Hi, I am a student currently working on my masters in Game Design at Full Sail University. For my thesis, I hope to create a list of guidelines for Role-playing games (RPG). I’m seeking feedback from players on what makes RPGs good or bad. If you’re interested in helping me please click the link below and take my survey.

https://www.surveymo.../rpg_guidelines

How do you define "good" and "bad"? By using a survey, I suppose you are defining "good" features as those which are the most popular, which could be contrary to the usual meaning of "good". E.g. A lot more people watched and like the movie "Transformers 2" than the oscar winning movie "The Artist". Does that mean that the elements that make up "Transformers 2" are good?

Perhaps it might be more useful to see it as developing a product for a specific audience, instead of finding "good" features to incorporate into a game in order to make it "good". E.g. If you're considering the "Transformer 2" movie market segment, then knowing how to write great dialogue won't help you much.

Also, people play RPGs for different reasons: some like massive amount of customization, some like story, some like open-world, some prefer action etc. It might be useful to identify the broad reasons that people play RPGs instead of trying to find key features that appeals to everyone.

Best of luck in your research.

This is an extremely subjective topic as Legendre stated.
I would personally focus on causes of frustration. It is hard to define what people like and why, but its generally easier to measure frustration than fun.
In some occurences, the RIGHT contrary to something that causes frustration won't necessarily be fun, but it may be "good" design.

I would definitely specify what good or bad means before going any further with this as your results may be erroneous otherwise...

I just feel the creators like naming everything

Did you know that human beings liked to name things to give it a unique meaning? If you look back in history, you'll see a lot of swords and villains gain unique names (Morholt, Durandale, Tyrfing, Mjolnir, Excalibur).
Sometimes, when you look more closely, "unique" names come from actual phrases: Lucifer actually is a construct from Lux Ferre, which is latin for Light Bearer (a clear reference to the greek Prometheus, who was a traitor to the gods for bringing fire to mankind).

The truth is that that's what we do, so why not do it in rpgs too? Or are you concerned about the lack of flavor to support these names? (i.e. Diablo naming conventions which make a lot of generic, soul-less magical items)

I've seen great examples of games that didn't use magic as an excuse but as an ingredient.
Magic should have its own limitations. In fantasy worlds, its part of the lore, but it can and can't do certain things.
The problem that you underline (which I fully agree on) is when certain developers take magic as an incoherent excuse to bring about impressive things.
This generally leads to strange situations where a player, which can clearly use magic, is said to not have enough magical might to perform the same thing as a villain, which apparently can destroy the entire world.

I like Skyrim because it puts magic as a subset of rules that are available to all. You can create fire out of thin air, but so can everybody else, and everyone has learned to adapt to that. Guards will say "destruction magic is fine, a slong as you don't set the village on fire". This is a very nice one-liner as it helps you understand that magic is part of their lore, it has always been there, and people are ok with it. Yet, never in Skyrim will you see someone destroying the whole world using magic alone. Otherwise, Ulfric could've conducted his revolution war with but a few mages, but he actually needs a lot of capable warriors to take forts and advance through the lands.
There is only one creature above this, and it is the dragon, from which magic may originate.

What I have problems with is a system like what you see in the Harry Potter's movies. There are fickle words attached to strange meanings, and you can pretty much do anything if you know the words and incantation. This does not let you grasp the meaning of magic, define its borders, and any given enemy could surprise you by knowing a spell you don't know could even exist. It is a cheap trick the author can use to summon additionnal content at a moment's notice and this isn't fun. You need to be able to have that suspension of disbelief, be part of the world, assume the extent of magic, what its for, how it works, and what are its limitations, otherwise, the designer can always pull a rabbit out of his hat.

Like people above have stated, what makes a game good or bad is very subjective.
Minimising frustration is probably what will make a game in broad sence good rather than bad.

Things such as Good Project Management and Consistent Game Rules Design can lead to a good game. This way at least the game hopefully represents what the developers wanted to accomplish to a suitable level. But then again this is hard to do in the real world due to budget, time, priorities......

Like Legendre says, there are different genres (reasons why people play ) of RPGs. Depending upon the gameplay whats good and bad would differ. In Mass Effect having good/highly responsive controls would be more important than in Final Fantasy I.

Personally, what can make or break a game for me is how much I feel like my character fits their role. So many games say "Oh my god this dude is the best fighter ever, respect!" but his amazing skill is just spinning around until people fall over dead. The master swordsman archetype is so heavily ingrained in fiction that people feel they can skimp on showing what makes one, but that just makes the title -- and the character as a result -- empty. It's gotten to the point where fistfights end with one hit while you need to hit a dude with a sword 70 times to make him fall over, which is exactly opposite of how it works. Maybe that was interesting at one point when somebody used it perfectly in their story, but now it's the go-to cliche that leaves everything flat and unexplained.

The one saving grace of Legend of Legaia -- a game with an otherwise laughable plot -- was the combat system. Even though you were putting on the usual (incredibly well-designed) weapons and armor, your fight command was a series of brutal combos designed to flow together wonderfully, carrying impact and making you feel that you really were playing a feral child, a martial arts student, and a Buddhist monk. Similarly, Resonance of Fate's Hero Gauge-based battle system actually makes you feel like one of those important people that Storm Troopers can't draw bead on. It literally quantifies plot armor and lets you be an action hero while still rewarding tactical thinking.

Compare this to the tidal wave of games about a funny-haired kid with a sword most bodybuilders couldn't use, beating up giant robots. So many RPGs flop because there's just no personality, no attachment to your character, your role.

Generally, there are two types of RPGs. There's the JRPG and the Western RPG. JRPGs are (traditionally) defined with a good narrative, and Western RPGs are known for expressionism. However, what they share in common is abnegation, which essentially means that you can play it to progress when you aren't feeling like doing something that takes adrenaline or difficult tactics, even if you're encouraged to do so. You can always just go grind on something, which is unique as most games don't reward you for doing the same thing over and over again. As such, an RPG should give the player the option to strongly express who they want to be, give an interesting narrative with interesting characters, and let the player make improvements by doing relatively simple tasks.