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!

​

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).

[FONT=&quot]Save[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Save[/FONT]​

 

[Shasarak]

I generally hope for the best for people's projects, but something about this makes my Spider-sense tingle. I'll keep watching...

I felt the tingle too which is why I backed as soon as I saw his notification that the kickstarter had begun.

 

[mattcolville]

I should point out, the total on the KS page is the total including shipping. So if you pledge $30 and it's $12 shipping you count as $42. Which means I don't think it's anywhere near being the best or fastest or whatever in the category. I think most folks ask you to pledge now, then come back at the end and enter your shipping data. So the KS running total for those projects is just the amount pledged, no shipping.

I didn't know it worked that way, but the alternative was asking folks to come back after the KS ends and enter their shipping data then and I was very strongly opposed to asking people to come back if they knew what they wanted in the first place.

 

[darjr]

I’ve pledged! Now the Kickstarter is over 600 grand!

 

[Iry]

the alternative was asking folks to come back after the KS ends and enter their shipping data then and I was very strongly opposed to asking people to come back if they knew what they wanted in the first place.

Agreed. KISS rules are in play here, and that includes making the kickstarter experience as smooth as possible. I definitely think you made the right choice, and I look forward to the book.

 

[mach1.9pants]

I should point out, the total on the KS page is the total including shipping. So if you pledge $30 and it's $12 shipping you count as $42. Which means I don't think it's anywhere near being the best or fastest or whatever in the category. I think most folks ask you to pledge now, then come back at the end and enter your shipping data. So the KS running total for those projects is just the amount pledged, no shipping.

I didn't know it worked that way, but the alternative was asking folks to come back after the KS ends and enter their shipping data then and I was very strongly opposed to asking people to come back if they knew what they wanted in the first place.

As an avid non USA backer of rpg projects, I know the reason why many get the shipping later from Backerkit. Shipping costs can increase, esp international, a lot of campaigns lost money due to that. If you charge just prior to shopping no one misses out, even if you've over estimated the shipping costs.

Is there thing to be previews of the rules before the kickstarter ends? Also how much play testing will they get, have you got multiple groups lined up?

Good luck with the campaign, doesn't look like you need it tho!

 

[Usus]

Good luck to Matt with the kickstarter.

However, it is a good example of what frustrates me, when it comes to RPG kickstarters. Being in Europe, shipping is 22 dollars, and since the projekt (afaik) is not EU friendly, I can expect a tax (and service) for an additional 20 dollars. The pledge at 30 dollars easily becomes a total of more than 70 dollars.
Matt's project is far from the only RPG kickstarter not to consider shipping and taxes outside of the States. However, when it comes to board game kickstarters most them do consider this, and strive to at least be EU friendly.
I don't know why one group of projects generally consider this, and the other group does not, but it is frustrating.

 

[mattcolville]

Matt's project is far from the only RPG kickstarter not to consider shipping and taxes outside of the States.

Wait who is charging you besides us? This is my first kick starter obviously, and we’ve already learned a lot and will do a lot better the next one, but my understanding is that if you pledge, you get a little drop-down that you pick your country, it tells you how much it costs to ship it to you, you pay that much, and then eventually the book shows up.

If someone else is charging you $20, who is it?

 

[Usus]

Wait who is charging you besides us? This is my first kick starter obviously, and we’ve already learned a lot and will do a lot better the next one, but my understanding is that if you pledge, you get a little drop-down that you pick your country, it tells you how much it costs to ship it to you, you pay that much, and then eventually the book shows up.

If someone else is charging you $20, who is it?

Taxes for 'importing' the book to Europe. And their is a fee for handling and assessing the taxes, that usually ends up with 20+ dollars.
That is why EU friendly projects are important

If the books can be shipped within EU, the problem is solved, but I do not know much about the technicalities.

Thanks for asking.

Sent from my [device_name] using EN World mobile app

 

[mattcolville]

Taxes for 'importing' the book to Europe. And their is a fee for handling and assessing the taxes, that usually ends up with 20+ dollars.
That is why EU friendly projects are important

If the books can be shipped within EU, the problem is solved, but I do not know much about the technicalities.

Thanks for asking.

Sent from my [device_name] using EN World mobile app

No I mean I understand how taxes work, my question is at what point do you get a bill apart from ours, and from who? What do you mean when you say EU friendly? What’s the difference between us shipping to the EU, and being EU friendly?

 

[Usus]

No I mean I understand how taxes work, my question is at what point do you get a bill apart from ours, and from who? What do you mean when you say EU friendly? What’s the difference between us shipping to the EU, and being EU friendly?

What mean is, when the package reaches the Denmark, there is added a customs tax and assessing fee, and I have to pay that to authorities, before I can receive the package.

If the package is send from within EU, then there is no such custom taxes and fee. That is what is termed EU friendly by kickstarters. There are several board game kickstarters, that have a specific logo on their projects.

I hope that clarified it

Sent from my [device_name] using EN World mobile app