Choice and Consequence (long winded)

[Cantousent]

I was thinking about choice and consequence in games recently. I've long railed against alignment in games, but I've always enjoyed having real choices leading to meaningful consequences. I don't want to rehash all that, but I was thinking of the design approach.

 

In most games the player is faced with what amounts to three real choices. I could add a fourth being filler dialogue that furthers the story but is not intended (and does not pretend) to have any CnC value. What that means is that you can be evil (or dark, etc), middle of the road, or good (or light, etc). Sometimes the middle is intentionally meant to be 'neutral' in the Dungeons and Dragons sense, which makes it a true CnC decision. Other times, there is no real value judgment in the middle and often there is no CnC value in any of the choices for a specific exchange. The design teams often use these choices to move the PC over a spectrum ranging from 'good' to 'evil.' As the player makes a choice, he moves the PC over in the spectrum.

 

For example, the player character is faced with a non-player character threatening to kill another NPC:

 

"Go ahead and kill him, I want to watch." (evil)

"You must have your reason to kill him." (neutral)

"Don't kill him! [stand in front of the victim]" (good)

"What's are you doing?" (either postpones the CnC decision or ignores it altogether)

 

...As opposed to, the PC has a conversation with an NPC about the dreaded Bad Guys:

 

"Where do these BGs live?" (no CnC value)

"Do you think I can make it past these BGs?" (no CnC value)

"I have to through that territory, BGs or not." (no CnC value)

 

First of all, 'spectrum' need not mean the whole DnD alignment nonsense. The spectrum could represent a whole variety of choices which may or may not entail good and evil. It could just as easily revolve around order/chaos, corporate/consumer, funny/serious, or any number of things. Instead of static responses that move the PC over the spectrum, however, why not have the spectrum narrow down dialogue options? So, for instance, there might be seven or eight theoretical choices for one interaction, but the player only gets three or four choices depending on where he has placed himself in the spectrum. The first few dialogues are more directed in order to set the PC somewhere in the spectrum. At first, the player moves more quickly towards a place on the spectrum, but later the moves become more and more gradual. Most players will undoubtedly fluctuate in one place on the spectrum, but they may move back and forth on the spectrum as they continue to make choices. This might sound like it would make tons more work for the design team, but I think it makes less. You have to write out more possible PC options for very specific places, but you only need to use three or four at a time. Meanwhile, some of the NPC responses will be the same for some of those choices. It doesn't add much work on the NPC side, but it leads to much more granularity in defining the PC. ...And that granularity could end up helping define not just the game experience, but the end game wrap up as well. I know that the idea of moving folks back and forth on a spectrum isn't anything new. What I was thinking is having that have a direct and profound impact on PC dialogue options.

 

For example:

 

In the scenario above, the PC sees a possible murder. If he goes the evil route, he then has moved towards the evil end of the spectrum. The next choice is whether or not to kill a Bad Guy he has defeated in combat. If he kills the BG, then the BG tribe will attack and kill a bunch of the innocent villagers. If he lets the BG live, then the BG can go back to the BG tribe and regroup for another attempt on the PC's life. ...But there could be any number of possibilities.

 

A. The PC not only kills the BG, but takes the time to leave false clues to implicate the Innocent Village. (big move towards evil)

B. The PC kills the BG. (small move towards evil)

C. The PC lets the BG live, but maims him so he's no longer a threat. (No further move if already on the evil side)

D. The PC attempts to reason with the BG. (Small move towards good)

 

On the other hand, using the same scenario, assuming the PC chose the good option in the beginning:

 

A. The PC kills the BG. (Small move towards evil)

B . The PC lets the BG, but maims him so he's no longer a threat to the Innocent Villagers. (small move towards the center if on the good side)

C. The PC attempts to reason with the BG. (small move towards good)

D. The PC takes the BG captive in order to try to rehabilitate him. (big move towards good)

 

And the design team isn't constrained to follow that formula every time. A lot of dialogue is simply meant for flavor. It progresses the story and lets the player define the PC without real consequence. Other times, the design team might want to have specific options regardless of where the PC falls on the spectrum, such as those big moments where the PC has a choice to reaffirm his place in the spectrum or, by some epiphany, change his philosophy.

