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 If you're reading this in the future, they're probably outdated!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​

 

[aramis erak]

At this point yes. Wick read his market wrong.

The problem here is that there are people who actually like 2nd edition who are still owed stuff from the kickstarter...



If I were Chaosium, I would not wait for Wick.

Go straight to a "3rd edition" is the way to go.

I would try to come to a deal with the Kickstarter people - up to and including refunds...

However, I am not privy to Chaosium financials. Such a move may be utterly impossible.

So 7th sea fans may be in for a long wait...

I pretty much agree.

I've got all these PDFs for 2E that I cannot read, which don't work well with the computer reading it to me, and which are based upon a game engine I'm not going to play, because there was no provision to only get the 1E PDFs. I got my money's worth, in terms of over 20 hours reading of 1E stuff....

 

[imagineGod]

Free Leagues latest Kickstarter "Ruins of Symbaroum for 5e" is trending towards a million Dollars according to Kicktraq.. That will create a healthy lead on the leaderboard.

Ruins of Symbaroum for 5E

The acclaimed dark fantasy world of Symbaroum adapted for 5E, introducing custom rules, origins, classes, creatures and more

www.kicktraq.com

 

[Morrus]

Free Leagues latest Kickstarter "Ruins of Symbaroum for 5e" is trending towards a million Dollars according to Kicktraq.. That will create a healthy lead on the leaderboard.

Ruins of Symbaroum for 5E

The acclaimed dark fantasy world of Symbaroum adapted for 5E, introducing custom rules, origins, classes, creatures and more

www.kicktraq.com

View attachment 135717

Kicktraq’s predictions are nonsense, and early in a campaign frequently predict totals 3-4 times the actual end result.

 

[jerryrice4949]

A disproportionate amount of pledges are in the first 48 hours and last 48 hours. So early in a campaign Kicktraq is often very inaccurate. My educated guess is between 550,000 and 600,000 total.

 

[jerryrice4949]

But I believe they are also planing a 5E version of the one ring or whatever it is called, later in the year and that may well hit a million.

 

[Jaeger]

I've got all these PDFs for 2E that I cannot read, which don't work well with the computer reading it to me, and which are based upon a game engine I'm not going to play, because there was no provision to only get the 1E PDFs. I got my money's worth, in terms of over 20 hours reading of 1E stuff....

This was one of the things that in 20/20 hindsight caused Wick to read his market wrong.

The kickstarter for 2e 7th Sea was a screaming deal for 1e fans.

Even after his pledges got the rules and many were turned off by the new system; so many stayed in just for the 1e pdf's that he probably thought his new rules set was more accepted than it actually was.

He most likely gave criticism over his 2e rules short shift because he looked at his numbers and thought to himself: "So many have stayed in for 2e - these 1e rules grognards are just a vocal minority!"

Sorry Mr. Wick, but the people who actually liked the new 2e rules were the real minority... Everyone else was there for the 1e pdf's and any new lore they could mine from the setting updates.

Which due to the big numbers that the kickstarter did, that was a Very easy mistake for Wick to make.

 

[Fenris-77]

Oh dear, so they might make something between a lot of money and a whole lot of money. Lets fight about the details we can't control! Or, you know, admit that Sybaroum is a great setting that deserves a great KS for a 5E version. YMMV if you suck.

 

[Morrus]

Oh dear, so they might make something between a lot of money and a whole lot of money. Lets fight about the details we can't control! Or, you know, admit that Sybaroum is a great setting that deserves a great KS for a 5E version. YMMV if you suck.

What on earth was that for?

 

[CapnZapp]

But I believe they are also planing a 5E version of the one ring or whatever it is called, later in the year and that may well hit a million.

You're talking about a second edition of Adventures in Middle-Earth.

While it does make sense to issue a second edition to match the second edition of The One Ring, the existing edition of AiME is already for 5E.

Edit: Or are you... Turns out, all we have for official news is this: "Takaichi also confirmed that a version of the game compatible with Dungeons & Dragons 5E would follow the release of The One Ring." This can be read as them planning an entirely new 5E-compatible game, just as you say. That is, we might get a "TOR 5E" rather than a 2nd edition of the existing (but Cubicle 7 produced) AiME.

 

[aramis erak]

This was one of the things that in 20/20 hindsight caused Wick to read his market wrong.

The kickstarter for 2e 7th Sea was a screaming deal for 1e fans.

Even after his pledges got the rules and many were turned off by the new system; so many stayed in just for the 1e pdf's that he probably thought his new rules set was more accepted than it actually was.

He most likely gave criticism over his 2e rules short shift because he looked at his numbers and thought to himself: "So many have stayed in for 2e - these 1e rules grognards are just a vocal minority!"

Sorry Mr. Wick, but the people who actually liked the new 2e rules were the real minority... Everyone else was there for the 1e pdf's and any new lore they could mine from the setting updates.

Which due to the big numbers that the kickstarter did, that was a Very easy mistake for Wick to make.

The PDFs of 1E weren't delivered until after the KS. If you wanted the PDFs, you HAD to stay in for getting 2E as well. No option for just 1E. But plenty commented about 1e being why they were there. Still, a lot of us had hopes that 2E would be good.

The concept is good: Att + Skill d10's, make totals of 10+ on the dice for "raises" (equivalent to successes in Shadowrun, YZE, BW, or WoD). But raises can be one action each, rather than improved
outcome on a single action. (this is similar to how the wagers in Houses of the Blooded and Blood and Honor work). When everyone's out of raises, reframe the situation and make another pass... or exit the situation as fast as you can.

It sounds great on paper... but d10's for 10's are simply too hard with the low number of dice.

To be honest, if he'd used the Houses of the Blooded engine for 7th sea 2E, it would have been a much stronger game.

Chaosium seems to be sticking with it, tho'...