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A discussion of gameplay and narrative

Creator: Searz October 20, 2013 1:32pm
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Permalink | Quote | PM | +Rep October 22, 2013 5:56pm | Report
I think Dillbutt is making a point here. I wouldn't want to start a battle and from the first moment know what the exact outcome will be. AI, Damage, Counters, if it's all predictable it's, well, predictable. I'd rather have some bad luck than constantly being tempted to think out if I'll manage something. In multiplayer games I think it would be great to remove "chance" as you define it, because then the other players form the necessary unpredictability.

Quoted:
But that's exactly what it is..
Both those statements are just blatantly false.

There are only "bad seeds", no bad luck, I really think that chance is a constant when it's defined, in a theoretical environment like software. Can you please explain why you say this is false?

I do think that random encounters could be made more clever indeed. I think something in the direction of what Dragon Quest IX did. It's possible to dodge fights in most circumstances. But, continuing on the Pokémon discussion, a lot of the game is designed around finding some rare monsters.
Quoted:
Way to straw man. That's not what TB, or Searz, is suggesting. Restricting a player's options (in general) is fine. I mean, every game has to do that to craft the experience it's trying to get across. What TB is talking about as problematic is when games don't actually give the player any options. And I don't know if he's right, honestly. I think there is a place for the kind of virtual exhibit games like Dear Esther are. But it is a problem that there are trends in gaming to keep taking options away from players.

You're right, I went overboard with my open-world statement, but I do think we shouldn't expect Battlefield to create a whole environment that can be walked around freely just for some storytelling features. I think they could better put some time in that other environment where the player will be shooting things up, assuming cut-scenes take less time to create for those games. I actually wouldn't know for sure if that's true. Or isn't walking around freely what you mean with choice? There already is plenty of choice in the gameplay of Battlefield(walking, aiming, shooting).

Quoted:
Similarly, the problem Searz has with chance-based mechanics seems to be that there isn't anything you can do about (some of) them. I mean, for chance-based hitting mechanics, you can maximize your chance, minimize your risk, and such. But if the RNG's against you, you're just out of luck. Period. No way around it. Nothing to do. And that's kinda' a problem, because it means that there isn't a way for a player's skill to solve problems.
What I mean is that the chance is a constant. If I give you a sword and I say it's fifteen pixels long, you start taking this into account when you consider if you can hit something(I'm invincible by the way). If I say it deals around five damage you start complaining. Why? It's a constant in the same way as the length is. The actual damage you deal probably won't be constant, but you know it won't, because I just told you that it's around five damage, not exactly five. So you need to take this into account too.

Quoted:

I tried to play XCOM about a month ago. Started fresh, because I didn't feel like playing my old save. And I had this problem where my newbies in the squad could flank an enemy, fire from point blank range, with a solid 70+% accuracy, but they would never hit. And then the enemy would make crazy shots and people in full cover and crit them for instant death. There wasn't anything I could do. Now, I know that XCOM cheats like crazy, so this isn't a really representative example, but... It highlights the problem.
I understand that can't be fun, but is the game or "chance" in general at fault here? I think it's the game, for not providing something as a fall-back to "bad luck".

But not being able to do something is a bit different indeed. Missing or dying instantly just 'cause isn't something I like either. But if a sword deals 4-7 damage I'm fine with that. Even if the sword keeps on dealing 4 damage, if the skill or preparation of the player is high enough he'll eventually defeat the enemy.
********'s a pretty good fertilizer
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Permalink | Quote | PM | +Rep October 22, 2013 8:53pm | Report
Ugh. I should probably rewrite all this, but I'm lazy.


I think Dillbutt is making a point here. I wouldn't want to start a battle and from the first moment know what the exact outcome will be. AI, Damage, Counters, if it's all predictable it's, well, predictable. I'd rather have some bad luck than constantly being tempted to think out if I'll manage something. In multiplayer games I think it would be great to remove "chance" as you define it, because then the other players form the necessary unpredictability.

snip

I understand that can't be fun, but is the game or "chance" in general at fault here? I think it's the game, for not providing something as a fall-back to "bad luck".

But not being able to do something is a bit different indeed. Missing or dying instantly just 'cause isn't something I like either. But if a sword deals 4-7 damage I'm fine with that. Even if the sword keeps on dealing 4 damage, if the skill or preparation of the player is high enough he'll eventually defeat the enemy.

