I bought Nimble — a streamlined version of Dungeons & Dragons — after a friend recommended it. He seemed surprised I actually did.

I like D&D. But what I like about it isn’t the game itself. I like that it’s possible to play D&D. It’s the lingua franca of tabletop role-playing — the one game that everyone at least recognizes, even if they don’t play. It’s the reason I can tell my mom, “I’m playing D&D on Friday night,” instead of trying to explain Viking Death Squad or Ironsworn. She doesn’t need context. It’s shorthand for “I’m with friends doing something creative like roleplaying.”

But Nimble — it feels like the kind of game I want to play. Maybe I will someday. Maybe I won’t. But I wanted to have it in my repertoire so that if the stars ever align — if I ever stumble across the mythical group of people like me who want to play a game built around elegance instead of excess — I’ll be ready. That’s the appeal. The design speaks to me: it pares things down to the bones, keeps the play focused, refuses to bloat. It’s everything I admire and rarely get to experience.

The truth is, there’s a whole category of games that I’ll probably never play but want to. Indeed, my game bookshelf belies this fact. And then there’s the other category — the ones I do play, simply because they’re playable. Given the rare opportunity to play at all, I’ll take what I can get. That tends to mean popular systems: the ones with market gravity, the ones everyone’s already sunk time and money into. We don’t play them because they’re the best; we play them because they’re the ones we can agree on.

At this point in life, with limited time and infinite obligations, no one wants to learn a new rulebook. We’re all too invested — mentally, financially, nostalgically — in the ones we already know. So we keep showing up for game night, rolling dice for the same clunky system, not because we love it, but because it’s there. It’s what everyone understands.

And that feels a little sad.

It’s like getting together with old friends to play Parcheesi — not because anyone wants to play Parcheesi, but because it’s familiar, and we know the rules, and it’s easier than learning something new. The joy isn’t in the game itself, but in the company, the ritual, the act of playing at all.

Still, I like having Nimble on my shelf. It’s a reminder that there are games out there I’d love, if only I got the chance. Maybe someday I will. But even if I don’t, it feels good to know it’s waiting — that the game I want to play exists, even if I never get to play it.