This month I discovered that at some point around June, Kickstarter had added a new category to its searchable elements: TTRPG. Previously, I had been using the "Games > Tabletop Games" filter to identify campaigns for this project, but now as it turns out I had been missing quite a few. 82 campaigns, to be precise, that collectively raised $870,319.97. So tracking all of those down was...fun, but now that we're on the other side of it everything is fine. It gave me something to do as I was recovering from my flu and Covid vaccines. This does, however, mean that my June, July, and August retrospectives have been updated slightly. This was also a rare moment that my procrastination helped me out since it meant that this retrospective hadn't been posted yet. So, with our newly updated and more accurate information, here's the raw data. Let's dive in!
September 2026 featured:
- 22 on Backerkit
- 3 on Gamefound
- 88 on Kickstarter
- $2,364,114.01 on Backerkit
- $64,866.41 on Gamefound
- $1,391,475.75 on Kickstarter
- 11 accessories
- 23 adventures
- 3 campaign settings
- 1 movie
- 52 supplements
- 23 systems
- 45 campaigns (39.82%) used D&D 5E and raised $488,111.84 (12.78% of all money raised in September)
- 33 of these were D&D 5E campaigns, accounting for 73.33% of all 5E crowdfunding campaigns
- Top 3: 57 in USA, 30 in UK, 8 in Italy
- Singleton countries: Australia, Ireland, Japan
The top 5 campaigns on Backerkit in September were:
- Crows: Fortune or Death by MCDM Productions ($1,423,795 from 8,181 backers)
- Cypher—Advanced! by Monte Cook Games ($262,476 from 2,501 backers)
- Time Without Tide: Mirth & Misery in a World of Fog by Chaosium ($253,636 from 2,035 backers)
- Dark Conspiracy – A Horror RPG in the Modern Age by Mongoose Publishing ($189,579.49 from 1,200 backers)
- Amazing Adventures: Codex Monstorum by Troll Lord Games ($53,800 from 565 backers)
The 3 campaigns on Gamefound in September were:
- Antzeit – ein Rollenspiel im Reich der Fantasy-Ameisen by Ulisses Spiele & AntByte Studios ($64,496.25 from 274 backers)
- The Grand Expedition: Rpg maps for Vtt by Agnesagraphic ($226.40 from 4 backers)
- The Turning Wheel by Ember and Quill ($143.76 from 12 backers)
The top 5 campaigns on Kickstarter in September were:
- HackMaster 25th Anniversary Edition, a Fantasy RPG by Kenzer and Company ($333,507 from 1,033 backers)
- Monsters of Rend World by Darryl Jones ($207,189 from 1,753 backers)
- Deadlands: Mysterious Maze - Savage Worlds by Pinnacle Entertainment Group ($183,079 from 1,597 backers)
- Treacherous Traps 2 for 5E/5.5E D&D by Nord Games ($104,357 from 1,442 backers)
- Traveller: A 50 Year Odyssey by TEX ($94,424 from 1,095 backers)
September 2024 vs 2025 vs 2026
| 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Campaign count | |||
| Backerkit | 12 | 14 | 22 |
| Kickstarter | 101 | 123 | 88 |
| Money pledged | |||
| Backerkit total | $1,454,136.46 | $1,617,387.83 | $2,364,114.01 |
| Backerkit average | $121,178.04 | $115,527.70 | $107,459.73 |
| Backerkit median | $45,192.50 | $13,990.60 | $5,580.44 |
| Kickstarter total | $2,296,019.12 | $2,458,495.73 | $1,391,475.75 |
| Kickstarter average | $22,732.86 | $19,987.77 | $15,812.22 |
| Kickstarter median | $3,967.00 | $4,658.00 | $2,484.50 |
| AI | |||
| Campaign count | 31 (~27%) | 40 (~28.5%) | 44 (~39%) |
| Money pledged | $215,538.99 | $227,946.95 | $117,072.52 |
| D&D 5E | |||
| Campaign count | 50 | 51 | 45 |
| Money pledged | $1,168,288.21 | $815,352.14 | $488,111.84 |
Having to comb back through months of missed campaigns gave me the opportunity to actually look at the YTD data, being officially 3/4 of the way through 2026, and I was actually quite shocked at what I saw.
Despite there being almost 200 fewer Kickstarter campaigns January - September 2026 than Jan-Sept 2025 (1127 vs 1310), ~US$19M more has been raised in 2026 than by this point last year (US$49.2M vs US$30M). Contrast this to Kickstarter campaigns using AI, which are almost identical in number Jan-Sept 2026 vs 2025 (392 vs 375) but have only raised ~US$500K more (US$3M vs US$2.5M).
On Gamefound, by contrast, the same period in 2025 saw 25 campaigns raising US$785K vs the same period in 2026 with 25 campaigns raising ~US$2.6M.
On Backerkit there is an even starker difference, with 202 campaigns raising US$12.8M Jan-Sept 2025 and 323 campaigns raising ~US$34.5M Jan-Sept 2026.
So what does this all mean? Well, it would seem that Backerkit is potentially siphoning creators away from Kickstarter without taking away any of its actual market share, but that belies the precarious position that Kickstarter finds itself in. 80% of the increase in money raised on Kickstarter from 2025 to 2026 could be accounted for by one campaign: Neon Odyssey: Space Opera in D&D by Legends of Avantris. This single campaign raised US$16.1M, and if they had decided to host it on Backerkit instead of Kickstarter, the former would have overtaken that latter handily in terms of TTRPG money raised. (This is, of course, simplistic as you could easily argue that Kickstarter was a large part of the reason the campaign raised as much money as it did, but it would be a huge blow to Kickstarter regardless.)
Now to be fair (and balanced), the same could be said of Backerkit, as a large portion of its increase in money raised from 2025 to 2026 can be attributed to one campaign as well: Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG + Unstoppable. This campaign raised ~US$13.3M and accounts for ~60% of the increase, but that still leaves about US$10M in other organic growth, some of which is clearly rooted in the over 50% increase in the number of campaigns hosted on the site.
Crowdfunding, at least on Kickstarter, is getting increasingly consolidated into blockbuster campaigns that have the resources to produce glossy landing sites, commission art, and provide reward tiers packed with gewgaws. While this has always been the case, now that we're seeing an actual reduction in the overall number of campaigns on the site, there might start to be less money to go around. Can I say for sure that any given campaign would be better off on Gamefound or Backerkit? Definitely not. But Kickstarter is starting to be increasingly populated by a combination of huge campaigns and AI slop, so from my perspective it's growing increasingly inhospitable to the average creator.
