Congrats To 2025's ENnie Nominees!

The premier TTRPG awards ceremony announces this year's slate!
The ENnie Awards has just announced the award nominations for 2025--and included in them, in Best Streaming Content, is the This Week In TTRPG show hosted every Friday by Jessica Hancock! This is the first ever award nomination of any kind in 26 years for EN World or EN Publishing, so we'll be having a party!

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Here's the full list:

Judges’ Spotlight Winners​

Amelia Antrim – Punk is Dead: a post apocalyptic songwriting TTRPG, Critical Kit
Author: Tim Roberts

Joe Blankenship– Letters from the Dark Vol. VIII: Lucky Stars, chrpow LLC
Author: Chris Powell

Tom Cantwell – Let Us Build a Tower: A Mythic Bronze Age Adventure in Babel, Sojourn RPG Publishing
Author: Caleb Whimble

Christopher Gath – Darkenhaven, Gooey Cube

Clayton Notestine – Heroes of Cerulea, Bläckfisk Publishing
Author: Lucas Falk

Best Adventure – Long Form​

Crown of Salt, Tania Herrero
Author: Tania Herrero

Grizelda’s Cursed Curiosities, Scoundrel Game Labs
Author: T.A. Gray

Hammel’s House of Oddities, Sleeping Giant Gaming
Author: Jon Hage

Isle of Joy, Knight Owl Publishing
Author: Gord Sellar

The Shrike, Silverarm
Author: Leo Hunt

Best Adventure – Short Form​

Nevermore: Grimwild Adventure, Oddity Press
Author: J.D. Maxwell

Sweet Revenge, Outrider Creative
Author: Destiny Howell

The Dream Shrine, Brad Kerr
Authors: Brad Kerr and Skullfungus

The Mall Remastered, Space Penguin Ink LLC
Author: Goblin Archives

Tides of Rot, Games Omnivorous
Authors: Karl Druid and Brian Yaksha

Best Aid/Accessory – Digital​

Bardic Tools, Bardic Tools
Dungeon Scrawl, Dungeon Scrawl
GRVNTDRAFTER, rivethead games
Hero Forge Kitbashing, Hero Forge
Mothership: Companion App Virtual Tabletop, Tuesday Knight Games

Best Aid/Accessory – Non – Digital​

DynaMaps, Limiting Factor Games
Monty Python RPG – Head of Light Entertainment Gamemaster Screen, The Dream Shrine
Small and Boss Party Series, Severed Books
Ten Candles: Tealight Collection, Cavalry Games & Cantrip Candles
The Map Library, Roll & Play Press

Best Art, Cover​

Click here to see the nominees collage

Darkened Hill & Dale, Patchwork Fez Games
Artist: Camilla Sicignano

Farewell to Arms REDUX, rivethead games
Artists: Johan Nohr, Tyler Lindsey, Astrolich

MIR, Little Dusha
Artist: Metastazis

The Hidden Isle, Causa Creations Interactive Media GmbH
Artist: Eliot Baum & Viv Tanner

Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast, Possum Creek Games
Artist: Katie Hicks

Best Art, Interior​

Cick here to see the nominees collage

Maskwitches of Forgotten Doggerland, Handiwork Games
Artists: Jon Hodgson, Paul Bourne

Mythic Bastionland, Bastionland Press
Artist: Alec Sorensen

The Fablemaker’s Deck of Many Things Holo-Foil Box Set, Hit Point Press
Artist: Yoshi Yoshitani

The Painted Wastelands, Agamemnon Press LLC
Artist: Tim Molloy

Zephyr Core Box, Araukana Media LTD
Artist: Federico Sohns

Best Cartography​

Land of Eem – The Mucklands Sandbox Campaign Setting, Exalted Funeral Press
Ben Costa, Morena Paissan & Angela Gubert

