While the term "role-playing game" may have once meant something relatively specific, the genre now includes a wide plethora of titles with incredibly diverse gameplay mechanics. At their core, though, RPGs always do a few of the same things. They provide players with deep, complex worlds rife with possibilities and numerous paths to be discovered, and they let players decide what they'd like to make of the options at hand.
Unfortunately, most people who play role-playing games have developed bad habits that hold their experiences back from what they could otherwise be. Whether these habits affect combat, basic gameplay, or character creation, these bad habits are ones that need to be broken.
Players Should Stop Skipping Dialogue
It's understandable that RPG players sometimes get so caught up in high-quality gameplay that they don't want to sit through long cut scenes or read long conversations, but skipping through dialogue is a bad habit that needs to be broken.
RPGs like Red Dead Redemption have great cutscenes and dialogue that help create deep worlds and nuanced characterization. Skipping these scenes and conversations robs the games of one of their biggest selling points. This is often especially true for side missions and seemingly insignificant NPS, as they sometimes contain surprisingly memorable moments.
Players Should Do Less Fast Traveling
When gamers play RPGs with large, sprawling maps, many form the bad habit of always fast traveling where they need to go. Sometimes this may be practical or necessary, but plenty of great open-world RPGs are meant to be explored.
Games like Skyrim hide unique secret locales, characters, and quests in the spaces between map marks that players will never see if they refuse to take the longer routes off of beaten paths. Fast traveling shouldn't be avoided entirely, but it needs to stop being treated like the only way to travel.
Players Should To Role-Play
The term "role-playing" may get slapped onto just about anything with skill points these days, but true RPGs offer players plenty of opportunities to create unique and exciting characters with depth and complexity. However, too many players have the bad habit of playing to win instead of actually role-playing.
Players shouldn't be afraid to experiment with flaws and non-essential activities in the name of a more memorable experience. It's also sometimes worth picking the "wrong" dialogue choice in the spirit of sticking to your character's history and personality.
Players Shouldn't Make The Same Character Every Playthrough
By their nature, RPGs often boast fantastic replayability. That being said, too many players fall back to the same playstyle or character archetype. It's become a bit of a meme, but, despite Skyrim having several powerful weapons, many players do indeed always build a stealth archer.
There's nothing wrong with playing characters that fit a gamer's style, but everyone should at least experiment with characters that they wouldn't usually go for first. The worst-case scenario is that they can start over if they don't like it, but they may discover that they enjoy gameplay they never thought they would.
Players Shouldn't Save Too Often
Saving is obviously a core part of most games, and failing to do it can frustratingly result in players having to re-play through things that they've already done. However, saving too often is also a bad habit that can take away from what makes many RPGs great. Many role-playing games immerse players into their worlds by giving choices meaningful consequences.
Saving before decision points takes the challenge, excitement, and realism out of intended or unintended results down the line. Pitfalls and difficulties aren't bad, and players should consider living with what they decide in their actions and speech.
Player's Shouldn't Only Play The Main Quest
With several of the best recent RPGs being massive epics with dozens (or hundreds) of hours of content, it's understandable that some players don't think they have the time to dig deep into sidequests. Unfortunately, this is a bad habit that needs to be shaken.
Great RPGs like The Witcher 3 have amazing sidequests that sometimes rival the scope and quality of the main storyline. Even if players don't have time to get to every single mission in a game, it's worth at least exploring what some potential quest lines have to offer.
Players Shouldn't Min/Max Their Builds
In any game with multiple ways to build a character, there are always going to be "best" builds that the community discovers and promotes. While it makes sense that players want to make characters built for success, choosing skills, weapons, skills, or upgrades that other people have decided are best takes away the sense of ownership and discovery that makes role-playing games great.
Since RPGs focus on single-player campaigns instead of competitive multiplayer, there's no need to make completely perfect, streamlined builds. Instead, it can be fun to create characters that follow a theme or stay honest to their characterization and personality.
Players Need To Stop Hoarding Resources
Inventory management is an essential part of many role-playing games, and most powerful potions or other consumable resources are intentionally limited so that players can't wholly rely on them. That being said, many players have the bad habit of hoarding their consumables so stringently that they don't actually use them when they need them.
Understandably, people don't want to waste valuable resources when they aren't necessary, but items are meant to be used, and nobody should be afraid to use the tools at their disposal when they're faced with a difficult situation.
Players Need To Stop Playing Games They Don't Like
Whether it be out of a sense of duty, curiosity, or the intrigue of the sunken cost fallacy, players too often feel like they need to finish every game that they start. This philosophy is more amenable with shorter titles, but the sprawling nature of many RPGs means that players need to be okay walking away from a game that they don't love playing anymore. With hundreds of fantastic games released every year, there will always be another, RPG or otherwise, for players to move on to.
Players Should Stop Making Characters Too Like Themselves
Deep character creation options in video games are great things, and it's a clear positive that more people than ever can create RPG characters that reflect their looks, beliefs, attitudes, or backgrounds. However, too many players refuse to create characters that don't reflect themselves.
It can be fun to play someone that's nice, meaner, tougher, or more driven than oneself, and there are generally several interesting (if not very relatable) backgrounds and drives available to select in character creation. More players should think about diversifying what they consider when piecing together the numerous parts of an RPG character.