I really wish that the industry (Namely Bethesda) would stop creating fantastic games that I love in all ways... Until their plot steels my character away from me! Maybe the development team needs to actually sit down together and play some table top RPG's. You know? Have some idea about what the purpose, and more importantly, the fun of (and frustration of) the RPG is.

I'm not some total munchkin lamenting the downfall of table top. I honestly mean it. Do they even know (or try to know) why we like RPG's? From titles like Skyrim, it would seem like they don't... So here is the answer. It's Freedom. Personal freedom and self accountability in a fun, interesting and low consequence environment. It's so obvious. That's why it's called fantasy. The point of playing RPG's is to make decisions. Not to watch some brilliant plot unfold. I have Chris Nolan for that. It's to exercise perfect control over one thing... your character (sheet). I'm not talking about nerfing one class or buffing another. I'm talking about PLOT V.S. CHARACTER. The "storyteller" creates and controls everything in the world (table top or console). The premise is that the player characters can interact with and manipulate cretin parts of that world... But we all know that that is an illusion. You find the clue when and where the "storyteller" wanted you to find it etc, etc... In actuality, ultimately the "storyteller" controls every outcome in the game world, he just lets the player characters think and feel like it was due to them.

So if we know it's a lie than why do we like to play? Because the characters and more importantly the "storyteller", have an unspoken agreement... (The one Bethesda and others love to break) That rule is that the player characters control themselves (i.e. their character sheet). The story teller can't just turn your 8th level fighter into a 12th level wizard. It is the one realm, the single, solitary spec of control that the player characters have. And that is why we like to play these games. An amateur (or just plain bad) "storyteller" manipulates his players character sheets (not their emotions or perceptions) to arrive at the desired plot outcome. Presumably to execute and realize his creative vision (at the expense of the players enjoyment). The number one way (table top or otherwise) that good RPG's go bad is because "storytellers" make the conscious decision to turn their players characters into plot devices.

Please stop. I pay good money for these games and all I want is for my character (and his emotions, opinions, skills and abilities) to be under my control. We can't rewrite the code and change your world. So please, Just leave our characters alone. Don't force the character that you told me I controlled, you asked me to make in the beginning of the game... Don't force him to have spells or a voice in his head or turn into another class or any of your other contrivances. You worry about the world and let us worry about our characters.

+1


There is definitely a problem if, in response to quest NPCs, I only have ONE OPTION OF HOW TO REPLY.
And even when there is an option, it's always a "yes I will" or "no I won't" scenario, with the response to "no I won't" being "ok come back when you change your mind" rather than the no response having any significant impact on the outcome of the quest.

Character customization in this game is a lie. You can make a warrior, a mage or a thief, but quest wise? It's all the same. Your warrior, mage and thief will all return that ring in the same exact fashion and they'll all handle that bandit situation the same exact way. The only choice this game offers is Stormcloaks vs. Imperial Legion, and even then the two have quests that mirror each other so much it's not even funny.

OP says what I've been stewing over much better than I could have. +1

In Bethesda games, choices are more like they are in real life than in most RPG's. If you're going to do something, there's not typically a good way and a bad way to do it; the choice is whether or not to do it.

The reason that moral choices in games like Fable and Mass Effect fall flat is because good and evil pay about the same. Do you want to murder a bunch of innocent people or free them from their evil master? Well, you don't care. You'll get roughly the same reward either way. If the choice is to murder a bunch of innocent people or not murder a bunch of innocent people, and you get a cool sword or something for killing them, then the player actually has to wake up and think about what they're doing. I know I'm reading too far into this, but, seriously, the game doesn't force you to do anything at all. You don't have to save the world from the dragons. You can do whatever you want; that's the point of the game.

Edit: Wait, I think I completely misinterpreted what you said. The player character's character build being changed around for the sake of the story? Yeah, there's no excuse for that.

I know what you mean....is it even logical to play as anything but a Nord!?

I think its how you pick your quests. Would a good hero warrior steal a bottle for a drunk? No, so say no. Would an evil thief do it? Maybe, so do it. And I don't know what other choices you could have.

