#RPGaDay2023 – Day 6: Favorite game that you never get to play

Never?  Like never ever?  Not the hyperbolic never?  I don’t know that there’s a game I really love that we’ve literally never played.  But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a favorite out of the many games I’ve never played. 

There was a dude who was a later addition to our RPG group that was really interested in playing tabletop miniature games.  We had all done that in our younger days before he was in the mix and had put mini games into the category of “cool but way too expensive and time consuming to care about anymore”.  I sold all my Warhammer stuff when I was in college I think.  And, as we all know my former best friend Joel stole all my Man’O’War stuff and sold it for magic cards. 

Anyway, I think we were all pretty clear with this dude about how we weren’t going to invest money in a mini game but one day he says to us he says “I just bought $800 worth of stuff for the X-Wing mini game, you’re all going to buy stuff too right?”  And we were all like “nah, bro”.  I felt bad even though I hadn’t actually done anything.  This has nothing to do with anything but it’s what the question made me think of.

I’m going to assume that for the spirit of the question there needs to be an intention or desire to play as well.  As I mentioned yesterday (?) Call of Cthulhu is a game I like that I’ve never played but I also have no intention of ever playing it.

Here’s another mildly tangential memory that was just jogged.  One time as a kid I was buying a Rifts book and the neckbeard gameshop dude says to me “I love Rifts, everyone buys the books but no one ever plays it”  and I says to him I says “my friends and I play Rifts all the time” and he shook his head and said “No, no one ever plays Rifts, you’re lying.”

First of all that’s just weird on the face of it.  Second of all, I kind of get what he was saying, isn’t it cool that I make money on shit no one uses?  But wouldn’t a game that people bought AND played be better?  Because maybe that means they would spend more? 

Then again, there’s no reason to apply logical thinking to a gameshop owner dude.  I can say that because I was one.  I know I’ve mentioned this 2-3 times before but it sticks with me.  The owner of the first game store, which was the only one in town at the time, I went to as a kid was a huge asshole.  Whenever I’d save up my allowance to buy an RPG book he’s say something about how the book I was buying was shit and then refuse to give me change.  Later when that store failed he opened up an anime-shack.  Is that part of the reason I hate anime?  No. 

Anyway, getting back on track (j/k) my favorite game that I’ve never ever never played is probably Hunter the Reckoning.  I mentioned when I was blathering on about the world of darkness that my main interest in the WOD would be in a supernatural investigation type game.  Which is what Hunter is kinda.  Also it’s WOD so there’s a crazy metaplot about angels and cavemen aliens or some shit.  Because there’s always a weird metaplot in old WOD stuff. 

So I guess really the game I like that I’ve never played is Hunter the Vigil, which is the second edition of Hunter where they took out all the angel alien caveman stuff.  I’m not sure that counts though since I’ve never actually read a Hunter the Vigil book.

Sidenote (again) they recently came out of Hunter the Reckoning 5^th edition.  And I thought “what, there were two editions I missed?”  No, there are not.  Hunter 5eth edition is the third edition of hunter, they just call it 5^th edition because 5^th edition D&D is so popular.  I guess to confuse people?  SEO?  Is that SEO?  Are they SEOing?

Positivity – I had to reach on this one a little, because most games I really like I’ve gotten to play at least a few times.  Hooray for me!  Hooray for Zoidberg!