DO RPGS NEED A STORY?

An RPG without a story is like a platforming game without enemies; there's no dynamic conflict otherwise! If you want to go from place to place doing the same thing over and over again with no other reason than "just because it's there", there are literally thousands of games out there that fill that criteria. I play RPGs not only for the strategic aspect of it, but for a rich, thought-provoking story. If you can't promise me that then there's no way in hell I'm going to spend 20+ hours grinding to the final boss.

Better yet, it'd be like if a teacher handed you a blank piece of paper and said "just draw whatever". I know I'm going to be turning in this "assignment" at the end of class, so clearly you have an objective in mind. I mean, thanks for the near-boundless agency, but why are you leaving it completely up to me? Why would I waste this blank paper, this wondrous portal of possibility, or my time with this paper if I'm not meant to focus on at least some sort of specific subject? It's the same with RPGs that take the silent protagonist, fill-in-your-own-adventure approach; they work as games, but there's no necessity for them to be role-playing games.

You spent the time creating this world, now give it some definition. Just 'cuz.

Seriously, consider if Romeo & Juliet was a sandbox...

author=Rod_Wadd
A lot of the games on this site, I think, overdo it with exposition in the beginning. I too want to control my character as soon as possible. I think a lot of makers think that a player needs to be told what's going on in their world in order to be invested in the game, but I feel the opposite. I want to be in your world and find out why I should care about it through playing it.

I definitely don't want to be thrust into gameplay immediately without any knowledge of why I should care what I'm doing. But a big infodump in the beginning is a flaw in most stories, not just video games. What you want to get right at the beginning isn't the audience's understanding, but their attention. The opening should contain some kind of hook, preferably within the first thirty seconds, which lets the audience know why they should care about what's in front of them.

The hook might be something which provides some information about the story, but it doesn't have to be. It might be something like "Look at this huge, awesome city! Don't you want to take a closer look at it?" or "Here is some extremely witty and engaging dialogue, so you know that listening to what the characters say to each other is worth sticking around for."

The Logomancer sets a great example for opening hooks. Within the first thirty seconds, the player will:

Encounter a weird, dreamlike landscape which doesn't look like anything from our own world.

Organically learn a couple interesting facts about the game's setting. People in this world routinely enter this strange environment, called the Mindscape, whenever they fall asleep, and the content of the Mindscape differs depending on one's physical location in the real world.

Encounter a mysterious figure who, when asked for his name, attests that his name has been "taken" from him.

And of course, this is set to some very good atmospheric music to enhance the mood. Within the first minute, the player already knows a lot about the tone of the whole game, but also has a sense of how much they don't know about the overarching plot, and a desire to find out.

If you feel like you need to lay some kind of basic groundwork to get the player to understand what's going on before you hit them with the "good parts," that's always a sign that you ought to stop and reconsider. You're already automatically invested in your own work, the player isn't.

I think that rpgs are called like that because they spend a good amount of time focusing in the story and characters. Of course tecnology, gameplay and aesthetics play a important role in the game themselves but it wasn't a trend in old games, like zelda or mario so it was rewarded with a "genre name".

If you remove story don't you end up with a game like chess?.
If you remove gameplay entirely or almost entirely, dont you end with a visual novel?

So in my opinion, rpgs are rpg for spending a great amount of time focusing/exploring the story/characters, rather than having or not having them.

Lockez it's true that i got the name genre wrong, thanks for clarifing it out. But the question wasn't about "do games need a story?".
It was about rpgs, so i can't agree with the second. As a player i can't play a rpg without any trace of a interesting story. That's the experience that i look in it.

One thing I don't think anyone's mentioned yet is the stories that are created through gameplay. One of my favourite RPGs of the last couple of years is the strategy RPG Crusader Kings 2 and that game doesn't really have a written plot but in playing the game stories unfold all around you, enabled by the systems in-game.

Many games with procedurally generated content tend to create stories like this. The player puts significance in randomly finding an awesome piece of loot early in the game that essentially defines his/her entire journey onward. Thus creating the thing that tabletop rpg players have dreaded for years. The "gaming story".

author=ShortStar
Notice how the guy with the controller doesn't care about dialog. The guy without a controller should have his hands on an open book. Your motivation should be 'this game is fun and this is my entertainment.' While reading may be fun to a lot of people, there are different mediums that focus on reading. Like books. All without that pesky combat getting in the way.

Or, better yet, he should be playing the game himself. Games can tell stories in fascinating ways that differ wildly from the experience that you'll get from literature.

I can't see how a guy interested in the story element of a rpg should be reading books instead. Rpgs, and games in general, are a interactive medium that imply more than reading text.
Game mechanics, music, sound effects and aesthetics for example can tell a story without using a single word.
As mentioned before a game without a scripted story, can still have one born from gameplay (like a match in sports or a boss battle with bad luck of randomness can become a story worth telling your friends).

author=ShortStar
Notice how the guy with the controller doesn't care about dialog. The guy without a controller should have his hands on an open book. Your motivation should be 'this game is fun and this is my entertainment.' While reading may be fun to a lot of people, there are different mediums that focus on reading. Like books. All without that pesky combat getting in the way.

If you want to minimize your game's story, that's fine, but storytelling is a part of the human experience that permeates all media, and it goes back way before books, even.

Of course role-playing games need a story. Anything else is just a dressed-up puzzle with some algebraic back-n-forth. Hell, modern video game RPGs are just that when compared to the original dice throwing role-playing games, which couldn't even exist without their stories and interpersonal interaction.

Players who are running out of patience as they become older just need better stories. A story about 13-year-old Mickey who inherits the Destiny Sword and Saves The World won't have credence forever. That holy grail may be harder to come by, as younger audiences seem to be the chosen target demographic for most games. But that story that will interest grizzled RPG veterans is still out there, somewhere, waiting to be found... or made.

Games can be tacked on in any manner of ways, but without a story, there's no grace... it's just a lab rat plugging a skinner bar for a food pellet.