My First Kickstarter Failed. Here’s What I Learned So Yours Succeeds.

I spent months preparing it. I built the campaign page, created graphics, worked out reward tiers, researched shipping, made videos, wrote emails, posted updates, promoted it on social media, contacted people directly, and generally hustled.

In the end, R’lyeh Rising, my Lovecraftian 5e Campaign Setting, failed to reach its $7,500 goal.

That isn’t a triumphant Kickstarter case study. But I don’t consider it a failure, and here’s why.

R’lyeh Rising started as a series of 5e adventure modules based on H. P. Lovecraft’s stories. They became some of my better-selling releases on DriveThruRPG and favorites with my gaming group, so I decided to build the world around them into a complete 1920s Cthulhu Mythos campaign setting for 5e and 5.5.

Originally, I planned to release it the same way I had released my Ironwic campaign setting: finish the book, put it on DriveThruRPG and DungeonMatters.com, and hope for the best. That strategy had been working remarkably well, with numerous silver and copper bestsellers on DriveThru with virtually no promotion.

But I had begun to recognize a problem. I was pretty good at making games. I was not nearly as good at building a community around them. And there is a limit to how far you can get releasing PDF after PDF on online RPG marketplaces and hoping the algorithm finds the right people.

So I decided to try a Kickstarter. From the beginning, I gave myself one goal: the Kickstarter would be worthwhile if I launched it and learned something. So I guess by that standard, it was a success.

I finished the campaign setting. R’lyeh Rising is now heading to DriveThruRPG. More importantly, I came away with a much better understanding of crowdfunding.

Here are the lessons I wish I had known.

Lesson 1: Kickstarter Is About Building a Community First and a Great Product Second.

“If you build it, they will come” does not apply here.

Launching the Kickstarter campaign took nearly as much work as creating the book I was Kickstarting.

They were completely different kinds of work.

I like making things. Give me a campaign setting idea or an adventure, and I can disappear into my office and work for hours.

Crowdfunding does not reward disappearing into your office.

You need an audience, mailing lists, social media, previews, playtests, reviews, and people who have heard about your project before you press LAUNCH.

When I started preparing R’lyeh Rising, the Dungeon Matters mailing list had roughly 140 people on it. About 10 percent ultimately backed the Kickstarter. If I wanted 100 backers at roughly the same conversion rate, I would need around 1,000 people on that list. Realistically, I suspect I would need more.

A lot of the people currently following Dungeon Matters have some personal connection with me or have been around long enough to know my work. As the audience gets larger, those relationships naturally become less personal, and conversion rates will probably decline. To be successful, the next Kickstarter will need to start earlier. Like even before I start writing the game. It starts right now with a sustained effort to build community and grow awareness for my company, Dungeon Matters. (It’s one of the reasons I’m writing this article.)

From now on, part of making a game means building the community around the game, sharing development notes, talking about design decisions, running playtests, publishing previews, and generally taking others along for the ride. No more disappearing into the lab.

Learning this lesson the hard way may ultimately be way more valuable than the $7,500 I’d have gotten from a successful Kickstarter.

Lesson 2: Set the Funding Goal You Actually Need

This one hurts. When I launched R’lyeh Rising, the campaign setting was already written. I had a physical copy sitting on my desk. The Kickstarter was primarily intended to fund printing and fulfillment at enough scale to make the hardcover rewards practical. I could have done that for $1,000 or maybe less.

I set the goal at $7,500 because other similar campaigns looked like they had goals in that neighborhood. I worried that setting a $750 or $1,000 goal would make the project look small or unserious. This was my biggest mistake.

I could be writing an article right now called "What I Learned From My First Successful Kickstarter" simply by having chosen a funding target that better reflected what I actually needed.

Of course, if you need $20,000 to manufacture something, setting a $1,000 goal is a good way to kickstart a disaster. But if most of the development work is already complete, think carefully about what Kickstarter funding really needs to accomplish.

Successful funding creates social proof. A campaign that reaches its goal quickly can look healthier than one struggling at 10 percent, even if the second campaign has actually raised more money. For my next project, the funding target will be based on minimum viable fulfillment.

Lesson 3: Know Your Fulfillment Costs Before You Launch

This is a boring lesson. But it’s probably the most important one. It’s also the one I got right and I will absolutely double down on it next time.  Know exactly what your rewards cost. 

Get print quotes. Research fulfillment. Check shipping. Account for damaged and lost copies. Look at Kickstarter fees, payment processing and taxes. Give yourself room for costs to increase. Then add your profit margin on top of that. Even if you are viewing your Kickstarter as a marketing expense, you deserve to be paid for your time and effort. Kickstarter recommends at least a 50% profit margin before their fees.  

Crowdfunding can certainly be treated partly as marketing, particularly for a book that will continue selling afterward. But Kickstarter is a lot of work. Pay yourself. 

So what now? Fail Forward!

I still love the R’lyeh Rising campaign setting. I’m running a campaign using it right now.

I’m a huge fan of Cthulhu Mythos gaming, but I also like 5e. My group knows the system. We can sit down and play without everybody learning another rule system. I spent a lot of time figuring out how to fit a 1920s investigative horror game into the 5e/5.5 system.

The result is investigative horror where monsters are dangerous and knowledge usually comes with consequences, but players still get room to make wonderfully strange and interesting characters.

One player in my campaign runs a Mind Urn of Yuggoth. He's essentially a human brain preserved in a glass cylinder. He plays a gunslinger. Two pistols float beside the jar, manipulated telekinetically like phantom limbs.

Imagining this disembodied brain drift into a room with two revolvers hovering beside it is exactly the sort of creative lunacy I want in my games.

R’lyeh Rising is lovecraftian cosmic dread, but within a sandbox where players don’t have to take it too seriously. If other Lovecraftian settings are the Omen, this setting is Evil Dead. That’s the vibe.  

R’lyeh Rising is moving forward. The campaign setting is available on DriveThruRPG, along with the adventures that originally inspired it.

If you enjoy 5e but want to drag your players out of the dungeon and into a 1920s world of cults, Tommy guns, forbidden books and things sleeping beneath the ocean, you can find R’lyeh Rising in digital and hardcover on DriveThruRPG. 

I'm already thinking about the next Kickstarter.

Next time, I'll start building the audience much earlier. I'll share more of the development process while the project is being created. I'll run more playtests, talk to more creators and spend more time becoming part of the communities I hope will eventually support the work.

Most importantly, I'll remember that crowdfunding isn't just about funding. It's about finding people who care about the same wonderfully strange things you do.

If you're interested in following those experiments, while getting free stuff, invites and updates, you can join the Dungeon Matters mailing list.