I think there's enough choice in this game already, don't see the problem at all and I've put in quite a few hours in all sorts of different characters.

Wrong section.

I can't answer this poll properly, there aren't any choices that properly fit my response. (Which ironically, is exactly the complaint you are incidentally raising...)

I like having my own choices, but that doesn't mean I don't want a plot that makes sense.

A proper plot allows the player to be put in a situation, and be given multiple ways in which they can react. That doesn't mean it's not a good plot, however.

That also doesn't mean that taking away a player's choice in some situations doesn't actually improve the game in proper situations, either. Just look at the female city ellf origin story in Dragon Age: Origins... You start out as a poor girl in a ghetto, getting married off against her will, and you're basically just asked how you feel about it, and then told to keep it to yourself because your opinion doesn't matter. Then the humans show up, act like the most pompous A-holes ever, kidnap all the girls, including you, take your cousin off to have some "nonconsensual relations", leave the rest of you to the guards, and before you can do anything to resist, they split one girl in half and start laughing to themselves about how much they love being racist sadists. Then your other cousin pops in, asks if you're nice and ready to get to the killing parts yet, and tosses you a sword before the game gives you back control. THAT'S setting up some motivation. For the rest of the game, I was cheerfully flipping the bird at every single figure of authority I could find, and it was a blast.

In TES, however, the problem is not that it has "too much plot taking control", it's more that it has no plot that still tries to take over control, anyway.

Plot and character should be working together, not against each other, and if you are a capable storyteller, you are capable of setting up dungeons and quests that react to player input while still giving them proper motivations to care, other than just "you'll get a pie if you kill this orc".

I can't vote on the poll either. An RPG is never really "finished", not the way I play. I consider building the plot and developing the character about equally. Can't choose one over the other, in other words.

I will have multiple characters, though. I made a total of 12 in Oblivion, and had 3 games going at a time at max.

Yeah, no one in the industry really cares about this stuff anymore. It's all been discarded in the name of accessibility. I mean, I was just reading a thread where people were having panic attacks every time a quest offered an alternative option. So they'd reload just to see what the other thing was and if they were going to get a better reward. Can you imagine what a game packed full of meaningful choices would do to them?

The only way I can respond to this properly is by providing a spoiler for the Companions. I think it explains my and OP's frustration quite well though.







There is no reason why this game can't have more choice.

For example, what if I'm roleplaying as an Altmer, a member of the Thalmor? Is there a place for me in the main quest? No, no there's not. Is there a place for me in the war? Nope.
What if I roleplay a Khajiit? Same exact thing.

Skyrim suffers from the exact same problem Fallout 3 suffered from: there's only one role to play that's supported by the main quests. Fallout 3 you were either a member of the Brotherhood of Steel or you were a random no-name explorer. No Enclave option, no independent option, no nothing. In Skyrim, you're either Dovahkiin or you're some nobody who does the faction quests, but the factions are god-awful short. The result is I either play as Dovahkiin and receive plenty of content OR I play as somebody else and my content is EXTREMELY limited....

There should be content for various roles, or if not specific content for specific roles, the content we DO have needs to branch out into several different decisions and different paths to support all sorts of various roles.

I think my response would be something along the lines of "get your impasse away from my compromise." I like creating a character, and I like an engrossing plot. I'm willing to sacrifice some level of character control if that means I get an engrossing plot for the character to participate in. "RPG purists" (for lack of a better term, and not meaning any insult to anyone) don't want to sacrifice character for story. I'm not an RPG purist, so I don't mind compromising.

EXACTLY this. Never been able to put it in such perfect words before.

I can't answer the questions, because my answers vary by type of RPG.

Console JRPGs like Final Fantasy.... follow the plot, replay it, replay it for 100% completion/"good" ending, 1 (you can't really make different characters in those games, between the set characters and the party design)

Plot-based WRPGs like Bioware games.... follow the plot, replay it, replay it for 100% completion & to try other character styles, # of characters depends on how interesting the different classes & playstyles are.