Pendragon: Map of King Arthur’s Britain, Chaosium, Inc.
Francesca Baerald

Revolt!, Jason Price
Chaim Holtjer

The One Ring: Moria – Through the Doors of Durin, Free League Publishing
Francesco Mattioli

Wonderland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting, Andrews McMeel Publishing
Andrew Kolb

Best Community Content​

Dead Beats (Miskatonic Repository)
Author: David Kirkby

Escape From Mammoth Cave (Miskatonic Repository)
Author: Derek Zimmer

Mount Katahdin’s Shadow Wicked Cool Games (Miskatonic Repository)
Author: Christopher Capone

Pathfinder Society Scenario 6-08: Upon Wheels and Rime (Paizo Inc.)
Author: Dave Nelson

Sweet Dreams are Made of Geese (Dungeon Master’s Guild)
Author: Jamie Chan

Best Family Game / Product​

Dungeon Cats, Tiger Wizard
Authors: Andrew Bellury

Land of Eem – Core Rulebook, Exalted Funeral Press
Author: Ben Costa and James Parks

Let’s Go to Roomino!, Eric Oakland
Author: Eric Oakland

Stewpot: Tales from a Fantasy Tavern, Evil Hat Productions
Author: Takuma Okada

Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast, Possum Creek Games
Authors: Mercedes Acosta, Jay Dragon, Lillie J Harris, M Vaselak

Best Free Game / Product​

Garbage & Glory – Trashrun, Wet Ink Games, LLC
Authors: Josh Heake, Matthew Orr, Brandon K. Aten, Sarah Orr Aten

Grimwild: Free Edition, Oddity Press
Author: J.D. Maxwell

Helene of the Blue Ridge, Pandion Games
Author: Andy Boyd

Slay & Plunder, Nwyvre Press
Author: James Giltner

TEETH: False Kingdom, Big Robot Ltd
Authors: Jim Rossignol, Marsh Davies

Best Game​

His Majesty the Worm, Exalted Funeral Press
Author: Josh McCrowell
Art: Bertdrawstuff, Emily Cheeseman, Charles Ferguson-Avery, Nicolas Evans, Gobert, Sophie Grunner, Gus L, HodagRPG, Tom Kilian, Amanda Lee, Frank, Savanna Mayer, Thomas Novosel, Gertrud Oberg, Caitlin Reid, Marcin S, Alec Sorenson, Emmy Verte
Editing: Meledy Watson, Kennedy Gerber
Layout/Design: Peter Borlace, Michael Strange

Last Train to Bremen, Caro Asercion
Author: Caro Ascersion
Art: Conner Fawcett
Editing: Weaver Walker
Layout/Design: Conner Fawcett

Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme – Sensible Middle Class Edition, Exalted Funeral Press
Author: Brian Saliba, Craig Schaffer
Art: Keith Lowe, Julia Bangert, Elliot Lang, Kyle Patterson, Zachary Pullen, Irina Shirokova, Andrew “Tiger Wizard” Bellury, David Hoskins
Editing: Chant Evans, Ben Summer
Layout/Design: Conner Fawcett

The Last Caravan, Mythworks
Author: Ted Bushman
Art: Hayden Davis, James Firnhaber, Spencer Hawkes, Jeff Langevin, Galen Pejeau
Editing: Graham Ward, Kristin Perkins
Layout/Design: Graham Ward, Carson Wright

Triangle Agency, Haunted Table
Author: Caleb Zane Huett, Sean Ireland
Art : Kanesha Bryant, Corviday, GC Houle, Ryan Kingdom, Kodesea, Nathan Rhodes, Michael Shillingburg
Layout/Design: Ben Mansky, Michael Shillingburg

Best Layout and Design​

Doomsong, Caesar Ink
Chris Cæsar, Moritz Krebs

Feathertail Falls, Fanterland
Peter Elroy and Max Philippi

Mythic Bastionland, Bastionland Press
Chris McDowall

Tephrotic Nightmares, Exalted Funeral Press
Johan Nohr

Wonderland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting, Andrews McMeel Publishing
Andrew Kolb

