The Essence of Choice and Consequences:

R

Roshambo

Antediluvian as Feck
I will relate a secret that the experienced in the industry know and consider to be the defining point of CRPGs. Well, not just those who are experienced in the industry, make that just about everyone who has played RPGs for some time in ways other than those that would make Monty Haul sue for trademark infringement.

Many things claim to be an RPG because they possess a stat system that progresses whenever you flip a number base. Taken loosely, that could also mean earning an "extra man" in Pac-Man or munching all of the pellets to get to the next experience level, complete with a new dungeon full of ghosts to avoid and coins to collect. ;) Instead, choice of action is considered to be the most important aspect in an RPG by those with a clue, mainly because you NEED to have something happen in order for the world to feel alive, the story to progress, the game to feel fun and worth playing, social interaction on many levels to occur, and the player's interest to be held. When I speak of progression, I do not refer to the limp method of most story-driven games.

When you do nothing and the world progresses, then it feels that you're being led. Not necessarily a bad thing if the application is good and in small, specific doses. When you do something and the world does a collective yawn, it becomes an issue of asking "What's the point?" Hence why many games revolving around randomizing core aspects are better left to designs suited for those already a little too vacant to really notice that there's barely any substance in the random quest generator. That is okay for actions games if they are done well, but little so in real CRPGs.

Choices should be an inherent part of Fallout's style; it is the foundation of what came before most modern titles and what the game represents. Fallout does mean the old-school P&P RPGs that created the many "sub-genres" that are often incorrectly credited with having actual role-playing somewhere in them.

Yet, without consequences, the choices will seem very superficial and for naught. This doesn't mean that there's a silver curiass at the end of every "returned child from the bottom of a well". Some things are really not that obvious yet should have some effect upon the game. All it takes is a few more lines of dialog written and you go from an NPC who loves the PC no matter what, to an NPC who likes the PC normally, but will hate their guts if they joined the Slavers. Give it more and their depth would suit a number of different paths through the game, and you don't subscribe to David "The Exponential Excuse Boy" Gaider's mistaken excuse for design. The same could be noted of Arcanum's quest variance in solutions, especially with another example I love to use.

Background (SPOILER): Master Bates. Bates is a key NPC in the game, who has information on further areas and progression of the story. He is a VERY wealthy man who lives in a mansion with a number of house servants, and he has connections to a dwarf clan, also related to how he got his great wealth. You need the information on the dwarf clan's home location, however you can get it. His bodyguard later makes fur a good Joinable NPC.

If you didn't want to highlight the above, don't worry, this next part should make a bit of sense despite not knowing the background. The labels in parenthesis are what is the required aspect in order to achieve the desired effects.

There are a number of solutions to progressing past this obstacle and further on the story. One, you can kill him, his house servants, and take the book from his drawer that tells you what you want to know. Bash it in with your ham fists if you need to. (Evil or Stupid) Alternatively, you could just sneak in and take the book, which helps if you have angered the household somehow. (Any Thief) Oh, and clean out the rest of the valuables while you are at it. (Depending upon what and how it is taken, Thief to Thief and Evil) If you can't sneak...hey, go as a house servant, there's plenty of more uniforms in storage...if they also fit and your ego is willing to act subservient. (able for Any to solve) Or, maybe, you just decided to follow a gnome's dying wish for whatever reason and give the ring to its rightful owner, who lets you in on more information than you would have learned by just killing him. (Any) Maybe you're wanting Bates to pay you more. (Charismatic).

While it might seem like a good idea to play the good guy in the above, there is little reason to deviate from a preferred playstyle or two, given the situations. Multiple solutions are quite welcome into RPGs as they are a staple, but another important aspect is that NO RPG should allow all of the experiences within to be experienced in a single playing. Maybe 60-80% depending upon how well the design is planned and how detailed it is. It is one of those things akin to no class should be able to do everything in the game. With Fallout's skill system, (ideally, and this is just a reference in parallel) you should have experienced something like this:

Skill Checks:

5 0 0 Master Level
10 30 20 High Intermediate Level
25 25 50 Intermediate Level
50 50 100 Low Intermediate Level
100 100 200 Novice Level

The first column is for a high single-tagged skill, two other lesser tagged skills, and a few remaining skills that might have had some points put into them. The second is for all three spread into Tagged evenly. The third is with two larger and equal Tagged skills, one lesser Tagged skill, and more points put into remaining skills. I'm not going to bother with the permutations involving someone putting far more points into a non-Tagged skills than their Tagged, as that is something worthy of Haris.

