August 2026 TTRPG Crowdfunding Retrospective

I feel like I say this every month, but this month is one of the stranger on record for TTRPG crowdfunding. There was an 11-day period (August 4-14) where 11 massively successful campaigns ended with US$7,837,170.24 pledged (82.66% of all money pledged in August). What's more, there was a full week (7/28-8/4) when all 11 of them were live and, theoretically, competing. But we'll circle back to that later. Check out the raw data and let's dive in!

August 2026 featured:

95 campaigns

• 19 on Backerkit
• 2 on Gamefound
• 74 on Kickstarter

$9,481,624.46 raised

• $5,623,032.44 on Backerkit
• $721,475.32 on Gamefound
• $3,137,116.70 on Kickstarter

Types of campaigns

• 11 accessories
• 22 adventures
• 1 advice
• 4 campaign settings
• 1 fundraising
• 1 playtest
• 30 supplements
• 24 systems
• 1 zine

39 distinct systems used (18 original)

• 42 campaigns (44.21%) used D&D 5E and raised $4,241,011.95 (44.73% of all money raised in August)

26 campaigns used AI in some form (27.37% of total) and raised $125,859.41 (1.33% of all money raised in August)

• 20 of these were D&D 5E campaigns, accounting for 47.62% of all 5E crowdfunding campaigns

Campaigns were based in 13 different countries

• Top 3: 49 in USA, 19 in UK, 7 in Canada
• Singleton countries: Australia, Belgium, Hong Kong, Netherlands

The top 5 campaigns on Backerkit in August were:

1. Dungeons and Daddies: Not a BDSM Sourcebook by Dungeons and Daddies ($3,111,193 from 17,102 backers)
2. Deathbringer TTRPG by Professor DM by Roll For Combat ($1,326,922 from 7,737 backers)
3. The Ghost in the Shell: Tabletop Roleplaying Game by Mantic Games ($495,723.24 from 4,035 backers)
4. DCC RPG Book of Funnels by Goodman Games ($277,992 from 3,125 backers)
5. Merryshire Detective Club by Pelgrane Press ($85,787.60 from 935 backers)

The 2 campaigns on Gamefound in August were:

1. DC Justice League Unlimited Roleplaying Game by D20 Culture ($718,411.63 from 2,801 backers)
2. MythWatch by Mythemakers ($3,063.69 from 28 backers)

The top 5 campaigns on Kickstarter in August were:

1. Seven-Part Pact by Steve Jackson Games ($1,068,197 from 5,795 backers)
2. Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster by Mike Shea ($464,986 from 8,946 backers)
3. Kinks & Cantrips: Adventures in Subspace by Stellara Books ($272,411 from 2,666 backers)
4. Limithron's Pirate Map Collection by Limithron ($265,993 from 2,363 backers)
5. Terra Mortis | Solo Post-Apocalyptic Deckbuilding RPG by Lion Banner Games ($219,714 from 1,613 backers)

August 2024 vs 2025 vs 2026

	2024	2025	2026
Campaign count
Backerkit	20	17	19
Kickstarter	121	122	74
Money pledged
Backerkit total	$1,580,419.62	$1,351,822.34	$5,623,032.44
Backerkit average	$79,020.98	$79,518.96	$295,949.08
Backerkit median	$15,903.00	$10,588.00	$30,566.00
Kickstarter total	$18,711,813.48	$1,702,917.95	$3,137,116.70
Kickstarter average	$154,643.09	$13,958.34	$42,393.47
Kickstarter median	$4,239.00	$3,364.00	$3,300.00
AI
Campaign count	29	42	26
Money pledged	$145,005.70	$167,835.73	$125,859.41
D&D 5E
Campaign count	49	59	42
Money pledged	$1,956,290.32	$875,395.60	$4,241,011.95

Promised I'd circle back didn't I?

Seeing the data from these past few years should provide some context for how strange this month was. A sizable decrease in the number of campaigns (the lowest number for Kickstarter since January 2025, lowest for Backerkit since this past January) and yet an equally sizable increase in money funded, compared to both last month and last August. August 2024 obviously stands apart from this, but that's when the Cosmere RPG finished (something of a Crowdfunders Georg). Also, as an aside, that's when the Neopets RPG ended. That shit raised the 4th-highest amount of money that month. Good thing that people learned their lesson and didn't give a bunch of money to an IP-based project without much evidence to back up the grand promises made.

