My problem with any decently realistic choice/consequence system is the possibility for significant miscalculation. As of writing this, i've still yet to get really involved in FO:NV (I know -- blasphemous) because I feel paralyzed due to the gravity of the in-game choices that are facing me. The fact that I, a reluctant outsider, am holding the reins of history, with the power to steer the region into ruin or glory is a daunting prospect.

I have played games with so-called open choice systems before -- The Witcher, Fallout, etc. Inevitably, regardless of your choices, the game reaches the same conclusion, with small variations. This or that group may by the victors but the defeat of this or that group is always the same.

If the choices you make significantly change the story arc of the entire game... that's rather significant, and, of course, intriguing. But if the game takes 100+ hours to navigate in a single playthrough (a feat easy to accomplish for TES series games), the choices you make don't simply change the course of the game, they change the course of your afternoons for weeks, even months to come, which isn't necessarily a good thing if the results are not playing out as your expected or are pleased with.

Part of any decision system worth its salt in the inclusion of unforseen circumstances. The beggar you shoved aside now returns as ... blank, to seek ... something. I'm not talking Gaenor here, I'm talking about the twist, intrigue, and betrayal from which truly epic tales are woven. I concede that such plot points are almost required for a truly compelling story, but if you know that a simple choice you make in the beginning of the game can come back to really ruin your day (and possibly your enjoyment of the game) days or even weeks later, every turn you take suddenly becomes bittersweet. At some level your disposition towards the game changes as this bit of knowledge hangs in some back corner of your mind while you plod along, questing and looting.

This sort of fine grain, every-action-has-a-consequence (be it logical or unexpected), seems to be what game designers have been pushing for for years (with little success IMO). It's also not really what I'd hope to see unless the ideas is executed to its conclusion, that is to say, having remedies for poor choices (even if they are a pain in the butt), so that unexpected consequences don't ruin what, to the player, might have been a 75 hour investment in time and emotions while they played the game up to that point. Some examples of nicely executed poor-choice-resolution include the alternate Wraithguard activation route in MW, and the vampirism cure quest in OB. These quests were probably some of the most tedious single objectives in their respective games, but they are exactly what I would like to see from any game that introduces a truly comprehensive decision system. Without knowing that you can "patch up" shoddy decision making down the road, the risk/reward balance of taking an experimental route while playing the game will lean dangerously towards the "risk" end of things.

Now all of what I've been taking about has mostly been geared towards MQ type decisions. If you're the person who's tasked with saving the world, it would pretty much svck if your bad decision making really messed up that ends. For side quests and faction questlines, i think it's a little different. Granted, in past TES games there were many side quests where the outcomes were significantly changed depending of your actions, and I liked those. What it would be interesting to see would be the long-lasting, tangible, (and sometimes unexpected) consequences tied to faction questlines. A simple interpretation of this might be the players inability to advance or even join the ranks of a particular faction of they are involved with or are of a certain rank in a different competing faction. The mutual exclusion of the Great Houses in MW was a good example of this. But I think I'd be just fine with having even more unmitigated story ruining choices if they are relegated to particular factions, In fact, I think it would be quite realistic. It would be the equivalent of ruining your career, and what do you do when that happens? you pick up and move on, in this case it would be to pick up and move to a different faction.

All in all I'd much rather see the story-altering decision mechanics applied to side or faction questlines rather than the main story, because I would much rather have my advancement in a particular guild cut short than see a poor decision have sweepingly broad and unrecoverable negative effects for my entire game world.

I totally agree. Some people here have been posting about morality issues and what not, and I don't think that's what the OP was going for. We don't need some sort of morality change, such as whether I should save the world or destroy it, but rather, "how should I go about doing it?"

It would be nice to have more options on how to advance the story. LIke you said, the Oblivion MQ was very linear, pretty much forcing me into a role that may or may not have fit into that particular character's play-style/personality. It would be great to have more options for advancing the plot and giving your character more of a personality on how they react to some situation.

To expand on SirThomas' examples.

The Situation:
You meet the lord of some city in order to request his aid to help fight off some force of evil.

Options:

• He sends you on a few errands, may be big complicated ones or not, in order to gain his trust.
  
• Persuade him to see reason that this force is something to be reckoned with. He might believe you, but will be skeptical and will require you to bring proof. (Alternate questline than the normal option.)
  
• This particular lord is very greedy, and a substantial bribe might sway him. (Doesn't have to be bribery, you could just pay him for the troops without the sense of the underhandedness of it all.)
  
• You saved the lord's daughter at some point from bandits, probably while randomly travelling the roads during your exploration (This would be a side quest most likely.) He has already put great trust in you and is willing to send aid.
  
• This lord is very frail and weak, threatening him might get him to send help. (Eh.... probably not a very good option to have, so I doubt this one would be plausible)
  
• This lord is greedy and not very popular, bypass him altogether and appeal to the townsfolk and soldiers themselves. (They might have their own quests/options/blah, you get the drill. Just depends on how complex you want this to get.)

Consequences:

• You gained his trust through errands, so you get the help you need. (Basic linear MQ type dealy thing.)
  