This allows for a variety of play styles while also allowing viability for most, if not all, of the skills; a problem in both prior Fallout games. I will admit it, some skills were a bit useless. It should be noted that some of the above may seem a bit imbalanced in giving a lot more lesser events, but with a bit of planning and creativity, rewards and opportunities for skill use/reward may be limited a bit, but isn't much of an issue as even with this it still allows the player to go back and play through again as something else. It also is a point that those are lesser events which might culminate into something larger because they finished a lot of small events that needed a variety of skills (Hint: perfect for JOAT characters, the use of which could be made evident by the first play through). The lesser do not matter to a point, since they are limited in scope, but later to balance out how stagnant JOAT characters tend to be, there should be a culminative reward in something other than experience.

Another game I have to draw attention to is another held respectable here, Planescape: Torment. Despite my favoritism towards PS:T as a D&D setting, this game does a fairly good job of reflecting your choices towards the NPCs, the setting, and they in turn treat you differently depending upon your choice in which path you take on your journeys. This should never be limited mostly to choosing the character at the creation screen.

One aspect I would have loved is if you could literally pen in the dead-book every important NPC you've killed. Cries-For-Eswhatever was pretty cool, up until I got the money from him, sneered, and killed him. Just to later clear my conscience, I later put the city's name on the giant tombstone. Okay, I lied. It was just as a trophy. :twisted:

Take a look at that. Most who have played the game would have thought I likely belonged to a certain lunatic faction, as the fellow just asked me to preserve the name of his razed home city, gave me the money for it, and I sneered and pocketed it. He attacked, I defended, and then I put the city's name onto the tombstone - but I did it for my own reasons, the true mark of a Chaotic Neutral character. Or for that matter, Chaotic Evil and Neutral Evil as well, but perhaps not as much given that those would have just killed the fellow for his money and not bothered to indulge in an ironic trophy.

Another thing to note to those who have not played PS:T, your alignment changes depending your actions and attitudes towards those you interact with. This does include your NPCs, IIRC. The depth of this should be included into any Fallout sequel, as with P&P RPGs, NPCs that have depth are invaluable tools for storytelling, adding depth, and retaining player interest. It is also one of the many things that makes the world come alive, as Ultima was noted for.

Yet, as with all design, if this is designed in a lacking manner, it will not feel coherent with the rest. If it's just a simple and shallow Deus Ex if ($InnocentDeaths > 5) {&ReprimandingSpeech} else {&CongratulatorySpeech}, then it really does little to enhance or even have the aforementioned aspects that choice and consequence play in CRPGs.

If you are able to, please check out the dual-jewels of Fallout/Fallout 2 and Planescape: Torment. Soulbringer also exists on another disc, but just feel happy you got PS:T for $10, use Yawnbringer as a coaster for the ale mug.

Thoughts?
 
Good article, Rosh, but I disagree with one thing. I don't think that Fallout 3 should have an alignment change system like PS:T had. It fitted with PS:T, mainly because it was still a D&D game and because of the magic in it, but it would not fit with Fallout, or at least, showing the player explicitly that they are "Chaotic" "Evil" or whatever wouldn't fit. Of course, player's actions and attitudes should determine the way in which people view him, but it shouldn't be made obvious to the player how the people feel about him beforehand, or what alignment the engine thinks he is.
This would, in my opinion, detract from the Fallout setting in that you let the aligment crystalize in such an obvious manner that it wouldn't fit the game anymore. It would also become somewhat of a focus for the player, which is bad as well, since the point of Fallout has always been freedom and the freedom to do whatever what you want in certain situations. If the player becomes greedy at seeing all of that money, he shouldn't worry about his current alignment, but he should worry about the concrete actual consequences of his actions.
 
I would agree, though I was just using that example as a system that does it right and with reflected consequences. :)
 
I don't think the game should tell you exactly what your current "alignment" is, it should be seen through the actions of the NPCs. In other words, not showing you exactly what your current demeanor is on your character sheet, but experiencing it. What do you think??
 
Rosh uses Arcanum as a good example of choice and consequences. For all its mitigating flaws (to me at least), the game incorporated alot of choices and opportunities and was a thoroughly enjoyable experience because of them..

Here's another example early on the game: In the town of Shrouded Hills, the bridge out of town is protected by Lukan the Witless and two of his half-ogre thugs. This is a point in the game in which all characters, regardless of their aptitude leaning, race, "class", or gender, encounter and it functions as a bottleneck, so to say. And this is a point where the choices in the game really shines.