Anyways, like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, this was driven by a legendary run of massive campaigns all ending in an 11-day period. All but one of the campaigns that raised more than US$100K ended in this stretch of time. But even more specific than that 11-day period was the two days of August 13th and 14th, when five campaigns ended that raised US$6,280,027.24 (66.23% of all money pledged in August).

Although this is very much not the norm (especially because these campaigns weren't even part of some promotional Month), these campaigns provide a little insight into the typology of highly successful TTRPG campaigns, which I have created three categories for (well, four , but the fourth doesn't really count): External Audience, Intellectual Property, and Known Entity.

• External Audience campaigns feature popular artists who have not previously been involved in making TTRPGs deciding to publish something. They are almost always involved in the field in some way  They benefit enormously from having large fanbases who are already interested in supporting them, which should translate to more backers and more high-dollar backers (I do not have the empirical data to back this up, but it just tracks). In August 4-14, this was:
• The Dungeons & Daddies podcast making a 5E supplement/campaign setting out of their highly successful podcast
• Professor Dungeon Master (who I shan't link to), a YouTuber with 157K subscribers at time of writing, making a game
• Intellectual Property campaigns are exactly what they sound like: licensed TTRPGs of existing media. Similarly to External Audience campaigns, these benefit from a large audience predisposed to be interested in the game, but crucially they can't usually be as effectively targeted by the creators. I don't think the Ghost in the Shell mangaka, publisher, or anime studio is really putting out a call to go back the TTRPG adaptation (but I could be wrong). In August 4-14, this was:
• The Ghost in the Shell: Tabletop Roleplaying Game
• Children of Time: The Roleplaying Game
• (worth saying that the only other US$100K+ game in August was DC Justice League Unlimited Roleplaying Game, another IP campaign)
• Known Entity campaigns are the broadest category as they rely on the previous success of the game system, designer/publisher, or both. Even though this is something of a catch-all category, it highlights that monetary success in crowdfunding rarely comes out of nowhere. In August 4-14 this was:
• DCC RPG Book of Funnels (popular system, well-known publisher)
• Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster (third in a series of GM advice books)
• Seven-Part Pact (Jay Dragon + Steve Jackson, plus years of public playtesting and positive reviews)
• The Wildsea: Sourdown (popular system, well-known publisher)
• Terra Mortis | Solo Post-Apocalyptic Deckbuilding RPG (something of an outlier, but previous successful campaigns including a US$100K+ one must have built an audience)

You might be wondering what the fourth type is, but I think you already know: it's D&D 5E. The reason I don't really consider this to be a real type of mega-successful campaign is because it's nowhere near as diagnostic as the other types. There are far, far more D&D 5E crowdfunding campaigns that make less than US$1000 than there are US$100K+.

Eagle-eyed readers have doubtless already noticed that these categories are by no means mutually exclusive. The Dungeons & Daddies campaign was a D&D 5E book (and Professor DM's game is basically just a type of D&D given that it's clearly marketed to that audience). Children of Time is being made by Rowan, Rook, & Decard, very much an indie TTRPG Known Entity. You could easily make the case that Jay Dragon brought her own External Audience to Steve Jackson Games (though that's iffy given that Jay is an actual designer rather than YouTuber or podcaster). In fact, when these conditions align you usually get a sort of force multiplier that increases the overall success.

None of this is intended to discount the work that went into the design of any of these games; I'm mostly trying to dig into how it was possible that so much money was raised by these campaigns in largely overlapping time periods without backers feeling exhausted. These categories, I hope, help point out how the audience for these campaigns did not overlap (though I am of course sure that there are many people out there who backed several of these) and examine how fragmentary/siloed the TTRPG field is.

When you boil it right down, these categories are mostly just different ways of saying that something made money because it was already popular (and because the people behind it possess the monetary/cultural capital needed to make and run a professional campaign). But there is value to separating out these different classes of popularity, and in pointing out that capital alone (see: IP games) does not necessarily result in the greatest success. Rather (and this is a conclusion I often return to in these roundups), it is the cultivation of a TTRPG-specific audience that most consistently results in the success of individual campaigns, and that is something that relies on a lot of (ultimately harder) work being done before and between campaigns.

A Blog Post 2 Years in the Making

 

Last year I wrote a blog post one year in the making and immediately set a reminder to revisit it in one year's time.

So here I am.

The difference is that last time around, I had spent a decent amount of time thinking about the topic (time-limited TTRPGs) and the inciting incident (rewatching Gravity Falls). This time? I just knew that I wanted to continue the pattern.