• You persuaded the lord, and you get the help you need. (The Alternate of the Basic. xD)
  
• You bribed the lord, and he sends you aid, but not the aid you expected. (Lower quality soldiers, to punish the player for taking the easy way out? Or maybe it's the normal aid, but you are in a series of battles, and the aid only stays for one or two.)
  
• You saved his daughter, and as such, he puts full faith in you and sends you all possible help. (Better quality units to reward the player for going the extra mile?)
  
• You threatened the lord, he sends you aid, but there is a chance of rebellion/desertion. (Rebellion/desertion can take place during or after the battle. Or depending on the player's strength check, the lord could be threatened so deeply as not to rebel. But that deals more in the reactivity of the world.)
  
• You appealed to the townsfolk/soldiers, and you recieved the aid you needed. You will end up with a furious lord to deal with during or after the battle, though.

With this, you have multiple ways to approach the situation, and no matter what, you'll still end up with some form of aid. As for my consequences, those are just examples of how the game could react to your choices. The only problems I see with all this are those that deal with skill checks and the magnitude of the consequences. Some of these would be more rewarding than others, or help you skip large portions of needless questing, which, beyond a roleplaying perspective, could influence the player to do certain things in order to get the "easiest" or "best" consequence, such as getting your persuasion skills up to persuade the lord, or going out of the characters normal role of being "evil" and saving the daughter just to get the better troops.

There needs to be some kind of a balance in options and consequences while still giving the same basic result (aka, getting the aid) in order for this to work. SirThomas' idea is REALLY ideal, though would be complicated to implement in a TES-sized game environment. Perhaps if done in moderation, it would be plausible.

Either way, I would definitely like to have more options on how to deal with the MQ. Consequences though...... eh, not so much. It would be nice to have them, but only if they were done right.



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true dat

By choices, I mean choosing whom to help, what house/clan/guild to sign up with and influencing the worlds that way. TES series works fine without "great choices saving or destroying the world".

They really don't. Aside form the attitude some people take toward your character and the one scene where you meet with the human councillor and see/don't see the holograms of the other councillors, there are no real effects felt in ME2 from whether or not you sacrificed the council. You still go through all the same events and do the same missions, it's just a question of whether people are polite to you or not.

Saved the council and were celebrated as a hero of the citadel races? They don't believe your warnings and refuse to give you any help on your current mission.
Let the council die and put your own preferred human in charge of the new humanity-controlled council? They don't believe your warnings and refuse to give you any help on your current mission.
Sacrificed the council to ensure Sovreign's defeat and had new councillors chosen to replace the old ones? They don't believe your warnings and refuse to give you any help on your current mission.

There better be some serious ramifications in ME3 from the decision to keep/destroy the space station at the end.

But spoons are just a gateway theft. Pretty soon you graduate to stealing soup ladles, fine china, and even cookbooks. I mean, you gotta nip that kinda thing in the bud.

Yes this is major to me in any game I played. I tried playing fall out 3 but something about just wasn't for me even though I love RPGs

If the choices are like in most games:

- Of course I help you, I'm the herald of good.

- What do I get out of it?

- No way, deal with your problems your self [some insult]!

I can really live without them.

Choices are only interesting if they are difficult to make.

thats actually true lol

When most say "I want C&C!!!", I get the feeling that they don't realize how hard that can actually be to implement for games like TES. Because unlike (for example since it has already been mentioned) ME, TES does not necessarily revolve around the MQ. Join the Fighter's Guild and become it's leader - has nothing to do with the MQ. Search for artefacts and infinite riches in ancients ruins (and on occasion in other peoples homes) - has nothing to do with the MQ. Go on a brütal killing-rampage while playing "Slayer - Angel of Death" in the speakers on max volume - has nothing to do with the MQ... Although it really should...

But on the other side it is becoming rather weak to not have C&C in an RPG that supports player freedom. And so I'd have to say that it's time Beth stepped up and began making the game a bit more interesting by giving us some choices that may actually make some serious change. I know it's hard, but it's worth it.

And regarding the Lore factor that says that "Good will prevail": There is no reason why this can't work with C&C. It just means that you as the player can't always win. If you join the bad guys, then you're going to lose. You the player might survive, but good wins. For example let's say that in OB you join the Mythic Dawn and fight With them. Well then the game adjust and in some miraculous way Martin spanks deadra ass without you and then somehow you survive the onslaught. It's doable if the lore aspect is too harsh.

That wasn't JUST a piece of silverware you picked up, that was the Fork of Horipilation (or the mighty Spoon of whatever), and you deserve a slow and painful death for your heineous deed. Anyway....

Taking away consequences (other than stupid ones like picking up an owned item or accidentally hitting a guard in a melee), which were limited to begin with in DF, all but absent in MW, and effectively non-existant in OB, made it really difficult at times to stay interested in the course of events. When you know that there's only one possible answer, without ending the questline right there, your role is rather rigidly defined.

