NOTE: This doesn't mean "three things you hate and three things you love", I mean one-to-three RPG things you're burnt out on, and one-to-three things you want to see more of.

# Tired of (in no particular order)

Anime/Zelda/Ghibli settings: Especially because most of the time they just slap the aesthetics of contemporary Japan's concept of pastoral Europe onto whatever RPG slop of the day mechanics are popular.

Anything Grimdark: Double-points if it's clearly Bloodborne inspired. Like the previous point, it's usually an aesthetic slapped onto OSR-but-different mechanics. These titles also usually are just grimdark, without any sense of irony, satire, or black humor, making them much like the poison swamps of whatever latest game FromSoft put out.

Meta-currencies: Particularly GM-facing ones. The sort of mechanics where you're "buying permission to be a decent GM" (or how it feels to me).

# What I want to see more of

Traditional (non-European Medieval) Fantasy Settings: This has been a problem since I was a child, but the fantasy genre isn't limited to Tolkein-esque medieval Europe. 1001 Nights, Alice in Wonderland, Journey to the West, and Star Wars are all fantasy.

Great Book Layout: I'm soo happy that this is becoming more of a staple, and have started to buy books from publishers that care about layout and editing. Also any book that contains an entire subject of rules to one page or paragraph.

Adventures: It used to be that adventure paths were far more common, but even WotC seems to be shrinking away from them in exchange for a glut of settings. Even though I'm unlikely to run Kala Mandala, I will use Reach of the Roach God at some point, for example.

Here are two features I'd really like to see more of:

1: In the German variants of the Shadowrun 4e and 5e core rulebooks, every chapter begins with a short story. This short story in which whaterver the chapter is about has an important role.
For example, the chapter about magic starts with a short story in which magic, how it is used and what people feel about it takes center stage.
This does a better job at introducing these elements to the reader than any explanation in the rules could. It is absolutely great, relatively simple in concept and yet I have never seen it done in any other core rulebook.

2: In Cortex Prime, there is a huge chunk of optional rules directly in the rulebook often directly following the core rules they effect. Here is how the dice system works, here are some optional rules for that. This is how the metacurrency works, here are some optional rules that effect how the metacurrency works.
Then, there is a table at the back listing all the optional rules and the page number where to find them.

Tired of:

Grimdark: Can't stand that shit.

Mixed success: "You escape from the cops, but then your wife leaves you!" Man Mixed success is only interesting when it's not the default result, Pbta games just use it to past over the fact they have no real initiative system, so Mixed results have to be the default or else nobody gets a turn, but you can't have literally everything also result in bad things happening because then it just turns into a comedy of errors everytime you try to do anything. The only time I liked this was in Genesys where you could just go "Fuck it, strain" and move on.

Games where the only thing martial characters get is bigger numbers: Self explanatory. It not only ruins the class for people trying to play it, it makes high-level adventure design impossible because if you have a set of classes that are the same at level 1, just with higher numbers, you make it so high level adventures can only be the same as low level ones, just with scarier monsters.

What I want to see more of:

Urban fantasy that's not Masquerade-based: yeah we've got shadowrun but that's more cyberpunk, I'm talking like workers in new york accidentally opening up ancient lich tombs while trying to dig a new subway line and hirering the adventuerer's union to go down there with hi vis vests and beat the shit out of all the skeleltons inside.

Non Perscriptive spellcasting systems: like whitehack: no long list of spell effects and slots, just pick a power and then negotiate what you want that power to do mechanically at the table, and determine how much it costs. Like the old D6 fantasy system, but not nearly as obnoxious to rule on.

NU-SR games in general: I love seeing people trying to rework DND from the ground up with no sentimental attachment to previous mechanics and see how close you can get to the intended playstyle DO we need to track torches? Let's find out..

I'm tired of pre-written adventures and settings. It feels like 90% of the time when something new is coming its just yet another person making a pre-written compatible for 5e or somenother RPG rather than making something actually interesting to other groups.

I'd love to see more games across the spectrum of rpgs use more freeform character creation. Even in very rules light systems, a handful of selected powers or actions can be just as if not more fun way to customize a character as a class or playbook.

We used to have a lot more of those short stories and conversational explanation of how the rules work and even why they went with that rule. But then people complained it made looking things up too hard.

I really wish we brought that back and maybe have a system reference document in the back of the book for quick lookup.

Tired of:

- Kickstarters
- Cool settings made only for 5e
- Expensive shipping and long wait for printed books (this is more of an issue with the state of the world)

Want to see more of:

- Simulationist and crunchy games
- GM chapters with better guidance on how to build and run adventures for that system. More details, procedures, step by step.
- Systems that use mixed die-size dice pools. Games like Earthdawn, Open Legend, Cypher, Genesys.

Tired Of:

* Generic European Fantasy Land. Just about every Fantasy Setting is Europe. Everywhere else is treated as entirely disconnected.
* Lack of Animated Objects/Constructs. Fantasy RPGs will have like 8 ways to Animate the Dead and a deluge of Summon X Spells. But will completely ignore Magical Constructs.
* Human Centric Settings with other Races. Like, why do all of these settings expect Humans to always be the most numerous? Like you're telling me the Species with no exceptional qualities other than the bare minimum required to be Sapient has the most power and influence in the world? Not to mention that 90% of Fantasy Races that aren't based around Animals are just slightly different Humans.

