Little details in RPGs that please you

[Herumor]

Class-based and race-based reactivity from the world. I remember first coming across this in Icewind Dale 2 back in the day, playing as a Dreadmaster of Bane.

 

[ScepticCat]

The first System Shock isn't RPG, but anyway - I like that if you don't pay attention to messages from crew and pressing any random buttons on the walls, you can activate a laser which obliterates half of humanity. Antagonist will tease you and thanks for alleviate her job.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

- Meeting a projection of a god on a random overhang in a cave

Where was that?

Ama Nin, found underneath Berandas, is an avatar of Mara; rescuing her can be accomplished during the Imperial Cult quest to obtain the Boots of the Apostle.
Jon Hawker, found in Nammu, is an avatar of Zenithar; rescuing him can be accomplished during the Imperial Cult quest to obtain the Ring of the Wind.

Also, a possible avatar of Tiber Septim named Wulf can be met at Ghostgate during a stretch of the main quest.

 

[Hag]

Realistic weather.
Beautiful sunsets.
Naked ladies.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

After eleven years, I don't know precisely. It is in one of the supplementary adventures after the main quest, out next to a tree in the fields.
I suspect that they are in 'Wraiths of Quiet Hamlet', but the module seems gone from my desktop.

There was a little tribe of garden gnomes in Chapter 4 that were worshiping in front of one of those slavic totem pole things. I believe they were playing pranks on a mason building a bridge and to get them to stop you had to leave them an offering. They leave you a cat saddle in return as a sign of good faith that they'll leave the mason alone. It's funny because they all panic and run in all directions when you approach them, you're like a giant in their eyes. That whole chapter was magical.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

I like it when an RPG has many factions that play off each other with competing interests, especially in cities. Taris is a good example, where you have the average unaffiliated citizens, the Sith, the Hidden Beks, the Black Vulkars and the Exchange. Five factions each with their own interests, sometimes at odds with each other, sometimes looking the other way, sometimes working together. I also liked how they really took the time to hype up the main villain Davik Kang, starting from the upper city all the way to the end of the game via cutscenes and npc dialog, progressively building a picture of this guy who has his fingers in just about every pie to the point where even the Sith avoid messing with him. You never see him until the end though, and that plays to the planet's strength. The Witcher 1 was another game that did this perfectly. As a result, these cities felt alive. I wonder if the fact that both cities were under a quarantine didn't ratchet up the tension as well, forcing the player to work with all manner of unsavory sorts to claw their way out of the cage.

 

[Marat]

I enjoy when a game makes at the very least symbolic effort to pretend that what I see in-game is not the whole world. Makes it easier to immerse myself.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I enjoy when a game makes at the very least symbolic effort to pretend that what I see in-game is not the whole world. Makes it easier to immerse myself.

This is why I prefer when cities in RPGs are just small sections of a larger city rather than scaling an entire "city" down to a couple roads and a dozen buildings.

 

[The_Mask]

As a monk player, whenever class-specific quests happen, monks are usually bunched up with the fighter ones. Sometimes they're not, and they're pretty neat. Even rarer the specific quest involves somehow getting to know yourself on a deeper spiritual, metaphysical or physical level, which is a nice touch. Even rarer than that is when that quest is a journey of self-discovery that is fleshed out in a way even a child would learn something.

And the rarest of them all is when the lesson is actually good.

The simplest one to illustrate my point is NWN 2 OC where you can get: this buff, if you reject all the elements. (not to mention the gauntlets)

<- makes you feel special when you see this in your trait list, you know?

 

[King Crispy]

This may seem petty, but Arcanum has quite an impressive lighting model, capable of casting dynamic shadows.

You can see it in action in this screenshot:

Spoiler

It even works with simultaneous, multiple light sources. This pleases me.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

In Dragon's Dogma if you have a woman in your party the ogre enemies go into heat and try to prioritize them. If you're a guy and it grabs you it throws you away, if you're a girl and it grabs you then you're going home with daddy.

 

[ShaggyMoose]

The NPC schedules in the Ultima VII games went a long way to making the world feel alive. People would go about their business and be found at appropriate locations based on their activities. This doesn't seem as common anymore, with NPCs often relegated to static furniture that just hold up a question mark.

 

[Üstad]

Ornaments and good art like this. Fuck minimalism.

 

[Dodo1610]

The different ways NCR and Legion aligned people pronounce Caesar.

 

[Tavernking]

In Dragon's Dogma if you have a woman in your party the ogre enemies go into heat and try to prioritize them. If you're a guy and it grabs you it throws you away, if you're a girl and it grabs you then you're going home with daddy.