This is, in its own way, a time-limited game, playable exactly one day a year. One with no rules, no other players (except the few readers who might take a gander at it), and a very specific, if thankfully unknown and hopefully far away, end in sight.

I have to say, I'm enjoying it so far. It's a great exercise to force myself to develop my thoughts and get them out all in one day.

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Something I've been thinking about for the past year is how so many of the games I both enjoy playing and want to design are, directly or indirectly, about time.

My game The River Spirit is about memory and sacrifice, and by creating (and then destroying) a physical journal of your playthrough, you're mimicking the experience of your character. After all, if you should ever return to your play artifact later, a lot of what you'll be able to recall is just what remains after play.

Aaron Lim's An Altogether Different River (a direct inspiration for my own game) holds a similar fascination to me as a game about how things in a hometown have changed; indeed, how they must change.

The fantasy of the mega-campaign that lasts for years holds a similar appeal, as it takes on an epic scale not just in-game but out-of-game too. Years come and go, but this weekly game and the friends you play it with stay constant, your ability to shape and create the world you play in unrivaled by any agency you have in your day-to-day life.

A game I've been playtesting incredibly infrequently for a few years now also considers time in multiple ways: a generational game of city/community-building and collapse set in the quasi-historical Stone Age. This is inspired by David Graeber and David Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything, a fascinating book about how different the dawn of human civilization looked than how we typically imagine it. My game attempts to bring some of what I learned by reading it into a playspace, to see how I and others might do something different ourselves.

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It's kind of funny how much I'm fascinated by this idea of playing with time in games when I am at times deeply frustrated by it elsewhere. In particular, there's this style of storytelling that I've noticed across genres and mediums over the past several years that split perspectives between time. A recent example of this is Project Hail Mary (the movie, I haven't read the book), which reveals main character Ryland Grace's backstory as he begins to recover his own memories, lost during a long cryogenic sleep. But there are a number of other ways of doing this, such as giving flashbacks to a character's past as moments in their present remind them of certain events, or even jumping multiple generations back to give context to what's happening in the present.

This can certainly be done effectively, even artfully, but so often it feels like it is an extension of mystery-box storytelling and that the author is just hiding information from me in order to keep me interested in an otherwise weak plot. A particular (and mostly effective) example of this is the TV show How to Get Away With Murder. In the couple seasons I watched, the show would cut back and forth in time, giving just enough of a glimpse of the aftermath of a murder to keep you intrigued. Who died? Could it have been one of our beloved main characters? And who killed them? Could it have been a different beloved main character? (It usually wasn't, but sometimes it was!) The rest of the show gave you legal procedural drama as leadup to this horrific event for half the season, teasing the various motivations behind it, before it caught up in time and then focused on how the characters recovered (or didn't) in the aftermath.

And while this show was definitely effective at doing this, it also allowed them to hedge their bets. Rather famously (at least to me), Viola Davis cried over a wooden dummy while filming one of the murder aftermath scenes in Season 1 because they hadn't decided who was going to be the murder victim yet. Now is this an example of terrible writing and storytelling, worthy of walking away from to never be engaged with again? Of course not. That's happening with the MCU, which rewrites whole third acts and scene locations in post-production while fucking over the VFX artists who actually make it happen.

But when I see this kind of time trickery play out in books and TV, it frustrates me because it doesn't always feel necessary and it seems increasingly common. Sometimes, it's like a writer doesn't know how to integrate the two halves of a story they've come up with and thus create a lazy framing device to make it work. It's not for my benefit as the reader/viewer, they're just playing peek-a-boo with the important thing until they choose to reveal it.

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So why does playing with time work for me in games more than elsewhere? It really comes back to the agency involved. If I'm playing with time in some significant way in a game, I'm taking an active role in the decisions involved, whether by making use of limited time or in creating the world that is changed by its passage. Nothing's being hidden from me, there's no big reveal to make by cutting around something important, and we're not glossing over things that might be really interesting and meaningful. Games that play with time literalize the limited time we have to play them, and by foregrounding that limitation allow for something really beautiful and exciting to happen.

See you next year.

July 2026 TTRPG Crowdfunding Retrospective

 

This month finds me in a significantly better place personally, but a similarly late posting of this retrospective. At some point, you have to admit that it's just part of who you are - and I'm at peace with that. Check out the raw data, and let's dive in!

