The Biggest TTRPG Kickstarter Creators: Free League Is King!

They say you can't make a million in tabletop RPGs. With 26 successful campaigns totaling nearly $8,000,000, Swedish company Free League is one of the big heavyweights of tabletop roleplaying Kickstarters. Their latest offering, Ruins of Symbaroum, has already joined that streak of killer Kickstarter campaigns with over three weeks still to go.

Free League currently tops the chart (boosted by its recent $2M The One Ring campaign), but Monte Cook Games is right behind them.

As of November 2022.

Everybody has heard of the giant $1M+ Kickstarter successes (Matt Colville, John Wick's 7th Sea, The One Ring, Coyote & Crow, Twisted Taverns, and Humblewood). I've already compiled that list. This list, on the other hand, is a look at the totals raised by various Kickstarter creators over all their projects which add up to $1M or more. These totals were correct at the time of posting. If you're reading this in the future, they're probably outdated!

Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarter Club

Moved to thread:

www.enworld.org

It's a work in progress, so if I've missed any obvious contenders, let me know. I only included creators who were primarily doing tabletop RPGs on the platform, but I didn't audit every project, so the totals will include any other things they've done. I also stuck to Kickstarter for the sake of my own sanity; several other crowdfunding platforms are available!

	Company/Creator​	Projects​	Known For​	Biggest Campaign	Total Funded​
1	Free League	27​	Tales from the Loop, The One Ring	THE ONE RING Roleplaying Game, Second Edition	$7,839,651*
2	Richard Thomas (Onyx Path)	46​	World/Chronicles of Darkness	Deluxe Exalted 3rd Edition	$7,264,672
3	Monte Cook Games	22​	Numenera, Cypher System	Numenera 2: Discovery and Destiny	$6,671,520
4	Hit Point Press	9​	Humblewood	The Deck of Many Animated Spells, Tarot, and More for 5E	$3,865,801
5	Shane Hensley (PEG)	27​	Savage Worlds	Deadlands: the Weird West	$3,569,108
6	Matt Colville	2​	Strongholds & Streaming	Strongholds & Streaming	$3,494,150
7	Kobold Press	22​	Midgard, 5E hardcovers	Vault of Magic for 5th Edition	$2,867,580
8	Jim Searcy (Studio Agate)	11​	Esteren	Encyclopedia: Lore Books & Toolbox for your 5E Campaign	$2,254,420
9	Morrus (EN Publishing)	28​	Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition	Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition	$2,092,648*
10	Eldermancy	2​	The Seeker's Guide to Twisted Taverns	The Seeker's Guide to Twisted Taverns	$1,990,428
11	Evil Hat Productions	16​	Fate	The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game	$1,969,348
12	Frog God Games	29​	Swords & Wizardy, Tome of Horrors	Rappan Athuk	$1,906,713
13	Ghostfire Gaming	3​	Grim Hollow (5E setting)	Grim Hollow: The Monster Grimoire	$2,373,990*
14	Loot Tavern	3​	Heliana's Guide to Monster Hunting	Heliana's Guide to Monster Hunting	$1,874.061
15	Goodman Games	33​	Dungeon Crawl Classics	DCC RPG 4th Printing	$1,756,612
16	John Wick	10​	7th Sea	7th Sea: 2nd Edition	$1,640,153
17	Ulisses Spiel	15​	Fading Suns, Dark Eye	Torg Eternity	$1,621,113
18	Modiphius Entertainment	7​	Conan, Star Trek, many other licensed 2d20 games	Robert E. Howard's Conan Roleplaying Game	$1,618,550*
19	RiotMinds	13​	Trudvang	Trudvang Chronicles	$1,461,447*
20	Russ Charles	4​	Animal Adventures (5E setting)	Animal Adventures: Tales of Dungeons and Doggies	$1,413,286
21	Warchief Gaming	1​	Auroborous (5E setting)	Auroborous: Coils of the Serpent	$1,260,863
22	Connor Alexander	1​	Coyote & Crow	Coyote & Crow the Role Playing Game	$1,073,453

*converted to USD​

 

[imagineGod]

A million sales just through crowdfunding is pretty amazing stuff.

I wonder how much roughly converts to profit? Particularly if kickstarters, while giving volume, have higher cost of sale because of the extras.

Not enough, the collapse of the indepdent publishing brand, John Wick Presents was a sad reality of this.

Hopefully, Coyote and Crow creator, Connor Alexander, manages his finances better. One smart thing he did was the focus on supplying printed books on Native Lands first, and international backers not a target of the print and shipping run. That is wise for a fresh Kickstarter creator without partnerships with international logistics and shipping companies. Also, stretch goals can ruin profits, with too many successful Kickstarters having been drained by unrealistic stretch goals that required new manufacturing.

