Most of the role-playing games I've talked about on this site have been narrative-driven, linear affairs. There's nothing wrong with this, and I've mentioned before that the appeal of these kinds of games is inheriting a role- being an active participant in a story. If this is the reason you play these kinds of games, you have an incentive for engaging in combat on a regular basis- you need to be strong enough to take on the next foe, so that you can progress the story, etc etc. The most frequent method of incentivizing a player is by crafting engaging narratives and allowing them to inherit a crucial role in the narrative. This leads a player to want to discover more from a narrative perspective, rather than through compelling gameplay. This is not to say that this model cannot have compelling gameplay- it largely depends on the sorts of organic progression the developers place in their way, as well as combat motifs and core mechanics. However, this can often present a...