Annoying things that rpg's do:

fire7side

These are just some things that bug me about them personally.

Too many start out with the boy farmer who fulfills prophecy or the guy with amnesia, or the guy that's looking for his father. They give you way too many choices. I don't care what color his eyebrows are. They start the character out too weak. He can only kill crickets or whatever. They give you a million things you absolutely don't need or want. They have ridiculous go-for missions, like find a teddy bear, that have nothing to do with the nearly non-existent plot. The fights last forever because of all the spell effects. You have to traipse around for miles to find something watching this compass needle.

I'll be the first to admit I don't play very many so I'm probably being unfair.

cybereality

That list is a lot of what people like about RPGs. You want to start as a nobody and work yourself up to a hero. You want to customize the character, that is part of the "role playing" aspect (going back to pen and paper games). And I personally like finding cats or silly side missions. But everyone likes different games, it may be that RPGs aren't your style.

Megalomaniak

@fire7side said: Too many start out with the boy farmer who fulfills prophecy or the guy with amnesia, or the guy that's looking for his father.

The hero's journey.

Megalomaniak

That's because structurally there's actually very few stories that can be told.

Megalomaniak

Well it's not that you can't tell a fresh new story, just that in terms of structure it will likely not vary much from most stories out there, since they will all follow the overall structure of acquire a goal - meet resistance to achieving the goal - overcome the challenges and complete the goal. A very basic structure that pretty much every game will have.

fire7side

A hero's journey is just one type of story. It's been terribly over-used. It just works well for an rpg. It is a limited platform for story telling because you have to have fights along a time line.
But yeah, most people like them for the reason I don't like them. I like a tighter story. I like a character with a back story that needs to overcome some personality deficits and does it along the way through experiences that make him realize he needs to change. I like meaningful tasks that accomplish what needs to be done and help move the story along. I don't want a sandbox. I want to discover something that has been laid down and hidden in things I have to find. Some of the Japanese rpg's, like FF told pretty good stories and went beyond the somewhat sloppiness of western rpg stories. You can steer a story in an rpg. Of course, I only played FF7 and it had long spells to wait out. I would have never made it to the end, but my nephew liked it and played most of the fights. I thought it was a bit silly watching a 5 minute spell or whatever, or it felt like 5 mins anyway. The story was pretty good, though. The good part for me is if I ever write something like that as an indie, it would have to be condensed so I don't have to worry about it. As far as finding a Teddy bear, if it's really a part of the story, it's fine. If it's a tagged on go-for, it's annoying for me.

Megalomaniak

Well, I can agree that the hero's journey is a bit over used perhaps, but for a traditional RPG at least, it really is the best fit. I think either linear or branching narrative action games might be more your fit then. Especially what with plenty of action games having incorporated some small RPG mechanics into themselves too.

An interesting note here though: In a build your own party of companions type of RPG there is the capacity to have both a hero's journey for the MC while each of the recruitable companions can have their own story crafted that can follow some variation of one of the 7 archetypical stories:

Rags to riches: In a rags-to-riches story, a poor and derelict main character gains something they lack (money, power, love) loses it, and then wins it back again by the end of the story. This plot archetype is popular in fairy tales like Cinderella as well as various Disney animated films like Aladdin and Ratatouille. The rags-to-riches tale is effectively an underdog story, wherein a simple, relatable character receives newly begotten privilege (whether via luck, conquest, or a magical trickster like a fairy godmother) and must balance the duties that come along with that privilege.
The quest: In a quest archetype, the main character must reach a certain location, attain a certain object, or fulfill a certain objective while conquering many obstacles along the way. The Odyssey is a classic quest story. So, too, is J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Watership Down, the films Finding Nemo and The Wizard of Oz, and episodes of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.
Rebirth: The rebirth story archetype has its roots in religion—think of the biblical resurrection of Jesus—but in common practice, it may simply involve a character changing their ways and becoming a better person, resulting in a happy ending. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is a classic rebirth story, as Ebenezer Scrooge sees the error of his ways and transforms. Other examples include The Secret Garden, Beauty and the Beast, and the film Groundhog Day.
Overcoming the monster: This story archetype, rooted in ancient classics like Perseus, Beowulf and the biblical David and Goliath, involves a hero who must conquer some sort of evil force—typically physical but sometimes metaphysical. Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula qualifies as an “overcoming the monster” story. Such stories often intertwine with what theorist Joseph Campbell referred to as “the hero’s journey,” wherein an inciting incident presents a call to action for the story’s main character, who will then—via the story’s rising action and climax—rise to the role of a hero. (Note that Campbell himself was extrapolating from the theories of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung.) The original Star Wars trilogy fits this archetype, as do standalone James Bond and Terminator films.
Comedy: The notion of comedy is intrinsic to humans as a species, and written examples trace back to the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. Comedic plot lines subvert expectations and blend the familiar with the absurd to keep audiences laughing and on their toes. William Shakespeare mastered classical comedy, with famous jester characters like Sir John Falstaff and ribald plots like that of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Comedy remains immensely popular in contemporary TV and film, where main characters like Veep’s Selina Meyer and sidekicks like The Office’s Dwight Schrute exemplify comedic archetypes.
Tragedy: Tragedy is comedy’s mirror image. In a tragedy, a protagonist is undone by a critical character flaw or by the cruelty of fate. William Shakespeare mastered tragedy just as thoroughly as he did comedy, and his tragic masterpieces like Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Romeo and Juliet remain in heavy rotation in today’s playhouses. Leo Tolstoy’s masterwork Anna Karenina contains elements of both tragedy and rebirth, while twentieth-century films like Nicholas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now combine tragedy with horror to conjure almost nihilistic endings.
Voyage and return: A voyage and return story sends a protagonist to a strange land, from which they will return armed with wisdom and life experience. J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit is a voyage and return story. Alice in Wonderland and The Chronicles of Narnia feature child protagonists who return from journeys with newfound wisdom. (note that this one itself is essentially a classic hero's journey)