 

[CapnZapp]

The name Free League appeals to Americans, I bet the biggest market in the world. Originally, the company was Fria Ligan in Sweden, and the Symbaroum IP Kickstarter was via acquisition Jaringen (though it was called a merger, the brand name says otherwise)

Free League is literally "Fria Ligan" translated from Swedish. That name was chosen long before the considerations of international markets became an issue. It was picked from an organization in the Coriolis sci-fi game back when the Free League people were just fans.

Specifically, fans of Järnringen's games. Järnringen created the edition of Mutant that's held in high regard still - I myself consider their campaign the Swedish equivalent of GWs Enemy Within or Chaosium's Masks of Nyarlathotep! (Coriolis was an original creation of Järnringen with a unique ruleset. When Järnringen folded FL picked up the rights and issued a new edition based on their ubiquitous Year Zero game engine.)

Much later Järnringen was recreated and published Symbaroum. But by then FL was successful and much bigger, so when a merger was considered, it would have made no sense to go with anything else than "Free League envelops Jarnringen".

I bet the FL people felt satisfaction from being able to incorporate their old idols, the ones that came up with the organization they used to name their company no less, though!

 

[imagineGod]

Free League is literally "Fria Ligan" translated from Swedish. That name was chosen long before the considerations of international markets became an issue. It was picked from an organization in the Coriolis sci-fi game back when the Free League people were just fans.

Specifically, fans of Järnringen's games. Järnringen created the edition of Mutant that's held in high regard still - I myself consider their campaign the Swedish equivalent of GWs Enemy Within or Chaosium's Masks of Nyarlathotep! (Coriolis was an original creation of Järnringen with a unique ruleset. When Järnringen folded FL picked up the rights and issued a new edition based on their ubiquitous Year Zero game engine.)

Much later Järnringen was recreated and published Symbaroum. But by then FL was successful and much bigger, so when a merger was considered, it would have made no sense to go with anything else than "Free League envelops Jarnringen".

I bet the FL people felt satisfaction from being able to incorporate their old idols, the ones that came up with the organization they used to name their company no less, though!

Thanks for this, I saw mention of an old Coriolis RPG but I think it was Swedish only. And thanks for correcting the misconception on my part that at first considered the faction name Free League was shoehorned into the Coriolis RPG as a vanity project.

 

[CapnZapp]

Cheers.

PS. Trust me, the fact Coriolis 1E is Swedish only doesn't mean you're missing out. (The atmosphere and imagery of the game is the draw here, while the rules were just poor)

 

[eyeheartawk]

Not enough, the collapse of the indepdent publishing brand, John Wick Presents was a sad reality of this.

Hopefully, Coyote and Crow creator, Connor Alexander, manages his finances better. One smart thing he did was the focus on supplying printed books on Native Lands first, and international backers not a target of the print and shipping run. That is wise for a fresh Kickstarter creator without partnerships with international logistics and shipping companies. Also, stretch goals can ruin profits, with too many successful Kickstarters having been drained by unrealistic stretch goals that required new manufacturing.

John Wick's other problem is that his game just wasn't very good. The interest in his new games plummeted after people read the final version of the second edition of 7th Sea. The reception, was uhm, mixed. The Khitai Kickstarter after did a fraction of the business and he couldn't get his 7th Sea board game crowdfunded even after two tries.

 

[babi_gog]

Just thinking that some of the publishers above have used other crowdfunding platforms as well as Kickstarter. I know that Ulisses Spiel have done a few using Game On Tabletop. So that may change some of the totals if other funding platforms are included.

 

[Morrus]

Just thinking that some of the publishers above have used other crowdfunding platforms as well as Kickstarter. I know that Ulisses Spiel have done a few using Game On Tabletop. So that may change some of the totals if other funding platforms are included.

I mentioned that in the article. But it took me hours as it was, so I'm just going to stick with the one platform. If anybody else wants to do the research, I'd be happy to include it.

 

[WisdomOfWombats]

An interesting metric would also be the timeframe in which the Kickstarters have been run. For example, OPP started back in 2010 or 2011, I think. While Fria Ligan has been using Kickstarter for a much shorter timeframe (and managed to raise more money for less projects in a shorter time).

 

[darjr]

Another interesting breakdown would be licensed properties vs original

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Another interesting breakdown would be licensed properties vs original

Yeah I'd be interested to know that. I mean, it's asking a lot, but ideally, if we went for a full deconstruction what I'd like to see would be both licenced/merchandised vs original, and, separately original rules-sets vs stuff for existing rules-sets. Coyote and Crow was surprisingly/awesome because it's an original setting with original rules, and just blew past $1m. As others, glad to see ENworld in on here!