"Open world" WRPGs like Beth games.... follow the plot somewhat (first game) and explore (all), replay it, replay it to try different characters & explore more, 5+ characters

Hack/slash ARPGs/Roguelikes.... plot? what plot?, replay it, replay it to try different class builds, many many characters


I don't expect every RPG to be the same style, I don't expect every RPG to tailor itself to a specific play method, I don't expect every companies' games to be the same. Variety is fun.


(And even with these general guidelines, there's still alot of variance. Dragon Age: Origins, for instance... between the different class/race paths, the different interactions between party characters, and different plot choices in the quests, you'd think that I'd replay it alot. And, honestly, I really would like to.... but the combat was so freakin' tedious that I can't bear to play it a second time.)

Some of the questions have no relevance (at least I feel) to Elder Scrolls games. For example, you don't BEAT an elder scrolls game. It's just not done. You also usually keep on playing after you've finished the main quest cuz theres tons of other things to do. Maybe you can add more poll options?

Something that does drive me nuts... It's not really even a choice past the first one, you have to keep going good or evil for maximum alignment points.

The real problem is that moral dilemmas are not something where you are asked "Are you good or evil?", but rather "What is morality?" or "Which of these ___ number of difficult choices is the most moral/least immoral", and gives you the ability to explain why you chose what you chose.

In the second KotOR game, for example, at one point your character shoves his/her lightsaber into a rock, beyond your control. However, the game then gives you an option to choose to explain the rationale behind your actions, giving you control over the meaning of your situation. Granted, that was still partially tethered to an alignment system, but you could have more than one "good" option to choose from, so choice was still there.

Conversely, some of the choices that are given in games like Mass Effect 2, where I have to choose between taking away the free will of a certain set of beings, or killing them all, that's an actual moral dilemma - having to choose which is preferable, liberty or life. But nope, if I say freedom is more important than life, the character is taken away from me, and I'm doing it "Renegade" just to be an a-hole. Brainwashing was the moral choice, and they were just kidding about giving the player something to actually consider.

There's actually a series of obscure Japanese RPGs called the Growlanzer series. In it, they actually gave you a half-dozen different "alignment" meters... based on how you react in-game to questions.

You can be either "Hot-blooded" or "Cool-headed" based upon being given choices where you are put under pressure, or suddenly attacked, and you are given choices between sounding the charge or pausing to evaluate the situation. You can be "Optimistic" or "Pessimistic", you can be "Straightforward" or "Sarcastic", they even give you "Likes guys" as well as a separate "Womanizer", in case you want to make the choices that involve constantly flirting with your companions. These are recorded, and other characters react to you based upon your reputation. In just about every situation, you are given a choice that often does nothing about what is actually happening to you, but instead just gives you a chance to explain how you are reacting. (Like having a boulder suddenly fall down on the group, and being given a choice between "OHMYGODRUN!" or "It's an ambush, stay to the side!" or staying silent and just running. The only game difference between the choices are your alignment points.)

That's the sort of alignment system that is really needed in open-ended games like this, as are quests that actually accept that players might like to handle quests in a different manner than the exact way they have been scripted to occur.

But there's a difference between sacrificing "some level of character control if that means I get an engrossing plot..."

And NOT HAVING CHARACTER CONTROL.

Some level of character control was sacrificed with Fallout New Vegas and The Lonesome Road. With the Lonesome Road, they said "no, the Courier DOES have a backround, he's not a blank slate and he DOES enter this DLC area of his own free will, not because he was forced or kidnapped." Along with this, your character was given some minor details pertaining to their past, albeit very minor ones and you were provided with dialog options that suggested the person telling you about your past had it all wrong.

Skyrim isn't Lonesome Road though. The problem with Skyrim is there's literally NO choice at all. Every quest is solved the exact same way, and the few that aren't all have "pseudo-choices" where your decision you make makes absolutely 0% different in how the quest is completed.

