Are We Looking At A New RPG Kickstarter Record?

The current record for an RPG Kickstarter is John Wick's 7th Sea 2nd Edition, which made just over $1.3 million in about a month. Matt Colville looks like he might leave that in the dust with Strongholds & Streaming, however, having raised nearly half a million dollars in about 5 hours at the time of posting this, with a month to go!

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Strongholds & Streaming is a dual Kickstarter - first to produce a 128-page hardcover book about building strongholds and attracting followers for D&D 5th Edition; and then with stretch goals related to Colville's streaming channel.

You can build four stronghold types - keeps, towers, temples, and establishments; these roughly correlate to warriors, arcane casters, divine casters, and rogue-types. The stronghold improves your class abilities, and attracts followers.

Stretch goals include miniatures, more pages, an an adventure (so far - he's blown through all those on there right now already).

You can see this epic Kickstarter here. I've never seen an RPG Kickstarter blow up quite so fast in so short a time!

Matt Colville writes the Critical Role comic, and has worked on various tabletop gaming projects, including the recent Star Trek RPG. He has worked on various mass-combat and starship combat rulesets. In addition, he runs a big YouTube channel about tabletop RPGs (D&D especially).

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[gyor]

I think Zedturtle is right, I think folks underestimate how effective our outreach program was. We sent out over 8,000 emails and the launch video got like 40,000 views (which is normal) in the first day. And those emails went to folks who explicitly told us they wanted to know when the KS went live.

So our opening I think is probably stronger than most, which means there aren't as many people to tap left.

Also, we are opposed to adding stretch goals just because it gets people excited. We're not Zynga, we're not trying to exploit people's dopamine receptors. We've already promised a LOT, and now we have to deliver.

I think we'll get a bump when we hit $1m. And I think maybe I'll have some stuff to show people that will move the needle.

Also Kicktraq is terrible, they treat each KS like its the only one they have any data for, like there aren't known trends. Their numbers only become predictive when there's like three days left and the answer is obvious to anyone.

This is why I went from someone who was going to pledge to someone who isn't, the excitement of the stretch goals are part of the kick starter experience for me.

 

[mattcolville]

This is why I went from someone who was going to pledge to someone who isn't, the excitement of the stretch goals are part of the kick starter experience for me.

Yeah we are definitely not your cup of tea. If you have no interest in the product, only chasing after more stretch goals, there are WAY better kickstarters.

We are literally just trying to make a book, make some minis, and rent a studio and we can do that now.

 

[DM Magic]

This is why I went from someone who was going to pledge to someone who isn't, the excitement of the stretch goals are part of the kick starter experience for me.

As someone who has backed 100 projects (Strongholds & Followers is my 100th!!) I can categorically say it is REFRESHING to see a project creator achieve great success and not immediately add a ton of stretch goals. Stretch goals add time, pushing the due date out. And sometimes they're not well thought out, adding significant cost that isn't accounted for. No, this is a well thought out product with clear, achievable goals. I'm excited to get it in my game!

 

[prosfilaes]

Ain't nobody hiding anything "profit" in s&h, except the Fulfillment companies.

Then all the people offering stuff for FREE (plus $6.95 s&h) on TV or now on Wish are really, really generous.

When I buy apples at my local grocery shop he is also "hiding" his shipping in the price per kilo, and it's even more subtle and hard to calculate.

He also hides his spoilage and electric bill in the price...

The book shop is also hiding lots of costs in that price you pay, ever wondered how come Amazon can sell it for less?

Which misses the point; I was arguing the myriad costs are and should be "hidden" in the price. But you can't hide shipping to the end user in the price, because it varies, so that, and only that, should be broken out. All that other stuff about warehousing and staff mentioned in the message I replied to are just costs of doing business.

 

[Parmandur]

Then all the people offering stuff for FREE (plus $6.95 s&h) on TV or now on Wish are really, really generous.



Which misses the point; I was arguing the myriad costs are and should be "hidden" in the price. But you can't hide shipping to the end user in the price, because it varies, so that, and only that, should be broken out. All that other stuff about warehousing and staff mentioned in the message I replied to are just costs of doing business.

Those costs also vary, for much the same reason.

 

[prosfilaes]

Those costs also vary, for much the same reason.

No, not in the sense I'm talking about. When I go to DriveThruRPG and to Smashwords, they don't need more information to offer me a price, and I don't need to know about how much what they're doing costs them. They can just say "the PDF is $16". But if I go a store that's going to mail me something, I have to tell them where I am and maybe how long I'm willing to wait for the product before they can tell me how much shipping is. That's why shipping is different and is always separate, unless you exclude out of country purchasers or something.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Yeah we are definitely not your cup of tea. If you have no interest in the product, only chasing after more stretch goals, there are WAY better kickstarters.

We are literally just trying to make a book, make some minis, and rent a studio and we can do that now.

While there are no more official stretch goals (which is a good idea for various reasons); I imagine there are plenty of uses for extra money should there be extra money (expect unexpected overhead).

A better studio! A bigger book with more pictures! Better quality on the minis! More videos! I'm sure there are lots of ideas.

Sent from my [device_name] using EN World mobile app

 

[Parmandur]

No, not in the sense I'm talking about. When I go to DriveThruRPG and to Smashwords, they don't need more information to offer me a price, and I don't need to know about how much what they're doing costs them. They can just say "the PDF is $16". But if I go a store that's going to mail me something, I have to tell them where I am and maybe how long I'm willing to wait for the product before they can tell me how much shipping is. That's why shipping is different and is always separate, unless you exclude out of country purchasers or something.

There is more to the process than that; if you buy two products, for instance, it will change real costs.

 

[gyor]

Yeah we are definitely not your cup of tea. If you have no interest in the product, only chasing after more stretch goals, there are WAY better kickstarters.

We are literally just trying to make a book, make some minis, and rent a studio and we can do that now.

So the rest of the fund raising is pure profit now. Sensible business practice, but missed opportunity to expand on the original creative idea.

That is not intended to be as judgemetal as it sounds, just a observation.

Maybe Oynx Path kickstarters have spoiled me.

I changed my mind, I think will pledge the kickstarter, but only at the $20usd amount, the idea is interesting.

 

[Parmandur]

So the rest of the fund raising is pure profit now. Sensible business practice, but missed opportunity to expand on the original creative idea.

I would wager that extra funds will go towards studio space and equipment for the streaming show.