Railroaded plots *severe spoilers for multiple games*

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Baldur's Gate 2
Come here to b**** about the places in any RPG games that you don't like being restricted. Try not to read others' posts about games you haven't played yet. To help other players do the same, put the name of the game(s) you're going to complain about in bold at the top of your post, like I did. Even if you're just just quoting someone or making a "small" spoiler, I think people will be better served if you label which games you're talking about so that they can avoid them. Thank you. I'm starting with BG2, obviously.

1. Going to Spellhold. Now, I don't have a problem with the two options you have for doing it; they represent a lesser evil / greater evil idea, which fits with the general malaise of the story. What I do have a problem with is the assumption that you want to go to Spellhold. Maybe I don't care enough about my 'sister' to risk my skin! Maybe I don't want to try to wreak revenge on the guy that was apparently strong enough to take me and my entire party without breaking a sweat! Maybe I just want to explore, and have him later spring a trap on me and drag me off to Spellhold or wherever. Where's that option?

2. Elhan. F***ing Elhan. You have to bow and scrape to him or you can't get any farther in the game, period. Ally with him or your game is over. F*** that, I want another choice!

3. Sarevok and the piece of your soul. Only a minor quibble, but I really don't want to help out the guy who wouldn't stop trying to kill me even after he was dead. "Learn some manners, brute!" I'd rather find my own way out, and who's to say that my character isn't meditative enough to do that?

4. ToB: So much death! Can't even one argument be solved without violence in ToB? At least we've got mods to help us out on this one, though. One allows you to get Balthazar to join you against Melissan, and another gives the commander of the Oasis encounter half a brain so that you can talk your way out of that one too. Even with those it might be a bit much, but then you have to remember that most of it is defeating the entire armies of the Five, and that's not going to be solved quickly or without bloodshed.

[ May 04, 2006, 21:56: Message edited by: Felinoid ]

 

ToB

Totally agree. The one time (thus far, though I'm not sure if I'll bother trying to finish it somewhere along the line) that I got a non-violent option to a problem I took it just out of novelty and because I was sick of hacking and slashing at everything...

IWD2 suffers something like the same problem, and is as linear as it gets.

Deus Ex

There's one point where you're escaping some place with Navarre and Herman after you - you get the option to fight Herman but because it's not convenient to the plot, he's invicible. I spent *ages* reloading that trying to kill the bastard until Deathmage told me that it was impossible

 

Deus Ex, KotOR

I remember that bit, too. After the first death, I tried boom-by trapping with about a half-dozen LAMs. He'd should've just been dead - he should've been paste!

One bit in KotOR that always gets on my **** (because I always forget about it) is how it railroads you into the confrontation with Chuundar on Kashyyyk; O.K., you have the choice to side with him or not, but if you go against him and decide to free the Wookies you lose the spaceport and any sidequests. Problem is, there's a guard on the walkway back to the frickin' spaceport who won't let you do anything else than go see Chuundar, if you've triggered that part. More annoying because the transit system doesn't work anywhere on Kashyyyk, so if you want to complete any of the sidequests you need to know exactly what to trigger or not. Needless to say, if you're playing through first time you'd be blissfully unaware of this, and probably just have to cope with losing an hour-and-a-half of gameplay. The most annoying part is just how obviously poorly designed that one section is; it really sticks out like a sore thumb against the rest of the game.

[ May 05, 2006, 00:46: Message edited by: The Magpie ]

 

Morrowind

Yeah, I'm surprised to see that game's name here too. Morrowind is one of the most open games I've ever seen. Even the main quest isn't required. But the number of times I've had to adjust my character's...character, to get past obstacles, is just disappointing.

-House Hlaalu
My wood elf, in her time as a prisoner, was constantly having to either fend off advances from other prisoners, or give in to those of the guards. (Exceptional Personality from picking The Lady as my star sign to boost Endurance.) Now that she's free, she's got a short fuse in that area. When Curio asked her to take off her clothes, she killed him. But since the ONLY way to advance through House Hlaalu is to have him as a sponsor, I had to make up some sort of crush she felt for him (to let her permit his advances) and reload.

