Feb. 8: Kickstart My Heart (and Paycheck)

In This Edition

• Wizards of the Coast

• Major Publishers (Paizo and Co)

• Crowdfunding Launches

• Crowdfunding in 2024

• Actual Play and Content Creators

• With the D&D Monster Manual out in the public eye, that’s consumed a lot of people’s attention. A new also had to be released to adjust certain stats that players found to be broken.

• There’s a lengthy interview over at EN World with D&D Co-Lead Jeremy Crawford covering monster changes and the future of Eberron.

• Paizo' will release its NPC Core on March 5. This is a supplemental book with more than 250 character types to be used in your Golarion-centered campaigns.

• Monte Cook Games took a stand against the current Trump Administration’s tariffs (even if they’ve been delayed) via its “Anti-Tariff Sale.” Normally, I don’t cover sales alone, but its decision to do so in response to political events does say something about the company’s views and seems noteworthy to me.

• Kult: Divinity Lost is a horror-themed TTRPG from the Swedish publisher Helmgast about mortals seeing beyond the veil of our world and realizing the absolute madness that surrounds us, albeit with more of a Clive Barker flavor to it over the Cthulhu mythos. The current campaign is raising funds for two new sourcebooks and two new scenario collections. The books are titled Metropolis, Illusion and the Borderlands, Scarlet Bride and Other Tales and Broken Reflections. It’s a good Kickstarter campaign for those who want to expand their collection of texts for the game, or who want to try this game for the first time themselves. I’m personally very intrigued by the game.

• Mappa Munda is a TTRPG published by the UK-based Three Sails Studios that focuses on world-building, exploration, and ecology in a single book.

• Rustpunk is a post-apocalyptic solo TTRPG made by Mythos Manuscript about survivors trying to protect their clan and discover secrets about their world.

• A PERFECT WIFE is an “urban horror TTRPG adventure zine inspired by Asian ghost films” focusing on Malaysian urban legends. The art looks delightful.

• Mission ImPAWsible is a zine about three raccoons in a trench coat where they have to save the world. This sounds silly, and I love it.

• Ashes is a “Souls-like GM-less RPG Gamebook” where players take on Dark Souls level baddies with a deck and two D6 without any preparation.

Crowdfunding in 2024

The Brandon Sanderson-authored Cosmere RPG published by Brotherwise Games topped Kickstarter’s biggest projects of the year by a landslide, raising $15.1 million over that period. Other popular TTRPGs like Discworld, the Root expansion and DC20 also had successful campaigns, although they failed to get anywhere near the 8-digit totals that Cosmere itself raised.

BackerKit saw its revenue triple in 2024 from initial backers to tabletop projects. The MCDM RPG (better known as Draw Steel now) was the top game on their list of tabletop projects with $4.6 million raised, followed by an updated version of Ars Magica, an expansion to horror-themed Old Gods of Appalachia, small-sized Household: Welcome to the Garden, Welcome to Nightvale and Outgunned Adventure.

At the same time, Gamefound finished 2024 with 6 of the top 10 tabletop campaigns of 2024, showing that it is a rising platform. I’ll admit that it’s a website I often forget about. But the Cyberpunk 2077 board game raised nearly $7.7 million there, which is quite respectable.

Actual Play and Content Creation

Critical Role Campaign 3 has come to a close with an 8 ½ hour episode released this week. The game does intend to continue with a short series, but it remains unclear where the show will go afterward. Will we see Daggerheart take center stage, or will the new edition of 2024 5e maintain the main ruleset for the players?

Rascal News is also in the middle of a pledge drive. If you want to support one of the most prominent outlets for TTRPG reporting, give them a look and some cash. Ideally both.