{"id":24946,"date":"2021-08-19T07:00:44","date_gmt":"2021-08-19T12:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.d20radio.com\/main\/?p=24946"},"modified":"2021-08-19T11:53:28","modified_gmt":"2021-08-19T16:53:28","slug":"will-avatar-legends-change-tabletop-rpg-forever-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.d20radio.com\/main\/will-avatar-legends-change-tabletop-rpg-forever-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Avatar Legends Change Tabletop RPG Forever? PART ONE"},"content":{"rendered":"

Avatar Legends<\/i><\/a>, the tabletop roleplaying game based on Nickelodeon Animation Studios\u2019 Avatar: The Last Airbender<\/i> and The Legend of Korra<\/i> created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, is the number one RPG Kickstarter in the site\u2019s history. Coming from Magpie Games, this campaign has reached undreamed of funding levels for an RPG on Kickstarter. How undreamed? It\u2019s likely to end its run at pushing triple the haul of the former number one\u2019s position<\/a>. These numbers are a sea change for the upward limits of what a modest sized company akin to Magpie can hope to accomplish. Adding to Linda Whitson\u2019s d20 Radio coverage of the campaign<\/a>, this two-part series will look at how they reached these heights. In the first article of this two-part series, I\u2019ll look at the buildup to Magpie Games\u2019 Kickstarter and how they primed the pump to reach brand new levels of fan interest.<\/p>\n

Who Is Magpie Games? <\/b>That\u2019s a broad question, but an important one when considering how they\u2019ve managed to fund this property. For the purposes of this article let\u2019s focus on Magpie and their crowdfunding projects. Prior to Avatar Legends<\/i><\/a>, Magpie completed two* Kickstarters for the Root RPG<\/i> and Urban Shadows 2e<\/i>. The Root: The Tabletop Roleplayin<\/i><\/a>g Game<\/a>,<\/i> based on the popular Root<\/i> board game, raised $602,022 from 6,495 backers. Urban Shadows: Second Edition<\/i><\/a>, a dark urban fantasy RPG, raised $196,906 from 3,775 backers. Those are excellent numbers, and I\u2019ll look at them in more depth below.<\/p>\n

Like many of Magpie\u2019s offerings, those two campaigns used the Powered by the Apocalypse<\/i> system. More importantly, each of these campaigns contain elements that informed how they would run this campaign.<\/p>\n

*UPDATE from Sarah “Sam” Saltiel of Magpie Games:<\/p>\n

“While the Magpie Kickstarter account has only created the three Kickstarters, we’ve been launching Kickstarters for many years. We previously just ran the Kickstarters under the accounts of individual designers, but have recently shifted to the more consolidated company account.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Those additional Kickstarters include three six-figure campaigns. Combined, they point towards a wealth of successful crowdfunding experience from Magpie Games.<\/p>\n