Want to see:

* RPGs that aren't trying to copy the general Fantasy that D&D popularized. Make Humans a Minority or something. Make something that doesn't look like a copy of whatever D&D has done.
* Mechanics that don't try to mimic what is popular. Do something that isn't D&D's 6 Attributes. It's a very flawed system since 2 of them can be ignored as they do next to nothing in the system.
* More unique Cultures that aren't borrowing heavily from IRL Cultures.

I love the idea of more urban fantasy that's more "fantasy" and less "horror monsters". More action and exploration, less political intrigue. Give me some modern day dungeon crawls.

I agree with all the points you mentioned. As for me:

# Tired of (in no particular order)

Unnecessary Hexcrawl/traveling: Not every RPG system requires exploration, travel, and travel-based resource management. Many RPGs would actually be better off focusing more on the specific type of adventure they aim to deliver; there is no reason to include a journey between two key locations—be it two dungeons or anything else. I recently played the current version of \Crows\ (the new system from the MCDM team behind Drawsteel) and I simply don't understand the need for a hexcrawl world outside of the dungeons.

Merchant, Blacksmith, or other laborer classes in medieval fantasy RPGs: They never work, especially in combat-focused RPGs, which 99% of medieval fantasy systems are. It’s not that they’re useless, but since their utility usually only comes into play outside of combat, they tend to be so fucking boring to play in a game designed to focus on fighting.

Mechanics based on real-life time passing: I hate them. I hate being forced to play at a different pace and being punished for wanting to roleplay at an appropriate moment (this is also about Crows).

# What I want to see more

Fantasy games with very specific focuses: I’m tired of every new medieval fantasy system trying to be the next D\&D; I don’t want another generic fantasy system that theoretically lets me play any kind of adventure. I want something specific. Give me a medieval fantasy RPG focused on hunting and cooking monsters like Wilderfeast or one focused on starting a revolution (and failing) like Spire; give me more systems that have a clear FOCUS and build all their mechanics around that focus.

More systems featuring truly well-executed, strategic tactical combat: I don't want every system to have that, of course, but there are times when I really want to spend three hours in a combat, weighing every possible option to avoid defeat. I’m a huge fan of Lancer—I think it excels at what it sets out to do—and I’d love to see more systems in different settings attempt something similar to what Lancer does (if you have recommendations, I would love to hear then).

Systems that handle failure differently: Once an RPG sets out to be a collaborative storytelling experience, steering the story in interesting directions becomes more important than "winning." I’d like to see more systems that address this—mechanics that turn failed player rolls into opportunities or hooks for further interesting developments (much like in Disco Elysium).

1 Agree with you on the Layout. I've really been learning to love it. I learned the importance of it from games like pirate borg which looks wild and out there, but is still comprehensible.
2 Non-fantasy games. I love Sci-Fi, and there are some great games for it, but when I look at the number of fantasy heartbreaker's out there vs Sci-Fi games it almost breaks my heart
3 Adventures as outlines. Things like 1 page dungeons. This is something Ive seen a ton of in the osr, but I never see in the PBTA scene (which would emphasize the addition of villain motivations/goals and a couple of cool locations that could be introduced. It's also rare in the 5e scene.

Tired

Winding Rules References: Feat: Stong Back. See Encumbrance. Now see Fatigue. Now see Exhaustion. Now see Illness. Now see Healing. Now see Incontinence.

Please GM, Don't Read This: This character ability allows you to swim. At all, even for seconds. Otherwise you die. Athletics is useless.

Weirdtacular: In this setting, the sun is purple, and has thorns, unless it's Kobswortchnacht, in which case it grows puce tentacles! Those tentacles grab you, dragging you into another dimension! Full of FloofSnails! Roll save to avoid.

Wired

Situation Flowcharts: This is complicated, but it's largely a flowchart the PCs move through with decisions. Like a dungeon, but for more general things.

Short Term Timelines: At 8:45, the Duke asks for two strong warriors. The first two to agree are told meet him in the back courtyard. At 8:50 another, identical, Duke walks through the front door...

Defined Growth Arcs that Go Up and Down: An advancement system that rewards / demands long term setbacks and loss. The things good GMs put in themselves unless they forget to.

Combining your points about human-centric settings and RPGs that don't try to copy D&D, I think something we could really use more of is completely new and unique races for the setting. I mean, not just the occasional one or two new races mixed in with elves and dwarves (like the ducks in Dragonbane), but having \all\ the races in the setting be completely new. That is definitely something I want to see more of.

Merchant, Blacksmith, or other laborer classes in medieval fantasy RPGs: They never work, especially in combat-focused RPGs, which 99% of medieval fantasy systems are. It’s not that they’re useless, but since their utility usually only comes into play outside of combat, they tend to be so fucking boring to play in a game designed to focus on fighting.

I agree with this one as well. I've played Dragonbane and Forbidden Lands with a bunch of groups and I've never seen a person pick one of those classes (or starting professions). It was way more common in a politics focused setting (L5R) or space opera games.

I have never read Cortex Prime, but that sounds like sweet balm for WFRP-induced wounds.

Tired of...

Mechanics that encourage and reward players for being powerful individuals instead of having good characters that are part of the larger group.

Generic catch all fantasy settings.

Games where if you're stats are low you basically are useless in action and story.

Want more of...

If its fantasy- games about helping people with your abilities instead of just killing threats.

Bad adventure layouts that make it impossible to run from just the book.

Games that require 3-4 hours to get a story done.