Best Monster/Adversary​

BIG BADS Box Set, Hit Point Press
Authors: Jennifer Adcock, Nadine Amami, Keith Ammann, Charlotte Ashley, Beth Ball, Jasmine Bhullar, Andrea Bruce, David Castro, Ty Christensen, Yubi Coates, Ricardo Evangelho, Jess Go, Joshua Heath, Michael Hollik, Benjamin Huffman, Jay Jackson, Matt Key, Kat Kruger, Verity Lane, Jason Levine, Son M, Jessica Marcrum, Christopher L. Medina, Jake Michels, Christopher Pinch, Jordan Richer, TR Rowe, lan Spiegel-Blum, Lulu St. Janmes, Frederic Walker, Rob Wieland, KandiJ. Williams, Bailey Wright, Ty Christenstatt, Holly Conrad, Verity Lane, Christopher Pinch Jordan Richer, Theo Surette, Sebastian Yüe
Concepts: Rajaa Al-Subairi, Emily Beckett, Ty Christensen, Holly Conrad, Ricardo Evangelho, Graeme Fotheringham, Liam Gregg, Rosemarie Halim, Verity Lane, Christopher Pinch, Jordan Richer Meredith Smallwood, Theo Surette, Sebastian Yüe
Art: Rajaa A1-Subairi, Mark Behm, Elliot Bouriot, Shafer Brown, Justin Chan, Anna Christensen, Kayla Cline, Nicholas DeLuca, Lexxy Douglass, Isabela Duffles, Riley Easter, Kristina Gehrmann, IIse Gort, Dave Greco, Kelley Harris, Joel Holtzman, Avery Howett, Will Kirkby, Marby Kwong, Elliot Lang, Holly Lucero, Sam Mameli, Jen C. Marshall, Thabiso Mhlaba, Felix Miall, Jeff Miracola, Sean A. Murray , Kathleen O’Hara, Dimitrios Pantazis, Svetoslav Petrov, Brittany Pezillo, Federico Piatti, Dominique Ramsey, Jenn Ravenna, Jordan Richer, Henrik Rosenborg, Samantha Rustle, Axel Sauerwald, Faith Schaffer, Ameera Sheikh, Joe Slucher, Kim Sokol, Sovereign, Alex Stone, Mariah Tekulve, Sally Thordarson, Marija Tiurina, Lauren Walsh, Russell Werges, Yoshi Yoshitani, Nataly Zhuk, Josiah Cameron, Fez Inkwright, Steve Argyle, Mike Bakker, George Bennett, Andrea Bruce, Josiah o Cameron, Sidharth Chaturvedi, Hannah Comstock, Jessica Desjardin, Anna (Newt) Douaová, Jason Engle, Felipe Escobar, Jonathan Juanieve Fernandes, IIse Gort, Matt Harris, Ralph Horsley, Avery Howett, Fez Inkwright, Kurt Jakobi, Victoria Jeffery, Sara Katch, Shel Khan, Will Kirkby, Felix Klaer, Jack Kozita, Ashly Lovett, Barbara Lucas, Holly Lucero, Chuck Lukas, Andrew Mar, Gina Matarazzo, Julia Metzger, Jeff Miracola, Derek Murphy, Mythir, Alexander Ngo, Dimitrios Pantazis, Eleonor Piteria, Livia Prima, Jason Rainville, Jordan Richer, Izaak Rodriguez, Samantha Rustle, Daria ShestakOva, Joe Slucher, April Solomon, Alyse Stewart, Mariya Sviridova, Patricia Kelen Takahashi, Jarel Threat, Randy Vargas, Tyler Walpole, Brian Scot Walters, Anthony Scott Waters, Mark Zug
Co-op Student Artists: Rhoan Collins, Shauna-Lee Foster, Theo Surette