What bothers me is you have to be Dragonborn for dragons to appear. I'd like to have roleplayed a more ordinary person in Skyrim and still encounter dragons.



New Vegas is easily one of the best RPG's of the decade IMO.

It depends, if I'm playing Mass Effect the answer is A, if I'm playing Elder Scrolls the answer is B.

When I played Fallout: New Vegas it was about half and half. I played the game again to try a new character but ALSO to see how making different decisions affected the world and advanced the plot.

A game being story driven doesn't mean it can't be a great RPG.

New Vegas is the gift that keeps on giving. :fallout:
Skyrim, I fear, may not last very long...

Sorry, but I've never really understood the whole "pseudo-choice" argument. It just doesn't make sense to me for a video game to attempt to provide the level of customization I would expect in tabletop play. If I hated NOT HAVING CHARACTER CONTROL this much (emphasis yours), and since no developer can seem to do it to those standards, I'd stop playing video games and go back to tabletop. I sincerely I don't say this to be insulting, please don't take it that way. But if something made me this frustrated, I'd choose to do something else.

But a developer did do it. Obsidian did it with Fallout New Vegas. A game developed DIRECTLY under Bethesda's supervision. And I've never played a tabletop game in my life.

I'm not asking for miracles here. I'm not even asking for them to do as good of a job as New Vegas did. I'm just asking for basics. All I'm asking is that when it comes to decision time, Bethesda asks themselves "what responses to this situation do I see as being plausible?" and tries to accomidate player responses accordingly. Maybe one situation could involve accepting an NPCs proposal, refusing it and insisting on solving the issue another way, or lying to the NPC. Three simple possibilities would be nice, instead we have one.


And what I mean by pseudo-choice is that the game often offers you choices, but you'll find that if you attempt all of them, they're fake. Perhaps one choice you make will lead the quest giver to say "nope, wrong answer. Come back when you change your mind" and you can't continue with the quest until you choose the option the game wants you to. Or perhaps the game will give you the option of consulting two different people on how to solve a problem, suggesting that these two different groups have different goals and ideals and will handle the situation differently. Nope, play the quest through one way, reload an earlier save, and try completing the quest by consulting the other guy. He'll have you do the EXACT same thing. Hence, pseudo-choices. They're illusions of the player having a choice, not REAL choices.

Some of the stuff you guys are expecting is ridiculous. Your ignoring how ridiculously MORE WORK it would be for developers to do these things for starters. You want to be able to be on the other side of the main plot as a thalmor, yeah ok you just doubled the amount of quests they have to do for the main plot great, and thats just one complaint. If you dont want to be a dragonborn, then dont do the main quest line, that simple. But expecting them to have things in place for EVERYTHING YOU COULD POSSIBLY WANT TO DO is freaking ridiculous.

Also, no matter how much work they do there will still be limits on what you can do, just like there is in RL. If you wanna play a theif, you have to run with the theives guild to go big time at all really, this is a realistic restriction within the world that has been made available to us. If you were ACTUALLY there you couldn't really do it any other way. That being said, use your damned imagination and you can really do whatever you want, why do you even need quests? make your own.

Something not go according to how you want your character to be, or dont have a choice you want? Welcome to life, you make comprimises, your character has to make comprimises, and if you dont want to, just dont do that quest or whatever.

Seriously, your guys expectations of what is POSSIBLE in a video game are ridiculous, when you were little you were the kids that wanted everything for christmas and threw a huge fit when you only got 30+ items.



There is a reason it cant have more choice, its called budget. Be realistic.

Can't vote, you left out an option under:
"Why do you replay an RPG that you've already beaten over and over again?"
since the question above it asks, after beating an RPG do you replay it, and I choose No, so the next question
"Why do you replay an RPG that you've already beaten over and over again?"
doesn't have the option to say, I don't replay them.

How is it not realistic? I just cited a game made one year ago PUBLISHED BY BETHESDA that meets my needs.

And if you'd checked my spoiler from before (not saying you have to) then you'd see how simple some of these requests actually are. It's literally like two extra lines of scripting and viola.