physical component (a requirement) and serving as an incubator for up-and-coming talent. I have my doubts about how effective this will be overall (rooted primarily in the volatile costs of producing physical components nowadays and Bradley's shifting of blame for the failed projects from Gamefound onto the creators who displayed "an unwillingness or inability to network"), but it makes sense for them to try to carve out this niche. Kickstarter is where most people go to fund their projects, while Backerkit is leaning ever more heavily on their themed Months and the bundled shipping they are starting to provide for projects associated with said Months, so if Gamefound wants to be a serious alternative they need to find something they're particularly good at. Only time will tell if this will work.

Kickstarter's April

The top 5 campaigns on Kickstarter in April were:

1. Heliana & Ryoko's Guide to Mythozoology by DnD Shorts ($4,360,638.00 from 18,220 backers)
2. When Society Collapsed: Dam Nation - A Tabletop RPG by Luke Humphris ($817,977.00 from 5,587 backers)
3. Public Access Analog Horror Mystery TTRPG by The Gauntlet Gaming Community ($564,982.00 from 7,189 backers)
4. Fomoria - Epic Folk Horror Roleplaying by Johan Nohr ($314,299.83 from 3,191 backers)
5. Godzilla: The Roleplaying Game by IDW Games ($251,676.00 from 2,428 backers)

The overwhelming lesson from this April on Kickstarter is that it literally pays to have an audience/community. This is certainly not news to anyone, but just look at the top 5 from this month: DnD Shorts and Luke Humphris both have 550K+ YouTube channels, The Gauntlet is a thriving design community that also facilitates play of its own games, Johan Nohr is an indie TTRPG legend (and Tania Herrero, the other designer, is a well-known and award-winning designer herself), and Godzilla is...Godzilla.

In fact, it's notable that the hugely successful, decades-spanning IP tie-in game barely cracked the top 5. You can probably attribute that to the difficulty of turning the general Godzilla fan onto this specific TTRPG adaptation, as opposed to the other 4 projects on here, whose audiences are all specifically based in TTRPGs.

Does this mean that there is no benefit to Kickstarter as a platform? Absolutely not, you still benefit immensely from discoverability, but you can't rely on it. Don't be dependent on the platform - make them dependent on your ability to bring people in who otherwise might not come around.

April 2024 vs 2025 vs 2026

	2024	2025	2026
Campaign count
Backerkit	8	51	21
Kickstarter	137	150	127
Money pledged
Backerkit total	$845,617.27	$2,180,147.02	$900,727.16
Backerkit average	$105,702.16	$42,747.98	$42,891.77
Backerkit median	$66,034.46	$7,565.50	$10,209.76
Kickstarter total	$5,683,707.15	$7,745,262.30	$9,220,865.57
Kickstarter average	$41,486.91	$51,635.08	$72,605.24
Kickstarter median	$5,094.00	$3,841.24	$4,716.00
AI
Campaign count	33	49	41
Money pledged	$310,089.95	$213,130.42	$196,777.28
D&D 5E
Campaign count	70	82	60
Money pledged	$2,486,126.48	$2,136,602.54	$5,878,186.03

As always, it's fascinating to see how outliers influence the data. For example, Kickstarter's total money raised has gone up year-over-year, but most of that growth can be attributed to just a couple of campaigns.

• April 2024 had 1 big Kickstarter campaign: Monsters of Drakkenheim - 5E Monsters with Lore Lairs & Loot by Dungeon Dudes, raising $1,065,710.00 from 8,078 backers
• April 2025 had 2 big Kickstarter campaigns:
• ALIEN RPG - Evolved Edition and Rapture Protocol by Free League, raising $2,407,782.82 from 11,741 backers
• Shadowdark RPG: The Western Reaches Setting by The Arcane Library, raising $2,405,108.00 from 12,923 backers
• April 2026 had 1 big Kickstarter campaign: Heliana & Ryoko's Guide to Mythozoology by DnD Shorts, raising $4,360,638.00 from 18,220 backers

If you take out these top-performing campaigns you end up with the following money raised:

• April 2024: $4,617,997.15
• April 2025: $2,932,371.48
• April 2026: $4,860,227.57

This is obviously not to say that the money raised on Kickstarter in April hasn't been increasing year-over-year. I'm simply pointing out how much of that increase is consistently (and increasingly) concentrated in just a few projects. I began this project because I wanted to know how much money was actually being raised in TTRPG crowdfunding, but increasingly I find it necessary to contextualize where the money is actually going since the numbers alone can't tell the whole story.

March 2026 TTRPG Crowdfunding Retrospective

Zine events are done, which means it's time for big-huge crowdfunders to sweep in again (as though they were even really taking a break during February). Check out the raw data for March and let's dive in.

