Lephys

I was thinking of making almost the exact same example in my previous post, haha. So, yes, I definitely agree.

Another example: The Monk Wounds example. You give a Monk high damage resistance (IF there's a stat for that, just for example), and you're going to have a slower time building up Wounds. Doesn't mean the Monk's bad. Not-taking damage is a good thing, and there will certainly be flexibility in how you develop your Wounds/what degree to which you rely on them. But, that inherently makes damage resistance for a Monk different than damage resistance for any other class (not even counting the other classes' mechanics' relationship to damage resistance). Or, if you give a Monk oodles of Constitution (or whatever the health/stamina-boosting stat is, if there is one), then his high HP (while always inherently better than low HP) will provide a different beneficial relationship with his Wounds than it would with, say, a Wizard's abilities/class specifics.

^ Yeah. I think there could be a basic level if interesting stuff to be had. Maybe you could even pick a few traits for them. After all: They already made the creation system for you to make your main character. Would it really be any extra work to use the same factors and features that already exist to make your Adventurer's Hall companions? Sure, they wouldn't have any pre-written stories and/or direct tie-ins to the lore, but they could still have tertiary stuff, and passive reactivity. Maybe they have traits and/or backgrounds and such, just like you. Maybe you can select a basic personality for them. You'd basically have a default "Adventurer's Hall Dialogue/Reaction Set" for an entire playthrough's potential goings-on, then with just little tweaks here and there. Like "If female, have people say 'she' instead of 'he,' and say THIS line at the part when everyone has to share a communal tent, rather than THIS line." Etc. "If farmer background, have them say THIS line whenever asked about a situation involving wealthy nobles, instead of THIS line." Sure, replayability wouldn't be awesome (though things would still be different with different specific personality options), and they wouldn't be as deep as main companions, but I don't think the general idea is infeasible.

What if potions were the reactive solution for status effects/ailments, and foods were (at the very least, potentially among other things) the preventative solution? You know, "Oh, we're headed into a spider-infested forest. That's no secret. Everyone boost your Fantasy Vitamin B here by eating these specific fruits/sandwiches/whathaveyou so that our systems will be more resistant to poison for the next day or so." That, and I like the idea of separating foodstuffs from potions by giving them more minor/passive effects with longer durations. I hate it, in a game, when you eat something and it lasts 5 minutes. Especially when there's lots of exploration involved. It feels like the abstraction's all mixed up on itself. "Is time really supposed to be passing, in abstracted-time-land, while you're just standing around re-outfitting people in your inventory screen?" Or just because it took you a couple minutes to cautiously scout around to find the exact location of the bandits?" I don't see how even potions could possibly last so brief a duration. Do the potions inherently accelerate your metabolism after you drink them, too? I can see the headache medicine in fantasy worlds needing to be taken every 5-10 minutes until the headache goes away, heh. Maybe potions could last like 30 minutes, OR through the next encounter; whichever comes first (kind of like cars' warranties, with their "5 year OR 100,000 miles")? Kinda fits the time abstraction a bit better. Obviously fighting those 10 orcs took some time, but walking around in the woods while you, the player, consider some things didn't necessarily take an actual hour in the game world. Then, food could last 24 hours. Maybe if you go longer than 24 hours (from the moment you awake) without resting, you start getting weariness penalties? *shrug* That's a related mechanic, but still a whole different discussion. 8P

