3. What he said

or

4. One that allows these thing to be dynamically set. (I am a huge fan of moddable RPGs such as NWN 1 & 2.)

You can have progression without leveling, you could for example have a system where you spend XP to raise your stats directly. The XP costs of raising a stat would increase exponentially the higher you raise it.

That's still leveling. I prefer item based progression in those cases where there is no leveling. Like Zelda or Darksiders (which has traditional leveling as well).

Both systems will work fine within the correct game.

I love the Geneforge Saga and the Gothic games with its fixed enemy levels. The fixed enemies in Diablo 2 are just as valied as the scaling enemies in Diablo 3 (you can still adjust the difficulty here). I even edited the files of Sacred 2 to have scaling enemies rather than having to deal with goblins 10 levels below me, which is boring and annoying. As much as I love Oblivion, but that would be an example for badly implemented leveling enemies, but thank the spaghetti monster, mods can solve that.

There is no one right system for all RPGs.

Edit: I just noticed that the games I mentioned for scaling enemies are games where you fight a lot or against a lot of enemies at the same time while the games with fixed enemy levels have less combat or combat against only one or two enemies at a time (except Diablo 2). But that could just be a coincidence.

Most RPGs where enemies scale to your level tend to be annoying because part of the fun is to be overpowered at some point.

I don't know what an RPG without a leveling system would be like. For me, an idea that has yet to be attempted that could be really cool is an RPG where all the numbers are hidden. You level up and all, but the game never tells you what level you are and your stats. This would work especially well in an Elder Scrolls style leveling system.

Don't be semantic, I'm pretty sure the guy I was responding to was referring to the "Lvl 1, Lvl 2, Lvl 3" system.

I'll take any system other than scaled enemies please. Scaling enemies to my level makes me feel like I'm not evolving, that all of my leveling or other progression is pointless and redundant. It's also easily exploitable if implemented porly, as in Final Fantasy VIII.

Either, both have their positives and negatives and can work in different situations. What is more important is that "j" does not appear before rpg, and rpgmaker does not appear in the description.

I recommend trying Undertale. While it does have a levelling system, the Pacifist ending requires playing through the game without obtaining levels. The battle system was built around that, and the actual interactions with characters reflect your behavior.

Anyhow, I don't like games that scale enemies to my level. It is bit of a slap in the face for me, as it diminishes my character's abilities.

Does 2 mean that even you (your character) wouldn't make any progress with your skills and abilities? I'm not sure I could consider that as a RPG, most probably either an action, strategy, adventure or a puzzle game. If that is what you meant, do you have some examples of RPGs without a skill/level system?

Half-life doesn't have a level-up system, neither does Starcraft. Then again, neither one is a RPG. They were still fine games, just not RPGs.

Misteryo's suggestion sounds good, ie. there might be some auto-scaling on enemies, but it would be limited.

I don't like both systems.
a) why should I level up, if every fight is a close call. OK, there are some funny memories, I mean reading that you get
ambushed by hundrets of enemies on a small street is funny ;-)
b) returning to places you visited and *fighting* the same enemies is dull.

So for me an open system is best. With areas you can visit at own risk. Maybe you win (and get massiv exp. and maybe nice loot) or you avoid the locations till you are sure to win.

Take a game that most people would consider an RPG, such as Wizardry or Dragon Quest. (For now, assume the game has a traditional turn-based battle system with no action or tactical elements.) Now, take away the leveling system, rebalance the game so that it is balanced without the leveling system, and the game would still be an RPG.

One interesting idea that I have would be to have a game with a job system similar to Final Fantasy 5, but without regular levels and experience points. Basically, the idea would be that you get more abilities by fighting, but your stats would not improve, so you get more options, but don't become more powerful overall. Another significant trait is that simply being in the job grants you access to the job's abilities; leveling up the job would only be for using them in different jobs or for miscellaneous skills that happen not to be the job's command or an innate passive. This way, your characters are growing throughout the game, but aren't gaining significant power, so things don't get too easy.

(Of note, in that FF5 example, there are a few Blue Magic spells that would need to be adjusted or removed, because they depend on number theoretic properties (namely divisibility) of the target's level.)

Another possibility, of course, would be to handle growth like the robots in SaGa 2. Basically, everything you equip provides stat boosts as well as being usable for an effect (for example, a machine gun lets you attack a group of enemies). Furthermore, the only way for robots to become stronger is to find better equipment, and there are multiple viable equipment setups, which give you different stats and abilities.

I really think developers have not thoroughly explored the possibilities of turn-based RPGs. Too many of them just blindly include conventional experience-based leveling even when it doesn't fit the game, or when the secondary leveling system is enough to keep things interesting.

In theory I'd prefer the second option.

I like the system in Trails in the Sky. There's no level scaling, but the XP rewards are such that underleveled characters can catch up with the overall level of the chapter very quickly. Grinding is beneficial, but by no means necessary, and is discouraged by diminished XP rewards once you're above the monster level. And bosses can be quite tough regardless of how much you grind.

So you think God of War for instance doesn't use leveling to create more powerful characters? It's much the same as Darksiders in that respect. How about Dark Souls where your character level is determined by the stats you increase directly? You have "Level 1" and such, but it's completely determined by raising stats with Experience. It's not semantic to me, those are valid ways to level up (Not that I see Darksiders or God of War as RPGs).