I understand the desire for some amount of unpredictability in the overall course of things, but 1) there are ways to accomplish this without needing to use random elements and 2) while unpredictability in the big picture is okay, every individual action needs to be extremely predictable in its effects. I'll leave 1 alone for now, since that's just me (and Searz) saying that randomness isn't required, and I don't think there's really much to argue about there.

About 2, what I mean is that any time the player takes an action, they need to be able to understand what, exactly, it is that they are doing and what the immediate consequences of that action are. If I pull the trigger in a shooter, I know exactly what happens: a bullet goes where I'm aiming and damages anyone/thing it hits. If I taunt an enemy in an MMO, I know what happens: it attacks me. I might not understand the longer term ramifications of those actions--the player I shot turning and shooting back at me, the mobs I taunted killing me faster than expected--but I know exactly what the actions themselves do. Part of the reason that I don't like random mechanics is because, frequently, they mean that I, as a player, am unable to accurately predict exactly what is going to happen as a result of my actions in a very immediate sense. When I order a unit to attack, but it only has a 70% chance to hit, I don't know what the result is going to be. And yes, there's skill involved in hedging my bets so that even if I miss I can salvage the situation, but the fact that my success or failure in this specific action depends not at all on me as a player isn't ideal. At all. This is especially true in games and systems where individual hits are really impactful; missing on an MMO raid boss isn't a big deal, because that one miss doesn't matter much over the course of a 20 minute fight, but it really does matter when you do a large percentage of the enemy's health in damage every hit.

And, actually, I suppose I only really have a big problem with chance-based mechanics in games where every individual hit or miss (or whatever) matters a lot. In games/situations where no individual result of the chance-based mechanic matters much, such as minor damage randomization in most games or (most) random elements in MMO combat, I guess using those chance-based mechanics isn't as much of a big deal. They're still unnecessary, and I'd still prefer they be replaced by more skill-based mechanics, but I wouldn't really describe them as toxic either.

I understand that my XCOM example is really just showcasing bad design in it specifically, but the fact that reliance on randomized hit chance mechanics allows for that sort of thing is really my point. There is no counterplay for bad luck in that game, and it's hardly the only game to suffer from that problem. It's kinda' a big deal for basically the whole strategy RPG genre. The only SRPG I can think of that doesn't suffer from it is Zone of the Enders: The Fist of Mars for the GBA, which uses a skill-based system for combat. There are probably other examples, but I'm not aware of them.

I think I can basically sum up my issues with chance-based mechanics fairly succinctly like this: I don't think that a player should be able to fail unless they make a mistake. Chance-based elements frequently provide ways to fail without a player making any mistakes.

Also, about that sword. 4-7 damage is 1d4+3, which sounds more like a dagger to me.
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Permalink | Quote | PM | +Rep October 23, 2013 4:56am | Report
DillButt64 wrote:

it seems like a burden of knowledge with the varity pokemon has (whereas in other games that have that you have like 4-5 classes that only need a specific thing and pokemon has 600+ pokemon)

Pokemon does not have that problem already then? Is that what you're saying? Your argument is ******** quite frankly.
Quoted:
the stamina feature would now be instead of who gets more lucky its who has the most stamina so they dont have to rest before the other person

Well, no. That would make stats that increase stamina overpowered. The stamina system is made to allow more choice, not to limit it.. The player would be allowed to choose pokemon with varying amounts of stamina and teach them moves that work with that. That's the cool thing here, there would be no set path.
It's perfectly fine to run out of stamina. The only penalty you receive is a -30% (or so) to your defense. So even if your pokemon would have low stamina, he could have very high defense to make up for that. It would be a game of tradeoffs.