Land of Eem – Bestiary Vol. 1, Exalted Funeral Press
Authors: Ben Costa, James Parks
Art: Ben Costa, Sean Kiernan, Alex Ahad, Ben Seto

Uncle Ernie’s A.R.M. Summer Catalog, 23rd Century Productions, LLC
Author: Anthony Oliveira, David Soruco, Michelle Soruco, Kurt Willis, Alb’, Marcus Holder
Art: David Chen, Miguel Alejandro Lozano Durán, Stuart Ellis, Breno Girafa, Teaghan Gokey, Ray Hedman, Nick Jizba, Ky Kie, and Katinka Thorondor

Wilderfeast, Horrible Guild
Author: KC Shi, Ilsa Zhang
Art: Xulia Vicente, Francisco Riolobos Blanco, Zeno Colangelo, Cecilia Lonnie, Alessandro Corradi, Francesco De Benedittis

Wonderland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting, Andrews McMeel Publishing
Authors: Andrew Kolb
Art:

Best Online Content​

Molten Sulfur Blog, Molten Sulfur Press
MurkMail, Murkdice
One-Page RPG Jam, James Lennox-Gordon
Playful Void, Idle Cartulary
Prismatic Wasteland Blog, Prismatic Wasteland

Best Production Values​

Land of Eem Deluxe Box Set, Exalted Funeral Press
Mothership: Deluxe Set, Tuesday Knight Games
Revolt!, Jason Price
Tephrotic Nightmares, Exalted Funeral Press
Tides of Rot, Games Omnivorous

Best RPG Related Product​

A Pitcrawler’s Progress – The Album, MacGuffin & Co.
Authors: Jonathan Sims, Sasha Sienna
Music: Amber Devereux

H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness for Beginning Readers, Chaosium Inc.
Author: RJ Ivankovic

Humblewood: For Want of a Nail, Hit Point Press
Author: Gail Simone
Art: Sarah Webb

Playing at the World, 2E: The Invention of Dungeons & Dragons, The MIT Press
Author: Jon Peterson

Prismatic Wisdom, Games Omnivorous
Author: WF Smith

Best Rules​

Dawn of the Orcs, Lyme
Author: Lyme

His Majesty the Worm, Exalted Funeral Press
Author: Josh McCrowell

Memento Mori Corebook, Two Little Mice
Authors: Andrea Felicioni, Marco B. Bucci

Triangle Agency, Haunted Table
Authors: Caleb Zane Huett, Sean Ireland

Wilderfeast, Horrible Guild
Author: KC Shi

Best Setting​

Call of Cthulhu – Cthulhu Ireland, Chaosium Community Content
Author: Colin Dunlap

Doomsong, Caesar Ink
Authors: Morgan Finley, Jack Caesar, Chris Caesar

RuneQuest: Lands of RuneQuest – Dragon Pass, Chaosium Inc.
Authors: Jeff Richard, Greg Stafford, Jason Durall

Settlers of a Dead God, Exalted Funeral Press
Author: Eduardo Carabaño Rubianes
Translation: Mike Schneider

The Painted Wastelands, Agamemnon Press LLC
Authors: Christopher Willet, Tim Molloy

Best Streaming Content​

“Soectral Schemes: the Mystery of the Ballarat Ghost” adapted from Kat Clay’s “The Hammersmith Haunting”, Chaosium Inc.
Dice Exploder, Mythworks
Mystery Quest
Seth Skorkowsky (YouTube Channel)
This Week In TTRPG Podcast, EN World

Best Supplement​

ARKYVR, Alewood Games
Author: Rhodrick Magsino

Mothership: Warden’s Operations Manual, Tuesday Knight Games
Author: Sean McCoy

Outgunned Adventure, Two Little Mice
Authors: Riccardo Sirignano, Simone Formicola

Star Crossed: Love Letters, Bully Pulpit Games LLC
Authors: Alex Roberts, Jason Morningstar

The One Ring: Moria – Through the Doors of Durin, Free League Publishing
Author: Gareth Hanrahan

