As someone who is less “aspiring designer” and more “constant tinkerer”, and as someone who has a hard realistic cap of how many RPGs I’m going to play in a given year (almost certainly not more than 50 sessions or 8 different games), I’m feeling this hard right now.

Honestly, I’m more inclined to back PbtA games because they take up less new neural space. “Oh this is different because X” is easier for me to read rapidly and store than learning a whole new system/setting/etc. I’d say that impulse is 80% of why I passed on Age of Anarchy, for example. But I’m reaching a financial limit on even that, as well as a give-a-shit limit and a shelf-space limit. That goes double for games that have “optional” (but not really optional) cards as add-on extras, or have expensive-but-large-and-beautiful props. Between my reduced Canadian buying power, the ever-growing cost of shipping, and the fact that my bookshelves are all exploding with stuff, I don’t have room in my heart, wallet, or home for big messy games.

Trying to back PDF-only is a bummer, because even if I manage to get around to reading a PDF game, I often won’t run it, because without a physical artifact, I forget it exists and don’t propose it to my players. Not to mention that I think every single cool game I’ve backed digital-only has gone into a Bundle of Holding within 2 years, sometimes before I’ve even managed to read it, let alone run it.

I backed The Watch because of the names attached and the cool factor of the project, but that’s only going to get me so far, and only so many times.

I’m no expert, but I feel like the various markets that operate on my consumption of RPGs are all bubbles about to burst.