Cain on Games - Tim Cain's new YouTube channel

[StrongBelwas]

Is going to assume you at least have a setting picked, otherwise you aren't really doing research, you are searching for the basic ideas of your game.
Cain does traditional research such as going to the library and looking for information online, but also looks into books/board games/ other videogames that share your setting, using what you like and don't like as inspiration.
In a Boy and his Dog, they liked the setting and some of the story decisions, not big on some of the dialogue and the overall story. Road Warrior was a huge influence on Fallout's look, like the fashionable characters. Don't necessarily do research for justifiable things, you look for elements of the setting you love. Sometimes, you find things you like that don't seem to fit quite right. Sometimes that juxtaposition works out well, such as 1950s and Road Warrior.
Some of Cain's games, like Outer Worlds and Fallout, diverged from our actual history. Arcanum was a bit different because they took a LOTR world and put it through an industrial revolution. Tried to define that, so Cain found a document he wrote called Victorian Times. Started writing it in 1998, looks like it's last edit was September 2001. Defines the Victorian Era, the ideals it followed and prevalent morals. Arcanum would explore many of those stereotypes, goes on for 6/8 pages. Cain wrote those down so when they did quests and character dialogue, as well as coming up with new locations, people could go to that document for reference. Document goes into coal, pollution, chimney sweepers (And their scrotal cancer), mad hatters, etc. Cain had a very specific one on air pollution, which was a real issue for the time period. An entire section on corsets, and their use, and another section on railroad magnets. A section on missionary work, on exploration on unknown parts of the world to Victorian, foxhunting, ballooning, etc. Boxing and it's revival in London. Ordering from catalogues had become a thing and was possible because of steam boats and railroads. They actually found an old Sears catalogue , people could order homes from them back then. Science was changed by the discovery of fossils, opera houses, photo plays, also looked into how schooling worked. They researched all the common ailments of the time and Cain wrote about them. Infant morality being surprisingly low , child labor, women's suffrage, labor movements, all wrote about so they could be put into the game.
Arcanum did a lot of social commentary, some people called this racist/sexist, Cain says they were addressing those issues through the lens of a fantasy game. Lots of research is done before starting the game.
Looked up information on radiation for Fallout, reread Lord of the Rings for Arcanum. Tarant is obviously modeled after London.
They also did a lot of research during the game as they realized they didn't know enough about certain things, the research they did at the start was too shallow. Someone is writing a quest and realizes they don't quite understanding something. Cain did a deep dive into micro biology research for Fallout because FEV dealt with Virions. A book called Elise a Terrifying Tale of Immortality also influenced FEV, it was about a woman born with a quadruple helix instead of a double helix which made her immortal, Cain took that idea and speculated that FEV duplicated your helix, would make you radiation resistant. They disagreed on if ghouls were radiation and Cain wishes he had wrote something down.
A German microbiologist wrote to them after Fallout and praised their description of FEV.
As Leonard put it, most people won't get it, but the right people will get it.

 

[Gandalf]

reread Lord of the Rings for Arcanum

So that might be one of the reason why they wanted to do Lotr game in Arcanum engine next?

 

[NecroLord]

reread Lord of the Rings for Arcanum

So that might be one of the reason why they wanted to do Lotr game in Arcanum engine next?

Not sure about.
Didn't Tim say something about journeying to the center of Arcanum in the sequel instead?

 

[Gandalf]

reread Lord of the Rings for Arcanum

So that might be one of the reason why they wanted to do Lotr game in Arcanum engine next?

Not sure about.
Didn't Tim say something about journeying to the center of Arcanum in the sequel instead?

I don't remember exactly the order, but they wanted to do Arcanum sequel and Lotr cRP game at some point too.

I think he talks about it in this video. Can't watch it at the moment.

