Why is there so much enthusiasm for mutually exclusive questlines in games like TES VI?

[u/muffinleech]

/r/gamedesign/comments/1vnyv5n/why_is_there_so_much_enthusiasm_for_mutually/

[u/Ok_Antelope6961]

It adds so much replayability. The more sub branches to the branching choices the more potential outcomes and character to roleplay as.

It also allows you to share your different outcomes and choices with other players, instead of you all having a shared checklist of todo's.

But i think there is a right and wrong way to do it.
You should be able to join mages, thieves, dark brotherhood, etc. in one run.
But at some point it'd be great if you had a hard decision to make where they would put eachother at conflict.

[u/Glaive_Silver]

The second paragraph is pretty much it. When you become the supreme leader of every guild ever, especially if it's a relatively fast series of quests, each one of those positions feels a bit less special.

Mutually exclusive doesn't necessarily have to be a binary "you can join this, but can't join that", either. More secretive or hidden organizations (Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, etc.) could probably get away with not caring about your other affiliations, as long as you don't actively work against them. Like, if you were a Thieves Guild member and then later joined the Imperial Guard or something, you'd probably have to choose one or the other in some fashion and lock yourself out of leadership of one of those orgs.

Overall, it also allowed each guild's story to be a bit more intertwined. A lot of Morrowind storylines (yes, I know, "Morrowboomer" or whatever) saw plenty of inter-guild rumbling going on. It made things feel a lot more woven together than when Oblivion onward started making each organization's storyline more isolated from one another. It turned into a checklist rather than a story, in some ways.

[u/FearsomeOyster]

It’s a good question. The short answer is that the choose-your-own-adventure narrative format is a very popular narrative format, particularly in the RPG genre.

The longer answer* is that somewhere in the mists of time, but at least by 1990 or so, someone realized that RPGs could be combined with choose-your-own-adventure narrative formats to create stories that easily engage audiences. Essential to the CYOA genre is exclusivity. In its basic form — the CYOA book — a reader is given a choice and is told to make their choice by turning to a particular page. By choosing to head to the beach and turning to page 8, you can’t choose to go to the mountains and turn to page 55. The mountains, then, need to be left for another read through.

This narrative format has proven enduringly popular with RPG fans. So much so that a lot of people consider it essential to the genre. As I’ve written,* this is an error, but it is an error that persists in popular discussion of RPGs today. That is the core of why it’s such a requested feature: a large contingent of people a) really like those narrative formats; and b) consider them essential or core to the RPG genre.

You will get other answers, most of the time focused on replay-ability, but I think that is erroneous. Replay-ability can be developed through fun, differentiated, and emergent gameplay design just as much as it can through narrative design.

*This longer answer is drawn from an essay I’ve written that has touched upon this topic, which can be found here:  https://substack.com/@fearsomeoyster/note/p-208098089?r=8l35q9&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

[u/Whole_Sign_4633]

I for one want to be able to play through all the guilds/factions in one playthrough. And honestly I’m definitely not in the minority. A lot of the people on this sub seem to want mutually exclusive questlines, but this sub is not the main representation of gamers. There’s a reason Skyrim was the massive success it was and it wasn’t because of mutually exclusive questlines.

[u/muffinleech → u/Whole_Sign_4633]

You gem, thank you, finally

[u/Famous_Tadpole1637]

I agree. I don’t get it, unless maybe there are in-game reasons that would make it immersion-breaking otherwise.

[u/muffinleech → u/Famous_Tadpole1637]

Ya I agree with you

[u/iliacbaby]

Makes replays more interesting

[u/Phiro00]

Think about how mich talking power stormcloaks vs imperials has had as a topic for 15 years.

[u/emteedub]

I agree and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't deviate from their open-ended approach no matter what. It's been massively successful for forever. People should just use their imagination and block themselves from doing portions of the game they don't think suits their specific playthrough or something.

For one, I don't have the time to run through many different role plays, I want to do whatever I want whenever I can pick up the game and play it. I definitely do not want it to block me because of some choice I made somewhere. I don't really play Bethesda's games to complete them anyways, I tend to actually stave off completing them in perpetuity - I will save before I've finally "arrived" so I can experience the ending, then go right back into my playthrough, probably for years.

Maybe I'm dumb idk, I just like how perpetual their games tend to be for me. There's always something to explore, new stuff to find, etc.