 

These examples are intentionally simple in order to make the point clearer. Even then, I'm afraid I'm not explaining the idea very well. At any rate, I think the spectrum idea, if done right, could mean just a little more work for a lot more CnC benefit. Of course, I'm sure folks have already thought of these things, but the CnC aspect of RPGs is why I find them so compelling. Well, that and fun of building up a decent party and smiting folks, but the CnC is primo also.

[Tale]

I don't see how granularity is provided by the limiting element of the system you describe. Granularity would be provided by implementing all the extra options such a system would require alone.

 

If you're going to spend time implementing the option to maim a bad guy, just let the option be there. I really don't see why it should be dependent on previous acts without some direct causal effect.

[Cantousent]

Fair enough. ...But then you end up with a ton of decisions for each point, which sounds cool but tons of dialogue options tend to be off-putting to many players in my opinion. It's one of those things where folks say they want one thing, but they end up buying and playing games that do something quite different.

 

On the other hand, I see some options are being available no matter what because those are more or less baseline options to further the story. I'm more interested toward end-spectrum choices. If someone has put his PC steadfastly on the 'good' end, he's not going to miss the option to implicate innocent people with the sole purpose to get them killed.

 

No matter what, I know there're good arguments against my position and I appreciate hearing them. :Cant's wry grin icon:

[Orogun01]

Outside of a DnD setting I really don't see a real need for alignment systems. I mean, do you really need to know if you're good/bad and have an NPC make a passing remark?

It's a lot of extra work just to get immersion out the player, when all that could be eliminated and just letting the player do what they will through acts rather than choices.

[Rosbjerg]

all that could be eliminated and just letting the player do what they will through acts rather than choices.

 

True, but then you won't really have "consequence", or at least not in coherent matter. It's fairly important for the game mechanics to keep track of what you are doing in order to present you with a believable reaction to your actions - whether or not that 'tracking' needs to be shown to the player is a fair point.

[Monte Carlo]

Ha ha ha. Am reading Reamde by Neal Stephenson. Bizarre thriller about a virus in a WoW-style MMORPG.

 

Cut a (very) long story short, the lack of a meaningful in-game narrative and C&C leads to the players forming into Lord of the Flies-style factions based on the colour palette available within the game to customise your toon. So a massive war kicks off between the minority (and old-skool) "Earth-Tone Alliance" and the brightly coloured, Diablo-esque hack and slashers.

 

So my view is now screw C&C and make the choice of avatar colour more interesting.

[Zoraptor]

An alignment system is pretty intrinsic to Star Wars as well, and Mass Effect too, if more peripherally. It isn't just D&D.

 

I think having an 'alignment' based dialogue system is an interesting idea, though I'm not convinced of its practicality for much other than minor choices and cosmetic stuff which (to an extent, though it's more often skill based rather than 'alignment') it is already used for- you wouldn't want the Big Choice in KOTOR to become the Big Railroad just because you'd been rescuing cats and building hospitals for bunnies since Taris; no matter how silly it actually is to do a 180 at that point not allowing the option would annoy people enormously. But if your character is an atheist, for example, and you chose at creation to make them one then you really ought not to be able to join a religion except under particular circumstances- one of those exceptions might be if you've been systematically undermining that atheism throughout the game. You'd have to lose the atheist trait as a consequence, but I'm all for that sort of 'alignment' shift if it's warranted.

[Cantousent]

Well, my thinking, which is still kind of running in different directions, presupposes a few things:

 

1. having a variety of options in dialogue is good, but seeing tons of options for every exchange will get to be tiresome.

2. having a psychotic spread of options actually works against immersion. I mean, when you have 12 options ranging from sacrificing your best maigic weapon in order to save the cat in the tree to burning the tree, the cat, and the little girl who asked for your help, you're not helping to make the player feel immersion.

3. Based on where the PC resides on the the spectrum, you can make the experience more immersive by offering reasonable choices for where the player is in the story.

4. You can keep the system flexible enough to allow the player to move and even ignore the spectrum for key conversations.

 

I don't know that the idea is good or not. I'm just trying to think outside the box. Like Z says, it's not all that crazy. A similar system looks at skills and whatnot. ...And it need not be good and evil. It could be atheist/believer or earth tone/Diabloesque. I'm positive where Monte would fall on that last spectrum.

