In the first part of this two-part series, I reviewed the buildup to the launch of Avatar Legends, the tabletop roleplaying game published by Magpie Games, based on Nickelodeon Animation Studios’ Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. For more details, check out the first part here as well as Linda Whitson’s d20 Radio coverage of the campaign. In this part, I’ll talk about how Magpie kept that momentum going after the campaign launched which lead to this becoming the largest tabletop roleplaying game crowdfunding in history.
Big Rewards From Financial Stretch Goals. If you could take one lesson from the 7th Sea 2e campaign, the first RPG Kickstarter to reach a million dollars in funding, it’d be this: stretch goals were its fuel to reach a million dollars as well as part of the reason that John Wick Presents eventually sold to Chaosium. After making a million dollars, the 7th Sea 2e promised, via stretch goals, a number of books (in the range of 20, I think) that took money to see through to completion. These stretch goal books pushed potential backers to leap off of the fence with the promise of a huge number of books for a low, low price. Those contributions led to a massive windfall. Those promises led to a lot of work.
Starting up John Wick Presents with full-time employees and the mission to develop all of those books reads like the beginning of a great tale. However, factors that are far beyond the scope of this article to cover led to the company having to let the staff go and move the property to Chaosium in order to fulfill his campaign promises. Let me be clear, this tidbit I wrote is not the full history of JWP nor is it any sort of judgement of John Wick, his company, the situation, or anyone involved. Instead, it’s an oversimplification of the events. Let me go one step further, I backed this campaign and John continues to fulfill the products that he promised. Even after the money was spent to further the RPG dream and the property had to move to another publisher, John continues to provide the content I backed his campaign for. I appreciate his dedication to the fans. So, please, do not read any negativity into this. Sometimes bad things happen to good people.
Instead, take it as a lesson about the potential downside of stretch goal bloat and unforeseen problems down the road. Since that time, some publishers have learned those lessons about the devilish temptations of stretch goals: They create excitement but stretch goal bloat can result in a project that makes big bucks upfront, but over-promises in the end.
Having been a part of John Wick Presents and led the campaign, Mark Diaz Truman, co-owner of Magpie Games, has firsthand knowledge of the downsides that this path can lead to. Looking at the stretch goals that Magpie has generated so far, it’s clear they are on the side of great value instead of over-promising. With Avatar Legends, after the initial round of stretch goals for dice, a dice bag, cards, and a map, simple bonuses were offered, variant covers, 30-page adventures, and additional pages of content, but nothing that can’t be delivered. The two largest “unplanned” offerings are print versions of all of the digital content (the $4,000,000 stretch goal) as well as collecting the five adventure booklets and the digital content into a single hardcover (the $7,000,000 stretch goal). At a guess, the printing cost of an additional hardcover was not in the original budget but, at the scale that they’re running at, will not seriously impact the campaign’s bottom line.
Despite the success of the campaign, Magpie Games is not putting out the entire product line via this one round of crowdfunding. Instead, they’re focusing on making a solid first impression with the right stretch goals. They’ll provide an impressive core rulebook, supplemental and adventure book in this campaign. In the future, they’ll offer more books about the Avatar universe.
Ads and News. If you’re a gamer that’s been on social media during this campaign, there’s a fair chance you’ve seen an ad for Avatar Legends. Those ads are doing some heavy lifting here, making sure that potential fans, even those who have never roleplayed before, have the chance to join in. I have no doubt that ad buys are helping, but they have a cost (as Morrus discusses on EN World). Obviously, it’s been figured into their budget and it’s paying off with these massive numbers, but it’s still an expense.
As a publisher, your goal is to make the best product you can and attract a large audience to partake in that property. Just as important, attracting that audience has to be cost effective. While ads do a lot of good work, they have a price. Among “cost effective”, free is king. The biggest free pushes for your campaign are mailing lists, fans that spread the word, and articles published about your work. As the largest RPG Kickstarter in history and, as of this writing, in the top 30 crowdfundings overall, this campaign is bound to pick up some media spotlight. Attention from outside media is a great way to reach fans that might not see your work any other way. For this campaign, there have been articles at Forbes, IGN, SYFY Wire, Screen Rant, Polygon, Collider, Dicebreakers, CBR, EN World, d20 Radio, and so many more. Every one of these pieces offers greater exposure and an increased fanbase.
Powered by the Apocalypse Meets Its Base. Let’s discuss the elephant at the RPG table: the system. No disrespect intended, but the biggest RPG Kickstarter in history uses Powered by the Apocalypse, not Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition. For some, that’s an interesting result. If you’re not aware, D&D and its derivatives account for as much as 65% of all of the RPGs played. As the vast majority of tabletop roleplaying games, it tends to draw the most interest and money when it comes to, well, most anything RPG-related. After the nearly five decade single engine dominance of D&D, it’s hard to imagine a project that gains any true traction without using Gary’s system. Despite that, seeing Avatar fans coming in waves for a Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) game shows that there is another option in town, one that is likely to be the first experience for many future roleplayers.