The same could be said for the other Great Houses, I suppose, since they each require a sponsor, but the requirements are a bit different. Sarethi of House Redoran you save the life of in some quest (who could object to that?), and I'm not sure there even IS a requirement for Aryon of House Telvanni to sponsor you. But Curio's request...really depends on the morality of the character.

-Main quest "warnings"
In some situations, you will get a warning from some people about "Why haven't you fulfilled the prophecies?" I got one of those and rushed over to Tholer Saryoni as told, fearing I'd done something wrong. All he told me was to go see Vivec. Neither he nor Vivec said I'd done anything wrong. I looked in the Construction Set, and those "warnings" aren't at all about doing something wrong. The check for them is for high level (20+), high reputation (50+), and how far along you are in the main quest.

So instead of the "Oh Sh!t!" it's worded as, it's actually a shortcut through all that Hortator stuff. But more than that, I think the way they worded it shows that in the game's opinion you're doing something "wrong" by seeing to your own interests and letting the main quest sit until later. Which I think is total BS and almost a passive-aggressive sort of railroading.

But moreover, I've recently looked at Caius Cosades's dialogue, and there are a lot of "You killed [name]? I don't want to hear any explanations!!! GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!!!" lines. I find it extremely hard to believe that a spymaster would be that way. If you loose an operative or an informant, it's just part of the spy game. You don't give up, you're not utterly screwed, there are always other options. Yes, there would be consequences, but firing someone, especially that emotionally, just seems wrong.

And what it means game-wise is that you can't deviate at all from the main quest story in order to complete it, making it surprisingly strictly linear in such an otherwise open game. Even the backpath is linear, requiring Yagrum Bagarn to stay alive or you're screwed. Hell, kill Bagarn early and both paths are cut off.

-Vivec
Not really railroading, but still an inconvenience for my character that I had to change her to avoid (probably more my fault than the game's, but I'm still going to rant about it ). I had planned the joining the two religions as follows: She would join the Imperial Cult and finish all the quests for it before I got far in the main quest (part of my previous problem), and then effectively 'convert' to the Temple after meeting a god face-to-face.

But she's an inquisitive one, my Bosmer, and I went through all the dialogue topics. And each one seemed designed specifically to make you think of Vivec not as a god, but as just some random guy with god-like powers. She would never join a faith that worshipped this schmuck. So I had to make her so awe-struck by gods that she would not question him (yet, at least). Which, incidentally, helped explain why she was doing all the Daedric Quests (and led to a different but good climax to the Tribunal expansion that I couldn't help writing about in CS).

-Armor types
They made Medium Armor such an incredibly poor choice, with lots of good Heavy and Light Armors, and then they cut the Medium Armor "master trainer" from the game. As a result there's almost no way to play someone with Medium Armor where Heavy or Light Armor wouldn't work better. And the one necessary-to-the-main-quest armor piece? Heavy Armor.

And Unarmored...just plain sucks. There's less to enchant (since you can wear most clothing under armor anyway), and the best you can get is an AR of 65, as compared to the ceiling of 333 on some unique armor pieces. Non-unique pieces go up to 166 for Light Armor, 100/133/150/166* for Medium Armor, and 266 for Heavy Armor.

*That is, if you can get your Medium Armor skill up to 100 without the master trainer. The separate numbers are for three separate types you would have to mix and match to get the best armor, with the fourth number being a type you wouldn't have to mix, but is only available in the Bloodmoon expansion and even then only if you join the faction there.

-Weapon types
Quite a bit better than the armor fiasco, but most of the best stuff is still limited to blades; everything's swords and daggers with only occasional other stuff like a good staff or two. Not to mention that there are two weapons you have to use in the main quest finale (whether main path or back path), which requires you to get at least some training in Short Blade and Blunt Weapons (which also covers staves).

-Nerevarine in the expansions
This is more of an annoyance than anything else. My character went to Solstheim to escape all that Nerevarine stuff, and everyone keeps calling me Nerevarine on this island far away from the concerns of Vvardenfell. That greeting even interfered with the Tribunal quest where you get a house in Mournhold, and I had to use the console to add a topic to someone myself. *grumbles*

EDIT: Damn, I had a lot more to say than I expected.

[ October 04, 2006, 23:56: Message edited by: Felinoid ]