 

Finally, pretty much every RPG keeps track of these sorts of things. Hell, even Fallout had what amounted to a character alignment. If we're going to have it, we should do something interesting with it. With all that said, I don't mind hearing where I'm wrong. In fact, I'm not even sure I'm right.

[Tigranes]

I think (4) is key - if you keep it flexible enough so that players can rework the spectrum at least several times throughout the game, *and* provide enough range of choices wherever they are on the spectrum (so that they aren't stuck with just 1 choice for a quest or something), then you end up simply having way too many choices. A more limited implementation would be closer to what's already been tried in RPGs - special options that open up in addition to the standard range, e.g. if you are specially good, evil, whatever. Certainly, I like the idea of, say, a PC with precedent in killing innocents to develop a sadistic bent so that it opens up new super-evil options, or even, restricts the PC from making the super-good choice in future encounters with vulnerable innocents, though I'm sure such a game would provoke much ire from players about 'freedom of choice', as if the land of video games were 19th century America or something. I think it's possible to do it, though. Eg:

 

Imagine a setting, say, a futuristic one about neurological drugs or some kind of contraption and the psyche, or a Planescapish setting where your actions have consequences, your actions cling to your body as artefacts, your deeds have physical markers, etc (heh, like a fantasy representation of the ideal of C&C, for full Meta points!) - in such settings especially it would make sense for your decisions to sway the PC towards certain decisions later on. Hell, imagine a split personality PC, or a possessed PC, in such a setting. Instead of the player walking down the street, initiating conversation with a beggar, then choosing to kick him in the balls or give him money, the player regains control/consciousness of the PC after at least part of the event has progressed. Imagine a game where early on, your condition is not so severe, and the PC goes around making choices in a more or less standard way. You see an attempted crime on the street, and chose to intervene violently by disembowling the offenders. This 'good' act, later, has consequences on your psyche, and the inner demon; later you 'awaken' (that is, regain control of your character, or fade in from black) to find the PC with blood all over his body, him having ripped the life out of a couple of pickpockets (or just suspiciously dressed hoodlums). The player then is still in control, and is making choices about what to do aftewards (hide the bodies? turn yourself in? attempt to resuscitate?), but the situation about which he is making choices has been determined by his previous choices.

 

In my mind, such a game wouldn't even be much more restrictive than the standard RPG, where 'plot' already fulfills the same purpose. Right now, cutscenes and other plot apparatuses already pigeonhole the player into certain situations, after which the player is given a standard range of choices, yes? So, in this example, what you have is a situation where previous choices you made about the player has shaped his split personailty / possessed psyche, and in turn, the starting-point from which you are making choices. It could be an interesting way to rework the standard linearity/choice dynamic, and also to introduce the granularity you talk about.

 

...actually, I'd really love to play a game like that.

[Orogun01]

With (1) I think is just a matter of presentation and just logical branches. You can train your players in matters of presenting choices, for example in ME it didn't take me long to figure out that top options were paragon, bottom were renegade and middle were neutral and forwarded the dialog. Something similar can be done in terms of just sequential choices.

[Tigranes]

Yeah, but from what I saw of ME in LPs, you never ever had 'tons of options' for any exchange, it really was Good/Neutral/Evil and sometimes +Exposition or +Special Action.

[Cantousent]

I was thinking that we'd get to have more options for dialogue with the system I described, but that also presupposes something I don't think I've expressed very well so far.

 

Essentially, I think the options help define the PC as much as the responses. I think the previous PC choices should have a consequence on everything. If you have a baseline with options ranging from super good to super bad, then I think you're helping the player define the PC not only by the consequence of what others think, but also of what he, the PC, has become.

 

It's like Tig's example, which is also clever in and of itself. You carry the consequence of your past actions in your very skin. I don't know that it has to be that way, just as I've said several times that it doesn't need to be any one sort of spectrum or even a single spectrum altogether. At this point, however, I'm up way later than I should be and I've hade a bottle and a half of wine. I'm going to revisit this stuff in the morning when I can make more cogent arguments. The point is to usher in the consequence idea from the top down instead of from the bottom up, at least to some degree.

[Humanoid]

Presenting my view simplistically: alignment system bad; reputation system good.

