What you're describing is like a Jim Jarmusch film, or certain slice-of-life narratives. John McClane, James Bond, and Captain Kirk are (in most cases) characters whose stories are about overcoming challenges with their character unscathed, a perfectly valid character arc. I would also avoid equating emotional trauma with changes in character, that might be what turns you off but its hardly a big part of genre fiction, which I think it's safe to say most RPGs qualify as.
I meant not a specific type of narrative (like slice-of-life), but that any story that isn't specifically about character's journey/change could be valid either having it or not - regardless of the genre. For me, genre and approach to character change are - or should be - mostly independent. (So you could have a silly adventure with lots of character development or a serious, grounded, maybe emotional story where characters stay mostly the same.) And you may right that I conflated "character arc" with "character development", perhaps erroneously.
I used trauma as a source of change as an example, of course it's not always linked.
To get back on track - my main point was that an author shouldn't feel obligated to give every character a "flaw" just because it's considered "good writing". Same with character development. It should be either a) something the author specifically wanted to write about (or simply thought it would be interesting/cool) or b) a "natural" consequence of how the story/character works (a character is betrayed by his best friend and becomes distrustful of people). Imo it's entirely valid to not have those and the work of fiction to be no worse for it.