 

[StrongBelwas]

Goes back to his Reboot conference talk and references the mistake of forced linearity in some games, references saving Tandi in Fallout 1 and all the solutions.
Very early on, around mid 90s, hard to explain the idea of a pure open ended game to other people at Interplay. These were game industry folk with a a lot more experience than Cain, but what they were trying to do was a bit different than the rest of Interplay. As Cain mentioned before, Stonekeep had a preset character and stats. Cain had to explain to some people you made your own character, the only commonality is the character comes from the Vault, everything else can be changed.

Explaining this to some of the designers on the team was a bit difficult. Some of them had played GURPS with Cain, they got it, but others would say stuff like "What if the player does this, and then I make them do this?" Cain has to tell them to never make the player do anything.
People outside the project really had a rough time, QA asked for walkthroughs at the start, had to tell them it depends on your character. Repeats the story of the guy making the strategy guide having great difficulty with the fact there was no right way to do everything.
Cain has heard, and please inform him if this is true, that some players in some countries did not like Fallout and Cain's later games because there was no right way to play them, they frequently wanted to know what they were supposed to do and how they were supposed to rescue Tandi. Cain does not elaborate on the specific countries. There was no right way to rescue Tandi, if you even wanted to save her, apparently that angered some people.

Cain didn't quite got this, because he never played Tabletop like this, but there are computer RPGs that expect you to play a certain way. Pick the good options, bad options lead to early termination. They don't let you change many things about your character because they are inserting you into a predefined story. Even near the end of Fallout's development, when people took the game home to play it, Cain would get calls from people stuck at certain points not knowing what to do. When Cain tried to ask them about their previous decisions and their character build, they would get annoyed and tell him to just tell them what to do. Cain would explain that depending on your build what is available could change.

Another source of confusion was the game's morality. Cain would explain that the game did not require you to be good, people would interpret this as 'I should be bad'. Cain would explain you would be punishing for being bad, people interpreted this as 'I should be good'. Cain would have to explain that you should play how you want to play, the game will react, and you have to accept the consequences of your actions. Act like a jerk, people won't like you. Some people got it, some people just got in a loop wanting to be told what to do.

Cain feels this depended on people's experience. If you played TTRPG with a good DM that didn't railroad you, you generally understood what Cain was getting at. if your experience was certain cRPGs that told you what to do, you would be confused.
Has it gotten easier to explain nonlinearity ? Yes, a lot. There are a lot more open ended reaction based games, but even in modern times, Cain has had discussion on his most recent games with people who don't seem to get the concept. Worked with a narrative designer in the last few years who got very angry that their very linear idea could not be forced on the player. Leading to discussions where the narrative designer suggested locking the player in a room where the door can't be picked, you can't jump out the window, and not letting them out until they do a thing. If they don't do that thing, he suggests they are stuck in the room forever. Cain had conversations like this several times. Not just with people on the team, someone above Cain in the development production line was very upset that there was work being done that some or most players would never see. Cain had to explain this was just the natural consequence of nonlinear games, a pacifist player is not going to see death animations on most characters, so why have death animations? If people never attack animals/robots, or never interact with some people, that content won't be seen. One producer liked to just shoot everyone he came across, dialogue would be irrelevant to him.

This spilled over into companions on the Outer Worlds. At first, Cain wanted them to chain them into choice and consequence, some companions would only join you with a minimum level of Leadership, and Leadership would determine how many companions you could recruit. Might have also limited it with an associated perk. Really wanted to do it, was talked out of it because of all the work they did on companions that wouldn't be experienced. To this day, feels having big consequences is good. Things are overall a lot better, because a lot of games do it, but sometimes trying to add a feature nobody else does is still hard. Whenever he tries to introduce an idea, first pushback he get is 'What other game does that?" If he can't think of something, that person doesn't want to put it in the game. Cain asked this person how the game was supposed to have a unique hook if he couldn't introduce features never seen before (This person had apparently bugged Cain about the game's hooks) and they could not give him an answer. Another person said that if no other game did something like that, there was probably a good reason for it and it was a bad idea. Has had to reach out to other genres and mediums, such as pointing out a movie that does something.
Doesn't have to justify non linearity in his games anymore, but introducing new ideas is still an uphill battle. There is an assumption that if it isn't done before, it is a bad idea.

