The RPG genre is one of the most popular in gaming, but it's also one of the most broadly defined. As long as you're playing as a character in a huge world full of things and inhabitants to interact with, you're role-playing.
The great thing about having such a loose definition means that developers can twist it in strange and unexpected ways to create completely different experiences within the same genre. As a result, whenever you get your hands on a new RPG title, there are actions that come as second nature in order to find out how its world works.
8 Check The Menus
An important yet overlooked aspect of a game's functionality is its UI. How you navigate the technical side of things can vastly improve or worsen your experience. RPGs are notorious for having UIs that can be overly complex or so unclear that you forget where everything is half the time.
So, a good way to get your bearing is to press all the usual UI-associated buttons to see what happens. You need to find the difference between the game menus and the in-game menus and hope that they're easier to understand than they are to find.
7 Try To Start Fights
RPGs offer huge expansive worlds and with that comes the expectation of freedom. Whether you're playing a custom character or a pre-made hero, you want to know how you can interact with your surroundings and the organisms within them.
You can spend time trying to talk to everybody and read all the text as it scrolls across your screen… or you can try punching people. It's wise to leave just how sensitive the game's society is to people picking fights with random bystanders just for kicks and seeing how far you can get before the authorities take you down.
6 See What You Can Collect
Collectibles are a common element across all genres of gaming, but RPGs take it to another level. Rather than just having floating coins and power-ups glowing out in the field, these collectibles are hidden in chests, random objects, or being withheld by enemies and NPCs.
From the get-go, you want to see how much you can carry and what you can find. That means a lot of time spent going into homes uninvited and looking through people's dressers and their trash to find anything that can be useful or at least profitable.
5 Figure Out How Saving Works
Long gone are the days when games were so primitive that the only way to save your progress was to memorize a passcode the average length of a college thesis. Things were moving in the right direction when save points were implemented in key areas of the game, so you could literally save your progress.
Nowadays, auto-saving is the norm, and you can't even open a door without that little save icon popping up. Unfortunately, RPGs can be a bit unpredictable in how they save. They can have any combination of the saving methods, so it's best to figure out which ones they are as soon as possible to make sure you don't lose hours of progress.
4 See How Far You Can Travel
As soon as you're handed the reins to whatever character you're playing, you want to see exactly what you can see. This frequently involves starting off in a small town in the middle of nowhere and gradually moving up to thriving metropolises as the story demands.
However, as long as you don't have a defined path to follow and nothing standing in your way, why not see where you can go? Since you have the freedom to see what the world has to offer, it's fun to head out and travel as far as you can go until higher-leveled monsters or lack of activity stops you.
3 Look For All The Barriers
Even in games that boast tons of freedom, there are still rules that need to be followed. Designers and programmers put a lot of effort into creating virtual wonderlands that feel endless, but still have defined limits. This becomes harder the more mobility your character has, which is why it's important to find out how they're being held back.
You'll spend time checking how many doors are actually doors, whether you can climb or jump on things, and heading out into the horizon before the hand of invisible walls smacks you down.
2 Try To Break The Law
Trying to start fights is one thing, but that's an area all on its own. While it's never well-received to start brawling with the public, that infraction can commonly be dealt with by running until people forget, or you apologize. Still, there are so many ways games have let people break the law either for entertainment or profit.
That's why you'll want to see what kind of outlaw actions you can commit and what kind of response you'll get. Stealing, vandalism, trespassing, and more can add excitement to a game, especially when there's risk involved.
1 Glitch Hunting
Of all the genres that exist, the RPG genre has a reputation for being the most unstable at times. When trying to create a whole universe with rules, different environments, and tons of characters living virtual lives, there are bound to be some oversights.
These can be as harmless as the odd NPC walking in place occasionally or as severe as running into a wall and killing the final boss. These glitches can be game-breaking, interesting, or absolutely hilarious, and that's why it's worth it to try and find as many as you can.