What RPG's do you rate as the best of all time. Im going to break mine into 2 lists. Action and Turn Based.
My turn based list is as follows.

1. Final Fantasy III
2. Earthbound
3. Chrono Trigger

Action:- These will all be made by the same company for me haha.
1. Oblivion
2. Fallout 3
3. Morrowind

I like this, as RPG's are my favorite games:

Turn based:

1. Final Fantasy 9 - beat it more times then I care to admit...
2. Final Fantasy 5/7 - I cant decide which one I like better between the two...so they both go here.
3. Chrono Cross - I could plug in any other FF game ( 6, 8, 10,) but I am giving love to the Chrono series.I loved them both, but Cross was amazing to me loved the amount of charcters to choose from!

As for any Final Fantasy before 5, I havent beaten yet...I have 3 and 4 for my DS, just havent gotten around to beating them, but if you have 3 in your top I think I need to get on it!

Action RPG:

1. Fallout 3
2. Oblivion
3. Fallout: New Vegas

EDIT: Holy crap, I forgot all about Mass Effect, but I dont know what game I liked more then the other, so they will just all get honorable mention.

As for Nv being # 3 I am reserving the right to change my mind once I haved played Skyrim, just havent bought it yet, might as well wait for the GOTY edition now!

Some other great RPG's: Arkham City, Borderlans (ermm close enough to RPG right?), Star Ocean, Tales series, Chrono Trigger and just many many more!

Turn based:

1. Chrono Trigger
2. Final Fantasy VI
3. Earthbound

What can I say? I'm a SNES junkie. Though it was difficult not to put Final Fantasy VII on the list. Parasite Eve almost made it, too.

Action based:

1. Secret of Mana
2. Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind
3. Baldur's Gate

Turn-based:

1) Suikoden (I would play the heck out of this if I could find it on PC)
2) FF VII (it has aged surprisingly well)
3) Jeanne d'Arc (yes, it's a tactics game, but it's an astonishingly well-executed one)

Action-based:

1) Planescape: Torment (yeah, this list is pretty much going to be BioWare's greatest hits)
2) Knights of the Old Republic
3) Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn

First, let say I'm appalled that in the lists above, I see nothing but Video games.

Video Game RPGs are always going to fall short of the greatness of Tabletop Pencil & Paper RPGs. Allow me to add my two cents with this list of all time greats:

AD&D 3.5… the greatest edition of Dunegon's and Dragons to ever make it to market. The Player's Option manuals provided the most flexible options every allowed in the first and greatest RPG. No system has ever seen as much fan created add-ons. Dragon & Dungeon Magazine combined with 3.5 and a bit of work could produce any fantasy setting the DM desired, and players could play nearly any conceivable race or class.

Champions The Hero System is another very flexible system, that a DM can turn to almost any setting, But Champions superhero system was bay far the most comprehensive and modular take on the genre ever accomplished. Since the build was based on game rules and effects, and the interpretation was left up to the players and Gamesmaster, You could really create something original. Conversely, any Franchise could be recreated with a bit of hard work, since all the superpowers you could think of were nearly all accounted for.

World of Drakness (1st edition) I never played the new editions of WOD, so I can only comment on the older editions. I have a friend who collected every volume that whitewolf put out in the 1st edition canon, and I have played in many games. The thing about WOD, is that the rules are very loose and flexible (though there is an endless list of common "mixes" of stats for banal actions for a storyteller to remember) But where this game really shines is in the story department. The stories in this series are among the greatest that have ever been assigned to an RPG, and the source materials and playability of scenarios were among the best ever devised for gaming.

Call of Cthulu I shouldn't have to explain this really, but I will. This game is based on some of literatures most engrossing stories, weird, mind-expanding and truly terrible. The system is fairly straightforward, but what really makes it awesome is the mood. With very few exceptions, a CoC campaign is going to end badly, and most of the investigators killed. Those that survive end up in asylums. I mean really, how can you beat that? Roleplaying is fun because you get to experience things not possible in your real life. What more could you ask from an RPG than Cosmic Terror leading to Madness?

Honorable mentions:

Paranoia
Ghostbusters
G.U.R.P.S.
Star Wars
& many more…

But hands down, the Best RPGs I have played were the ones devised by My Friends and Myself, that never graced a retail shelf.

You can Keep your VGRPGs~!

Given that this was posted in the Video Game forum, I felt it appropriate to respond accordingly.

Well secret of man's nearly made my list as well. It's certainly up there. Also almost considered Knights of the old republic but what can I say Bethesda just makes the best games to me for this genre.

We can talk pen and paper RPGs but that's not the topic as this was posted in video games. I feel that pen and paper always deserve their own category.

I cut my teeth on Secret of Mana. I remember playing it as a kid and just loving it so much. I hated that, even though I had access to the multi-port, I didn't even have a second person to play with.

One RPG for the SNES I wish I could beat: The 7th Saga. Talk about insanely stupid difficulty.

Ahh, but I think you'll find near universal agreement on the statement that Black Isle/Bioware writes the best NPCs in the industry.

Totally agree Hail. And Jenny one of my first RPGs was mana as well. I too did not have a second person to play with and still would love to play it coop someday.

*bats eyes*

I feel so pretty when you call me by someone else's name!

The only downside to Secret of Mana would be if you spent the time to level up the Sprite's magic, the game becomes a breeze. Even enemies that normally require Lumina to take out are susceptible to Sylph.

Stupid flipping auto correct sorry Kenny

I don't think I've actually played a turn-based RPG in ages now (Violently allergic to JRPG's) but for my action-based RPG list there's no doubt in my mind whatsoever

1. Planescape - Torment
2. Baldur's Gate II Shadows of Amn/Throne of Bhaal
3. Darklands (gets the nod mostly out of nostalgia, I'll admit, but it is actually an amazingly well done old game that I credit with not only being my gateway drug into the wonderful world of computer RPGs but also for laying the foundations for my masterful grasp of the English language )

Furby must have played that game too lol.