whats more important in a rpg, story or gameplay

[Mummelmann]

Gameplay, Temple of Elemental Evil has perhaps the best gameplay I've encountered in an RPG but the story is practically nonexistant.
There are also games who do both equally well, such as the Icewind Dale games and the legendary Baldur's Gate games (on PC, not the console shaite).

The best combo of story and gameplay I have ever come across, however, is a game that has aged well and that every RPG fan should play; Betrayal at Krondor, that game is epic in every sense of the word and I don't think I'm lying if I say I've played through it 20 times since it came out.

The first 4-5 Ultima games were also extremely good on both accounts (gameplay and story)! That sweet combo is hard to come by nowadays, especially modern WRPG's are quite shallow in both gameplay and story (like Oblivion and Mass Effect, the latter has a very good story but flat gameplay imo) and RPG's have been poisoned into something they're not; mere tech demo's of fresh or updated graphics engines which spend more time advertising their HDR effects than the game's real content (or lack thereof).

RPG's are slowly dying for me, I hope someone comes in and saves the concept of RPG's very soon (and MMO's are also ruining the scene for good single player RPG's).