Pumpkin Spice Joins the Million Dollar Crowdfunder Club

There's a couple of current crowdfunders that look like they might join the Million Dollar TTRPG Crowdfunder Club. Free League's Dragonbane: Trudvang looks like a dead cert, and Roll & Play Press (backed by UK Actual Play Mega-Group The High Rollers, who will be appearing at the 02 Arena later this year as part of the D&D Fan Expo) have Altheya: The Dragon Empire, which looks like it is in with a good chance.

One project which has just passed the million dollar mark is Pumpkin Spice, which describes itself as a 'magical cozy RPG'. Ending in just a couple of days, it's a TTRPG where you run a magical cafe. It's a rules-lite, narrative game in which you play a coven of witches who run the aforementioned magical cafe while protecting the 'Fount of Magic' from those who would corrupt it.

You can play a Hereditary, Green, Coven, Solitary, Secular, or Traditional witch, each with 6 traits and different magical powers. The game comes in a full-colour hardback book, accompanied by a book of adventures. The game also uses special dice called Essence Dice, with each face showing a different Essence. There is, of course, the usual dizzying array of add-on merch which accompanies most million dollar crowdfunders--t-shirts, cards, notebooks, bags, even a vinyl record with a soundtrack for the game.

Pumpkin Spice comes from Italian publisher Acheron Games (Brancalonia, Lex Arcana, Inferno), and runs until 8pm GMT on March 5th.

 

[John Lloyd1]

I wonder how much this is 'art drives game' like Tales in the Loop. It seems to be re-using art by SimzArt.

 

[Tigris]

Maybe I just have brain rot, but this art does not seem like "TNA sex sells" art to me.

The title image of the kickstarter has a big cleavage, bare legs (not even sure if she wears anything bottom) and you can even see the feets clearly.

The blue book: https://images.backerkit.com/active...srgb&q=80&fit=max&w=1254&h=7558&lossless=true has an almost upskirt image,

https://images.backerkit.com/active...srgb&q=80&fit=max&w=1253&h=1847&lossless=true has the focus on both womens legs

Its overall not that extreme, but it is clearly trying to fit certain preferences (tatoos, legs, feet etc.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I wonder how much this is 'art drives game' like Tales in the Loop. It seems to be re-using art by SimzArt.

A lot of it, I think. Their name is mentioned repeatedly in ads and on the campaign page.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I'm clearly not the taget demographic for this as I haven't even seen a single ad for it.

I'm stoked more games are getting $1m+ crowdfunding campaigns, but I'm surprised that a genre like this is getting a bigger backing than, say, Monte Cook's Numenera re-release that's also crowdfunding right now.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm stoked more games are getting $1m+ crowdfunding campaigns, but I'm surprised that a genre like this is getting a bigger backing than, say, Monte Cook's Numenera re-release that's also crowdfunding right now.

Cozy fantasy and magic girls both have huge fandoms, neither of which have a ton of RPGs of their own. Numenera is a good RPG by all accounts, but it's serving the standard RPG audience with a science-fantasy game.

 

[MichaelSomething]

The question we need to be asking is why arn't these Pumpkin Spicers playing D&D instead???

Any DM worth their salt should be able to run a campaign that appeals to Pumpkin Spicers!!

 

[Tigris]

I'm clearly not the taget demographic for this as I haven't even seen a single ad for it.

I'm stoked more games are getting $1m+ crowdfunding campaigns, but I'm surprised that a genre like this is getting a bigger backing than, say, Monte Cook's Numenera re-release that's also crowdfunding right now.

Well in addition to this game having most likely spend way more on advertising (I guess 10s of tousands) Numeneras Backerkit site is also just really really bad! Not the product, the site selling the product.

• First the name: Why is this not called numenera 3rd edition or something? The name make it sound like an expansion.
• Then the peoduct is confusing as hell. Yes in the top description its written its a new edition, but when you scroll down and see "what you get" its a "setting book". If I dont know Numenera already why should I get a setting book?! Amd when you scroll down further you may think that the actual game is just in the pdfs and only the setting (and a lore book) is new. Like I know Numenera, and passively know that its an implementation of cipher, but I got still confused by it and thought this is just selling a new setting and lore book, the 2 things I care least about. Name it "Numenera 3rd edition core book".
• Like even the pledge is as bad "Setting only" is the cheapest tier called. Again why would someone new to numenera buy a setting?
• Then the site is clearly not optimized for mobile. Lots of tiny images of books I cant see. Even the main image is not 1 key image, like in the cozy one, but is a far away image of heroes + 3 tiny books. I can barely recognize the humans on the image where in this cozy rpg I can count the toes of the little witch.
• In general it looks like this site was made for wide screen where the cozy one is for horizontal with full size images.
• Like the biggest image uses maybe 1/4th of my screen, where in the cozy one some images use like 80% of my screen showing close up images, where the smaller ones of numenera are also zoomed out. Showing lots of background etc. Instead od highlighting specific things, like just the monster or a single hero etc.
• And then the even tinier images of the pdf/books you get. Wow its cool its 15 books or whatever but I cant see a single one...