I know I'm about to take flak for the game I'm about to reference here, heh, but I think it's good to look at the approach the Mass Effect series took. Within context, here. It wasn't a matter of whether or not you were trying to actively better the galaxy, it was whether or not you were concerned with HOW you bettered the galaxy. If you just wanted to destroy the galaxy or "be evil" and didn't really give a crap about accomplishing anything on par with the main narrative, there wouldn't have even been a game. Like Mcmanusaur said, you pretty much wind up with a sandbox at that point. If there's some person that's gonna kill everyone in a 3-mile radius, hiding in that tavern, the question isn't "Do we stop that guy?". The question is: "Do we figure out a way to make sure as many people as possible, or ANYONE other than ourselves, for that matter, is unharmed while we stop this guy? Or do we simply fireball-splode the whole tavern, dust our hands off, and call it a day?" That's where morality comes into play. Morality is simply a measure (no matter how subjective) of one's motivations. In fact, if you run into a burning building to try to save some children trapped inside, or fight to put out the fire at the risk of your own well-being, and fail to do so, and someone hates you because they think those children should've been saved, they're not actually judging your morality here. Morality is tied to your motivations and decision to fight the fire or not to. Not whether or not the chances of your being able to actually produce a positive outcome or not. The problem with games with a big morality scale isn't that they're rating your morality. It's that they're basing way too many things off of it. Some people should hate that the kids didn't make it, and scorn you for that, despite your intentions and efforts. Some people should admire that you tried. Some people (like maybe the people responsible for the fire) should view your moral choice as annoying and troublesome and hate you for that. Again, they're not hating you because they're trying to be evil and your trying to be good. They're hating you because your motivations and actions are conflicting with their own. These things just HAPPEN to be viewed as good and bad things, via commonly-accepted morality. Heck, you can even intentionally produce "good" outcomes without actually BEING good. You might help the crap out of someone, all to garner their favor so that you can double-cross them. You might save their life. That outcome is objectively "good," in that it's beneficial and desired by them, and by the masses (people want people around who are willing to help them when they might be in need of it, rather than decide they're not worth helping). But, you're not actually actively BEING "good," because you're producing a good outcome for a bad reason. If you told someone why you were helping them -- "Because, I'm totally using you to more easily procure a bunch of treasure, so that I can later stab you in the back, quite literally, and take it all for myself" -- and still saved their life, they wouldn't judge you as a morally "good" person. That's why so many "good" quests in games offer that typical "Oh no, no reward is necessary. Thanks." line. It's not that you can't be good AND accept rewards. It's just that, if you get 1,000 gold for doing something, then how much does that really say about the certainty of your motivations? If someone says "I'll give someone 1,000 gold if they'll run into that burning building and save my babies!", and someone does that, and that was the town scraping together its savings, then did you really do that much good? You produced a good outcome (saved some babies), but at the cost of knowingly impoverishing the town. So, now those babies might die long, starvation-y deaths because the town can't trade anymore for goods and such. So, yes, I think the game needs to stick to focusing on your motivations for doing things, regardless of whether or not absolute good and evil deities are floating up above everyone and blessing/cursing people whom they see fit.

Is the choice between Adventurer's Hall characters having mild depth and a small number of major NPC companions being designed exactly like they were in BG really a mutually exclusive choice? I'd find both a decent amount of general personality/reactivity from Adventurer's Hall peeps AND significantly-improved-compared-to-the-way-BG-did-it main companions to be quite preferable to just one or the other. Personally.

I'm sure if we speculate hard enough, we'll just will that knowledge into existence. 8D!

If you look at he DnD system, even, this is how it worked already. It was just different stats, then. You abstractly got a +3 to-hit with a two-handed longsword if you had 16 Strength. But, you ALSO inherently got a detriment to your to-hit chance with a weapon if you weren't trained with it. So, you still kind of sucked with a two-handed longsword if you weren't proficient with two-handed longswords. That's kind of how it works in life. Someone can't master juggling until they practice it for a while (various amounts of time for various people). But, someone with awesome coordination can potentially get that much better at juggling than someone else with crappy coordination. So, it's like your DEX designates your ceiling for juggling, and then your actual skill/proficiency in juggling climbs up to that ceiling, if you develop it enough. It might even climb faster, or start slightly higher (you're more likely to be able to inherently juggle 3 apples on the first try, if you have EXCELLENT dexterity, than someone who has 5 Dexterity). You might still suck at juggling, but you're better than the other person, right off the bat. That's how I see this. They're two separate factors: stats and skill. Stats affect your relative effectiveness, while skill (talents and such) affects your absolute effectiveness. So, a seasoned soldier with only 10 Power (Strength: whatever it's going to be called) is going to be much more effective with a sword than a nublet with 20 Power who just picked up a sword. However, that nublet's going to be better with that sword than the seasoned soldier was back when HE was a nublet, and he's going to develop his effective delivery of power via a sword faster than the seasoned soldier did, and he's going to ultimately (if given enough time and development) become much more effectively powerful with that sword than the seasoned soldier, once he HIMSELF has become seasoned.

