[SamoyedFurFluff]

I think there’s a bit where stories can be extremely complex but still have interactivity from the player. Bioware produces games like this where decisions made from previous games can be inherited to affect future games, and the overall storylines are complex and nuanced, albeit mostly in what BioWare can control (world building, npcs making decisions and having their own agendas, etc.)

[ajuc]

Yes, that's the hybrid model used by most RPGs:

- visual novel mode for dialogues and plot choices where player freedom is very restricted by story can be detailed

- game mode for mechanics and combat that have barely any influence on the story (besides "survive this challenge to continue") but players have freedom to express themselves

It is very formulaic in structure, I'd argue more formulaic than ancient theater, and it limits the possible plots a lot (for example you won't find any RPG where the hero gets weaker with time). But all these conventions are accepted as necessary evil by the intended audience, so that's fine.

[drdeca]

Not sure quite how much is required for something to count as an an rpg, but I have seen a couple experimental games where the way the difficulty ramps up is that after each level, the player has to choose which skill to lose / level down.

Didn’t have much of a plot though.

Just “you are fleeing a deep cavern or something after stealing a great deal of arcane power (more than you have the mental capacity to hold onto)”. Never saw how it ended. I imagine it is either meant to inevitably end in defeat, or it ends with the character having lost all the power they stole , escaping with only their life, or perhaps, having lost all of it, being unable to continue to evade capture.