Something that frustrates me about most historical fiction is that the hero is almost always out of place and time. The hero and his companions act and hold beliefs like a modern westerner, even when everyone around them doesn't. Even when the belief was so ubiquitous that it was held by 99% of the population. Somehow, your hero is always in that 1%.
This is even worse in RPGs because they offer you a choice, but that choice is usually limited to "be nice like a westerner" or "ignore it."
@newt As far as I tried in KCD you can kill everyone except story characters.
If I want a medium without meaningful interactions possible, I'd just watch a movie.
@newt True. You should be able to just lock yourself out of the story by killing a story character
ひげ
@newt @matrix in something like D&D where there is ultimate player choice, and unlimited ways for DMs to drum up consequences and story leads on the spot, this can work. For a video game, it's much harder. Maybe it'll be more feasible once there is better AI. You just can't hard code all these different paths a player can take in such a massive environment and still have a story that seems the least bit cohesive. I don't know if there is a single game out there with such freedom. I think the closest thing is potentially Morrowind, where you can kill important characters and it just tells you that you fucked up and should re-load a save. Maybe there is a text-based RPG that lets you do that too, I can see it being much easier to implement in something like that.
I'd say that this changed around the time Mass Effect came out, with the games starting to force certain choices on the player.
Or you can murder literally anything that moves. In Fallout 2, the game even punishes (or rewards, depending on how you look at it) you for this by sending bounty hunters after you and quite hefty gear.
@newt @matrix I'll also add that this is really only a consideration in a western rpg, where you're playing the role of "yourself" more than an established character. JRPGs are a lot more focused on the narrative and getting into the shoes of a specific character archetype. That is to say, there are varying degrees on how far any given RPG can go with its freedom depending on the experience it wants to offer.