Just because I think simple fetch favors can be made into "unofficial quests" does not mean that I'm in any way suggesting that all unofficial quests must involve fetching. Nor am I commenting on the percentage of quest content in the game that these types of things should comprise. You're bringing up valid points, but they aren't actually contrary to any of the particulars of my general idea. It isn't really that difficult, btw, when you're building these things from the ground up. There are only so many things that will fulfill that person's need (weapons, or currency with which to buy weapons, or maybe crafting materials for weapons, if that faction/person has a crafter). These are all pre-determined factors, since you, the developer, hand-crafted this scenario. Anywho, it's not exactly hard to get weapons. Or herbs, or bread, etc. In most games, they justify these tasks' "questness" by always throwing in some out-of-the-ordinary factor. "No, I need ONLY the weapons that come from the Bandits in the Bekanzi Forest!", or "No, I need ONLY the herbs that grow at the mouth of the volcano where the dragon dwells!", or "No, I can ONLY get bread from this particular masterful baker in Venithar!" While it's not unheard of that some people in the game would need specific things like this, at the very least, all this does is completely exclude the more commonplace needs and effects of helping people and factions throughout the game that could potentially interact with your specific iteration of the narrative in various interesting ways. Yes, the idea extends beyond just fetch quests, but it was the simplicity of fetch quests that got me brainstorming to similar setups. I mean, if you find some tarnished old ring somewhere, there's typically some quest to return that to someone you find out is seeking it, because it was lost long ago. This is quite commonly just a "Oh, thanks! (people now think you're even Good-er than you were) Here's like 20 gold, and some XP, because, obviously I have to reward you for your trouble!" And that's great, but why are the only people in the world who are looking for something you happened to find just good, kind-hearted little innocent folk who only want to extend a heartfelt thanks and will now cherish their heirloom forever? What if they actually have some sinister plan to use that ring to forge some document seals or something, and they just used you to find the ring? Boom. Helping people isn't always just a mild, positive reward. We just threw dynamics into the outcome of overly simplistic "I happened to find this item while out-and-about, and someone happened to be looking for it, and rewarded me and was very happy to have it back, it turns out" quests. Again, all this is is a discussion of why I think simplistic quests -- much like the ones that get dubbed simply "fetch quests" -- are such a boring cliche nowadays in the land of RPGs, and what I think we can do about that that doesn't involve "just make different quests, because fetching things is stupid and dull and simplistic." I just think the main reason they're so drab is that all there is to them is fetching things. It's either going out of your way for a little extra gold and some XP, or, if its not quite as bad, just an errand you run while performing other tasks. I.e. "gather 15 herbs that only grow near this cave whilst exploring the cave for some other quest." They're just simplified "extra quantity of effort = extra direct reward" things, and that's what I think we can change for the better.

^YES! I think that's one of the main problems sparking the whole "being good is always the best" argument regarding RPGs. I don't think it's so much that the rewards are too much. I think it's that such a path is almost devoid of negatives. Any other path gets negatives + positives. And it seems like being good only gets positives. Even when you forego a reward for the sake of "good"ness, you really just trade it for a different reward (money for reputation that ends up helping you as-much-or-more than the money in the long run anyway).

It is a little bit, really, since we don't even have the means of determining the factors that decide when/whether-or-not that information should even be available. Impatience doesn't equal fault on Obsidian's part, I'm sorry to say. Granted, impatience is a natural human trait. We don't want to wait on things. But, in this case, there's nothing dictating that we shouldn't be waiting at this particular moment, for particular pieces of information.

A baby IS basically a temporary human parasite. 8P

I'm fairly certain this is one of their goals with P:E. To provide different-yet-still-often-"profitable" options regarding NPC/quest interaction.