 

[Diggfinger]

Goes back to his Reboot conference talk and references the mistake of forced linearity in some games, references saving Tandi in Fallout 1 and all the solutions.
Very early on, around mid 90s, hard to explain the idea of a pure open ended game to other people at Interplay. These were game industry folk with a a lot more experience than Cain, but what they were trying to do was a bit different than the rest of Interplay. As Cain mentioned before, Stonekeep had a preset character and stats. Cain had to explain to some people you made your own character, the only commonality is the character comes from the Vault, everything else can be changed.

Explaining this to some of the designers on the team was a bit difficult. Some of them had played GURPS with Fallout, they got it, but others would say stuff like "What if the player does this, and then I make them do this?" Cain has to tell them to never make the player do anything.
People outside the project really had a rough time, QA asked for walkthroughs at the start, had to tell them it depends on your character. Repeats the story of the guy making the strategy guide having great difficulty with the fact there was no right way to do everything.
Cain has heard, and please inform him if this is true, that some players in some countries did not like Fallout and Cain's later games because there was no right way to play them, they frequently wanted to know what they were supposed to do and how they were supposed to rescue Tandi. Cain does not elaborate on the specific countries. There was no right way to rescue Tandi, if you even wanted to save her, apparently that angered some way.

Cain didn't quite got this, because he never played Tabletop like this, but there are computer RPGs that expect you to play a certain way. Pick the good options, bad options lead to early termination. They don't let you change many things about your character because they are inserting you into a predefined story. Even near the end of Fallout's development, when people took the game home to play it, Cain would get calls from people stuck at certain points not knowing what to do. When Cain tried to ask them about their previous decisions and their character build, they would get annoyed and tell him to just tell them what to do. Cain would explain that depending on your build what is available to change.

Another source of confusion was the game's morality. Cain would explain that the game did not require you to be good, people would interpret this as 'I should be bad'. Cain would explain you would be punishing for being bad, people interpreted this as 'I should be good'. Cain would have to explain that you should play how you want to play, the game will react, and you have to accept the consequences of your actions. Act like a jerk, people won't like you. Some people got it, some people just got in a loop wanting to be told what to do.

Cain feels this depended on people's experience. If you played TTRPG with a good DM that didn't railroad you, you generally understood what Cain was getting at. if your experience was certain cRPGs that told you what to do, you would be confused.
Has it gotten easier to explain nonlinearity ? Yes, a lot. There are a lot more open ended reaction based games, but even in modern times, Cain has had discussion on his most recent games with people who don't seem to get the concept. Worked with a narrative designer in the last few years who got very angry that their very linear idea could not be forced on the player. Leading to discussions where the narrative designer suggested locking the player in a room where the door can't be picked, you can't jump out the window, and not letting them out until they do a thing. If they don't do that thing, he suggests they are stuck in the room forever. Cain had conversations like this several times. Not just with people on the team, someone above Cain in the development production line was very upset that there was work being done that some or most players would never see. Cain had to explain this was just the natural consequence of nonlinear games, a pacifist player is not going to see death animations on most characters, so why have death animations? If people never attack animals/robots, or never interact with some people, that content won't be seen. One producer liked to just shoot everyone he came across, dialogue would be irrelevant to him.

