Kickstarter has rolled out a new content policy that bans 'adult-only or sexually explicit content' across its platform, and indie tabletop RPG creators are not happy. The rules went live on 10 May 2026 and were widely picked up the next day after screenshots started circulating, as Wargamer reports.
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Set up your group for freeThe policy is a major reversal. Just eight months ago, in September 2025, Kickstarter was running a monthly newsletter promoting mature content creators and writing that 'adult content represents a significant portion of creative expression'. The new wording allows 'romance and spicy literature' but bans anything 'pornographic or explicitly sexual', along with projects 'created specifically for sexual gratification'. Nobody at Kickstarter has explained where the line sits between spicy and explicit, or how the platform plans to read a designer's intent.
That ambiguity is the bit that's worrying indie publishers. Mature-themed TTRPGs have a long Kickstarter pedigree, with Avery Alder's Monsterhearts (a Powered by the Apocalypse game about messy queer teenage monsters) and Thirsty Sword Lesbians (queer pulp swashbuckling) among the better-known crowdfunded successes. Ludic Lemur, the studio behind a licensed Monsterhearts deckbuilder video game called Welcome to Drowned Lake, has postponed its Kickstarter and called on the platform to 'roll back these changes and stand with the adult creators'.
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Find events near youThe likely culprit is Stripe, Kickstarter's payment processor, which has a long history of suddenly deplatforming adult creators across the web. If that's the case, the policy isn't really about Kickstarter's values, it's about whose money the platform can still take. Expect a chunk of mature-themed tabletop projects to start drifting to BackerKit or itch.io, both of which currently have more permissive rules.
Sources: Wargamer