So if I want a tank my attributes won't matter at all. This means either: - some classes are naturally great tanks while others naturally suck or - all classes are equally good natural tanks both of which don't offer the flexibility in character building that I hoped for. Yes there are talents, and it is possible that there will be talents à la "Advanced Tankery! This tanky ability makes you a tank" and it's just herp derp and failproof and needs to die in a fire. - "Viable" does not equal "same." So I'm not seeing the problem. - Your attributes WILL still matter. You still have various aspects to choose between to make your "tank": Do you sacrifice all his power and accuracy for hitpoints, or do you make sure he keeps some power and accuracy to reduce the amount of time he needs to stand there absorbing damage because he can not only draw targets to him/engage them but also take them down faster in direct melee combat? Do you just get him all the prereq's for the best armor? Do you make him super Agile to dodge AOE attacks, or is he just going to get annihilated by those while being able to go toe-to-toe with individual opponents? - The class is still going to matter. If you make a Wizard tank, how much effectiveness are you sacrificing from the Wizard-specific abilities and specialties not supporting melee tanking as well as a Fighter? A Wizard doesn't get Defender mode, so the Fighter's always going to be able to engage more enemies than the Wizard can. That's just one ability, and it makes a drastic difference. Just because there will be differences, though, doesn't mean that making a Wizard tank isn't viable. You'd probably have to go about it differently, though. Beef up all his shield/defense-based spells, or "crowd-control" stuff. Or, maybe go with Illusion-type stuff and "absorb" lots of damage and draw lots of attention with misdirection and fake opponents. If you just try to build a Wizard who's as good as a Fighter at utilizing high armor and a shield at tanking, you're probably going. Again, you people seem to be confusing the meaning of the term "viable." Haha, "it's possible there will be an Advanced Tankery talent"? Wow. Please allow me to get you a Jump To Conclusions mat, from the film Office Space. I didn't realize we were playing the wild speculation game. Can I join in? "Hey guys! There might be a talent called 'Omnipotent' that raises all your character's progressable factor values to infinity! Then the whole system would be moot! Also, the dialogue system might just ask us 'Do you want this person to die?', and then magically kill them when we click 'Yes,' instead of having us actually figure out how to cause their death, via combat or other means!" How'm I doin'? I mean, obviously what's possible and what's not possible isn't up to Obsidian's coherent thinking and design. So, CLEARLY, if they've announced something that COULD be potentially utterly ridiculous when coupled with outlandish other design decisions, they might just randomly draw those out of a hat and we'd all be screwed. It's not like they're designing these things with the entire, overall system in mind. They just wanted uniform stat effects, so they put that in. Tomorrow, they might just remove weapons from the game.

Umm... Last time I checked causing half-damage roughly 50% of the time coupled with an extremely tiny chance to crit versus causing half-damage, say... 20% of the time and having a 15-20% chance to crit (and no chance to miss anymore) is a pretty significant difference. Not to mention that all enemies won't have the same defense ratings, just because they're near your level. If a Squibling has 50% more deflection than other level X enemies, then you're going to wind up with a laughable 30% chance to miss, 50% chance to graze, and 20% chance to hit normally, and NO chance to crit. I'm not seeing how being commonly able to deal some amount of damage (above 0) automatically means that the amount of damage we're actually dealing is moot, somehow rendering Accuracy just as moot. *blink blink...* o_o

Well, when your "power" stems from your soul, regardless of class, this kind of makes sense. Just sayin'... Well, assuming everything else about the character is blank, and the only thing significant about him is high Agility (which may not be the stat we have, but, that's a little beside the point), then I don't see why not. If he has no training with a Sword, and no training with a Spear, why shouldn't his Agility affect his overall ability to wield either weapon to the same extent? How do you quantify the exact degree of effect "Agility" (already abstracted) has on one's fighting capabilities with two different weapons? And, at what point does that nitpickiness make the abstraction of the system self-defeating? We'll still have Talents (feats of old), so I'd assume that the guy with Advanced Spearery (totally a word now) and high Agility would have SIGNIFICANTLY greater skill with a spear than with a Sword (since his Swordery would be super low). In other words, nobody said "Stats will totally be the main deciding factor for all your character's values in the game," so why is everyone freaking out about this? I love how Josh Sawyer answers a specific question about a single aspect of a system we don't even know the half of yet, and everyone's like "Oh crap, this whole system sounds MAJORLY flawed!!!"