 

I feel what an alignment system tries to do is frame a character's mindset, and restrict your options based on some preconceived notion of what a 'good' or 'evil' act is - and we've seen some pretty counterintuitive examples of each in a lot of games. Personally I feel that the player-character's state of mind really has no business being quantified: let it stay in the player's mind. There's no point in the game trying to guess whether your character is feeling vindictive, mischievous, elated, angry, or depressed - the player can take the input, being whatever the character has recently been faced with, and come up with an in-character response. I don't see the value of filtering those possible responses based on some internal metric - it's a lot of effort designing such a system with little-to-no payoff. The player has a brain, they can filter better than any computerised tally can.

 

Reputation on the other hand affects how the game world reacts to the player and can be much more interesting. If you've spent the game channeling Charles Bronson blowing everyone away, that bad guy you've been trying to catch would sensibly be more likely to fight to the death when cornered, whereas if you have previously shown a merciful streak, they may attempt to surrender and submit to your interrogation. The key difference I see here as compared to the alignment system is that the player can still take any action the character is physically able to which is far less of a straitjacket, but still provide payoff for the manner in which you've been behaving.

 

 

A simple example would go like this. Under an alignment system, if you've been behaving "evilly," your character doesn't get an option to save a kitten from a tree. That's it, can't even try. There's no conceivable reason in the world your character would ever do such an action ....really, who's playing the character? You, or the writer? (It really isn't hard to justify - after all, evil masterminds tend to have a genuine liking of cats :D)

 

Under a reputation system, there's nothing stopping you from rescuing the kitty. Except, oh, you've been known in the neighbourhood for being a mean bastard with a history of cruelty to animals. You try to rescue the kitten for whatever motivation you have (game doesn't need to know), but the little girl who owns the critter screams at you to get away and leave them alone. Just like that, instead of narrowing your RP options, you now have an interesting new situation to handle.

Edited August 22, 2012 by Humanoid

[Malcador]

Ha ha ha. Am reading Reamde by Neal Stephenson. Bizarre thriller about a virus in a WoW-style MMORPG.

 

Cut a (very) long story short, the lack of a meaningful in-game narrative and C&C leads to the players forming into Lord of the Flies-style factions based on the colour palette available within the game to customise your toon. So a massive war kicks off between the minority (and old-skool) "Earth-Tone Alliance" and the brightly coloured, Diablo-esque hack and slashers.

 

So my view is now screw C&C and make the choice of avatar colour more interesting.

 

Sounds like EVE.

[Tale]

An alignment system is pretty intrinsic to Star Wars as well

Only in KOTOR and parts of the EU. The movies didn't present it as a spectrum like they did, with light at one end and dark at the other. Notably, the movies never mention "light" at all.

[Cantousent]

Presenting my view simplistically: alignment system bad; reputation system good.

 

I removed the rest of your points, solid as they are, because they don't matter. I could have, and have actually on this very forum, written essentially the same thing you did. The fight over alignment has been fought and lost. The vast majority of big rpg titles I can name off-hand, including Fallout, have alignment under some guise or another. Sure, I think the player should have the opportunity to do with the PC what he will, but he's probably going to do it under some sort of alignment system no matter what.

 

Even taking into account that rep is better than alignment, however, one advantage of the system is that it allows for more options. No design team is going to include as many options as I can see making available to the player in every exchange. Under this particular system, you'll still have the option to do whatever you want. You should undoubtedly have that option to save the kitty anyway, no matter where you end up on the spectrum. What the system does for you is allow extra rewards for the player by giving more options without flooding the player with tons of responses at any particular instance, the vast majority of which he won't use anyway. It's a tailor made system.

 

Keep in mind, that the spectrum could be positive/negative rep. Also keep in mind that the player need never really know where the PC resides on the spectrum. If you do it right, the player should be able to play the game without any issue. He'll enjoy dialogue that conforms to his style of play. If he's the same as what I understand the majority of players to be, then he'll play the game once, enjoy it, and then shelve it. If he replays, he'll likely follow mostly the same patterns in terms of behavior, only trying to find side quests and the like. The system will reward him, nonetheless, with a game tailored to him. However, if he's one of those rare players who not only replays but also delves into markedly different behavior, then he'll be rewarded with new dialogue starting almost immediately. Sure, the basic options are still there, but he's unlocked new dialogue.

