What makes an RPG good?

[Stonehead]

We can definitely say "these games are good for you" in some fashion, by figuring out the things you actually are looking for in a game, and then figuring out which games deliver those things.

But you can't say "games should be designed like so", except in the most generic of higher-order criteria like "don't have rules which fight against the objectives other rules aim for". And even that game might hit the sweet spot for a limited number of people.

This is a good point. I think art is a good analogy. Obviously, there isn't cut and dry criteria for good art. But, if you narrow down your scope, you can start to define some guidelines. Like, good realism, or good impressionism, they have general guidelines that you should follow. Similarly, you can't define the rules of a "good rpg", but you can get close to some guidelines if you narrow it down to a good "rules-lite political intrigue game", or a good "tactical dungeon crawling game"

Basically. Or you allow the concept of "a good game but not a good game for me." I can recognize that D&D 3 does a lot of things well - they're just things I don't want. I don't think it's a bad game, but I do think it doesn't fit my needs well at all.

Honestly, I think this is the key. Like, I'm not a fan of games that make choices for my characters, but I can still kind of tell the difference between when it helps characterization and when it's just obtrusive. Or like, I don't like the resource system in Fate, but I get that there are people who just don't care about that.