• 267 campaigns
• 31 Backerkit
• 1 Gamefound
• 235 Kickstarter
• $10,661,503.30 raised
• $3,489,278.13 on Backerkit
• $23,469.04 on Gamefound
• $7,148,756.13 on Kickstarter
• Types of campaigns
• 18 accessories
• 1 Actual Play
• 47 adventures
• 2 advice
• 1 audiobook
• 12 campaign settings
• 1 fundraising
• 1 LitRPG
• 1 magazine
• 1 'offload'
• 4 reprints
• 86 supplements
• 87 systems
• 5 zines
• 124 distinct systems used (58 original)
• 66 campaigns (24.72%) used D&D 5E and raised $2,250,503.58 (21.11% of all money raised in March)
• 54 campaigns used AI in some form (20.22% of total) and raised $374,649.11 (3.51% of all money raised in March)
• 27 of these were D&D 5E campaigns, accounting for 40.91% of all 5E crowdfunding campaigns
• Campaigns were based in 20 different countries
• Top 3: 148 in USA, 39 in UK, 20 in Italy
• Singleton countries: Denmark, Hong Kong, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan
• (Kickstarter is taking a some strong geopolitical stance in its designation of what gets the 'country' treatment it would seem)

Backerkit's March

The top 5 campaigns on Backerkit in March were:

1. Pumpkin Spice - A Magical Cozy RPG by Acheron Games ($1,531,175.72 from 10,948 backers)
2. Numenera: The Amber Archive by Monte Cook Games ($767,026 from 3,880 backers)
3. Blades '68 by Evil Hat ($507,901 from 6,667 backers)
4. Legends of Akeroth - JRPG Inspired TTRPG by Crossed Paths Press ($272,032.53 from 1,543 backers)
5. Castles & Crusades Adventurers Spellbook REFORGED! by Troll Lord Games ($107,081 from 1,090 backers)

Gamefound's March

There was one campaign on Gamefound in March: The Dawnless Necropolis: A Dark Medieval Gamebook by Last Dawn Press ($23,469.04 from 244 backers)

Kickstarter's March

The top 5 campaigns on Kickstarter in March were:

1. Dragonbane Trudvang – The Legend Returns by Free League ($1,144,797.64 from 5640 backers)
2. Monsters & More! A Nimble TTRPG Reprint & Expansion by Nimble Co. ($1,065,804 from 6277 backers)
3. Altheya: The Dragon Empire – A High-Fantasy 5E Setting by Roll & Play Press ($934,715.49 from 5845 backers)
4. Temeraire: The Roleplaying Game by Magpie Games ($514,632 from 4022 backers)
5. Ariadne's Book of Legends - D&D beyond 20th level! by Ariadne's Codex of Strings ($410,051 from 3330 backers)

March 2024 vs 2025 vs 2026

	2024	2025	2026
Campaign count
Backerkit	21	34	31
Kickstarter	232	254	235
Money pledged
Backerkit total	$939,594.09	$1,918,365.98	$3,489,278.13
Backerkit average	$44,742.58	$56,422.53	$112,557.36
Backerkit median	$15,100.00	$4,654.00	$6,684.00
Kickstarter total	$4,897,291.24	$2,283,379.13	$7,148,756.13
Kickstarter average	$21,109.01	$8,989.68	$30,420.24
Kickstarter median	$2,956.05	$2,320.09	$2,373.00
AI
Campaign count	34	47	54
Money pledged	$152,318.82	$399,981.45	$374,649.11
D&D 5E
Campaign count	69	73	66
Money pledged	$1,918,554.37	$815,507.09	$2,250,503.58

In every sense (money raised, number of successful campaigns, etc.), March was an unmitigated success for TTRPG crowdfunding. Despite a slight decrease in the number of March 2026 campaigns compared to last year, both Backerkit and Kickstarter saw massive increases in the money pledged to projects that they hosted. Things are looking up! There's not even a 'but' coming!

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No seriously! Just good stuff this month! No but!

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Okay, but...I'm still not wild about how much a 'successful' month depends on there being a handful of individually successful crowdfunding campaigns. I've talked before about the remarkable stability of the money pledged to the median campaign, and this is both a blessing and a curse.

There are two different pieces of conventional wisdom that should impact this measurement:

1. A rising tide raises all boats: the presence of hugely successful projects should drive eyes to the platforms they're hosted on and benefit other creators
2. This town ain't big enough for the both of us: the presence of hugely successful projects will take away money and attention from smaller creators

Are either of these things happening? The median money pledged stat suggests that they aren't (or that if they are, they're canceling each other out). When money comes in for big projects, it seems to largely stay in those projects. When big projects aren't happening, people who turn out for them seem to largely stay home.

