How Crowdfunding Team-Ups at Backerkit Kickstarted Mothership Month

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.

In this issue, we’re diving deep into crowdfunding. Backerkit is one of the “big three” crowdfunding platforms available alongside Kickstarter and Gamefound. One of the ways it’s differentiated itself from competitors is its event-based crowdfunding model, which organizes communities of creators to launch thematically similar products simultaneously. This model, which it describes as “collab funding,” has successfully generated $7.3 million in pledges in 2025, or 22% of all funds on the platform. Why does it matter to TTRPG fans? Well, it’s the philosophy behind Mothership Month and Mausritter Month, two events online where creators are collaborating with major publishers to release third-party content for independent games. And it could be the future for a lot of other games. We spoke with Backerkit’s team about the practice, and hope you’ll enjoy our deeper look at the topic.

Last month, Tuesday Knight Games (MOTHERSHIP) and Backerkit teamed up to launch the second edition of Mothership Month, a dedicated series of cross-referenced crowdfunding campaigns. Twenty-seven creators collaborated with TKG to launch campaigns simultaneously. Each campaign was related to Prospero’s Dream, the in-game space station that Mothership campaigns center on. The campaigns successfully raised more than $850,000 together (less than the initial Mothership Month, but still a remarkable quantity.) It was quickly followed by Mausritter Month, a similar campaign where 16 creators penned adventures using the Mausritter ruleset. As of November 17, it’s raised nearly $250,000 for all the projects.

They’re the latest examples of “collab funding,” a new approach to crowdfunding that Backerkit has been running for three years and is intent on expanding significantly in the coming days. Collab funding, as Backerkit defines it, is when creators collaborate on the platform to launch crowdfunding campaigns simultaneously. The campaigns often have something in common, whether it’s a format (books, pins, TTRPGs, etc), a theme (Halloween, fall, winter, academics,) or some other common factor. Many of these creators are also teaming up to offer incentives for backing multiple packages. For example, Mausritter Month offers players free figurines if they back 7 out of the 16 projects. A pin campaign I supported in the fall provided specialized stickers and pins for backing both campaigns.

It’s a model that creates a ‘mini-event’ online for fans and reportedly inspires people to spend more of their money to support smaller projects. Fans of Mothership will most likely want the newest campaign from TKG, as well as the smaller projects surrounding it.

So what makes a project or community an effective user of “collab funding?” A big part of it is a community of fans, according to Backerkit CEO Maxwell Salzberg. The products must have a large fan base and potential supplements or support items. “One of the big differences between Backerkit and other platforms is that we're trying to make Backerkit a platform to make your community shine as much as anything else,” Salzberg told TTRPG Insider. “If creators can make something really, really compelling, their audience is going to show up and that's the thing that's going to sort of drive their success.”

The collaborative funding campaigns also need to be built around specific fandoms. The practice has only been successfully used in “niche” fandom communities like pins, TTRPGs, and plushies, although Backerkit recently experimented with Booktopia earlier in the fall. While Backerkit could theoretically host something like an “iPhone accessory-topia” if it wanted, it lacks the social aspects that might draw backers in to support more than one project.

That interconnectedness and community fandom are integral to what makes the collab funding model work alongside the inter-product incentives. The projects also need to build on each other and not necessarily compete. “Let’s say I did a coffee-gadget-topia event on Backerkit,” Salzberg explained. “You might be able to figure out how to have a campaign for someone who is selling a grinder, then another person who is a brewer, another person who has a neat accessory. We could come up with something that sort of shows that there's this complementary aspect to everyone trying to get people to come to the same place.”

The TTRPG space holds a special place in Salzberg’s heart, who described the industry as “innovators in crowdfunding.” TTRPGs are a “very fandom and niche-driven kind of business,” Salzberg noted, and crowdfunding gave gamers in different regions a “common watering hole” to gather and back projects that they’re fond of. It also allows this niche market to create smaller units to meet the desires of their market. TTRPGs are also easier to make than board games or video games.

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.

Where Collab Funding Came From

Backerkit currently hosts three types of collab funding events, although they are notable similar.

• Topias, which are events where creators will gather together to launch projects simultaneously. Backing multiple projects within a “Topia” often leads to additional rewards such as pins, stickers and so forth.

• Cross-Collab campaigns, where two creators launch two separate campaigns concurrently and provide extra benefits for backing both of the campaigns.

• Group collabs, where creators within a group create products related to a specific property or idea. Mothership Month is the equivalent of this

The first formal effort to ‘collab-fund’ was in 2022 with Pintopia, an event dedicated to crowdfunding new types of pins. The project proved to be a success, and Backerkit continued to test other “topia” events in the months following up, including Other topia projects like the TTRPG-focused Zinetopia. But the Month model did not start until early 2024.

Joe Goodman of Goodman Games approached Backerkit in 2023 after seeing the Topia model succeed. Goodman asked if they could try something similar with their upcoming campaign, Adventures on the Purple Planet and Beyond, according to Salzberg. Backerkit’s team immediately agreed. In February 2024, Goodman Games (Dungeon Crawl Classics) launched the  Backerkit campaign, in which nine creators decided to release content simultaneously around an older 2014 DCC campaign. The group-collab successfully raised $380,505 from 5,115 backers across the market.

Then there was Mothership Month (2024). The concept began when TKG approached Backerkit to launch a new campaign, Salzberg said.¹ The two parties began to discuss new ideas and settled on a collaborative funding model as the best approach. “It just made so much sense,” Salzberg emphasized. 21 third-party Mothership projects launched their crowdfunding campaigns in November 2024 and successfully raised more than $1,000,000 by the end.

The collab funding model appears to have been relatively successful so far, and Backerkit intends to grow the number of events and pledges raised in 2026, according to its team.

Salzberg says he is in discussion with other TTRPG publishers to create their own “Month” events on the crowdfunding platform (although he was unable to identify who those companies might be). Backerkit also launched its own Holiday Market this week, which allows previous partners to sell their products directly to customers in time for the Christmas season.

Thanks to Backerkit and Salzberg for chatting with us!

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

1  Salzberg wasn’t able to say if it was Backerkit’s idea to launch Mothership Month or if it was TKG’s idea. TKG didn’t respond to requests for comment in time for our story.