Craft a storyline better than your typical mobile game, taking 3 whole seconds

I just thought I'd add that you probably haven't done your research very well. Yes there are a lot of crappy games on iOS but that isn't to say that RPG fans aren't well catered for on the platform.
If you are aiming your game at genuine RPG fans then you would be up a giants Baldours Gate 1 + 2, Iceland Dale, Legend of Grimrock, The Bards Tale, Several Final Fantasy games, The Avalon games from Spiderwick software, Coldfire Keep, Banner Saga and tons of others.

So if somebody really wants a "storyline better than your typical mobile game" then it is already available for them so your unique selling point is already gone.

But I hate paying for games on my tablet - mostly because I have no guarantee of refund if the game doesn't run well

I don't know which platform you are on but its very easy to get a refund from Apple.

I just thought I'd add that you probably haven't done your research very well. Yes there are a lot of crappy games on iOS but that isn't to say that RPG fans aren't well catered for on the platform.
If you are aiming your game at genuine RPG fans then you would be up a giants Baldours Gate 1 + 2, Iceland Dale, Legend of Grimrock, The Bards Tale, Several Final Fantasy games, The Avalon games from Spiderwick software, Coldfire Keep, Banner Saga and tons of others.

A very important point!

Not only are there actually pretty decent original RPGs being made for the mobile App Stores (not all games released for mobile are shovelware), but a LOT of re-releases are finding their way to the mobile App stores as of lately.

And no matter what you think of the original graphics of the time, or the 8bit retro style, these games often get refreshed graphics, and in some cases these are actually pretty good!

I own pretty much all the old Final Fantasys (up to FF8 where Square lost me as a customer) on the original consoles, but if I had a good device with iOS or Android that would allow me to use a controller and hook it up to the TV I would probably splash out the 10-20 bucks to play a suped up version of FF6 (I know my mobile phone probably could do that if I would splash out for a bluetooth controller and would do some additional work, but this is already a little bit too much work... ESPECIALLY when I am not sure that the dev didn't gimp the RPG by making it controllable only with touch controls ).

Now, not only are these games actually looking pretty good even by modern 2D mobile game standarts thanks to the graphical rehaul, and have a pretty big fanbase (which happens to be older, thus is the fanbase that actually has money to spare), they have also quite good storys.

Trying to outdo the Story of FF6 will be a tough call for example. I guess the same could be said about Baldurs Gate.

Will certainly take more than 3 seconds.

Is the average quality of RPG storys on mobile way lower than that? Of course. But when only the top 10-30 RPGs get any meaningful downloads, you can discard the others as benchmarks. You will have to compete with the big ones, not the shovelware that nobody looks at.

6. Probably make a thousand dollars or more, since the premade assets would be up-to-snuff quality, and since you're really not competing with much, even among other people who used RPG Maker

So yes, it probably is doable but it does not make sense financially (not for 1,000 dollars).

6. Probably make a thousand dollars or more, since the premade assets would be up-to-snuff quality, and since you're really not competing with much, even among other people who used RPG Maker

Assuming everything you wrote works, a thousand dollars can be made much easier and faster doing any random job You highly underestimate the effort and time needed to write and RPG story (even if you have assets and everything).

So yes, it probably is doable but it does not make sense financially (not for 1,000 dollars).

Sums add up. To earn the equivalent in the UK working minimum wage would take just over 13 days (working standard 8 hour days).

6. Probably make a thousand dollars or more, since the premade assets would be up-to-snuff quality, and since you're really not competing with much, even among other people who used RPG Maker

Assuming everything you wrote works, a thousand dollars can be made much easier and faster doing any random job You highly underestimate the effort and time needed to write and RPG story (even if you have assets and everything).

So yes, it probably is doable but it does not make sense financially (not for 1,000 dollars).

Spot on.

Why work way below minimum wage to get some thousand dollars for something that will, in the end, cost you at least a month of total time (submitzing to the app stores, marketing, support and all that needs to be factored in even if you only spend a single day throwing together your shovelware RPG there), when you could just you know, get any plain old job, most probably get more than minimum wages, with less risk, less overtime involved, and probably just as much or even less "sucking the sould out of you"... at least its a job, and you are not the guy responsible for the sorry state of things, yadda yadda.