There's many solutions. If you have the money, you can play the exorbitant sum of 1000 just to pass. If you're a warrior of either the sword-wielding, magick-blasting, or gun-slinging inclination, you can just outright slay the extorting band of thugs, take the key to the gate, and leave. If you're a thief with decent pickpocket skills, you can lift the key off of Lukan and scurry out of town. If you're a gifted speaker, you can persuade Lukan to abandon the bridge by convincing him that he is infringing on a stronger gang's racket. Or, if you're just a general out-and-out asshole, you can join Lukan and gain his trust by destroying the reserve supplies the town set aside to build a new bridge.

So there's the many opportunities for just one situation. And we should really give the developers kudos for covering all the bases.

The point of having so many choices is typically for the replay value. After first beating the Fallout games (and Arcanum), there's just a whole new experience in playing the game over again with either an evil or a stupid character. But it also gives the player alot of leeway and exemplifies the reason why they are playing a role-playing game: to immerse themselves in their character and thus being allowed to have their characters respond to otherwise static situations with their own strategies.
 
Isn't choice and consequence the whole point to playing a game? I know Rosh was using CRPGs as a reference point, but the truth is choice and consequence is what separates playing a video game from watching TV, or reading a book (except for a choose your own adventure book). Even if you used a game like Tetris you could advocate that it allows you to make choices that have far-reaching effects on the game and open some doors while closing others, such as thinking, "Should I use this L-shaped block to get a double, or should I wait for a line in order to get a tetris?" Most of the games that withstand the test of time poorly are those that don't allow many choices, or force you to play the game of "Guess What the Developer Is Thinking". The secret to a good game seems to be giving the player direction, but letting them go about discovering the best way to that end, which is why games like Deus Ex, even with its simplistic quest design, still manages to be an enjoyable game.
 
Yeah, what DevilsAdvocate said.

It's just that the kind of "choice" you have is different in each genre. In an FPS for example you might choose to charge at someone directly or sneak past them and backstab them at close range. There is an exception tho and that is the kind of FPS in which you just mow down waves of mindless attackers -- the choice is a very restricted one there and extremely linear level design is more than common among this kind of game.

Of course CRPGs are somewhat special because you have a lot of choices and your choices reflect the character rather than the player. You have the choice between combat, dialog and thievery and you have choices within combat, dialog and other approaches. There are more layers of choices in a good CRPG than are neccessary for a good FPS.

I think the element of choice is the most important thing in most games indeed, but it needs to be more complex in a CRPG than anywhere else.
 
Well, in Fallout 1 and 2, you were given a reputation in every location you visited, as well as a master karma stat. I think that since there exists no universal set of ethics, a person should have no universal karma stat based on what s/he has done throughout his or her life. While the character is certainly aware of what kind of moral person s/he is, this self-perception will always be biased and tainted by the characters values, which is based on the morality that the character already possesses. Instead, I propose that in addition to a reputation in each location, there will also be a karma stat that the character has in each location which is based on what the NPC's think of the characters morality. The master karma stat should be an average of all these local karma stats.

In this way, one town may think the character a hero, while another town will see the player as a villain. It should be up to the player to decide what kind of morality the character possesses, as within the game, there is only what others view the character as that determines morality.

But this raises an important question: Is morality based on actions or intent?
 
Morality and Altruism

calculon00 said:
But this raises an important question: Is morality based on actions or intent?
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If you had philosophy at school, you will most likely have noticed the common conclusion is that intention affects the morality more than the result of an action. If you intend to do something bad but end up helping people more than harming them, you still are immoral.

In practice someone's intention is usually unknown to others and therefore people are judged by their actions. If you try to help someone by improving the output of a power plant but in the progress cause an entire population to suffer your action will be perceived as immoral (unless the suffering population was perceived as evil and making them suffer is perceived as a morally good action).

Curing cancer and causing overpopulation resulting in cannibalism and the downfall of mankind may have had a moral intention but will be perceived by the majority of people as an immoral action.

The problem is also that morality is subjective to the observer and the acting person. If the actor thinks of his action as evil (and therefore acts immorally) his action may be moral, but that doesn't make him a moral person (he would be acting against his nature as well because it is unnatural to act against your own morality, that would have psychological consequences such as confusion, regret and, in the worst case, split personality).

