As of this post, I have been clean for not quite twelve weeks. I haven’t backed anything on a Crowdfunding service like Kickstarter or Backerkit since early February. I can’t recall the exact date, my last few days backing Tabletop Roleplaying Games via Crowdfunding sites are a bit of a blur. But I’ve picked myself up, brushed myself off, and am ready to embrace my sobriety… for good, this time!
This may seem like a joke, a distasteful one, at that, but I’m not kidding. Between the various Crowdfunding services, I have backed almost one hundred TTRPG games or supplemental products in the last five years alone. How else do you think my collection of tabletop games has exploded to roughly 300 games, and that’s just in physical form! Yes, Amazon had a lot to do with it, but I have backed way too many games on Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Backerkit, and Game found.
Just ask My Lovely Bride™. I have a problem, and the only way to fix it is to go clean turkey!
At one point, I was backing at least one project a month, which may not seem like much, until you realize that was just the average. Sometimes I was backing as many as 2-3 a week or more, then taking a break before binging again some time later. Roughly 100 games over five years, that works out to more than 1.5 games per month.
That, my friends, is too many games to support, especially in this economy. I’m nowhere near rich, and I’m running out of room in my office for bookcases to hold all of these games! So it simply has to stop.
sigh I just have to be strong.
The worst for me is watching projects I would have loved to support come and go, while I have to sit on the sidelines, with my wallet firmly stowed away, where it can’t do anymore harm. Yes, I know my credit card information is already saved onto these sites, that’s not the point! It’s a METAPHOR.
Anyway, so I’m a Crowdfunding addict, but I’m working hard to get better. I actually started the process of getting clean late last year, but as happens with most addicts, I fell off of the wagon here or there. But I think I’ve done pretty well overall the last couple of months, and while every day is a struggle (I do have to check all of the aforementioned sites, to see the progress of the remaining projects I have already backed), every day seems a little bit easier.
That is, until the next “GameMaster’s Apprentice” deck shows up for Crowdfunding. Some temptations simply cannot be denied!
UPDATE: Since this post was written, I have backed both “Solo Borg” and “Simply Savage Bestiary for Savage Worlds” on Kickstarter, as well as “Liminal Horror Deluxe Edition” on Backerkit. Now in my defense, these are all must-back projects, which I just couldn’t miss! But let’s be honest here… They are just proof positive as to how weak I really am.