Also, I think I'd like to change Speed to increase the stamina regeneration rather than the total amount, unlike Resistance and Strength. That would make Speed much more viable in longer fights, something it wouldn't be otherwise. Another possibility would be to make speed tick down a bar (as in FF4 and some other games, I believe), only the bar wouldn't require you to wait for it to tick down(...), which would allow several attacks in a row if you have many times higher speed than the opponent.
Also possibly make Strength increase both total stamina and recharge speed, but in smaller amounts, while Resistance only increases total stamina.
Quoted:
crit has always been a system in games that also come with ways to make your damage higher under specific conditions
crit feels fine to me if its something you can build around (there are moves in pokemon with higher crit chance and items that give you a better crit ratio so yes you can sort of build around it)

Uhuh, and WHY WOULD YOU NEED CHANCE TO GOVERN THAT?
Geez, how do you not understand? There are problems with chance and making the bonuses rely on other things would remove said problems.
Quoted:
pokemon has the weather system (which i agree is a poor system but your proposed system is a huge burden of knowledge, having to take in account humidity, wind speed, temp., cloud coverage, what season it is, angle of the sun, every time you attack along with the other things is overbearing to people that arnt studying weather) and other games have buffs that last for X amount of turns/seconds

You're completely off what I was trying for. My system is meant to be simple and lucid, not complicated or convoluted.

Seasons are incredibly easy to represent and are very clear/apparent to the player. Besides, seasons would only change the main three stats(humidity, wind and temp) anyways, so that's no problem.
Humidity, Wind Speed and Temperature would be indicated clearly on the battle screen with numbers (and possibly colors to further help understanding). It's very important that they are clear to the player.
Cloud coverage(i.e: the amount of sun) could be implemented, but I'm not sure it's necessary. Same with the direction of the wind.
The angle of the sun would be completely unnecessary and overly contrived.
Quoted:
your status effect system is kinda...different? i dont want to say bad because it can work but in a game like pokemon you might as well just normalize the %chance of effects so that if a move has 30% chance of freeze and it doesnt freeze on the first turn the %chance raises to like 60%

But the whole point is to avoid chance because of all the problems there are with chance. With the % chance you're using you're likely to affect somebody with that status effect in 2 turns, so why not just make that effect happen 100% of the time after using two moves to make it happen? It would take the same approximate time to make it happen, and without any of the problems that come with using chance.
Quoted:
your ideas are cleaver theyre also a massive burden of knowledge that over complicates things

Massive is a massive overstatement. (ahue) You're clearly over-complicating things in your own mind here, seeing as you don't quite understand some of the things I've written and the ramifications of said things.
Of course it would make things more complicated, but that's a GOOD thing, seeing as Pokemon is incredibly simple right now. (simple as in basic, not easy, even if it is that too)

And the great thing about making a game more complex and harder is that it will scale much better to different skill-levels. 'How so?' you might ask. Well, I'll tell ya! Because of something magical called difficulty levels. People who want to breeze through the experience or have problems with complicated things (like children) can just turn the difficulty down to easy(or so) and have just as easy a time as with current pokemon games, while those looking for a challenge will be much more satisfied with the higher difficulty levels.
And no, introducing difficulty levels in the current pokemon games would not work. A chance-based system simply CANNOT scale to the same level that a skill-based system can. (because of how unfair it will become, just look at XCOM, it's a perfect example of this)
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Permalink | Quote | PM | +Rep October 23, 2013 5:53am | Report
DillButt64 wrote:

i feel like in turn-based RPGs there needs to be some kind of chance so that things are different and dont get stale

Not at all. Lifebaka put it nicely:
lifebaka wrote:

Turn-based RPGs get stale when the player doesn't get new toys to play with or isn't forced to use their old toys in new ways. It actually has little to do with whether or not there's a random element. The real reason a lot of those games end up feeling kind of stale after a while is because there's a straight linear progression from lower-tier moves/attacks/spells to higher-tier moves/attacks/spells, so once you get to the highest tier there's no more progression. Usually the game ends pretty soon after that, though, so you don't have as much time to notice unless you grind and do optional stuff a lot.

I'd like to add that Pokemon can actually get rather stale with some pokemon because of the lack of variety in moves, and how boring they are in general. So it's certainly not all sunshine and daises right now.
Quoted:
I hear the Duels of the Planeswalkers series is good, and a friend of mine found a lot of the puzzles in the 2013 version a lot of fun; it's probably your best bet, overall. MTG Online's interface is terrible, and it's really too expensive to get into. You could also go for Apprentice, which is a free unofficial version, but it doesn't actually have support for the rules, so you can't really play using Apprentice unless you already know how to play.