 

As for complete choice, you I can't have my character in Fallout don neon pink elvish armor and use his watermellon seed spitting ability to take out a deathclaw matriarch at a thousand yards. To be less ridiculous, there are certain dialogue options that come available only if I have certain skills or perks, right? Don't think of the system as stopping the player from making a variety of choices. Just think of it as tailoring those choices.

 

...And, in the end, the design team can open up decisions anyway. For example, the PC is in a spectrum ranging from crazy to sane. (That would be kind of nice for a Call of Cthulu game.) You've been Mr. sane the whole game and your dialogue reflects that. However, at key moments, where the design team thinks it's make or break for the PC, the player has the extreme choices for both sides and gets a chance for a big move on the spectrum.

 

Tale: I think the point is, in the star wars RPGs I've seen, the light/dark side mechanic is in use, from both KotORs and TOR. I don't know of other star wars games, but the sw rpgs I've seen pretty much exemplify the entire spectrum idea.

[Humanoid]

It's still having the computer guess at the character's personality traits - "He'll enjoy dialogue that conforms to his style of play" - you'd have the game stop you from sneering, from being condescending, from being infuriatingly obtuse? Is your character choosing those "insane" dialogue options because he is insane, or because he's feigning it?

 

My position is that evaluating a choice should be made in the context of whether it fits in the scope of the game world, rather than what the alignment system guesses your character to be. You can't make neon pink elvish armour in Fallout because you can't make any armour at all. In a game allowed you to craft and dye any armour you wanted, and one in which elves exist, then I'm not seeing a reason not to allow that choice, even if you've been roleplaying a Johnny Cash doppelganger.

[Cantousent]

I'd like to start with something that will undoubtedly be a waste of breath... or typing as it were. You are *not* more limited by the system I describe. You have the same number of options available as you would, only the design team has more options available from which to choose. I'll keep saying that every post as a sort of disclaimer. :Cant's wink and a smile icon:

 

As to the other points, I will say that the PC *can* craft in Fallout, and yet he is limited by all sorts of things, up to and including the setting. There are limits, no matter what. The question is the limit threshold.

 

So, in dialogue, the design team already decides what you say and, frankly, what it means. Your arguments against the system I describe are the same arguments you could use against virtually every system out there. ...And, since you will never have perfect freedom in computer games, it's a pie in the sky argument to dismiss a system because it doesn't afford the player freedoms he can't really expect from other systems.

 

After all, you're not going to get a system that goes:

 

1. [imaging your dialogue] start a fight.

2. [imagine your dialogue] run.

3. [imagine your dialogue] negotiate.

 

Even Bioware, which actually does attempt such a system, still writes the dialogue and then has it voiced. ...And, hell, Bioware still manages to get dialogue that I think conflicts with the choice associated with it.

 

I personally think the system I propose grants more freedom in the long run than you've seen in pretty much any RPG I've played.

 

Still, I'm actually not unhappy with the criticism. First of all, I take it in good spirits. Second of all, people have not been as universally negative as I'd thought they'd be. Finally, I actually sympathize with the freedom argument. It's just that I'm in a position of defending my proposal. If I weren't, I'd hope to think of some of the same points.

 

One thing folks haven't really hit that hard, which I think is the biggest roadblock for the system, is that it might be tough to write nine or ten options and only use three or four for each exchange. I can think of counter-arguments, but it's still a legitimate concern.

[Humanoid]

I'm not thinking pie-in-the-sky options that aren't there and would need to be implemented, I'm talking options that already exist in the codebase but are hidden from view because of the value in the internal variable. So out of that hypothetical dozen or so choices, the system is selecting a handful it deems most in-character for a given savegame and presents those only. I can understand the information overload angle, and while I'm personally fine with leaving all the options visible, I'm happy to accept that some may view it as confusing.

 

I also admit I haven't really fully taken in the full text of the first few posts -it's generally a case of me sitting up in bed at 8 in the morning to start my day and check out the new posts, as the timezones thing mean the vast majority of posts on this forum are made while I'm asleep. So really the main thing I've been trying to address are the big multiple choice examples in the first post. From an imaginary me-as-a-game-designer perspective, I don't see the value of designing and coding a system which is designed to expose X out of Y number possible options when presenting all Y is, at the worst case scenario, adding a bunch of text that the player can just skim over.