With the RPG Plans of the TO, it sounds like he intends to do a deliberately sloppy job on the game just to get money for the least amount of work. That is not going to be "fun" for most people... might as well flip some burgers in Burger King, maybe you at least get free burgers in the deal. And you are guaranteed minimum wage at the end of the month, whereas with the game you will probably just be getting nothing.

But I hate paying for games on my tablet - mostly because I have no guarantee of refund if the game doesn't run well

I don't know which platform you are on but its very easy to get a refund from Apple.

Android. Google's policy is within two hours of purchase, which is great if you tend to only download and try one game at a time, but I tend to try games in batches based on my mood, so it's quite common for me to spend 2 hours trying a dozen crappy games before I find one that's passable. After 2 hours, it is the developer's call, which sucks because I might have only played their game for 15 minutes before making up my mind, but it was more than 2 hours after purchase. I like games that release demo versions for this reason, about half the paid games on my tablet were bought after trying a demo (the rest are either like $.99 games, or ports of old (S)NES games).

Well, I am too RPG-exempt (played none of the titles above) to comment on RPGs but just believe that if you want to reach mobile audience, better consider something like Stardew Valley. Mobile gaming isn't the best place for niche or gamer games where you will have to fight for already tiny slice.

I have been writing short stories for some ten years, and I still can't write a decent one in 3 seconds, figuratively speaking or not. In fact, I have yet to finish one...

Okay, so I am between the skill level of making the next 3D game I envision, which will probably turn out bad due to it being too much for one person like myself, and mastering the RPG Maker program, actually maybe producing a good game with it. My question is, what should I go for?

If you're at that skill level, then you'd probably do better with programming. RPG Maker takes a lot of time to get stuff done too, and it imposes many limitations that you'll likely want to program your way around anyway. To me one of the biggest repellent aspects of RPG Maker games (and the reason why I don't find them visually appealing since VX came around) is the square unnatural looking tiles (you can literally tell which games are made with RPGM). Tiles used to be made to not look like tiles, i don't know what went through their minds... RPG Maker kinda died with XP for me. Still, in terms of playing the games, well, I only ever found less than a handful of interesting ones, so... as far as I'm concerned you're chances aren't that great. I don't even play games on a phone anyway, and I have a hard time understanding people who do.

Either way, I do see what you're saying. You could very well throw out some half assed game and see what happened. You could potentially bombard sites with Happy Flocks... and see if any bird would poop some money your way. If your game costs 5 and you sell 200, you got yourself 1000. Doesn't sound that hard, does it? I think you need to get lucky though. Your game will still take some time and effort to make, and there's a good chance it gets stifled in the noisy market. If you're just thinking about the money, you might go broke.

I've never released a game, but I would assume it's like diving into a pool to impress a girl: if you're greedy and don't care to check what you're doing, the pool might be empty.

It's a good question but hard to answer . This days if you are 'Creative' then its a good carrier option this days

6: this does not require a great story, game, programming skills, or any of that kind. It requires marketing skills and a good bit of luck for getting picked up. I created a pretty decent Brick Breaker that stood out from 99% of the brick breakers. It was not as great as the absolute best but it worked, had cool effects, some new gameplay elements, etc. I figured I would get at least a couple thousand download in a view months for a free game. However, it has been over half a year since release and I have yet to hit the 200 install mark. I have added it on all free PR and press release sites, twittered the first months a lot about it, still mention it now and then when appropriate and held about 20 game give aways to promote it.

Making a good game is hard enough since you need all those different skills for it. Making money on a game requires a whole new skill set on it's own like monetization and marketing. If you want to make games to fill your pockets then attach yourself to a anvil and get down on earth. You should make games because you love doing so, and if you succeed in making a genuine good game you might get lucky and earn a bit more then just beer money. I think it's more likely you hit the 7 figure jackpot in Vegas then a RPG maker game to go viral.