Narrative choices in games

[Jaedar]

I still think that thinking yourself out of existence is the coolest one

[Moonbo]

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/XanderMa ... eus_Ex.php

Just thought this was a nice summary.

[bobby 55]

Quoting from the article.
an overdeveloped story in a game can deride from the player's experience by taking away the thrill of discovery and exploration that only an interactive medium can offer.

*Cue the canned applause*.

[JC_Helios]

Anyone know any good Narrative choices in mods(except for TNM of course)? Everyone already mentioned the games I've planned and the examples in those games, so I tried to broaden my thinking to mods, and I could only think of about... one instance.

In Integration there's one choice between returning gold to some overtaxed villagers, via a group of "Freedom Fighters" from Elsweyr, or returning it to the count Leyawiin who has no intention of giving back the villagers what they were overcharged.
In the first case you support a criminal organization from a country that Cyrodiil has bad relations with, and you probably can't even trust them to stick to their word and return the gold. In the second case you're actually working for the Elsweyr government, who wants you to return the gold for the sake of better political relations, and the count does accept the money as a "donation" to the town guard.
It's like everyone involved is using to some regard, but they all have some good intentions at heart. Admittedly seeing as how the thing in question is money there could have been some tacked on "most good solution" where you deliver the gold directly to the village, or only give the count the amount of money that the village owed (except you don't know how much each person was supposed to be taxed, or the combined amount)

Anyway, I was stressing to think of another example either from that mod, or some other one and I really couldn't think of any others.... short of, side quests from ambiguously "evil" people where your choice is usually only:
"work for this evil person because they might not be entirely "evil", and they aren't asking that I do anything truly evil"
or
"Don't work for them out of principle"

So any other mods with good narrative choices?

[Jonas]

Well it's not like I'm unbiased, but I made an NWN module called The Bitter Taste of Blood once, which has two plot branches. The final ending choice is a pretty typical good/evil deal, but I think it was well executed

I suspect you can find many NWN modules with meaningful narrative choices, since those tend to be hard core RPGs, and the fanbase for those is really into C&C.

[Moonbo]

There is a HL1 mod called Sweet Half Life which doesn't have a narrative choice as much as a TNM style fork which branches the game into two different directions about 50% of the way in. It's also made by Koumei Satou (of Mistake of Pythagorus and Pieces Like Us) fame, so it has a nicely quirky style. Not purely choice and consequence but it came to my mind .

-Gelo

[Xesum]

It's more like 75% of the way through in Sweet Half Life.