 

 

I realise I probably have latched onto one particular aspect of this whole proposal without looking at the bigger picture in depth, which I don't really have much to add to. Happy to leave it at that for now.

[Humanoid]

EDIT: Just for fun, since I've got my game designer wannabe cap on, an example of how the original scenario could play out if you shift the scale to be external to the character, i.e. reputation-based. For the sake of this scenario, I will call the system the nasty/nice system. Some outcomes are straightforward, and not all necessarily modify your reputation.

 

1. The PC not only kills the BG, but takes the time to leave false clues to implicate the Innocent Village.

a) Nasty: "We've heard there's a stranger in town being a bastard to the townsfolk, I reckon this guy's setting us up. If we could get our hands on him..." (Bad guys try to ambush you at night.)

b) Neutral: "We ride in and slaughter the village tonight!"

c) Nice: "There's rumours that some big-shot's been helping out the villagers lately, this doesn't smell right. Ever watch that scene in Blazing Saddles? It's got to be a trap."

 

2. The PC kills the BG.

- Moderate reputation gained towards Nasty.

 

3. The PC lets the BG live, but maims him so he's no longer a threat.

- BG crawls back to his gang and plots revenge. (Moderate reputation gained towards Nasty)

 

4. The PC attempts to reason with the BG.

a) Nasty: [Distrustful, fearful] "I know what you do. I don't know what your angle is, but I'm smart enough to see I better stay out of your way." (BGs switch their target towards a different settlement)

b) Nice: BG plays along in the hope of being allowed to go free, taking advantage of your naive foolishness. (Moderate reputation shift towards Nice.)

 

5. The PC takes the BG captive in order to try to rehabilitate him.

a) Nasty: "Don't think we haven't heard what you do to your so-called "prisoners" - I'd sooner cut my own throat than surrender to you! (BG either attempts to flee or fights to the death)

b) Nice: "A smart man knows when he's beaten. Very well, I submit, but if you double cross me, my men will hunt you down to the end of the earth."

 

Now the way the above is constructed is deliberately constructed to remain a single-step depth decision tree modified by a single variable. Given the resources, some options can lead down interesting and perhaps unexpected paths.

 

Restating:

 

5. The PC takes the BG captive in order to try to rehabilitate him.

a) Nasty: "Don't think we haven't heard what you do to your so-called "prisoners" - I'd sooner cut my own throat than surrender to you! (BG either attempts to flee or fights to the death)

i) Kill BG. (Minor reputation shift towards Nasty)

ii) Attempt to take BG by force.

ii-a) Treat BG prisoner well. (Large reputation shift towards Nice)

ii-b) Kill BG after getting all you need from them. (Minor reputation shift towards Nasty)

b) Nice: "A smart man knows when he's beaten. Very well, I submit, but if you double cross me, my men will hunt you down to the end of the earth."

i) Treat BG prisoner well. (Moderate reputation shift towards Nice)

ii) Kill BG after getting all you need from them. (Large reputation shift towards Nasty)

[Calax]

Doesn't all of this discussion start from the fact that it's assumed that the player character is a complete tabula rasa?

 

By comparison, what if your already following a character who's got a personality and distinctive mindset. Like in a Final Fantasy, Suikoden, or Chrono game. And while you do control them, and can shape their actions, most of what you do is guided by their previously set personality. I mean Suikoden V (yes, I'm going there again) gave you a pretty dang good choice near the end about where you wanted to have your final battle. And that battle decided if certain members of your crew lived or died. But up until that point he'd let the war run mostly according to his strategists because he had been raised and groomed to be a figurehead with the ultimate diplomacy dangling between his legs.

 

And I think a lot of this argument about choice comes back to what Yahtzee said in Fable 2. For all the talk of choice and consequence, you're still playing in a gameworld where you can't do certain things, and your "freedom" is really just an illusion as you drive yourself to an inevitable conclusion. Alpha Protocol is probably the best example of that whole choice and consequence schtick, and even then it only gave you minor bonuses.

