I know what you mean, but let's say there are different endings. Once I finish the game I'm usually not in the mood to replay the whole game again from scratch to experience the other paths (specially if that decision is, say, 20 hours into the game). Maybe provide automatic saved 'points' before the big story path splits, so you can go back to those and continue from there?
I'm curious, what do RPGWatchers here usually do, replay from scratch to explore the other paths or from a saved game? Or not explore other paths at all for games that have them?

Most of the time I do the same as you, load and save to choose another path. But I think that kind of sucks… just one choice to determine the outcome.

Tactica Maiden of faith will not be like this! There'll be a lot of choices which would affect the outcome so to load to remake one "big decision" would not be something you could do anyway

Design by committee? Really? Falling for the mainstream editor-imposed traps already huh? Well… I wouldn't entice you to.

IMO, it is all on how the game is designed. Party-based crawler with a lot of action (BT, etc…)? Raise dead is a must. Something that is heavily story based? Ok, provided things make sense and are consistent.

By that I mean that a character can actually DIE is an early combat, and the story can take that into account if the player continues on. I.E. if character Susan (Sto-Helit/Death) has her heart cut out an eaten by a grue, then whatever storyline parts that would have focused on her shift to a different sequence of events due to her death.

If the character can't die unless at the scripted time, then it just feels cheap, and forced. It also removes any sense of urgency due to combat, as you know that they'll just pop right back up.

Now if it's a completely custom party, then it doesn't matter. Just so long as I can a- easily recruit a fresh face that is at least semi-comparable to the party in terms of skills/power, or b- save/reload. Now if it is a dungeon crawler, with minimal story elements; then the lack of raise dead will only annoy me. Because ultimately, crawlers don't need artificial restrictions on stuff like that.

I could not agree more with your post azraelck…

By that I mean that a character can actually DIE is an early combat, and the story can take that into account if the player continues on. I.E. if character Susan (Sto-Helit/Death) has her heart cut out an eaten by a grue, then whatever storyline parts that would have focused on her shift to a different sequence of events due to her death.

If the character can't die unless at the scripted time, then it just feels cheap, and forced. It also removes any sense of urgency due to combat, as you know that they'll just pop right back up.

Yes that's how it works… sue dies and events will unfold differently.. the chars will also complain and be sad that she died etc etc….. except the ones which didn't like her of course!

You probably just made a sale.

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
I could not agree more with your post azraelck…

Yes that's how it works… sue dies and events will unfold differently.. the chars will also complain and be sad that she died etc etc….. except the ones which didn't like her of course!

If you can make that work, that would be Nobel Prize stuff. Realy.
Otherwise i'd say make it dependable of the difficulty setting, ignoring story handling. I guess that when the main PC dies, the game needs to be reloaded.

I don't know, as long as someone is willing to take up the torch, then even the main protagonist can be expendable. Just so long as the story branches to account for it.