When you sit down to play a game, it's important to know what game you're playing. That seems obvious, right, and not really in question for most structured games, sports, and competitions that we're familiar with. If you're playing chess, or League of Legends, or baseball, the rules and expectations are consistent for every participant. Everyone knows the boundaries within which they can and should behave not only to achieve victory, but also for good sportsmanship.
RPGs, however, struggle from blurry boundaries and inconsistent expectations of their participants. Their nature is broad in scope and fluid in focus, with rarely any defined victory conditions. This results in a series of mini-games depending on player interests. It's possible for one scenario to be focused on a social situation involving soft skills while the next is a battlefield scenario requiring mechanical, strategic, and tactical aptitude. It's a game environment unlike any other in that it can ask quite a lot of the participants to shift gears, often several times a session, only to achieve whatever ephemeral objectives are determined by the DM or the players themselves.
A group of RPG players must agree upon what type of game, what scope of game, that they want to play. If it is to encompass every type of scenario that an RPG has to offer, then it is incumbent upon every player to understand that and work cohesively within that very broad scope. It is much preferable, however, to choose the parts of the game that present decision-making opportunities that the most players find interesting.
You must certainly have played in at least a few RPG sessions if you're reading this because you're one of tens of people who somehow found their way here. You have undoubtedly at one point or another felt trapped in a session whose scope deviated from what you find fun about RPGs. This isn't really about fault or blame or what part of RPGs is better (it's action-packed, tactical dungeon delving and battlefield scenarios), it's about how a group of friends can agree to play the same game together.
It's silly in this day and age to say "we're going to play Dungeons and Dragons" but not discuss what that actually means for your group. Even playing strictly by the rules as presented in the various editions' rulebooks, the capacity for RPGs is far beyond any other game. If half your players sit down to play intrigue-heavy roleplaying scenarios in the king's court and the other half want to chop goblins dead and steal their copper pieces in the dungeon, then every session someone is going to be unsatisfied.
The most fun that I've had in RPGs is when the parameters of the game were clearly defined. Every player knew when he sat down to a session what the scope of the game was and could act with the priority of rules - campaign - characters top of mind. Friction of the meta sort was reduced and even when PVP was involved, none of the players were surprised to find that as part of the game.
Ultimately, you should play with your friends. It's easier to discuss these types of things with people you enjoy discussing these types of things with. If you can't settle on a scope of game to play together, you probably should just, you know, not play together.
