Yes, it is a great deal to read so I am sorry. But, to fully flesh it out I had to. I felt like this topic deserved a lot of attention being that it encompasses something so big.

As I read this month’s Game Informer, an issue occurred to me that I hadn’t previously thought of in the storyline. We have a strict A and B consequence storyline. Hypothetical situation, you go into a home, and kill a man for his possessions. There are no jails, they will simply kill you for your crime. You have only two options, try to stealthy take his possessions or kill him. Of course, in the elder scrolls this was not the case. For example, in “Shivering isles” if you were to kill a man, then you were actually given options. You could fight, bribe the guard, or go to jail and fight your way out of Sheogorath’s weird jail. In the wasteland it is a very ‘Wild West’ attitude everyone is out for number one. If you kill someone there, the possibilities are not quite varied and layered. But, say you are in a town such as Rivet City or New Vegas. Should the options available to you in an incident be varied, layered, and unpredictable? Should they not attempt to capture you for a hanging depending on the gravity of the crime?

If you are still confused, we are talking about adding more depth to the actions and consequences the player is capable of in any situation. Not to say that there are not many, but it could be better. An improvement to the A.I. as it appears to be in Skyrim seems to be necessary. The A.I. needs to respond to things realistically. I am not certain if this is fixed but if it is there is still the problem of not enough layered consequences. To me the idea is to represent a realistic situation and how people might actually react. Bethesda has always been about throwing some tools at you and you make the story and play the game the way you want. So why not take it a step further? Allow us to have battle on more than one floor and dimension. Like a flight of stairs or the sniper in Fallout 3.

You stumble into a bar after walking for hours and decide to play a card game. You can cheat, or can play straight, or you can play lose then kill all of them and take their money. If you cheat, then do you stack the deck, have hidden cards up you’re sleeve, use a cup of coffee to your advantage, or are you smart enough to count cards? If you decide to play straight using your own skills then you win, have the loser act in many varied ways. Make it a possibility for them to get angry and accuse to of cheating then attack you, or search you, or call the authorities. Perhaps they are a good sport and congratulate you. Maybe they are very interested in how you did so well and ask for training from you. You are then given the option to train them for money or for free. The third option, you decide to kill the men. After the game is wrapped up and the spoil’s divided you debate how you should kill them all. You could kill them all there with the holdout weapon in your pocket, initiating a cinematic ‘dead eye’ like moment where you are given the chance to kill them all. You could wait till nightfall and go in all their rooms and kill them in their sleep. You could just hold them up taking the money to flee the town. You could rob them in their sleep not killing anyone and leaving in the dead of midnight. Say you do kill them all by one of the means above. You get a bounty placed on your head and you are hunted by some of the world’s most ruthless killers. Say you won legitimately and weeks later after many wins you are invited to a tournament. Say you won legitimately and weeks later the losers catch up to you to settle the score with guns or poker chips. Say you cheated and were not caught and one day you are cheated again and happen to be pretty famous in the waste. You get the dead man’s hand and are shot in the back of the head like Wild Bill as an easter egg. Layers upon layers.

So, would you rather have a branching storyline with many possibilities or a strict a and b possibility?

Definantly layered.


I think it would be really cool if you were in a large town (maybe large enough to be considered a city) and you killed a man, instead of everybody pulling out a gun or knife abd trying to kill you a police officer arrests you.


Then the game skips over weeks or months to a trial where you can argue your reason to kill a man (or you can lie and say he attacked you first). If you are proven innocent then you walk free, if you are proven guilty than you are hung (or kept in jail for x amount of years).


But if you are in a more lawless place (ex: the Wasteland!) than everybody just tries to kill you, or they run.

That would be interesting. Or perhaps you bribe the judge. Or you post bail and kill the witnesses. In a lawless area where you killed a man stealthily, his son or brother challenges you to a duel.

Some of that kind of stuff would be great, but to do it right, it may take even longer to make they game.

This I can see making the game more layered is great but time then becomes the issue.

I'll use the card game example. Using a coffee mug to advantage, like how, covering your carsd spilling whatever you do the card game now has to be real time in order for that to happen.

Hidden cards, this would be based on your "sneak" skill so to speak as hwo good you were at sneaking a hidden card into your hand.

And countign cards would be dumb because teh game would automatically show them to you. Maybe if you had high enough intelligence it should but if not you have to do ti yourself.

I thought that point might come up. I got the idea while reading about Dishonored in game informer. The release date is 2012. Was that not started like last year, or the beginning of this one? If not subtract the time it would of taken them to make a new engine. It still around 2 years to make the game.

Coffee cup with black coffee is just one of many ways to cheat cards, including peeking, marked cards, seconds, hold out methods, crimping, hollow, chips, dealer cheating, coffee cup scam, warped cards, flashing, card removal, false shuffles, shiners, strippers, coolers and gaffed shoes.

Obviously all of those things would be based on in game mechanics. Just because you do not understand everything I said in it, does not mean someone who plays cards does not know what I am talking about.

Stealing in some location in Fallout would land you in jail. Now you could fight your way out or you could talk your way out or simply do your time.

Having more speech options when getting caught stealing would be great. Insted of just attacking they give you and options like "I think you should put that back" or "put that back and we will not have any problems." Better yet if the NPC somehow knew the value of the item and might just say "It's crap anyways, you can have it." To be able to bluff your way out of trouble, "I didn't do it" or "I don't know what you are talknig about" would be good.

Reputation System in Fallout 2 would give you a reputation. Say you liked to rob graves, you would become known as a grave robber. If you killed kids you would become known as a "Child Killer" and it would effect how people deal with you. Could become a prize fighter or porm star in New Reno and people would know you by your chosen nickname. To have that back in future Fallouts would be great.

Marked cards and loaded dice would be great. Both are in Fallout 2 but are just miscellaneous items, for them to be useful would be awesome :celebration:

Who voted for the other type? What other type would you like? Can you please explain it as well. If not alright no skin off our backs, just interested because I don't know anything other then, Linear, A & B consequence, and Layered.