 

As to the whole "good/evil/neutral" reputation and/or morality graph? It's stupid. Mainly because either way you've still got rewards tied into the game that are attached to that stuff, and thus people will metagame to get the Uber-Graphite-Sword-of-Papyrus-Smearing or whatever. I could understand it better if you had it just adjust how the towns people react, but if you put in to harsh consequences or make it to good to metagame, there's no real choice any more... just "do I need more jerk/sweetie points to get my gear?"

 

Why not allow the players to play how they want, have an invisible track of their actions on a "generally good/bad" scale, and base crowd reactions on that.

[Cantousent]

I think the best thing about your post, Cal, is that I'm not sure whether you support my views or not. lol You kind of argued a little on both sides. ...But, I do think you made important points.

 

First of all, I've never played Suikoden, but I have played some Final Fantasy games. I would say that those games, like Diablo, are by and large action rpgs. They're fun, but the point was never to explore consequence. I mean, in FF(x) or Diablo, your choice is what class you play. After that, you may or may not need to choose a talent tree, which abilities to use, and which gear to wear. The consequence is either you kill the mobs or you die. I love action rpgs, so I don't mind that at all for those games.

 

Other games are all abou choosing between different paths and seeing some representation of the consequences. Sure, the consequences tend to be shallow, but even blurred vision would be a treasure to the blind. You take what you get. I agree entirely that many players (although not as many as you'd think reading this forum) will simply metagame. Fair enough, but many players will still make choices based on character identification even so. I could take examples from my experience, but I'll be sneaky and take one from yours. When we were doing the Flashpoint last night, you wanted to make responses that were dark-side for your smuggler because that's how you conceived your character. There really aren't a whole hell of a lot of benefits in playing light or dark per se. You just have an idea. That's *you,* bud. :Cant's toothy grin icon: (By the way, thanks again. I can't believe almost every drop was a Commando item.)

 

I still get what you're saying, but the reality is, stupid or not, we have spectra in games and players make choices based on them. To wit, both of us among other gamers.

 

Where I entirely agree is that we make the spectrum invisible. I still don't think folks get what I'm saying, and at this point I will take responsibility because, if I couldn't explain it sufficienty by this point, it must be my fault. My point isn't to add the feature as something the players see and can use. My point is that it's in the background giving the design team a way to let the player more chances to define his character. The way choice has worked so far is that you make choices and get a payoff at some point, usually by the immediate response. You might have rep pools with different factions, which is what New Vegas did wonderfully, but those responses to your choices are the payoffs. What I'm saying is, without even mentioning the spectrum, is letting the player move his character somewhere along the line to the sort of person he likes to play. It's entirely dynamic without needing to be intrusive or even apparent. It lets the consquence come on the PC side, not just the NPC side.

[Calax]

My point was that to a degree, everything you posted (at least in terms of character generation and arguments about factions etc), were based around the idea that your character has no thoughts or considerations other than your own. Which makes it harder on your writer from the get go because he has to make things as open as possible. Even then there are bits of back story sprinkled around the character (Shepard, for example, is always going to be a soldier at Akuze), or there is really no story that relates to the character beyond what is already placed in game (the Dragonborn for example).

 

And even with my character in TOR, yes I did create a character for her, but it's almost entirely based on her voice. I couldn't ever make a male inquisitor light side because he just SOUNDS like he kills puppies in his spare time, just like a Jedi Warrior sounds like the superhero. These are bits of character that are provided to you without option, and it's based on your reflection of that that creates the character of the person.

 

And honestly, when you get right down to it, what you're asking for, will create a VERY weak story given how far the writers will have to stretch themselves to fit in the various permutations that they have to design in to keep people happy.

[Cantousent]

I don't think the proposed system will necessarily draw down to a weak story. I didn't think a robust faction based rep system would lead to a weak story, and that's almost exactly what they used for New Vegas.

 

...But I also didn't realize that you're basically hitting me from the opposite direction of the 'free-choicers.'

 

Of course, having proposed the system, I have to believe, and could argue, that it would serve both story based *and* choice based gaming better than a lot of folks do, and a lot of teams out there already try to do both. Bioware and Obsidian try to serve story first with a good dose of choice, while Bethsoft tries to serve choice first with some nod to story.

 

I'm not going to make any further arguments, however. I've said my piece and defended it. I enjoy the give and take, but I don't want to be so personally invested that I feel compelled to respond to every point, good and bad. ...And I think you guys have made some strong points.