No no... you're glancing off my point. I mean, I do get what you're saying, and I'm not saying you're words are just all wrong. I just think we're skirting my specific point a bit. The core of my thoughts on this matter. My point is based upon the very reason we identify such quests as simply "fetch quests," rather than "cool, engaging quests in which you happen to fetch something." In other words, if it's as simple as fetching something, and that's it, then it shouldn't even really be a quest. And I'm not arguing semantics, here. I mean it shouldn't be what constitutes an actual QUEST in the game. You don't need the fetching of a thing someone happens to wish was in their hand but which happens to be elsewhere to be an actual quest objective that concludes anything at all. Not that it can't be. But, if often should not be. What I'm saying is, instead of saying "well, those things are simplistic and people make fun of them for being so and dislike them a lot, so let's just do away with them and make sure the stuff you do in a game is always FAR more extensive than that," simply bump those things down a tier and implement them more naturally. Whether or not you did a simple favor for this person at the beginning of the game could be a FACTOR (not quest step, since it's in no way affiliated with anything else at the time of its doing) in some situation to come. The situation to come could be an actual in-depth quest. And whether or not someone had something or didn't have something changes how the space between that occurrence (of you either performing a favor or not performing it) and the actual situation that arises, develops. Er... to look at it another way, think of it like a key. If you happen to find that key, then maybe, when you get to some point in the game involving the locked door that key fits, you can simply open that door. Allows you totally different possibilities than if you couldn't simply open that door (maybe you're having to sneak about some personal quarters or something, and the door's lock is far too complicated to pick at that point in the game, requiring that you go around). An example of a "fetch-quest" working as a factor would be that you help some guy procure something. Then, later on, it turns out you bump into him whle sneaking around the place you're having to sneak around. Why? Because he's some relatively important person. Well, now he knows you already helped him, so he's at least going to hear you out. If you had ignored him or something, then he wouldn't know you at all now, and he'd just call for the guards. Another common example is the stuff that affects trials in games (like in Chrono Trigger). You don't get anything for showing Marle around the fair, or helping the little girl find her cat, etc. But it comes up later in the game. Granted, it could obviously affect things a lot more than it does in the Chrono Trigger trial... but still. The point being, something like a little girl saying "Hey, could you find my cat?" probably doesn't need to earn you gold and XP. When that's the significance of finding this girl's cat, it ties something extremely mundane into this whole adventuring thing, and it doesn't make much sense. "I can go explore these ruins to find something that might help us on our ongoing quest, OR, I can find a cat, and just get a lesser reward." But, the cat-girl could be related to someone important (to the story, at least), even if you don't know it at the time. That's the whole point, though, in this example at least. Since you have no idea who the little girl is, taking the time to help her find her cat says something about you. Whereas, if you knew she was the lord's youngest daughter or something, then you might be intentionally trying to garner favor with the lord. So, later, if your integrity comes into question in a situation involving that lord, he'll say "You gave enough of a crap about my daughter to go out of your way to find her cat and return it here, so now I'm actually going to help you out because I think you're worth helping." It doesn't always have to be an effect that only shows up far down the road. At times it could produce an immediate affect, and/or affect something very close by. But the idea, put simply, is this: Don't make ultra-simplistic things full-on quests for no apparent reason, and don't make everything not-quite-so-simplistic just to force it into the important-enough-thing tier to be a full-on quest. Instead, there are oodles of things to be done with such little events/occurrences/opportunities to make them an interesting and unique addition to the game's systems. And, yes, for what it's worth, I do believe we'll see a lot of quality stuff like that in P:E. My reason for bringing this up in a topic wasn't so much my fear that Obsidian will make terrible quests if I don't, but rather to simply discuss and develop and brainstorm ideas of how to not only refrain from implementing these little typical instances in a bland fashion, but also to figure out really, ultra-cool ways of doing things with them.