This spilled over into companions on the Outer Worlds. At first, Cain wanted them to chain them into choice and consequence, some companions would only join you with a minimum level of Leadership, and Leadership would determine how many companions you could recruit. Might have also limited it with an associated perk. Really wanted to do it, was talked out of it because of all the work they did on companions that wouldn't be experienced. To this day, feels having big consequences are good. Things are overall a lot better, because a lot of games do it, but sometimes trying to add a feature nobody else does is still hard. Whenever he tries to introduce an idea, first pushback he get is 'What other game does that?" If he can't think of something, that person doesn't want to put it in the game. Cain asked this person how the game was supposed to have a unique hook if he couldn't introduce features never seen before (This person had apparently bugged Cain about the game's hooks) and they could not give him an answer. Another person said that if no other game did something like that, there was probably a good reason for it and it was a bad idea. Has had to reach out to other genres and mediums, such as pointing out a movie that does something.
Doesn't have to justify non linearity in his games anymore, but introducing new ideas is still an uphill battle. There is an assumption that if it isn't done before, it is a bad idea.

Question posted by...moi-meme

 

[processdaemon]

This spilled over into companions on the Outer Worlds. At first, Cain wanted them to chain them into choice and consequence, some companions would only join you with a minimum level of Leadership, and Leadership would determine how many companions you could recruit. Might have also limited it with an associated perk. Really wanted to do it, was talked out of it because of all the work they did on companions that wouldn't be experienced.

The mentality of the people who argued against Tim is such a limitation when trying to make games that emphasize choice and consequence. There's no way that feeling like you're being cheated if every gamer doesn't see as much of your content as possible isn't going to drive you to make more linear games.

 

[Roguey]

Limiting companions makes sense in games like Fallout 2 and Arcanum where most of them barely have personalities outside of their introductions and it's more about their particular strengths. When you're giving them a bunch of text throughout and personal quests, it's a bit daft to put up that kind of limitation. You're putting a lot of work into something most people aren't going to bother to see. Most people don't even finish RPGs once, let alone multiple times.

 

[NecroLord]

Arcanum has pretty cool companions though:
Magnus, Franklin Payne, Torian Kel, etc.
You also get Dogmeat 2.0 THE BEAST and loyal doggie...

 

[__scribbles__]

I talk about burnout, and how I think I managed to avoid it during my career. I expect pushback on this video, but I will emphasize that this is my experience. Your own experience might be quite different.

 

[Gandalf]

Burnout is an interesting topic. What did he said about it? I have experienced something like this lately and listening to newer Darkthrone helped a lot!

 

[StrongBelwas]

Spent a long time thinking about how to respond to this type of question, wasn't sure what his answer should be. He has experienced downtimes, where he didn't want to lead a project or be in a lead role, but never burnt out in the sense he doesn't want to do game development anymore. Retired, but still working on his Unity toys. Has an answer, but doesn't want it to sound trite.
Avoided burnout because he always had fun . Knows it sounds trite and simplistic, but that is his answer. Fun was more important than the money, the authority, or the title he had. It even came before delivering particular things that fans wanted. Cain always focused on enjoying what he did and putting things in the game he wanted. Especially in the early part of his career, there was little thought what demographic the game was for, he and most of the team put in things because they liked them.
Thinks this is important because it isn't all about fun anymore for some people, this is their career/ what they studied for. Those are the people he sees burnout. There are a lot of times he got tired of stuff, such as why he left Fallout 2, and walked away because it was no longer fun. Walked away from Carbine/Wildstar (And a lot of money), it was no longer fun, just a lot of arguing and politics. One day he just realized he wasn't having fun and mentioned it to the producer. The producer said if you're not having fun, it's not good for you, and it's not good for the game, and Cain agreed.
Cain has avoided bigger companies, offers with lots of money because he wasn't sure he would have fun there. Ducked lead roles multiple times, offered a Directorship at Interplay before Fallout shipped, said no. Should have ducked the design director position at Carbine, told Obsidian he wouldn't do lead roles and stuck to his guns for five years. Just had fun doing code.
Doesn't think you should just kick back though, likes challenges. New IPs, new features, part of his reason for disliking sequels is he feels they are less challenging. Didn't work on a console until he was 46 years old, 30 years after he started in the industry. South Park Stick of Truth was his first console game, and it was part of the reason he was interested in the job. Had another job lined up when he was thinking of going to Obsidian. Would later realize there are some rather unfun things about programming for PlayStation, but it was an interesting experience and it was fun to dive into it.
When things stop becoming fun, or it's hard to have fun, Cain steps away from projects and companies. Yes, Cain is semi-retired because the industry as a whole is less fun. Part of it is the overall caution, part of it is that he is older and the games he wants to make aren't the games people are making, and his big ideas have already been implemented. Has fun with his toys and working as a contractor. Accepts contracting projects because he thinks they are interesting, otherwise he passes. Nicest thing he can tell people he contracts for is that he is there because he thinks there is something interesting about their project.
Cain can guarantee one way you will burn out (It isn't crunching); hating other people's joy. People hating other people's fun in games, going to message boards for the game or going to reddit to complain about people enjoying something. At some point you are making yourself bitterly unhappy. Worst thing is when people direct it inwards and hate their own joy. They like a game, hit a feature they don't like, now they dislike all of the game. References someone disliking all of his games after they realized he was gay. Hating other people's joy is the fastest way to burn out.
Find your fun, and then figure out how to get paid for it. Find something you are good at, you like doing, and someone will pay you to do it, you've won. Caveats, commit to the thing you find fun, don't put one foot in, go all in. Hears people talk about wanting to create something but never really going to do it. Still goes back to the comment's section of his Stop Making Excuses video and sees people saying he is saying it is easy (he isn't), and that he has had it easy (he hasn't.) Don't have to be perfect, but try to be better than you were yesterday. Want to learn something, do it.

