Cosmere Overtakes Avatar Legends To Become Biggest TTRPG Kickstarter Ever!

With a full five days left to go, Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere RPG has passed Avatar Legends' record of $9.5M to become the highest funding tabletop roleplaying game podcast ever! Just its first-day total of $4.3M put it at #4 in the official Million Dollar Kickstarter Club, and it looks set to comfortably set a lead of at least $2M. Backer Tracker currently projects a total of just under $12M, while Kicktraq predicts $12.3M.

Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarter Club

Avatar Legends leads the pack in an exclusive club -- Kickstarters for tabletop roleplaying game products which have broken the $1M barrier! It is currently the most successful TTRPG Kickstarter in history with a funding total of nearly $10M, and over 80,000 backers. [UPDATE--Backerkit started...

www.enworld.org

While the backer count is under half that of Avatar, the Cosmere dollar total is currently sitting at nearly $9.8M. Brandon Sanderson already holds the Kickstarter record for the most funded project ever--his novel series made over $40M on Kickstarter in 2023!

Published by Brotherwise Games, the game encompasses Brandon Sanderson's entire universe of novels. It includes a world guide, a rulebook, and an adventure called Stormlight Stonewalkers. It's a new game system, based on a d20 mechanic with talent trees and skill-based magic.

It only remains to be seen how far it can go--but one thing is for sure: Brandon Sanderson has yet another world record to his name!

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[ngenius]

Very interesting choices by backers on Kickstarter, pledging more for Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere RPG, which is a homebrew mashup of D&D3e and D&D5e, than the combined total of Matt Colville's MCDM RPG and Kobold Press's Tales of the Valiant. The homebrew rules system is my takeway from the Cosmere preview sampler. Anyway, ust like with the Avatar Kickstarter, it shows a popular Intellectual Property, even outside the RPG space, is more important than popular RPG personalities and game rules, except if you are Wizards of the Coast.

 

[Umbran]

And yet we all managed to--so maybe not that hard? Of course, I wouldn't describe this as 'massive overperformance'; I'd describe it as 'performing as expected'. I predicted $12M before it even launched. Looks like I'll be pretty darn close!

If the prediction has impact on business choices, then the difference is simple: You are free to make big predictions, because you aren't also making those business choices, and take no risk in the process.

Even if there are no business choices involved, if you make that prediction, and are wrong, you're just wrong. If he makes that same prediction, and is wrong, he looks like an arrogant, self-aggrandizing, self-important fool.

 

[Elvish Lore]

He has a large fandom.

Much like Avatar they will make interesting reads and rarely see play.

Before anyone starts tripping, that’s just like any RPG that’s not D&D or Pathfinder.

Yea, it's weird. Like... I don't see many people playing avatar either (local groups I see being advertised for play or at cons or talking about it on discussion boards) despite a huge KS.

I suspect Cosmere is being primarily purchased for similar reasons - that is, a desire for merch by collectors and as setting book(s) for fans.

 

[Parmandur]

Yea, it's weird. Like... I don't see many people playing avatar either (local groups I see being advertised for play or at cons or talking about it on discussion boards) despite a huge KS.

I suspect Cosmere is being primarily purchased for similar reasons - that is, a desire for merch by collectors and as setting book(s) for fans.

X to doubt on both.

The Avatar Legends online fabdom seems somewhat active, after a quick search. And I doubt that all 20k people going for the full GM bundles aren't going to run this game.

It won't unseat D&D or something, but no particular reason to doubt it will get played. Kicking the tires, this is solid stuff.

 

[Elvish Lore]

Well, I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Parmandur]

Well, I'll believe it when I see it.

Fair: but this is a good start.

 

[mamba]

Very interesting choices by backers on Kickstarter, pledging more for Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere RPG, which is a homebrew mashup of D&D3e and D&D5e, than the combined total of Matt Colville's MCDM RPG and Kobold Press's Tales of the Valiant.

I assume the IP has a lot to do with it, it's basically people who like BS's worlds. Also, they are not that far ahead as the $ make it sound, Matt Colville had 30k backers, Cosmere has 35k, the difference is the average $ spent / the fact that this one is selling us 6 books vs Matt's two books.

Kobold had another 10k, so combined they won't be that far away from this KS's end result

 

[Scribe]

I assume the IP has a lot to do with it, it's basically people who like BS's worlds. Also, they are not that far ahead as the $ make it sound, Matt Colville had 30k backers, Comsere has 35k, the difference is the average $ spent / the fact that this one is selling us 6 books vs Matt's two books.

Kobold had another 10k, so combined they won't be that far away from this KS's end result

It maybe the greatest IP of all time (I have no clue) and it maybe a great game (I have no clue) but the average pledge tells me that this is so financially successful because its tapped into an existing market that is full of whales.

 

[Haiku Elvis]

He has a large fandom.

Much like Avatar they will make interesting reads and rarely see play.

Before anyone starts tripping, that’s just like any RPG that’s not D&D or Pathfinder.

I suspect as others have said earlier in this thread I there are a significant portion of Cosmere fans buying in for collector completeness and /lore book reading fanboy purposes who may well want to try to play once they have the books but aren't coming from a TTRPG playing background and are never likely to be active players.
I still think this will probably be seeing reasonable amounts of play in 5 years as they are planning to release sets for more Cosmere worlds so that will help keep the community active
And I think I read somewhere and didn't just dream it up (maybe) they (the designers) want the system to be useable as a generic system for other games.
Some of the comments about system love up thread point that this could be a thing but I think that would be the true measure of longevity - if the system can survive separate from the Sanderson Brand.
Lastly I suspect, like Avatar, a large part of the player pool won't overlap with us forum posting, blog reading general TTRPG fans they'll all be on their new fangled Cosmere RPG specific discords and tik-toks and the two communities will have limited interactions so I think the true size of the player community won't be visible to us anyway.

 

[Aldarc]

I will bet that this game ends up with more players than any of the "big" OGL debacle spawned games (MCDM, Kobolds etc.).

Not saying much admittedly. A lot of wind was taken out of their sails whenever WotC reversed course and put the 5e rules in CC. It turns out that most people are quick to forgive and forget when they are eager to consume. I will withhold making a judgment but I do tend to be skeptical. When we look at the million dollar Kickstarters that have been out for more than a year, how many people are actively playing or using them now? How many are even talking about some of them?