What does this mean for people seeking to launch projects? Wellllllllllll...it's hard to draw any definitive conclusions, but it seems that you don't need to be all that concerned about some big project coming in and taking all your thunder. For better or worse, you're probably going to raise the money you're going to raise. The bigger question is how running alongside some behemoth project is going to affect you psychologically, as your ability to relentlessly self-promote has at least some impact on the ultimate outcome. If you get discouraged because it feels like the air is getting sucked out of the room, that's likely going to matter a lot more than the 5E splatbook du jour raising $200K in .5 seconds. Not to say that there is no material impact there, just that there's probably less than you might think.

This of course all has yet to be put to the statistical test, so stay tuned for whenever that comes.

February 2026 TTRPG Crowdfunding Retrospective

February is always such an interesting (or alternately for the purposes of this project: exhausting) month due to the sheer volume of projects that happen despite it being shorter than all other months. This time around is no exception! Here's the raw data, let's dig in.

• 231 campaigns
• 71 Backerkit
• 1 Gamefound
• 159 Kickstarter
• $2,610,858.67 raised
• $666,832.71 on Backerkit
• $22,562.00 on Gamefound
• $1,921,463.96 on Kickstarter
• Types of campaigns
• 14 accessories
• 2 Actual Plays
• 53 adventures
• 7 campaign settings
• 2 fundraising
• 3 LitRPGs
• 1 platform
• 2 reprints
• 67 supplements
• 75 systems
• 1 translation
• 4 zines
• 119 distinct systems used (63 original)
• 64 campaigns (27.71%) used D&D 5E and raised $1,152,107.23 (44.13% of all money raised in February)
• 46 campaigns used AI in some form (19.91% of total) and raised $239,894.59 (9.19% of all money raised in February)
• 28 of these were D&D 5E campaigns, accounting for 43.75% of all 5E crowdfunding campaigns
• Campaigns were based in 21 different countries
• Top 3: 122 in USA, 30 in UK, 17 in Italy
• Singleton countries: Austria, Cyprus, Ireland, Mexico, Portugal, Switzerland

Backerkit's February

The top 5 campaigns on Backerkit in February were:

1. Old-School Adventures & Pinball Crawl Classics! by Goodman Games ($187,677 from 2,063 backers)
2. Bloodpunk: Night Before the White Wake - Adventure and VTT by DRS Publishing ($73,215.22 from 543 backers)
3. Level Up: A5E Gate Pass Gazette Annual 2025 by EN Publishing ($29,086.04 from 468 backers)
4. Triple-O: the player character emulator by Cezar Capacle ($26,234.92 from 1,005 backers)
5. DedBoi - an investigative solo TTRPG by Critical Kit Ltd ($24,113.43 from 657 backers)

Gamefound's February

There was one campaign on Gamefound in February: Astromythos by jsideriadis ($22,562 from 193 backers)

Kickstarter's February

The top 5 campaigns on Kickstarter in February were:

1. Eternal Ruins: The Roleplaying Game by Mythworks ($295,166 from 3,208 backers)
2. Night Hunters: Gothic Horror for TOV and 5E D&D by Kobold Press ($223,878 from 1,934 backers)
3. Dungeon, Inc. by Olivier Revenu ($149,746 from 2,583 backers)
4. Tainted Grail TTRPG: Life and Death in Avalon by Jim Searcy ($103,710 from 940 backers)
5. REALM: The Soul Searchers Protocol by Jonathan Matteson ($102,420 from 2,583 backers)

February 2024 vs 2025 vs 2026

	2024	2025	2026
Campaign count
Backerkit	12	19	71
Kickstarter	214	202	159
Money pledged
Backerkit total	$884,266.93	$1,194,103.59	$666,832.71
Backerkit average	$73,688.91	$62,847.56	$9,392.01
Backerkit median	$6,662.59	$7,653.65	$4,233.00
Kickstarter total	$2,468,976.14	$2,936,765.97	$1,921,463.96
Kickstarter average	$11,537.27	$14,538.45	$12,084.68
Kickstarter median	$3,768.33	$3,116.00	$3,483.00
AI
Campaign count	35	39	46
Money pledged	$236,973.58	$197,675.97	$239,894.59
D&D 5E
Campaign count	57	58	64
Money pledged	$592,773.60	$1,773,005.23	$1,152,107.23

We are gathered here today to honor the memories of ZineQuest/ZineMonth/ZineTopia -- not because they're dead but because they might as well be in many regards. Let me be clear: I am not saying they're bad initiatives or that they shouldn't happen again. But we should all be honest with ourselves that they just don't really mean much anymore from even a marketing perspective.