 

[NecroLord]

Moral of the story is:
Avoid Big Triple A companies.
They are creative dead ends.

 

[The Wall]

I talk about burnout, and how I think I managed to avoid it during my career. I expect pushback on this video, but I will emphasize that this is my experience. Your own experience might be quite different.

Avoided creative and productive burnout by making ZERO Fallout/Arcanum/VtM like games in over 20 years. Also having ZERO ambition of making new ones. For 20 years working for big corpos and producing ZERO new material to your legacy as programmer, designer and writer. All these DECADES you had ZERO obstacles from going indie. But Big Corpo cock tasted too good for Uncle Timmy

Burnout: SUCCESSFULLY AVOIDED!


HOLY FUCK, he gives a lot of incredibly valuable advice to future Devs, but let's call out elephant sized BS

 

[The Wall]

Young Tim, Josh and Avellone would shit and piss all over old, conformist, mind cucked 2024 themselves. What great RPG were you Lead on in last 20 years?!? You made Fallout, Arcanum and VtM in span of 5 years. For last 20 years you were living in the shadow of former Tim Cain

Respect where it's due. TRUTH above fake respect. Nothing worth of respect has Cain done since closure of Troika. Nothing. Zero

 

[__scribbles__]

I talk about some hidden things in my games that either people don’t know about or that have some special meaning to me.

p.s. my original Wildstar monk class was called the Stalker, and Wildstar shipped with the Stalker class, but it was very different than the one I designed.

 

[StrongBelwas]

Will talk about Easter Eggs that are in games he worked on that have something to do with him or that he talked about before but he doesn't see them being widespread. People have talked about the easter egg, but not much about it. Finds people online love to talk about games as if the people involved with them are all gone and they just guess at their motivations. Watched a video about 10 big mysteries of early games(Read- late 80s/90s), the video creator was wrong about most of them. They weren't games Cain worked on, but he knew about them. So there are Easter Eggs Cain wants to give more information about.

First one he wants to talk about is the easter egg in Fallout with the dog behind the Cathedral. This dog was a homage to Vince Denardo's dog Sasha as Cain as previously mentioned. Was a very nice dog. Chris Taylor probably put Sasha in. Thought it was cool the dog made it in, also re references someone calling out for Sasha in Fallout 2.
A few things about Arcanum, people identify some of the portraits with the development team, they got Chad as the half ogre, Leonard as Virgil, but they always miss out on his portrait (2:28 and in the thumbnail.) Can't even remember which character he is, remembers you can select it as a player portrait.

