MCDM Joins Million Dollar Crowdfunder Club... For The 5th Time!

Matt Colville's MCDM was the first TTRPG crowdfunder to break $2M back in 2018 with Strongholds & Streaming, a supplement for D&D along with a livestream of a D&D campaign. That wasn't the end of the company's record-breaking run, though!

Draw Steel: Crack the Sun finished its crowdfunding run this week with a funding total of $2,617,323, making it the 5th million-dollar Kickstarter from MCDM. Crack the Sun is an official adventure path for the company's Draw Steel TTRPG, which raised $4.6M in 2024.

• Strongholds & Streaming (March 2018) raised $2,121,465.
• Kingdoms, Warfare & More Minis! (November 2019) raised $1,372,685.
• "Flee, Mortals!" - The MCDM Monster Book for 5e (May 2022) raised $2,084,117.
• The MCDM RPG (January 2024) raised $4,600,539.
• Draw Steel: Crack the Sun (January 2026) raised $2,617,323.

Not only does this make MCDM the most prolific member of the Million Dollar Kickstarter Club with a record-breaking 5 entries (closely followed by Hit Point Press and Free League with 4 entries apiece), it is also the second most successful TTRPG crowdfunding creator ever with a combined total of $12,796,129! This whopping total is surpassed only by Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere RPG which raised an eye-watering $14,557,439 in just one single campaign.

2025 saw a slight decline in million-dollar crowdfunders with 7 in total (compared to a high of 11, mid-pandemic in 2021).

 

[Morrus]

Then they got big enough that Backerkit realized they could cut Kickstarter out of the equation, so now there are pure BackerKit campaigns, start to finish.

And vice versa—in response, Kickstarter now has its own integrated pledge manager. Which if they’d done a few years ago when everybody asked for it, Backerkit would not exist.

 

[mamba]

So based on that list, the only crowdfunders from MCDM that didn't hit 1 million are Draw Steel, Roll Power, DICE! ($317,178) and "Where Evil Lives" - The MCDM Book of Boss Battles for 5E ($344,651).

I am surprised there was a separate Boss Battle KS, I got that book from the Flee Mortals one

 

[Parmandur]

And vice versa—in response, Kickstarter now has its own integrated pledge manager. Which if they’d done a few years ago when everybody asked for it, Backerkit would not exist.

As a casual observer, it is pretty shocking that Kickstarter did not help more with the back end side much earlier.

 

[Morrus]

As a casual observer, it is pretty shocking that Kickstarter did not help more with the back end side much earlier.

This is why competition is good for the consumer.

 

[TolkienThePiss]

I am surprised there was a separate Boss Battle KS, I got that book from the Flee Mortals one

If you backed Flee Mortals you got the PDF of Where Evil Lives. The later Backerkit campaign was for hardcovers of the lair book.

 

[CommodoreKong]

was secretly hoping that if we added all the sub million crowd funders, MCDM would over take Cosmere).

I guess you’ll have to wait for the Crows or the Draw Steel 2027 product slate crowdfunders for that.

 

[Parmandur]

I guess you’ll have to wait for the Crows or the Draw Steel 2027 product slate crowdfunders for that.

Brotherwise has a Plotweaver Kickstarter dropping next year, though it is hard to imagine that will go to Cosmere levels...it could be another Million dollar campaign, since it will add tools the Cosmere GMs can use for homebrew.

 

[...m...]

...i appreciate discounting late pledges, which are essentially preorders and thus a fundamentally different metric from crowdfunding support, but overtime mode (i.e. soft endings) absolutely skews the timing of crowdfunding support and i think should be included within core campaign totals for the purpose of comparison...