What's the Most Important Aspect of an RPG?

[Artega]

This would really be better as a poll, but I find that I'm unable to create polls for some reason. Come to think of it, I seem to recall there being a thread a while back saying about how people were abusing polls, so maybe that's it. But I digress.

What's the most important aspect of an RPG, for you? Storyline, combat/character creation, or the role-playing aspect?

I just beat Planescape: Torment for the fifth or sixth time (I forget), and I'm still awed by how well-crafted it is. The storyline is rather original (maybe not so much the amnesiac part, but the immortal-amnesiac-lost-in-a-crazy-world, definitely is), and all of the NPCs really feel like different people. Perhaps that's why I still think of Torment as being the best CRPG I've ever played.

Comparing it to other Infinity Engine games, and other Black Isle games, Torment just seems to be the best out of all of them, with Fallout coming in second. First, I absolutely LOVE the Planescape setting, and I'm rather saddened by the fact that Wizards of the Coast felt it necessary to kill it. Second, the Nameless One is one of the best made-for-you lead characters I've ever played as. Much better than Cloud, Zidane, and the rest of the Final Fantasy crew, anyway.

Maybe more than anything else, though, I like how much role-playing is allowed in Torment. I really like how fluid the alignment system is in Torment; in Baldur's Gate (II), you simply chose your alignment, and it really didn't matter worth a damn either way, equipment and item concerns aside. It doesn't matter a LOT more in Torment, but what you say and do makes a difference, and affects your alignment. Like goading those Black Abishai into combat? Do it too often, and your alignment will become more Chaotic (of course, you can use Morte's Litany of Curses to goad them into combat without alignment concerns.) And I loved how your stats actually matter worth a damn for dialogue options; you can catch people pickpocketing you if you're fast enough (Dexterity), but you have to be wise enough (Wisdom) to catch them first (or just have Annah along.) In Torment, you actually NEED a high Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, even as a Fighter. At the end of my most recent game, I had INT 25, WIS 25, and CHA 22 (granted, I went from Lv.22 to Lv.33 from that massive 2,000,000 EXP bonus for recoving your name), and I was a Fighter! On top of that bit, your party members really do feel like party members. Whereas you don't even HAVE a party in Fallout (you can get people to follow you around, but it's not like you grow attached to them, though I did feel bad when Dogmeat and Sulik died), and your party members aren't as dynamic in BG(2), your party members have their own personalities in Torment. Moreso than anything else, being able to Talk to them really adds depth, especially when you branch through their respective dialogue trees; talking to Grace about Morte, finding out that Morte has a Baatorian smell about him, and then confronting Morte about his smell is a perfect example of this. You can help Dak'kon understand himself better, help Nordom find a leader when he needs one, have Vhailor show you how he sees things, and even spark a romance with Annah, if you're so inclined.

I'm being rather vague, and not directly answering the question I posed, so I'll stop going on about Torment and answer my question.

For me, I believe the role-playing aspect of the RPG is the most important part. They aren't called Role-Playing Games for nothing :)

[Cryptic]

The most important aspect for me is atmosphere. If you can spirit me out of the mundanity of 21st-century existence and make me feel like I'm exploring a fascinating world, I'm hooked for repeated plays. Intricacies of the game system are nice, but it's the "feel" that keeps me coming back to play even after I've beat the game.

As examples, I like most everything that is high quality, from dark and gritty (Fallout) to sugary anime (Dark Cloud 2), with stops in between for excellently-rendered established universes (Knights of the Old Republic, Baldur's Gate II, Torment).

[WarLocke]

Atmosphere and Immersion.

I know, two answers. But IMO they're basically the same.

For example, what about a superhero game set an an awesomely dynamic city? Wouldn't that be so cool?

I think it would. B)

[Moldran]

The player's freedom of decision. The possibility to really decide what you do, rather than following a more-or-less fixed storyline.

[[wcip]Angel]

Characters. If you have decent, well-proportioned, multi-layered characters, the plot will tend to itself, and the plot is key, not just to RPGs, but to all games.

[degrak]

I would like to be weak and say all three of those aspects, for they all do have an important role. Storyline and the role-playing aspect are more important to me than character creation.

I played Torment twice, and it is probably the best game I ever played. I only beat it once, but I am/was so enthralled by that game.

You (Artega) mentioned some good points about the game. The Planescape setting is just so groovy. I love the dark and mysterious feel. I like how you do not start out as a class but it sort of gets determined. It's even a bit tricky to find out how to become a wizard or a thief.

But I would say the thing I liked most about the game was the storyline. It did have that multiple-ending thing going on as well. It makes me think of how some game companies employ psychiatrists to make their storylines more addicting (or something of that sort). It is definitely the best storyline I came across for a video game, and it fits so nicely with the setting. It's probably one of the best (or at least my favorite) stories I ever heard/experienced.

So, I will narrow my choice to storyline.

[Refrigerator]

I half agree with Gakerd. I was almost going to say story, but what good is a story if you can't stand the core gameplay? The fighting, walking around, just interacting with the world around you. I don't think I have an example of a game with really bad.... except for that truck one, that someone posted a link to a while ago. If it moves like that, I don't care how good the story is.

But second is a strong story! Err, that's right. You heard me.

Story is a strong second!

[Freepaperclips]

Storyline. No doubt. I've started a lot of games, but the ones I finish are the ones with a great story. Morrowwind was a great game, but I stopped halfway through. Unreal wasn't bad, but I just couldn't get going. Fallout, though, was the first game I finished. Planescape is still on my harddrive and let's face it, there was no better gaming momment then making Annah catch fire in front of her guardian B).

If you look back at the really great games, the storylines are what made them that way.

