I feel the amount of planning that goes into the initial stages of the game depends on how you want the game to play out.
Ideally in my opinion, it would be best to establish a sensible history behind the game even if most of the game is in the realm of fantasy.
For example, prior planning can be the difference between your town layouts looking random or not looking realistic. I find if I don't plan things out I may insert more puzzles into my games to kill time in between bosses but ultimately I feel this is just patching up the fact that I didn't plan things out properly.
Let's say you enter a cave area. Without prior planning you might be fighting any random old enemy you find or draw up. With some back story as in let's say Slime creatures spawn off the gem stones that grow inside the cave, you now have an enemy that doesn't have a random origin and makes more sense to be in the area you're at. To build off that, let's say the gem stones are valuable so many people go in the cave to mine these and are attacked by the slime creatures that are trying to preserve their lives. Then, we'll say some NPC pays you to clear out the slime queen or to protect his men while they mine the gems. Just off of this right here, you have many possibilities that make perfect sense for either a side quest or part of the main quest before you go to the next area. We'd say the NPC would either give you a closed reward (if a side quest) or and open reward (if part of the main quest) which would lead you further along in the story. The more your story is planned out overall, the more people will feel a part of it to me at least. Now, you can add in more empathy to the situation if you were able to show the slimes only attacked the miners in order to protect their own lives. In this way you end up with creatures that aren't pure evil but are fighting for their own survival which makes them have more character.
The RPG I started currently is mainly a place holder for the music I'm making to get back into the swing of things. I feel when I do start my real RPG, I will plan out a lot of the history of the world and how the creatures (enemies) live. This will include both animal like enemies and human like enemies. Going further, when planning out skills or abilities it'll be good to show why they even came to exist in the world you're making in the first place. Not everything needs to be detailed but whatever forces are the main drive behind your narrative, the more depth behind them the more into it the player will feel. Think of a game like Undertale where every boss has character and isn't just a place holder enemy. Ultimately it's up to you how much time and effort you want to put into your project. It's tough to sit down and relax and to approach things slowly. Myself, I often want to jump right in and just create.
Being patient with yourself I feel will most likely lead to the best results. I hope I was able to help!
Ideally in my opinion, it would be best to establish a sensible history behind the game even if most of the game is in the realm of fantasy.
For example, prior planning can be the difference between your town layouts looking random or not looking realistic. I find if I don't plan things out I may insert more puzzles into my games to kill time in between bosses but ultimately I feel this is just patching up the fact that I didn't plan things out properly.
Let's say you enter a cave area. Without prior planning you might be fighting any random old enemy you find or draw up. With some back story as in let's say Slime creatures spawn off the gem stones that grow inside the cave, you now have an enemy that doesn't have a random origin and makes more sense to be in the area you're at. To build off that, let's say the gem stones are valuable so many people go in the cave to mine these and are attacked by the slime creatures that are trying to preserve their lives. Then, we'll say some NPC pays you to clear out the slime queen or to protect his men while they mine the gems. Just off of this right here, you have many possibilities that make perfect sense for either a side quest or part of the main quest before you go to the next area. We'd say the NPC would either give you a closed reward (if a side quest) or and open reward (if part of the main quest) which would lead you further along in the story. The more your story is planned out overall, the more people will feel a part of it to me at least. Now, you can add in more empathy to the situation if you were able to show the slimes only attacked the miners in order to protect their own lives. In this way you end up with creatures that aren't pure evil but are fighting for their own survival which makes them have more character.
The RPG I started currently is mainly a place holder for the music I'm making to get back into the swing of things. I feel when I do start my real RPG, I will plan out a lot of the history of the world and how the creatures (enemies) live. This will include both animal like enemies and human like enemies. Going further, when planning out skills or abilities it'll be good to show why they even came to exist in the world you're making in the first place. Not everything needs to be detailed but whatever forces are the main drive behind your narrative, the more depth behind them the more into it the player will feel. Think of a game like Undertale where every boss has character and isn't just a place holder enemy. Ultimately it's up to you how much time and effort you want to put into your project. It's tough to sit down and relax and to approach things slowly. Myself, I often want to jump right in and just create.
Being patient with yourself I feel will most likely lead to the best results. I hope I was able to help!