Source: https://www.masterclass.com/articles/a-guide-to-story-archetypes

fire7side

@Megalomaniak All those things work fine, but if you throw too many of them into one game, it feels like story soup. It takes time to fill out a character and make you want to keep them alive. Mainly with rpg's though, it feels like not enough to me. I start getting tired of killing and trading and the story hasn't grabbed me enough to keep going on. It's hard to do and you can't please everyone.

Dschoonmaker

@fire7side said: They give you way too many choices. I don't care what color his eyebrows are.

This is a big one. The main character shouldn't start as a blank slate, then he has no definite personality, for one player he's a pacifist and another he's a psychopath . He will be remembered as a faceless hero. I think there should be more RPGs with a linear story, it's still a good story, you just don't get to ruin the main character through his choices. And a lot of times what you choose doesn't even matter, they just give you choices for the sake of choices. I'm not opposed to any choices, but I think developers often go too far.

@jbrooks79 said: 2. Killing enemies makes you better, smarter, stronger . . The whole experience point system is flawed, you get points for killing everything . .

I've always hated this, it encourages players not to do anything good, but to become senseless murderers (one of many reasons I don't use D&D). Players could be rewarded for skill, or good choices they make instead. Saving a village from a dragon gains you exp, not attacking a camp of goblins for no good reason.

Probably the best RPGs could be made by developers who's goal is to make a great game, not by developers who just want to make money. I think a lot of Godot developers are like this, they might have great potential, although they usually just make little pixel art games.

fire7side

@Dschoonmaker said: This is a big one. The main character shouldn't start as a blank slate, then he has no definite personality, for one player he's a pacifist and another he's a psychopath . He will be remembered as a faceless hero. I think there should be more RPGs with a linear story, it's still a good story, you just don't get to ruin the main character through his choices. And a lot of times what you choose doesn't even matter, they just give you choices for the sake of choices. I'm not opposed to any choices, but I think developers often go too far.

I've always hated this, it encourages players not to do anything good, but to become senseless murderers (one of many reasons I don't use D&D). Players could be rewarded for skill, or good choices they make instead. Saving a village from a dragon gains you exp, not attacking a camp of goblins for no good reason.

I agree. I hate the blank slate type rpg the worst. It seems like such a lost opportunity to give a good narrative.

I look at violence as the last choice for a character if he is any kind of human being, and it's a missed opportunity. What about trading somehow to get what you need. What about stealth. Those are all things that add to the game play. It should detract from the player in some way to kill someone for no reason. Maybe not obvious, but people don't want to deal with you anymore. You get in more impossible situations because they gang up on you.

Dschoonmaker

Yeah, the hero is just going to have to be violent, but he doesn't have to like it, he can look for other ways of achieving his goals.

As you said, there are other legitimate ways of creating good gameplay(and I hate it when people make protagonists that are morally questionable/bad). However, in video games, fighting is usually a major part of the game. I've rarely played a game I liked that didn't have at least some combat in it.

And the fighting itself doesn't have to be too violent, what do blood and gore actually add to the game?

And about enemies ganging up on you, I think it would be better if more games had a few challenging enemies, not just loads of weak ones like in mario(At least in RPGs, mario can get away with it because it's a different type of game). Imagine if the common enemy was a little closer to a boss fight, instead of 20 goblins, maybe 2 skilled wizards.