[Baajikiil]

I agree with most other posters here; the storyline is the most important to me. But, the game does have to have a modicum of well designed controls as well. I can't stand a poorly designed game where the controls are confusing or make little sense. This especially goes for games with dynamic camera angles. They seem to often obscure things more than they reveal.

EDIT: Actually, now that I think about it, I've bought several RPGs that I simply loved the gameplay of, and not cared a bit about the storyline. Although story is top of the list, gameplay means a great deal as well; if the game is too buggy or the gameplay atrocious, I will certainly skip it as well, even it has a great story.

[Artega]

... let's face it, there was no better gaming momment then making Annah catch fire in front of her guardian  B).

Vile fiend! Why would you want to kill Annah? Besides being your ONLY love interest in the game (which I would assume led to the full-fledged NPC romances in BG2), she's damned useful. Give her the Punch Daggers of Zar'Aunnun (or something to that effect) and she'll easily do upwards of 65 with a backstab by time you get to Curst. Of course, when Nameless is doing 25-30 +1-6 with the Hammer of Comminuition, it kinda pales, but still...

I always left Grace behind after I talked to her enough to get to the point where I could upgrade Morte. Vhailor was just more useful than a healer (and he nets you 375,000 XP and Celestial Fire for free, no matter what you say to Trias), and Nordom's ranged-attack abilities were too invaluable to give up.

[Lady Vashj]

Being fun. Phantastic graphics, deep and convincing storyline, believable characters...none worth jack if I don't give an honest goddamn about the game.

[Sword_of_Doom]

A good game must include great characters, npc, a world to explore, challenging combat system, wicked treasure to find and improve your character and a great storyline. The three games i have played the most, Morrowind, Diablo and Baldur's have elements of each of the above but not all. Morrowind has a great world to play in because its non-linear but the combat system sucks. If it had Diablo's combat system it would be much more fun. Baldur's is a great game with a huge world and great combat but sometimes the travelling and the quests are slow and pedantic. The more complicated the quest, the greater the reward.

[--Pete]

Hi,

This would really be better as a poll

Not really. A poll would just count opinions, this way we actually get to discuss them :)

Storyline, combat/character creation, or the role-playing aspect?

See, that's why a poll would suck. While all three of these elements are important to me, in the sense that if any one of them were not well done it could ruin the game, none of the three are central in making the game fun. Or, looking at it from another aspect, they could ruin an otherwise good game, but they could not turn an otherwise bad game good.

Now, what makes a game fun? I think that varies a lot from person to person. Hordes of people apparently find The Sims to be fun. I couldn't even begin to stomach it -- Sim City was all the "set up the ant farm and see what happens" I could stand. OTOH, many "serious gamers" have panned the Myst series. I completely enjoyed the first, enjoyed the second except for the bugs and the broken puzzle, and might have enjoyed the third if it hadn't crashed me to the desktop or just completely locked up my machine every ten or fifteen minutes.

So, I've dodged the question. What makes a game fun for me? Immersion. I can find that in Tetris when I zone and just kind of watch my fingers put the pieces where they go best. I can find it in D1 when I'm so focused on the tactical that the night slips by and dawn interrupts me. I can find it in some of the text adventures or their Tex Murphy sequels that I go to sleep thinking about the puzzles and wake up with the solution.

What kills immersion for me? First and foremost are bugs. I can handle about one or two lockups or crashes to the desktop before retiring a game until I hear about a patch. Second is "gotchas", places where one has to play over and over to learn the layout and then take that one path to glory. Mario Brothers never did appeal to me. Then there's the twitch factor. That mostly makes me dislike RTS and FPS. Fortunately RPG are still turn based or have decent halt setups.

But the thing I like best in RPGs is the role playing. And that is where *all* the CRPG mostly fail. The back story is too fixed, the situation too contrived to get the freedom that one needs to play an arbitrary role. When the story assumes you are male, human or at most half elf, no worse than true neutral, it becomes hard to role play an chaotic evil female dwarf. But, at least, the quests and the battles of some do tie up the mind for a while. And that is still fun.

--Pete

[Nystul]

It depends whether we are talking about real RPGs, or anything that passes for one. If we are talking about "serious RPGs", then you have already pretty much defined roleplaying as the most important aspect. But on the broader scale: Angband is classified as an RPG, has no story line, no character depth, no actual roleplaying, a basic plot consisting of one quest, and an interface that is ugly and not very intuitive. I own most of the games mentioned in this thread, and I'd take Angband over nearly all of them. Diablo, of course, is closer in nature to Angband than it is to Morrowind or Torment, and it's the game I've played the most.

So, I think LadyVashj has the right idea in saying that fun is the most important aspect. Ultimately that fun can come from any of the factors you mentioned, but putting them all together well is difficult. If you want to give characters the flexibility to determine their own fate and make their own choices that will change the entire plotline, that makes it more difficult to have balanced mechanics (since you don't know what the character will be doing in order to balance for it), and also makes it more difficult to have a detailed storyline (since the more "branches" you put in a plot, the less time you have to devote to each of them).

[Artega]

I think Torment did admirably well as far as roleplaying goes. You were stuck being a human male, but your alignment changed according to what you said and did, and you could change your class at will, provided you meet the requirements (for instance, Dak'kon wouldn't teach you HOW to be a Mage, but once you learned HOW to be one, you could use Dak'kon to switch betwixt Fighter and Mage as necessary.)

Still, outside of a MUD or something to that effect, I believe Fallout has the greatest roleplaying aspect I've seen in a game so far. You really can play the game just about any way you want, though it's easier being a good buy than a bad guy.

The last game I can REALLY remember being immersed in was Half-Life way back when. I remember I'd instinctively look around in real life instead of using my mouse at times. I can't wait to see how immersing DooM III is :)