October 2025 TTRPG Crowdfunding Retrospective

October: big month for Kickstarter, not so much for Backerkit, and Gamefound is around too I guess. Here's the raw data, let's dive in:

• 181 campaigns
• 17 Backerkit
• 0 Crowdfundr
• 7 Gamefound
• 157 Kickstarter
• $7,740,735.97 raised
• $417,015.22 on Backerkit
• $0.00 on Crowdfundr
• $133,721.22 on Gamefound
• $7,189,999.53 on Kickstarter
• Types of campaigns
• 29 accessories
• 30 adventures
• 2 advice
• 1 audiobook
• 15 campaign settings
• 1 platform
• 3 reprints
• 63 supplements
• 34 systems
• 3 translations
• 65 distinct systems used (24 original)
• 79 campaigns (43.65%) used D&D 5E and raised $3,500,523.50 (45.22% of all money raised in October)
• 50 campaigns used AI in some form (27.62% of total) and raised $194,597.15 (2.51% of all money raised in October)
• 29 of these were D&D 5E campaigns, accounting for 36.25% of all 5E crowdfunding campaigns
• Campaigns were based in 16 different countries
• Top 3: 87 in USA, 29 in UK, 13 in Italy
• Singleton countries: none

Backerkit's October

The top 5 campaigns on Backerkit in October were:

1. Black Market Guide to Immortality by Nine Heavens Press ($121,014 from 1,325 backers)
2. Ars Magica Edición Definitiva by Blagdaross Ediciones ($54,915.20 from 254 backers)
3. Art & System: Games for Expanded Play by Central Michigan University Press ($54,382 from 984 backers)
4. Epic RPG Fails, Extra Insulting Insults & Even Dumber Dares! by Loke Battle Mats ($45,237 from 982 backers)
5. Horror Cinema Classics RPG by Wayward Studios ($33,419 from 230 backers)

Gamefound's October

The top 5 campaigns on Gamefound in October were:

1. Zakazane Ziemie by Kensumi ($41,917.03 from 275 backers)
2. VOIDBIRTH by Black Magic Creative Inc. ($37,281.01 from 581 backers)
3. Deadlands - Durch den Unheimlichen Westen by Ulisses Spiele ($25,548.17 from 155 backers)
4. Nomads Unbound by Mind's Vision ($18,057.64 from 107 backers)
5. Blunderbuss RPG by Archmage Arispen ($9,996.36 from 131 backers)

Kickstarter's October

The top 5 campaigns on Kickstarter in October were:

1. Fabula Ultima TTJRPG Celebration Edition + Bestiary Vol. I by Need Games ($1,625,036 from 6,404 backers)
2. VOIDSEA - Eldritch High Seas 5e D&D Supplement by Voidsea ($1,061,941 from 5,090 backers)
3. One-Shot Wonders 2: Over 100 NEW Adventures for DnD 5E by Roll & Play Press ($758,815.92 from 6,214 backers)
4. Invincible – Superhero Roleplaying by Free League ($405,808.19 from 3,513 backers)
5. Daggerheart Class Packs by Darrington Press ($295,138 from 2,036 backers)

October 2024 vs 2025

	2024	2025	Change
Number of campaigns
Backerkit	23	16	-7
Kickstarter	166	157	-9
Money pledged
Backerkit total	$1,262,228.19	$415,479.70	-$846,748.49
Backerkit average	$54,879.49	$25,967.48	-$28,912.01
Backerkit median	$9,853.00	$12,571.00	+$2,718.00
Kickstarter total	$6,519,099.07	$7,189,999.53	+$670,900.46
Kickstarter average	$39,271.68	$45,796.18	+$6,524.50
Kickstarter median	$4,055.38	$3,835.00	-$220.38
AI
Campaign count	41	50	+9
Money pledged	$143,749.67	$194,597.15	+$50,847.48
D&D 5E
Campaign count	82	79	-3
Money pledged	$2,693,794.03	$3,500,523.50	+$806,729.47

Let's talk about promotional Months...

Folks? I might be getting Month fatigue.

We are currently in the middle of Mothership Month and Mausritter Month on Backerkit, and RPG Party on Gamefound. This rounds out a year that featured Zine Quest 2025 on Kickstarter, Zine Month 2025 on non-specific platforms, and Pocketopia on Backerkit. Now I am on record last year saying that I like Mothership Month and my feelings on that haven't changed per se, but I'm starting to question the overall utility of these endeavors, both for the artists hoping to get their work funded and the general public on the receiving end of what increasingly feels to me like a firehose of material.

The main problem I see with these Months is a certain hegemony that they inadvertently enforce. I am not claiming that Mothership or Mausritter are oppressing anyone - that would be silly, they have no institutional power to make that happen - but they are becoming canonical games in the eyes of the platforms that do have institutional power. Consider this: if we were to get Mothership Month and Mausritter Month every year (something that seems fairly likely to happen), that's nearly two calendar months out of the year on Backerkit where the focus is primarily on those two games rather than any others. It's not like Backerkit is preventing other projects from funding at the same time, but why would you want to compete with the projects that have explicit support from Backerkit (a big banner on the platform, bundled shipping, extra rewards for backing more, etc.)? When platform economies are dependent on the ability to attract and maintain attention, it becomes imperative to consider everything that could affect that, including competing projects that could take money away from yours. And yeah, it's not actually a zero-sum game since not everyone's decision-making process boils down to "Which of these two games can I back?", but nobody has an unlimited TTRPG crowdfunding support budget so decisions do have to be made.

On another note, and as further evidence of the hegemony Backerkit is actually actively cultivating, let us examine their promotional page for Zinetopia 2026, Backerkit's contribution to the Zine Quest/Month milieu. If you scroll down to the "Participation Expectations" you'll see this little tidbit about how they're prioritizing applications (in the following order):

1. Previous Topia and/or Group-Collab experience on BackerKit
2. Past crowdfunding success on any platform
3. Referrals from qualifying applicants
4. Open applications

They're building a stable of creators with proven success at both crowdfunding and their previous Months on Backerkit. So if you make a Mausritter or Mothership project that does well, you now have a better chance of getting official support for future projects, which then compounds further and further.

Again I must make it clear, I am not ascribing to the creators of Mothership or Mausritter any sort of conspiracy to oppress or keep down TTRPG creators who don't want to make stuff for their games. But the canonization of those games as ones that Backerkit wants to support has that knock-on effect to some degree. Backerkit wants to help people make art, but they also need to make money. And what's that right below the list of application prioritization? The disclaimer that "BackerKit reserves the right to remove projects that we deem aren’t ready to launch." "Projects that aren't ready to launch" to me reads as "projects we are afraid will fail," which defeats the stated purpose of crowdfunding. How are new creators and artists supposed to get started if the platforms they can use only want to cultivate sure things?

No one wants a project to fail, but failure is going to happen from time to time. Except that's obviously bad business/PR for Backerkit, who are touting in the same article that 100% of their 2025 Topia projects (250 in total) have funded, so they're going to naturally push for safer projects - perhaps projects being made for popular games with institutional backing like Mothership and Mausritter.

What's my overall point here? It's certainly not to boycott Backerkit and cease participation in these Months and Topias. But I want to sound some alarm bells about the influence that these platforms are having on the TTRPG space, and the push toward professionalization that could crowd out smaller artists. Especially considering the current furor around setting low crowdfunding goals and the revelation by one of the creators of Equinox TCG that it was Gamefound itself who told them to set a much lower goal than they truly needed. Just remember: platforms aren't your friends, and their own incentives are unlikely to ever truly align with yours.