(Assume that it is necessary for the game to have one of these, and that choosing neither is not an option.)

1. Excessive unskippable cutscenes, sometimes at bad times (like before a boss fight)
2. Excessive mandatory "grinding" (by which I mean having to do repetitive things, like fight battles for XP and levels, in order to progress through the game)

Personally, I would prefer 2. How about you?

Grinding.
Please no unskippable cutscenes. Fuck those and later burn them with fire, I'd rather have a journal or something where skipped video-s transcriptions go to.

If an RPG has to have one of these, I would quite simply not ever play that RPG. So yes, "Neither" is absolutely an answer :-P

I'd prefer to buy a different game that's less restricted and less excessive in everything. :P

And I thought you liked grinding?

Since both ruin a game for me, there's no "lesser" in them. They're both reason enough for me to skip a game. It's also why I don't play JRPGs anymore.

What an odd question - there is no connection between the two. No reason why we'd have to choose one. I guess if by that you mean what do I find more annoying, I guess I'd say grinding is even more annoying. It's a simple calculation, that in the long run it would waste more of my time then cutscenes. Cutscenes would only be a waste of my time if I'd have to see them multiple times because of dying and re-doing the same fight, and even then I don't have to really watch them, I can turn down the sound and solve a crossword while it goes on or something :P With grinding I actually have to participate.

Grinding just recently made me quit Lords of Xulima. It's a great game, at least for a good long while, I played it for dozens of hours and I had a lot of fun, but finally I hit a wall, I realised I won't get any further without hunting down every damn random encounter I can, killing every single enemy possible. That's hours of my life spent not really on playing a game any more, but basically doing chores :P

Well, first, you pose that question as if it was a choice about lesser evils, but you actually happen to like one of the options, so for you it's not really much of a choice, just an opportunity to state your preference in RPGs (which you could have done without disguising it as a poll question).

Second, name me one single player who actually likes unskippable cutscenes (at bad times). Just because some people like a game that features them, doesn't automatically mean they're okay with this specific aspect of it and would not prefer to be able to skip them if given the chance.

I enjoy grinding in many games. Easily the grinding.

3. Kill the designer of that game.
4. Kill the designer of this thread.

It suddenly became much harder to choose but I wouldn't mind flip a coin between 3 or 4..

If I have to choose, I choose 1 simply because I can mute the game and do something else while I wait. Grinding sucks because it's a meaningless but active task where you have to put in minimum effort.
(Minimum) effort + meaningless outcome = nightmare.

One thing is that, while I enjoy grinding, there are some times where it can be too much. For instance, I like to see steady growth; if levels are far apart, it becomes less fun (even if the bonus at level up is large to compensate); rare random drops are even worse, because if you don't get a drop, you don't make any progress toward getting one.

It also helps if there are multiple viable options to grind, and if the game doesn't waste time with cutscenes, battle animations, or load times.

If I'd have to choose between those two, I'd go with the grinding...as long as the battle mechanics are good and the fights are fun I don't care at all.

Of course, this is assuming the developers didn't decide to be *really* evil and put in a QTE or action sequence during or after the cutscene where doing nothing gets you killed.

Even worse: What if the QTE has only an audio cue to tell you what button to press?

Then again, games can be evil with grinding, especially if there's permadeath and/or level draining.

Nowadays I look up if games have QTE and make sure there's a walkthrough or YouTube video on hand so I can bypass annoying stuff like that before even starting to play. If a game has unskippable cutscenes, QTE and perma death.. well, I won't play a game like that.

Cutscenes. They are story related and every RPG needs one. Grinding is not.