Patreon wants to become a community hub for tabletop gaming creators — and it’s literally rolling the dice on the initiative.
Today, Sept. 29, Patreon released a social-native documentary featuring prominent Dungeons & Dragons creators and creator collectives like Tales from the Stinky Dragon and Worlds Beyond Number. Titled “The Big Roll,” the film documents Patreon’s construction of a six-foot-tall, 200-pound twenty-sided die (d20), which the creators rolled down a hill in Calabasas, California, with each creator assigning a different challenge to each number on the die and filming videos based on the result of the roll.
“The Big Roll” is the latest initiative in an ongoing push by Patreon to win the business of tabletop gaming creators through both shared experiences and improved platform tools and services. In addition to dedicated community spotlights like the giant d20, Patreon launched a native discovery feature in April, which Patreon chief marketing officer Mike McGarry said had helped drive a 35-percent year-over-year increase in tabletop memberships on the platform in 2026.
McGarry noted that other Patreon features like livestreaming and one-time purchases were well-attuned to the needs of different types of tabletop creators, like mapmakers. Patreon further revamped its discovery features last month with an algorithm upgrade intended to more accurately direct fans to creators based on their interests.
“What we started to see is that interplay that was happening on-platform organically. There was a ‘there’ there of that connective tissue within this community, and people loved jumping from one creator to another and finding new creators on platform,” McGarry said in an interview with GamesBeat. “What we basically wanted to do was add value to that community in a way that would cross-pollinate creators and their fans, and get their fans engaged.”
So far, Patreon’s push into tabletop gaming appears to be paying off. There are currently over 5.2 million total tabletop role-playing game fan memberships on Patreon, according to a company representative, representing a 35 percent year-over-year increase for the category. Last year, tabletop creators earned more than $51 million on Patreon.
Tales of the Stinky Dragon has had a presence on Patreon for about two years. Co-founders Ben Ernst and Chris Demarais said Patreon’s push to improve its discovery tools had had a positive impact on their business, telling GamesBeat that recently introduced features like Quips, Patreon’s microblogging tool, had helped effectively cross-pollinate audience members between tabletop creators.
“It’s not like the way a lot of social networks are, where you have an algorithm and then you’re trying to figure out the algorithm,” Demarais said in an interview with GamesBeat. “Your audience can just see all of your content that you’re posting.”
Patreon originally intended for its giant d20 to break the world record for the largest twenty-sided die ever made. However, during the production process, the YouTube creator Jazza — who has a Patreon — published a video documenting his creation of an even larger d20. Patreon rolled with the punches, by bringing Jazza “into the fold” of the documentary, per McGarry.
“Every campaign, there’s something that comes up,” McGarry said. “At least this one was something that was fun with another creator that’s on-platform.”
Moving forward, Patreon plans to continue wooing the tabletop community with events like live improv nights for Dungeons & Dragons creators and events that involve crossovers with other fandoms on the platform. McGarry described the d20 initiative as Patreon’s “first big swing in interesting and unique ways to support the community,” but that it was “definitely not a one-and-done.”
“Rolling the giant d20 was kind of our first time that we really got to collaborate with these other indie creators,” Ernst said in an interview with GamesBeat. “And, immediately showing up, everyone was like, ‘all right, we’re here. We’re going to do some cool stuff.’”