Another thing is the Isle of Despair, someone put in a line calling it the Black Isle when you ask how to get there and says you don't want to go there. Yes, that was a reference to Black Isle Studios. He talked to the writer who did it, who admitted the intention, and apologized for it in 2016 to some of the people at Obsidian who were from Black Isle. Not the first time Cain has apologized on behalf of someone else. Has done it on the channel and seen people interpret it as him apologizing for something he personally did (Will do it again this video.) It is part of his responsibility as a lead, and Cain has seen people in game development who want the power but not the responsibility.

Onwards to Temple of Elemental Evil. There was a character based on the character Cain's brother played, a bard called Zaxis Montalban, the last name being a reference to Ricardo Montalban who was used as his portrait on the character sheet. The picture is from a newspaper article about Circus of the Stars, Montalban was doing high wire acts. Zaxis is a random encounter in ToEE, you find him on the world map and he is looking for his sister.

Cain didn't work that much on Bloodlines as he has said. Years after Bloodline came out, he discovered the microphone base with BIS SUCKS taped on it (7:06.) A lot of people, including people at Black Isle , thought this was another dig at them, it wasn't, but he apologized to those that did. He tracked down the source, an artist at Troika who never worked at Black Isle , Troika was his first job. He put it in because a lot of the Temple Element Evil crew were listening to BIS, the scottish indie band, and their album Plastique Nouveau, and he got sick of it. Hated it and inserted that sticker, the artist had no idea about the Black Isle context. Some people here might be familiar with this one.

In Pillars of Eternity, the monk class was based on a monk class he made for WildStar that was cut without his knowledge (8:37), created nine classes within the first few months he was there, and they were there for the three years he was there. One of the artist requirements at Carbine was that every class have a unique silhouette. You could tell from their armor, stance, and weapon what class they were at a glance. Cain decided to make a class that uses no weapon as a reaction to that. Pillar's mechanic where monks spend pain was built on Cain's concept for that class.

Cain only worked on Deadfire for a few weeks, but his portrait (10:00) made it into the game. He is Jacob Harker, the bartender.

Last one he wants to talk about is in Outer Worlds. Cain has made it clear he does not like white chocolate. When he was away on a trip somewhere, someone who was never discovered hid 17 bars of white chocolate (Nestle white chocolate crunch) in his office and left a ransom note made out of cut out letters from other notes. Some of them were very cleverly hidden, he found about a dozen the first day. Some of them, he didn't find for weeks. One of them was hidden on the rubber feet of a big landline phone. In the end, he only ever found 16 of them, never found the 17th bar before he left Obsidian. That is why there is a bar in the Outer Worlds called the 17th bar and why Tim Cain's white chocolate yummies appears as an item in the game. Cain played whack a mole with that item, he would find it in one playthrough, tell them to cut it out, they would move it to the loot table of something else.

 

[NecroLord]

Zaxis is a random encounter in ToEE, you find him on the world map and he is looking for his sister.

You can even recruit Zaxis.
As a Bard, he makes for a decent (though not overly strong or useful) character.
I have yet to encounter him in my current run while travelling on the World Map. You can check the "What game are you wasting time on?" thread if you want to know more.

 

[Redshirt #42]

I don't really see the resemblance between Tim and his Arcanum portrat or Leonard and Virgil.

 

[Nano]

Cain has made it clear he does not like white chocolate

Robert looks pretty white to me, Tim.

 

[__scribbles__]

I talk about features that have been so overused in RPGs that I grow bored now playing games with those features.

 

[Bulo]

Tim alienating 99% of modern writers by criticising sarcastic characters

 

[ColonelMace]

On point about pointless open worlds. This shit has been plaguing the industry for 15 years ffs.

 

[NecroLord]

On point about pointless open worlds. This shit has been plaguing the industry for 15 years ffs.

