The Cosmere RPG kickstarter raised over $4.3 million in its first 24 hours and currently stands at about $6 million. It will therefore almost certainly beat Avatar Legends, which, to date, was the most successful ttrpg kickstarter of all time, at around $10 million. However, I never hear of anyone actually playing that game. These fantastical kickstarter results seem to be merely due to the fact that the associated IPs have a fanatical fanbase that are willing to spend vast sums on these games even if they never play them.
https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/cosmere-rpg-breaks-kickstarter-record-for-biggest-ttrpg-launch/?&ad=dirN&prod=HP&cmpgn=jan21&annot=false&sameTabLaunch=false&o=APN12179&installSource=client&ctype=web&browser=FireFox&darkMode=false&lang=en_us&ueid=20C122AD-259D-42BB-95E8-C1BED13793E3&doi=2021-03-25

Is it really all that accurate to call an RPG "niche" when it is based on fantasy novels that have sold around 30 million copies?   While admittedly it is a new property in the rpg space, the basis for it is about as mainstream as you can get within fantasy.  I say that as someone with no interest in it personally and who hasn't read any of his books so I've got no dog in the fight.

I would actually say Cosmere isn't that niche a system. It used to be the Stormlight RPG and the Stormlight books are not exactly unknown. In fact if you read the fine print, the makers are trying to make this work for most of Sanderson's books, which is a pretty darn large following.

I don't think that's the reason it's doing well, however. There's really not a lot of overlap between novel readers and RPG players, although obviously there is some.

Cosmere itself is basically a standard D20 game with a few do-das attached. Some are narrative, some are mechanical, but I don't actually see anything which stands out in the system that much either in a good way or a bad way. It's the RPG equivalent of comfort food in that it's mostly familiar mechanics. That and being able to SEO keyword Brandon Sanderson is probably why it's performing so well.

Quote from: Fheredin on August 09, 2024, 07:43:00 AMThere's really not a lot of overlap between novel readers and RPG players

This has not been my experience at all. The only good tabletop players I've met are all avid readers. But then, I don't play dnd, so ymmv.

The question and the Kickstarter example are not equivalent. It is difficult to compare an RPG Kickstarter from the individual who had the largest Kickstarter ever against "niche RPGs".

Brandon's Kickstarter is huge because he has a huge number of rabid fans. As an author, what I've heard over and over again is: Kickstarter doesn't really bring you new fans. In general, if you're lucky 10-20% of your Kickstarter is from new fans. Almost all of the backing is from existing fans. (YMMV, yes, there are exceptions. But that's what most people see.)

I think niche RPGs do well because they're products with a specific audience. And the author either has a good following (most often) or has identified a fanbase for the concept (rather than the author) and is plugged in enough to tap that existing fanbase.

Quote from: Tod13 on August 09, 2024, 10:58:48 AMThe question and the Kickstarter example are not equivalent. It is difficult to compare an RPG Kickstarter from the individual who had the largest Kickstarter ever against "niche RPGs".

Brandon's Kickstarter is huge because he has a huge number of rabid fans. As an author, what I've heard over and over again is: Kickstarter doesn't really bring you new fans. In general, if you're lucky 10-20% of your Kickstarter is from new fans. Almost all of the backing is from existing fans. (YMMV, yes, there are exceptions. But that's what most people see.)

I think niche RPGs do well because they're products with a specific audience. And the author either has a good following (most often) or has identified a fanbase for the concept (rather than the author) and is plugged in enough to tap that existing fanbase.

My rather provocative title for this thread certainly served its purpose. Joking aside, I wanted to point out that niche games can be successful crowdfunding projects if their IPs are sufficiently popular, as you also point out. Brandon Sanderson has a big fanbase but by no means a broad one - at least not anything like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter - and most people have never heard of his books. Popular culture has, perhaps, become much more fragmented than in the past. As a result, you have, for example, manga characters that are extremely popular in certain circles, but generally unknown among the population at large and are in no way comparable to popular characters of old, such as Superman, Batman or Tarzan.   

To be fair I believe there's considerably more overlap between roleplayers and this fandom than with Avatar, which did sell entirely on the brand.

Dude just called Brandon fkn Sanderson "NICHE".