Best Writing​

Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme – Sensible Middle Class Edition, Exalted Funeral Press
Authors: Brian Saliba, Craig Schaffer
Editing: Chant Evans, Ben Summer

The Bird Oracle, Shing Yin Khor
Author: Shing Yin Khor

The Details of Our Escape, Possible Worlds Games
Authors: Tyler Crumrine, Renee Gladman
Editing: Reilly Qyote

Triangle Agency, Haunted Table
Authors: Caleb Zane Huett, Sean Ireland

Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast, Possum Creek Games
Authors: Mercedes Acosta, Jay Dragon, Lillie J Harris, M Vaselak
Editing: Dominique Dickey, M Vaselak

Product of the Year​

Doomsong, Caesar Ink
Land of Eem Deluxe Box Set, Exalted Funeral Press
Memento Mori Deathless Edition, Two Little Mice
Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme – Sensible Middle Class Edition, Exalted Funeral Press
Mythic Bastionland, Bastionland Press
Revolt!, Jason Price
The Last Caravan, Mythworks
The One Ring: Moria – Through the Doors of Durin, Free League Publishing
Triangle Agency: Normal Briefcase Collection, Haunted Table
Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast, Possum Creek Games
 

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I'm glad I don't have that problem. I'm probably as old as you, but I still get excited by new stuff all the time. I look at things like Land of Eem and Mythic Bastionland and think they look fun. I'm also the guy that listens to classical, jazz, and "rock" music from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s, and 20s. And all on the same day. Never lose your sense of wonder. If I only consumed the same thing over and over I'd be bored to tears.

I get it, but I don't think it's my sense of wonder that is the issue. It's that in an RPG I am used to buying game systems and not games. The problem isn't that I'm out of imagination. The problem is that I want to play "my game" and not "your game".

Somewhere a generational gap happened and we seem to have moved from "playing at the world" were the game designers were giving you a toolbox and some broad guidelines and saying, "Here is a bunch of building blocks, now make your own fun." to game designers giving you a game that is tightly designed to produce a single game experience, in a single setting, with sometimes single story and even sometimes a single group of characters to play. And I'm not saying that it's wrong to produce a game with a built in campaign or a built in one thing that it just does (like Blades in the Dark and its "heists" or Gumshoe and its "investigation") but its just not what I'm looking for if I'm going to invest in running a game as a GM.

RPG time is precious. I don't get enough of it, least of all with those people I'm closest to. And if I run, I want to run something that is particularly resonant with me, and often that's very much my own setting and story. And it feels like we've gone from games that allow for broad genre emulation to games that are tightly focused on producing this one example in the genre where the thing that they are going for isn't as iconic to me as Tolkien's legerdemain or Dune or Star Wars some other consensus nerd culture wide touchstone. (Or maybe those touchstones have changed?) People are publishing "their game" - say the default BitD setting or Land of Eem and offering to let me run "their game" and that's fine, but that's nothing I've ever looked for.

And kind of the funny thing is, is that I would drop $200 (at least) on kickstarter for Pendragon rules with a Tortall setting and just be ecstatic "Take my money!" So there are niche things that I would drop a ton of money on and get really excited about even though they are someone else's world. But I also recognize that that is "my game" and the demand for that is probably not huge. So it's not like I don't get that someone out there is excited about these niche games, but from my "old man on the porch" perspective I'm like, "Is that really what the kids are excited about these days?" Or, is there really a huge upswelling of GMs who want to run some other GMs homebrew?
 

Or, is there really a huge upswelling of GMs who want to run some other GMs homebrew?
I don't think that's it, so much as these tightly focused games have rulesets and options all tuned for a precise experience.

So instead of, say, having a D&D game -- which is a big toolkit full of lots of things -- where you tell your players that you're going to be playing a surreal Arthurian experience, and on game day, you still have someone show up with a tiefling swashbuckler, a goblin artificer and someone playing a character named Colonblow the Barbarian, you get Mystic Bastionland, where everything in the game -- from characters, to monsters to every mechanic -- are designed around delivering a surreal Arthurian adventure, and nothing else.

