Tariffs are Bad, Actually (Patreon)

TL:DR: I'm still going to deliver Spellbound Sea, no matter what happens - I'm not going to hold your books hostage. But I've set up a ko-fi to defray as much of my estimated $10k tariff bill as I can: https://ko-fi.com/somanyrobots.

Look, everyone is saying the same thing, and you don't particularly need to hear it from me. But at the same time, it'd be insane for me not to offer some commentary on the tariff situation.

Steve Jackson Games has a press release that's gotten a lot of attention.

ENWorld has a roundup of a lot of game company statements.

Polygon has a good explainer.

Rascal.news has a piece on how this gets even more confusing.

The thing to take away is that, regardless of any thought on whether the new tariffs are a good idea or sensible policy, they will be absolutely devastating to tabletop gaming. The United States has basically none of the manufacturing base required to make board games, and very little for printing books. Bringing tabletop game production onshore isn't an option. So all the tariffs do is raise prices.

And to be clear, they do raise prices. Tariffs are ultimately a tax on consumers. Games already have pretty thin margins, so these prices will get passed along. Expect board game and TTRPG prices to increase by at least $10, probably $20+, for all games.

For Songs of the Spellbound Sea in particular, these tariffs will hurt quite badly, but aren't necessarily ruinous. I made the conscious choice not to skimp on production costs or underpay my artists — you can see this primarily in the quantity and quality of the artwork, which is where the bulk of that money went. But this also means that Spellbound Sea is right around the break-even point, right now. Slightly in the red, actually, but the plan was always to cover that out of pocket and make it back by selling PDFs and extra books.

That's before the tariffs, though. By my math, a 54% tariff on Chinese-manufactured products is going to cost me about an extra $10,000. That's not great! Not great. (And for a bigger print run, that would be much worse; bigger Kickstarters might be looking at $50-100k here). There's a possibility TTRPG books will be exempt (hooray! See that Rascal article above), but all it takes is one customs agent who didn't get the memo on that — so I have to be prepared to pay that $10k even if they ultimately don't demand it.

I'm not going to hold your books hostage. You didn't ask for this insane situation, and it's not fair to ask you to pay for it. (It's not fair to ask me to pay for it either, frankly, but good luck persuading the president to pony up.) If I have to eat the tariff cost, I will. It'll suck, but it won't be ruinous. But I would appreciate tremendously any help you're willing to offer to defray this. I've put up a ko-fi to collect donations for this purpose — if you're able to help soften the blow, I'd appreciate it. I don't expect, though, because if these tariffs stick, we're all going to be hurting - everybody will see major price increases on almost everything we buy.

If you're in the US, especially if you're in a red state, contact your representatives and senators and tell them these tariffs are insane and illegal. (They are illegal, in fact — only Congress has the power to levy tariffs.) Congress could fix this in a heartbeat if they just had the spine to do it, and angry constituents are how they grow spines.

I'm frustrated, sad and worried. This is a big problem for me and TTRPG publishers, an existential one for a lot of board-game companies, and probably a death blow to local game stores. Nobody knows how long these batshit-insane tariffs will stick. But in the meantime, we all have to do what we can to demand change.