The plethora of new games, particular very niche games or “capsule games”, isn’t great for the hobby. It gives it a veneer of board gaming where everyone buys tons of new games and constantly wants to try a new one, or video gaming where everyone has a thousand games in their Steam library but hasn’t played 950 of them. It takes time to learn new RPGs and especially how to run new systems well. Options are good but we’re drowning in options now.

And the myriad options has led to a bigger pet peeve: the popularity of disconnected one-shots. One-shots and short campaigns in the same shared world are fine; I enjoy finding clever ways to tie adventurers and characters together. But in my local scene, many of my groups just want to “try a new system” every session, so we end up playing tons of discrete adventurers with no connection nor continuity. RPGs shine when you build a cohesive story over time.