@newt True. You should be able to just lock yourself out of the story by killing a story character

@matrix nah.. there should just be a way around this character. A note dropping from his corpse that points you in the right direction or something. There are many ways to do this.

@newt An alternative path is the better option, but simply ending the game is the cheapest way to enable the killing without having to spend time on making an alternative path.

@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.

@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.

@beardalaxy @matrix this is certainly true, but many older games offered the choice of at least several options when dealing with at least the main quest and often side quests too. You could kill your way through, talk your way through, or sneak around many problems
I'd say that this changed around the time Mass Effect came out, with the games starting to force certain choices on the player.

@beardalaxy @newt @matrix iirc new vegas locks out story stuff if you do certain stuff and I've seen other rpgs do similar

@PurpCat @beardalaxy @matrix in Fallout 1 and 2, you can totally work through both main quests without killing anyone. You can even convince the bosses that they're wrong.

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 True. What a lot of games, RPGs in particular, lack is actual depth which is to say that the devs thought of the implications of the possible player choices on the world several layers deep. An example of this, while not a perfect example because it's kind of an easy out, is how Fallout New Vegas did it's ending, made up of short segments that show the results of the players choices, whatever they were.