It's not about how in-depth their dialogue tree is. It's just more nuanced stranger dialogue, is all. It's that Farm Phil might want to chat with you about random things over a pint at the tavern, but he shouldn't necessarily want to tell you about his hatred for the local lord and the complexities of realm economics merely in response to "Hi" on the street. It's the simple logistics of information delivery, really. If the game wants me to be able to find out a Nightcat's weakness, its only option isn't to have some click-on-able random person wandering the streets, just going about their business, who says "Guess what? If you use poison-tipped arrows and target a Nightcat's tail, it'll go down with ease! 8D!" What is that town filled with INSANE people? They just arbitrarily toss rumors about when people wave at them? "Hi, how's it goi-" "I SUSPECT MY NEIGHBOR OF SMUGGLING CHILDREN IN HIS CELLAR! I haven't told the authorities, yet, but I figured since you said 'Hi' to me, you were probably a good person to tell. BYE 8D!"

Wasn't comparing range to reach. I was pointing out that using a spear from 2 "spaces" away (Josh even mentioned the ability to attack with such reach weapons from directly behind another ally who's melee-engaging the same target) would probably incur different chances of hitting and such. I.e., same mechanic, different values. It's already a dynamic mechanic. I don't even understand this. Is it not intuitive to have a stat for ranged weapons called "range"? You think a shortbow can strike a target at 7,000 feet? Obviously range has to factor into your accuracy and overall chances of even feasibly hitting a target at a given distance. Does the simple existence of range-effects mean that we're giving bows special hit-chance mechanics? No. It's literally the same mechanic, interacting in a different way with different factors. And who the hell is talking about making bows different from other ranged weapons/attacks? Bows were just an example. Archery is one of the most common forms of ranged combat, especially in these games. Obviously the same thing would apply to throwing weapons, slings, guns, etc. Negatory, Ghost Rider. Glancing blows exist because the game's designers wanted them to. The only thing that's even remotely accurate about your statement would be the return of full-misses, after its removal, and even THAT wasn't due to players whining too much. The player whining was considered, alongside actual results of testing the mechanic without misses. The results were even cited by Sawyer, and he posted several tables of test data revealing the amount of objective testing they do with everything. And, how do you glancing blow with a two-handed axe? I dunno... how does someone get all but 1-inch of their body out of the way of an axe swing, so as to have the edge of their shoulder sliced through? What, just because it's a big, mighty weapon, and you're probably swinging it quite hard, you think everyone just either makes a perfect connection in the middle of a vital part of the body and elaborately splits the person in 2, or completely misses, coming nowhere close to the target's body with the axe swing? That's just silly. As for the "ranged weapons having a smaller chance to glance is dumb" bit, think about something for a minute. If you miss someone with the tip of a sword, there's still the entire rest of the blade continuing in the direction of the swing. They have to dodge/deflect the whole sword blade. Same with pretty much any other weapon. Then, with an arrow, if you dodge the tip of an arrow, the rest of the arrow isn't really going to do anything that the tip didn't do. The space occupied by the threatening object for the duration of an attack is quite literally lesser than with a melee/bladed weapon. Even more so with a bullet from a gun or sling. So, yes, if a longsword can glance off of armor with the entirety of its swung blade, then I'd say an arrow, bolt, or bullet would have a much smaller range of glancing.

They can give us test scenarios in which to test the systems, without giving us the specifics of the story. Obviously, their in-house QA people will have to handle all the making sure everything works in the finalized version. But, for a lot of things, they can present us with test quests and battles and such to make sure all the triggers and systems are working properly in conjunction with one another. There's a game on Steam Early Access right now... Folk Tale? Something like that... that's doing something similar. Although that game's less narrative than something like Eternity, they're actually presenting actual system-based minigames to their funders to test the systems.

Pssh... they don't need hype. We've already funded the game! Besides, surprises are that much... surprisier, when they're abrupt and unexpected. You know, "Oh crap, you guys said the game wouldn't be out for another 2 years... AND THEN YOU MAILED ME A DOWNLOAD CODE THE NEXT DAY?! ZOMG!!!! *freaks out*" Also, I just realized how funny it would be if they went with a horizontal slice instead of a vertical slice. "Okay, now this is pretty much the entire game, from beginning to end, but only about 10% of systems and content have been implemented throughout. Yeah, yeah in this region, none of your attacks work. Yep, this city is nothing but dialogue... this area is actually pure inventory management, with the 5 items in the game, ranging from a crumpled boot to Excalibur. Ooh! This city has 1-and-a-half people in it. Yep, that guy right there is actually just a talking pair of legs. Oh, and the city is comprised of a 30-foot section of outer wall, a free-standing entry gate, and 5 sixteenths of a tavern. 8D"

