Building Your Own “Neat Little Thing”: Nerdburger Games on Its TTRPG Legacy

Welcome to TTRPG Insider!

We’re the go-to source for exclusive interviews, analysis, and writing on the TTRPG industry, from Dungeons and Dragons to independent RPGs and everything in between.

If you want to know more, check us out here! If you like what you’re reading, make sure you subscribe.

Today, we’re looking at Nerdburger Games, the indie game company and brainchild of RPG designer Craig Campbell and how he’s adapted to having to build his own company as well as developing his own industry ‘flair.’

If you’ve been to gaming conventions like GAMA, PAX Unplugged or GenCon in recent years, you’ve likely passed by Nerdburger Games without thinking about it. Best known for games like Capers and Code Warriors, it’s a small company operated primarily by its founder Craig Campbell for the last nine years or so. Campbell, like many hobbyists in the space, got into TTRPGs during his college days through D&D. He eventually went on to write content for D&D publications like Dragon Magazine and Dragon and Dungeon Online when those publications came about. But even that work dried up and Campbell was inspired to create his first game for himself and found Nerdburger Games.

 Murders and Acquisitions launched in early 2016 and offered a “light, fun RPG of espionage, subterfuge, theft, intrigue, and murder in an absurd corporate world.” It started a pattern of Campbell releasing at least one game on Kickstarter a year.

While Nerdburger was a “neat little thing” for Campbell’s first three or four years, he eventually went serious in 2020 when he found himself with a lot more free time and an opportunity to turn his company into something more than a side gig.

He’d continually release games for the next nine years, with his superpowered gangster-centric TTRPG Capers becoming a cornerstone for the company. Multiple editions of the game have been released, including adaptations of the mechanics for cyberpunk and space-themed adventures. His games are on the smaller side, often raising between $5,000 and $15,000 per crowdfunding campaign. But the company’s constant releases and creation schedule have enabled him to remain a continuous face at conventions and online.

Building an RPG company by yourself isn’t easy, Campbell admitted. “The TTRPG industry is very opaque,” the designer told TTRPG Insider. “There are no databases full of information on how to do things. The industry is so particular and so niche that there’s a lot of institutional knowledge being held by people who have done this for a long time.” Campbell himself has had to connect with veteran designers, glean that knowledge from others, and learn indirectly about how to properly market and sell his games while also sharing it with others. “I’m constantly learning from others, and they’re learning from me,” Campbell admitted.

The industry is also regularly evolving, adapting, and taking on new popular aspects, Campbell argues. These can be additions like the growing reliance on actual play to promote new indie games or the increasing interest in solo and GMless games. That’s caused the market to split up into a lot of smaller communities (although there’s also a lot of overlap between creators and publishers.) It’s also forced creators like himself to adapt constantly. For example, it’s common now for publishers to curate and create online communities through websites like Discord to support their fans and promote their products; a concept that seems far less necessary a few years ago.

Whether you’re a designer, content creator or just the biggest fan at your table, TTRPG Insider delivers in-depth reporting, original interviews and regular roundups of the news that you will not find anywhere else. Let us help you become the best designer, player or dungeon master at your table.

Subscribe now and get the advantage you require to excel in this exceptional hobby and industry.

The Nerdburger Flavor

Nerdburger Games has historically described its game design as 'indie RPGs with extra cheese.” In many cases, those cheeses are unique mechanics that Campbell attaches to his games to distinguish them from other systems. Capers, for example, added playing cards as a mechanic in an effort to lean into the setting’s gambling aesthetic. The horror-comedy simulator Die Laughing removed GMs and added options for players to keep being involved even after they died. The family-oriented high fantasy game Good Strong Hands removed dice from the DM’s hands so that the DM can focus on world-building and the like. The constant changes in design styles are a “fun way to challenge myself,” Campbell noted. It’s also become something that helps him attract his more indie-oriented player base.

Cosmic Corsairs, which is Campbell’s latest project, brings his own twist to a galactic story.

Cosmic Corsairs is a game about “space pirates, ne'er-do-wells, and other folks living on the fringes fighting back against an oppressive regime that rules all of Aetherspace,” the campaign states. It involves a world where you draw on the energy of the stars to give you special abilities, and it will help you become a “Cosmic,” a creature that can twist the energy of the world to your benefit.

Cosmic Corsairs came about from a desire to do a sci-fi-heavy game, Campbell told TTRPG Insider. It’s built on the Roll Track system, which Campbell designed for Good, Strong Hands and earned an Ennie nominee in 2022. The system has players roll dice pools based on their character stats. As they succeed and fail, they earn points in particular character tracks that also earn them meta-currency that allow them to reroll, improve rolls or use a character’s strongest abilities.

Nerdburger will reach its tenth anniversary in the fall of 2026, when Campbell hopess to organize some events next year to celebrate it in his community. But he shows no intent of slowing down. “I recently got to the point where I wasn't just planning for the next game, I was starting to think about what I'm going to do in three years, which is a significant shift for myself,” Campbell told TTRPG Insider.

Those plans include the release of four games that fit within the Cosmic Corsairs universe, including supplements about the political regime and tools for building espionage-focused stories within the setting. A lot of that will depend on the success of Cosmic Corsairs. Thankfully, the game raised enough to hit its main goal and is now racing toward stretch goals.

You can check out Nerdburger Games at their website. You can also learn more about Cosmic Corsairs here.

What are your thoughts? Send any scoops, tips or press releases to [email protected].