I've heard that you can't build your own decks in Duels of the Planeswalkers. That would be a major turn-off for me.
Quoted:
Eh, I don't think crits are that big a deal, overall. Random elements like crit don't have as much of as the length of combat goes up, so designers just have to make sure that these sorts of random elements are placed in such a way that they actually tend towards the average results. MMO boss fights, for example, are long enough that the crit does actually act like a straight up damage multiplier over all. I agree that a more skill-based system would be nice, but I'm not sure that having a lower-skill option, like crit, in as well, as long as the higher-skill option is mutually exclusive and also a bit better, is really a problem. It'd allow inferior players to still feel powerful (which is seriously important), but still give better players a real edge. (In PvE content, at least. PvP balance would still be hell.)

Crits can be a very large problem. Especially in games like Pokemon and XCOM where crits often kill things instantly.
Longer fights are a different matter entirely, because as you said, damage normalizes. But overall, crit is an outdated mechanic that holds little value outside of "OOOH, BIG RED NUMBERS!". I really don't see a reason to implement crit over skill-based systems.
Quoted:
I don't have much to say about your suggested Pokemon changes, unfortunately. It's been ages since I played a Pokemon game. Dill's right when he says that those changes would make it not a Pokemon game, at least; it'd certainly be something different. I get the feeling that you'd like a game with longer battles overall, rather than each attack doing a considerable amount of damage, if not outright killing the enemy. I do hope so, at least, since I'd probably really like something like that.

Yup that's exactly what I'd do, the amount of instakilling in Pokemon makes a lot of strategy go down the drain.

And no, not really. How much like Tomb Raider is the new reboot? How much like DMC is the new DMC reboot?
I don't see a reason why it wouldn't be able to go under the same name.
However, if I'm making a game like this I'm likely staying the **** away from the Pokemon IP, that's for sure :P
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Permalink | Quote | PM | +Rep October 23, 2013 3:52pm | Report
eh my stance on chance in video games is still the same, it shouldnt be taken out completely but like i previously said there are cases where it should not be applied (like the XCOM thing, there is no master marksmen that can instakill someone with such conditions) i feel like things like crit chance, accuracy(where it makes sense), and status effects landing can have a chance of happening

but on the topic that this thread was about, i asked a question earlier in a post you might have missed searz but do you have ways that arnt cutscenes that you can add to a story, or advance a story, or present a story in an enjoyable manner? (i.e. not random books or documents you find and have to read to know whats going on)
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Permalink | Quote | PM | +Rep October 23, 2013 6:16pm | Report
Searz wrote:

But the whole point is to avoid chance because of all the problems there are with chance. With the % chance you're using you're likely to affect somebody with that status effect in 2 turns, so why not just make that effect happen 100% of the time after using two moves to make it happen? It would take the same approximate time to make it happen, and without any of the problems that come with using chance.

Just to drop in some math here, Dill's suggested system results in a 1 - (.7 * .4) = 72% chance that the enemy is frozen after two hits (and, presumably, with a 90% chance on the third try, a 1 - (.7 * .4 * .1) = 97.2% chance after the third). Searz is right that just having the freeze take place after two consecutive hits is probably reasonable as a non-chance-based alternative.

Searz wrote:

I've heard that you can't build your own decks in Duels of the Planeswalkers. That would be a major turn-off for me.

Basically, that's true. There's some limited deck customization available, but no real deck building. Still, that's part of why I suggest it; I don't figure that you're interested in actually playing MTG, but if you wanted to see basically how the game goes Duels of the Planeswalkers is cheapest way to get most of the way into the game. Yeah, it's not the same as the actual card game in every way, but it's close enough to understand the mechanics of the game itself.

Searz wrote:

Longer fights are a different matter entirely, because as you said, damage normalizes. But overall, crit is an outdated mechanic that holds little value outside of "OOOH, BIG RED NUMBERS!". I really don't see a reason to implement crit over skill-based systems.

Making inferior players feel powerful is really important, actually. It's also reasonable if you're doing a faithful port of a non-video-game system that already includes crit. And, as long as it isn't going to create balance problems, such as in XCOM or Fire Emblem, I don't think having crit as a game mechanic is actually a problem. Lazy, perhaps, but not actually a problem.