In The Witcher, you may have had to make a choice between two morally gray answers (more like two different shades of black, in some cases), but the final result sometimes wasn't all that much different. Either way, in several those cases most of the same NPCs died, either as a direct result of your actions or because of the backlash or repercussions for not doing it. I felt like I was given a bunch of "bad" choices that were then rendered totally meaningless. The "good, bad, or indifferent" choices in FO3 were at least slightly better than that, although again, you rarely had to give up a reward for your decision. The game generally gave you everything anyway, no matter what you chose.

The real dilemma in TES comes when Bethesda needs to make the next game. How do you "wave away" all of the possible alternative outcomes and still retain a coherent storyline? With DF, they created the Dragon Break to explain away the totally incompatible results, but it was awkward enough once, so I don't expect it to happen a second time.

Like in FO: NV, but less black and white.

Thats dangerous man. It could mess up the sequels and the Lore. Because the lore has to be consistent througout. If i did something and became a bad guy and helped destroy the empire or something that wuld be inconsistent with lore. Because lore has to be practically written in stone. If we all take these different approaches then wut happens when the next game comes around? In Elder Scrolls your playing out what was already fate. Thats why they have the elder scrolls the future /fate itself is written on there it tells you everything. So w/e is supposed to happen will happen. But Fate is unescapable. So you kinda have to play a hero in the main story at least. And it cant change drastically like in mass effect either where certain characters will be dead by the end of the game. It has to be consistent... that is all

Yes that would be nice. But to be fair, in Morrowind and Oblivion, your character's morale (good, evil or something between) is really judged by who he/she chose to allying themself with. What kind of Guild they chose to serve. And you don't have to finnish the main quest and then start on the Dark Brotherhood. That is really one of the things i love most about Bethesdas games, they never force the player to do anything. But even if you do take the dark brotherhood just after finnishing the main quest, you could come up with a reason for that, and you could do it the other way around too. Use your imagination, it's a roleplaying game.

But i would love if Bethesda took notice of some of the things BioWare is doing but that goes the other way around too.

I beg to differ.

Many of the small time quests in Mass Effect would make little difference, sure. But there are many things that made a larger difference. If you decided to kill Wrex or not, which teammate you decided to leave behind on Virmire, if you saved the council or not, etc. etc. And the whole point was to be going in the same direction despite your dialogue, you were never meant to be the villain, its just whether your methods were paragon or renegade, which is what I was suggesting in TES. Currently, there is no real option, just a list of questions and you will eventually get to all of them. I never inferred that the quests or anything should be made dramatically different depending on whether you have a good or bad character, just that it should be slightly different.

Personally I don't get too worried about maximising my character or game world until I've already done a couple of playthroughs and I know the ramifications of different decisions. Because of this carefree attitude for the first couple of playthroughs I really enjoy the decision making - it makes the world feel more alive (clichéd as that may sound).

For people who don't want to have to invest in and worry about their gaming experiences so much I would say plan an FPS. Huge open world RPGs are not for you if you can't spare the time to immerse yourself, as much as I can sympathise with your case.

In Morrowind there weren't many choices and in OB even less choices. In Fallout New Vegas there were many choices but doing things in "bad ways" wasn't wise. So I'd like to see more choices (in side quests) in Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and there should be REAL rewards for doing through the "bad way".

There must be consequences to your ACTS.
This was cut off as a demand from the console market, complaining that when they killed everybody they weren t able to complete quests anymore.
I hope they stepback and we got no immortal NPC, and that you choices bring direct or indirect consequences, like misisons failures, aggressivity, dificulty to survie and cmplete goals etc.

On a more general topic, is it just me, or does "Evil" characters miss out on a lot of action? Often when chosing betwen good and evil choices, chosing the former is helping someone (some farmer that got his goat stolen), wich gives a reward, XP and general good disposition towards you. But chosing the evil path, you don′t help the farmer, don′t get any XP, reward and people dislike you. Seems evil caracters gets punished by not having the same possibility as good ones getting XP and rewards. And don′t tell me that′s the way it should be. At least you should be able to strike a bargain with the goatnappers, and get the same rewardvalue, XP and them liking you more. It ain′t easy being evil...

If it's a "Save the world" storyline then the main quest is probably going to be pretty one dimensional.

Even evil people will help save the world when necessary.

But yes, I do want more choices and more consequences.

What if when you came to the fork in the road (good or evil Main quest line) if you chose good you become the hero and if you chose evil you 'motivate' someone else to become the hero. Suppose there is a villain (that you don't know is going to be the villain) and you have a choice of killing him cold-bloodedly or prioritizing something else (save the girl or kill the guy, let the girl die and take his loot) if you prioritze something else the 'villain' goes on to become the villain. but if you kill the villain then the 'girl' decides to stop you (she thought the "villain" was swell?) and eventually become the hero you would have been. This way there we can avoid the "you can't be the villain because it messes up future game's story to have multiple quest lines."

This, obviously, isn't a great example, but I think if it's prophesied then it SHOULD happen that way, but just because its prophesied doesn't mean YOU HAVE TO be the one. Why not have a choice at some point NOT to do the quest (not necessarily "you didn't make it in time" but a definite "I don't want to do it" option. It still happens, you just hear about it in rumors and gossip or the news paper (maybe run into the "real" hero in a chance encounter. or possibly stumble into "the final showdown" just in time to watch things unravel)