Lastly what we usually think of as morality is not what we would define as morality on our own, but what the society around has has defined so (ideally as an average of every individual's morality, but usually the average of the sound majority (which may represent only a fraction of the society as a whole)). That's why a moral action in one society may be understood as immoral in another.

That conflict is common these days as we see in the waves of anti-Americanism ('00s+) and Americanism ('50s-'90s) as well as in the conflicts between Christian and Islamic cultures.
Sidenote: If we are only focussing on morality of actions as adjustment towards one's own personal morality, "Islamic" suicide bombers oftenly are more moral persons than your average westerner (although suicide bombing is perceived as immoral by the majority of people).

So basically we need two concepts of morality, like calculon said: moral adjustment as compability between your actions (and intentions!) and your personal beliefs and morality as compability between your action and the society's beliefs (which is what the local reputation represents in Fallout 2 and what the general karma represents in both games for the entire gameworld -- although that concept is a wee bit flawed).
Sadly the former concept can hardly be implemented in a game correctly. The character's intention is only known by the player and can only be guessed by the game as long as the game cannot read the player's mind. Inner conflict therefore can only be used properly for NPCs and movie characters.

Lastly a word on altruism: Many people believe that one can be self-less. The problem is that altruistic behavior ISN'T. All human behavior is egoistic. Although people can behave in a way that has positive side-effects, their motivation is strictly egoistic. If you act in a seemingly self-less way you intend to help other people, but your motivation is a "clear concious" or similar concepts -- that simply means that you get comfort out of it (comfort being everything that isn't discomfort, in this case). Theoretically the only altruistic action would be one that discomforts you, but the only motivation for such an action would be that not acting that way would cause even more discomfort than doing so (the most favorable action would still be discomforting but to a smaller degree). Of course the result of an action is not always predictable so while the result of an action may seem favorable the actual result may be not, but that's one of the causes of regret, which affects future behavior in a similar situation.

So individual morality is an illusion? Yes and no.
The moral ideas of the individual are egoistic and cannot be violated by it, although of course these ideas can change enormously throughout its lifetime.
Morality as something you can comform to or not only exists in a society of mulitple people. When you act against "your moral ideas" you only violate the morality of the society, not your own. You cannot intentionally violate your own morality, although your action can have results which do so and although your morality can change in a way that former actions become incompatible with it (if you kill someone intentionally you can still regret it if your morality changes afterward, usually regret comes from false prediction of the result tho -- the intention is not really ending someone else's life but ending a conflict, "making them stop" (tempting/offending you), etc; if ending someone's life (with all consequences) was your intention tho, your morality HAVE to change before you can regret it for moral reasons, which is why some murderers don't regret their actions, if they don't regret it for moral reasons they usually only regret getting caught).

The definition of altruism as something that doesn't benefit you is therefore impractical (because there are no purely altruistic motivations).
A better and broader definition would be that an altruistic action is one that benefits other people more than the acting entity itself. An egoistic action therefore would be one that benefits the acting entity more than anybody else.
A self-less action would therefore be an action that benefits other people and doesn't bring you any physical benefits or even has effects for you that are generally perceived as undesirable (like death, for example).

Hm... I should try to put all that and my knowledge of AI together and do something practical with it. Maybe I should just write a proper essay tho.
 
DevilsAdvocate, that's a really broad way of looking at gaming, saying that is kind of like generalizing that any game that gives you some sort of background blurb on the box is a role-playing game. You know with a space invaders type game adding " Greetings, Starfighter. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan armada." puts you into a role of a starfighter etc.

For me the choice and consequences in CRPGs are about getting things wrong and not having to reload. The best crpgs like Fallout allow you to muck things up and still continue to the end of the game. Most other game types will end as soon as you make a mistake and fail to achieve an objective or kill someone that's not been scripted to die. The first time I played Fallout and Fallout 2 I got so many quests wrong, but the games didn't end and I was allowed to continue playing. That's what consequences really mean, most other game types would just end and you'd need to reload or start over but with a good CRPG if one way through the game comes to an end another way opens.
 
requiem_for_a_starfury said:
For me the choice and consequences in CRPGs are about getting things wrong and not having to reload. The best crpgs like Fallout allow you to muck things up and still continue to the end of the game.
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Excellent point, one I was hoping to see. Usually, if someone does does something "wrong" according to some chucklehead's limited design (again, see David "The Exponential Excuse Boy" Gaider for an example of what causes this), they would have to reload. However, with good talent, writing ability, and a foundation in what really makes RPGs all tick (including P&P), it would provide for (to use an example from PS:T) that Chatic Evil character to continue playing viably, whereas the Slaver aspect of Fallout 2 was weak and a reload unless you wanted to play that poorly-supported facet of the "faction".

