Points. Achievements. Trophies. Badges. Lots of examples of metagame elements out in the wild. I don’t plan on including points in SRPG, but something achievement-esque might be in the cards. In particular (I feel like I say that a lot), I’d like to acknowledge interesting or dedicated player behaviors (licking every item in the game, finding all the secret areas, etc).
Quest tracking provides a simple percentage scale of game completion, for those who want to really feel like they’ve done it all. Mandatory quests will probably account for 60-80% of this, with more ambitious players able to get that coveted 100% (sounds suspiciously like a score/points value).
I’ve also been thinking about trying to generate some kind of adventure log to describe the player’s journey (and choices) in long form (as if it’s a legend being told generations later). The idea appeals to me because it feels less cold than a quest log or stat screen. I’d be very interested to see the differences between the game’s adventure log and the player’s own story about how they played the game.