Well, just to be clear, in DA:O, you quite literally start in drastically different locations. That's an option, but, I just wanted to make sure what you initially meant when you said everyone will pretty much need to start in the same location because everyone will need to witness a supernatural event. DA:O is actually a very good example of what I was getting at, also: you start in completely different places, but you get recruited by Duncan no matter what the starting situation. Also, just for what it's worth, I'd much rather have backgrounds that have relatively significant effects upon the on-going narrative/gameplay experience of a single playthrough with less difference at the beginning, than the DA:O style of "OMG, you get to play through a TOTALLY unique prologue!" followed by pretty much no significance, whatsoever (except for maybe one or two little tiny "Hey, remember how we let you choose a background? 8D" quests). But, I definitely think a lot of the game could be experienced from a variety of different angles as an effect of the various backgrounds, rather than having to have oodles and oodles of "you only get to even meet these people and get involved in this situation at all if you chose Background A." That way, you don't run into that whole "we spent 2 months making all this background-specific content, but we still have 4 backgrounds left to provide unique content for" dilemma. Sure, you still have to write more factors and differences in for each additional background, but you're not creating new areas/environments/characters for each and every one. You're just writing different lines and interactions for the already existing stuff. Between the two options, it's a lot less work.

I dunno. Even then, even if it's ULTRA minor, I'd rather there be some greater (relative... not necessarily "great") significance. I mean, if he gets to make rat-tail soup, I want to at least have some different ending interaction with him than if I didn't give him the rat-tails. Or maybe he decides to give me the rat-tail soup recipe. If he's just going to say "Dude, I realllllly want to make rat-tail soup, so please give me 10 rat tails," and I do so, only to have him go "Yay! I got my 10 rat-tails and get to make rat-tail soup! Here's 10 gold and some XP!", then he might as well have said "Give me 10 rat tails, and I'll give you 10 gold." Then, you give him his 10 rat tails, and he just says "Thanks, *gives you gold*." Because the only purpose for that quest is to supply you with a task to perform, then a reward for performing that task. Maybe he hates rat-tail soup and gets sick. Maybe he loves rat-tail soup and decides to cook interesting dishes from now on. Who knows. But, he's a person who exists beyond the procurement of those 10 rat tails, so why is that the only potential interaction/affectivity/significance he gets? His making soup doesn't need to impact the main narrative in some way, but if he doesn't even feel like a person, then why is he mildly pretending to be one?

If by "location" you mean like... city or area, then yeah. But, you could still start in different spots. Although it's possible, I wouldn't assume that the very start of the game is LITERALLY your character witnessing a supernatural event, kind of like how the start of the Lord of the Rings isn't Frodo setting out for Mt. Doom. You could start in different parts of the outskirts of a city, or even different parts of a city, itself, and have different prologue "companions," and different interactions with the very same NPCs within that city, even, and STILL end up witnessing the very same event that every character in every playthrough witnesses to kickstart (pun alarm) the main portion of the narrative storyline. The witnessing of the supernatural event is like a chokepoint between areas. Plenty of factors before AND after it can be totally different. In fact, what might even be pretty interesting is if all the backgrounds are in some way affiliated with the starting city/area, and they're all "there" no matter what. In other words, if you COULD be a farmer entering the town for the day to sell his crops, or you COULD be a mercenary brought into town to help the militia with something, then, as the mercenary, you actually can bump into the farmer (who, now, simply isn't you, and therefore doesn't end up witnessing the supernatural event), and vice versa. If that farmer is Cedric's nephew, from the Salnor farm, then, even if YOU don't choose that background, an NPC who is Cedric's nephew from the Salnor farm could be wandering around town, between the gate and the market.

^ A rather interesting idea, Rjshae. Even if not that exact thing, starting out with different, unique resources like would be interesting. As opposed to simply varying amounts of money, or slightly different skill points.