Most Important Part of a RPG

[Gomez]

What is the most important part of a Role-Playing Game? Is it the setting? The system for resolving actions? Character generation? Ease of use by the GM? Speed of play? Magic?.....

What is your opinion?

 

[sniffles]

I'd say the system for resolving action. Nothing is more frustrating to me than not being able to figure out how to resolve a particular action.

 

[reveal]

It may sound corn, but to me the most important aspect is it's broad-appeal entertainment value. Some RPGs are convuluted and some players love it because of that. Some RPGs are light in the rules and some players hate that. If an RPG can appeal to a majority of the players out there, that makes it great.

 

[Crothian]

THe most important part of an RPG is the people playing the game.

 

[TheGM]

THe most important part of an RPG is the people playing the game.

Ding ding ding!! And the winner is.... Crothian!

If you meant other than the people playing the game, then I'd have to say the core combat/action rules. They influence the way that people play the game. They cen enable Timmy the Power Gamer, or they can provide a basis for sound playing. They can fire the imagination or they can fire the calculator. They change the feel, even with the same players at the table.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

A tough question to answer. Everything you listed is important. But if I had to pick one thing upon which my enjoyment of an RPG hinges, it would be the action-resolution system, including combat. The rules which allow PCs to do stuff.

Even the Storyteller system, an ostensibly RP-intensive game, had a good action-resolution system (even if it did involve rolling giant masses of dice).

And why am I reminded of the infamous question, "What is best in life?"

 

[Hjorimir]

A fine, fine balance between playability and realism. Things should be easy to adjudicate quickly while at the same time feeling somewhat realistic in its approach.

Oh, and you need some player characters to kill.

 

[Warehouse23]

Loot. Call me cold and calculating, but it's all about loot, the search for loot, and the tantilizing grasping for loot that inevitably slips through your fingers. Loot is what keeps people coming back for more. The cooler the loot, or the harder to get, the better.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Clarity
Organization
Presentation
Ease of Use
Support

 

[Gomez]

What really attracts me to a RPG is the player characters. What options you have. What cool abilities can you get. A cool game setting with a great game engine but with boring character types just doesn't do it for me.