It's the difference between going to a nice buffet and everyone getting a pretty good meal of whatever sort that they might want, versus going to a very specific type of restaurant where everyone is going to be getting much more limited choices (northern Italian food only, and no chicken fingers for the kids), but it's going to be excellent, if that's the kind of food that you like.

Neither approach is wrong. It's just different.

Sometimes I want to play D&D and let everyone do their own thing and play a wide variety of adventures that mostly feel like D&D with various flavors laid atop that. Sometimes I want to play Monster of the Week, which really only does episodic monster hunting adventures in the style of X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Supernatural, or Pirate Borg, which can really only do Pirates of the Caribbean as interpreted by Sam Raimi in full Evil Dead mode. Nothing in those games is extraneous -- you can't go off and play a wizard lurking in the Tower of London in Pirate Borg, even though the Tower of London presumably exists in the world of Pirate Borg and magic definitely does -- but it excels in its narrow range.
 
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I prefer -or should probably say become interested when- a round of Ennies has some Best Game and Best Rules nominees that solidly support homebrewing. But I'm not getting a sense that's much of a focus of any of this years nominees. Well...maybe with the exception of the Momento Memori Corebook, which does sound like a very cool premise and TTRPG.

Just seems like most TTRPGs these days feature settings tightly tied to the rules, with the idea that you'll run the Publisher's concept of what an adventure is. That doesn't work for me, but I know I'm mostly alone -and getting lonelier- with my preference to brew. I own 2 handfulls worth of quality TTRPGs that support me brewing up just about anything I can imagine (2 of which got updates this past year), so it's not like I'm lacking. But when I read the descriptions for recent Ennie nominees, I do start to feel a wee bit old.
 

I don't think that's it, so much as these tightly focused games have rulesets and options all tuned for a precise experience.

Which is saying the same thing ultimately. And you make that clear even once you get far enough in your explanation.

you get Mystic Bastionland, where everything in the game -- from characters, to monsters to every mechanic -- are designed around delivering a surreal Arthurian adventure, and nothing else.

It's the difference between going to a nice buffet (to the extent that there are nice buffets -- a rant for another time) and everyone getting a pretty good meal of whatever sort that they might want, versus going to a very specific type of restaurant where everyone is going to be getting much more limited choices (northern Italian food only, and no chicken fingers for the kids), but it's going to be excellent, if that's the kind of food that you like.

Yes, so in other words rather than buying a cookbook I'm buying a prepared meal, possibly even one that has been cooked for me and not just arriving in one of those subscription meal services. Or to put it another way, you aren't serving your own meal, you are serving their meal whether their meal is more buffet style or chef prepared or a subscription meal service, it's not a cookbook you bought.

And that's not entirely unique to me. I'd point at Paranoia or Chill or maybe even Gamma World as being games like that, albeit not as extreme as seems to have become common. Maybe everyone is looking for some distinct schtick because all the obvious ones are taken.

Neither approach is wrong. It's just different.

Oh, I definitely agree with that. But the difference and the fact that the difference is not even a preference anymore, it's where the market seems to be, makes me feel old.

Maybe I don't want my Arthurian adventure to be surreal. I can with a ton of work get Pendragon to work for "Protector of the Small" by writing up new non-Arthurian cultures, but I can't get Mystic Bastion land to work for "Protector of the Small" without throwing out the game because surreal isn't what I'm going for there. Maybe I could borrow a little bit of it as a travel subsystem or something, but it's not really geared to be anything other than "Mystic Bastion".
 

Yes, so in other words rather than buying a cookbook I'm buying a prepared meal, possibly even one that has been cooked for me and not just arriving in one of those subscription meal services. Or to put it another way, you aren't serving your own meal, you are serving their meal whether there meal is more buffet style or chef prepared or a subscription meal service, it's not a cookbook you bought.
I think that's probably overstating things.

