TTRPG Kickstarters I've Backed

By EricMesa

- 7 minutes read - 1294 words

As I was looking back over my old blog posts, searching for things that needed fixing in this migration over to the Hugo static site platform, I saw that I used to write brief blog posts about the Kickstarter campaigns I was backing. Since 2013 I’ve backed somewhere around 70 or more kickstarter campaigns. Since I usually don’t back anything that involves hardware, so far I haven’t had any of the campaigns disappear without giving me what I backed. Recently I realized I had backed an inordinate amount of D&D campaigns (I tend to fall pretty deep into hobbies). So I thought I might resurrect my Kickstarter posts to follow along with the D&D campaigns I’ve backed.

I thought I would kick things off with the campaigns that have already finished:

  • The Crystals of Z’leth: A 5e Survival Solo Adventure by obvious mimic - This solo D&D adventure essentially ends up being a D&D-flavored Choose-your-own-adventure book. I got about halfway through the adventure and was enjoying myself. I need to get back to it to see how it all ends before I evaluate it, but it’s very well made. This also proves out one of my winning strategies with Kickstarter - choose projects by already extant publishers. They already know what it takes to complete something. If they don’t go bonkers with stretch goals, they’ll probably be fine.

  • Gorgon, A D&D 5e Tale of Stone and Redemption by Penny Blood Aventures - I have not yet played this campaign, but it is one of the more unique settings I’ve seen in the various 5e projects on Kickstarter. I’m merely waiting for my kids to get a little older as it seems to be a based on an intrigue plot around small town politics.

  • Spiders and Sourdough by Mountainland Games - I’ve been saving this one-shot for Halloween. I’ll be playing it with the kids next week. (We just need to decide which set of characters to send to this town) I already read through the scenario and it seems perfect. (One side note: the short description on the Kickstarter reads: A TTRPG one-shot for multiple game systems including D&D 5e, D&D 3rd Ed, Pathfinder 1 and 2, Shadowdark, and Tales of the Valiant. At the time that I pledged, I knew what D&D was and I had a slight understanding of what Pathfinder was. It’s funny that I had no idea at the time what Tales of the Valiant was, and now I’m getting pretty deep into that rabbit hole)

  • The Phoenix’s Call - 5e D&D by Crescent Fountain Adventures - this adventure is wonderfully done on a pretty epic scale for what seems like a tiny company. Not only do they provide an insane amount of materials, but the adventure is more detailed than some adventures I’ve seen by larger companies! Along with a bunch of other kickstarter campaigns by the same company, they tell an over-arching story in the world of Shadowmarch. I think this company has the potential to become the next Greenmountain Games or Kobold Press.

  • 100 Villages, Towns & Cities by Paws for Effect - as wrote about in my reflections on a year of being the family DM, I’ve slowly been playing campaigns that leave more of the world for me to fill in. So I wanted to have a little supplement like this one to give me ideas on how to make my world seem more real.

On to the campaigns still in progres:

  • Blood & Glory - Sourcebook & Adventures! by Hive Mind Games - this was the second even TTRPG campaign I backed. It was supposed to deliver in Oct 2023. The team is small, but has kept up communications. If there’s one campaign that is the most likely to fail, it’s this one. But I still have faith.

  • Obojima Tales From The Tall Grass: A 5E Campaign Setting by 1985 Games - I backed this campaign almost without a second thought because it’s inspired by the art and ambiance of Studio Ghibli movies. It’s absolutely beautiful and I regret only backing at the PDF level to save money. I may end up buying the physical book with my birthday money one year. It’s late (was supposed to deliver in Sept of this year), but they shared a PDF of the penultimate revision with us this week. Hopefully we’ll get it pretty soon. This is one I’d love to play with my brothers, since we were all into anime at one point or another. Also the book revealed this is but part 1 of a planned larger story and that has me VERY intrigued.

  • 80’s Adventures: 5e Supplement & Adventure Modules for DnD by Dice Dungeons - I went back and forth on backing this campaign. As a child of the 1980s, I almost couldn’t say no. Every image on their campaign page reminds me of something from my childhood. But I debated because I couldn’t really play this with my kids. Or rather, I could, but they wouldn’t appreciate it. My wife would probably love it, especially the adventure that’s a parody of the Halloween movie franchise, but she doesn’t like D&D. I’m hoping I can find some other 80s kids to play with. Also it’s fun that the company’s based out of Baltimore, MD!

  • Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere RPG by Dragonsteel - You probably heard about this TTRPG which blew up Kickstarter. I’m a huge fan of the Cosmere so I’ll love the sourcebooks whether or not I ever find someone to play with. That said, there are a bunch of Cosmere fans at work and we’ve talked about maybe putting together a group to play.

  • Monster Trainer’s Handbook: 5e Campaign Supplement & Setting by Dungeon in a Box - TECHNICALLY my youngest daughter backed this campaign. It’s one of a few supplements I’ve seen in the past year that’s “Pokemon, but D&D!”. My kids enjoy Pokemon video games and Pokemon cards, so they wanted to combine two of their passions.

  • The All New Gobber’s Guide to Hearth and Home by Unlimited Realms Ltd (haha unlimited limited…..) - I got this supplement because my kids already came up with the idea on their own of using their D&D money to build homes in their DnDAdventure Club campaign. It seemed like it would bring a lot of fun to the concept. But now I wonder if it’s been superceded by the D&D 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide and their new addition of Bastions. I’ll have to read both and see if there’s one that works better for oen setting over another or which set of rules I prefer.

  • Faster, Purple Worm! Everybody Dies, Vol. 1 by Beadle & Grimm’s Pandemonium Warehouse - a series of one-shots where the party dies at the end. It’s hilarious and ALSO potentially a good introduction to D&D because people don’t need to fuss over their characters. I’m thinking of using it to convince some newbies to give D&D a try.

  • Enter The Labyrinth: 5E TOV Expansion and Adventure Path by Kobold Press - of all the Kickstarter Campaigns on here, I was the most back and forth on this one. While Tales of the Valiant is currently still like 95% compatible with 5e, I just bought all the the new 2024 D&D sourcebooks! Am I going to go down that patch for Tales of the Valiant, too? But the campaign setting and related adventures seemed too good to pass up. The Kobold Press community (at least on Reddit) seems to also be on a more positive groove right now compared to D&D so we’ll see.

And that’s it for now! (and probably for a while! It’s going to take quite a bit of time to play through most of these!)