Juggling save games because you got "the lesser prize" is also another flaw that should be fixed. The game doesn't become unplayable unless those programming the "DM" don't provide for that decision/reaction. In a P&P RPG, the players should not know what is coming up ahead and if they mess up life goes on. The same was done with PS:T. The writing talent in that was superb, in that it destroyed a few conventions with creativity and proved the excuses for Asswind Dale 2 were nothing but excuses...while BioWare is still paddling around with Fed-Ex quests and crappy logic puzzles I solved in the first grade.

Someone needs to really step back into what an RPG means, at a design level and not a media level, a concept which basically has Fallout's name written all over it.
 
Agreed, but I don't think it will be done in the foreseeable future, what with the trend in MMORPG's and impulse-driven click-fests such as Diablo. Outside of Arcanum, I haven't lately seen a decent RPG with an immersive storyline. MMORPG's are off the hook, I suppose, since the understanding is that player/player interactions will make up for lack of plot or deep decisions affecting the game world.
 
Roshambo said:
Someone needs to really step back into what an RPG means, at a design level and not a media level, a concept which basically has Fallout's name written all over it.
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Gunslinger said:
Agreed, but I don't think it will be done in the foreseeable future, what with the trend in MMORPG's and impulse-driven click-fests such as Diablo. Outside of Arcanum, I haven't lately seen a decent RPG with an immersive storyline.
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I think this thread may be cracking open the secret of why Fallout is so great compared to most the other RPG's out there.
 
Let me clarify my previous post. I didn't mean that any game is an RPG, I simply mean that choice and consequence is the backbone of any game. What defines the different genres is the method by which choices are introduced. I do agree that RPGs give you choices that are more character-based than player-based, and that is part of the appeal of the genre (instead of being yourself, you get to step into someone else's shoes).

Part of the reason Fallout was such a good game is that it, a lot of the time, forced you to make do with what you had. Unless you used a walkthrough or had played through the game before, a lot of the time you wouldn't have the perfect resources and would have to improvise a solution SOME way (for instance, using the radio on the computer in the military base). One of the best stories I ever DMed was a mid-level campaign wherein the characters were captured and stripped of all of their powerful equipment, making them very weak and vulnerable. But the players responded not by griping that they lost their equipment, but by seeing the possibilities of everything around them. I think that is what would make Fallout 3 an even better game: put the player in a situation where they have to go with choices that they would never even consider before. Because not all choices in RPGs have to be dialogue choices (and the best RPGs do more than just dialogue choices).
 
DevilsAdvocate said:
One of the best stories I ever DMed was a mid-level campaign wherein the characters were captured and stripped of all of their powerful equipment, making them very weak and vulnerable. But the players responded not by griping that they lost their equipment, but by seeing the possibilities of everything around them. I think that is what would make Fallout 3 an even better game: put the player in a situation where they have to go with choices that they would never even consider before.
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Yeah, but the strip-player-of-inventory-and-put-him-in-cell method is a bit cliché in linear storylines. I think a proper approach would be making it part of a sidequest with a benefit the player would deem favorable.
The player would for example have multiple solutions to a given problem (standard quest with different paths), one of which would put him in an unusual situation (stripped of inventory, put inside a death machine, facing robots with death-rays) but would give him [lots of ammo|lots of money|a super gun|ph4t l3wt] in return (to prevent a reload-instinct.

To name two examples (spoilers):

In Deus Ex you would eventually face an invincible enemy and an overwhelming army, the only way out was to get "killed" which would put you in a cell. You would be freed by an event beyond your reach and slowly get a few weapons until you get to the weapons locker and regain most of your equipment plus a plasma rifle.
It was part of the linear main storyline, but it still rewarded the player for going through all the hassle.

In Postal 2 you could (accidentally or consequently) catch the attention of law enforcement officers. You could either run and hide until your chase level had reached zero again or keep on fighting them until your ammo or hit points ran out (resulting in death) or drop your weapons and let them arrest you. Once arrested you would end up in a cell of the police station. Getting out of the cell was easy but once free you would have to use a battery-consuming RADAR device to evade the police officers until you had your basic equipment together again and got out of the building without getting too much attention.
Lacking a reward there was no point in getting caught other than not having to reload if you couldn't run, nevertheless there was enough equipment and action to prevent the player from reverting to an early savegame just because of getting caught.