July 2026 featured:

145 campaigns

• 42 on Backerkit
• 4  on Gamefound
• 99 on Kickstarter

$2,813,534.77 raised

• $847,104.03 on Backerkit
• $391,780.37 on Gamefound
• $1,574,650.37 on Kickstarter

Types of campaigns

• 18 accessories
• 38 adventures
• 7 campaign settings
• 1 platform
• 21 reprints
• 32 supplements
• 27 systems
• 1 zine

60 distinct systems used (17 original)

• 47 campaigns (32.41%) used D&D 5E and raised $1,163,531.67 (41.35% of all money raised in July)

43 campaigns used AI in some form (29.66% of total) and raised $519,917.17 (18.48% of all money raised in July)

• 27 of these were D&D 5E campaigns, accounting for 57.45% of all 5E crowdfunding campaigns

Campaigns were based in 19 different countries

• Top 3: 80 in USA, 23 in UK, 7 in Italy
• Singleton countries: Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Philippines

The top 5 campaigns on Backerkit in July were:

1. Mouseborn RPG by Mouseborn ($171,143 from 1,194 backers)
2. Darkenhaven — ENNIE Award-Winning City of Intrigue by Gooey Cube ($105,484 from 268 backers)
3. MedievAlien – Knights vs. Aliens TTRPG by Mana Project Studio ($94,742.17 from 1,225 backers)
4. Exalted Funeral 2025 ENNIES Awards Winners and Nominees! by Exalted Funeral ($79,627 from 623 backers)
5. Force of Extinction: A Post-Apocalyptic Action TTRPG by 12 Sided Studios ($50,854 from 270 backers)

The 4 campaigns on Gamefound in July were:

1. Das Schwarze Auge – Maraskan by Ulisses Spiele ($379,237.83 from 1,770 backers)
2. Gates of Krystalia TTRPG: Stop Watching Isekai. Start Living One by Top Notch International LTD ($11,240.24 from 54 backers) - uses AI
3. Underfoot: An Itty-Bitty Fey RPG - Reprint! by Ella Carter Art ($722.64 from 20 backers)
4. Mythic Realms – 1800 Fantasy Battle Maps by Agnesagraphic ($579.66 from 10 backers) - uses AI

The top 5 campaigns on Kickstarter in July were:

1. The Adventure Guide: Secrets of Enduril by Magen Elizabeth Dean Bain ($335,525 from 2,606 backers)
2. Strigovia - A Slavic Darkfolk RPG by Dark Orb ($190,986 from 1,733 backers) - uses AI
3. Ereb Altor - a setting for Dragonbane by Helmgast ($155,168 from 1,066 backers)
4. Machines of Bone & Blood: Necroindustrial Adventures in 5E! by somanyrobots ($140,259 from 1,647 backers)
5. So You Died. A 5e Undead Player's Handbook by The RPG Professor ($66,056 from 925 backers) - uses AI

July 2024 vs 2025 vs 2026

	2024	2025	2026
Campaign count
Backerkit	14	17	42
Kickstarter	143	126	99
Money pledged
Backerkit total	$978,983.04	$445,168.07	$847,104.03
Backerkit average	$69,927.36	$26,186.36	$20,169.14
Backerkit median	$12,716.00	$10,395.00	$5,231.50
Kickstarter total	$4,472,629.89	$1,555,182.28	$1,574,650.37
Kickstarter average	$31,277.13	$12,342.72	$15,905.56
Kickstarter median	$4,435.00	$3,126.00	$3,530.15
AI
Campaign count	41	50	43
Money pledged	$157,621.97	$244,932.90	$519,917.17
D&D 5E
Campaign count	76	59	47
Money pledged	$1,544,866.12	$553,001.66	$1,163,531.67

I couldn't say exactly why, but it looks like big campaigns are getting less spread out over the course of the year and instead tending to coincide more often with each other. My evidence for this is the increasing boom and bust cycle of crowdfunding, where the number of campaigns and the money pledged goes down in 2026 compared to previous years for a month or two, only to spike hugely.

This, of course, goes exactly counter to common sense, which would dictate that big campaigns are competing with each other for people's money (especially when they have whale tiers that seem to drive the profit through accessories rather than the actual game itself). I can't imagine this is due to any sort of collusion (as again, those creators would have a somewhat vested interest in not being in direct competition/comparison), but rather a collective response to market trends that identify certain times of year as being optimal for launching a big project. This is, of course, a self-fulfilling prophecy, as it is not exactly difficult to tell when a project is likely to make $100,000+ dollars (again, based on all the accessories on offer and whether they've done it before) and therefore said projects being launched and doing well make that time of year a 'good' time by the various metrics.

One of these days I will in fact get around to testing some of these hypotheses with the data I have, but I'm not sure when.

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.