As the topic reads; where are they? Even though I'm a fan of the genre, I have to say there is an overall lack of quality here, especially with regards to story.

For example, I recently finished playing Dragon Age: Origins, and while it's got good character development and interactions within the party along with fittingly epic/over-dramatic storytelling, the story is just... meh. A bunch of somethings hellbent on random destruction of pretty much everything just because? That's stupid.

This "some force of chaos likes to ruin everyone's day just because it's that much of an ass, it's your job to stop it" premise seems to be present in just about every RPG, along with the notion that the good guys are really, really nice, period. Morrowind did this a bit better; it still suffered from the "evil dude likes to be evil for no apparent reason" syndrome, but at least the "good guys" weren't as saintly as they tend to be.

Are there any RPGs at all that recognize the fact that conflict, desire to rule the world and similar things are very rarely accompanied by a desire for the destruction of everything, an army of obviously evil, creepy-looking minions and a ridiculously evil attitude, and that the "good" and "bad" guys nearly always have very similar motivations and modes of operation?

Maybe this one (if it'll be finished)
So this one
okay, it's a typical apocalyptic story. But anyway...

Have you played The Witcher? The story was mostly morally grey area. Ultimately you have to choose between being a racist or terrorist. Content wise it is one of the best games I have ever played. I grow really tired of the normal choose-your-dialogue options. Usually they go something like this:

You come across an old lady:

1. Help her across the street (she will give you 5 gold for this).
2. Punch her in the crotch and steal her purse (you get 5 gold for this).

Planescape: Torment just cannot go unmentioned in a thread about good RPGs. IMHO, it has one of the greatest stories ever told in a game. The game doesn't start with a big enemy you have to defeat, but rather it is your goal to find out who you are, and to find a way to die, given that it seems you are immortal. There is however a big bad guy to defeat, but his motivations have nothing to do with world domination. Can't tell more without spoiling, so I'll shut up now.

I would have to say that the Golden Sun series was easily the best group of games I have ever played. It had good graphics for its time, loads of content, challenging gameplay, and one of the best and most expansive stories I have seen.

Check out http://www.sleepisdeath.net/ ;)

I recently found and read through the instruction manual for Baldur's Gate. This sure brought back memories, and a longing to play it again. I searched for the discs for Baldur's Gate I/II, but I couldn't find them anywhere (I did find all of the floppy discs for Ultima Underworld II though).

I was actually shocked to see how uninspired the story in Dragon Age was. Probably one of the most thoroughly uninspired stories I've ever seen in an RPG--and RPGs rarely have inspired stories.

Planescape: Torment definitely has a good story, but unfortunately the game is just so incredibly outdated that it's somewhat of a mixed bag. There's a very good chance you'll have some hardware issues with it. Another issue with Torment is that it's not much of a game at all. It's just an interactive, illustrated novel--except the "illustrations" are unbelievably low-resolution and almost headache-inducing for me. I'm not sure I wouldn't just recommend picking up a fantasy novel. The Malazan Book of the Fallen is a good series that has the "feel" of an RPG world without the shallowness. Torment's definitely worth a try, though. If you can get over the outdated graphics and hardware issues and if you are okay with a game that is really not much of a game at all, then you'll be in for a phenomenal story, one of the best video gaming has ever seen.

In modern games, the only RPG I can think of with a decent story is The Witcher. I definitely recommend picking it up. Be sure to get the enhanced edition--it includes a ton of bug fixes, new dialogue, etc. I'd say Geralt is one of the most interesting protagonists of all the RPGs I've played, right up there with the protagonist of Torment. He's really neither a hero nor an anti-hero. A lot of people complained that you can have sex with women in the game and collect cards for doing so--one card for each woman slept with. I'll never understand this complaint: the system fleshes out Geralt's character--he's not a hero, and he's a bit of an unsympathetic womanizer. It also makes sense that he would be such--in becoming a witcher, he became sterile. Being literally unable to have kids, it is logical that as he grew up he would grow detached from the typical emotions accompanying sex.

Anyway, The Witcher is not a perfect game by any means, but the story is vastly better than that of Dragon Ages.

The Lord of the Rings Online has a pretty good story.

Quote: Are there any RPGs at all that recognize the fact that conflict, desire to rule the world and similar things are very rarely accompanied by a desire for the destruction of everything, an army of obviously evil, creepy-looking minions and a ridiculously evil attitude, and that the "good" and "bad" guys nearly always have very similar motivations and modes of operation?

Tales of the Abyss

The first third of the game can be painful to shoulder through* (although the fun battle system helps) as it exists for the sole purpose of setting up the story for the remaining two thirds which are basically exactly what you described: discovering that the 'good guys' and 'bad guys' are pursuing the same ends through strikingly similar means.

There are a ton of different factions with characters constantly jumping teams, making/breaking alliances, having relationships cross-faction, questioning their own actions, questioning their allies, and understanding the motivations of their enemies. The 'bad guys' all have honourable goals. The 'good guys' do some seriously questionable stuff. Everyone's pasts and motivations overlap in various ways. Conflict makes everyone suffer. There's no evil for the sake of evil.

The story evolves. Plans are made, plans are foiled, characters adapt. Conflicts are resolved only to spurn further conflicts. It sounds simple but how many games actually do this? They can be counted on one hand.

Just be warned: it is a JRPG. It is bright and colourful, the characters are pretty young (and the older ones look young), there's some poor localization and cheesy dialogue. But if you can handle that, there's very surprising maturity in the plot. It's the opposite of Dragon Age: Genuinely interesting and complex plot with weaker moment-to-moment acting.


*the main character is the most unlikable video game character ever created for the first third of the game. I almost stopped playing he was such a whiny jackass. It's not unintentional, though, as it does get pretty satisfying when they totally tear him apart for it all later on.