Death of a Hobby

23 Aug, 2026

I'm going to run a new campaign.

This thought occurs to me one afternoon while I'm 300 posts deep into an argument about roleplaying games and for a second it feels like remembering something obvious. A campaign. Right. The thing this whole hobby is supposedly about.

I know who I want to ask and roughly what I want to run. What about Mothership played like Traveller? Something long and sandboxy where the characters get older and where the world keeps moving on its own. I don't need to read a module first. I definitely don't need to buy another fucking book. There's an old star map I can steal, I can make the rest up. Maybe Thursday works. I should ask them now.

The doorbell rings.

It's the postman with a package and a bill for 11.26 euros in customs. Cash only. No, he doesn't have change. Fucking hell. I have absolutely no idea what I've ordered until I spot the publisher's name on the package.

Oh. Right. This.

Some Kickstarter shit from years ago. Backing it felt like something I should do. I don't even remember why anymore. I picked the physical tier because only getting a pdf felt somehow wrong. I got the pdf shortly after it funded anyway. I already read it. It was fine.

Now I have the real thing and god, it's fucking gorgeous. Thick paper, beautiful art. Looking through it I sort of remember why I wanted it.

I put it on the shelf with the other gorgeous real things.

I have a lot of them. Not enough for an impressive collection, just enough for it to be annoying. Some are from people I wanted to support. Some were definitely going to be what we played next, but we never did. There are books where I remember the review that sold me on them better than I remember anything inside. A few promised to solve problems I don't even remember caring about anymore. Most of them are good, which makes this worse. I don't dislike them. I almost wish I did because then I could just throw them in a box, leave it on the street and be done with instead of occasionally staring at the shelf and thinking I should really get off my ass and give some of this stuff away.

Shit, where was I?

Right. Thursday. I was going to ask them.

Before I do I check Discord because some servers have white dots next to them and I can't leave this shit alone. One of them is talking about whatever bullshit happened on Bluesky today. I click through. Same people, same kind of argument, maybe even the same argument, honestly I don't fucking remember anymore. All I know is I have seen half these responses before. I keep reading anyway.

People are talking about the same bullshit on another server so I switch again and eventually end up somewhere where the discussion is about making stuff instead. Someone posts this combat procedure from a new game and for a second I think oh hey, that's actually neat. Then I get this annoying feeling that I've seen it before.

I can't remember where. Some blog probably, or some itch thing, maybe somebody just mentioned doing something similar in chat once. Who knows. Maybe I'm even mixing things up. But now I'm sitting here trying to remember where I saw it instead of doing whatever I was doing before. I could probably find it if I searched long enough.

Do I mention this? Who cares. Maybe it isn't even the same thing and I'm already annoyed at myself for sitting here trying to remember. I don't need to be the guy going well actually some blogger did this in 2012 every time somebody gets excited about something. So I don't say anything and keep scrolling.

I get a ping about a crowdfunder. Fuck, another game. This one is going to solve another problem, except—oh hey, this one might actually be useful for the campaign. I start reading. The designer is somebody I like. There's a print edition and it's not actually that much more than the pdf, though shipping is annoying. They also made that other book I skipped last time. If I'm paying for shipping anyway—

Wait, what was I doing?

Thursday. Ok.

I actually start writing the message this time.

A friend sends me a 20 minute dungeontuber video about a new d-and-fucking-d game. The thumbnail is fucking awful but I click it anyway knowing exactly what it's going to be about. I get annoyed a few minutes in. Annoyed enough that I send the timestamp to someone else. Now we're talking about it. Not really about the game anymore, more about whatever pissed us off in the video, then somebody brings up another issue about another game or another video and suddenly we're back in one of those discussions I've had so many times that I don't even know anymore whether I enjoy them or just know how to have them. Maybe I'm addicted. Maybe I'm just enough white guy that I think my strong opinion about something deserves to be heard. At some point I think I could get a blog post out of this. God damn. I haven't even figured out what I want to write yet and I'm already thinking about whether anybody would read the fucking thing.

I look up and two hours are gone.

Later I'm in bed listening to another module review on a podcast. I like the hosts, which is probably why I still put it on sometimes, but I know how this goes now. I know what they want from a module and I can usually tell what they're going to praise before they get there. Good map, useful information, things to interact with, no wasted space, whatever. I've heard this so many times that after a while the modules start blending together in my head. Not because they're literally the same. I know they're not. I just can't keep all these supposedly very good modules apart anymore. Somehow I still end up buying some of them.

I don't even know why. I'm not going to run all this shit. There are too many of them to run even if I wanted to. Half the time I buy one because the review made it sound good, put it on the shelf next to the other real things, and then a month later I'm listening to them explain why the next one is good. At some point it stops feeling that different from being marketed to, except I like the people doing it and trust their taste, which probably makes it work better.

Maybe I could use this one for the campaign.

Or just take a few of the modules I already own and mash them together. Mothership would probably work for that. Though I don't want it to become some linear adventure either. Whatever. I can figure that out tomorrow.

Thursday. I should really ask some folks tomorrow morning.

The podcast keeps playing until I fall asleep.

When I wake up there are already new white dots on Discord again. Somebody has posted a screenshot from Bluesky and they're already arguing about it.

I check what happened before I message anyone.