Summary
You know howSteamhas a ‘Choices Matter’ tag on games that react to your decisions? That’s my jam. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been extremely intoRPGsthat make me feel like part of their worlds by forcing me to deal with the consequences of my actions. After all, that’s how the real world works, unless you’re very rich and able to throw money at all of your wrongdoings to make the repercussions go away.
The more complex those choices, the better – again, in real life, things you do and say often have unintended impacts on you and the people around you, and I love seeing that play out in games. Me being snarky to someone in one conversation might make them turn me down when I have to ask for a favour later, or taking something that doesn’t belong to me might mean the person it belongs to suffers in a way I couldn’t have predicted.
I’ve been thinking a lot about choices because I’ve been playingDragon Age: Origins. It’s a game where the things you choose to do and say can have a massive impact on the world around you, and those choices will then extend throughout every game in the series, affecting the state of the world in entries down the line. This continuity rewards fans, but it also perpetuates the idea that your choices don’t just matter in the moment, but are permanent. You might think you’re making the right choice now, but it might come back to bite you in the butt two games’ later – who knows?
I Do Not Want To Be Bitten In The Butt
Here is my problem: while I love seeing what unintended consequences I’ll face for my behaviour, I hate actually having to deal with them. That’s why every time a decision comes up in DA:O, I find myself scrambling to find a guide that will tell me what version of the future each option leads to. I am aware this defeats the purpose, but I can’t help myself. I’m terrified that I’ll do something early in the game that softlocks me out of the outcome I want, and I have an awful need for control in these situations.
Why am I like this? Trauma, probably, but I also think it’s the nature of games as a medium. When you’re told your whole life that games are to bewon, it feels like getting the best possible ending in every way is how you win. When I playedBaldur’s Gate 3, for example, I strove to ensure my companions found self-actualisation in every possible way. Instead of encouraging them to follow their dangerous ambitions, I tried to help them figure out who they really were on the inside so they could be true to their natures.
I put on my therapy hat andconvinced Astarion not to finish Cazador’s ascension ritual, because I didn’t want him to become what he hated so much. I nudged Shadowheart towards Selune at every turn, imploring her to turn away from the cult that destroyed her life for its own gain. Whenmy girlfriend Karlach turned into a monsterand I realised that I hadn’t actually had to do that to keep her alive, I was so annoyed that I had to lie down for a few minutes. The list goes on. I tried to do the best I could, because I knew it would net me a good ending. Sure, I cared about these characters, but they’re just characters, at the end of the day. Really, I mostly wanted towin the game.
Is There A Right Way To Play RPGs?
When talking to my colleague Vaspaan Dastoor about his own experience getting a bad ending – his was inCyberpunk 2077’sPhantom Libertyexpansion – he told me that he’d made a choice that he thought was the ‘right one’ and got an ending he hated, which then provoked him to replay that mission so that he could get a ‘better’ one. When I asked him if he used guides, he said he preferred not to when it came to decision-making, especially ones as final as this one was.
This is the direct inverse of how I play games. Knowing that the ending of a game is the last possible chance I’ll have to control my fate sends me running to guides, so I can make the decisions that best reflect what I want to happen. Especially in a game like Dragon Age: Origins, where my choices will spread into every game in the series, I don’t want to get a ‘bad ending’, whatever I decide that is. But both Vaspaan and I find that our playstyles can detract from our enjoyment of the game: he was disappointed that he made the wrong choice, and I get disappointed that I’m relying so much on other peoples’ experiences to shape my own.
Perhaps if I had more time, I’d play without guides. In a perfect world, where I didn’t have to work to pay rent and I could just hyperfocus on games day in and day out, I would play the same titles over and over to see how different decisions changed the ending I got. I want to appreciate the artistry of the developers in designing branching narratives, and I want to experiment. Unfortunately, I can’t, and so I give in to my paranoia time and time again. I want to say I’ll stop using guides while playing Dragon Age: Origins, but I know I won’t. After work, I will sit on my couch, phone at the ready so I can shape the world around my character into a slightly better one. I just wish I didn’t feel like I have to.