Open-World Sim.

 

[StrongBelwas]

Still won't review games, but decided he would do something a bit silly today.
Will talk about the mechanics/story/settings he has seen so overused it makes him lose interest. Plays a little clip of Dark Willow from Buffy saying she's bored. Not in any particular order, and he probably isn't thinking of any particular game because there have been so many.
First one: Saving the world. Demons are invading, aliens are invading, the dark god is coming, there is a plague coming and everyone is going to die. Understands why RPGs do this, but prefers lower scoped problems, or at least problems caused by other problems. Something the player can acknowledge and deal with without becoming a god themselves.
Next, villain monologue. Villains going on for minutes talking about all they stuff they are going to do. Cain would rather you show it instead of having them talk about what they do.
Next, sarcastic NPCs. Soooo original, sooooooo edgy. Has been done to death, complained to a Narrative designer that his sarcastic NPC overuse was super cliche. The designer said sometimes cliches work (This same designer had apparently ripped apart the other designers' ideas for being cliches.)
Open world just for the sake of having an open world. You have an open world, what do you do in it? There's nothing there, no exploration or discovery, just kilometers of nothingness. Finds this happens because someone had a great idea for an RPG that would have worked well with zones or hub and spoke, but thinks someone or the team or a publisher insisted they have an open world because that is the thing. It gets boring.
Complex systems just for the sake of complexity. Not getting anything cool out of it, just throwing a lot at the player. Maybe you're hoping something sticks if you throw enough at him. If Cain has to go online to figure out how to spend his level up, or use a spreadsheet, he is probably done. Level up should be fun and imaginative, and he should be able to picture where his character could develop.
Next, fake evil. They say they have evil paths, technically they do, but you try to go down it, you just get early game overs. You release the plague, game just ends. Also sees a variety where you go evil and most of the game just shuts down. NPCs don't talk to you, most quests vanish. Technically a path, but not nearly as developed as the good path.
Has also seen fake evil game where you can dress evil and maybe act evil but when it comes down to it you are going down the exact same path as the good characters, you just look goth doing it. That's why they included unusual endings in ToEE, such as joining Zuggtmoy or making her kneel to you as the greater evil. That is true evil.
Than there are a whole host of other things. RPGs with pure linear stories, RPGs with premade characters that come with name/stats/backstory. RPGs with no real CnC, or fake CnC. You can choose something, but it changes nothing really, a few lines of dialogue but you are doing the same quest in the end. Some people ask Cain if he considers these RPGs. He thinks of RPGs as a continuum and each one of these you do, you are a bit less of an RPG to him. Eventually you will get to the other side of the spectrum where it is just an adventure game.
The flipside of this is endless combat. You get an RPG, but it's really a combat simulator with some attributes or skills. Some people consider ToEE this, but that is just Cain being a bad narrative designer. Cain wants a choice in how to play and have the game reacts to that.
Dislikes WoW style combat choreography. People may think raids are hard, but he has seen a video where a guy just goes 'dot, dot', stop dot.' Very coordinated, basically combat ballet. Cain would rather play DDR at this point, Cain really liked a game that recently came out where you fought on the beat.
Having loads of loredumps in your game is also boring. They had to do it in the 80s, than in the 90s they could do it less and by the time of the 2000s there was no excuse. Show, don't tell. If there are optional NPCs to explain it if Cain wants to know more , that's nice. Books Cain can choose to read is nice. If the lore helps you with optional systems he can ignore is fine with.
A few things about the player character he is tired of. Had said this to many narrative designer over the decades, stop it with the amnesia. You get one use of amnesia in your career, use it again, Cain will roast you. Is particularly tired of the trope of the godlike character getting amnesia and having to relearn their powers. Also dislikes the young misunderstood protagonist who is super special. Entire class of RPGs that he tends to avoid. Finds it tiresome and over that trope. Doesn't mind young person who can't control their power and does something bad, but the complaining is annoying.