Only if it's done right. Surprise twists like that have to be handled very carefully, otherwise it creates a disconnect between the player and the world. If I know my choices aren't going to do what I want to do when I make them, what's the point? To turn it around, imagine trying to play an evil character who wants to disrupt the world and make everybody miserable... but everytime you had to make a decision, it resulted in good things happening for people.
I still remember trying to make Alastair happy by reuniting him with his sister in DA:O. That turned out well. Almost any time you tried to do something good in that game, you got sand thrown in your face (either as a direct/delayed consequence, or as a disposition hit from your companions; Yes, Morrigan, how dare I want to rescue a kitten from a tree... especially when I need to go to that "tree" anyway for the MQ). Kinda hard to make me care if I know I can't make a decision with the desired outcome.
I still remember trying to make Alastair happy by reuniting him with his sister in DA:O. That turned out well. Almost any time you tried to do something good in that game, you got sand thrown in your face (either as a direct/delayed consequence, or as a disposition hit from your companions; Yes, Morrigan, how dare I want to rescue a kitten from a tree... especially when I need to go to that "tree" anyway for the MQ). Kinda hard to make me care if I know I can't make a decision with the desired outcome.
But the example you give, that's why DA:O svcked big desert wind
Bioware attempted to do its own Witcher and they failed pretty bad.
This was an excellent feature in the Witcher. Would love to see it in Skyrim.
...and that's one of the things I loved about Witcher: that even the seemingly unimportant decisions you made had some effect later on in the game; that some decisions didn't have to be "moral" decisions, just this way or the other; that those effects weren't necessarily something that you could foresee; or that the consequences weren't necessarily good or bad, a blessing or catastrophic...