It could be argued that the intellectual property is the draw, but that could also be seen as an oversimplification of the situation. Just as easily, with a new group of fans joining the gaming community for this project, it could be debated that PbtA is succeeding as a gateway system and a Avatar Legends 5e may not have reached the same heights. It’s possible that PbtA, with it’s less crunchy premise, might do a good job of attracting new fans that find the mechanical depth of many RPGs intimidating. It’s impossible to argue this definitively since it’s conjecture, but it’s possible.
Regardless of what the draw is, this project represents several major milestone: The biggest RPG Kickstarter, the biggest Powered by the Apocalypse RPG to-date, and all from a gaming company run co-owned by an individual of color. Gaming diversity is always a positive thing, offering more options is the path to the widest possible success and Magpie is enjoying that success.
At This Time. Driven by all of these factors, this campaign has gone viral in a real way. Yet, while it’s certainly taking up some serious space, this Kickstarter has not sucked all of the air out of the proverbial RPG-funding-room. Avatar Legends is not the only RPG Kickstarter that’s doing well right now. There are multiple six-figure campaigns running concurrently. These Kickstarters demonstrate that Avatar Legends isn’t making it by taking money from the other products on the market. As proof, I’d point that Free League’s latest Forbidden Lands Kickstarter has already surpassed the funding of its last Forbidden Lands campaign. Avatar Legends is bringing in gamers from outside of the traditional market. That allows this mammoth to coexist with other great projects like:
- The Devil Made Us Do It features an original RPG system brought to you by Monte Cook Games.
- Forbidden Lands RPG – Book of Beasts and The Bloodmarch provides two source books for Free League Publishing’s award winning Year Zero Engine fantasy RPG, Forbidden Lands.
- Uncharted Lands: Book & STL Collection creates a Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition source book and STL files for 3D printing miniatures, all from Danny Herrero.
- Stargazer’s Guide to Aroria is a 5e setting from Ink and Lyre.
- Arc Dream Publishing is bringing back a classic with Delta Green: The Conspiracy which reprints the original book that kicked off Delta Green 25 years ago.
- Tome of Heroes: 5th Edition Character Options for Your Game offers a new 5e sourcebook from one of the top third party publishers, Kobold Press.
- Corpus Angelus & Corpus Malicious: Codex of Good & Evil | 5E from Dream Realm Storytellers offers 900 pages of 5e content.
- DUNGEON DEGENERATES: HAND OF DOOM Fourth Printing brings back the RPG board game with a new printing.
- Doomtown: Weird West Edition from Pine Box Entertainment puts a card game into the Deadlands RPG.
- Dragon Eye Dice – The Chromatic Dragon Collection offers dice with dragon’s eyes locked into them, created by Spidermind Games.
That’s what was up at the time of this writing. More high funding campaigns are coming.
Could It Happen Again? Could this record – largest RPG crowdfunding project of all time – fall? Yes, inevitably. Records will be broken. But what combination of factors will break this one?
Barring Wizards of the Coast crowdfunding D&D 6e or Paradox kickstarting Vampire: The Masquerade 6e or Chaosium producing Call of Cthulhu 8e via Kickstarter, there aren’t that many in-industry properties that possess a fanbase comparable to Avatar’s. Combine that with the need to use a widely adopted RPG engine such as PbtA and there aren’t many choices.
That said, let’s look outside of traditional RPGs. Free League Publishing is likely to bring Adventure in Middle-earth Second Edition (Tolkien plus D&D 5e) out via Kickstarter. Their version of The One Ring (Tolkien using an original system) is the third highest grossing RPG Kickstarter, and there’s no denying the draw of D&D so I’m expecting it to bypass The One Ring by a margin.
Another potential option might be Legends of Grayskull: The Masters of the Universe Roleplaying Game coming from Fandom Tabletop and using the Cortex system. Could it beat Avatar Legends’ total? Hard to say, but it has the possibility.
Still, if all options were on the table and you could choose any property then the guaranteed champion would be an official Harry Potter tabletop roleplaying game using PbtA, Forged in the Dark, 5e, or FATE. Harry Potter’s fanbase is on another level and would bury all other options save for, maybe, Star Wars. Will we see something like that? Hard to say, but it’s possible.
That said, if you’re a publisher, should you compare the results of your RPG Kickstarter to Avatar Legends? No. No, don’t set yourself up for disappointment. Create your project and make it the best it can be and don’t chase dollars. This is not a rich industry, so don’t expect lotteries every day. Instead, enjoy what you write and play and let the dice fall where they may.
Regardless of what’s next, for now, there’s Avatar Legends and it’s accomplishing the unexpected.
Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game from Magpie Games
End Date: Thu, September 2 2021 7:30 PM EDT.
“An officially licensed tabletop roleplaying game set in the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra”
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