I think I'm more interested in good characters than I am a good story when it comes to RPGs. I can get a good story from a lot of places, but from my experience, most genres don't really give the attention to character development that RPGs do. It's not really any coincidence that my favorite games feature my favorite characters in most cases (usually the lead).
--
http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/8718/leonflowchart.png