Searz wrote:

And no, not really. How much like Tomb Raider is the new reboot? How much like DMC is the new DMC reboot?
I don't see a reason why it wouldn't be able to go under the same name.

With an overhaul as drastic as you're suggesting, tying it to the old IP would set up a lot of expectations for how the game will play (given that Pokemon, like many Japanese series, is highly iterative). And then the game you'd make wouldn't live up to those expectations, and that'd be a bad idea for the continued life of the franchise. Starting fresh with a new IP would be more difficult, but probably safer in the long run.

I can't speak as to how much the new Tomb Raider and DMC are like the old versions, as I've played none of those. But we'll have to see whether or not they suffer from the problem I described above after the next games in those franchises come out.

DillButt64 wrote:

eh my stance on chance in video games is still the same, it shouldnt be taken out completely but like i previously said there are cases where it should not be applied (like the XCOM thing, there is no master marksmen that can instakill someone with such conditions) i feel like things like crit chance, accuracy(where it makes sense), and status effects landing can have a chance of happening

Speaking from experience, a lot of games tend to make status effects really important when they're included. And if they only have a chance of going off, then it can be a really freakin' bad thing when they, for some reason, don't. I've had that problem a lot in my Etrian Odyssey games, where I absolutely need to inflict a status ailment in order to win a boss fight, but that ailment won't go off (and even when it does, it won't stick).

DillButt64 wrote:

but on the topic that this thread was about, i asked a question earlier in a post you might have missed searz but do you have ways that arnt cutscenes that you can add to a story, or advance a story, or present a story in an enjoyable manner? (i.e. not random books or documents you find and have to read to know whats going on)

Dialogue systems. Those aren't cutscenes.

Quests. It's perfectly possible to tell, or advance, a story simply by requiring that the player do some specific thing. Even, and perhaps especially, if you don't tell the player exactly how to do said thing.

I mean, video games aren't movies. We aren't required to only use movies--which, basically, is what cutscenes are--to tell our stories. We've got other tools.
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Dialogue systems work, but if its in a game like Bioshock where youre playing as a character, and the character has his/hers own views/emotions on something then it would be weird having a dialogue system, and if they did it would only be variations of the same thing (illusion of choice i guess) to me it would be hard to try to create a unique character personality for a story if the player is able to say anything to an NPC

as for quests that is ok i guess, i mean games like fallout and skyrim do it but those games were made famous more for the fact they were huge open worlds rather than games with good stories

the thing is its hard to convey emotions if you cant see people faces, its hard to set a mood without good camera angles, take a game like Beyond Two Souls, it has amazing cinematography and is able to do that because of the lack of real gameplay elements (most of the game is "quicktime events" and using Aiden to move things, plus the few shooting areas) but in a regular shooter game you arnt going to be able to show your characters emotions if the camera doesnt move and show the players face

there are other ways to do it but it wont be able to show emotions or set a mood as well as a cutscene, and it would be harder to flesh out a unique character if the player was able to choose everything they get to do, in a game where you are you character (again like fallout and skyrim) dialogue choices are a thousand times better than a cutscene but in a game where the character is the character cutscenes would work better
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Permalink | Quote | PM | +Rep October 26, 2013 2:27pm | Report
You're really, really wrong, Dill. Incredibly, massively, unambiguously wrong.

DillButt64 wrote:

Dialogue systems work, but if its in a game like Bioshock where youre playing as a character, and the character has his/hers own views/emotions on something then it would be weird having a dialogue system

The Walking Dead does it just fine. Lee is his own character, but that game still has a dialogue system.

Besides, you asked what else could be used. I answered with only a couple of options off the top of my head. I understand that not every way of delivering story is right for every game, but options other than cutscenes do exist.

DillButt64 wrote:

it would be hard to try to create a unique character personality for a story if the player is able to say anything to an NPC

There aren't games where you can say "anything" as part of dialogue. Dialogue systems generally only give you a small number of choices. And they wouldn't provide something as a choice if whoever you're talking to didn't have an answer; that just wouldn't make any sense. So I'm not sure what you mean.

DillButt64 wrote:

as for quests that is ok i guess, i mean games like fallout and skyrim do it but those games were made famous more for the fact they were huge open worlds rather than games with good stories

That's... Not the point? I was thinking of those games when I made the suggestion, sure, but Final Fantasy games use quests as a narrative element as well. As do CRPGs. And MMOs. And pretty much every narrative game that uses quests.

