Kickstarter has scrapped the controversial mature-content crackdown it rolled out last week, reinstating its previous "no porn or illegal content" guidelines after a wave of creator anger. For the indie TTRPG, comics and board game crews caught up in the policy, it is a rare U-turn from the platform.
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Start organising for freeThe short-lived update went live around 15 May, banning all "adult-only and sexually explicit content" and triggering an immediate squeeze on sextech, NSFW comics and any TTRPG creator whose project sat near the edge of "mature themes". The vague enforcement language meant projects with no nudity but a hint of horror or kink content could not tell whether they were safe. Worse, Stripe-driven suspensions had already started freezing approved campaigns mid-funding before the new policy even arrived in writing.
On 20 May, Kickstarter posted an apology, conceded the reaction was "loud and clear" that the change had been wrong, and rolled the policy back to its previous bare-bones version. The company also said it would actively advocate for creators when payment processor Stripe takes unilateral action against a campaign, an admission that this whole mess was driven less by Kickstarter's own preferences and more by the financial plumbing behind it.
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Set up your group for freeFor UK indie TTRPG designers, who often run small campaigns that mix horror, queer themes or mature art, the reversal is a real relief. The original rules were broad enough that a Brindlewood Bay-style game (the popular cosy-mystery-meets-Lovecraft PbtA series about murder-solving grannies) with a bit of grit could have been swept up. The bigger lesson is the one nobody at Kickstarter is shouting about: payment processors now have a quiet veto on what can be crowdfunded, and the next crackdown is one Stripe meeting away. If you were holding fire on backing an indie TTRPG campaign, now might be a good time to back it before the rules shift again.
Sources: Engadget | The Daily Cartoonist | Geek Native
