This week featured the launch of two major tabletop RPG Kickstarters, both of which surpassed $1 million in a matter of days. The tabletop RPG publishing industry is booming, as evidenced by the number of major Kickstarters reaching seven figures within days of launch. This week saw two more TTRPG projects join the $1 million+ club, as both MCDM Productions’ Flee, Mortals! and Monte Cook Games’ Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game both broke the $1 million funding mark within days of launch. The two Kickstarters both launched on April 12, with Flee, Mortals! raising over $1.269 million and Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game raising over $1.076 million. Both Kickstarters have plenty of time to raise even more money, as both will remain open to funders until early May.
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Tabletop games are one of the most successful categories on Kickstarter, but tabletop RPGs have historically had only a fraction of the success that traditional board games had on the platform. Only fourteen TTRPG Kickstarters have surpassed $1 million in pledges on the platform. However, ten of those Kickstarters were launched in 2021, which indicates a growing number of publishers are turning to the platform to raise funds for their projects. Notably, both Flee, Mortals! and Old Gods of Appalachia largely steer clear of using miniatures to help prop up pledges – Flee, Mortals! is offering one miniature as an optional add-on, while Old Gods of Appalachia has no miniatures but uses a premium edition of the game instead.
Of course, both Flee, Mortals! and Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game benefit from being recognizable names with built-in fanbases. Flee, Mortals! is linked to Matt Colville, a game designer and YouTube personality with a large fanbase who used previous Kickstarters to help launch his publishing business. Colville notably hired veteran TTRPG designer James Introcaso as his company’s lead designer, which has brought a lot of design and project savvy to his team. Meanwhile, Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game is based on the Old Gods of Appalachia podcast, an award-winning horror anthology program that has a huge fanbase.
TTRPGs are seen as a growing part of the tabletop industry, and we’ll likely see more big projects hit Kickstarter over the next few months. One question that remains is whether there’s a limit to just how many big projects the TTRPG industry can maintain at once, or if the different fanbases, different IPs, and different publishers will keep the various projects from competing for funds from backers.
