The long-running Dungeons & Dragons “Let’s Play” series Rivals of Waterdeep is turning to crowdfunding to help wrap up its campaign. A IndieGoGo campaign to raise $60,000 launched yesterday, with funds going to help film and produce the final two and a half seasons of the long-running show, which has aired 13 seasons over the past four years. The Rivals team launched the crowdfunding campaign due to Wizards of the Coast pulling its financial sponsorship of the show, as Wizards has increasingly de-emphasized community-created shows on their Twitch and YouTube channels. A recent Forbes report noted that Dungeons & Dragons generated between $100 and $150 million in sales annually for Hasbro and is part of Hasbro’s most profitable subsidiary Wizards of the Coast, which generated over $500 million in profit in 2021.
Rivals previously launched a Patreon to help supplement funding and support for the show, but their IndieGoGo page notes that it hasn’t raised the funds necessary to keep the show’s production levels at their current standards.
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Rivals of Waterdeep launched in 2018 as one of several new series originally launched to promote Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. While many of those other seasons either stalled out or wrapped up in less than a year, Rivals of Waterdeep kept going strong, with players rotating into the DM’s chair each season to keep the storytelling fresh. While cast members have also cycled out periodically, Rivals of Waterdeep has consistently showcased the strong storytelling capable in a D&D game while also featuring a cast fully made up of BIPOC players. Rivals of Waterdeep is also something of an anomaly within the D&D “Let’s Play” landscape, as the show was originally filmed in Chicago and primarily features cast members on the East Coast instead of LA-based players.
The IndieGoGo will remain open for 45 more days and has raised nearly $5,000 as of press time. You can check out the full campaign here.
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