I am pretty sure numenera gets almost no new people buying the product. Only old superfans, which also shows in the huge pledge per buyer. No one will buy it for the art, because one cant even see the art. I am 100% sure that numenera would get way more people to buy it if the backerkit site would have been made by the people behind pumpkin spice. This is really just a marketing issue. Old person knowing numenera by heart makes a website on pc only and never test it with potential target audience.

 

[Morrus]

Well in addition to this game having most likely spend way more on advertising (I guess 10s of tousands) Numeneras Backerkit site is also just really really bad! Not the product, the site selling the product.

• First the name: Why is this not called numenera 3rd edition or something? The name make it sound like an expansion.
• Then the peoduct is confusing as hell. Yes in the top description its written its a new edition, but when you scroll down and see "what you get" its a "setting book". If I dont know Numenera already why should I get a setting book?! Amd when you scroll down further you may think that the actual game is just in the pdfs and only the setting (and a lore book) is new. Like I know Numenera, and passively know that its an implementation of cipher, but I got still confused by it and thought this is just selling a new setting and lore book, the 2 things I care least about. Name it "Numenera 3rd edition core book".
• Like even the pledge is as bad "Setting only" is the cheapest tier called. Again why would someone new to numenera buy a setting?
• Then the site is clearly not optimized for mobile. Lots of tiny images of books I cant see. Even the main image is not 1 key image, like in the cozy one, but is a far away image of heroes + 3 tiny books. I can barely recognize the humans on the image where in this cozy rpg I can count the toes of the little witch.
• In general it looks like this site was made for wide screen where the cozy one is for horizontal with full size images.
• Like the biggest image uses maybe 1/4th of my screen, where in the cozy one some images use like 80% of my screen showing close up images, where the smaller ones of numenera are also zoomed out. Showing lots of background etc. Instead od highlighting specific things, like just the monster or a single hero etc.
• And then the even tinier images of the pdf/books you get. Wow its cool its 15 books or whatever but I cant see a single one...

I am pretty sure numenera gets almost no new people buying the product. Only old superfans, which also shows in the huge pledge per buyer. No one will buy it for the art, because one cant even see the art. I am 100% sure that numenera would get way more people to buy it if the backerkit site would have been made by the people behind pumpkin spice. This is really just a marketing issue. Old person knowing numenera by heart makes a website on pc only and never test it with potential target audience.

We’re in some bizarre reality when people call $600K with 9 days to go a failure. I think folks really need to recalibrate. A million dollars is a stunning achievement, not the base number for success. That’s why it’s a news item.

Numbness is doing incredibly well. It’s a very successful crowdfunder.

 

[Tigris]

We’re in some bizarre reality when people call $600K with 9 days to go a failure. I think folks really need to recalibrate. A million dollars is a stunning achievement, not the base number for success. That’s why it’s a news item.

Numbness is doing incredibly well. It’s a very successful crowdfunder.

Monte cook has a following of 44 000+ on bakerkit and less than 3000 people baked this project so they only reached a bit over 6.5% of their on platform fanbase. The numenera kickstarter from 2020 reached 4658 people so almost 60% more people than this one: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/montecookgames/numenera-a-new-roleplaying-game-from-monte-cook


It only gets almost 600k because people paid in average almost 200, which is literally the highest pledge. (Without addons)



Also 600k sounds like a lot, but the team consists of 13 people. Also when was the first million dollar kickstarter? US had an inflation of 25% since 2020. So compared to 2020 this is only worth 460k.

Edit: I just googled. The first million dollar RPG kickstarter was 2016. Since then there was 36% inflation in the US so this would be only worth 423k in 2016 money.


Of course this is still good in the rpg space (which is tiny in the end and mostly semi professional compared to boardgames and computer games), but this does not change that the bakerkit for numenera is awfull, especially on mobile and did most likely reach almost no new people just the existing superfans.

 

[Morrus]

Monte cook has a following of 44 000+ on bakerkit and less than 3000 people baked this project so they only reached a bit over 6.5% of their on platform fanbase. The numenera kickstarter from 2020 reached 4658 people so almost 60% more people than this one: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/montecookgames/numenera-a-new-roleplaying-game-from-monte-cook

It’s not finished yet. And settings always do less than the core rules. That’s just how it works.

Also when was the first million dollar kickstarter? US had an inflation of 25% since 2020. So compared to 2020 this is only worth 460k.

Edit: I just googled. The first million dollar RPG kickstarter was 2016.

I track them all here :

Thread 'Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarter Club'

Feb 28, 2021

Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere RPG leads the pack in an exclusive club -- crowdfunders for tabletop roleplaying game products which have broken the $1M barrier! It is currently the most successful TTRPG crowdfunder in history with a funding total of over $10M, and over 30,000 backers (and also the third biggest crowdfunded of any kind!)

[Update--Kickstarter integrated 'late pledges' in May 2024. The totals on this table are the totals at the time the campaign officially ended and do not include late pledges or additional pledges from pledge managers.]

...

• Morrus
• Replies: 667
• Forum: *TTRPGs General

•