Most of these more focused games still have plenty of room for groups to do their own thing. Some people will playing Deathmatch Island as a gritty Squid Game style experience. Others will lean into the reality show craziness of it and it'll feel more like Arnold Schwarzenegger's Running Man. Others will lean into the Prisoner/Lost style mystery.

To continue with the food metaphor, it's the difference between the old checkered Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook that everyone was issued in the 1960s through the 1980s that nominally covers every type of food, but mostly tastes like a Midwestern lady's take on all of it, versus a specialized cookbook that does one thing only.

You still get to decide what to make and what the meal consists of -- and still prepare it yourself, for better or worse -- but one gives you wider-but-shallower choices, and one gives you narrower-but-deeper choices.

I've played a bunch of these more specialized games, and they've always felt like me running a game, not me just being the vessel for some RPG writer to work through.
Maybe I don't want my Arthurian adventure to be surreal. I can with a ton of work get Pendragon to work for "Protector of the Small" by writing up new non-Arthurian cultures, but I can't get Mystic Bastion land to work for "Protector of the Small" without throwing out the game because surreal isn't what I'm going for there. Maybe I could borrow a little bit of it as a travel subsystem or something, but it's not really geared to be anything other than "Mystic Bastion".
Yes, if you don't want an Arthurian adventure that's very specifically in the vibe of, say, The Green Knight, you wouldn't want to use Mythic Bastionland.

But look at how much discussion there is in the RPG space of "how can I hack system X to deliver experience Y?" Instead of trying to retrofit an existing system to do an OK job with something it's not really built to do, sometimes you just want to pick up the precisely right tool to give you the precisely right experience you want.

Again, neither approach is wrong.

And the toolkits haven't gone anywhere: Dungeons & Dragons (and its close relatives) dwarfs the rest of the industry and offers a toolkit style of play. Look at the wide variety of campaigns offered by Paizo including, yes, chivalric knights, but also post-apocalyptic science fantasy, horror-inflected Castlevania-style adventuring, dungeon crawling and, with Starfinder, space travel.

If you prefer toolkit style games, there's tons of them out there and they produce a tremendous amount of stuff for you to buy.
 
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There's a couple of factors, as far as I can see:

First, and I think the most important, is the available design space. When there were a handful or even a few dozen TTRPGs there was plenty of design space for a game system to be a "toolbox and some broad guidelines" and be popular and successful. We are now in a world of hundreds, if not thousands, of TTRPGs, that are easier than ever to make a designer and find as a consumer. The fact is that unless you already have a name out there you are not finding an audience for your brand new open game system. Where you are going to find an audience is in the niches. The way to stand out now is to make a game that does exactly the thing that enough people are looking for. This is a feature, by the way, not a bug.

I think this has gone hand-in-hand with the balkanization of genre. It's not enough to be "fantasy" anymore; now there's "cozy fantasy" and "romantasy" and "YA fantasy" and "dark fantasy" but is it "dark fantasy heist" (Blades in the Dark) or "dark fantasy war" (Band of Blades) or "dark fantasy western" (A Fistful of Darkness) or is it...

You get it.

These two, by the way, I think go hand-in-hand. Over a long enough time scale every medium produces ever more niche content. The entropy of creative endeavors.
 

I think this has gone hand-in-hand with the balkanization of genre. It's not enough to be "fantasy" anymore; now there's "cozy fantasy" and "romantasy" and "YA fantasy" and "dark fantasy" but is it "dark fantasy heist" (Blades in the Dark) or "dark fantasy war" (Band of Blades) or "dark fantasy western" (A Fistful of Darkness) or is it...
Heck, there's both Blades in the Dark (PbtA-powered dark fantasy heist) and Swyvers (OSR-inspired dark fantasy heist). The niches get tiny eventually.
 

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