Gameplay vs. Story/Characters

[Mirage]

I've never managed to complete a single game with terrible gameplay no matter how good the story/characters were.
I've completed tons of games with awful stories/characters and good gameplay. Of course, both need to be good if a game wants to get near the top of my favourites list.

[Alive-Cat]

Story all the way! I wish games were still like FFVII.

[Sephex]

It's hard to answer this question so broadly. It really depends on the RPG, but I strongly prefer if both options in the poll were at their best when I am playing one.

That being said there have been times where I felt that the gameplay and story/characters held my interest enough to play through an entire game.

Example: I always felt that FFX-2 is a bit disjointed, but I love the game's version of the job system enough to play through the whole game.

[Sefie1999AD]

If the story is terrible I can ignore it.
If the gameplay is terrible not so much.

This. I mostly play RPGs for storyline, but if the gameplay is terrible, I don't want to keep playing the game. The original Final Fantasy II for NES is a great example of this: the storyline is fantastic, but the battles are really slow (try casting a spell on 8 enemies, it will take forever to go through all the messages "hit enemy #1", "273 damage", "terminated", ..., "hit enemy #8", "281 damage", "terminated") and the characters are extremely slow to level-up, so the only bearable way to play the game is to beat up your own characters and use an action-cancel bug to level up weapons and spells... and use an emulator with a fast-forward button. Meanwhile, if the storyline is weak but the gameplay is enjoyable (e.g. Seiken Densetsu 3, Super Mario RPG, FFI, FFV, FFX-2, FFXIII-2), I'll still be able to like the game a lot.

However, I think great story + decent gameplay > decent story + great gameplay. If the gameplay is at least tolerable, the story is what will make me remember and love the game (e.g. FFIV, FFIX). Of course, the best games shine in both.

[Mirage]

Story all the way! I wish games were still like FFVII.

But FF7 has decent gameplay too...

[Wolf Kanno]

In the past, I used to have a high tolerance for BS and would consume anything with the words RPG plastered on them, now I'm really picky and I certainly have certain flavors I vastly prefer my games to have.

I can usually suffer through awful gameplay if the plot is really good but I also notice that I tend to never play those games again. A similar trend happens with the reverse situation. I kind of prefer having both like most have said but I guess I may have to say plot is the deciding factor for me. If I want great gameplay I can just switch to a different genre if need be. I can tolerate bad gameplay over an awful story, I need motivation to keep going forward.

Case in point, Thousand Arms, this is a quirky fun dating-sim/JRPG for the PS1. It is funny as hell and never takes itself terribly serious and was fun to go through... except it might have the most obnoxious battle system ever conceived for the genre and whenever people whine about awful battle systems I think of this game.