I have backed a lot of Kickstarter projects. I always remember that I am not buying a product. I am backing a product development effort. IRL I am a software project manager, so I know how easy it is for projects to go wrong
Hero Games KS:
The Book of the Empress - Champions
Champions Villains 3
Narosia: The Sea of Tears fantasy RPG
Fantasy Hero Complete
Aaron Allston’s Strike Force
Michael Satran’s Journey to the Center of the Earth
Darren Watts’ Golden Age Champions
Champions Character Creation Cards
General Gaming
Monster Stock Art & Minis
Cityographer - Software
Obsidian Portal Reforged - Website. Very disappointed with the results
Map Flats Vinyl tabletop RPG Maps - Most in jeopardy project. He miscalculated shipping costs for vinyl maps. I felt sorry for him, so I paid extra to cover my shipping. The actual product is awesome.
Fantasy Coins - I give all my new players a set of coins.
Guidebook to the Duchy of Vainwall - I haven’t figured out how to use this one yet.
Worldographer - Software
Cities of the Black Scrolls, Modular Map/Tile Sets - I use these all the time on my VTT
Menyr - A new project that I hope will provide more capability as a VTT than Tabletop Simulator does.
Yeah, I learned this one the hard way with a minis producer who had several previous projects, but it wasn’t 'til later than I looked close enough to learn that they hadn’t delivered on more than half of those. I went all in, signing up for a copy of their earlier collection as well, but at this point, it’s unlikely I’ll ever see any of it.
I was just having this discussion today. One of the few bad KS (actually two; same guy) has a fellow talking like it’s all KS’ fault. And sure, KS got their cut and so they don’t care about the backers. But out of 350 funded projects I have backed, I’ve only got about 5 fails and only 1 that I believe is true malfeasance. So yeah, screw that GUY who has vanished without delivering, too cowardly to admit he was in too deep. And sure, screw KS a little bit for not caring about the people or projects, only making sure they get theirs. But not the concept of crowdfunding. I really like being able to contribute to ideas or idea-folk I believe in.
Yeah, I think I’ve had…maybe 3 RPG products that didn’t come through as expected. Two were good ideas with implosions of the startup companies and one the guy just straight up disappeared. I never really blame Kickstarter in these situations–they are a platform/service provider and have very little means of going after ghosts. I learned a bit more about their whole process when I ran my own Kickstarter (published a children’s book for my brother called Kraylos–Yellow Finds His Purpose).
I see a lot more fail rate on the tech side and so rarely back anything in that category. So, most of my support goes to RPGs and boardgames. I’m all-in on Gamelyn Games/Tiny Epics and anything by Thundergryph (starting with Spirts of the Forest). Picked up a neat little game called Watchmen of Destiny that’s been a favorite of my youngest for years. Snagged Iwari, Valor and Villainy, Everdell–all very satisfying projects.
The only board game I’ve gotten burned on was the Robotech fiasco from Palladium, and I should have known better there as Palladium was already on my “not sure I can trust this” list in general. I do watch for projects that are coming in after another has closed and not fulfilled. Too often these are new folks/companies that underestimated costs, start a new Kickstarter thinking to make up the difference/keep things moving, and end up blowing all their projects. I’ll back folks I trust in situations like this. Studio Agate comes to mind after they ran into major shipping cost issues from the pandemic–their products and support are excellent, so I even threw them more cash just to help them out.
And @TheGreayingGamer, I think I had products on that some boat that tipped! I don’t recall the product, but do recall the company made it right eventually. The hardest spot has been for projects that closed right at the pandemic or tried to launch afterward. I’m patient with stuff like that, so waiting 2-3 years for some to fulfill is just part of the process
Hmm, let’s see…we wrapped it up and got it printed before Thanksgiving last year, so about September or so I think. It was a fun little project, basically aiming to get enough funds for an initial print run so we could get the book out. It was a success (barely, thanks to a single very generous donor! Getting folks to back a project is super-hard!) and we actually got his second book published last month.
I’m not sure if this is what you had in mind, but I backed this project to develop a virtual play space, called Dungeon Full Dive: https://dungeonfulldive.com/
I’ve backed a decent number of projects on Kickstarter (51? That many?) and only a few were not satisfactorily fufilled.
Some of the recent RPG products include: Planegea by Atlas Games (which fit with a dinosaur heavy game I was running), Fedora Noir by Monte Cook (which I still need to try), Kingdom Second Edition by Ben Robbins (and Microscope Explorer and Follow before that) and oodles of products by Onyx Path.
With the exception of 7th Sea 2nd edition the RPG kickstarters went pretty smoothly (and even that one continues to slowly trickle in the stretch goals despite the major hurdles). I might have paid for somehting I didn’t use but they did deliver. But then I normally only back people with a proven track record or small enough stakes (like a single cheap book).
I’ve never been interested enough (or had the money when I was) to mess with Kickstarter. I think I’ve only supported one in total. Literally one… I just reset my password so that I could log in and check, lol.
Let’s see, the kickstarter concluded in 2016 blowing through stretch goals. Extra books funded included: Pirate Nations, The New World, Heroes and Villains, Secret Societies, Nations of Thea vol1 & 2, Crescent Empire, Cities of Wonder (which came out last spring), Lands of Gold and Fire, The Colonies, Cities of Faith.
The Core Book came out later on 2016 and many other books followed. But then things began to go downhill and there was a period where no further books looked likely to appear. Eventually however John Wick teamed with Chaosium to bring the remaining books to completion. The text for the final book Land of 1000 Nations was sent out in November so I expect things to be wrapped up later this year.
The only RPGs I’ve backed on Kickstarter before are video game RPGs. My memory isn’t what it used to be, so I can’t even clearly recall exactly which ones I’ve backed over the years, but can recall backing a couple different ones. I recall for sure that one of them was a Pathfinder game, maybe Pathfinder online…
For me, I don’t exactly go looking for what all RPG games are on Kickstarter, so I have to imagine that I have missed out on backing a few, or many, that i totally would have considered supporting. But in the end, I’m alright with that.
I’ve backed quite a few OSR projects and I’ve been pleased with most of them. It amazes me to see how successful some of these turn out. I’ve learned to be careful about backing anything that’s not [mostly] written. Other than my DTRPG POD classic D&D books, the majority of my dead tree shelf is from Kickstarters. My biggest regrets are those I missed, like the latest Swords & Wizardry and OSE collections.
Vast Grimm: Into Oblivion
Advanced Game Mastering Like A Fucking Boss
Solo Space Opera with Cepheus
Koriko: A Magical Year
Code Warriors RPG
Encounter Critical III
Apocalypse Keys
This Ship Is a Tomb
Last Sabbath - The Witches’ RPG illustrated by Loputyn
NOTORIOUS, a solo RPG zine
One Night Worlds: Zero-prep, GM-less, one-page TTRPGs
Interdimensional Shenanigans (Zine Quest)
Starland
The GameMaster’s Apprentice: Cyberpunk Deck
Deathly Thrones
Secrets of the Vibrant Sea RPG
This Didn’t Happen Relaunch
Sniper
Lords of Eternity
Pentaquest - 1
Westlands, a 2D6 System RPG Core Book
Thousand Empty Light
Lichdom
Space Aces: Voyages In Infinite Space Galactic Sandbox TTRPG
MAPS! MAPS! MAPS!
Across a Thousand Dead Worlds
