Whatever sort of games you want to see more of, whether that is defined by mechanics, setting, or both.
Ok, thanks! I'll try to sort it a bit, then.
Play Style / General:
My preferred play style is what I would call "campaign-based adventuring", i.e. a group of people that faces challenges in the world and resolve them through a combination of wits and conflict, where the challenges are framed by an over-arching narrative. D&D and friends are an obvious example for this, but for me Shadowrun (or generally mission-based Cyberpunk) or fantastic Sci-Fi games (Star Wars, Coriolis, etc.) would fall into this category.
To contrast it, examples for games that would not fit my preferred play style would be The Dark Eye (stronger focus on simulating a world and playing in it), Vampire (focus on personal and inter-personal conflict), Bluebeards Bride (exploring a specific topic through an RPG).
My impression is that this play style has solid coverage in long established brands, but could receive from attention in indie game design.
Side note: I am quite open for other play styles in one shots - but I see those as an exception.
Play Style / Power Curve:
Over the years, I have grown a bit weary of D&D's steep power curve. I prefer a somewhat slower advancement these days. That's something that many games offer already - unfortunately not recent editions of D&D, though.
Mechanics / Complexity:
Through my forays into systems other then D&D, I have found that I prefer rules-light over complex settings. However, I tend to stop a bit short of completely minimal systems like Cthulhu Dark or complete free-form, and prefer to have either a set of attributes or skills or both.
I think my sweet spot is a bit north of PbtA games like Dungeon World or The Sprawl - the main thing I am missing there is a better way to deal with different levels of difficulty. Blades in the Dark/Forged in the Dark would be a candidate here, but unfortunately, I found it too feel a bit too mechanical to me.
Most OSR games also are close to the sweet spot, even though I prefer to have a bit more elaborate skill systems.
Savage Worlds and FATE would also be good candidates, but there I have other issues (see Task Resolution Systems and Meta Currency).
Mechanics / Focus & Player Empowerment:
The tricky part with narrative or semi-narrative games is that they tend to have a particular narrative in mind that they try to produce through the rules. While I appreciate that to a certain extent, I found it to be a problem when I try to stray from that (that's admittedly somewhat expected). Also, these games tend to have the expectation that the overall story is a collaborative creation of player's and game master/referee and that doesn't really fit the expectations in our group (neither for the GM nor for the players).
What I would hope to see more is light-weight games that, while thematically tied to a certain style of fiction, allow more flexibility for the narrative - basically in the same way that classical RPGs like D&D do.
Mechanics / Meta Currencies:
I dislike it when system rely heavily on a meta currency (like Savage Worls or FATE, but also 2d20 to a certain extent). This causes a very "mechanical feel" for me and has detrimental effects on my immersion into the game world. I am ok, though, with a mechanic that grants the protagonists some sort of luck or fate points to avoid otherwise fatal blows.
Mechanics / Special Dice:
On a related note: I also dislike it, when games require special dice that are more than just embellishment (thinking FFG Star Wars/Genesys). I have no objective reason here. I just don't like it.
Mechanics / Task/Scene Resolution Systems:
I have found that I like unified task (or scene) resolution systems better than non-unified ones. Actually, the non-unified nature of their task resolution systems is my main gripe with older editions of D&D and OSR games.
Also, I tend to like systems that are not too "swingy". The d20 enjoys some leniency here out of nostalgia, but my love for it has still decreased quite a bit over the years. The worst offenders, though, are exploding dice in systems where the higher rolls means a higher degree of success (looking at you, Savage Worlds).
Also, I like some sort of ludo-narrative consistency, i.e. when I create an expert on archeology, I should have a high chance of success when I have to roll (d100 systems like Call of Cthulhu don't live up to that expectation for me, here).
There's a lot more to say here, but I have already written a lot, so I will shorten it to my current preferences, which would be:
- 2d6 + X > TN (where X can be a combination of attribute, background, skill or situational circumstances, and TN can be flexible depending on difficulty, or fixed if X includes difficulty)
- d100 + X < TN (where X is a situational modified and TN is either skill or attribute value)
- d6 dice pool, count roll > TN (preferably <10 dice, TN fixed)
Setting/Theme:
I tend to like fantasy or fantastic sci-fi games. However, I would also be quite interested in seeing more games with a historical touch, that are just enriched with elements from folklore. In theory, there is something like this with the Mythic X series for Mythras, but I found the presentation quite dry and haven't really been able to dive deeper into this.
In terms of fantasy, I generally would like to see more settings that are a bit more down-to-earth, where magic is less prevalent than in D&D.
Also, I would like to see a good amount of both internal consistency in the setting (e.g. if mages are super powerful, they potentially should rule most areas; if they don't, what's the reason for that, ...) and ludo-narrative consistency, i.e. rules matching the narrative of the game world (e.g. how does the way magic works tie into the explanation of magic in the game world).
Illustrations:
The types of illustration I found myself drawn to are:
- Concept art-like stuff that conveys a sense of the setting, but still leaves room for imagination (one example would be the Symbaroum illustrations)
- Modern imaginations of old-school black&white illustrations (like the ones in Forbidden Lands)
- Artistic weird stuff (like Silent Titans, Mörk Börg, etc.)
- Somewhat abstract drawings with a fairy tale vibe (e.g. the ones being created for the new Dolmenwood book)
There's a fair amount of those out there, so I can't really complain. Still I'll always take more.
Conclusion / TL;DR Version:
So to wrap up or as a quick summary:
I would like to see more rules-light games with a classical GM-player separation, preferably in low-magic or pseudo-historical settings. The preferred mechanic would be a 2d6, d100 or d6 dice pool system, and the authors would strife for well-designed character sheets and a high degree of both internal consistency in the setting and consistency between rules and setting elements.
