Which is better plot driven or character driven in a long rpg?

Both aspects should inform and bolster one another. A strong character-driven story feels meandering and aimless without a strong storyline; a strong storyline feels empty and soulless without strong characters.

I personally feel a game can succeed with a good story without good characters, but now that I'm sitting here trying to think of examples, I can't honestly think of an example of a game with a good story alone without any strong characters.

You could perhaps argue Dark Souls has a strong storyline without much character development, and certainly no character development within the player party, but even then the storyline is so vague that I don't know if it can count.

I say characters, generally i find plots to be not that interesting, it's just a setup for the characters to do things.

I mean both is the correct answer because obviously a Great story is a culmination of many factors.

That being said if I can't have everything in a story it's really hard for me to care about what's happening without a strong cast. I've played a lot of games where the overarching narrative is mediocre but ends up working because the people in it are strong enough to make it seem better than it is.

The opposite is...rare for me.

I feel like this is a clear cut case of "context is everything." I do not want a plot/narrative-focused writer to put a square peg in a round hole by forcing them to write a character-driven story, and vice versa.

Neither is objectively better because people subjectively prefer different things. I'll take an interesting story over great characters any day.

yeah, this is an interesting one as i find it pretty revealing about personal preferences and taste (goes without saying, everyone's mileage will vary on plot v. character). and it's not like it's a binary; you can utilize varying degrees of both.

HOWEVER-

for me at this point in my life- the answer is: character, by several orders of magnitude.

it's not even close.

i'd take a simple love story with overly complex characters over a brainbender of a plot with lazy archetypes every single time.

reason being- artfully written characters appeal to my sympathetic/empathetic side, and find ways to surprise and engage me on an emotional level that i personally find very powerful. if your work isn't going to emotionally move me, i'm going to forget it pretty quickly. i find characters the primary conduit for that.

whereas with plot...call me jaded, but i find the overwhelming majority of plots- particularly in pop fiction (which i'd wager is 95% of the fiction the video gaming crowd consumes)- are very trite. movies, tv, comics, games- the plots often reduce to simple, common elements that ultimately aren't the reason i'm there (which- for the record, is absolutely fine- some of the best overarching stories are supported by very basic plots).

perhaps relatedly- i've also never cared about spoilers one iota. context is everything for me- so plot details without understanding the character motivations and/or reactions is basically empty information to me.

but as a few others have already indicated- ideally good writing has a plot that supports character development, and vice versa. i'm just waaay more forgiving of cliche plots with great characters than the inverse, though.

I'm actually leaning on "both" for the most part of the question, but I'd say I'm a bit more biased towards interesting characters and development whether it's in games or other media. 😁

So if I had to really really pick, I'd have to say characters. But hey, best of both worlds is always better. 😉

Both. There are endless RPG's to play these days, so if I play one I do some research ahead of time to make sure it's a good story with cool people (unless the gameplay is good enough to make up for one of them).

Probably characters.

There are so many RPG plots that boil down to 'there's a bad guy using an ancient evil power to potentially destroy the world, now you plucky underdog have to assemble a team to save the world'. But you ploink some interesting characters in that storyline and make me care about their stories and relationships and i straight up don't mind that the overall plot is as standard as they come.