Quests are a really easy way to deliver narrative. The player is asked to do something, then they do. Bam. That's narrative, right there. Done.

DillButt64 wrote:

the thing is its hard to convey emotions if you cant see people faces

Radio did (and does) it just fine.

DillButt64 wrote:

its hard to set a mood without good camera angles

Amnesia: The Dark Descent does it really well with mostly color palette and ambient music. Oh, and darkness making you insane.

DillButt64 wrote:

but in a regular shooter game you arnt going to be able to show your characters emotions if the camera doesnt move and show the players face

I mean, if you ignore a character's word choice, vocal tone, and actions. Sure. I guess it'd be kinda' ****ing hard to convey a ****ing emotion. (See what I ****ing did there, eh?)

DillButt64 wrote:

there are other ways to do it but it wont be able to show emotions or set a mood as well as a cutscene, and it would be harder to flesh out a unique character if the player was able to choose everything they get to do, in a game where you are you character (again like fallout and skyrim) dialogue choices are a thousand times better than a cutscene but in a game where the character is the character cutscenes would work better

Not really. Early Metroid games characterized Samus just fine without using cutscenes. Or having her ever say a word or have a backstory or use any traditional narrative tropes. Simply by having the player play through those games, they showed that Samus is a freakin' badass (she's a one-woman walking army, taking on space pirate bases on her own) who doesn't work well with others (she kills pretty much every living thing she meets). And they delivered narrative just fine as well. Samus gets marooned somewhere, has to go around finding stuff to fix her ship, destroys some mean monsters on the way, and then moves on. Not a really moving narrative, but still a narrative.

Which brings me back to my point. Cutscenes have their place in certain contexts. But they're not the only option. Perfectly fine games have been made without them. Again, cutscenes are basically movies inside of a video game. And video games shouldn't be limited to only using movies to tell stories. That just doesn't make any sense.
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Regarding chance in games, i think it is fine as long as it takes no major influence upon a player's inteligence in playing by the game rules (being chance one of them, btw).

Chance is a good thing to represent in very simple terms exceptional events or lack of information. that is what we use probability for: we don't know about future events. However, previous studies say this or that can happen with a certain probability, with a determined certainty.

Palayermade choices? I don't really enjoy them. I play game for the story (when applicable) and I like the story as it is told. I never grew up chosing the fate of the character in the story i'm being told. that's like asking that martin guy not to kill anyone in his books.


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Pheyniex wrote:

Regarding chance in games, i think it is fine as long as it takes no major influence upon a player's inteligence in playing by the game rules (being chance one of them, btw).

To an extent, yes. Certainly chance-based mechanics are problematic when they can't really be played around (as in my XCOM example) or when playing around them doesn't really require much thought.

More generally, I think what makes a heavily chance-based game potentially problematic is that heavy chance-based mechanics make the game basically about risk management. And while that's a valid direction for a game to take, a big problem that a lot of those games run into is that there is not any real advantage to making riskier plays. The game only rewards you for playing in a safe manner; playing riskier in XCOM or Fire Emblem only means that you get through a given level faster, but that's not an actual mechanical benefit. XCOM: Enemy Within might help out on this front, with the Meld mechanic rewarding riskier play, but I'm not sure. It looks good on paper, but in practice it could fail spectacularly.

This is besides the issue that high-chance-based mechanics can cause player failure without the player actually making any mistakes. But that's generally due to bad game balance, which isn't exclusive to chance-based games.

Pheyniex wrote:

Palayermade choices? I don't really enjoy them. I play game for the story (when applicable) and I like the story as it is told. I never grew up chosing the fate of the character in the story i'm being told. that's like asking that martin guy not to kill anyone in his books.

I think you're on drugs, Phey. If you don't like making choices and interacting with your media, you don't like playing games. 'Cuz games all include that sorta' stuff. It's an interactive medium. It's inherently interactive. If a game doesn't let you interact with the story in any way, it's actually not making use of a really powerful tool that games have.

And no, it's actually NOT like telling George R.R. Martin not to kill characters. Because A Song of Ice and Fire is written media, not interactive media. There's no simple parallel between the two, because they are totally different things.
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