Latest 90-day tariff reduction is a stay of execution for some tabletop RPG publishers

Brotherwise Games was facing a genuine existential threat prior to Monday May 12. Co-founder and CEO Chris O’Neal told Rascal via email that the past two months have been some of the most stressful of his and sibling co-founder Johnny’s 12-year run. Hot off a $15 million Kickstarter campaign to produce the Cosmere Roleplaying Game, Brotherwise crashed into what O’Neal described as “an effective embargo on our products” when the Trump administration raised retaliatory tariffs against Chinese-imported goods to 145%. 

As of May 12, the two countries agreed to a pause on their reciprocal tariffs to ostensibly facilitate further trade negotiations. What that means for Brotherwise, and the rest of a beleaguered tabletop industry, is a 30% tariff on imported products instead. Some are lucky — Evil Hat’s co-founder Fred Hicks told Rascal that the RPG book publisher only needs to push some campaign coins through US Customs within the 90-day window of relative sanity. What was originally a $500 freight estimate jumped to $2,000 under the 145% tariffs. Now, the company will be “saving” about $1,000 (sarcastic airquotes added by Hicks). For smaller outfits, those savings are the difference between life and death.

Brotherwise found themselves in an impossible situation. The explosive success of the Cosmere RPG means the small publisher produced a massive amount of books, cards, miniatures, dice, and screens in China that they now need to ship across the Pacific Ocean. All of those additional goodies bumped the product from classification as a book (ostensibly exempt from most tariffs) to a game, which bears the full brunt. The company scrambled for a solution.