I need to read something by Sanderson. I'm familiar with his popularity, but not with why people love his work so much.

I wish more people would play the games they buy on Kickstarter. It's odd how we very rarely hear about actual play of stuff people bought via KS.

I'm no fan of Sanderson, but I hope that game does well. Anything taking players from modern D&D is worth it.

We sell this guy's novels in Walmart. He's not niche. Not Harry Potter, but quite popular.

Ok, I've done a bit of poking my nose into "the successful RPG kick starters are niche" and I have a few thoughts.

1.  Nearly all the fully funded projects that received more than $100k are 5e third party projects.
2.  Most of the "fully funded" niche games had funding drives of less than $25k.  They then appear to fall off the radar altogether or become cheap .pdf downloads on DTRPG.

I believe that many of the "successful" kickstarters are actually marketing ploys so they can get the "fully funded in less than 24 hours" tag despite having no financial boost

Quote from: BadApple on August 13, 2024, 09:08:45 AMOk, I've done a bit of poking my nose into "the successful RPG kick starters are niche" and I have a few thoughts.

1.  Nearly all the fully funded projects that received more than $100k are 5e third party projects.
2.  Most of the "fully funded" niche games had funding drives of less than $25k.  They then appear to fall off the radar altogether or become cheap .pdf downloads on DTRPG.

I believe that many of the "successful" kickstarters are actually marketing ploys so they can get the "fully funded in less than 24 hours" tag despite having no financial boost

yes, i dislike kickstarts a lot.   i hate waiting for promised stuff.
i did a similar thing with a comic guy that I like listening to his youtube livestreams.  turns out he was a better streamer than comic guy.  waited 18months, and then still got screwed on the promised materials.

these crowdfund things are more like money laundering pipelines probably.

that said, I'll have to ask Tim Imholt about your last assertion, he sells himself as a expert in the kickstarter area.

Quote from: Spinachcat on August 10, 2024, 07:22:13 PMI need to read something by Sanderson. I'm familiar with his popularity, but not with why people love his work so much.

I'm in the same boat. Been aware of Sanderson for years. As far as I know he's the second most popular fantasy author in the world after GRR Martin, but I've never gotten around to reading him. I keep seeing him recommended by people whose taste I don't respect. Also he has a reputation of being the "hard magic system" guy, and hard magic systems are usually lame.

A bit of a digression, but regarding Sanderson...

I've read about 200+ pages (out of 900+) of The Way of Kings (which is the first volume of a series apparently) and it's basically what I'd call a standard fantasy novel.  It's not that it's particularly bad, it's just that you can tell the author wants to spend a lot of time in this world, focusing on these characters, and really trying to establish things.  It's like it's aping GRRM's "Song of Fire and Ice", which in turn felt like it was aping Tolkien (and 90% of fantasy feels like it's trying to mimic Tolkien to me).  And after 200+ pages I still have no idea where the story is really going, why I should care, or how alien this alien fantasy world is (they have giant monstrous crustaceans and ancient artifact weapons handed around the noble class for starters).  But again, none of it is particularly bad.  I'm not a fan of the genre, and at hundreds of pages to go in the first book alone I'm finding reading it a chore, but I -want- to read more of it.  Why?  Because there are nuggets here and there that make me think "it'll get better eventually", but also because I've read the Reckoners.

If you're wanting to give Sanderson's writing a try, I'd recommend trying the Reckoners series first.  It's 100% disconnected from his Cosmere stuff, and the series ends with the third book.  Basically, it's about a guy who joins a band of people dedicated to hunting supers (who are all evil in this setting), and is a combo of the "monster hunting" and post-apocalyptic genres.  The pacing is quick, the writing is "young adult" (Sanderson's not much for profanity or sex anyway), and the first two books at least are decent (have yet to read the third; reading Laird Barron as a break).  Put another way, I enjoyed the Reckoners enough to know that his other stuff might also be good.  Eventually.

(EDIT: also, the Reckoners board game is a fun little dice chucker.)
(EDIT EDIT: if The Reckoners sounds like The Boys show, Sanderson's books came out between the The Boys comics and the show.  There's some themes shared between the two, but ironically I find the YA books less juvenile than the Amazon show (and I like the show!).)