And that pleases you because...?

 

[Dhaze]

In Dragon's Dogma if you have a woman in your party the ogre enemies go into heat and try to prioritize them. If you're a guy and it grabs you it throws you away, if you're a girl and it grabs you then you're going home with daddy.

Not only that, but the animation of the ogre getting excited is really well done; clapping his hands and doing these little half-jumps while sort of giggling. That's creepy as fuck.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

In Dragon's Dogma if you have a woman in your party the ogre enemies go into heat and try to prioritize them. If you're a guy and it grabs you it throws you away, if you're a girl and it grabs you then you're going home with daddy.

And that pleases you because...?

Gives monsters some personality. Much like how the undead have whispers from their past life moments before they died or when a chimera enrages you see the heads squabble among one another trying to take control.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Ornaments and good art like this. Fuck minimalism.

This extends into another little thing that becomes a big deal: attractive TREASURES. If you give me a Sword of Almighty Fuck then I want it to look like it could kill anything. Same with valuables. Show me a treasure chest, okay, sure, cool... but you show me a treasure chest with gold coins flowing out of it and gems and jewels scattered among with some ornate hilts and shit poking out? OOOH BABY.

 

[Pink Eye]

Waifus. Hot. Waifus. Oh yeah!

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Gold has actual weight in Daggerfall, which means that you need to be strong if you want to carry your $$$ with you.

Gothic has a knockout state until one lands a finishing blow. Getting in trouble doesn't always result in a game over -- you can get back on your feet, but you'll limp with 1 HP and miss some of your ore.

 

[Catacombs]

In Arcanum, if you play a low-intelligence character, dialogue is different. If you play an orc or another "undesirable" race in the game, NPCs treat you differently.

 

[Tavernking]

I appreciate questgivers that get to the point, I don't need nor want massive loads of text. Just give me some witty writing, keep it simple and concise, no unnecessary information, and give me some approximate directions on where to go. Also, I don't want a billion flavor text options in conversations, that's not reactivity, that's extra reading. The choices I want to make in conversations are ones that actually matter.

I appreciate helping a group of friendly NPCs in their own battle, I get invested in trying to save them all.

Most of all I appreciate games that don't make me want to savescum. Swordflight is an excellent example of this. You respawn where you died with a ton of buffs, but you lose xp for respawning and can only respawn a few times. Best of all, respawning has a lore explanation, you've been tasked by powerful deities to do some task, and they're going to keep bringing you back to life unless you die too much, at which point they realise you're hopeless and cast you aside

 

[Dhaze]

There's one I particularly like in Dark Souls 2.

At some point in the past, the Raime was defeated by Velstadt the Royal Aegis. If you enter Raime's arena while wearing Velstadt's helm, Raime goes straight into the empowered phase of his moveset.

Similarly, in Nioh 2, you can transform into various characters. And at first glance this transformation is purely cosmetic, but interacting with various people while transformed into this character or that one grants unique dialogues.

That kind of detail is really nice. It gives a bit of depth to the world and though rather small in the effect it has, it goes a long to make me feel like I am the one who caused that reaction.

 

[Dhaze]

Just remembered something else: enemies who fight one another when it makes sense that they should.

Possibly the worst non-example of that can be found in Styx: Master Of Shadows.
In some levels there are those big fat bugs that explode when they come near you, causing considerable damage with some manner of acid. And guards whom you're trying to avoid can be heard mentionning how they hate those bugs; there's even a room in which dead guards can be found, with bugs skittering about.
But if those insects cross the path of guards, there is no interaction whatsoever between them. Worse: if you maneuver and corral the bugs so that they end up exploding right at the feet of guards... the guards remain entirely unaffected.

One of the dumbest thing I've ever seen, in what is otherwise a very fine game.

 

[DemonKing]

Succubi have their tits out.

Doesn't sound very "little" to me.

I always liked how in Baldur's Gate a blacksmith would offer to buy Ankheg shells off you which seems like a good way to get rid of some inventory clutter but if you knocked him back would then offer instead to make you a set of one of the most powerful armours in the game out of them. I also liked how in the IE games if you pumped your resistance over 100% those effects would actually heal you (fun with fireballs if you had high fire resistance for instance) and that the items all had unique illustrations and some background text when you examined them.

My absolute favourite little detail in a CRPG though was how in the Eye of the Beholder series you could throw a rock or spear down a corridor and chase after it and have it hit you the back of the head.