Kickstarter is a fantastic and nerve-wracking platform. Understanding its ins-and-outs can make your dreams into a reality, so I’m here to help with a little advice and a few practical tips. Running a Kickstarter project is about more than just the project, and certainly about more than the platform you’re running it on. It’s about creating hype, communicating what your project is about, and finding the right audience for it. If you get it all right, a Kickstarter can be life changing. Here’s a very quick list of Kickstarter-funded RPG games that are now widely available to play online.

• Alien: The RPG
• Avatar Legends: The RPG
• Blades in the Dark
• Blade Runner: The RPG
• Masks: A New Generation
• Monsterhearts 2

And many, many more.

Before you Begin

Before you take to Kickstarter, have a plan. The more specific your funding goals are, the happier backers will be. Don’t take to the platform with a concept and a dream; bring timelines, deliverables, and any work you’ve already started. Make sure you have an excellent handle on the following before beginning your Kickstarter process: what physical products you’ll be producing and their costs (minimum order quantities, unit prices, etc.), what digital products you’ll be producing and their costs (paying writers and artists, setting up VTT compatibility, determining distribution platforms, etc.), and how long it will take to create. Only once you have those details planned out, begin the Kickstarter process.

1. Publish Your Pre-Launch Page ASAP

The warmest audience you’re going to have are the ones you get signed up before the campaign actually launches. As soon as you have a decent header image and a basic description, put up your pre-launch page and start collecting sign ups. These people will get emailed the second your project goes live, which also helps your day one immensely, by collecting a bunch of backers as soon as possible. Look how many followers you can gain before you even go live. Some recommendations for this tip:

• Set a pre-launch sign up goal and don’t launch until you’ve hit it
• Start with a basic description, and slowly add to it as the details of your campaign get finalized
• Link your pre-launch page across all your social media pages and in any email headers/footers

2. Focus On Images

It’s hard to know what the most vital part of your Kickstarter page is; will people care most about tier pricing, about the concept, about the video? But something that is easy to increase the quality of, and provides an excellent showcase for your TTRPG idea, is images. If you’re creating an adventure or new ruleset, include any tables you have ready to go as examples, put up cover art, or even just concept/WIP art. The Blades in the Dark Kickstarter is a good example. Anything that shows what the backers will receive helps immensely in showing that you have already begun creating your product, and what you’re creating is worth backing. Here are some image specifics to watch out for:

• You can’t overlay text on graphics on Kickstarter, but you can add images, so create any cool graphics and overlay your text directly in the image, then paste the whole thing into your Kickstarter page.
• Make sure your images for tiers and on the page are as high a resolution as you can make them.
• You can reuse your images and graphics in promotional material and social media.

3. Perfect Your Hook

You must be able to answer the following question in a single sentence that sounds enticing: What are you funding with this Kickstarter? If you launch into an explanation of a groundbreaking new TTRPG ruleset you’ve already lost, the key is to develop a strong hook. That means understanding what your backers will receive and why they want to receive it, and then communicating it clearly and quickly. It’s very hard. Check out how Monsterhearts 2 strips away the TTRPG framework and gets to what the game is actually about: the messy lives of teenage monsters. Here are some ways you can help hone in on that elevator-pitch style statement:

• Write out all your options.
• Explain what you’re funding with your Kickstarter in depth, then cut away from the explanation until it’s as short as possible.
• Practice telling people what your Kickstarter is about and see which explanations create the most interest.

Getting Eyes On Your Kickstarter

4. Make A Project Video

Video creation is a pain. You need a script, you need someone either willing to be on camera or something to show on the screen while you talk over it, the video needs to be edited, etc. However, video is the most attention grabbing and fastest way to get your TTRPG Kickstarter concept across. Additionally you can reuse the video across channels just like with the images. There are myriad tools available to help with video creation nowadays, and even an average phone camera is good enough to create a good video. Here are some tips to help put together a cover vid:

• Davinci Resolve is a free, high-powered video editing software.
• Use natural daylight while filming, it’s the easiest to access and provides the most consistent lighting. Just avoid direct sunlight, and try to position your subject at 90 degrees to the window or light source.
• Be mindful of audio. The more isolated you can make your audio the higher quality the video will seem.
• A little B-roll goes a long way. Shoot whatever you can of your product, even if it’s just you scrolling through whatever you’ve written for your RPG sourcebook.

5. Use Kickstarter Brand Assets To Let People Know Where To Find You

Kickstarter allows you to use their logo, so long as you adhere to their usage policy, which is the fastest way to let people know you have a project on Kickstarter. Include their logo on promotional materials and sample images so that people know they can look up your project on Kickstarter to find it. It’s simple and easy and helps a lot with continuity. Here’s the link to Kickstarter brand assets and the usage policy.

6. Have Lots Of Stretch Goals

It may feel as though you only need to hit the main goal of your Kickstarter campaign, whether it’s funding the printing costs of a TTRPG sourcebook or creating a brand new product, but as a backer part of the fun of supporting Kickstarters is getting excited for the next thing that’s being unlocked. You need to give people something to strive for. Even if it feels like a wildly unrealistic number to achieve, you never know what will tickle people’s fancy, and drawing backers to unlock one stretch goal or another might be all it takes to actually make those dreams a reality. In a worst case scenario, you don’t hit the stretch goal, and nothing changes. Here are some tips for picking stretch goals:

• Keep them on theme. Don’t try to roll a second, different idea into your initial project, just expand on your initial idea.
• Focus on stretch goals that benefit all backers whenever possible. In other words, use stretch goals to increase the amount of choice that backers get, or the deliverables they’re going to receive on delivery.
• Don’t overthink or overdevelop your stretch goals. These are essentially just basic ideas, that you know how to execute but haven’t begun doing so, which people can help support. You’ll still need an accurate budget and timeline for your stretch goals, but it’s a perfect way to expand your project if it launches well.

Delivering The Goods

7. Use Backerkit (Or Ensure You Understand Kickstarter Surveys)

It’s not a perfect platform, and they take a cut of whatever you raise, but Backerkit does an excellent job of providing solutions to pain points that you may have no way of knowing about. Logistical issues such as getting everyone’s shipping addresses, having a post-Kickstarter pre-order store, sending and collecting surveys, knowing which options each backer has selected; these are all things Backerkit handles for you. It eliminates the need for massive, annoying spreadsheets and manually collecting and editing info. If you’re going to opt to not use Backerkit, make sure your systems for info collection and management are locked in, otherwise you’re going to run into serious issues with getting your Backers their tier rewards.

‍

There are some tactile tips on how to run your next TTRPG Kickstarter. Hopefully something in there is helpful, but keep in mind that regardless of how prepared you feel there will always be something unexpected. Kickstarters are fun, stressful, and have immensely high potential to make your TTRPG dreams a reality. They require excellent planning and promotion, and with the right mix of preparation and luck you can create the next big thing. You might even find your game available on StartPlaying one day!

Rory Hoffman is the Creative Director for Only Crits and author of Guillman’s Guide to Speed.