A GAME OR A MOVIE?

So you're working on an RPG. The first question you should ask yourself is why? Specifically, do you have an engaging story that you want to tell? Or maybe you've come up with an interesting new battle system that you want people to enjoy, or you simply want to make an old-school RPG. Or perhaps both.

If the answer is storytelling, you should consider removing all of the gameplay from your game. Every last bit. No battles, no monsters, no items. Is there really any reason to put them in? Do they really add anything but gameplay time? Try this: instead of a game, make a movie. Just a group of consecutive cutscenes strung together for the player to watch and hear your tale. Or if that's too much, try the interactive movie approach. Allow your player character to walk around, talk to people, and inspect things, just don't put any battles in.

What if there's fighting in your story? That's not a difficult point, just restrict all fighting to cutscenes. Quite simply, cutscenes will look cooler than regular battles anyway. You can have characters doing environment-related actions that couldn't possibly happen in a scripted battle, such as ripping things off the walls or dodging through the enemy's formidable guard.

If it's gameplay you're focusing on, then you'll want to try to limit the story. Keep it small, and not necessarily epic. Don't let the story get in the way of your gameplay. For example, if your story calls for the players to be in a forest, but you're not ready to introduce a completely new set of enemies to the player, and want to introduce them gradually, then you might want to add a transitionary segment where the new enemies are introduced one at a time. Don't let the drive for epicness cause you to end up overstepping your bounds. Keep it controlled, and don't add a single area, enemy, or item that doesn't add to the gameplay.

If you have both story and gameplay you want to implement, then the pressure is on you to create adequate balance between each. If you focus too much on the story, the players may find the gameplay to be an annoying obstacle that they just need to bash past to get to the next part. If you focus on the gameplay, people might find themselves lost and have no idea who the characters are or what's happening in the main story. You want players to be addicted enough to your story that they are dying to find out what happens next, yet addicted enough to your gameplay that they're willing to explore and fight first.

Cookie-cutter maze dungeons with random encounters and minimal puzzles are a thing of the past. Don't put them into your game unless you have a very good reason to do so. No gameplay is better than bad gameplay; make a movie, not a game.

Everyone loves stories, but unless you have a very good one planned out ahead of time, you might want to stick to a smaller-scale story with a few plot points and maybe one major twist. Make sure the player understands everything that you want them to understand, and make sure that they don't feel like they missed something a few hours back and are clueless now because of it.

Game design isn't really about making games for people to play. It's about showing people what you're good at, getting them to love your work, and ultimately gaining their respect and fandom. You don't have to add things into your game just to please the crowd. Stick to what you do best, because if you try to do anything else, the whole game will suffer, and that includes the parts you do well.