Many of you who are classic table-top RPG fans may have heard of Monte Cook’s Numenera Kickstarter project; an RPG set in a distant age of earth known by its natives as the Ninth World. Those who follow the design and development of RPG’s know Monte and are familiar with his prior work on D&D 3rd edition and Ptolus among many others. This project would have had a core of supporters just given his reputation and it would most certainty have funded at its goal of $20K. I was an early backer and felt confident it would make the cut.

Numenera funded 2,586% over its goal at $517,256.

I don’t think anyone could honestly have seen that coming.

Feel free to take a moment to close your gaping mouth. You might wonder what this means for the future of tabletop role-playing games. Well, if there is a Tenth World in Numenera I think we just teleported into it.

Kickstarter has enabled individuals and small publishers to launch projects without the backing of a major publisher. This has proven beneficial to gamers of all types. As a board gamer, I backed Dirk Knemeyer’s Road to Enlightenment, a game I don’t think would have been anywhere near the quality of the final product without successful funding. I believe Kickstarter has ushered in the golden age of game capitalism. I for one am euphoric.

Now, Numenera wasn’t the first RPG taken to Kickstarter, (see GM Sarli’s e20 System Evolved for an example of a pioneer (also a backer)), but Numenera had all of the right chemistry to boost the category from minor release to major project. It benefits from Monte’s notoriety, his design cred, his social media presence, and the well presented video and early supporting material for the setting.

However, I think there was one other small nugget that made this project enticing, nay, I’d even say seducing to many of us. Monte’s unexpected departure from the D&D Next design team. That happened in late April and Numenera was launched August 9th. It is known that Monte uses homebrew to play test and assist in design of his core rules and mechanics. Ptolus was used for this purpose during the development of D&D 3rd edition. Was Numenera his homebrew for D&D Next? Was there creative differences on design techniques that we are now seeing as part of the roleplaying architecture of Numenera? All speculation, but speculation that makes this project all the more appealing to be a small part of.

Endnotes:
Here are some interesting stats on where Numenera falls in the Kickstarter universe: Of successfully funded Kickstarter projects, those funding over $100K are a mere 0.9%. Of those projects funded between $100K and $999K, 20% were games. How many do you think were tabletop RPGs? Ill leave that as an exercise for the reader.

Source: Kickstarter Stats