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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[Ancalagon]

So when discussing "streaming" and the effect on D&D of Web 2.0 (user created content rather than service created content), it's easiest to overlap the two. If only because "streamer" is the more commonly known descriptor. (Which Colville him self brought into the discussion by naming his Kickstarter "Strongholds & Streaming".)

A tangeant:

You know... forums are old school sure... Not really relevant. But isn't reddit a forum of sorts? Isn't a forum user created content? Freaking ahead of the curve is what I say...

 

[Morrus]

A tangeant:

You know... forums are old school sure... Not really relevant. But isn't reddit a forum of sorts? Isn't a forum user created content? Freaking ahead of the curve is what I say...

Reddit’s basically a gigantic forum, yep. It’s Walmart. We’re the little corner shop.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I don't see you as a typical 'get off my drawbridge' Grognard, so I don't think it was at you.

Now, the ones you had to ban when Wizards hired that young female employee recently...

Very much this.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

A tangeant:

You know... forums are old school sure... Not really relevant. But isn't reddit a forum of sorts? Isn't a forum user created content? Freaking ahead of the curve is what I say...

Reddit is a forum, but it really stretches the definition in my opinion.

Imagine a forum that has the comments that people like higher up in the post order, and people start there own subthreads in pretty much any post if it gets enough traction.

 

[Morrus]

Reddit is a forum, but it really stretches the definition in my opinion.

Imagine a forum that has the comments that people like higher up in the post order, and people start there own subthreads in pretty much any post if it gets enough traction.

We don’t need to imagine it. We know what Reddit is. And Twitter. And lots of things. Despite claims to the contrary.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

We don’t need to imagine it. We know what Reddit is. And Twitter. And lots of things. Despite claims to the contrary.

Yeah probably.

He just seemed like he didn't know too much about it, and I tried to explain it. Probably not very well.

 

[Ancalagon]

Yeah probably.

He just seemed like he didn't know too much about it, and I tried to explain it. Probably not very well.

Why thank you for being so helpful there.

 

[SkidAce]

Anyone older than me? (55 years old)

I'v been here since the founding by Eric Noah.

I also follow people on twitter, stay tuned to the 5e Unearthed Arcana reddit for new houserules, items, and classes.

Love Critical Role, although "streaming"? Nope. Cant be tied down that long...got things to do.

Converted CR from the youtube to a mp3 on my computer so I could listen while commuting to work, cutting grass, running 2 miles etc.

edit...Note: CR has a podcast now, so I'm good.

 

[DM Magic]

I for one know who streams what and I have a Twitter account. I'm not an old man screaming at the clouds like he's trying to portray us to be, nor am I an idiot unable to understand that his Kickstarter worked because of his YouTube following. That was uncalled for. I don't know where the hostility is coming from. I thought a load of us backed his Kickstarter? I did. He didn't seem to dislike us this much four weeks ago.

What hostility? Maybe you and I didn't read the same thing. Here's the link again in case you missed it: https://www.mcdmproductions.com/news/2018/3/12/the-end-of-the-beginning

 

[Schmoe]

Anyone older than me? (55 years old)

You got me beat by about 10 years.

I'v been here since the founding by Eric Noah.

Ditto. I remember the boards before this iteration. And I remember the boards before that as well. Morrus is just a Johnny-come-lately as far as I'm concerned.

I remember matt_colville from back in the day, and I'm sure there are many around here who do.

I also follow people on twitter, stay tuned to the 5e Unearthed Arcana reddit for new houserules, items, and classes.

Love Critical Role, although "streaming"? Nope. Cant be tied down that long...got things to do.

Converted CR from the youtube to a mp3 on my computer so I could listen while commuting to work, cutting grass, running 2 miles etc.

edit...Note: CR has a podcast now, so I'm good.

Honestly, I'm not that interested in most social media outlets. I don't have much time to begin with, and frankly I find them mostly a waste of time. Hell, I can barely keep up with my e-mail. Nothing wrong with them, I choose to spend my time elsewhere. That doesn't mean I don't understand them, though. I can navigate them when I want to; I've checked out Twitch streams; I've looked at way too many Twitter feeds; I've read more Youtube comments than I care to admit (and I have the therapy bills to prove it); I was lurking around 4chan before it was cool; yadayadayada.

So I find it odd that he poses this as a new vs. old dichotomy. He says, and I quote, "I feel very little connection with folks in tabletop now." WTF does that even mean? Is there some groupthink surrounding "tabletop" D&D, and how can you play D&D without it being "tabletop"? Is Critical Role somehow not played on a "tabletop," because it looks like it to me.

It's cool that he's a celebrity and all, it's cool that he has his own communities of devoted followers, it's cool that he feels comfortable with a certain subset of the media channels out there, but it's not cool that he is dismissive of those that are NOT part of his community. The only possible reason that I can surmise is that there was some sort of argument in another thread where people tried to micro-analyze the success of his Kickstarter (as the Internet is wont to do), and he wasn't able to convince them of his opinion. Regardless of how grounded in reality his opinion is (and frankly, I agree with him that it's hard to imagine it has anything to do with anything OTHER than his Youtube success), that is what is known as "arguing on the Internet." Seriously. He's been around long enough to know that. I think he's just been insulated from it long enough because of his fans, and has decided he's done with it.

Which, to be fair, is his prerogative. Just don't put down a whole bunch of people who don't choose to do that.