I've said previously that I don't want to get too hung up on the money raised by crowdfunding projects as the sole, or even primary, metric of success, and that remains true. But I can't ignore that by that metric, this year's zine-themed initiatives have fared considerably worse thus far than those of previous years. ZineTopia, Backerkit's official foray into the zine space, more than tripled the number of successful projects (an unalloyed good!) yet raised the least money in February since 2024. When I talked about ZineTopia and general month fatigue back in October 2025, I was primarily concerned that Backerkit was going to become a gatekeeper obstructing people's participation in their February initiative, which I am glad to say hasn't happened. But the result has highlighted the platform's seeming dependence on high-profile campaigns from established creators. By and large, it seems that larger creators genuinely respected the ZineTopia initiative (or that Backerkit was enforcing its primacy behind the scenes) and yet that initiative was responsible for just over 50% ($343,710.45 by my data, $357,613 by the official page) of Backerkit's February total. The rest? That came mostly from the top 3 campaigns I listed above (all of which began before ZineTopia started). Even Kickstarter saw a dip in February metrics despite the continued presence of successful campaigns from indies like Mythworks and established companies like Kobold Press, suggesting that even the most successful campaigns are suffering from a general malaise. I can't say whether this is due to crowdfunding oversaturation, worsening economies the world over (but especially the US), some secret third thing, or a combination therein (the most likely answer I'd say).

So what are we to do with all this? It's really difficult to say. I really appreciate that ZineMonth is a community-organized initiative that lives outside of a crowdfunding platform, but it just doesn't have much of an ability to break outside of the existing indie TTRPG field. ZineQuest doesn't seem to be giving the same benefits it once did, and ZineTopia is a troubling indicator of future success (or lack thereof) of themed Months for Backerkit. The main hopeful statistic I can see in this is that the median campaign still raises ~$3K-$4K whether it's on Backerkit or Kickstarter (the median across all February campaigns was $3,868.00), and this has been stable for a number of months, if not years. Yes, the February median fell by quite a bit year-over-year for Backerkit, but that's just reflective of more, smaller projects getting on the platform. Crowdfunding campaigns just have to get increasingly realistic: there's no real evidence of a rising tide that's lifting all ships, but there is at least a consistent water level that should hopefully keep you from getting stranded on the rocks.

The Awards Design Diary #5: Pulling It All Together

This will be the last Design Diary for The Awards 2026 before we actually get off the ground, and it's mostly an excuse to share our INCREDIBLE new visual identity by Jack Panic of DNGN CLUB. When I approached him a few months ago about making the banner, logo, and winner's badges for The Awards 2026, I told him that I wanted them to "feel retro, shooting for grainier 80s/90s/00s aesthetics over polished 50s/60s nostalgia" and oh my gosh did he deliver.

It's grainy. It's colorful. It sort of feels like it's a little out of focus and you can't quite trust your eyes. So it's perfect!

With The Awards 2026 officially beginning on April 1st, I just wanted to pull together everything I've been talking about and noodling on. Starting with judges!

Judges

The Awards 2026 is looking for 12 judges, at least 50% of which will be POC and 50% of which will be of marginalized genders. If we don't get enough applicants to make that happen at first, then we'll keep applications open until we do. To demonstrate our commitment to this, for the first time we will be making our judges' identities known once they have been chosen.

These judges will each be assigned ~2/3 of the eventual submissions to read through and vote on (though they can of course read all of them, and are encouraged to do so). This process will happen over the course of 3 months, from June-August. Once all votes are in, ~50 finalists will be chosen and judges will be added to a shared Discord server where they can discuss their thoughts. Over the course of the next 6-8 weeks (September-October), they will develop their ideas about what should become a recipient of An Award and eventually vote on the winners.

Finally, they will appear in a livestream (as they are able) in late October/early November announcing the winners of The Awards 2026 and share their reasons as to why each of the 20 winners were deemed as such.

Submissions

Submissions to The Awards 2026 must adhere to the following guidelines:

1. Be published between June 1, 2024 and May 31, 2025.
2. No AI or LLM was used to generate any part of the submission (writing, art, video, voice, etc.)
3. Did not raise over $100,000 in any crowdfunding campaign

Beyond this, each submitter is limited to 2 submissions of 50 pages of material, whichever limitation comes first. Judges are not obligated to read more than 50 pages of material per submitter.

A submitter is here defined as the primary designer of the work submitted, so it is possible that individual people could appear on more than 2 submissions. So long as nothing is submitted in a way that seems intended to specifically subvert the submission limits, this is allowed.

All material tangentially connected to TTRPGs is eligible for submission: original systems, hacks of existing systems, adventures, supplements, video essays, podcasts, artwork, etc. It is up to the judges to decide how best to evaluate these disparate mediums against each other.

All submitters will be invited to contribute their submissions to a winner's package, wherein the 20 winners of The Awards 2026 will receive digital copies of all opted-in submissions. The decision to contribute submissions to this package will not be shared with the judges, and thus will not impact their deliberation in any way.

All submitters will be notified whether or not their submission(s) were voted as finalists, though this information will not be shared publicly. This is primarily to let people know whether to tune in to the winner announcement livestream, as well as a chance to gather information about who to credit in the event of their winning and how to pronounce winners' names.