I have been struck by an observation Yahtzee Croshaw made in either his Zero Punctuation or Extra Punctuation episode on Baldur's Gate 3. It went roughly like this: the conventional smorgasbord of dialogue options you get in RPGs can undermine moments and even be boring - because it undermines *characterisation* in a moment that is all about (your) character. --- I wasn't fully convinced on first watch - I could see where Yahtzee was coming from but it felt... not quite like a nitpick, but in that direction. By coincidence, a few days later I finally got around to playing *Disco Elysium*, and something clicked. --- One example of this that stood out happened fairly early in the game, so no fear of spoilers. You conduct an autopsy and unfortunately have an audience of two hecklers. The first few sections of dialogue involve the matter at hand, some interjection from said hecklers, and then one "dialogue" option - which is to write down the detail of the autopsy. Very quickly, however, the heckling actually "inserts itself" into your set of options, done in a way that actually made me laugh out loud. --- I think part of the magic here is the "stat" system, where inner voices can be weaker or stronger, and can in fact dominate the options or "force" you into a particular branch. --- I think another thing that helps is how it manages the thought/spoken word distinction - you get options with quotation marks, which you say aloud, and thoughts directed back at your inner voices without quotation marks. This means you actually get to interact *with your own character*, and in a way that feels like part of the narrative. There are a number of instances where an option presents itself to do something or say something, and both external characters and internal characters will react to the nonsensical nature of what you've chosen to do. For example, you break into an apartment - with apparently very little reason, except maybe that the door was highlighted as interactable. There are games that might mug to camera in this moment and say something like 'is this just a game to you', breaking the fourth wall and talking to the player. I think that can be done in a *good* way (even if it isn't always), but there's something special about that landing in a very similar way but actually staying diegetic. --- Of all the conclusions you could draw, I think one is necessary, though I suppose what I'm trying to say is that it may not be *sufficient*. It's that there's no getting around the fact that to have a great *role-playing* game, you have to have great writing - and a lot of it. You need to have enough distinct and satisfying roles for the character to play, each with their own range of choices, and each with appropriate reactions from other characters and consequences in the relationships and story. And it's not just that you need effectively half a dozen distinct variations on the story: you actually need to be willing to hide some of that hard work from players. You need to write six stories, and only show someone - on first playthrough - maybe two of them. Four stories' worth of effort could go unnoticed. On this point I reckon there's a balancing act; I've written about **secrets and collectibles** previously, and I think the same principles apply here (relationships and dialogue being isomorphic to a physical map with physical secrets). The sensible middle-ground would be one that preserves momentary characterisation while still *advertising* additional content. I think ideally you signal to players some information *about* what is or isn't out-of-bounds, without fully tipping your hand on the secrets themselves. Maybe something as simple as "+N options": flag that there's dialogue options they don't have access to. I think ideally you flag whether they are temporarily locked (i.e. you could return to them this playthrough) or whether they require a new playthrough altogether, as the determinants were further upstream. Maybe you even flag in broad strokes *what* changes (temporary or permanent) would be needed.