Such scenarios can provide an interesting twist, but even more so if the player doesn't see them coming (example #1 more than #2) and of course only if the scenario has been worked out properly by the devs.
 
Player "choice and consequence" also affects the gameplay. There's also a need to keep a balance between story-linearity and player choice. What I mean is that though the player should have relative freedom, there must be a degree of guidance going on in the came to provide a storyline.

(Since I wub examples...) Freelancer was a game that leaned excessively to the "player choice" inclination (never mind that it was a space sim; it's comparable enough to an RPG). In it, you basically had free reign over the galaxy and could do pretty much whatever you wanted. You could go mine asteriods, trade resources, ferry goods from star system to star system, collect bounties, assassinate key figures, etc. That sounds all pretty good, don't it? But the bane of Freelancer was its repetitiveness. You could go zipping along from star-system to star-system for no rhyme or reason. Eventually, you'll have gone through enough of the "random-generated" missions that all of them will be repeats. And there's just no incentive any more. Typically, in an RPG, money and new equipment is the big lure to keep players going (my theory is that RPG players in particular are gung-ho stat-based. i.e. they'd go through the three-leveled dungeon for the simple pleasures of a Long Sword +1). Anyway, Freelancer got to the point were you could effectively max out your ship rather quickly and rather early in the game. As for the storyline: the progression of the storyline was done rather poorly considering that you had to endure mind-jarringly repetitve missions just to get a cheesy 15-second cinematic.

Freelancer-bashing aside, I feel that it's necessary for the game to take you by the hand sometimes and tell you what to do. There can always be a level of vagueness and numerous means to receive the same end in order to keep the game interesting. Fallout kinda copped out in giving the game loose structure by employing the time limit. But it was a necessary in order to give the player to fight the Master and save the day. Finding the waterchip was just a means to achieving the game's apex, its climax.

It pretty much boils down to appealing to a gamer's two sides. One side, the anal-retentive side that loves to explore every nook and cranny, digs a fully immersive world that gives them the freedom to do what they want and actually role-play. The other side not only wants to be entertained by a great story but also desires to BE the hero of said great story. Ideally, a game should find a happy medium between both, if not incorporating both together.
 
Gunslinger said:
Here's another example early on the game: In the town of Shrouded Hills, the bridge out of town is protected by Lukan the Witless and two of his half-ogre thugs...
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Speaking of action and consequence, I think shrouded hills is a shining example of the current shortcomings in how most games fail to take into account a player's actions. Sure, you can solve the Lukan problem various ways, but once you do, the consequence tree kind of stagnates. For example, I decided to take up Lukan's offer of destroying the new building equipment. While this is a fairly easy way to solve the problem, it also puts you on the outs with the constable, as you're magically somehow seen, and the constable no longer confides in you, shutting off the path to perform the repair the steam engine quest, if not already taken. Choice and consequence. Then what? The game scripts fall back into nothingness. I decide to kill Lukan and his thieves, an action for which you would expect some kind of consequence, some kind of gossip amongst the villagers. Maybe the constable will change his mind about me? But no, nothing.

During the nighttime, i decide to destroy all the livestock. In town which subsists almost entirely on agriculture you'd expect some kind of devestating results. Maybe, as the town's saviour, they'll ask for your aid to replenish or solve the problem. But, no, nothing, nada.

Some thug at the inn tells me about an opportunity to rob the bank. He gives me the combination and waits for me outside to complete my heist. I kill him and his body is now lying on the ground for all to see. Jeezus, things are dying left and right! I'd think we have some kind of epidemic!

After helping stop a bank heist, the now solitary attendant goes to sleep. I steal the key, and with the combination i previously got land the final blow to the town's already crippled economy. No one seems to care, though.

The Lukan scenerio is nothing more than the status quo of modern day rpg choice. Solve a problem however you chose, but in the end, it really only minimally matters. Without taking into account vast links of cause and effect, a game becomes no more than a linear romp with bumps along the way where you can chose to press A, B, or C, ala KoToR. Sure, i can imagine how difficult it is to write scripts which take into account so many different factors. Maybe we need a new approach to script writing, then?
 
Very good post Jabbapop, you hit the spot there, too much accent on graphical engines and not enough research in complex A.I. in games is one the causes of this situation. Surely someone can come up with better solutions to this problem with the push on processing technology and memory size and speed in the last couple of years? Or maybe not, maybe the problem is too much complexity or not enough creativity? What do you NMAer`s think?
 
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