
Okay so playing RPGs is extremely good and fun and I love it and play should always be the thing, but having said that I also feel that just reading and talking and posting about RPGs you've acquired online is also a perfectly valid way of engaging with games, and I'm not just saying that because I've got more money than sense and have acquired a not insignificant amount of RPGs I haven't gotten to play yet

I have this notion I rotate in my mind a lot about like, "degrees of play". Can't remember where I first heard the term but it basically amounts to this: there are 3 degrees of play with all games, and they're all separate but valid ways to play.
Primary Play: playing the game. This is your TTRPG session, your match of Fortnite (forgive the example), or your game of Magic the Gathering.
Secondary Play: planning for future play. This is reading TTRPG books or coming up with character ideas or planning sessions, watching Fortnite matches on YouTube or Twitch to learn strats and loadouts, or adjusting your deck in Magic.
Tertiary Play: remembering past games. This is telling stories about wild campaigns of yore, watching your own replays or telling a friend about a nasty match, or that Magic post-game clarity where you realize that you should have made a different play on turn 3 in Magic and if that happened you would have...etc.
TTRPGs have those three degrees more central than most. Planning a dungeon is play! Reading a new source book is play! Telling stories is play! It's just a different /shape/ of play than what we usually consider "playing the game". I think it's totally valid to buy a TTRPG rule book, read the rules, and never play a session of it. I think you played the game, just as a solo-play semi-linear procedural diceless play session.